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is SOCIALISM SOUND?
VERBATIM REPORT
OF
A FOUR NIGHTS’ DEBATE
BETWEEN
ANNIE BESANT and 6. I. FOOTE,
AT THE
HALL OF SCIENCE, OLD ST., LONDON, E.C.
On February ‘ nd, 9th, 16th, and 23rd, 1887.
I
REVISED BY BOTH DISPUTANTS.
LONDON:
FREETHOUGHT
PUBLISHING COMPANY,
63, FLEET STREET, E.C.
1 8 8 7.
�LONDON :
PRINTED BY ANNIE 3ESANT AND CHARLES ERADLAUGH,
63, FLEET STREET, E.C.
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
FIRST NIGHT.
William Morris in the Chair.
The Chairman : Ladies and gentlemen, we are met here
to-night to open an extremely interesting discussion on
what, I think, you will probably all agree with me is in
point of fact the question of the day—(cheers)—the question
which practically includes all questions, whether you call
them politics or whether you do not. And it is, further,
made more interesting by the fact that both the debaters
are skilled and practised debaters with very great talent;
and I think I may be perfectly certain that the subject
will be treated in a thoroughly serious and satisfactory
manner. As chairman, before such a debate it is clearly
my business to say as little as I possibly can; and I will
only add that the subject is so very interesting that it may
jperhaps make some rather excited at what goes on. I
hope therefore that we shall all remember that we came
here to hear the two debaters; and if we have to give
voice to our feelings on any occasion we shall do so at the
end of sentences, so as to interfere as little as possible with
the debaters’ arguments. (Hear, hear.) I have only now
to tell you the conditions under which the debate is to take
place. Annie Besant will open the debate and speak for
half an hour. Mr. Foote will then speak for half an hour.And after that Annie Besant will speak for a quarter of an
hour and Mr. Foote for a quarter of an hour, and so each
debater will have two quarters of an hour, and that will,
conclude the debate of this evening. I will now call upon
Annie Besant to open the debate on “Is Socialism Sound?”.'
.(Cheers.)
B2
�4
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
Annie Besant : Friends; in taking the affirmative of'
the question, 4‘Is Socialism Sound?”, I propose to divide
into two parts that portion of the debate which falls under
my conduct. I propose to-night to deal with the economic
basis of Socialism, and to try to show that that is sound.
I propose on this night fortnight to deal with the historical
evolution of Socialism, and to try to show that it is a ne
cessary result of the evolution of the past. In the othertwo nights of the debate it will be my duty to follow Mr.
Foote—the duty of leading it falling upon him. And I
must at the very outset ask you to bear with me duringmy first speech, in that it will be necessary to put with
extreme terseness the arguments which I must lay beforeyou. Any argument stating the economic case for Socialism,
compressed into half an hour must necessarily be very
inadequate, and I can only give you a rough outline,,
leaving you to elaborate the details for yourselves. (Hear,
hear.) And I will commence by asking you to distinguish,
in thought between that form of Socialism which has been
described as Utopian, which is thought out by the student
in seclusion, and which gives a complete scheme full of'
elaborate details on every possible point—a scheme which,
it is proposed to impose from without upon society. That
is not the form of Socialism that I defend here to-night.
Over against that is the more modern form of Socialism
which has been described as scientific Socialism, and that
form of Socialism, in common with every system that can
fairly be called scientific, is an attempt to go to the root of'
the matter; to try to understand thoroughly the causes of
the effects that we see around us; to trace back—just as a
geographer may trace a river to its source—to their real
source certain facts that we find in the society around
Us. The chief fact it deals with is the fact of poverty. It
strives to trace back poverty to its source, and having, as
ft believes, done that—having found out the cause of
poverty in modern society—scientific Socialism lays down
a fresh economic basis for society; and then, assertingthat new principle as basis, it believes that from it there
will gradually be developed a healthy social organism, not
produced from without, but growing from within, by the
action of the natural social and economic forces which are
at work in society itself. (Cheers.) And this distinction is
not invented by myself for the purposes of this debate. I will
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
5
•take Emile de Laveleye, a writer who is not a Socialist,
.although I might refer to a Socialist like Engels, who was,
I believe, the first to state this distinction clearly. ■■Writingon Socialism in the Contemporary Review, April, 1883,
Emile de Laveleye pointed out the extreme difference be
tween modern Socialism and the earlier forms in which
Socialism presented itself. He said: “Ricardo, Mill, in
fact all the representatives of orthodox science, show that
with free competition, in a country where both the popu
lation and the wealth are on the increase, the revenues of
proprietors will also steadily increase, while wages will
fall to what is strictly necessary............ Political economy
has thus furnished Socialism with a scientific basis, and
has been the means of its quitting the region of Com
munistic aspirations and Utopian schemes.” And
M. de Laveleye warns these who are against Socialism
that they must beware of “ mixing up this system
with Communistic Utopias ”. I submit that Socialism
is no longer a dream. It is a reasoned scheme
based on political economy. It proposes to change
our economic basis. It proposes to do this by rational
-and thoughtful argument, convincing the brain of man.
And those who do not appreciate this change of
position—those who merely go round the outside of the
•question, who take the old schemes and deal only with
matters of detail on every point—such have not grasped
the real centre of the question; they are simply beating
the air, and never touch the chief point with which we are
-concerned. (Cheers.) Now, many definitions of Socialism
have been given, and they cover a large amount of ground.
You may start from the wide definition of Proudhon,
“ Every aspiration for the amelioration of society is
Socialism”, but that is somewhat too general to serve as
a practical definition. It is very possible that various
definitions may be advanced by Mr. Eoote, and it will then
be my duty to deal with them as he puts them forward ;
but so far as I am concerned to-night, I lay down one
principle as the differentia of Socialism, as that on which
•every Socialist is agreed—that which I maintain is the
economic basis of Socialism; and I allege that Socialism
. is the theory which declares that there shall be no private
property in the materials which are necessary for the provduction of wealth. "Whatever your Socialistic school—let
�6
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
it be Anarchist or Communist, let it be Collectivist, Evolu
tionary or E evolutionary, or both, you will nowhere find a
Socialism which will disagree with that fundamental
statement, or which will not proclaim, as the basis of all
proposed changes, the destruction of private property in
the materials which are necessary for the production of
wealth. (Cheers.) The next question arises as to what
we mean by these “materials ”. And I propose to divide
them under two heads, practically following the usual
divisions of political economy, although using phrases to
describe them which are not those of the ordinary economic
books. I describe as raw material everything which the
political economist describes as land—that which Mill said
“no man made”, including, of course, in that raw material,
ah ore and minerals, and other natural material for the
production of wealth, so long as it has been untouched by
man. The whole of that will come under my definition of
raw material. And I put over against that the material
upon which human labor has been employed, and I class
the whole of that together as wrought material. That will
include of course what is generally known as “capital” ;
as “ means of production ”; or as “ instruments of produc
tion ”. And I take every case in which raw material has
been transformed by human labor into wrought material as
the second division of the materials for the production of
wealth with which we have to deal to-night. Now every
Socialist claims all this as common property. He declares
of raw material plus wrought material—that the claim to
make that common property differentiates the Socialist
from every non-Socialist school. He alleges that the
essential difference—which is what we want to get at hereto-night—the essential difference between Socialism and
Individualism is that the Socialist says that these materials
ought to be public property, whereas Individualism declares
that they ought to be private property; and between these
two logical and opposite schools you will find a number of
schools under different names which tend more or less in
one direction or in the other. Some only claim raw material
as common property, and would leave the wrought as
individual property. But I assert to you that everyone
who claims these, or part of these, as common property has
begun with Socialism, and is bound by logic to go on step
by step until the whole becomes public property. I allege
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
7
that land nationalisation is essentially a Socialistic plan;
and here again, instead of putting it on my own authority,
I fall back once more on M. de Laveleye, quoting from his
article on “The European Terror” in the Fortnightly
Review of April, 1883, I find him, without apparently the
smallest notion that anyone would challenge him, stating:
“ Collectivism may be conceived as more or less completely
applied, according as the State hold only the soil, and this
is the system which is being now so much discussed in
England, under the name of nationalisation of land, or as the
State hold all fixed capital, and in this latter case, all that
is reserved to individuals is the enjoyment of what they
can purchase with the immediate produce of their labor ”.
I take it then that this is the absolute differentia between
the Socialist and the non-Socialist, and it is with respect to
this raw and this wrought material that every Socialist is
a Communist. And I use that word deliberately, because
of the misconception with which it is often regarded in a
country like this. If we take the “ Manifesto of the Com
munists ” put forward by Karl Marx and his friend Fried
rich Engels in 1847, in which he proclaims himself to be a
Communist, and where according to the common view he
would destroy all property and take away all individual
claims, what are Karl Marx’s own words ? They are: “It
has been said of Communists that we wish to destroy
property which is the product of a man’s labor—earned by
his own work; that property which forms the basis of all
personal liberty, activity, and independence—personally
earned, personally acquired property”. But, he goes on
to point out that as capital is a collective product, “ Capi
tal is therefore not a personal factor; it is a social factor.
Therefore when capital is converted into common property
belonging to all members of society, personal property is
not thereby changed into social property.” And he adds :
“ Communism deprives no one of the power to appropriate
social products for his own use; it only deprives him of
the power to subject others’ labor by such appropriation”
(pp. 13, 14, 15, ed. 1886). (Cheers.) Whether or not
you agree with that definition of Marx’s, whether or not
you may carry Communism, as some writers do, very much
farther than Marx has carried it, and may use the word as
negating private property completely, still I submit that if
you are going to argue against Socialism, instead of cari
�8
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
caturing it, you must take the words you attack with the
limitations put upon them by the writers who used the
words, and must distinguish Marx’s Communism from that
of some others. And if you fail to do this, and merely use
it to rouse prejudices in the minds of the ordinary citizen
against the system, and thus mislead the understanding,
you may gain a temporary triumph on the platform, but
you do nothing towards bringing the argument to a satis
factory conclusion. (Cheers.) I pass from that, and the
next point I put for your consideration is this. It is im
possible to separate in practice raw material from wrought
material, so that you can nationalise the one and leave the
other as private property. I have sometimes thought that
the opposition between land and capital which has been so
much dwelt upon by a certain school is really nothing
more than a survival from the mercantile system, in which
capital was regarded merely as money, and the distinction
between land and money being apparently very clear these
two things were taken as fundamentally distinct. I believe
that the view taken of land and capital to-day is very much
colored in the minds of many by that old and discredited
mercantile theory. (Hear, hear.) If raw material is to
be land which “no man made”—which is, as we say,
given by Nature—where are you going to get that in an
old country ? How are you going to find out the so-called
prairie value which persons talk about so readily but under
stand so little? How, in a country like ours, are you
going to find out the economic rent, if you are going to
use the old Ricardian definition and call rent that portion
of the produce which is paid for the use of the original
and indestructible powers of the soil? Take a marsh.
That is raw material which is useless for agricultural
purposes, having, of course, no economic rent. But if
you drain the marsh, it is no longer raw material, for
Turman labor has changed the raw material into wrought
material for the use of man. And I am going to try
to show you presently that you cannot draw any dis
tinction economically between your marsh made into
fertile land by human labor, and your iron which was as
much raw material as the marsh, until by human labor it
was moulded into the machine for the sake of the greater
productive power it would not otherwise have possessed.
(Hear, hear.) What is it that the State is to have if you
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
9
are going to nationalise the land ? Is it to have the rent
of the undrained marsh ? That is nothing. Is it to have
some economic rent ? Then you must extend your Ricar
dian definition to include not only the original and inde
structible powers of the soil, but also the acquired powers
which the soil has gained by the labor of man. If you
only claim for the State the rent of your raw material,
then your whole scheme of land nationalisation becomes
absurd and hopelessly impracticable. (Hear, hear J But
if you are going to claim for the State rents which are
based upon the present differences of the value of the
land—of land which has been made fertile by generations
of laborers—land on which human power has been ex
pended and which in its present condition is the result of
the employment of human energy—then I submit to you
that you are nationalising the rent of wrought material
and not only the rent of raw. And when you have once
done that you have started from the Socialist basis and
you will find yourself unable to distinguish between the
wrought material of the land and the wrought material of
the machine. And now instead of taking this improved—
this wrought—material in the shape of land, I will take it
in the shape of a machine. A man invests money in a
machine and he demands that payment shall be made to
him for the use of that machine. Payment made for the
use of capital is generally termed interest, but I prefer to
term it rent. Using different words for the same thing
tends to confusion of thought, and I want to try to make
our views here to-night clear and not confused. What is
rent ? Payment made for differences of productive power.
What is interest paid for capital but payment made for
•differences of productive power ? It is essentially a form
of rent. There is no difference in principle between the
extended doctrine of the Ricardian rent which makes it
The part of the produce paid to the landlord for the original
plus the acquired powers of the soil—that is for advan
tages of productivity—and the interest which is paid to the
^capitalist also for advantages of productivity, only the ad
vantages are in the form of a machine which produces
more, instead of in the form of the more fertile land
which produces more than the less fertile. I submit
then that such payment—payment of rent for advantages
of fertility, payment of rent for advantages of productive
�10
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
power, that these payments are just and rational payments,
equalising to the laborer the results of his labor, because
by paying rent for an advantage you stand on the same
ground as your brother who does not share that particular
advantage, and the rent is merely the payment you make
for the advantage you have that he does not share, so that
both of you are practically on the same level, receiving for
equal amounts of labor equal results of your toil. (Hear,
hear.) Now, under the Individualistic system these rentsgo to the individual, and they keep up an idle class which
need never work at all, because other persons work for it.
Under Socialism these rents would go to the community,
and the only persons they would support would be the ser
vants of the community who were told off to perform dif
ferent non-productive functions for the benefit of those
whom they serve. (Cheers.) And that is our essential
difference—that is the point on which Mr. Foote must
meet me to-night. (Hear, hear.) I pass to my next point
—that all rent for the material of production should be
paid to the State. Private property in these being de
stroyed, common property, or—if you prefer the word—Communism takes its place. Thus we reach Collectivist
Socialism, the Socialism I am defending to-night. At this
point the question—a perfectly fair one—is asked very
often by our opponents : “ How far will private property
in anything survive the destruction of private property in
the materials for wealth production?”. Now on that
point the Collectivist is completely within his right if ho
says boldly and plainly that no other private property
need be destroyed at all save private property in these
materials for wealth production. Emile de Laveleye puts
fin's very strongly, and shows how Collectivism could
be worked leaving untouched private property in every
thing, saving in that which I have called raw and wrought
materials. There would be nothing against the Socialist
theory in such private property. But it is perhaps as well
to speak perfectly frankly and with absolute straight
forwardness on this point. And I, for one, confess that
realising the enormous change which the acceptance of the
principle of common property in the materials for wealth
production will inevitably work—a change not merely in
society as a whole, but a change which will touch
men’s minds and morals quite as much as it will touch
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
II
their views on economics—I admit freely and frankly that
it is perfectly possible that men who are educated in the
Collectivist system will after a while grudge the enormous
waste of labor which is implied in constantly dividing off'
to each man his exact share; and that private property
will survive just as far as convenience, as desire, as expe
rience keep it alive, and no farther. (Hear, hear.) That
is to say, that it is perfectly possible that—after being
trained in the Collectivist system—that, after realising
some better ideal than the mere scramble which is the con
dition of society at the present time, you will very largely
weaken the desire for what is called private property. That
exaggerated love of private property which has grown
into a disease, a morbid extreme, in many civilised
countries—what does it grow from ? It grows out of the
struggle for existence. It grows out of the fear that you
will not have enough, unless you are always grabbing as
much as you possibly can, to keep you in the time when
you are unable to work. Once let men feel that there is
enough foi' all; once let men feel that there is no neces
sity laid upon them to seize by strength from their brother
lest they, or those nearest to them, should suffer in the
strife; once let the idea spread that co-operation in.
brotherly fashion is a nobler ideal than that of cut-throat
competition, and I believe that you will enormously
weaken the sense of private property. (Cheers.) And,
after all, would it be so much the worse for society if such
a weakening took place ? Is our highest ideal to be that
of a number of pigs at a trough, struggling with each
other, pushing each other aside, for fear the trough should
be too small for every pig’s dinner, and that unless the
strong can push aside the weaker he himself may gohungry ? I cannot help thinking that it is not a very im
possible ideal of society that, instead of that strugglinground the pig-trough, you may rather have human beings
sitting around a board where there is enough for all;
where every man knows that he will have his share;
where he is willing to await his turn, ready to pass what
is wanted by his neighbor; and where the appetite of thediner, rather than the weighing-machine, shall measurethe ration that is given to him. (Great cheering.)
The Chairman: I will now call upon Mr. Foote to
answer.
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
Mr. Gr. W. Foote : One thing to-night gives me exceeding
pleasure, and that is, for the first time in my life, to meet
■a, lady in debate. It shows that whether we are driving
towards Socialism or not, even our individualistic state of
society, rotten as it is said to be, is somehow consistent
with a growing recognition of the natural rights of a sex
which has through history been down-trodden. (Cheers.)
'Therefore I think that, on the whole, the system, in that
very fact, shows that it is not incompatible with progress.
Mrs. Besant is here to-night to advocate another system,
that of Socialism, which she undertakes to show to us is
sound. And to-night she has given us what she calls the
economical basis of Socialism. But I frankly confess,
without in the least intending to be ironical, that I have
heard of nothing in this economical basis which is not a
part of the economical basis of every other system. I
have listened and I have heard nothing—I use the words
without meaning anything invidious—but commonplaces
•of political economy, most of which I am prepared to
admit, although I do not admit with Mrs. Besant the
policy of calling things which, according to present usage,
pass under one name, by some other name in order to suit
an argument or a purpose. It may be convenient to Mrs.
Besant, but it seems to me inconvenient to other people.
Now, bas Mrs. Besant told us what the system of Socialism
she thinks to be sound really is ? (“ Yes ”.) Well, every
one is entitled to his opinion. I think not. Mrs. Besant
has given us one definition of Socialism, which I admit is
perfectly intelligible, and which I am glad to receive ; but
it appears to me that a system like Socialism which claims
to supplant the present system altogether, root and branch
•—which proposes to deal with millions of people and
thousands of millions of capital and land upon an entirely
new foundation—ought to give something more in the
way of explanation than a bald definition covering not
more than two lines of print. Mrs. Besant says that her
system of Socialism is not a Utopian scheme. I have not
the slightest doubt that she thinks so; but I certainly
differ from her. Whenever mankind is fitted for any
particular social system, it will inevitably live in the
midst of that social system. Outward institutions are
merely the expressions of inward thoughts and feelings.
It is quite true that the environment in which a man
�IS SOCIALISE! SOUND ?
1&
lives largely moulds his character; but it is also truethat man’s internal nature acting with and against his
environment — in accordance with the well-known laws
of Biology and civilisation, with which Mrs. Besant is
acquainted—produces that progress which. is recorded on
the pages of universal history. And Individualism has
been the very essence of that progress. Competition algo’
has been the essence of that progress. It is not such an
alarming thing as Mrs. Besant dreams. She has quoted
from Emile de Laveleye—who is not a Socialist, but who,
in my opinion, dreads it too much, because I believe it is
a great deal farther off than he imagines. She quotes from
him to the effect that Socialism will put an end—or. at
least proposes to put an end—to this system of competition
by means of which some are pressed down and others are
elevated. Gronlund—whose book on Socialism is justly
one of the favorites of Socialists, and in some sense
may be called their New Testament, as Karl Marx’s
book may be called their Old Testament — Gronlund,
seeing that competition is essentially indestructible, seeks
to restore it under the new name of emulation. We are
not to compete with each other, but we are to emulate each
other. (Cheers.) In what is the radical distinction ? It
is simply the difference between the concrete object of
desire and the abstract object of desire. If I compete
with my fellows it is for success in business, say.; but if I
emulate, for what is it ? Eor success in procuring public
opinion on my side ; an opinion which we all value more
or less, which some persons value above all things, and
which the foremost in the race of emulation must get, and
all the others to some extent greater or less, exactly as in the
competition for material objects, must lose. (Hear, hear.)
Mrs. Besant was candid enough—and I think it is greatly
to her honor—to admit towards the conclusion of her
speech that it was highly probable that a Collective state of
society would somehow or other result in Communism. I
was glad to hear that, because it saves me a great deal of
trouble. I should otherwise have had to show from the
works of Mr. Bax, Mr. Morris, and others distinguished
in present-day Socialism, what the system would ulti
mately lead to. Now, if you admit that it will ultimately
lead to something, you are bound to consider whether
what it leads to will be agreeable, and for the advance-
�14
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
Dient of man’s moral or intellectual character. Mrs,
Besant thinks Communism would ultimately be a good
thing. But I fancy I have seen somewhere in her
writings—and, if not, she will correct me—that a system
of Communism would mean that the unfit would live at
the expense of the fit. I admit, with Mrs. Besant,
that there are many hard things in Nature. But I did not
make Nature. No Individualist made it, any more than any
Socialist. If I were at the top of a fifty-foot ladder, it would
Be extremely absurd for me to declaim against the laws of
gravitation and then descend in a somersault. (Laughter.)
I should admit that the law of gravitation was a very hard
fact, and come down rung by rung. And so I see in
human nature that the Darwinian law of the struggle for
life in some form or another cannot be abolished. It is
the wisdom of men and women to recognise the fact as
unalterable, as a thing which cannot be changed “by all
the blended powers of earth and heaven ”.
Mrs. Besant says Socialism is intended as a redress for
poverty. What does she mean ? Does she mean that
poverty can, by the adoption of a certain system, be imme
diately changed or removed ? Certainly, if you passed a
law to-morrow that everybody should be entitled to go to
a national workshop and there get what is called productive
work, you would, for a time, be able to feed everybody; but
unless you took into account, unless you carefully con
sidered, unless you carefully provided for, something which
Mrs. Besant has not mentioned to-night, but something
she has been very eloquent about on other occasions,
viz., the law of population, which I think she will
admit with me is inevitable and is a natural fact which
cannot be blinked, then in the course of time you would
not be able to find employment, and this system would
bring on in an exaggerated form the very same poverty
which you wish to remove. (“ Oh!”, and cries of cfissent.)
Mrs. Besant speaks of people being like pigs round a big
trough, some of whom cannot even get their feet in.
(Laughter.) Well, that is the attitude in which pigs
always eat. Now, supposing there be only enough food
for ninety-nine pigs out of a hundred—I merely suppose
it hypothetically—which is preferable in the long run, that
the weak, unfit pig should perish and leave no offspring,
or that a strong one should suffer that fate ? I put the
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
15
case as one of hard fact, whether we like it or not. If
people to-day were content to come under some sensible
adjustment with regard to the population question, neither
Socialism nor Communism would in this economical respect
—although it might in other respects which I shall speak
of next Wednesday night—be fraught with much evil.
.But if a man who is unfit—Mrs. Besant used the word—
and a man who is fit were put on exactly the same level,
and if society insured them the same amount of subsist
ence, what would be the result ? The problem affects
posterity as well as yourselves. We are stewards for
posterity. (Cheers.) We know that the law of heredity
is a scientific truth which cannot be gainsaid. We know
that the unfit, will transmit their characteristic quali
ties of unfitness to their offspring. It is better for the
race that the unfit should not so transmit these qualities,
and if Mrs. Besant removes the law of natural selection,
which provides for the gradual improvement of the race,
.she is bound to provide in her new scheme something
which is adequate to replace it. Why, as a matter of fact,
under the present law—which in some respects is too
Socialistic—boys of fourteen and girls of twelve years of
age can go and get married. Mrs. Besant thinks perhaps
they do not. Mr. Arnold White, who knows as much
about London poverty as any man, gives an analysis of a
hundred and seventy-six cases which were investigated in
Clerkenwell. In eleven cases the wife was fourteen years
■old. In two cases the husband, and in twelve the wife,
were fifteen. In twelve cases the husband, in forty-six the
wife, and in three cases both, were sixteen. Twenty-seven
husbands and forty-eight wives were seventeen when they
began housekeeping, and in thirteen cases both of the
happy pair boasted of that age. Let me give another
statistical fact. In 1884—not so very long ago—14,818 men
married under age in England, and 74,004 married at the
age of twenty-one. And the practice of marriage by men
under age has increased since 1841 from 4’38 per 100 to
7’25 in 1884. Now, is it any wonder if this causes a
frightful deterioration ? If boys and girls rush into mar
riage at a time when they are utterly unfit economically to
support their offspring ; and if those who marry at a later
age are—as Mrs. Besant knows full well—grossly impru
dent in the number of their offspring, is it any wonder
�16
IS SOCIALISM SOUXD ?
that the trough should be over-swarmed ? And is it any
wonder that some should be turned away through the
operation of a natural law which can no more be defeated
than the Alps can be removed. (Cheers.)
Mrs. Besant says that she would not only nationalise land,
but also wrought material. And then she subsequently told
us there was no distinction in a country like ours between
land and wrought material. Is it a fact that the nationali
sation of the land is Socialistic ? Does it in any way
involve that wide regulation of human affairs which the
confiscation and seizure of all capital would entail ? It
does not. Suppose the land were nationalised to-morrow,
rent would necessarily be paid still. Rent cannot be
abolished. It is the difference between rich and poor land
and good and bad convenience of site. No man could
claim a plot of rich land for the same value as another man
paid for a similar plot of poor land. That rent would
have to be paid; but instead of going into the pocket of
a few private individuals who did not assist or co-operate
in making the land, this rent would go into the national
exchequer, and every man would as a citizen become a
part owner of the land which is the gift of Nature to all,
(Cheers.) It is a curious fact that before the present
phase of English Socialism was heard of, and long before
its chief advocates appeared in the field, the nationalisation
of the land was advocated by Mr. Herbert Spencer, the
protagonist of Individualism. In his “ Social Statics”,
published so far back, I think, as 1850, he argued that
the equal right of all to access to nature, and to the
exercise of their faculties in the gratification of their
wants, logically led to the State-ownership of the soil.
“ Equity,” he wrote, “ does not permit property in land.
Eor if one portion of the earth’s surface may justly become
the possession of an individual, and may be held by him
for his sole use and benefit as a thing to which he has an
exclusive right, then other portions of the earth’s surface
may be so held, and eventually the whole of the earth’s
surface may be so held; and our planet may thus lapse
altogether into private hands”. He further argued that
the doctrine of collective ownership of land may be car
ried out “without involving a community of goods”, or
causing “ any serious revolution in existing arrange
ments ”, and he concludes the chapter by saying, “ that
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
17
the theory of the co-heirship of all men to the soil is con
sistent with the highest civilisation; and that, however
difficult it may he to embody the theory in fact, equity
sternly commands it to be done ”. Surely, then, if the
greatest living opponent of State Socialism writes in this
way, it is idle to assert that the nationalisation of the land
is a Socialistic measure. (Cheers.) Sir Henry Maine tells
us that the idea of land being a chattel in the market is
very recent. It is probably not more than two centuries
old. People will probably recur to the collective owner
ship of the soil, which will stand in a different position to
capital. Mrs. Besant says that capital is a social product.
The watch in my pocket is a social product. Mrs. Besant’s
dress is a social product. Everything conceivable is a
social product under a system like ours where the division
of labor obtains. Well, if no social product could come
under private ownership, Mrs. Besant is landed in sheer
Communism—not in the far future—but to-night, accord
ing to the principles which she lays down. What is a
social product ? I want to eliminate the personal element
from the illustration as far as possible. One man with
capital might engage fifty men without capital to work
upon certain raw material, which his capital has provided.
What do they work for ? They produce a manufactured
article, but the essence of the contract on the workman’s
part was not any specific amount of produce, but a cer
tain proportion of his time given for a certain monetary
consideration. At the end of it the workman gets his
stipulated sum, and the capitalist holds the product.
But suppose the product turns out to be a drug in the
market—suppose the product has to be sold without a
profit. The workman will not lose. It was not part
of his contract that he should bear any risk or re
sponsibility. In other words, his fate was not bound up
with the product. He contracted to do certain work at
a certain price, and was paid for it. The product rightly
remained with the person who undertook the responsibility
and risk. Now, if the workman is prepared to undertake
the responsibility and risk, he also can become, in the
fullest sense of the word, a capitalist as well as his employer.
(Cheers and “No”'.) I believe in co-operation as much
as Mrs. Besant. Civilisation is co-operation. We could
not have been in this hall to-night unless we had co-
�'is
is SOCIALISM SOUND ?
operated to produce common results. Division of labor
means co-operation. But Mrs. Besant’s co-operation is
co-operation by law. My co-operation is voluntary co
operation. I distrust law. Mrs. Besant seems to place
implicit reHance on it. She thinks probably in the future,
if the law is made by the many, it will be absolutely just
and wise. I do not think so. The many can be mistaken
as well as the few. The many can go wild for a time as
well as the few. I say that no man ought to be handed
over bound hand and foot to that maj'ority which calls
itself society, but which can never be more than a majority,
large or small. The majority has no right to do every
thing and anything. It has no just power to rule the
minority arbitrarily, leaving them with no power to settle
their fate for themselves. (Cheers.) Mr. John Stuart
Mill thought—and everybody who agrees with Mrs. Besant
must honor him—that the individualistic system would
survive and gradually develop into voluntary co-operation.
Now, supposing Mrs. Besant’s system were established,
one of two things must happen. Either she would have to
seize the whole of the present capital, or she would have
to pay for it. (A voice : “ Seize it! ”.) I should like to
know how this is to be done. Suppose the property of the
country were obtained by either of these means, what
would the Collectivists gain in either case ? They would,
possibly, have the capital. But capital is a very tender
plant, reared with difficulty, and easily killed. It is not,
like the land, indestructible. It has to be continually
renewed. What is at present the value of capital ? Mrs.
Besant speaks as if all the profits of manufacturing
and commercial enterprises were really a return on
capital. That is a fallacy. Capital is worth what it
will fetch in the open market in good security—no more
and no less. The railway companies in England are
getting on the average four per cent. First-rate security
will give you, I think, about three per cent., and that
security is considered practically firm. Now if, in addition
to the capital, a capitalist has to provide himself the
trained capacity, the result consists of three things. First,
the interest on the capital which would be paid by any
other man -who used it; secondly, insurance against risk;
and, thirdly, the cost of direction which, if he did not direct
the concern himself, he would necessarily incur in the
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
19
payment of other persons who did. Under yonr Socialist
system, this cost of direction would still remain. If you
■elect directors, how would you pay them? If you paid
them at the same rate as a day laborer, the probability
is they would do just about as much labor, and just as
valuable labor, as that of day laborers.
(Cries of
dissent.) I say that, of course, without any disrespect
to day laborers. But a man who cannot draw a distinction
between laying bricks and writing “Hamlet”, for instance,
has something yet to learn. (Hear, hear, and applause.)
Now, this direction would have to be paid for; men with
directing capacity would make you pay their price. You
could not help it. Generalship is indispensable. Caesar’s
legions locked up in Gaul were worth nothing until Caesar
came. And so it is with any great commercial enterprise.
Unless you have the directing capacity, the ordinary run
of workers could not possibly work with a profit. You
may see two mills standing side by side in a town like
Oldham. The one will be bankrupt in two years ; and the
other, in the same period, will be paying ten per cent.
What is the cause of the difference ? One is in the hands
of a skilled management, carefully watching the markets and
generally exhibiting sagacity in the conduct of the business;
the other is deficient in this controlling wisdom. If you were
a capitalist, and did not head the enterprise yourself,
choosing the managers and watching personally over every
thing, all you would be entitled to, and all you would obtain,
would be three or four per cent, at the outside which is
the market interest on capital. Then, is this big revolution
worth working for three per cent. ? (Cries of “No, no”,
and “ Yes ”.) I think not.
As a redress for poverty, Socialism would, in my opinion,
wholly fail. All the Socialists, I believe, with one or two
trifling exceptions, consider that the Malthusian theory of
population is a delusion and a snare, a middle-class or upperclass invention. (Hear.) Well, Charles Darwin — the
greatest naturalist of our age—did not think so. One of his
greatest successors, Professor Huxley, does not think so.
And, what is more to the purpose to-night, Mrs. Besant does
not think so. You could not, as human nature is, provide
restraints. H so, I should like it proved. I deny the possi
bility of it. But Individualism is gradually lessening the
pressure of poverty. (“ OhI oh! ”) Nothing is so easy as to
�20
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
confine attention to what has occurred within a few months,
rather than to extend observation over a number of years.
Speak to an old man in any great manufacturing centreand ask him the difference between fifty years ago and
now. Nay, do not go to any old man; go to absolute
statistics which cannot be refuted. I shall show you if Mrs.
Besant questions it, because I have the figures under my
hand, that during the last fifty years the wages of skilled
artisans have nearly doubled; I shall show you that the
wages of unskilled laborers have increased nearly forty or
fifty pei’ cent. I shall show you that the prices of nearly
all commodities have diminished instead of rising. (Cheers,
and “No, no”.) I shall show you that the only twothings that have risen are the prices of meat and rent.
Now, if the profits of the capitalist have increased, they
have increased in the mass, and not in proportion. (A
laugh.) It is very easy to laugh at statistics and BlueBooks. But, if you look at the last Blue Book, with
respect to the Royal Commission on Trade—(laughter)—I
suppose, then, that we are to take not only Socialist argu
ments but Socialist facts—you will find that during the last
fifty years, in the various changes that have taken place,
the condition of the worker has improved, and pauperism
has diminished. When you hear of men being out of
work, it is only a small proportion of them who are out of
work. And as I understand the state of things, I contend
that it is the Individualistic system which is working
such improvements. The fate of the workers lies in their
own hands. (Cheers.) Why wait until you convince
everybody that the millennium is at hand ? Why not begin
with co-operative experiments to-morrow, and gradually
bring society to the truth by experiments which will con
vince, and cease indulging in extravagant schemes and
excited declamation which will do no good whatever?
(Loud applause.)
Annie Besant : Friends, I must ask Socialists who are
present to be good enough for my sake even more than
for their own not to interrupt in the way some are inclined
to do. Your flag to-night is in my hands, and I cannot
keep it unsoiled if you interrupt my opponent. (Hear,
hear.) Mr. Foote has said, and said truly, that Individu
alism has not been incompatible with progress. That istrue; it is a historical fact; and it would be idle to deny
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
21
that in evolving from the more savage and. brutal forms of
society the Individualism through which we have passed, is
tk necessary stage. But I hope to be able to show you
later on that real Individualism that makes for progress
can only be secured by the Socialist. That I am prepared,
to defend this day fortnight. (Cheers.) Then Mr. Foote
said that I was dealing only with the commonplaces of
political economy, and that he had but little trouble in
admitting most of them. But surely he was acute enough
to see that my claim for the whole of the raw and wrought
material included the claim for the whole of the capital of
this country ? So that while at the beginning of his speech
he said that my claim was a mere commonplace, at the
end of his speech he urged you not to take the step I am
striving to induce you to take. (Hear, hear.) Mr. Foote
complains that my definition was not full enough. It
included the whole of the land and all the capital; and
that ought to be full enough. (Laughter, and hear, hear.)
In dealing with the economic basis, and seeing that I care
fully confined myself to the economic aspect of Socialism,
I fail to see what further definition Mr. Foote can require.
He made another statement, however, with which I agree,
when he said that when mankind was fitted for a system
then it is that they will live in that system. That is
exactly why I believe that Socialism is now approaching.
I learn from Emile de Laveleye that the majority of French
workmen in every town are Socialists; that the professors
of nearly every university in Germany and Italy are up
holding Socialism. Even in this country the conception as
to property hitherto held will have to be completely given
up, according to Professor Graham: and I believe Social
ism to be absolutely inevitable, although I try to hasten
its coming by pointing out the advantages that will accrue
from the acceptance of it. (Hear, hear.) Mr. Foote says,
is competition so evil a thing ? And I do not propose to
waste time over the difference between competition and
emulation. Competition is an evil thing under present
■conditions. (Hear, hear.) Competition under Socialism
might possibly not have many evil results. And I will tell
you why. So long as you have your raw and wrought
materials in the hands of a class, then that class can practi
cally fix the remuneration of labor. (Hear, hear.) Upon
that, too, I will not be content with my owa opinion, but
�22
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
will take the authority of Emile de Laveleye, who pointsout that “in every contract he who advances the where
withal to labor, i.e., land and capital, will fix the terms
he chooses; and will, of course, so fix them that
the profits will be at a maximum and the wages at a
minimum”. (Cheers.) Take, too, the declaration of
Cairnes—that there is no possibility of the laboring class,
as a whole, rising out of the position of suffering and
distress in which it is to-day, so long as it continues to be
composed of wage-laborers. When you have your com
petition hampered by absolute proprietorship in the whole
of the materials of wealth production on the one side, and
on the other a proletariat without property—a proletariat
who must get at the land and capital or starve—then your
pretence of free competition is a fraud and a hypocrisy,
for one of the competitors has a clog around his neck
which makes it impossible for him to swim against the
other. (Cheers.) And that is not all. So long as you
have these proprietors and the proletariat, the proletarians
will have to work for the proprietors as well as for them
selves. And the difficulty is that the proprietors can wait,
and the proletarians cannot. The proprietor has got hisland. He can cultivate it himself if the worst comes to
the worst. He has got his capital. He can utilise that if
the worst comes to the worst. And land and capital give
him credit, and that will keep him well-clothed and wellfed for years and years. But the proletarian cannot wait,
for he wants food and can only get it by taking the wages
offered to him. He starves if he waits. And to say that
these parties are equal, and are able to make a fair con
tract, is to fly in the face of every fact of our present
society. (Cheers.) That brings me-—following Mr. Eoote
step by step—to the statement that he remembers a pas
sage of mine in which I stated that Communism would
mean the living of the idle on the industrious. I presumehe was quoting from my pamphlet on “ Modern
Socialism,” in which I stated what I stated to you to
night—that it was likely that society would evolve into
Communism. But I added—and this Mr. Foote omitted
to mention—“ that stage of development man has not yet
attained ; and for man as he is, Communism would mean
the living of the idle on the toil of the laborious”. (Hear,
hear.) I hold that immediate complete Communism is.
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
23:
utterly impracticable, but that through Collectivism you
may come to Communism. Mr. Foote says the struggle
for" existence is necessary; the fact of the struggle for
existence must be recognised. That both Darwin and
Huxley realise it is true; but it was because Darwin
realised it that he was against those checks to undue in
crease of the population which I propose. He says, if you
limit the number of competitors and soften the struggle
for existence, progress will be arrested. He would leave
the old brute struggle to go on among men, trusting that
thus, despite the suffering, improvement will result. Is
Mr. Foote prepared to take up that position, and to deny
everything we have striven to do to lessen and regulate
this strife by substituting rational for natural selection ?
(Hear, hear.) But Mr. Foote also says—and here I agree
with him—that if the law of population is not recognised
poverty will once more result. Mr. Foote is right. Many
of my fellow Socialists—not thinking as carefully and
thoughtfully as they should — ignore or deny that
indisputable truth. But I allege that when you
have Socialism, the fact that unless you regulate the
relative numbers of producers and consumers you
will overburden your producers, will be a fact so
patent and obvious that the blindest will be compelled to
see it. (Hear, hear.) Well, but says Mr. Foote, suppose
there is enough for every ninety-nine out of a hundred, is
it not better for the unfit to perish and not transmit their
unfitness to their offspring ? But do you kill out the unfit
in the present condition of society ? Is it the unfit who go
to the wall in the social struggle for existence ? Why, it
is your idlers who five; your idle aristocrats who cannot
earn their own living ; the lazy women who cannot sweep
a room or clean a saucepan. (Hear, hear.) These are the
men and women who live under your present social system,
and it is the fit who are crushed out—those who could work
and who long to work; those who are industrious and
pray for work; those you kill off by your competition, and
your idle vagabonds it is who live. (Hear, hear.) Then
Mr. Foote says the poor marry very young. I know that.
And why ? Because they are crowded together in small
rooms where no separation of the sexes is possible, and
where in consequence the sexual instinct is awakened at
an age when it should still be sleeping; because in their
�24
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
miserable life their poverty makes them old when they
ought to be young, and the longings of manhood and of
womanhood are roused in them when they should be still
almost in their childhood. (Hear, hear.) There is no
blame to them. Forced in this impure hothouse of
poverty; with no pleasure save that of the sexual relation;
with no relief for their feelings save in sexual intercourse;
shut out from art, from beauty, from education, and
from everything that might make life fair to them as to
others, they cling to this one joy of their manhood and
their womanhood as all of happiness that is open to them.
(Cheers.) But Mr. Foote says—Why not go in for land
nationalisation? it is more simple. Mr. Foote did not
think it worth while to deal with the difficulty of national
ising the rent of land. He ignored the fact that in
nationalising the rent of land—which is capital as well as
land, a point he had apparently forgotten—he has the
whole of the Socialist difficulty to face. (Hear, hear.) I
will take Sidgwick on this head. He points out that
capital and land cannot be separated; that land is capital,
and is largely the result of accumulated labor. Take, for
instance, a railway. Is the railway running through a
county land or capital ? Does not the land over which it
runs represent part of the capital of the railway company ?
And Mr. Foote, in an eloquent passage, said that those—
the idle class—who took the rent of the land did not make
the land ; that they did not even co-operate in making the
land. I can find no better words than his to describe the
class that lives on the capital made by the labor of others ;
“They did not make the capital; they did not even co
operate in making it
They have taken it unfairly, by
force and fraud, that is, by theft, and we want to take it
back from them. (Cheers.) But Mr. Foote says that all
who work to make the capital work with their eyes open,
and that they have no right to quarrel with the result. Is
that true ? Surely not. Even with their eyes open men
prefer a poor wage to absolute starvation. But it is not a
case of freedom of contract. They are forced into the
contract by the absolute pressure of their bodily necessities.
(Hear, hear.) It is not a case of willingly accepting a
contract which you have power to refuse. You are driven
into it with the whip of starvation, and you must take
it or starve. (Cheers.)
�IS SOCIALISM SOUXI) ?
25
Mr. Foote : To-night Mrs. Besant naturally circumscribes
-the limits of the debate : I follow her and must do so..
Next Wednesday night I trust to alter to some extent the
character of the debate. I shall then go a little further
into the Socialistic scheme, and see how it would work in
practice—or rather how it would be likely to work in
practice. (Hear, hear.) For the present I confine myself
to the duty of following Mrs. Besant. She admits that
Individualism is not incompatible with progress. I cannot
say that the admission was wrung from her, because it is
one that no student of history could possibly refuse to
make. But the fact that the progress the world has made
during the last three centuries—the great era of progress
—has been achieved under the system of Individualism
ought to make innovators pause before they propose to
substitute something for it, unless they can clearly show—
not in mere words but almost in the visualisation of imagi
nation—that what they propose to put in its place will be
far better than what they wish to remove. (Cheers.)
Under the present system we do somehow hold on ; we do
not go from bad to worse; we keep making some little
improvement year by year and generation by generation.
(Hear, hear.) If you cannot cultivate, under purely
arbitrary conditions of your own making, a special variety
■of a plant in a short time, how are you going to cultivate,
under what cannot be purely arbitrary conditions, a special
new variety of human nature in a short time ? Mrs.
Besant says present human nature is not fit for her whole
scheme. Her whole argument is founded on prophecy.
Some day or other human nature will be fit for it I I
think that, some day the forces which have elevated man
in the past will bring him to higher things. I know
Individualism is not incompatible with social elevation.
It is an essential requisite for a man to assist anyone else
that he shall be strong and self-helpful himself. You
cannot have a really strong society when everybody is
a leaning-post to everybody else. (Hear, hear.) In
.some parts of the world where they five under a system
which is very much nearer Socialism than ours, they look
upon the suffering and peril of their fellow creatures almost
with amusement. But in a country like ours where In
dividualism so predominates, our instincts are such that
brave fellows will leap into the water, and brave firemen
�26
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
will run up the fire-ladder, and men will go out in the
lifeboats to sinking crews, and women will send their
dearest to save the fives of others. (Hear, hear.) These
things are done under Individualism—it is not incompa
tible with the highest development of human nature.
Mrs. Besant says I cannot separate land from wrought
material. Now land is not wrought material in the ordinary
sense of the word—that it can be carried about. Whatever
improvements you make in the soil you cultivate, by
digging, manuring, and planting, you cannot carry them
away with you. They remain on and in the land. And that
is one of the reasons why the law interferes, and gives the
tenant compensation for whatever improvements he has
made when his lease is terminated by the landlord’s action.
Now, if the land were nationalised, is it true that we could
not possibly separate the value of the land, for the pur
poses of statemanship, from the value of other things ? A
railway runs over a certain amount of land. Supposing
we wanted that bit of railway. The company is not in the
true sense of the word “ a bloated capitalist ”. (Laughter.)
Thousands on thousands of persons have small sums of
money invested in it as shareholders. Heaps of money
are invested in railway security by life assurance societies.
If you were to take it you would make these bankrupt,
and ruin the expectations of almost everybody who assured
their lives for the benefit of their wives and children.
These things are talked about without the consequences of
what is proposed being seen. A laugh is cheap and a
sneer is easy. But when you find yourselves face to face
with the consequences you never foresee, you might feel a
little less jubilant. (Cheers.) If the land w§re bought
under Act of Parliament, and a price given for it, any
State that took possession of it would be bound to
compensate for it, otherwise it would injure thousands
who have invested their money in it. Socialists may
claim their right to take it without compensation. I
for one deny their right to do it. (Hear, hear.) Mrs.
Besant may differ from me. Well, in that case we must
both appeal to such feelings of fair play , as men may
possess. (Cheers.) It would not be very difficult to take
over a railway. My opinion is that it is confusion to sup
pose that because the State can do one thing well it can do
everything well. You might as well say that because a
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
27
man can build a house well he could paint a picture well.
(Hear, hear.) There is no natural reason for believing it.
A municipality can supply us very well with water and
also with gas. But what municipality could supply. uswith anything except what had been simplified for it
through long experience and experiment under individual
istic enterprise ? If any one tried to get municipalities to
take up the electric fight he would be laughed at. In
dividualism has to work it up, and risk the money, and
by and by when it has succeeded society will step in and
reap the advantage of it. (Hear, hear.) There are certain
things that must be monopolies. Mrs. Besant may say
that capital is a monopoly too. But what I want to point
out is, that although for the moment the amount of
capital existing is determined, the amount of capital that
may exist is indeterminate. The amount of land that
exists in England is determined; but land is also deter
minate—it cannot be more to-morrow than it is to-day.
But capital can. (Hear, hear). While the land is now
practically the same as in the time of William the Con
queror, capital is probably a thousand times as much as it
was then. I hold that what is a natural monopoly the
State should undertake, and the State has never relinquished
that right. There is no such thing in English law as
private ownership of land; there is no such thing in Eng
lish law as an absolute private right to work a public
monopoly. A railway has only a right given to it by Act
of Parliament. A water company has only the right given
to it by Act of Parliament. It is simply a question of
prudence whether it is better to give a public com
pany a right of working a monopoly under Parliament,
within legal conditions, or for a municipality or State to
take the direct management of it itself. But the prin
ciple of it is the same whether the company work understatutory limitations, or whether the State provide the
directors. (Hear, hear.) The State is the ultimatesovereign of all monopolies. I hold, as an Individualist,
that they should be regulated by the State, and that they
should be actively conducted by the State.
Now let us try to separate our land from the wrought
material. What would be the actual problem ? Here is some
land the State proposes to take. All the State has to do is to*
lay down what it considers just principles of compensation,
�■28
IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
which, of course, it is impossible to argue out in detail at
present. Besides, Mrs. Besant is a land nationaliser as
well as I. The State would have to lay down broad
principles of fair compensation. And commissioners would
have to apply them in particular cases, just as commissioners
did when they fixed the judicial rents in Ireland, or as the
Land Court does when it adjudicates on the question of a
tenant’s unexhausted improvements. There would be no
difficulty in it at all. I cannot understand how Mrs.
Besant can so dwell upon a difficulty which is, after all,
mainly of her own creation. (Hear, hear.)
Why is the land different from capital ? Mrs. Besant says
capital is a social product. Admitted. She says that land
and capital are both used for production. Yes. But there is
this difference. Land is naturally a monopoly. Land was
not created at all. Nobody co-operated in the making
of it. But people did co-operate in the making of capital.
The difference between capital and land is, that in the
one you have a vast mass of value created by the volun
tary cooperation of employers and workmen under all
varieties of association, while in the other you have an
uncreated and indestructible gift of Nature to all her
children. You have the right to take for all the prime
gift of Nature. But I cannot see your right to take
for all what has been created by separate bodies of men
after giving such consideration for the raw material as
the law of the land declared at the time to be just.
(Cheers.)
Mrs. Besant says that under the present system
■ capital fixes the terms upon which labor shall workI
Bid she never hear of trades’ unions ? Mr. Thornton’s
fine book, “On Labor”, showed how it was that trades’
unions were able, in spite of the mistaken notions on
the subj ect of most political economists, to affect the price
of labor. Mrs. Besant says the capitalist fixes wages!
Is there no such thing as supply and demand? Mrs.
Besant must know that it is one of the commonplaces
of political economy, as you will find in Mill, that under a
highly-developed economical system like ours, with im
mense accumulation of capital and increasing skill in labor,
wages tend to rise and profits to fall to a minimum. That
is a commonplace of political economy. And the proof of
lies in the fact that the profits are falling. Statistics
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
29'
show it. And wages have risen a hundred per cent.—in
some cases more and in others less—during the last fifty
years. Further, the return on capital, which, as I said,
is simply interest—the market rate for the use of capital—
gradually gets less and less. You cannot now get for
invested capital, unless you conduct the enterprise your
self, what was obtained ten years ago. Interest now is so
low that bankers have been declining to give interest at
all, and depositors have often been glad for the bankers to
take charge of the money for them without any percentage.
(Laughter.)
Mrs. Besant says that the proletariat cannot rise—that
it is the unfit, the idle, who five. Not all of them, I hope.
It is rather too sweeping a condemnation. I am in favor,
as a Radical, as much as Mrs. Besant can be, of abolishing
all privileges created by law. (Cheers.) And what is more
I have always been in favor, in all public reforms, of
adopting the wise German proverb of sweeping the stairsfrom the top downwards. But it is not true that it is
simply the unfit who survive and the fit who are killed
out. What is the fact ? According to the income tax
table, schedule D, incomes from £200 to £1,000 have in
creased in number, from 1874 to 1885, from 162,435 to
215,790; incomes from £1,000 to £2,000 from 11,944 to
13,403 ; and so on right up the scale. But you find a
decrease when you come to incomes from £5,000 to £10,000.
These have diminished from 2,035 to 1,928. (Hear, hear.)
And the incomes above £10,000 a year have diminished
from 1,283 to 1,220. So that there is a great increase of'
incomes from £100 upwards to £5,000, and a decrease atthe wealthier end of the scale. The wages of the workman
have also increased. (“No, no.”) I say yes. If Mrs.
Besant denies it I will prove it, but not otherwise. I say
then that under the circumstances it is not the fit who are
killed out and the unfit who survive. The fact is the mass
of the people are better off. The workers are in an improved condition. The income tax returns show an increase
of small incomes and a decrease of big ones. That is in
consistent with Mrs. Besant’s position. It is corroborative
of mine. (Cheers.)
Annie Besant : Mr. Foote alleged—I am going back to
the speech made before the last, when he was dealing with,
the conditions under which men accepted labor for which.
�30
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
they took wage—that if the product was a failure the loss
fell on the capitalist, and not on the worker. If Mr. Foote
will think that question out he will find that if a product
•is a failure—that is, if the capitalist cannot sell that which
has been produced and a glut is caused—that while the
capitalist may lose his profit the workman loses his live
lihood, which is a much more important thing. And it is
looking excessively superficially at the subject to say, that
because a man receives a certain amount of wage he runs
no risk from the failure of the market. (Hear, hear.) Mr.
Foote went on to urge that capital is easily killed, and that
it is a very tender plant. That is a favorite phrase of the
capitalist. But capital is not a tender plant. Look at the
way France was treated at the Franco-German War, and
see how soon she replaced the wealth of which she was
then robbed. The making of capital lies in the productive
power of the nation, and you cannot frighten away capital
in the fashion some persons imagine. You have it left
behind you after your big capitalists are frightened, and
the sooner they are frightened off the spoil the more chance
there is for the worker who really creates the capital. Then
we are told that the capitalist’s profits must cover insur-'
ance against risk, interest on capital, and the cost of pro
duction ; and Mr. Foote might have added the rent. It is
true that they cover these things, but when Mr. Foote
goes on to urge the enormous value of generalship and of
business ability, and to declare that the man, who cannot
distinguish between the value of the labor of laying, bricks
and that of writing Hamlet, is apparently not worthy of
having an opinion on a scientific problem, one cannot
help asking two questions. Are not the wages of
superintendence enormously higher than they ought
to be, judged by comparison with the value added
to the product by the business manager? And is it
not possible that, valuable as Hamlet is, the laying of
bricks is even more necessary to the community; and if
society wants to be served both by the bricklayer and
the poet, it must be content to take from each that
which his natural capabilities enable him to give ; and not
to give enormous extra advantages to the man who, being
an artist, has joy in his work as part of his payment, but
whose work is not more necessary to the community than
is that of the humbler members who do the actual manual
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
31
labor on which our lives depend. (Cheers.) Mr. Foote
argues that the wages of skilled workmen have doubled,
and those of unskilled workmen have risen; and we all
know these figures come from Mr. Gillen. When he says
so scornfully, 11 Is it worth while to make a revolution for
3 per cent ?”, I turn to Mr. Giffen, and I see he puts rent
and interest, without a penny of wages of superintend
ence, at £407,000,000 ; and I am inclined to say that as
the total produce per year is only £1,250,000,000, then to
rescue from the idle class even one-third of that total is
worth trying hard for by law, and might even, if it could
be effected thereby, excuse a revolution. (Cheers.) Then
we are told that under the present system we at least go
on—we do not go from bad to worse. Why, that phrase
is used by every tyranny, as well as by every Tory as an
excuse for opposing the wicked Radicals whenever they
propose a change. They use it by the necessity of their
position; but it is, indeed, strange, for a Radical to use
against Socialism the very argument he would scoff at if
it came from a Tory against himself. (Hear, hear.) Then
we are told that Mrs. Besant admits that human nature
is not fit for it—what is “it”? Mrs. Besant admitted
that human nature was not yet fitted for Communism, but
not that it is not fit for collectivist Socialism. Mrs. Besant
thinks it is fit for collectivist Socialism. (Hear, hear.)
Then I am told that in the savage state—which for some
mystic reason is like Socialism—men look on unmoved
at drowning men, whereas under Individualism they
plunge in to the rescue. I think I have read not
so very long ago of men walking away from a
pond whilst children were drowning.
But that is
not argument — it is only an attempt to raise prejudice
against the system at which it is aimed. (Hear, hear.)
Under your Individualism also the wealthy people look on
unmoved in the great cities at the poor, as they slowly die
of that which is a worse death than drowning. (Hear,
hear.) Then Mr. Foote urges that if you take the railways
you will rob people of the insurance they are hoping to
leave to their widows. But this difficulty is not special to
Socialism. The insurance offices have a large number of
mortgages on freehold land. When you nationalise the
land, are you going to steal from these offices ? or is it not
true that just the same difficulties will occur in the
�32
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
nationalisation of land as in the nationalisation of capital ?
and that while these difficulties are a good reason for pro
ceeding with caution, they are not the slightest reason for
not moving at all ? (Cheers.) In any such change you
will have to be careful as to the method; but the diffi
culties placed against the nationalisation of capital are of
equal force in dealing with the nationalisation of the land.
Then Mr. Foote says that municipalities can only take up
things when experience has shown them to have been
successful. I was told only the other day by the secretary
of a company for the raising of water by hydraulic power
that their machines were only taken by municipalities which
had the water supply in their own hands, and that these
were ready to take the cost in this instance which private
companies refused to incur. (Hear, hear.) Next, Mr.
Foote argues that the land differs from capital in that it is
a fixed quantity, while capital is not. The soil of England,
he says, has not increased since the time of William the
Conqueror. Does Mr. Foote mean to say that the soil is
not more productive now than it was in the time of
William the Conqueror ? If his argnment as to the land
is good for anything, that is the meaning of it. You
measure your soil by its power of production; and if you
increase the productive power and get more food from it
than before, then the increased productivity is the measure
of the increased land ; and it is only throwing out words to
those who look at words rather than things to say that,
because the outline of the country is very much the same,
therefore the land has not increased. (Cheers.) The
land has increased in everything that makes it valuable.
Thousands of aeres have been brought under cultivation,
and those cultivated have been made more productive.
Land is increasing in productive power. Capital, says Mr.
Foote, cannot be limited. I was under the delusion that
capital could only be obtained by applying labor to raw
material, and Mr. Foote expects me to believe that the
material is limited, and that that which is made out of it
is unlimited. I find myself unable to accept that view.
(Hear, hear.) Then, against the argument I put at the
end that the wages of the laborers as a class could not
rise very high—Mr. Foote asks me if I have not heard of
trades unions and whether I do not think they can affect
the rate of wages ? To a very small extent. Mr. Foote
�33
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
quotes Mr. Mill, but he knows that Mr. Mill’s political
economy has been discredited in point after point, and is
in much given up to-day by every economist of repute.
You cannot now quote Mill as a final authority. You
must take the arguments of Cairnes and Sidgwick and
Jevons, who have taken up the science where Mill dropped
it, and you must meet and refute their arguments. And
what is it that Cairnes has said on this subject? Cairnes
distinctly tells us that “nothing is more certain than that
taking the whole field of labor, real wages in Great Britain
will never rise to the standard of remuneration now pre
vailing in new countries” ; that the “possibilities of the
laborer’s lot are confined” within “very narrow limits”,
“ so long as he depends for his well-being on the produce
of his day’s work. Against these barriers trades unions
must dash themselves in vain.” (Hear, hear.) And then
he says, if you deal with the relative position of the in •
dustrial classes you find that inequality is continually in
creasing ; that “unequal as is the distribution of wealth
already in this country, the tendency of industrial progress
is towards an inequality greater still. The rich will be
growing richer, and the poor, at least relatively, poorer ”
(“Some Leading Principles of Political Economy”, pp.
337, 338, 340, ed. 1874). And he winds up his argument
on this point by declaring that ‘‘ if workmen do not rise
from dependence on capital by the path of co-operation,
then they must remain in dependence upon capital ;
the margin for the possible improvement of their lot
is confined within narrow barriers which cannot be
passed, and the problem of their elevation is hopeless ”
{Ibid., p. 348). (Hear, hear.) These are Professor
Cairnes’ words. I ask Mr. Foote to meet Professor
Cairnes on his own ground, and give us the authority
which will show us that Cairnes’ judgment is wrong. It
is true that profits tend to fall because of the competition
between employers. But when Mr. Foote says that wages
still tend to rise, then he speaks against the deductions of
political economy, and against the knowledge of facts of
every practical man who hears him. Wages do not now
tend to rise in the fashion which has been put. By com
bination something can be done. But as Sidgwick points
out—a man worthy of careful thought—Sidgwick points
out that if you are going to deal with the condition of
D
�34
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
wage-laborers, then you must recognise that the tendency
of our system is to press their wages down to a minimum,
and to a minimum which is below what is necessary .for
healthy life. (Cheers.) Mr. Sidgwick points out that
wherever laborers belong to the capitalist—as the horse
and the ox belong to him—then they have a fair subsist
ence to keep them in working order ; but he says that the
pressure of competition has forced the wage-laborer below
a fair subsistence; and that is the point to which the wage
continually tends. (Hear, hear.) And I submit that on
that point you find that the views deduced from the prin
ciples of political economy as to the results of the present
competitive system have been really borne out by all the
facts of the society you have around you, and that what
Professor Sidgwick says is true. And whilst you have more
absolute money going into the laborer’s hands in some
trades to-day than before, it is also true that the share of
the produce obtained by the worker is not growing greater
but smaller. (Hear, hear.) Mr. Foote says that he is in
favor of abolishing privileges established by law. I ask
him to come over then to the Socialist ranks, and join us in
abolishing the privileges conferred on the landlords and
the capitalists by giving them these unfair monopolies. And
when he says that the salvation of the workman lies in his
own hands, I endorse that with all my power. I say your
salvation does lie in your own hands. Till you are edu
cated, till you understand your own condition, till you are
loyal to each other, till you unite to win your own
liberty, you will remain oppressed ; and only as you band
yourselves together, and realise the changes you should
seek to bring about, will you raise yourselves from your
position of dependence. The workers must save them
selves. We can only talk; but you must act. (Cheers.)
Mr. Foote : I notice in this debate that up to the present
Mrs. Besant is fonder of relying upon other person’s
opinions than on statistics and facts that cannot be ques
tioned. I submit that the question before us to-night is
not what Mill or Cairnes thought. We are here to think
for ourselves, and it is the business of the debaters to lay
before you grounds upon which you can form your own
judgment. And the best of all grounds, and in the long
run the only ground, is fact. Now Mj?s. Besant has not
denied the truth of my statement, that during the last
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
35
fifty years mechanics’ wages have risen in the majority of
cases nearly a hundred per cent., and that during the same
period the wages of unskilled labor have increased nearly
fifty per cent. (Hear, hear.) Cairnes’ opinion cannot
avail against those facts. It is useless for Cairnes to say
that the workman’s elevation is impossible if, during those
fifty years, the workman has been elevated.
Again, you have heard I daresay a good deal about the
distress in the shipbuilding trade, and I know many of the
hard-working men of the Tyneside have suffered seriously
owing to the glut of ships in the market. There are ships
lying idle there because there is no carrying trade for them.
And the shipbuilding trade has consequently suffered
very much. But still, with all that, what is the fact as to
the wages ? Before the Royal Commission, Mr. Knight
(the secretary of the Amalgamated Boilers and Engineers
Society, with whom I had the honor of speaking once at
the Crystal Palace) was interrogated as to the recent strike,
and he said that the reason of it was that the men com
plained that upon the piece work they had accepted they
could not manage to earn as much as they thought they
should according to the rate of day wages. Now the
question was put to Mr Joseph Knight ££ What do you call
a fair day’s rate for rivetters for piece work ? ” ££ I should
say”, he replied, ££a fair day’s rate, working at piece
work, is 8s. per day”. Now if you take five and a half
days a week, which leaves at least one day and a half
leisure a week for a man, to say nothing of his evenings,
you get a wage of £2 4s. per week. Because they could
not get that sum they had gone out on strike. Now, does
that look as if the working classes in the main were in
such a truly deplorable case as Mrs. Besant endeavors to
depict ? I admit that there are evils and suffering in
society, and everyone of us thinks that something should
be done to remedy them. (Hear, hear.) But I see no use
in exaggerated pictures of blackness and despair. Mrs.
Besant said I used forms of words to appeal to your pre
judices. I say she has painted a black picture so as to
appeal to your finer feelings of sympathy to foist upon
you an economical system which is to be judged according
to pure scientific canons of criticism and not according to
sentiments excited by one side or the other.
Mrs. Besant said that capital was not a tender plant, and she
d 2
�36
IS SOCIALISE! SOUND ?
said, “see how quickly France recouped herself after the war
with Germany ’ ’. Why, that ‘ ‘ exploded ’ ’ political economist
John Stuart Mill explained it himself. If a war in civilised
times leaves the land, the plant employed in manufac
tures, the canals, the railways, the docks, and all the per
manent instruments of production, all the people have to
do is to set to work again. But how soon would France
have recovered herself if Germany had spoiled all her
canals and railways and docks, ruined her machinery,
destroyed her buildings, broken down her hedges, and
devastated her vineyards ? France would not be in the
position she is in to-day. It would be found that capital
was hard to accumulate. It would take generations of
hard effort to remedy the result of one single devastating
campaign fought on the old barbarous methods that were
practised three or four centuries ago. (Hear, hear.)
Mrs. Besant says that generalship is necessary, but that
it should not be rated too highly. Do I rate it too
highly ? I do not rate anything except at its market
value. I know of no other method. If a man asks me
how much a bricklayer’s work is worth, or an artist’s, I
say I do not know. What does he get in the market?
That is the only means I have of judging of its value.
All the economists who have learnedly explained or be
fogged the question have got no further than old Butler,
who wrote “ Hudibras ”, and who said : “ The value of a
thing is just as much as it will bring ”. (Hear, hear,
and laughter.) Generalship can be rated too high! Now
supposing you have industrial armies, as Socialists are
fond of advocating, these armies would have to be com
manded. (“No, no.”) But you cannot have armies
without commanders. Why use the word army, if you
do not mean a similar mode of direction from head
quarters ? Why not find some other term ? Mrs. Besant
said she preferred to find new terms. Why not find a
new term for that ? Is it a fact that an army is of
much use without its general ? No. A general in military
matters and a general at the headquarters of an industrial
army would be of similar value. Such a general in
military matters is often of more worth in a struggle than
another army as large as the one he commands. The
difference between the genius of command on the one hand
and on the other will often make a small army more valu
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
37
able than a big one. What was it made the difference
between Oliver Cromwell, with a small sick army shut up
on the peninsula of Dunbar, and David Leslie, with nearly
three times the number ranged on the heights ? The
English soldiers were brave, but the Scotch were also
brave; and they fought after at Worcester as bravely as
men ever fought on this earth. But the difference lay in
this, that at the head of the smaller army there was the
sleepless vigilance, the military genius, the unfaltering and
invincible mind of one of the greatest generals that the
earth ever produced. (Cheers.) Although he was down
below and David Leslie had a better position on the
heights, the result was that Cromwell’s army, by a splendid
stroke of generalship, defeated the other army, losing
itself only a few men, and taking ten thousand of the
others as prisoners. (Cheers.) I say that the captain or
general of a great industrial enterprise may be of as much
importance to its success as the whole army put together,
and under any system you must pay him somehow. Mrs.
Besant said society must fix the wage. But supposing the
man objects and walks off, and goes elsewhere. (Hear,
hear, and laughter.) It is very well to speak of altruism,
but even under the selected communisms of America, as
Noyes tells us in his history of those institutions, what he
called general depravity—in other words, personal interest
—even among the elect divided them again and again.
One concern—a big one—broke up because the artisans
themselves complained that the value of their product was
twice that of those who worked in the fields, and they
should therefore only work half as long as agriculturists
did. Mrs. Besant says that human nature is fit for'Collec
tive Socialism. In my opinion Collective Socialism is not
fit for human nature. (Hear, hear, and laughter.)
Mrs. Besant proposes to wrest capital and land from the idle
classes. It is well to understand not only what they
propose to do, but how they propose to do it. Wrest
ing means taking away, and taking away without com
pensation. (Cheers.) Now the wealth is to be taken
from the idle classes. What idle classes ? (A voice:
“Those who do not labor”).
Do you . mean the
English aristocracy? (Cheers.) I am as ready to deal
with them by law as you are. Why, Mr. Bradlaugh, who
is opposed to Socialism, is quite ready to deal with the
�38
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
English, aristocracy, if he gets the chance. (Hear, hear,
and laughter.) Surely we do not need Socialism as a
revelation to inform us that the English aristocracy should
be removed. Radicals have known that long. But some
whom Mrs. Besant includes in this idle class are not idle.
Was Josiah Mason idle, who worked as he did, and,
having made a fortune, founded the best institution in
Birmingham, erecting out of his fortune a splendid monu
ment of his wise generosity ? Was Whitworth idle ? Was
Bessemer idle ? But why go through a long list of these ?
Mrs. Besant knows and you know, as I know, that many
of these men included in the idle classes work in their
way, and contribute in their way to the production which
is the result of labor and capital and superintendence.
Without their guidance, and without the capital which
their ability helped to get together and increase, the work
man would really be worse off than he is to-day. (Hear,
hear.)
Mrs. Besant says that I should not scoff like the
Tories, who say that we should do nothing fresh because
we still go on. I never said we should do nothing because
we still go on. What I said was that if we do go on under
the present system, you must show us some very clear
reason for believing that the new system will supplant it
with immense benefit before we give up all we now
possess. That is very different. I am surprised that Mrs.
Besant could not see the difference. Mrs. Besant also
thought that it was not right for me to insinuate that
certain barbarous or savage people were somehow in. a
state of Socialism But if Socialism means an omnipotent
State, that the State regulates all industry, that the State
owns all the land and all the capital employed in produc
tion, then nearly every primitive form of society is more
or less in a condition of Socialism or Communism. (Hear,
hear.) The Individualism of the last three centuries has
revolutionised the modern world and done more in that
time than the Socialism of the lower states has done in as
many thousands of years. (Cheers.) Again, Mrs. Besant
holds me wrong for saying that the soil of England is of
the same extent now as it was in the time of William the
Conqueror. I said “soil” ; I did not say its productive
ness, nor did I say cultivated soil or uncultivated soil. _ I
I said simply soil. And the soil of the earth means all its
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
39
surface and what is under it that can be got out. Now, is
the soil of England in that respect any greater than it was
in the reign of 'William the Conqueror ? On the contrary,
some miles of coast on the east have been washed away by the
sea. (Laughter.) But it is true that the capital has increased
a thousandfold. Mrs. Besant says she cannot understand
that, but if the fact is true, not understanding it will not
alter it. The explanation is not so difficult. There is so
much raw material got somehow from the land, either
from plants, or from animals that consume the vegetation,
or from the surface of the ground, or from the bowels of
the earth. Now that raw material so worked might be
consumed the very same year, or a portion of it might be
kept over for further production. That amount so kept
over goes on accumulating—the abstinence of each genera
tion from consumption causes an accumulation of capital.
And that process goes on to an extent which is practically
illimitable; although at any one moment it is determined.
If that explanation does not make it clear, my power to do
so fails me.
Mrs. Besant says it is not true that the workman can
emancipate himself. I say it is. That is the grand dis
tinction between us to-night. She wants to call in an
omnipotent State to provide the brains which we have
not got, to provide the moral cohesion which we have
not got. But where is it to come from ? When we have
the moral cohesion, when we have the intellectual capacity,
we can join together. We do not want to wait for the mil
lennium. Any Trades Union could, if it had the necessary
mental and moral qualities, begin co-operative production
to-morrow. When we are sufficiently advanced we shall
go in the right direction, and the workers will find in
voluntary co-operation the way to elevate themselves from
the dependence of the wage system. But until we are
sufficiently advanced we must not expect the reward, and
no social mechanism will ever supply us with the qualities
we lack. (Cheers.)
A vote of thanks, proposed by Mr. Eoote and seconded
by Mrs. Besant, having been accorded the chairman, the
debate was adj ourned.
�40
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
SECOND NIGHT.
Mr. Arthur B. Moss
in the
Chair.
The Chairman : Friends, to-night we are to listen to
the second instalment of this interesting and instructive
discussion on Socialism. Mr. Foote will open the proceed
ings with a speech of half-an-hour’s duration. Mrs.
Besant will follow with a speech of the same length.
There will then be two subsequent speeches of a quarter
of an hour for each disputant, and that will terminate the
proceedings. As I know from personal experience that
audiences who assemble in this hall are for the most part
trained listeners, I have only to ask you to give to the
consideration of the subject all the attention which the
importance of it undoubtedly demands. I have great
pleasure in calling upon Mr. Foote to open the discussion.
(Cheers.)
Mr. Foote : Mr. Chairman, ladies, and gentlemen, in
opening this discussion to-night I have the opportunity of
settling the lines upon which it is to go. I am glad of the
opportunity, because it is highly necessary not only that I
should be able to reply to what Mrs. Besant advances on
behalf of Socialism, but that I should also be able to urge
objections against it in my own fashion, which she will
have to reply to in return. First of all, let me say—not
for the instruction of all, but for the instruction of some—
that Socialism is by no means a new thing. Almost all the
Socialistic pills that are prescribed in our age have been
tried by the human race again and again in various stages
of its career. The peculiar American sect of Free Lovers,
for instance, is only teaching something which was taught
long, long ago, which is always tried more or less as
society is in a low condition, and is always left behind as
society advances into what is called civilisation. So it is
with Socialism.
What is, after all, the essence of
Socialism ? It is the omnipotence of the State : the de
claration that the State is rightly lord of all, that no
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
41
citizen has any rights excepting those which the State
allows him, and that even the family itself only exists by
the toleration of the State. If that is the essence of
Socialism, it is to be found amongst savages, amongst bar
barian nations, and is still to be found amongst peoples
in Oriental lands. An extreme instance of it was found
in ancient Peru, where everything was managed by State
officials, and where every department of the life of the
citizen was absolutely under the control of those who were
in authority. (Hear, hear.) There is, then, nothing new
in Socialism. Further, ever since Christianity had any
power Socialism has been a commonplace of its teaching.
I am not here for the purpose of dealing with theology,
but simply to deal with the relation of the system to social
matters. Mrs. Besant kindly drew my attention, in fur
nishing me with a list of books she would use, to two
articles by Emile de Laveleye, one in the Fortnightly
Review and one in the Contemporary Review, both for the
same month of April, 1883. I was exceedingly glad of
the references, because they had very naturally escaped
my attention, having been published at a time when,
owing to the law of the majority, which of course is
supreme, I was secluded for my country’s good. (Laughter.)
Now Laveleye, in the second of those articles, cannot
understand why Socialists reject Christianity, which ad
mits a great deal of their claims, and accept Darwinianism,
which denies the very equality they urge. He says,
“ Christianity condemns riches and inequality with a
vehemence nowhere surpassed” ; and (on page 565), after
citing a long and eloquent passage from Bossuet, a great
French divine, he gives the following brief quotations
from the early Christian Fathers. “The rich,” says St.
Basil, “ are thieves ”. St. Chrysostom says, “ the rich are
brigands. Some sort of equality must be established by
their distributing to the poor of their abundance ; but it
would be preferable if everything were in common ”. St.
Jerome says, “ opulence is always the result of a theft; if
not committed by the actual possessor, it has been the
work of his ancestors”. (Cheers.) I am glad to see so
many Socialists in accord with these early Christian
Fathers. (Laughter.) St. Clement says, “ H justice were
enforced there would be a general division of property”.
Mrs. Besant must, of course, be also aware that the
�42
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
founder of Christianity taught the precept, “ Sell all that
thou hast and give to the poor”. She must be further
aware that the early Christian Church practised Com
munism ; but as soon as it grew large—as soon as the
fanatical bond of the small community was broken—this
teaching had to be relinquished in the interest of the very
order itself. (Hear, hear.)
Again, we have had no dearth of paper Utopias—from
Plato, whose Republic is a classic, down to Gronlund, the
American writer, whose “ Social Commonwealth ” I referred
to as a sort of New Testament for Socialists. If you
invest ninepence in one of Routledge’s shilling series, you
will get a little collection of more modern Utopias than
Plato’s, beginning with Sir Thomas More, going on to Lord
Bacon, and ending with Thomas Campanella, whose “ City
of the Sun ” has some affinities with More’s work, and
also some differences, which I have not time to dilate upon
now. In more recent times still we have had the Utopian
schemes of Owen, Fourier, and St. Simon; and essentially
Utopian schemes even by men like Comte. Then there
have been attempts to reduce their teachings to practice in
France, in England, and in America. Curiously enough,
in every case, unless the community was held together by
some bond of religious bigotry, or fanaticism, or as I should
sometimes prefer to say, of sheer imbecility, they have
always broken up and had to resolve themselves into the
general competitive system of mankind. (Cheers.)
While it is perfectly true that many noble natures have
been attracted by Socialistic Utopias, it is also a fact that
a very different class of persons are attracted by them.
Horace Greeley, who at one time belonged to a Socialist
community in America, and who after he ceased to be a
practical Socialist assisted some Socialist communities with
his money, wrote from bitter experience as follows : “A
serious obstacle to the success of every Socialistic experi
ment must always be confronted. I allude to the kind of
persons who are naturally attracted to it. Along with
many noble and lofty souls, whose impulses are purely
philanthropic, and who are willing to labor and suffer
reproach for any cause that promises to benefit mankind,
there throng scores of whom the world is quite worthy—
the conceited, the crotchety, the selfish, the headstrong, the
pugnacious, the unappreciated, the played-out, the idle,
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
43
and the good-for-nothing generally; who, finding them
selves utterly out of place and at a discount in the world
as it is, rashly conclude that they are exactly fitted for the
world as it ought to be.” (Laughter.) There cannot be
any doubt in the minds of those who know Mrs. Besant
that she belongs to the first and better class of those
whom Greeley mentions. (Cheers.) But I am decidedly
of opinion that even in England there is a large contingent
of the second class. Watching the antics of some of the
more forward class of Socialists, who do not follow the
example of the Fabians, but go out into the streets and
advertise themselves lustily, I am inclined to think that
Horace Greeley wrote from a very accurate and very painful
observation of Socialists and of mankind. (A. voice:
“Apply it to yourself”.) Socialism I urge, is really a
case of recrudescence. In my opinion it might be described
as economical atavism. In our country, curiously enough,
every time there is acute distress, Socialism comes to the
front, and every time the distress disappears it recedes
until it becomes invisible. (Hear, hear.) If the trade
of England improves—and it has shown signs lately of
improving—the probability is that Socialism will have to
wait until distress is again acute. (“No, no.”) I know
that some Socialists think differently, but that is my
opinion and as I am in possession of the platform I shall
say just what I think—(cheers)—and it will be well to leave
Mrs. Besant the opportunity as well as the right of replying
to me. (Cheers.)
In defining Socialism last Wednesday, Mrs. Besant said
that you might take the definition of Proudhon. Now
Proudhon was certainly a writer of great power, and
nobody can read his writings without feeling that he lived
habitually in a lofty moral atmosphere ; but it would be
as well, if we are to judge of his economics, to take his own
definition of property. La propriete c'est le vol, he says :—
“ Property is theft ”. I do not know whether Mrs. Besant
accepts that definition of property ; if not, I do not know
why Proudhon was referred to at all. But really Mrs.
Besant’s definition comes to much the same thing. She
says that “ Socialism teaches that there should be no
private property in the materials used in the production
of wealth”. That is, not only the land, but also the
capital of the country is to be appropriated by the State.
�. 44
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
(Hear, hear.) I deny that such a definition leaves any
right of private property at all. (Hear, hear.) I deny
the possibility of any separation of wealth into two classes
—one capital and the other simply wealth. Every particle
of wealth is capable of being used as capital for the pro
duction of fresh wealth. The line is arbitrary. Only a
certain amount of wealth is used as capital at a certain
time, but the whole is capable of being so used. Mrs.
Besant’s definition would result in the complete abolition
of private property, a result which, I think, Socialism must
eventually come to if we accept it. I agree with Mr.
Bradlaugh in saying that no definition of Socialism is
accurate except that which includes the abolition of private
property. Any other definition is divided from this by a
thin sheet of tissue paper, which probably is set up in
order that we may not see all that Socialism means, and
thus be led to accept its best side without seeing its worst
side, which is inseparably connected with it. (Cheers.)
Now, how is capital to be appropriated by the State ?
I said last Wednesday that we not only want to know
what Socialists propose to do, but how they propose to do
it. If a man wants me to go to Manchester, it is a
matter of importance to me to know whether he wants
me to go on a bicycle, by train, by stage-coach, or
to fly. Unless he goes my way, I shall not go his
way. Now, how is this appropriation to be made ?
Mrs. Besant says it will be taken somehow, but she does
not tell us how. I should like to know how it is to be
done. Our friends of the Social Democratic Federation
say, for instance, of railways, that they are to be appro
priated by the State “with or without compensation”.
(Cheers.) Now that implies that “with or without” are
equally right, and if it be right to appropriate with
out compensation what utter fools they must be to
include the possibility of compensation. (Cheers.) I
submit that we have no right to deal with interests
that have been allowed by law without compensation.
(Cheers.) Of course, if Socialists say, as Gronlund does,
that the State has a right to do everything; if they
urge that there are no rights antecedent to the State,
and that there are no rights which are inviolable by the
State ; there is nothing more to be said. That, however,
is not my philosophy, nor, if I read mankind aright, is
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
45
that the philosophy of mankind. All of us recognise that
there are personal rights over which the State has no just
control or authority. Mrs. Besant recognises it every day
of her life. Mrs. Besant stands every day of her life in
opposition to the declared law of the land. Mrs. Besant
writes and prints and publishes what, according to the
law, is illegal. She justifies by her conduct—and I, of
course, quite approve of the position she takes up—the
principle that there are imprescriptible rights of mankind,
which altogether transcend the power of the State, whether
the power be exercised by a single despot or by a multi
tude that transforms itself into a despotism. (Cheers.)
One of the French Socialists, called Clement Duval, an
Anarchist, who is now unfortunately paying the penalty
of his mistakes in a prison—(cheers)—he has evidently
two or three friends here who, I hope, will never share his
fate—committed a burglary at the house of a widow lady,
abstracted money that did not belong to him, and stood by
while his comrade set fire to the house. That looks like
an ordinary case of ruffianism. When a man profits by
his theories in this way, it certainly looks as though self
interest had a great influence among some Socialists.
But on his trial Duval said: “I declare from my
point of view I am not a thief. Nature, in creating
man, gives him a right to existence, and he is justified
in availing himself of it. If society does not supply
him with the means of living he is entitled to take what
he requires.” (Cheers). He did not, however, quite
approve of the house being set on fire, whereupon his
comrade reproached him by saying : “ Then you are not a
true Anarchist”, to which he answered: “lam. Why
burn down houses which, after the great revolution, will
afford shelter to the workers ? ” (Cheers.) I am pained
to think that robbery by individuals like this can find
any justification. (Hear, hear.) Do our Socialist friends
propose to carry this right through ? Do they propose to
do by a majority what many of them would censure when
done by an individual ? If an individual had no right to
help himself, what right has the majority to help itself ? I
do not believe that majorities have a right to do anything
they like—(hear, hear)—although I admit that their power
to do so is unquestioned. I say that the majority have
only the right to act within the lines of those purposes for
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
which, all society is formed. All society is, in my opinion,
formed for the protection of life, of liberty, and of property.
(Cheers.) Gronlund says: “We shall not trouble our
selves overmuch about compensation ”. Mrs. Besant does
not, so far as I know, give her views on that point at all.
I beg her to-night to give us some idea of how she would
have the State appropriate the possessions of private indi
viduals. (Cheers.)
The motive of this appropriation is the redress of poverty.
Assuredly poverty should be redressed if possible. (Hear,
hear.) And assuredly poverty is being redressed. (Cries
of “ Oh, oh,” and Hear, hear.) Now I am quite prepared
for the “oh’s,” and I will give the “oh’s” a few facts
which they can digest at leisure. Birst of all the removal
of ignorance is one means .for the redress of poverty.
(Cheers.) In my opinion ignorance is simply the mother
of all the preventible ills that human flesh is heir to.
(Hear, hear.) In 1851 in England (excluding Scotland
and Ireland) there were 239,000 children at school; in
1881 there were 2,863,000 at school. (Cheers.) Look for
a moment at the statistics of crime. In 1839 there were
24,000 prisoners committed for trial in England, and in
1881 there were only 15,000, although the population had
largely increased. Now look at the statistics of pauperism.
In 1849—from which date our statistics become accurate—
there were 934,000 paupers in England; in 1881 there
were 803,000—that is, a decrease of 131,000, although in
the interval there had been a large increase in the popula
tion. (Hear, hear.) In the whole of the United Kingdom
in 1849 there were 1,676,000 paupers, but in 1881 there
were only 1,014,000. Now look at another class of figures.
In 1831 there were 429,000 depositors in our savings
banks, and the amount of their deposits was £13,719,000.
In 1881 the number of the depositors had increased to
4,140,000, and the amount of the deposits had increased to
£80,334,000. (Cheers.) In 1862 there were 90,000 members
of co-operative societies with a paid-up capital of £428,000,
and annual sales of £2,333,000. In 1881 there were
525,000 members, with a paid-up capital of £5,881,000,
and total sales of £20,901,000. (Cheers.) In the various
building societies in the country there were as many as
500,000 members. (Hear, hear.) Now these statistics are
facts. They are not fancies. They are not Individualistic
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
47
dreams to set against Socialistic dreams. They are things
that have already happened. If this accumulation of wealth
—this saving practically by the working classes—has been
effected during the last twenty or thirty years, what reason
is there for supposing that the improvement may not
go on with accumulating power, gathering momentum as
it goes, until by self-help, and personal thrift, and the
sense of individual responsibility, the social problem is
solved on the lines of Individualism—without transform
ing the State into an almighty and omnipresent tyrant,
ruling every person and everything with a rod of iron ?
(Cheers.)
If Socialism were inaugurated, you would not settle
the question. It is only the few in every generation who
do the forward work. The mass simply mark time. It is
the few who go ahead and point the way. When they
have convinced the rest by experience, when their ideas
are proved to be true, the rest take advantage of the
demonstration and join them. (Hear, hear.) Mrs. Besant
complained that the great instrument of Individualism is
cut-throat competition. There is an old adage that if you
give a dog a bad name, that is sufficient to secure his
destruction. Now why cut-throat? Of course it makes
competition look ugly. It suggests a razor and blood.
But why not say simply “competition”. Competition
may be a very bad thing for those who cannot keep up.
It does not follow that it is for those who can. Competi
tion may be a bad thing for a man who runs in a race and
loses ; but it is not so bad a thing for the man in front.
(Hear, hear, and laughter.) And unless you are going to
abolish all competition, which Mrs. Besant proposes to do ;
unless you are going to remove it as she proposes from
every department of human life ; I do not see how you can
object to the principle at all. (Hear, hear.) John Stuart
Mill who, although, according to Mrs. Besant, he is a
discredited economist, is not by any means a discredited
thinker—for his writings will probably live when both
Mrs. Besant and myself are forgotten-—John Stuart Mill
says:—“Instead of looking upon competition as the
baneful and anti-social principle which it is held to
be by the generality of Socialists, I conceive that,
even in the present state of society and industry,
every restriction of it is an evil, and every extension
�48
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
of it, even if for the time injuriously affecting some
class of laborers, is always an ultimate good”. (Hear,
hear.) I agree with Mill in this. If competition is to
be removed, what do you propose to substitute for it
as a method ? Are you going to base society on pure dis
interestedness ? Gronlund himself, the writer of the New
Testament of Socialism, says: “Morals are not the founda
tion, still less religion. They are the top of our system.
Interest—self-interest—is the foundation, the prime motor, the
mainspring of our actions, so it is, has always been, and
will always be.” Self-interest, then, is to be the mainspring
of our actions even under Socialism. It must be, and I
will tell you why. You may do disinterested actions and
practise generosity—the more the better. But daily life
can only be organised on permanent motives. And the only
permanent motive which will keep the average man at
work, prevent him from idling, and make him thrifty, is
the desire of his own personal advantage—the desire of
the advantage of his own family—without infringing on
the equal right of all others to work for the same ends for
themselves. (Cheers.)
I have a number of other points for Mrs. Besant, but if
she goes over these I shall be satisfied. Meanwhile let
me ask her, above all things, to tell us how she proposes
to carry out the appropriation of all the wealth of the
country by the State. (Hear, hear.) How is it to be
done ? On what principles is it to be conducted ? For
until you tell us that, you are working with one hand
behind your back. Show us the hidden hand. (Cheers.)
Annie Besant, who was received with cheers, said: In
Mr. Foote’s last speech, on Wednesday night, he threw out
a challenge which I was then unable to answer, as I had
no further right of speech; and, with your permission, I
will accept that challenge very briefly before passing on to
the points which were raised in the speech to which we
have listened to-night. Mr. Foote then asked me to ex
plain how we were going to deal under Socialism with
what, he said, were the necessary “ generals” of industry,
and he compared Oliver Cromwell in his generalship of the
army to the best of those men who organised industry, and
who because of their special ability were highly paid.
I would submit to Mr. Foote first that in that comparison
he confused two things, which are very different—the
�49
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
wages paid for exceptional ability and the interest paid for
the use of capital held by idlers. It is not wise to mix up
different things in that fashion if you desire to seek clear
ness of thought. Wages for exceptional ability might
exist under Socialism, where the interest for capital was
abolished as a payment to idle individuals. Not only so,
but it must be also remembered as to generalship
that history tells us that the greatest generals were not
those who were attracted merely by high pay ; and I read
Oliver Cromwell’s character very badly if he was moved to
his devotion to his country by the hope of the cash pay
ment that he might receive, and not by his enthusiasm for
the cause which he thought was the nobler cause at that
time in England. Then Mr. Foote, arguing on the ques
tion of the “tenderness” of capital, asked me what would
have happened in France had Germany destroyed the
canals, and generally the fixed capital of the country.
There would have been a far slower revival of prosperity.
But I desire to reassure Mr. Foote on this head, and to
tell him that when the Socialists take over the land and
capital here they do not propose to destroy, before taking
over, the canals and fixed plant, but to keep them for the
benefit of the people to work with, so that they shall start
with the advantage of the past accumulation, and use it
for the facilitation of present and future labour. (Cheers.)
Then Mr. Foote challenged me on the question of the rate
of wages. Here I am obliged to go over the point very
quickly, and I would suggest to Mr. Foote that in dealing
with Mr. Giffen’s figures there are certain points he over
looked. Mr. Foote stated that the wages of skilled labor
had risen 100 per cent., and that that of the other
forms of labor had risen 50 per cent., and he asked
me to explain the cause of that. But Mir. Foote did not
state that which Mr. Giffen put with great frankness—
that his figures were, to a considerable extent, guess-work
rather than absolute certainty. His statement was that un
fortunately there was no account drawn up that would give
full statistics on the question save from the date of about
fifteen or sixteen years ago, and he explained that in dealing
with this matter, he was dealing with figures drawn from local
trades and then he takes from these an average which he
admits himself might not be really accurate. (Hear, hear.)
He then goes on to say that the wages have risen variously
E
�50
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
from 20 per cent, up to 50 and 100 per cent. And after
he has admitted that variation of percentages, for the rest
of his pamphlet he speaks of the rate of wage as having
doubled. Instead of taking into account the small increase
of 20 per cent, he takes the highest percentage for the
purpose of his argument, and uses that as if valid for the
whole of his argument. But I am willing to admit a
very considerable rise of wages. That has, however, been
largely balanced by the enormous rise of rent. It has also
to some extent been balanced by the very great rise in the
price of meat which is used to a considerable extent in this
country. The rise of rent is simply enormous. If you
take the rent in 1843 it amounted only to £95,000,000 ; if
you take it now it has run up to at least £200,000,000 ;
and if you are going to put the gain of the workers on the
one side, you must take into account the gain of those who
live on the workers on the other side. (Hear, hear.) Nor
is that all. Mr. Giffen himself admits that while wages
have risen in this fashion, the returns from capital have
risen from £188,500,000 to £407,000,000. He admits that
the wages which are paid to the workers among the upper
and middle classes, the wages of the highly paid, have
risen from £154,000,000 to £320,000,000; so that you have
your returns from capital more than doubled ; your returns
of these higher wages more than doubled, and I ask
you with what pretence, after admitting figures of that
sort, can Mr. Giffen say that the whole of the material
advantage of the last fifty years has gone into the pockets
of the manual workers? (Cheers.) But even this is not
all; in order thoroughly to understand how the rise has
come about, you must investigate the surrounding condi
tions, and you will find that you are dealing with a time
when an enormous impetus was given to trade. You are
covering the whole of the time when trade was expanded
by the first rush consequent on the free trade movement.
You are dealing with a. period in which England prac
tically stood alone as the workshop of the world; when
her coal and her iron went everywhere; when she was
the maker of nearly all the improved machinery, and
had nearly all the other nations of the world as her
customers to give her laborers work. All these things
must be taken into consideration when you are dealing
with the rise of wages that, as I admitted, has been con
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
51
siderable. But that is now no longer the case. You have
come to the end of the tether of your prosperity, for other
countries now raise their own coal and produce their own
iron. Your coal and your iron are getting lower down,
and therefore harder to work, while other countries are not
coming to you now as formerly for your machinery. You
used to be the world’s workshop, but you are now com
petitors with other nations; and the result of that is that
as you are competing with men whose wages are lower,
your wages will have to sink to the level of those which
are paid to the worst paid workers in foreign countries.
(Hear, hear.) That is my position. The past was a time
of unexampled prosperity, but that time is over, and now
the share to be divided among the workers is less than
it has been; the workers feel the pinch of poverty, and
that is the problem with which you have to deal at the
present time. Nor still is that all. During the time over
which Mr. Giffen has taken his figures you have had a
growing Socialism with all its advantages. There has
been the great benefit of trades unions, which fifty years
ago were illegal. They were combinations of workmen
struggling together to obtain the legal right of combining,
the right to work with each other for a rise of wages.
Trades unions are essentially Socialistic. (Hear, hear.)
They do away among the members with that competition
of which Mr. Foote is so strong a supporter; they tell the
stronger men not to use their strength for the injury of
their weaker brethren, but to hold together so that the
advantage of the strength may spread over all, and not be
taken by the stronger to the detriment of the weaker.
The same sort of attack as that of the Tories on trades
unionism is now being made on Socialism, and the same
reasons are given for the attack, namely, that trades
unionism was tyrannical, that it held back the stronger,
and tended to equalise the earnings of the more and the less
skilled workers.
There is one other point as to the growing Socialism
that I wish to refer to, and that is the passing of various
Factory Acts, which have practically, to a certain extent,
limited the power of plunder of the propertied classes.
These Acts, which came between the capitalist and the
worker limiting the hours to a considerable extent, have,
by their influence on public opinion, even limited the hours
n2
�52
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
of labor in places outside the statutory scope. You have
the whole of these matters operating on this question
of the rise of wages, and simply to say that the wages have
risen and to leave out of consideration everything that has
been a factor in that rise, is really not to go to the
root of the question, but to deal with it with absolute
superficiality. And I contend that these figures are used
against the workers in a fashion that even Mr. Griffen—
holding a brief for the capitalist as he said he was accused
of doing—would have been ashamed to use them. (Hear,
hear.) I will conclude this brief answer to Mr. Foote’s
challenge by reminding him of that which of course he
must know, the relative position of workers and of capital
ists in the matter of increased incomes. He submitted to
you figures as to the rise of incomes amongst the poor folk.
Why not have laid some stress on the enormous rise of
incomes amongst the wealthier persons as well ? Why not
have told us of the fortunes of £50,000 and upwards, that
whereas there were only eight of these in 1843, there were
sixty-eight in 1880 ? Why not have told us that the
fortunes ranging from £1,000 to £5,000 have enormously
increased during that time, having risen from 6,328 in 1843
to 15,671 in 1879-80? Why did he only lay stress upon
the increase of small incomes and not on the increase in
the large incomes? and why not have pointed out that,
according to Mr. Giffen, you will find that out of sixteen
and a half millions of different incomes, there are only one
and a half millions over £150 a year ? Why not also have
pointed to the shocking extravagance that has been one of
the signs of that fifty years’ growth, and the shameful
luxury and waste which have characterised the aristocracy
of wealth ? And why not have cast one thought towards a
point of serious importance in dealing with the possibility
of change—to that wise remark of De Tocqueville, that the
French made their Revolution when their condition was
improving ? He suggested that people do not rise in revolt
when crushed down by hopeless misery, but that it is as
they improve, as their position gets somewhat higher, as
they have hope in their life, that then it is the hope that
sometimes pushes them into the revolution which they
would never have dreamt of making in their days of utter
degradation. (Cheers.)
I pass from that to deal with the speech of to-night.
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
53
Mr. Foote says Socialism is old. So is man. But it does
not necessarily follow that because a thing has been long
in the world it is bad. (Hear, hear.) How ought history
to be used ? History is the record of the experiences of
our race. Are we to read it only to abuse our ancestors
and to say what fools they were? Or are we to read it
to learn wisdom from their experience ; to utilise only
what was proved to be right and true, and to avoid
falling into their errors by marking the places where they
stumbled? (Cheers.) Mr. Foote passed on to what he
called the peculiar American sect of “Free Love”. . I
fail to understand why any mention of that sect was in
troduced into this debate. (Hear, hear.) It has nothing
to do with our discussion. The phrase “free love”
raises in England a very bitter feeling, largely because
the views implied by it are not sufficiently understood.
And I quite fail to understand—and Mr. Foote did not
give us any explanation—why he dragged that particular
sect into a discussion on the question “ Is Socialism Sound? ”
(Cheers.) Mr. Foote says that Socialism is the character
istic of a low state of civilisation ; and to some extent it is
true that you will find in the low stages of civilisation a
very crude form of Socialism as well as of Individualism.
(Hear, hear.)- But if it is true that you are to condemn
Socialism because among some tribes of low civilisation you
will find a community of goods, are you then to condemn
Individualism because in some tribes in low stages of civilisa
tion you find it in the crudest form, and see the strongest
man preying upon the weaker and using his imprescriptible
right of eating his neighbor for his dinner ? Because, if
you are going to argue in that way then Socialism and
Individualism are alike to be rejected; where is the path
along which humanity is to walk ? (Cheers.) But Mr.
Foote says that according to Socialism the State is every
thing ; everything is to be done by the State. I cannot
help regretting that Mr. Foote did not define what he
meant by the State. If by the State he means a bureau
cracy ruling over the people, or a despotism like that of
Peru—a despotism in which the workers had no political
or social power whatever, but were merely a class tyran
nised over by an absolute sovereign and a hierarchy of
priests and aristocrats-—then I deny that such a State
has anything to do with Socialism. (Hear, hear.) But
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
if by the State he means the whole of the community
organised for self-government; if he means a society
organised for the good of the whole of society; then I agree
with him that it is of the essence of Socialism that that
organised community shall be supreme over itself. And I
fail to see any difference there can be between the Socialist
and the Radical on this head, when the Socialist says that
the community should be the controller of itself, and the
Radical desires the government of the people, by the people,
and for the people. (Cheers.) We ought not in this discus
sion to merely play with words. (Hear, hear.) We want
to get to facts, and it is necessary for Mr. Foote to define
what he means by the State before I can deal with his
statement as to the tyranny implied.
Then Mr. Foote went off to touch on Christianity, and
stated that ever since Christianity had begun Socialism
was a part of it. But this need not be any accusation against
Socialism, since he also says that it existed long before
Christianity was in existence, and it was very likely to be
partly taken into Christianity when Christianity became
one of the religions of the world. It is possible that if I
had lived in those times I might have approved of some of
the doctrines which were put forward by those fathers of
the Church which Mr. Foote quoted. (Hear, hear.) And
if Christianity walked on the same lines as Socialism then
Socialists would be willing to welcome it on these points
of agreement, as they are willing to-day to welcome
Christians as workers for this common purpose. (Hear,
hear.) But if we are to bring theology into this discussion,
it is as well to remember that Jesus Christ not only said,
“ Sell all that thou hast and give to the poor ”, but also,
“ Blessed be ye poor ”, and that Socialism considers as an
absolute curse that poverty which the founder of Chris
tianity is said to have blessed. But will it not be wiser to
try and deal with the thing itself rather than say whether
or not it enters into a religion to which both Mr. Foote and
myself are known to be antagonistic, and which can hardly
be introduced here without unfairly prejudicing the view
I am advocating? (Hear, hear.) I pass from this about
Christianity to the statement that many Utopian schemes
of Socialism have been suggested in the past. That is so.
Is it wonderful that men, grieving sorely at the sorrow of
their present, should strive to picture some nobler life on
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND
55
earth, where the sorrow and the misery should have passed
away ? (Cheers.) Remember it was the noblest men who
did this. Utopian dreamers or not, they were the nobler
outcome of humanity. All who long for a nobler life on
earth must at times dream of some Utopia. (Hear, hear.)
And it was better to have noble dreams even, than to rest
satisfied with the brutal gratifications of gain and greed.
Is it therefore, because some have made their Utopias too
perfect, that we shall not strive to realise something better
than the Pandemonium we have now ? (Cheers.) But Mr.
Poote says they were not only Utopian, but that many of
those who have started Socialistic experiments were only
held together by the bands of fanaticism, or religion, or
by sheer imbecility. I am not so sure that the desire of
persons to make a life of brotherhood—although imperfectly
carried out—should be characterised as an attempt in which
they were only held by sheer imbecility. (Cheers.) And I
doubt whether the use of words such as that will lead us to
any satisfactory result in this debate. (Hear, hear.) Mr.
Poote said that some of the nobler minds now approve of
Socialism, and that large numbers of the ignorant and the
poor also join them from baser motives, and he was kind
enough to say that I was one of the dreamers of the former
class, while he put the mass of Socialists in the other. He
also said that many of the members of the Social Demo
cratic Federation were going into the streets to advertise
themselves. And is it in this hall—the hall which is the
very centre in London of Preethought, of aggressive
Radicalism—that the going out into the streets to reach
the poor is to be pointed and scoffed at as being an un
worthy attempt at self-advertisement? (Cheers.) How
else are we to reach many of the poor? Mr. Poote may
say that I do not go out street-preaching. It is true I do
not speak in the streets, because I have not the physical
strength, and because I believe that the work I do is more
useful when I speak in this hall and elsewhere, and when
I use my pen—(cheers)—then if I did work others can do
more effectively. But if. there were no others to do the
street-work—if there were no Socialists able and willing to
do it—then would I too take my share in it and speak in
the streets. (Cheers, and cries of “Bravo”.) But whilst
there are others willing to do it, and whilst they are also
willing that I should do the other part of the work for
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
which I am more fitted, I will not scoff at them because
some of them may not always be wise in their speech, be
cause some may be even reckless in their utterances.
(Hear, hear.) I will thank them, despite even their
recklessness and their passion, for that they at least
see the evil of the present, and long for some nobler and
better form of brotherhood, instead of the struggle in which
the weaker are trampled out of life. (Cheers.)
M e are next told that Socialism is a symptom of distress,
and there is truth in that. The desire to make things
better comes from the recognition of the sufferings of
others. While everything goes on smoothly and easily, it
is quite possible that men’s minds may not turn towards
a change. But I think that trade depression has lasted
quite long enough to teach the lesson of Socialism, and
that the lesson being learned that poverty must grow out
of the form of proprietorship to which Socialists object, an
improvement in trade will only make the workers stronger
to effect the necessary change. (Cheers.)
I am a little surprised at—if Mr. Foote will pardon methe phrase—what seems to me Mr. Foote’s somewhat rough
and inaccurate translation of Proudhon’s phrase “la pro
priety c'est le vol”, as “property is theft”. Mr. Foote, is,
I know, well acquainted with the French language, and he
will bear me out in saying that “property ” in the English
sense is not the equivalent of “propriete” in the French.
A Frenchman would no more speak of his hat or his stick
as his “propriete” than an Englishman would say that
similar articles were his “estate”. In fact, the word
estate is a nearer equivalent for “propriete”, and it is
used for land, or for wealth in a wide sense, not for the
personal property of individuals in small articles. I put
this, not as agreeing with Proudhon, but as doing him
justice in a matter in which he is very generally misunder
stood. (Hear, hear.) As to Mr. Foote’s remark that my
presentation of the Socialist arguments is designed to hide
the bad side of my case, I cannot help thinking that the
debate will proceed more smoothly if such imputations be
omitted. The distinction that I made between wealth in
general, and wealth which is set apart for purposes of pro
duction, is not a distinction invented by myself, but is one
which is made by every political economist. There is a
very wide distinction between the ownership by the com
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
57
munity of land and capital, that is, of the raw and wrought
materials for the production of wealth, and the enjoyment
by individuals of their share of the products of labor. It
is perfectly possible to have public property in the one
existing simultaneously with private property in the other.
(Cheers.) Mr. Foote, as a land nationaliser, is face to face
with a similar difficulty with respect to the land. He
surely thinks that a man might pay rent to the State, and
yet remain owner of a vegetable he had raised on State
land. That is, that there might be public property in the
material for wealth production, and private property in the
wealth produced. Then why might not the distinction be
equally maintained between public property in capital, and
private in the products of labor when once they had been
acquired? The difficulty is of words not of things, and
affects all change in the ownership of raw, as much as it
does change in the ownership of wrought, material. Ought
I then to say to Mr. Foote, in his own words, that
his argument was a sheet of “thin tissue paper” in
tended to hide the true state of his case ? (Laughter and
applause.)
In my next speech I will say something on the possible
methods of appropriation of the material we claim for
society, though on questions of method there is much
divergence of opinion among Socialists, and in dealing
with them I can give only my personal views. Let me, in
conclusion, express my dissent from the doctrine of the
natural, or imprescriptible rights of man. These supposed
rights have no historical basis, they have no answering
realities in life. The natural right of a man is to grab as
much as he can, and to hold all he can grab as long as he
can. “The spoils to the victor” is the natural law.
Rights were not anterior to society, but grew slowly out
of society. They grew out of the desire of each to be safe
and free from oppression, and from the union of many to
restrain the aggressor, from public opinion codified as law.
Anterior to society and to law there were no rights. The
doctrine is an idle metaphysical theory, and what we now
call the “ rights of man ” are those conditions which bn man
experience has shown to be most conducive to happiness.
The idea of a “ right ” has been slowly evolved in, slowly
recognised by, society, and society exists to secure these
rights for the weaker, who can only obtain them by law,
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IS SOCIALISM SOW ?
and to guard for all those advantages which are naturally
enjoyed only by the strong. (Loud applause.)
Mr. Foote : Mrs. Besant seems to have perverted many
things I said, or perhaps she misunderstood them. A little
sense of humor would have prevented these blunders. Mrs.
Besant might, for instance, have seen that I was speaking
as euphemistically as I could of the Social Democratic.
Federation ; that I meant a good deal more than I said,
but I did not care to use strong language. Since I must
speak plainly, however, to make myself properly understood,
I will do so at once. I did not complain simply because the
more eager Socialists went into the streets. Mrs. Besant
says she would go into the streets and speak herself if there
were no others to do the work. Well, I have gone into the
streets. (Cheers.) I have done it repeatedly, and when the
summer months come round I shall probably do it again.
(Applause). But I have never assembled men and led
them to places of worship, where neither they nor I have
any business. (Hisses and cheers.) I have strongly op
posed the teaching given in such places, but I have no right
to obtrude my opinions there. (Hear, hear.) bl or have I
ever sought to gain a hearing by appealing to the basest
passion of the human mind, the passion of envy. (Hear,
hear.) I have never addressed half-starved men, or men
out of work, in such a way as would encourage them to
■commit offences which the law would punish; nor after
wards, when brought before a jury, have .1 pitifully
pleaded “ It was not I that did it ”. (Loud and repeated
applause, hisses, and cries of “order”.) I have stood
before juries, and I may have to do so again. Who knows ?
What has happened may happen once more. But what
ever I may be tried for, in the matter of advocacy of
opinion, I shall, as before, defend what I have done.
(Loud applause.)
Mrs. Besant says I mistranslated the sentence I quoted
from Proudhon. But I had at least the honesty to give
the French original before I gave my translation. It is
impossible to translate with absolute precision from one
language into another, especially in the case of two
such different languages as the French and English. I
might have said “Owning is theft”, or “Ownership is
theft”—which is perhaps the nearest translation. But
really, what difference is there between that and “Pro
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
59
perty is theft?”. It is simply a quarrel about words.
(Hear, hear).
Mrs. Besant also said I was unfortunate in my reference
to Cromwell. But was I ? It is true he did not work
simply for mercenary motives, but there was in him a mix
ture of regard for his own interest. Cromwell did not
refuse substantial rewards. He was exceedingly well paid
for what he did. He had something like £10,000 a year,
a palace to live in, and many acres of confiscated royalist
estates. I do not deny Cromwell’s earnestness, but I say
it was not unalloyed; and there are other generals who
would be patriots on the same terms. (Cheers.)
Again, I adhere to all I said about the destruction of
French capital by the Germans. They did not destroy the
permanent capital of the country, but only some of its
floating capital, and that chiefly food. In fact, they merely
helped to consume what the French would otherwise have
consumed by themselves. When the French were left in
peace with their railways, docks, canals, fields, houses,
and machinery, all they had to do was to go on working as
before, and the replacement of floating capital was an easy
task. (Hear, hear.)
I have been accused by Mrs. Besant of not representing
Mr. Giffen fairly. Well, Mr. Giffen gives a great
quantity of figures, and I could only select what suited my
purpose. With respect, however, to the proportion of the
national income taken by labor as against capital, Mr.
Giffen distinctly says that he has, if anything, understated
it. I am also aware that he says the early figures are not
quite satisfactory. But they are satisfactory as far as they
go. Mr. Giffen takes the actual wages, for instance, of
many parts of the country. They are numerous and far
apart, so that he gets a very fair average. How otherwise
would you have him proceed ? (Hear, hear.) Mrs. Besant
says that Mr. Giffen holds a brief for the capitalists. I
don’t quite see it. But suppose he does; might I not
reply that Mrs. Besant holds a brief for the Socialists ?
(Hear, hear.) It seems that we must listen to nothing
here but Socialist facts, and”by a judicious selection and a
judicious use they may be made to prove anything.
(Cheers.) If Mr. Giffen’s figures are wrong, let the
Socialists furnish other figures that are right and that
will controvert his. (Cheers.)
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
Mrs. Besant said that trade unions are carried out on
Socialistic lines. But is thst so ? Any member of a trade
union may leave it to-morrow if he chooses. But if you
socialise everything, the only way to leave it will be to go
to another planet. (Laughter.) Then trade unions do
not prescribe an absolute uniformity of wage, but only a
minimum, and even that breaks down where piece-work
is taken. The reason of the uniform minimum is obvious.
Trade unions are to some extent fighting organisations,
and under a fighting system you must submit to the com
mon law of the machine, otherwise united action in warfare
would be impossible. But I maintain that if it were not
for that necessity there would be nothing like uniformity
of wage, and the men themselves would reject it. The
tailors’ establishment at Clichy started by Louis Blanc,
despite his sentimentalism, gave up equal payment. It
was found to be unworkable. The men would not put up
with it. In the great house of Leclaire, which is worked
on the co-partnership principle, the men would laugh at
you if you suggested that they should all have the same
wages. The difference in the skill and application to the
work makes all the difference in the result of the man’s
labor, and, as Mrs. Besant says everyone should have the
result of his labor, why should not everyone in the ideal
state of things have the wage for which he honorably
works and which he has actually earned? (Applause.)
It is not fair to say that I did not refer to the increased
incomes of the rich during the last fifty years. I stated
that the rate of the working men’s wages had increased
during the last fifty years to counteract Mrs. Besant’s
picture of the gradual deterioration of the workman and
the poverty in which he was found now. Next, Mrs.
Besant wishes me to give her an explanation of how the
land is to be nationalised without falling into the very
evils which she will fall into with her nationalisation of
capital. I dealt with that last Wednesday, when I stated
that if land were to be nationalised, the use of it would
would have to be paid for as now. There would be com
petition amongst those who wanted to use the land, and
those able to give the best rent would get it. But there
would be this difference—that rent, when paid by the in
dividual cultivators of the soil, competing against each
other in the open market, instead of often going as un
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
61
earned increment into the pockets of the absolute idlers,
who do not co-operate to produce the general result, would
go into the national exchequer, for the benefit of all.
(Cheers.)
What is the State ? asks Mrs. Besant. The State, always
and everywhere, is a body of men appointed by other men,
or self-elected, or coming in by what is called hereditary
right, to manage the affairs of the people. (Hear, hear,
and “No, no”.) That is not a State? Then I will ask
Mrs. Besant to give me her definition of a State. I know
what some of you may mean. You may have in your
mind the idea of society. But society, consisting of every
body under the State, is a very different thing. (Hear,
hear.) The State itself is the government of the country,
no matter how it be appointed or held.. It involves coer
cive power. That coercive power is rightfully used for
some things, and is wrongfully used for others. The dif
ference between us is that Mrs. Besant says it rightly
covers everything, while I say it only rightly covers some
things. Against its exercise in some things she rebels,
and I rebel, and every man or woman here also rebels.
(Applause.)
But let us return to our old friend “cut-throat compe
tition”. (Laughter.) Mrs. Besant is, of course, aware of
the fact that we largely depend upon foreign trade. Until
the world is Socialised—and that will be a very long time,
for before you convert the Chinese and the Hindoos, the
Central Asians, the South Americans, and the Central
Africans, a good period must naturally elapse, even under
the most hopeful prospects—(laughter)—we shall have to
depend largely on foreign trade. How are we to hold our
own in that open market of the world where we are noy
obliged to trade, unless we compete with the foreigner in
respect to the prices at which we can offer our goods for
sale ? And if we are obliged to compete as to prices, we
must compete as to labor, and consequently, to that extent
at least, competition is inevitable. (Hear, hear.)
Now, I come to a point which Mrs. Besant did not deal
with, although I invited her to do so last Wednesday, and
that is, What are you going to do with the population
question ? Mrs. Besant says, in her pamphlet on Social
ism, that “Under a Socialist regime the community will
have something to say as to the numbers of the new
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
members that are to be introduced into it
I urge that
the community must say its wordyzrsh All your construc
tion, if you do not settle the population question, is like
erecting castles on the sand of the sea-shore in front of an
advancing tide. (Hear, hear.) It is a peculiarity of
Socialists that they laugh at the population question.
Gronlund says of Malthus that ‘ ‘ This doctrine of his is a
vicious monstrosity, hatched in the saloons of the wealthy,
and flattering to the conscience of the ruling classes, and
therefore it has been so widely accepted”. Mrs. Besant
does not argue thus. She argues quite to the contrary.
The law of population is an absolute fact, and if anyone
cannot see it it shows the deficiency of his sight. If the
State finds everybody with work—and Mrs. Besant holds
it must—the Socialist state, with respect to population,
would be in the same position as a Communistic state;
because, if it cannot provide everyone with work, it must
provide everyone with food ; for, if it takes all the capital
and leaves none for private enterprise, it is bound to fur
nish food for the starving. (Hear, hear.) If you find
everybody with food, how are you going to prevent over
population by those who have no sense of responsibility ?
Under the present system, conjugal prudence and parental
responsibility prompt those who possess them not to pro
duce a larger offspring than they are able to rear, and
they have thus an advantage in the struggle for existence.
I know the struggle is hard. Therefore it is better to
breed from the fit than from the unfit. It is better for
posterity that the stronger should survive than that the
weaker should hand down their weakness to subsequent
generations. (Hear, hear.) Mrs. Besant and her friends
must settle this problem, not after but before they ask us to
inaugurate Socialism. She understands the vital importance
of this point, and I ask her to speak out clearly. She was
never grander than when she defended the right to
publish the truth on this subject. It is one of the regrets
of my life that I misinterpreted her motives, and I take
this public opportunity of saying so. But I also ask her
to be true to the great cause now as she was true to it
then, to champion still the theory of population which she
maintained in the face of danger and in front of the gaol.
(Loud applause.)
Annie Besant : Mr. Foote asks me, How do you pro
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
63
pose to nationalise the land and capital ? and he quotes a
phrase—I think it is from the manifesto of the Social
Democratic Federation—about taking over the railways
“ with or without compensation ”. The phrase is not difficult to understand. If the change be made in peace, it
would be possible to make it with reasonable compensation
to the holders, the unjust holders, of land and capital.
But if the change be made, not by law but by force, then
the question of compensation would be swamped in the
rush of revolution. That is probably what is meant when
the phrase is used “ with or without compensation ”. If
the present holders are wise, then, remembering that
society has made them, and that, unsatisfactory results as
they are, we are responsible for them, we may still keep
them for the remainder of their unprofitable lives ; but if
they are not wise, and set themselves against the people,
then they will have to take their chance in the struggle
which they have provoked. (Hear, hear.) How should
we make the change ? I grant that is a question for dis
cussion. My point, as a Socialist, is to persuade people it
would be a good thing to make the change, and until that
is done all the talk about the methods of doing it is
almost useless. (Cries of “No, no”.) You say no. But
Radicals’ proposals for sweeping changes are open to a
similar objection. Do you mean to say that in dealing
with proposals for change that you do not always first try
to persuade people that change is desirable before going
into the methods ? How many imperfect schemes of nation
alisation of the land are there? The land nationalisers
are not agreed as to the method, although they are agreed
on the principle. (Hear, hear.) Socialists are not agreed
as to the method, although they are agreed that they must
do something to bring that nationalisation about. (Hear,
hear.) My view of the easiest way to do it is to try and
make a reasonable allowance to the present holders of
land and capital, to terminate with their lives. That is.
more than just; it is generous in the extreme. You must
remember that in dealing with human affairs you have not
always the choice between good and evil, but you have to.
choose the lesser of two evils. At the present time a small
class lives idly because they possess these monopolies. It
would be better that that small class should be deprived
of that monopoly without compensation, rather than
�64
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
myriads of the people should continue to live as they live
to-day. (Cheers.) But I do not believe that absolute
confiscation is necessary. I believe we can find a method
by which, with the least possible suffering to any, this
great change can be made. But I say frankly that this
question needs very full and very complete discussion. It
is a question for Socialists to discuss amongst themselves
rather than for Socialists to discuss with their antagonists.
We want to convince you first that it would be well for us
to cross to the other side of the river, and when that is
done we will consult as to the best methods of building
the bridge that will take us over. (Hear, hear.) But, as
I have said before, it may be done simply by making a
number of those persons life-charges on the rents of the
monopolies. I believe it might be done in that fashion
to a large extent. Then the National Debt should be
gradually paid off, so that those who five on the interest of
the National Debt may be got rid of even though it be
done by very considerable taxation. I should not propose
to continue to pay interest, but to pay off the value of
their stock; because I know that when you have once
closed the source of idle living by stopping the interest,
small harm would be done by letting them have what they
originally invested; but you must stop them from levying
a perpetual tax upon industry by the interest which they
are able to draw. I put it to you that these and similar
methods of turning these people into life annuitants is a
practical reasonable way of making the great transition,
and of getting rid, in a generation, of the idle class. I
admit there are many difficulties, but they are not always
insuperable. What is wanted is, first to get the idea clearly
before the people that these monopolies for the few mean
poverty for the many, and that we must use our brains to
discover the best method of destroying them, and so of
striking at the root of our social evils. (Hear, hear.)
After dealing with that point, Mr. Foote went on to the
case of Clement Duval, but I fail to follow his argument.
Clement Duval was said to be an Anarchist, and was
clearly a thief. But is it because a thief calls himself an
Anarchist that Socialism is to be condemned ? If so, as
Individualism produces most of the thieves, Individualism
stands condemned in the same way. (Hear, hear.) And
I must remind you that your legalised thievings breed
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
65
illegal thefts. If a man. like Clement Duval sees a wealthy
man taking wealth that he has not earned, how is he to
distinguish in principle. between the capitalist’s right to
take the wealth he has not earned from the worker, and
his own right to take that for which he gives no equiva
lent from a private house ? If you destroy men’s sense
of honesty by your legalised system of thieving—called
capitalism—you cannot wonder that men, with somewhat
muddled brains, imitate on a small scale what is done on
a large by the leaders of society. (Hear, hear,) Mr.
Foote says that the majority has only the right to protect
life, liberty, and property. But society, in its supreme
right over its members, very often tramples on the whole
of those rights, and I think with the approval, to some
extent, of Mr. Foote himself. What about taking the
life of a man who has committed a murder ? I do not
say it is right. I do not think it is consistent with the
highest morality ; but if society is formed for the protec
tion of life, speaking generally and universally, it seems
strange that the life of man should be taken by society, and
this action seems to support the view that society can claim
supremacy even over the lives of those who are its mem
bers. Mr. Foote says that society defends liberty and
property. Liberty and property are very fine words, but
we complain that the present organised system defends
neither liberty nor property for the majority. We allege
that instead of defending property, it confiscates the property
of the workers, and places it in the hands of those who do
not labor. We allege that it only protects the property of
the rich, and authorises the constant robbery of the poor.
When you are dealing with this question of property, has
it ever struck you to turn to some statistics—not made by
Socialists, but issued by a benevolent Government for the
instruction of its subjects—and to read there that out of
every 1,000 persons who die—I am dealing with the
probate and legacy returns—only thirty-nine leave behind
them £300 worth of personal property, including furniture.
So that, on the whole, the protection of property in our
country is scarcely satisfactory, since it can hardly be con
tended that the worker in a whole life would not have
made more than that to leave behind him when he dies.
And again, when you have the idler who leaves hundreds
and thousands of pounds behind him when he dies,
u
�66
IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
although, he has done nothing, then your view as to the
value of society in protecting property will have to undergo
some modification before being accepted. (Hear, hear.)
I am told that poverty is now redressed, and stress is
laid on the spread of education and on the decrease of
crime, and when Mr. Foote urged that I found myself very
much in agreement with him. The statistics quoted as to
education and diminution of crime are such as we must
all be glad to know ; but as to the decrease of pauperism,
the statistics are not so satisfactory, because we know how
it has been caused; we know that the poor-law officers
have made the conditions of relief much more stringent,
and the taking away of out-door relief has diminished the
number of paupers, in consequence of the shrinking of
the people from going into the workhouse. This has made
the diminution shown by the statistics not so real as it
looks. (Hear, hear.) Then we are told as to the growth of
savings in banks, and so on, and we are asked why not go
on in this particular line. I answer, because if we go on
in this line the masses will continue to get so little and
the few will still get so much ; because although in savings
banks you may get a large sum in the aggregate, if you
work it out and compare it with the number of the popu
lation you will find it amounts to a contemptibly small
amount per head, and even then we have no right to say
that all is the savings of the workers. But still all those
points are points which show some sort of slight improve
ment here and there. But they are balanced by an amount
of misery, by an amount of wretchedness, that surely
should urge us to some method of dividing the nation’s
produce which shall not leave only one-third of it in the
hands of 5,000,000 families, while the remaining twothirds go to 2,000,000 families to keep them in wealth.
(Hear, hear.)
But, Mr. Foote says, why use the phrase, “cut-throat
competition”, and he says it suggests a razor and blood.
But how many of our people are killed out in this struggle
for life ? (Hear, hear.) I speak of cut-throat competition,
and I base that phrase, not on Socialist figures, but on the
report of the Registrar-General, where I find the average
life of the workers is very little more than one half the
average age of the idlers, and it makes no difference to me
in looking at the effect of things whether a man has his
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
life cut short by direct violence, or if his throat is cut by
the razor of semi-starvation carried on during a great part
of his childhood and manhood, sinking him to the grave
sooner by half a life than if he shared the better food and
sanitary conditions of the wealthy class. (Hear, hear.)
Then Mr. Foote made another attack on the Social
Democratic Federation, into which I will not again
follow him, for this debate is on the question, “Is
Socialism Sound?”, not on whether it is wise for persons
to enter a church and hiss at the Queen. Supposing these
things were done over and over again by foolish persons
that does not touch the subject of this debate. (Hear,
hear.) Then Mr. Foote tells me that Oliver Cromwell was
well paid in the end. Mr. Foote will not say that that
payment was Cromwell’s motive in his work. In fact, all
the great works of genius are done because the genius is
there, impelling the man to act. It was not money that
made Mil ton write “ Paradise Lost ”. It is the imperious
faculty in the artist that makes him create, and makes him
find a joy in his creative work. Little cares he whether
money come to him as payment; his payment comes in
men’s love, in men’s gratitude, and the memory they keep
of him ; he knows that the future is his, and herein is his
reward, rather than in the mere cash amount that may be
paid over to him. (Cheers.)
Mr Foote : I have again and again heard Mrs. Besant
say what the facts of life strictly disprove—that men of
genius are simply moved by theijs creative impulse. If
Mrs. Besant went and told the members of the Royal
Academy that they only painted for public applause, they
would probably all laugh at her. Certainly the artist
does like public applause, just as Mr. Gladstone or any
minister of the crown likes public applause. But somehow
they all like to be as well paid as possible too. (Hear,
hear.) Gronlund supposes—and I have heard the same
thing from other Socialists—that it would be absurd to
think of a great man of genius painting or writing for
payment. The name of Raphael was given as one instance,
but Raphael painted for popes and cardinals, and other
men of great eminence and great wealth. It is well to
keep the facts of history before you. (Hear, hear.)
When Mrs. Besant says that the suffering of to-day is a
balance against the improvement that I indicated, she is
f 2
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
also conflicting with the facts of history. I have read some
thing of the history of my country, and Mrs. Besant pro
bably has too. I have also spoken to old men belonging to
the party with which I have the honor to work, up and
down the country in the manufacturing districts, who
remember what was the state of things thirty and forty
years ago, and they corroborate what I have read in the
pages of recent history. If I may trust these reports, the
state of the worker forty years ago was greatly worse than
it is to-day. (Hear, hear.) It is easy enough for a man
who feels the distress to-day to exclaim like mourners are
always apt to do, “Never was grief like unto mine”.
But if you look at the real facts you will find that in your
deepest misery others suffer as greatly; and if you now
suffer from distress, there was greater distress forty years
ago. However, Mrs. Besant says—and true it is—that
poverty is to be redressed. But it does not at all follow
that mere benevolence is likely to redress it. It does not
follow that rash action is likely to redress it. (Hear,
hear.) If a man is in dire agony, it does not follow that
the first half-a-dozen persons who drop in to see him in a
neighborly way, and to sympathise with him, will do him
any good. The surgeon who is called in must keep
his sympathy in the background. He must use his skill
with the utmost callousness. He must not allow his
sympathy to affect his nerves. He must work in the
cold, dry light of the intellect. Unless he does that the
patient will suffer more, from his sympathy than he will
gain from it. So with this great social question. You
cannot eradicate the evils of human nature in a moment
or in a generation. I tell Mrs. Besant she takes too
optimistic a view of human nature. I know there are
heroes in the world, but there are also cowards; there are
wise men, and there are fools; there are Shaksperes,
and there are Silly Billys. (Laughter.) You cannot with
the same old human nature work a new scheme simply
because you have devised it on the strictest rules of
altruism. (Hear, hear.) The same human nature that
produces to-day’s evils will reassert itself. No matter
what your social mechanism is, it will show the same old
fruit. Covetousness will not be abolished by Socialism.
Idleness will not be abolished because the whole com
munity will find work or food. Thrift will not be increased
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
69
because you say that a man should work for all instead of
for himself. (Applause.) If this human nature could be
twisted and turned like dough, and we were to agree that
the most benevolent scheme of the loftiest dreamer should
be put into operation, we might perhaps do some good.
But if it were applied to ordinary human nature it would
not, it could not, work. (Cheers.) Why, if ever a Social
istic experiment could have succeeded, surely it would have
been the Brook Farm in America. Surely it might be
thought that persons like Emerson, Hawthorne, Margaret
Fuller, and the others assembled together in a Socialistic
system, had the wisdom and the lofty nature for the pur
pose. But there was the old human nature in every one
of them. There it was, deeper down than their intellect
and their aspirations, and asserting itself in its own way.
In the end the experiment broke up, as all others have
done, except when supported by fanaticism and religious
bigotry. (Applause.)
Mrs. Besant says that she does not quite understand my
saying that society, or rather the State, exists for the pro
tection of life, liberty, and property. She carefully refrains
from saying a word about liberty. In the last night of
this discussion, when my turn comes to open again, I shall
perhaps have enough to say about liberty, which I believe
Communism, Socialism, or any such system, would crush
from off the face of the earth. (Cheers.) Meanwhile, I
will say that I cannot understand how Mrs. Besant thinks
that hanging a murderer is a violation of the principle that
the State is organised for the protection of life. Why is
the murderer hanged or incarcerated for the rest of his
days ? Because he has taken life; because he has violated
the very principle for which the State is organised. Unless
the State protects the people, you have anarchy instead of
organised society. (Cheers.)
It may, perhaps, be clever, but it is on the whole a little
too clever, to say that the protection of property means
merely the protection of idlers. Are all the members of
building societies idlers ? Are all the men who own—as
many do throughout England—the freehold of their houses,
idlers ? Are all the men who deposit in savings banks,
idlers ? Are all those who have paid money year by year
in fire and life insurance societies, idlers ? (Cries of “ No,
no ”.) You will find that if John Smith thinks the fate of his
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
fifty pounds is bound up with that of the Duke of Bedford’s
millions, he will fight in defence of his own and the Duke’s
too. (Applause.) It is easy enough to under-estimate the
power which is held by those who own small properties in
this country. Socialists may laugh, but the moment they
thought they were in the majority, and tried to put their
proposals into execution, they would find a million bayonets
lifted in defence of property. (Cheers.) The right of
property is not simply a principle that’ covers the idler;
it covers the worker too.
Mrs. Besant allows that we both agree that poverty
should be redressed. Before this debate is over it will be
my duty to show that I am not simply occupying a nega
tive position, although I am doing so to-night. (Hear,
hear.) I will attempt to show that without the Collectivist
system, or any of its dangers, by a gradual and sure
process we can emancipate the worker in the true sense of
the word. Bor what is it he suffers from ? Compe
tition? I say, nonsense I (Hear, hear.) Competition
gives a hard-working man an advantage over a lazy
man. Competition gives a skilful man an advantage over
a man who will not take the trouble to be skilful. What
the worker really suffers from is the subordination of
labour to capital. Aye, and that subordination can be
remedied just in proportion as the workers show that they
possess the moral and intellectual qualifications without
which their emancipation is an impossibility. (Cheers.)
Mrs. Besant has not yet touched the population question.
I want to know how she proposes to deal with it. She says
that under Socialism the necessity of conjugal prudence
would be obvious to the blindest. Why is it not obvious
now, when the parents have to bear the whole responsi
bility, unless the poor-law or private benevolence inter
venes ? How will it be obvious to the blindest when the
whole burden is thrown on collective society ? I did not
make the world, and I am glad of it. I did not lay down
the law of natural selection, and I am glad of it. But
nature has laid it down. It is a sure sign of a fool to
fancy that if you walk and talk round a fact it will change
or vanish. Facts must be met. H you go on breeding
population you must meet the question somewhere. H you
keep all that are not working, or for whom work cannot
be found, you will have the unfit, the scrofulous, the con
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
71
sumptive, the indolent, and the stupid, exactly on a par,
as respects their offspring, with the more capable and
energetic, from whom it would be far better that the race
should be continued. It is better to face these facts
instead of blinking them. (Cheers.)
In concluding my last speech to-night, let me draw your
attention to something curious in Socialism. In every
other system, persons all say “ experiment will show the
thing can be done ”, Why do not the Socialists try an ex
periment and see whether they can manage to succeed.
(A voice: “We are not organised”.) In this world we
do not make discoveries, we do not make inventions, we do
not make any progress, except by the one method of ex
periment. We try fifty or a hundred wrong ways until we
find the right one. By closing the avenues to experiment
with a cut-and-dried universal system, you really block
progress. Instead of doing this, let the Socialists show us
by experiment that Socialism can succeed. Why wait for
the whole world to join you before you make a move ?
Why don’t the Socialists give their scheme a trial on a fair
if modest scale, and show us that they can produce
better results than are obtained under Individualism.
(Cheers.) But Mrs. Besant’s Socialism cannot be practised
tilll the whole world is converted. There never was such
a Gospel before. She invites us all to ascend Mount
Pisgah, or some other height, and view the beauties of the
Socialist promised-land. Some of us think it is nothing
but a mirage, a mere haze on the horizon, or only a dream
of the prophet’s brain. But Mrs. Besant asks us to ascend
with her, and she will provide us with a patent Socialistic
flying-machine. We are not to go on in the old plodding
way, step by step, but we are to try our wings, we are to
fly instead of walking. It will be fortunate for those who
hold back when the flight begins. (Laughter.) There is
only one true method of progress in this world. It is step
by step, line upon line, here a little and there a little.
(Applause.) Pessimism is probably false, and Optimism is
probably false, but there is sound philosophy in Meliorism,
or making things a little better day by day. When Louis
Blanc, after years of sentimentalising, had an opportunity
of doing something after the fall of the Empire, he went
on sentimentalising as before. He kept talking and writ
ing about “the social question ”, until he provoked Gam-
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
betta into saying: “ There is no one social question ; there
are many social questions, and each must be dealt with
when it is ripe”. Every stimulation of the intellect and
higher feelings of the people, every fresh advance in public
education, every new political reform, every gradual im
provement of the relations between labor and capital, every
sure step of the workers in the direction of self-help through
voluntary co-operation, is of more advantage to the world
than all the fanciful Utopias ever spun by metaphysical
spiders. (Loud applause.)
Annie Besant : Let me dispose first of the Royal
Academy. I quite grant that the members of the Royal
Academy paint for money. My words only applied to
geniuses. I quite admit that where you are dealing with
mental ability short of genius, it may be necessary for
some time to come to have some difference of remunera
tion. That is not in any sort of way necessarily antagon
istic to Socialism, and the confusing of the two things may
give a dialectical triumph, but will hardly stand much in
vestigation. (Hear, hear.) Mr. Eootesays I take too opti
mist a view of things. Socialism urges itself upon the world,
not because it takes an optimist view, but because it tries
to take a real one. It believes that where one man can
live idly on the labor of others, that man will live idly on
other’s labor. That is, it realises that unless you can
make it impossible for men to live in idleness, and can
thwart men’s evil instincts by arrangements which do not
permit of their having full play, these instincts will
triumph and cause misery in society. It is because we
believe this that Socialists propose to take away the pos
sibility of idle living, so as to be able to say to a man,
“ If you do not work you will starve
(Hear, hear.) It
is because we know men will live idly if they can, that we
want to destroy the means of their living on the labor of
others. (Hear, hear.) Socialism tries to destroy the
monopolies in the material for wealth, because only by
that destruction can the men who own them be prevented
from preying on their fellows. Hear, hear.) Well, Mr.
Eoote says that the Socialistic experiment at Brook Farm
did not succeed, and that, if that failed, where can we
hope for success. And he asks, why do you not try your
Socialist experiments yourself ? We say that the failure
of the previous experiments has convinced us that small
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
73
Socialist societies living in the midst of a competitive
system can never realise our idea of what true Socialism
is. It can only be done by the conversion of the majority
to Socialism, and by that majority taking over the means
of production already in existence. And when we are
asked why do we not now make our experiment, we say
that we are not going to surrender our right to the accu
mulations of previous labor, and that by leaving these in
the hands of the present owners, and starting afresh, we
should be only playing into the hands of the plunderers.
(Cheers.) The workers have already made the capital;
why should they leave it in the hands of the appropriating
class, and set to work to build it all up anew ? Then Mr.
Foote challenges me—and rightly—to speak on the popu
lation question, and he uttered words of generous recog
nition of what I have done in the matter in the past, for
which I earnestly and cordially thank him. (Hear, hear.)
I do not move from the position I took up in 1877. I
would stand as readily on my trial now, as then, for the right
to teach the people how to limit their families within their
means. I know I am in a minority on this question in the
Socialist party. I know that the majority of my Socialist
friends, realising rightly, as they do, that the population
question alone cannot solve this problem of poverty, at
present shut their eyes too much on this matter, and turn
their backs too angrily on a truth which they ought to
realise. (Hear, hear.) But none the less is it true that if
you solved the population question to-morrow your people
would still remain exploited for the benefit of others; if
the population were so reduced that the masters were left
to compete for labor as laborers now compete for employ
ment, justice would still be left undone. Why do masters
try to get hold of the laborers but in order to make a
profit out of them—that is, to deprive them of some of the
result of their labor ? and whilst, given the same amount
of employment, the laborer’s wage with a small population
would be higher than with a larger population, it would
still only be a wage—a share of what he earned—and the
idler would still live on the industrious man. (Cheers.)
Socialists see this ; but they very unwisely, as I often tell
them, go out of their way and put themselves into a false
position by setting themselves against a law of nature,
instead of recognising and utilising the truth for them
�74
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
selves. (Hear, hear.) Mr. Foote says, how will your
Socialist State prevent over-population ? and I might
answer him by saying, How would your Individualist
State prevent it ? But that is no answer. The Socialist
State would probably prevent it by law. (Laughter, and
“Oh, oh”.) Yes, by law. The Socialists will be forced
to understand that the children are a burden on the com
munity ; education being supported out of the taxes and
education going on from childhood until the citizen is
almost an adult—education will be a very heavy burden
which the producers will have to bear. When they feel
that the undue increase of their families makes that burden
too great, when they realise that the multiplication of non
producing consumers means more work, less leisure, more
hardship for themselves, can it be pretended that they will
be likely to leave the comfort of the community at the
mercy of its most reckless members ? And when you are
dealing with society organised as we propose it should be
organised, it will be far easier to stop these mischiefs even
by public opinion than it is now. (Hear, hear.) Mr. Foote
speaks about breeding from the fit and from the unfit. But
is it from the fit only that the population is recruited under
the Individualist system ? Are the Brunswicks then among
the fit ? The idlers of the country add largely to the
numbers of the population, and we want to strike at all
idle living, and we believe that by doing that we shall be
able the sooner to educate the people to realise the full
scope of this question of population. But I say again,
as before, that every system which does not realise or
recognise this law of population will break down. (Hear,
hear.) Socialism without it would break down, and even
Bebel himself, who speaks against Malthusianism now,
admits that under the Socialist regime we shall come face
to face with this increase of population, and that the time
will come for dealing with it. (Hear, hear.)
I will now pass on from that to another point raised.
Mr. Foote says why not have free competition ? You can
not have free competition whilst you have monopolies in
land and capital. You can only get anything of the value
of free competition when every man shall be able to reach
the land and have the use of capital, so that each shall be
really free. (Hear, hear.) There is no freedom of con
tract between the proprietors and the proletariat. For one
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
75
is clogged by the absolute necessity of having to get his
livelihood from the other, and to talk of free competition
under such conditions is a mere hypocrisy. Then Mr.
Foote says that the State under Socialism would interfere
with everything. We do not allege that the State should
do everything and interfere with everything. We allege
that you should have an organisation elected by the people,
responsible to the people, removable by the people, which
should administer for the general good the material for
the production of wealth in the country. (Hear, hear.)
But such a State, or rather the Executive of such a State,
would be nothing more than a body or bodies of officers
elected by the people, much as your municipalities are now
elected to discharge certain functions for the benefit of the
towns whose business they administer. (Hear, hear.) Next,
Mr. Foote asks, what about foreign countries ? and he
says truly that it will take a long time before China,
India, and various barbarous races will be socialised.
Then, he says, we should have to compete with these non
Socialist States in the markets of the world. I am not
aware that we compete with the negro or with these
lower races in the world’s markets ; and is it quite fair to
use the argument that it will be a long time before these
lower races are socialised, and then the next moment to
speak of them as if they were our competitors, whereas
the only relation between us and them is that we plunder
and murder them, and that they resist us? (Hear, hear.)
It will indeed be a long time before the negro is socialised;
but we hope it will not be long before England, France,
Germany, America, and Italy will be socialised. (Cheers.)
These are the nations with which we have to compete in
the world’s markets, and these are the nations in which
the Socialists are winning over the majority of the working
population, and are obtaining adherents in every circle of
society. (Hear, hear.)
Then Mr. Foote says, poverty will not be redressed by
benevolence and sympathy. I admit it; and it is because
of that that Socialism tries to trace the poverty to its
source. I reiterate the statement that the source of
poverty is private ownership in the material necessary to
produce wealth, and so long as private ownership in this
material continues, so long will poverty be found to be
its inevitable result. (Hear, hear.) That is not talking
�76
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
benevolence; that is not simply acting on sympathy or
appealing to yonr emotions. It is laying down a hard
economical fact out of which the whole of Socialism grows,
and that fact it is with which our opponents must deal.
And Mr. Foote has not attempted to do so. (Hear, hear.)
Mr. Foote finally spoke about liberty. Mr. Foote urges
apparently, and he has said that he will strengthen his
contention hereafter, that under Socialism liberty would
disappear, that tyranny would override society. Never
from my lips shall come one word of attack upon liberty—
that liberty which is the source of human progress, which
is the condition of human growth. (Hear, hear.) But
even liberty is not all. Nearly one hundred years ago a
cry broke out from an awakening people, and that cry
had in it the word “liberty”, but it had joined with
it as watchword for the Revolution “Liberty, equality,
fraternity”. (Cheers.) That cry rang over to England,
and the Radicals caught it up, and on their banner they
put the motto, they named the indivisible three which
make human progress safe. (Cheers.) And are the
modern Radicals going to drop the last two words, and
in the exaggeration of the importance of liberty forget
that of equality and fraternity, which are its sisters
and inseparable? (Cheers.) Liberty! What liberty
under your Individualistic society for the poor sempstress
stitching in the garret for the pittance of a shilling a day ?
(Cheers.) What equality possible between your duke and
your dock laborer? What fraternity to be hoped for
between your millowner and-his hands? (Hear, hear.)
Is equality to become only a word ? Has fraternity passed
into a dream for the modern Radical? 0 my Radical
brothers, who turn deaf ears against our Socialist plea:
you who dream in your zeal for liberty that by this you
will win everything, no matter over what human lives your
car travels, I remind you of your older days ; I recall you
to your older traditions. (Cheers.) I appeal to you for
help for the movement which began a hundred years ago,
and which is going on among us still; I appeal to you—
do not use against us the weapons which of old Toryism
used against you; do not throw at us the old taunts and
scoffs which were thrown at you by our common enemies.
I appeal to you to remember your past. (Hear, hear.) If
you would have liberty to work for progress have also
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
77
fraternity and equality, and let us work together for that
nobler society where all shall be free, where all shall be
equal, and where all shall be brothers because masterhood
shall have passed away. (Cheers.)
Mr. Foote : I beg to propose a hearty vote of thanks to
our chairman.
Annie Besant : I second it.
The vote having been carried,
The Chairman said: I thank you for your vote of
thanks, and I ask you to attend in large numbers next
week, when Mrs. Besant will open the discussion.
�78
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
THIRD NIGHT.
George Bernard Shaw
in the
Chair.
The Chairman: Ladies and gentlemen; our business to
night is the continuation of the debate on the subject,
“Is Socialism Sound?”. Mrs. Besant says that it is
sound. Mr. Foote contends that it is not. The arrange
ments of the debate this evening will be : each debater
will speak three times—once for half-an-hour, and twice
for fifteen minutes, the speakers speaking, of course,
alternately. On the last evening the debate was commenced
by Mr. Foote. It is therefore Mrs. Besant’s duty to open
to-night; and I now call upon her.
Annie Besant : Friends, as I said on the first night of
the debate, I propose to deal to-night with the historical
evolution of Socialism, and with the absolute necessity for
its adoption in this and in other civilised countries, if the
civilisation of the present is not to break down as past
civilisations have done. I am, of course, aware that there
is something of rather portentous impudence in the attempt
to sketch the evolution of society in the space of half-anhour ; but as I am limited to that time, I must do the best
I can, merely giving you the landmarks of the chief stages
through which, as I contend, society has passed. And to
begin with, we will go back to that condition which Mr.
Foote fairly enough described as the condition of primitive
Communism; this you find in a few cases of tribes in a
very low condition of civilisation ; this is found only where
life-conditions are easy, where the soil is fertile, and where
food is abundant, and can be obtained without very much
trouble. Under those conditions you will occasionally find
what may be called primitive Communism—a condition of
things in which private property has practically no exist
ence, and there being abundance for everyone, each man
takes according to his own needs. These communities,
however, are very few in number, for the simple reason
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
79
that the parts of the earth where such abundance is easily
obtained, are themselves very limited in number. And the
moment that you come under harsher life-conditions, then
over the greater part of the habitable globe you will very
soon find a struggle for existence going on amongst men,
which makes anything like Communism absolutely im
possible. You then get the right of the strongest to take
what he can and to keep what he can. Thus you get what
we may call a primitive Individualism, where strength is
the supreme law, and where the individual’s rights are
only measured by his power of enforcing them. (Hear,
hear.) Under those conditions private property very rapidly
springs up ; for when a man has to work hard for that which
he obtains, he naturally feels resentment, and desires to
punish those who, without labor, would deprive him of the
results of his own toil. And so, as practically there is only
one man who is the strongest in the tribe and only a few
who are above the average strength, the resentment of the
majority who are plundered finds expression in the form
of law and of punishment; and private property becomes
recognised as a right by the limitation of the power of the
stronger and by the defence of the weaker who form the
majority of the community. (Cheers.) And when that
stage has been reached, the next one is the condition in
which civilisation, having somewhat advanced, and the
cultivation of the ground having taken the place of hunt
ing and fishing, and of that particular form of war in
which war and the chase are united—-I mean the institu
tion of cannibalism—when society has passed beyond that
stage into the agricultural stage, you find appear in prac
tically every early community a form of labor which is
known as slavery. (Hear, hear.) Men who are taken in
war, instead of being used as food immediately, are used
as food in a less direct fashion. And you find the owners
of these captives taken in war setting the captives to labor,
turning them into slaves who produce for their master’s
benefit, and who have no rights beyond those which
their masters may bestow upon them for their own advan
tage. And you then get this property in man. This is
one of the results of the growing civilisation under the
Individualistic condition, and you find society divided into
the propertied and the non-propertied classes—the nonpropertied class in these early conditions being literally
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
slaves—chattel slaves—who produced for their owners, who
took the result of their labor, giving back in return suffi
cient to keep them in healthy working order. (Hear,
hear.) If you look back to the various stages of civilisa
tion which we should class as ancient, you will find that
they were all very largely based on this institution of
slavery. You will find that in Greece and in Rome you
have a vast mass of the population absolutely without
property, absolutely without rights; and the nation was
considered to consist of the higher classes of the com
munity who owned the slave, no rights of the commonest
citizenship being given to the slaves themselves, who
labored for their masters. (Hear, hear.) And on that rock
of utter division of classes—of the breaking up of society into
practically two nations in every community—on that rock
ancient civilisations split, and every one of them in turn
went down before a flood of barbarism. (Cheers.) I pass
now to the next stage that I mark on this brief sketch
of historical evolution. Of collective property in land you
find traces practically down to our own time, and I must
ask you in thought to distinguish between the less numerous
cases where the property in land was really of a collective
kind, and the far more numerous cases which were more
analogous to peasant proprietorship, where families inheri
ted certain plots of land to which they had a special right,
in which each member of the community had his own
piece, as it were, of the ground, none being left absolutely
landless. But still all the community, with this sort of
limitation, owned property in land, though not having
absolute collectivism. But you do find in some communi
ties absolute collective property in land, and I suppose
there is no better instance of that at present than you will
find in the case of some Slavonic tribes, such as you may
see a good example of in the Russian Mir. In the western
parts of Europe the property in land was of a very different
character. There you find—in countries like our own, in
France, and in other western lands of Europe—there is
a kind of holding of land known as feudal, that is practi
cally the result of the military state in which the people
lived. The nations of the north, urged on by the necessity
for subsistence and the pressure of the population, were
constantly overrunning the more fertile lands, and the con
quering tribes set up the system which grew into feudalism
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
81
in the lands of which they were the conquerors. And
then you find the Danes and the Northmen spreading over
France and settling in England; and then some passing
from Normandy into England, destroying the old fashion
of land-holding and establishing feudalism in its stead.
(Hear, hear.) Under these conditions the king was really
the one owner of the whole of the soil. I know that
it is said that the king was the representative of the
nation. But that is a myth, a mere figure of speech. The
king was really the owner, for he granted the land to his
barons. (Hear, hear.) What is, however, very important
to us is that the baron’s rights in these lands were strictly
limited, and under feudalism these barons had duties con
nected with their ownership of the soil, and one special
duty was that of defending it from all outside attack.
(Cheers.) In Scotland and Ireland the method of hold
ing land was somewhat different. There you had the
clansmen living on the land. There were clans under
a chief who was autocratic, but still the clansmen had cer
tain rights in the soil, and the very chief himself would
have been careful how he touched them. (Hear, hear.)
And the result of that was that there was a feeling on the
part of those who then dwelt on the land that they had
rights in the soil as sacred as any of the rights of their
chief. And if you enquire into the traditions of these
people—which are now held by men like the Scotch
crofters and the Irish peasants—you will find that the root
of these men’s resistance to the modern landlord is not so
much that they are fighting against the rights of property
of the landlord, as that they are fighting for their own
right of property in the soil upon which they were born.
(Cheers.) And you will never convince a Highland crofter
or an Irish peasant that justice is not on his side, however
much landlord-made law may be against him. (Hear,
hear.) In passing from the feudal system, I pause for a
moment to remind you of that great act of robbery whereby
the landlords conveyed the land into their own complete
possession, throwing off the rental which in the feudal
days they had to pay in dues and various charges to the
king, and they thus became practically absolute owners of
the soil. (Hear, hear.) I am of course aware that there
is no such thing as absolute ownership of land known to
our law; but for all practical purposes the landlords are
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
absolute owners ; and that act of theirs was really a great
act of expropriation, a robbery, whereby they made them
selves the real owners of the land which they had up to
that time only held by payment of dues. (Hear, hear.)
We find, upon turning from these various stages through
which this land-holding went, that the claim for collective
property in capital is of comparatively very modern origin.
(Hear, hear.)
And naturally so, because until very
modern times there have been no vast accumulations of
capital for the purpose of wealth production. You have
the small industries of the Middle Ages—you have the
handicraftsmen banded together in guilds, but you have
no great accumulations of capital; nor have you any
thing which is at all analogous to our modern system of
factory labor of gathering together great crowds of
men to co-operate in the formation of a common product.
And it is only from the sixteenth century upwards that
you will find the struggle beginning between traders
and landowners; and only practically from the end of
the last century will you find the true beginning of the
industrial difficulties with which we are dealing at the
present time. (Cheers.) From 1760 to 1781 you get
the great age of invention in machinery; the destruction
—not of industries themselves but—of the small methods
of manufacture, and the putting in their stead of the
modern method of manufacture by which hundreds of
men work together to make a common product, dividing
the various parts of the labor amongst them. It is thus
only for the last 100 years that society has been face to
face with this great difficulty of the aggregation of capital
in the hands of a few. (Hear, hear.) What was the im
mediate result of this sudden outburst of mechanical
energy ? It was the revival of slavery under a new name.
(Cheers.) Just as when society, taking up agricultural
pursuits and working on the land, found that by enslaving
men and making them work their masters would be raised
to a position of wealth and of luxury which they could
not reach by their own toil, so in modern times, when this
sudden productivity of machinery was discovered or prac
tically started—we may say just about a century ago—then
you get the beginning of a similar division of propertied
and unpropertied classes — the employing class and the
employed class—the one completely at the mercy of
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8.
the other. (Hear, hear.) And although it is true that
the slavery was a wage and not a chattel slavery, still fun
damentally the two things are identical; for you have in
each case one man taking another man and using his labor
for his own purposes—taking the product that the laborer
has produced and giving back to him only enough to keep
him in working order. (Cheers.) It is true that in the
chattel slavery the produce—or the share of the produce—
that the laborer got was given to him in the form of food,
clothing, and shelter. It is true that in the modern sub
stitute for slavery that part of the produce the laborer
gets is given to him in the form of money, with which he
buys food and clothing and shelter. But the principle
is exactly the same—(hear, hear)—men working for a
master not for themselves; men with no control over the
product of their own labor, but the product passing into
another man’s hands, and the laborer in each case getting
in return the possibility of subsistence; getting in return
sufficient to keep him in fair working order. (Hear,
hear.) But there is this difference. Under the old system
the slave really did get sufficient to keep his body in the
best possible condition for labor. (Cheers.) Not only so,
but as a child he was maintained, as an aged man he was
fed and he was sheltered. The chattel slave was a
valuable property as the horse is valuable and the ox—
(hear, hear. A Voice : 11 And no more ”)—and the owner
of the slave kept him in a condition of the highest effi
ciency. (Hear, hear.) But the modern slave owners have
found out a cheaper method than that of breeding and of
owning slaves. (Cheers.) They have found that it is
cheaper to hire than to buy them. They have found that
it pays better to take them only for their working life and
to have no responsibility beyond it. (Hear, hear.) And the
advantage is a very simple one. James Nasmyth, the
great engineer, was being examined before a Parliamen
tary Committee on the subject of trade unions, and he ex
plained that he constantly increased his receipts by sub
stituting apprentices at a low wage for able-bodied men
who demanded payment of the full wage that was paid in
their trade. And the questiou was asked him, “What
becomes of the men you discharge : of their wives, and cf
their families ?” Nasmyth answered: “I do not know.
I leave their fate to the natural forces that govern society”.
g2
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
Now that is exactly what the slave owner could, not do.
(Hear, hear.) But it is what the modern capitalist can do,
and does do, although very few of them are honest enough
to speak out as frankly as James Nasmyth spoke before
that Parliamentary Committee. (Cheers.)
I pass for a moment from that to the next point in my
argument. We have to trace in that growing industrialism
the growing interference of the State. I will just remind
you of the early attempts of the State to regulate Middle
Age industries. You will remember that the first edict
fixing wages was in the Fourteenth Century, and that the
Statute as to laborers that followed it tried to fix the
laborer’s wage at a definite sum, and that it failed, and
Jailed for a very simple reason. (Hear, hear.) It failed
because the men wanted higher wages than were specified,
and because it paid the masters to give a higher wage.
(Hear, hear.) And as the men were anxious to get the
higher wage and the masters were ready to give it, the
law became practically inoperative. It was a regulation
between two classes, neither of whom was willing to accept
that regulation of the State. But it is not because that
one case failed that any student of history can pretend
that it is true that all attempts at wage-fixing have been
inoperative. (Hear, hear.)
Take, for instance, the
Statute of Apprentices. It was successful to such an ex
tent that when it became an anachronism it was difficult to
get rid of it. And one half of the difficulty of the adminis
tration of the old Poor Law was due to the attempt to
circumvent in some sort of fashion this Statute with its
fixed wages, and out of the rates they tried to make up
more than the wage which ought legally to have been given.
Then you have a mass of laws interfering with workmen’s
combinations. And then, going on again, we come to the
time which I previously spoke of, when machinery was in
troduced, and you have the struggle between the workmen
who were fettered by the laws against combination, and
the employers, who were absolutely free—absolutely un
fettered by law. (Hear, hear.) What was the result of
this condition of things ? Vast fortunes on the side of
the propertied class ; frightful degradation on the side of
the unpropertied class—(cheers)—degradation so horrible
as to frighten Parliament itself. The death-rate of children
so great; the deterioration of the factory population so
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
85
terrible, that even Parliament itself—composed as it was
chiefly of the propertied class—found itself forced to pass
the first Factory Act, which interfered with this condition
of so-called free contract and free labor. (Cheers.) Then
you had—first, interference with child labor; next, inter
ference with woman labor. And the result of this inter
ference with the child’s and with the woman’s labor was
practically a limitation of that of the man’s. (Hear, hear.)
Because since these three worked together in the factories
—and since the female and the male labor were practically
complementary to each other—the limitation of the women’s
hours of labor indirectly brought about a limitation of
the men’s hours. (Hear, hear.) And so this legislation
went further than those who initiated it intended, and it
acted as a very general limitation of the hours of labor.
(Hear, hear.) And then you had still further State inter
ference—interference with contracts over and over again,
as when rent-courts and so on were established in Ireland
and in the northern parts of Scotland. And step by step as
that legislation has progressed, the condition of the laboringclasses has to some slight extent been improved. (Hear,
hear.) That is to say : the growing Socialism has brought
about a growing improvement, and the gradual inter
ference of the community to make the conditions more
equal on the side of the men has really given them oppor
tunities of rising which were utterly out of their reach in
the earlier years of the present century. (Cheers.) Nor
has that been all. There has been a growing recognition
on the part of the community that it is concerned with
something more than the regulation of business relations.
The responsibility of the community for the feeding of its
helpless members had long been recognised. (Hear, hear.)
The recognition of its responsibility for the curing of its
sick members had also to a considerable extent been recog
nised. But the fault in both these cases has been that the
conditions for getting food or medicine were, with the
object of discouraging people from embracing them, made
so degrading that those who may be considered the least
worthy accepted the opportunity of relief, whereas those
who were self-respecting and independent found the con
ditions so insulting that many a one would rather starve
than condescend to accept the relief. (Cheers.) Next,
society recognised its duty in matters of education. It
�bG
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
recognised that it was a thing in which the community
had a right of interference, and it went on the plan of
taxing everyone, although only some had the immediate
benefit of the taxation. (Hear, hear.) And rightly so;
because you cannot divide off society into small cliques
and tax each for its own necessities. And although it may
be true that only some profit directly by the taxation for
education, yet the whole community profits indirectly ; not
only in the greater utility of the educated man or
woman, but also from the decrease of crime which is one
of the most marked results of our Socialist plan of national
education. (Cheers.) Next came the acceptance of re
sponsibility to a considerable extent on the part of society
even for the health and amusement of its members ; and
parks were made and kept up out of the public rates ;
galleries and museums were provided out of the national
taxation; libraries were adopted by parish after parish
taxing itself directly for this benefit to all. And so, step
by step, and more rapidly than ever during the last twenty
years, this growth of practical Socialism has been spreading
amongst our people, so that John Morley truly said, in his
“Life of Cobden”, that England, although Socialism was
little spoken of, had a greater mass of Socialistic legisla
tion than any other country in the world. (Hear, hear.)
And at the same time the Socialist spirit is spreading in
the smaller representative bodies in our country; corpora
tions and municipalities, passing beyond their at first very
limited duties, have been gradually taking over more and
more administrative and trading work into their hands.
And so you find municipalities now beginning to trade in
water and in gas ; and wherever that has commenced, the
advantages of that kind of Socialist trading become patent
to the town that adopts it. And the result is a gradual
but more and more rapid growth of Socialist feeling.
(Cheers.) Take a town like Nottingham—a town I hap
pened to visit recently. There the municipality has taken
over the supply of gas. What has been the result ? Not
only that the gas has been very much cheapened to the
citizens—although that is something—but that out of the
profits obtained from the cheapened gas-rate, at the same
time that the people of Nottingham can get their light for
very much less than ever before, instead of the profits
going to the shareholders of a company and being divided
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87
amongst them, and. so keeping in idleness men who did
nothing for the town, those profits on the gas have been
utilised to build a great college, fitted up with everything that
is wanted for literary, for scientific, and for artistic training.
(Hear, hear.) There in that college, paid for out of the
profits of the town’s gas, are professors for instruction in the
various branches of learning ; and there every night classes
are held at merely nominal prices, to which every citizen
of Nottingham can go and train himself into wider know
ledge, into deeper enjoyment of life. (Hear, hear.) And
that is the result of Socialist legislation. (Cheers.) Under
Individualism the profits would go to enrich shareholders.
Under Socialism the profits go to be used for the benefit
of the town, and that grand educational experiment is the
result of practical Socialism in Nottingham. (Cheers.)
Mr. Foote : Last Wednesday evening Mrs. Besant occu
pied the first half of her first speech in replying to what
I had said on the previous evening. She cannot therefore
complain if I follow her excellent example to-night. And
I feel that I shall be all the more entitled to do so because
a considerable quantity of Mrs. Besant’s first speech to
night is the kind of thing you may read in any primer of
universal history, and which therefore I do not feel called
upon to dispute. (Hear, hear.) It will be remembered
that last Wednesday I pressed Mrs. Besant in two speeches
to say how she proposed to take over capital and land, and
how she proposed to deal with the population question.
Now either by design or inadvertence—I prefer to think
the latter—Mrs. Besant left these two questions unanswered,
although she had two opportunities of replying, until her
last speech, when of course I had no opportunity of rejoin
ing, and therefore it had necessarily to be left until this
evening. Now how does Mrs. Besant propose to take over
capital and land ? A great many Socialists say, following
Gronlund, 11 the matter of compensation will not trouble us
much”—(hear, hear, and laughter)—and evidently when
Socialists speak out in unguarded moments—(hear, hear)—
Mr. Gronlund and the Social Democratic Federation have
a very large amount of sympathy. But Mrs. Besant says—
and in this as in so many other points she follows Gronlund
—“we would give capitalists and landowners life annui
ties”. Gronlund’s proposal is a little more sensible, if
Mrs. Besant will allow me to say so. By Mrs. Besant’s
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IS SOCIALISM SOUXD ?
plan all the capitalists would be given life annuities.
Some of them would live a great while, but some of them
would die to-morrow, and their wives and families would
be swept among the wreckage of society—(“Oh, oh”)—
to find some kind of compensation of a character which
I think it is far better to contemplate than to realise.
(Cheers.) Gronlund proposed that they should all be paid
off; so that, supposing Vanderbilt were worth eighty
millions, he should have a million a year for eighty years.
I very much doubt if a Socialistic Society would have the
million a year to pay for eighty years—(hear, hear)—I
still more gravely doubt whether the ease with which the
first measure of confiscation were passed would not speedily
raise an agitation for complete repudiation of the obliga
tions that were incurred. The great difference between
Mrs. Besant and myself on this point is that I deny her
right to do this; I say that the man who owns property
under the existing law, which he has not stolen in violation
of any law, has a right not only to get his price for it, if
someone else demands it, but a right to withhold it from
sale if he chooses. (Cheers.) So that there is a moral
difference here between myself and Mrs. Besant, and I do
not see how it can be easily bridged over. I fancy it must
leave Mrs. Besant and myself on two different sides of a
chasm, across which she strikes me in vain, and across
which I strike her in vain. And I can only leave the
moral aspect of that question to every man and woman, to
be decided by such instincts of justice and fair play as they
may happen to possess. (Hear, hear.)
With respect to the population question, which Mrs.
Besant does not appear to treat with quite her old serious
ness, she says that the new society—whatever that may
be; it is largely a question of prophecy—will deal by law
with the progress of population. But if law can deal with
it, why does not the law deal with it now ? And how are you
to get your law ? Under Socialism everybody will have a
vote. Of course, everything will be decided by the vote
of the majority. If Mrs. Besant thinks that the human
nature, which we all know, will by a majority of voters
pass a law making the procreating of offspring over a
certain number penal, she is a great deal more sanguine
than I happen to be. (Cheers.) But if human nature
can assent to such a law, why does not human nature
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
89
assent to such a law now ? Mrs. Besant says that the
workers only breed slaves for the capitalist. (Hear, hear.)
She says that all their children are kept, or nearly all of
them—the exceptions being hardly worth counting—in
the state of society in which they are born. Well, if this is
so, and if the fact is obvious, how is it that the workers
do not voluntarily restrict population now ? Because it is
much easier to ask somebody else to come under a law
than to come under it yourself. (Cheers.) I cannot help
contrasting the almost Bacchanalian fury with which Mrs.
Besant incites the workers to take possession of other
people’s property—(cries of “No, no”)—and the bated
breath and whispering humbleness with which she reminds
her Socialist friends that they really do not attach quite
sufficient importance to this law of population. Mrs.
Besant did not use to speak so. She spoke in sterner
accents years ago. (Cries of “Oh” and “Question”.) Is
it not a fact, after all, that great as may be the courage
required to face juries and judges and prisons, a still
higher and rarer courage is required to turn on friends
who are mistaken and tell them in the stern accents of verity
what they have neglected or forgotten ? (A Voice: “She
has the courage”.) A gentleman, who has I fancy inter
rupted me more than once, says Mrs. Besant has courage.
I have not said she has not. (Cheers.) Now, what kind
of law is it to be that will deal with population ? Are you
going to have public committees watching young couples ?
(Laughter.) Are you going to say a husband and wife
shall have two, three, or four children as the case may be?
And if they have more children than the law prescribes,
how will you deal with them ? Are you going to put them
in prison ? If so, you must keep them there. And when
they come out they will violate the law with the same
equanimity as before. (Cheers.)
This law of population is the rock on which all com
munistic and Socialistic schemes must founder. (Cries of
“No, no.”) Suppose you have Socialism inaugurated to
morrow. Suppose you remove the competition which
Mrs. Besant detests. Suppose you guarantee, as she un
dertakes to guarantee, productive work for everybody.
Suppose you monopolise all the means of subsistence.
You are then bound to do what the law of England does
at present: make the possessors of the means of sub
�90
IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
sistence find food for those who are out of employment.
(Cheers.) The State would be obliged to feed everybody
who was starving for want of work. (“Oh, oh.”) The
lady or gentleman who disputes that is really without a
rudimentary acquaintance with the subject. Persons out
of work have to be fed now, and persons out of work under
Socialism will also have to be fed. (A Voice: “There
will be none”.) A gentleman says, “ there will be none”.
Well, he and I differ on that point. You will have to find
food for all your population. You remove competition,
and you remove parental responsibility for offspring. The
feeding of the children will be done by the State if the
parents are unable to do it, and what will be the result ?
(A Voice: “Enough to eat”.) The result will be—
(dissent)—Well, really, it appears that the manners of
economical atavism are quite what one might expect.
(Laughter.) You would have to do one of two things.
Either you would have to weed out the utterly incapable—
the semi-idiotic, the scrofulous, the consumptive, and all
those whom a sensible doctor would declare to be unfit to
procreate—and sternly forbid them to do so. Otherwise
you would have a perennial supply of the unfit, who would
all flourish; whereas, under the present competitive system,
notwithstanding our hospitals, our charities, and our work
houses, they get gradually eliminated, because the odds are
against them from the very beginning. (Cheers, and cries
of “No, no”.) If you are not prepared to do that, you
would have swarms of population beyond your power to
maintain. Then what would happen ? Either there would
be such anarchy, such poverty, that society would remould
itself round some stable centre—perhaps in the form of a
military conqueror—figuring once more as a savior of
society; or else the more vigorous and more progressive
members would separate themselves from the rest, form
new communities of their own, strike out in fresh direc
tions, and so restore the old competive system which was
abolished in a moment of Socialistic folly. (Cheers.)
I am very sorry to spoil a pretty peroration. I am very
sorry to throw a cold shower of common sense upon what
was a glowing piece of rhetoric. But at the same time I
would ask Mrs. Besant, who accuses me of mistranslating
Proudhon without giving a better translation herself, how
she comes to read Liberte, Egalite, et Eraternite as meaning
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
91
anything Socialistic? “Egalite”, which we translate
equality—very roughly, hy the way, though—has never
meant in the mouths of the French people who used it
anything like equality in the Socialistic or Communistic
sense. Nor has “ fraternity ” meant anything like Com
munism. Liberty and equality were both meant as a
protest against the privilege created by law under the
ancien regime. Egalite. meant equality before the law
for everyone, high and low, rich and poor; the aboli
tion of all law-created distinctions; the placing of everybody
on what Thomas Paine called the “democratic floor”, where
he is entitled to no more consideration than his own energy,
intellect, and character entitle him to. (Cheers.) Perhaps
Mrs. Besant will tell me what great leader of the French
Bevolution used the word egalite as meaning anything like
Socialistic equality. If she cannot point to any such
leader, and if the word has never been used in that sense,
it appears to me that her peroration was far more mis
leading than my translation of Proudhon’s definition of
property. My translation was as near as possible, con
sidering the difference between the genius of the two
languages, which makes it utterly impossible to translate
epigrams from one into the other without some roughness
and some loss of the finer shades of meaning. (Cheers.)
Practically Mrs. Besant, in one of her remarks, gave up
the whole of the debate. She said that it was perfectly
absurd—and I agree with her—to start Socialistic experi
ments in the midst of a competitive society; or, as Mr.
Hyndman grandiosely called it in his debate with Mr.
Bradlaugh, “making Socialistic oases in a howling desert
of competition”. By the way, Arabs and other people
do keep up oases in the desert, where they cheer and
refresh the traveller with palm trees and water. Mr.
Hyndman and his friends might try to do the same kind
of thing. But what is their admission ? Why is it that
Socialistic experiments cannot succeed in the midst of a
competitive state of society ? Because competitive society
is more robust and virile, calling forth the energies of the
people, and producing grander results. Socialism cannot
succeed by experiment because competitive society would
beat it and kill it in the open field. (“Oh, oh.”) Mrs,
Besant shows a wise and true instinct in asking that every
body shall join Socialism at once before it is carried out.
�92
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
Socialism could never hold its own unless, by means of an
overwhelming majority, it got the power to make the laws
into its own hands, and used that power to proscribe every
form of rivalry with itself. (Cheers.)
Monarchy, aristocracy, and such things, I am quite as
much prepared to deal with as Mrs. Besant can be, and
therefore they may as well be eliminated from the debate.
(Cries of “ No, no ”.) My opinion is that if many things
Mrs. Besant and I equally object to were remedied there
would be very little distress now or at any time. But we
need not dwell upon these. They are common points of
agreement. But let me say that Mrs. Besant attaches a
little too much economical importance to a Duke with
£200,000 a year or a rich capitalist with £50,000 a year. As
a matter of fact, a man with that immense income cannot
eat it and drink it. (Laughter.) A laborer once facetiously
remarked, though with a great deal of truth, when some
one was talking to him about a rich man: “Well, I guess
he has not a bigger stomach than I have”. (Laughter.)
Now, what does a rich man do with his wealth ? He
spends nearly all of it in employing some kind of labor.
(Laughter and cries of “Oh, oh”.) One moment. It
may be the labor of domestic servants; it may be
the labor of men engaged in various forms of fine
art, it may be the labor of men engaged in painting
pictures, it may be the labor of men engaged in carving
statuary, it may be the labor of men employed in one or
other of the twelve thousand different trades that are
tabulated by the Registrar-General. Well if this be so,
and all the rich men were immediately abolished, all the
persons who follow the trades they maintain would be
thrown helplessly on the labor market. (“ Oh, oh.”) I
say they would if it were done at once. (“Oh, oh,” and
cheers.) I say that the peculiar kind of work they do is
only such as rich men can pay for. (Hear.) That is no
argument against any kind of reform, but it certainly is an
argument for gradual proceeding, instead of revolutionary
haste. (Cheers.) The real grievance is that so much is
spent in non-productive labor. That is the true economical
grievance ; and I should very much like to see less money
spent in non-productive labor. But there will always be a
great deal of money spent in that way, unless you widen
the term productive so as to include everything that can be
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
93
done. Mrs. Besant might think that publishing a book is
productive work. It is in a sense, but I doubt whether it
is in a Socialistic sense. I do not know what particular
value a book has. If it is printed and sells, it is worth
something; but if it is not instructive or interesting, or
too good for the public, and does not sell, it is only worth
waste paper. It is not like a commodity turned out in the
open market which has a natural value, and will always
fetch it. I will turn to another point. Mrs. Besant over
estimates the amount which would be distributed amongst
the workers if capital were appropriated by them “with
or without compensation”. A fact is worth any quantity
of theory, especially if the theory conflicts with it.
(Laughter.) I have taken the trouble, as I have on
previous occasions, to put together a few statistics. I find
that in 1884 our total output of coals and metals was of
the value of £64,000,000. I find also that the number
of miners was about 441,000. Now if you divide the out
put by the number of miners, you will find it gives a total
sum for each worker of £145 per year. But mark, the
£64,000,000 is the total value of the output. In addition
to the miners’ wages there are other expenses, a few of
which I will recite. Birst taxes, including income tax,
as now paid; secondly, rates on the property; thirdly,
interest on the capital, or sinking fund ; fourthly, savings
for increasing, maintaining, and extending the business;
fifthly, extra payments for skill, such as foremen, engineers
and managers ; sixthly, rent, or royalty to the Government;
seventhly, payment for clerks, surveyors, etc.; eighthly,
payment for materials, machinery and ventilating appa
ratus ; ninthly, payment for tramways, horses, and so
forth; tenthly, payment for insurance and employers’
liability. Now, if you took all those expenses for each
colliery from the total output, you would find that they
made a very serious diminution in the amount that would
be available for distribution amongst the workers them
selves. The total only comes to £145 for each worker, and
the nett amount could not come to anything like that sum.
Surely the difference between the wages now paid to the
miners and the amount they would receive if the whole
value of the output, minus the working expenses, were
distributed amongst them, is not sufficient to justify Mrs.
Besant’s revolutionary proposals. She asks us to leave
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
the shore we are accustomed, to, where great possibilities
of improvement still remain, and embark with her for the
opposite shore. It is politic to ask us all to go at once,
for if we succeed in crossing safely the pilot will be
universally praised, and if we sink there will be nobody to
utter a word of blame. (Cheers.)
I will deal in my next speech, and more fully, with what
Mrs. Besant has advanced to-night. What she said does
not seem to have any particular relation to Socialism. The
great questions of universal history—how States arose and
fell, how slavery originated, how it affected civilisations,
how far it helped to break them up, the growth and pro
gress of education, and so forth—have nothing to do with
the distinctive question “Is Socialism Sound?”. (Cheers.)
Mrs. Besant has to deal with the economical and practical
objections to Socialism. She has to show, by an effort of
constructive imagination, how Socialism would work in
practice. But she has done nothing of the kind. She has
denounced evils that we all deplore; she has urged that
they should be remedied, and we all wish to remedy them.
The question at issue is: Is her remedy a good one ?
Denouncing evil is beside the point. She must show that
her remedy will cure it; and unless she does that, she
has no right to invite us to follow her prescriptions.
(Applause.)
Annie Besant : I am almost sorry that Mr. Foote did
not think it worth while to deal with the speech with
which I opened, because one of the great differences be
tween modern thought and older thought is the tendency
of modern thought to study how things evolve. (Hear,
hear.) And that can only be done by studying the past,
and tracing through the past up to the present. The
modern progress of science is based largely on that
method. (Cheers.) And to renounce that, or to treat it
with contempt, is to turn your back on the truth which
has made the scientific progress of the last twenty years.
(Hear, hear.) I pass from that, and I will deal very
briefly with my peroration of last week, to which Mr.
Foote objected. Now I am sure that Mr. Foote knows as
well as I know that you cannot destroy the effect of a
peroration after a week has elapsed. A peroration moves
for the moment; it is the arguments before it that remain.
A peroration is like the closing passage of a sonata, bring
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
95
ing the music to an effective conclusion. You remember
the sonata, and you cannot destroy its effect even when
the chord which concluded it no longer fills the ears that
listened to it. I make Mr. Foote a present of my perora
tion without any further remark, save this : that I admit
at once that the Frenchmen who used that cry did not
mean Socialism when they spoke of “liberty, equality, and
fraternity
They were not face to face with a condition
of society in which Socialism was possible. But what I
meant in applying their phrase was that just as in those
days equality meant the destruction of the privileged
classes, which were then kings and nobles, so the cry of
equality now means the destruction of that aristocracy of
wealth which is more highly privileged and more mis
chievous to society than the old one. (Cheers.)
I now come to the points raised by Mr. Foote in his
speech. Mr. Foote spoke as to compensation. Let me
put very clearly what I said. I said that I should be
willing to give life annuities to the expropriated owners.
The income of the Duke of Westminster will shortly, as
the building leases fall in, reach a million and a half a
year. The way in which I should deal with the Duke of
Westminster would be something like this : I should say—
“ My lord duke, you are not of the very least good in the
world; you are the result of a very bad system, and we are
even more responsible for that than you are, because you are
only one and we are many. We have practically made you
the very unprofitable creature that you are. You cannot use
your hands to keep yourself. You cannot earn your living
by any useful work. Although this is our fault more than
yours, we cannot allow you to keep on robbing others for
an income. We will therefore give you for the rest of
your unprofitable life a decent little income, say of £500 a
year.” (Hear, hear, and laughter.) That is the sort of
compensation which I meant when I spoke of life annuities.
And I should be willing, in a case where a man died and
left a widow, to continue the annuity to her; and I might
be generous enough, if there was a son left about forty
years of age, too old to learn to be of any use, to continue
the annuity to him. (Hear, hear, and laughter.) I do
not desire to make these people a wreckage on society—
I see too much social wreckage as it is. (Cheers.) And I
do not desire to add one single life to it. (Hear, hear.)
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
But what I do desire is to prevent these men continuing
to make wreckage of thousands in order to keep them
selves. (Cheers.) Then Mr. Foote says man has a right
to withhold his property from sale if he chooses. Would
he have used that argument in the Southern States of
America to defend slavery ? I deny that a man has any
absolute right to withhold property from sale if he chooses.
(Hear, hear.) The rights of property were made by society,
and society is supreme over them. No man has a right to
hold his property to the injury of the greater number
among whom he lives, and you do not even now allow
~Hm “so to hold it. (Hear, hear.) You force men to sell
now by law, if they will not sell of their own good will,
when their property is wanted for the community; and
you must, if you are going to have society at all, admit
the right of society to control the property of the members
of the community to an enormous extent. (Hear, hear.)
And if a man usurps property which he has not made,
that he has no right to—property which he only holds by
virtue of bad laws—then the majority has the right to
repeal those laws and destroy his power of exploiting, and
thus, by destroying his property in man, to free the men who
must remain slaves whilst he holds them. (Cheers.) Mr.
Foote says there is a moral difference between us. I grant
there is an enormous moral difference between Socialism
and Individualism, and the whole of the moral difference
is this—that from Mr. Foote’s point of view a small num
ber of persons have the right to rob other persons and get
the result of their labor, whereas Socialism says that theft
is wrong in the prince as much as in the peasant, and that
neither shall be allowed to rob his neighbors and live
upon the labors of the industrious. (Cheers.)
Mr. Foote challenges me again on the question of the
law of population, and asks me how it is possible by law
to limit the population, and why not pass such a law, and
why don’t the workers see the difficulty now. There are
several reasons why the workers of this country do not see
the bearing of the law of population. In the first place,
they have so little property themselves that they do not
see the mischief done by making too many claimants
among whom it is divided. They are already so poor
that they cannot well be poorer, and they are careless
and indifferent, thinking it matters comparatively little
�97
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
whether twelve are starving on 12s. a week or four are
starving on the same sum. (Cheers.) One important
step towards limiting the population is to raise the standard
of comfort; because when you do that you make the
people anxious not to fall back from the comfort they have
obtained. (Hear, hear.) But if always on the verge of
starvation they do not feel the fall, because practically
they cannot fall very much further in position. (Hear,
hear.) And, unfortunately, through our history there has
been an opposition from the time of Malthus between
those who consider that the remedy for poverty lies in
State interference and those who believe it lies in limita
tion of the family. The result of that has been a certain
antagonism between those who would improve matters by
legislative action, and those who would only deal with the
law of population. And that hereditary antagonism, like
the fighting of dogs and cats, comes out rather as a matter
of instinct than of intelligence. Nor is that all. I ask
Mr. Foote to notice that in France where you have, to
some extent, raised the standard of comfort for a great
part of the population, that part of the population has re
cognised the law of population, and has voluntarily
limited its own increase. (Hear, hear.) And in every
Socialist experiment in America it has been found neces
sary to recognise the law by the very condition of their
living. And whatever steps they took—whether by pre
ventive checks of various kinds—in every case limitation of
the population has been one of the primary conditions
insisted on in these communities. That is, the moment
you establish Socialism, even among a limited number of
persons, they recognise that you must keep the balance
between the arms that produce and the mouths that eat.
(Cheers.) Another reason why I think the law of popu
lation is not now seen by Socialists as it ought to be, is
because of the bluncFfing way in which it has been put
by many economists. I think I have mentioned before
that the old wage-fund theory on which it was based has
been given up. But as this law was based by economists
on an economical theory now discredited, it is not wonderful
that with the discredit of the theory the other theory based
on it disappears from the thoughts of Socialists. And
when you take these facts into consideration—the raising
of the standard of comfort; the recognition that society
H
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
must maintain its members, and that therefore every man
is interested in the limitation of the family; it being then
seen—as it will be then seen—that for every large family
there is less leisure and more labor for the producing
community, then you will have made a public opinion in
favor of the limitation of the family, which is utterly
impossible at the present time. (Hear, hear.) Then,
again, Mr. Foote asks : How are you going to limit the
number ? Are you going to imprison the parents ? H
you do, the multiplication will go on as soon as the people
come out of prison. (Hear, hear.) But you don’t use such
arguments against imprisonment for theft. (Hear, hear.)
We know that penalties practically make conscience and
public opinion. But, at the same time, I very much doubt
whether for the limitation of the family you would want
anything more than the education, especially, of the women,
and a rather stern social boycotting for those who trans
gressed the limit too recklessly. (Cheers.) Nor is that
all. I believe that one of the strongest arguments in
favor of the limitation of the population will come from
the women ; as you educate your women more highly, as
they take part in public life, as they become more economi
cally independent than they are to-day, your women will
refuse to be mere nurses of children throughout the whole
of their active life. (Cheers.) They will be willing to
give all the care that is necessary for two or three children,
but will refuse to have their health ruined, and the whole
of public life shut to them, by having families of ten
or twelve, which are practically destructive of motherly
feeling as well as of happiness and comfort in the home.
(Cheers.) Mr. Foote suggests that under the present con
ditions the sickly, the scrofulous, and so on, get killed out
amongst the poor. You do not kill them out from among
the rich. And what I want is a public opinion to make it
a crime for a diseased man or woman to transmit their
disease to a child. (Cheers.) And it is public opinion
that will do this better than any other way; and that
public opinion I am trying to make. (Cheers.) But Mr.
Foote says that I used to use stronger language on this
question than I do now : and that it requires more courage
to speak out to friends things they do not like, than even
to face a judge and jury. I do not think I have softened
my language on the population theory. (Hear, hear.)
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
I say now, as I said long ago, that the limitation of the
family, if it stood by itself, would never remedy poverty.
I pointed then to the changes which we wanted in the
land laws and in other ways, side by side with the law of
population, and I say the same still. I say the law of
population alone is not our most important matter. It.is
more important to get the right idea on the production of
wealth to-day even than it is to press—as I still press—
the duty of the limitation of the family. (Cheers.) I
thoroughly agree with Mr. Foote, that it does need more
courage to speak unpalatable truths to friends than to
face judge and jury. (Hear, hear.) And I can assure
him that, in my own experience, I stood before judge and
jury, and lay under sentence of imprisonment, with a far
lighter heart, and with a far less troubled mind, than I
have felt in taking the name of Socialist, and thus setting
myself against some of those with whom I have worked
for the last thirteen years—(hear, hear,)—and when I have
seen faces grow cold and friends grow distant, because I
have dared to speak a truth unpalatable to them. (Cheers.)
The Chairman : Ladies and gentlemen, in calling upon
Mr. Foote this time will you allow me to say that the way
in which you have listened to Mrs. Besant’s speech is very
greatly to the credit of those who disagree with her. I
want to appeal therefore to those who disagree with Mr.
Foote not to allow themselves to be outdone in patience
and courtesy. (Hear, hear.)
Mr. Foote: Unfortunately, I and the chairman mis
understood each other towards the close of my first speech.
He said something about my having half-a-minute more,
but he told me afterwards that I had three and a-half
minutes, so I am to have my compensation in this speech.
(Hear, hear.)
Mrs. Besant says you cannot spoil the effect of a perora
tion a week after. It depends upon the circumstances.
She says a peroration is something that influences people
at the moment. That is not quite my notion of a perora
tion. If a peroration is something that cannot subsequently
be defended, I do not think it is a right thing to try to
influence people with it at any moment. (Hear, hear.)
Mrs. Besant says she would compensate the Duke of
Westminster in the way you heard. It is a curious thing
that Mrs. Besant avoids all the ticklish parts of her case.
h2
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
The Duke of Westminster, as an English nobleman, has
no right whatever in the land except the right which he
holds legally under the Crown. The Duke of Westminster,
as a peer of the realm, can be dealt with by Parliament,
with the Crown’s sanction, differently from men who have
purchased the land, or men who are holders of land in the
sense that their small moneys, collected together in fire
and fife insurance and other societies, are invested in that
way. I want Mrs. Besant to tell us, not how she proposes
to deal with the Duke of Westminster—with whom I, as
an Individualist, believe we can deal by law—but how she
proposes to deal with the hundreds and thousands of poorer
persons who own smaller quantities of land—(hear, hear)—
and how she proposes to deal not only with the big capita
list who makes a fortune, but with the thousands of little
capitalists, some of whom only get a bare living, and
others not a much better living than the highest form of
skilled labor which they happen to employ.
Mrs. Besant says a man has no right to do as he pleases
with his property. Aye, but what property ? Mrs. Besant
has referred to land, but the law of England does not
recognise private property in land—not absolute private
property. The soil of England is always held under law.
But I do not hold my watch under law. A capitalist does
not hold his capital under law, except in the sense that the
law protects him against the thief who wishes to appro
priate it. The land, of course, has to be sold if it stands
in the way of a public improvement, but the Bill which
empowers the public improvement also provides for fair
compensation. I want Mrs. Besant not to be merely
facetious about the Duke of Westminster—as to whom I
don’t care very much—but to deal with the interests of all
these other persons—hundreds and thousands of our fellowcountrymen, as honest as Mrs. Besant and I, as honest as
all of us here—who, with their wives and children, if they
have any, must all be considered in your scheme, unless
a ou are going to violate all the instincts that throb in the
heart of every man with a feeling for his fellows.
(Cheers.)
As to population, Mrs. Besant says she would somehow
deal with it by law. But she takes particularly good care
not to tell us what kind of law she would put in operation.
She trusts more to public opinion, however, in the long
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
101
run. That is exactly what I trust to, and public opinion
grows under our Individualist system quite as much as it
could under a Collectivist system. (Hear, hear.) It is
true that the prejudiced jury, representing a mistaken
majority, found Mrs. Besant guilty of an obscenity which
she never committed. Yet at the same time, notwithstanding
these occasional outbursts of bigotry, Individualist society
is more and more willing to act fairly, and to allow
discussion on vital subjects. (Hear, hear.) The proof of
it lies in the fact that Mrs. Besant can go on, despite that
verdict, advocating the very same principles for which .the
jury condemned her. (Hear, hear.) Public opinion is
growing, and it cannot very well be forced. Collectivist
social machinery won’t, as Herbert Spencer says, produce
golden actions out of leaden instincts. You have to wait.
Progress is slow. Jumping at the moon is sport for
lunatics. Our way in this world, set for us by nature, is
steady plodding, step by step. We make some advances
even on the question of population. Mrs. Besant says byand-bye women will be educated. But we are not waiting
for Collectivism to educate women. (Hear.) The Education
Act of 1870, passed under an Individualist state of society,
provides for the education not only of every boy, but of
every girl, in the State. (Hear, hear.) Girton College,
University examinations for women, education in the fine
arts for girls, and tutorship even at the Royal Academy—
these things are not the gift of Collectivist Socialism.
(Hear, hear.) Women are being educated, and all of us
are glad of it. (Cheers.) I quite believe with Mrs. Besant
that as women become more educated, and take a larger
interest in public affairs, and think more about general
questions, they will not oppose that prejudice, which they
now oppose more than men, to a prudent restriction of
offspring. (Cheers.) They will refuse, as Mrs. Besant
well says, when their standard of comfort and feeling and
education is raised, to become mere domestic drudges from
the beginning to the end of their married life. We do not
want Socialism to tell us that. We see the improvement
of woman going on now. If Socialism disappeared to
morrow, and was never heard of again, the cause of
woman would be safe. When a great cause has raised its
head from the dust, and begun to boldly challenge opposing
prejudices, it must win in the long run, unless you can
�102
IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
crush, it by law. But the time for that is gone by, and the
elevation and emancipation of woman is assured. (Cheers.)
Mrs. Besant says that under a Socialistic state of society
the workers would see that if they bred too fast they
would injure themselves. Here is a man who is earning
two pounds a week. He has four children, and the fifth
is coming. He says “It is hard ” ; he knows his two
pounds a week is becoming relatively less and less. He
knows he must keep himself and all the children he brings
into existence. Yet although the burden of keeping them
falls directly, obviously, perceptibly, beyond all question,
upon his own shoulders, Mrs. Besant says he has no in
ducement to refrain from breeding, but that under a Col
lectivist state of society the inducement will be perfectly
clear. (Hear, hear, and laughter.)
I will deal now with Mrs. Besant’s first speech. She
told us how tribes began, and as I think, quite wrongly.
She said that in the tribe one man was stronger than the
others and he gained the predominance. But one strong
man cannot terrorise five thousand by his physical power.
The five thousand could break him in a moment. Why
is he the head of the tribe ? The whole explanation of it
is, that tribes war against tribes, and military organisation
is necessary. The military machine must be worked from
one centre, with one controlling mind. A debating society,
as Lord Macaulay said, never fights. A general, whether
he be a tribal chief, or a Duke of Marlborough, or a
Napoleon, must have absolute control, otherwise the whole
business will come to grief. Savages are subordinated to
chiefs because everything must be subordinated to the
tribal law of self-preservation. They are obliged to protect
themselves against the attacks of the predatory tribes
about them. There thus arises a military state of society,
entirely because of the militancy of the populations sur
rounding the tribe, and the constant necessity of selfdefence. (Cheers.)
Mrs. Besant told us quite rightly that slaves were origin
ally captives in war. That clearly shows that slavery did
not begin out of the mere lust of slavery. (Hear, hear.)
Originally, as you will read in many ancient scriptures
the captives taken in war were slain—immolated on the
altars of cruelty. But as men got a little more intelligent
and a little more humane they discontinued this, and all
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
103
the captives in war became slaves. All the various castes
in India and elsewhere are simply the results of so many
waves of conquest sweeping over the land, the conquerors
establishing themselves as rulers, and subordinating those
whom they conquered. But I do not see what that has to
do with Individualism. I do not propose that we should
go prowling over the world, and imposing ourselves on
subordinate populations. Unfortunately we are in India,
and we shall have to face many difficulties before we can
■clear out of it. (Hear, hear.) But if we were not in India,
what sensible man would ever propose that Englishmen
should go there ? (Cheers.) How slavery arose is a very
long question, and how it developed is a longer question
still. But when Mrs. Besant says that slavery broke up
all the ancient civilisations, I have to differ from her.
What broke the power of Greece ? The greater power of
Borne. Both of them were founded on slavery. What
ultimately broke the great power of Home ? Was it
slavery? No. It was the employment of mercenary
troops, by which the Romans themselves grew out of the
habit of war, lost their old instinctive valor, and so the
barbarians from the north were able to overrun them. The
barbarians, who overran them, brought Feudalism.
Feudalism was established by the Goths upon the ruins of
the Roman Empire, and that Feudalism was slavery in
another form. (Hear, hear.) The serf of the soil was no
better off than the ancient slave. He was really in a worse
position than the. slave in the best days of the Roman
Empire, when many of the leading men—artists and
thinkers—were slaves. They were protected by the law
then. No owner was allowed to do as he liked with his
slaves. If maltreated, the slave could appeal to the
tribunals, and obtain his freedom or a better master. But
under Feudalism the lord was practically absolute. Out of
that Feudalism our modern system has arisen. (Hear,
hear.) Mrs. Besant points to the Act of 1694—I presume—
by which the English aristocracy threw off from them
selves the burdens of Feudalism, which went with the
holdership of land, and practically threw those burdens
upon the shoulders of the industrial community. I should
be as glad to undo that as Mrs. Besant, but I do not see
how the undoing of it conflicts with the principles of
Individualism, which I am here to maintain. (Hear, hear.)
�104
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
Let me now deal with, something which Mrs. Besant
says is Socialistic and which she claims for the principle of
Socialism. She speaks of the town of Nottingham. But
she might, without going to Nottingham, have found at
Birmingham many years ago that the Municipality had
taken over the gas supply. The Municipality may also
take over the water supply. But, as I said in a previous
part of this debate, no Municipality, no State, ever did, or
ever will, inaugurate a new thing. (Hear, hear.) The
State and the Municipality can only take over what has been
begun and perfected by individual enterprise. (Cheers.)
Mrs. Besant says that education is Socialistic. I hope
not, I believe not. What is public education founded
upon? Upon Socialism? No. Upon Individualism, upon
the right of every individual brought into the world to
have those duties performed that are involved in the obli
gation which the parents undertake. (Hear, hear.) A
parent is forced to find education for his child, but the
duty had been so long neglected that the State had to say—
“ The child, who is an individual as well as the parent,
the child towards whom the parent has contracted obliga
tions, shall be sent to school”. (Hear, hear.) And as
the State made it compulsory, the State had to find the
machinery. It was a question of ways and means. The
easiest method was to establish School Boards all over the
country. And that education does not in any way interfere
with competition. Certainly that education does not dimi
nish competition. That education gives all the children
brighter minds, more knowledge, keener faculties, to start
with some measure of equality in that great race of life,
where the prize is to the swift, and the victory to the
strong. And that law—the law of all struggle, and the
law of all progress—cannot be set aside by all the devices
of all the dreamers in the world. (Cheers.)
Annie Besant : Doubtless, from the brevity with which
I had to make my opening statements, Mr. Foote did not
quite catch my idea in dealing with slavery in connexion
with the downfall of the older civilisations. I alleged
that they fell from the great division between the proprie
tary and the unpropertied classes, caused by the slavery
on which they were founded. And the reason why they
fell was chiefly this: that those who did not labor, in their
idleness grew luxurious, effeminate, and careless. (Hear,
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
105
hear.) That happened in Greece and it happened in Rome.
(Cheers.) The earlier strength of Borne broke down Greece
where the slave canker had existed longer, and had made
these idle, useless classes unable to defend themselves.
The younger vigor of the Goths broke down Rome when
the sloth made possible by the slave-class had destroyed
the manhood of those who possessed them. And so in
England the upper classes are growing, as the upper classes
of Greece and Rome grew, luxurious, effeminate, caring
more for soft living than for hard thinking. And for them,
living on a vast and degraded population, there is the
danger of a similar fall to that which wrecked both Greece
and Rome. (Hear, hear.) Mr. Foote repeated the state
ment that no municipality had ever taken up a new thing.
But he appears to have ignored the fact which I stated
that the only bodies which had taken up the hydraulic
machine for supplying water at high pressure were munici
palities, and that that fact was fatal to the whole of the argu
ment that the State can never inaugurate an improvement.
(Cheers.) Mr. Foote ignores the fact, and simply repeats
the statement.
\
I go back to Mr. Foote’s earlier speech. He asks once
more, Why do we not make a Socialist oasis, and he says:
Because Socialism could not hold its own against competi
tion. It is true that a small number of Socialists, who are
poor, entirely without plant, without accumulated capital,
cannot hold their own against the vast accumulated capital
which is in the hands of the supporters of the competitive
system to-day. (Hear, hear.) The competitors have the
railways, the great carrying companies, the canals; they
have a vast store of goods and of accumulated wealth
of every kind. It is not reasonable that a few of
those who have helped to make this wealth should go
outside, and, practically without capital, begin a fresh
accumulation with the hope of being able to hold
their own against the results of the robbery of their
rights for centuries. (Cheers.) Such a proposal is a pro
posal utterly unworthy of consideration. The Socialists
mean to have the railways and the canals and the plant
that they and their fellows have made, and not to leave
these to the competitive system whilst they go out naked
into the wilderness to make more. (Cheers.) Then Mr.
Foote stated that a very rich man cannot eat his income,
�106
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
and he told us of a not very clear-sighted agricultural
laborer who said that the rich man had not a bigger
stomach than he had. The agricultural laborer wanted
more education, and then he would have seen a little fur
ther, for he would have seen that the rich man with his
servants—the domestics, the gardeners, and the game
keepers—has a hundred stomachs to fill, and fills them all
out of the produce of the laboring classes who support
him. (Cheers.) It is quite true that a Vanderbilt cannot
eat up the whole of his income; but he can get a lot of
lazy persons to hang on to him; and that is where the
mischief of these very wealthy men is shown. And if
the agricultural laborer had been able to see a little fur
ther he would have seen a multiplication of stomachs
feeding on other men’s labor, which is the result of the
very wealthy classes. (Hear, hear.) Then Mr. Foote says
that all the servants and others employed by the wealthy
would be idle if capital were abolished. He threatened
us with 12,000 trades—all the members of which would be
thrown helpless on the world. But why so ? A large
number of trades would, I admit, fall out of existence in
a healthy and rational condition of society. Those trading
in jewels, which have only their value for show; traders
in many articles which are utterly worthless, and which
are simply bought by persons who do not know how to
waste their money fast enough—these useless trades would
fall out under Socialism ; and the men who used to make
so many articles of luxury for the idle and the rich would
be employed in making useful and beautiful articles for
the masses of the community whose wider wealth would
enable them to purchase them, and would multiply a hun
dred fold the commodities which would be wanted for the
comfort of the whole of the community. (Hear, hear.)
For what you have got is so much human labor to be
utilised in the best way ; and while it makes useless articles
and luxuries for the wealthy, you are depriving those who
are wanting absolute necessaries of the results of labor
in which they have a right to share. (Hear, hear.) Mr.
Foote spoke of productive and non-productive work. I
object to the phrase. Useful and useless work are better
terms. It would be far better to speak of useful work,
when the work done supplies anything to society of which
society stands in need. (Hear, hear.) I draw no distinc
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
107
tion in usefulness between the teacher and the grower of
corn, between the author of a great book and the man
who builds a useful house. Society has many needs, and
they all have to be supplied; and any man who fulfils a
function that is useful—that man deserves his place in
society. There is no sense in the distinctions between pro
ductive and non-productive work, which took John Stuart
Mill into the absurdity of calling the work of an artist
who painted a picture productive work, whereas the
work of the man who played a sonata on the piano he
called non-productive work. These distinctions are idle
and useless, and the sooner we get rid of them the better.
(Cheers.)
Then Mr. Foote says to me : I do not care what you do
with the Duke of Westminster, but how will you deal with
the poor men who have their own freeholds and a little
money invested.
Mr. Foote : As a point of order, I did not say I did not
care, but that I did not care much.
Annie Besant : I should suggest to Mr. Foote as I did
before that that lies quite as much on him as a land
nationaliser as on me as a Socialist. I challenged him on
that point, and he avoided it. I said I should have the same
law for the rich as for the poor. I should destroy private
property in land completely and utterly. But I would
make this distinction: Where a man had earned money
and invested his savings in the land, I should admit that
he had a right to the usufruct of that land during his life,
oi’ else to receive back the sum he invested in it—without
payment of interest—if he preferred so to receive it; and
I should certainly in this case give full compensation on
this principle, that you may compensate a man fully when
you are dealing with what he has absolutely earned, but
there is no need to compensate a man fully when you are
taking from him what he did not earn and what he became
possessed of by the labor of others. (Cheers.) Mr. Foote
spoke of dealing with thousands of poor capitalists barely
getting a living now. Socialism will put them in the way
of getting more than a bare living, and so they will profit
by Socialism. And the result, we say, of your competition
is to make the fives of the poor capitalists a burden and
misery; more and more of the wealth is going into the
hands of the few, and all these little fishes will get
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
swallowed up by the big ones. (Hear, hear.) We want
to save them from this misery by placing the distribution
of wealth in the hands of organised societies, so that there
may not be so many competing in getting a living out of
a small amount of capital, but rather that they may be in
the position of acting as functionaries of society, fulfilling
useful work for which they would receive full and complete
remuneration. (Hear, hear.) Then there again I ought
to say that where any small capitalist had made his capital
himself I should be prepared to fully restore to him any
thing he had himself earned. The difference would be that
he would not be able to employ it as he had been used to
do in simply appropriating his neighbor’s labor, but would
have the result of his own work without being able to get
interest upon it—without being able to make money From
another person’s labor. Then Mr. Foote says land is
held under law, but he does not hold his watch under
law. I do not understand in what other fashion he
does hold it. If it were held without law probably that
watch would not remain long in his pocket. As a matter
of fact every right in a civilised community is based
on and defended by law. (Hear, hear.) Mr. Foote says
public opinion grows under Individualism. I have not
denied it. I say that probably it would grow faster under
Socialism if we may draw conclusions from analogy.
Take the force of trade public opinion within a trade
union. Public opinion where men are brought close to
gether works far more strongly on them and influences
them much more than it can do under our present condition
of struggling. (Hear, hear.) And I agree again with Mr.
Foote that public opinion cannot be forced. But public
opinion can be educated, and Socialists are trying to edu
cate the public opinion which they know will bring about
changes in these matters. (Hear, hear.) Then Mr. Foote
says that the Education Act was passed in an Individual
istic State. Not quite so. The Education Act was passed
in a State undergoing transition from Individualism to
Socialism, and it is a mark of the growing Socialist feeling
which is forcing these changed measures on the legislature.
And the thorough Individualists—take men like Auberon
Herbert and Herbert Spencer—admit this with regard to
State education, and point to the growing Socialism in legis
lation, which they contend is a danger. But Mr. Foote, in
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
109
legislation from his Individualistic standpoint, accepts the
fruit of Socialism, and then abuses the very tree from which
it comes. Mr. Foote says, “ We don’t want Collectivism to
raise women”. Don’t you? The Socialist body, as a
body, is the only one that claims complete equality in
every respect for women. (Cheers.) The old Radicals are
not sound upon it; some of them are in favor of it, and
some are against it. You find some Radicals everywhere
denying equality to women, and trying to keep them out
even from the rights of citizenship. There is no body in
the world save the Socialist, whether you take them in
England, or in America, or in Germany, or among the
Nihilists in Russia, there is no other body where you find
the absolute independence and equality of women pro
claimed as one of the cardinal points in their creed.
(Cheers.) That was one of the things that attracted me
to the Socialist party, because they do claim absolute
economical independence for women; because they do
claim absolute equality for her; and because in Russia,
above all, they have never grudged to women the place of
danger, but have stood side by side with her in conspiracy,
in peril, aye, and in the very worst prisons and on the scaf
fold. (Hear, hear.) They have never said, Your sex dis
qualifies you for the post of danger; our strength shall
guard your weakness. And this is the noblest thing which
Socialism has to say—there is no distinction of class, no
distinction of sex. It destroys every distinction and
every enmity, and places men and women on one plat
form of duty and of right. (Cheers.) And when Mr.
Foote tells us we do not need Socialism to do this, my
answer is, only under Socialism is that complete enfran
chisement of women possible. (Hear, hear.) Mr. Foote
says slavery existed under feudalism. It has existed
under every Individualistic condition of society, and it
must so be if the race is always to be to the swiftest and the
victory of the battle always to be with the strongest; for if
this is to be taken as meaning absolute muscular ability and
absolute want of scruples of conscience and human sympathy,
then, indeed, no true equality is possible. But, as I believe,
real individuality will only become possible under Socialism
—(hear, hear)—no Individualism is possible while men are
struggling for bare life. So long as they have to think
•only of food there is no possibility of that brighter day of
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
progress to a higher future. And only as you free them,
from that continual want; only as you secure to them the
necessities of existence; only as you destroy monopoly of
that material for the production of wealth on which this
controversy really turns; only as you destroy that mono
poly can you have the leisure for the possibility of culture,
the possibility of refinement, and the possibility of time,
for that great effort which will change the masses of the
people from the drudges they are to-day into the cultured
men and women who shall form our Socialist Common
wealth. (Cheers.)
Mr. Foote: Mrs. Besant gave us another very glowing
picture of what Socialism would do for women. It is all
future tense with her. She plays the role of the prophet
throughout. Socialism may do this and that, and Socialism
may not do it. But when Mrs. Besant says that Socialists
are the only body who proclaim, and have proclaimed,
equality between man and woman—by which I suppose
she means legal equality, for otherwise the word can have
no meaning—I happen to remember that a body with
which I have had the honor to work for many years, and
with which Mrs. Besant had the honor to work before ever
she joined the Socialists, not only proclaimed that equality,
but in practice made no distinction whatever between the
sexes. (Cheers.) The best way to promote the equality
of the sexes is not to be always shouting it, but to practise
it. If you treat women as though they were men’s equals
you will do far more than by the most ardent declamation.
(Hear, hear.) I happen also to belong to one of the
largest Radical societies in London—the Metropolitan
Radical Federation, which is an organisation of nearly
all the workmen’s and Radical clubs in the metropolis.
When the programme was drawn up one gentleman with
drew because adult suffrage was carried instead of man
hood suffrage. Only one withdrew, and all the rest
laughed at him. So I do not think Mrs. Besant is quite
right in saying that Radicals, here, there, and everywhere,
are opposed to woman suffrage. (Hear, hear.) I know that
Admiral Maxse and Mr. Cremer are opposed to woman suf
frage; but does Mrs. Besant mean to say that every Socialist
is prepared to defend it? (Cries of “Yes”.) I doubt it.
Mt. Belfort Bax, who is one of the leading Socialist
writers, calls woman suffrage a bourgeois superstition, and
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
Ill
says that as women are numerically the majority, it would
be handing over political power absolutely into their hands.
(Cheers.) That is pretty much the view which Admiral
Maxse takes. But I quite agree that neither Radicalism
nor Socialism is to be judged by an individual member.
The great body of Radicals are in favor of woman
suffrage. I do not see what is to be gained by charging
on them what they are not guilty of. (Hear, hear.)
Again, we are told by Mrs. Besant that I claimed for
my Individualism all that has been done from her prin
ciples in a transition state of society. But how does she
know this is a transition state of society ? How does she
know that Socialism is going to win? (Hear, hear.) It
is all prophecy. She cannot know that Socialism is going
to succeed. I don’t say it won’t, but I don’t think it will
—(hear, hear)—and I deny Mrs. Besant’s right to claim
that we are in a transition state of society. Time will
show. I have my opinion about it as well as she, and I
have quite as much right to my opinion as she has to
hers. (Hear, hear.)
As to the difference between productive and non-pro
ductive labor, Mrs. Besant says there is none, or it is not
worth taking notice of. She says the difference is between
useful and useless labor. Permit me to say that in the
long run it comes to very much the same thing. When
John Stuart Mill was dealing with productive and non
productive labor, he was dealing with it simply as an econo
mist, who was considering the laws of the production and
distribution of material wealth. The man who plays a
sonata does not produce a material thing, but the man who
carves a beautiful statue produces something which has
a market value—something which could be put into the
market and sold. Mill was drawing a real and not a
fanciful distinction, without being concerned at all, as an
economist, with the moral or aesthetic aspects of the matter.
(Hear, hear.)
Mrs. Besant comments upon my allusion to the facetious
laborer, and says that he had a good deal to learn. Un
doubtedly he had; but not as to the dimensions of their
respective stomachs. (Laughter.) Mrs. Besant says that
a rich man gets a lot of idle persons about him. They are
not always idle. The real fact is, as I said, that the man
of wealth gets about him a lot of persons whom he employs
�112
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
in labor which in non-productive. That is the whole
gravamen of the charge. I am not sure that all the rich
men who employ labor are idle. Some of them have to
work very hard, and some of the persons they employ have
to work hard, although their labor produces nothing, and
does not help to swell the material, or intellectual, or
moral wealth of the community. (Hear, hear.) Mrs.
Besant thinks that a large number of the twelve thousand
trades I referred to are useless. (Hear, hear.) But if she
looks at the names of many of them she will see that most
of them are not employed by rich persons. They are
trades of all sorts and kinds and descriptions. It appears
to me that Mrs. Besant does not really see the gravity of
the proposals she is making. She does not seem to see
that the labor in these industries will have to be organised.
She does not seem to see that Collectivism, if it were
agreed to, would have to face tremendous difficulties.
She does not seem to see that it would have to provide
by sheer foresight the machinery for carrying out all the
multifarious labors of society, that are now done by indi
viduals finding out the proper spheres for their operations.
(Cheers.)
Socialistic experiments, Mrs. Besant says, could not be
expected to succeed. I know it. I agree with her. I
think they will never succeed, except occasionally here and
there, as in America where the ordinary laws of human
society are contravened. (Hear, hear.) Mrs. Besant
referred to the way in which they dealt with the population
question. Yes, and in one of the communities, owing to
the religious principle, or, as I should prefer to call it, the
principle of fanaticism, they had only two babies in twelve
months among two hundred and fifty adults. (Laughter.)
I know very well, in a small community like that, you can
deal with the population question. I know that in a small
community, which is recruited from all the cranks of the
world, you can hold men together by a principle which
the general run of humanity would not tolerate. Mrs.
Besant says that Socialism would fail because it has not
possession of all the railways, canals, etc. I fail to under
stand this. The railways will carry your Socialist produce,
as well as Individualist produce, and at the same rates
to the same markets. You do not want to take over
the railways in order to be put on an equality with Indi
�113
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
vidualists. If your produce will compete successfully with
theirs you will beat them, but not else. You know better
than to try it. (Cheers.) You say you cannot get capital
now. I pointed in my previous speech to the fact that
trades unions have spent hundreds of thousands of pounds
in their strikes and in resisting lock-outs—in many cases
justifiably, but in some cases not—but they have not started,
as far as I am aware, a single concern for the production
of commodities, under organised, voluntary, co-operative
labor. (Cheers.) And why have they not done it? Because
they are not yet ripe for it. Again, in the co-operative
societies that distribute—and those are the general body
of co-operative societies in our country—that sell goods in
the course of a year to the amount of over £26,000,000 in
value, you find that a great difficulty is to find proper
managers, and a greater difficulty still is, how to keep
them. (Hear, hear.) They have also found it exceedingly
difficult to produce their own goods, for they generally
find that they can buy in the open market the produce of
Individualist enterprise better and cheaper than they can
make for themselves. (Hear, hear.) If they could produce
better and cheaper themselves, they would do so to-morrow.
But distribution is one thing, and production is quite
another. (Hear, hear.) What does the State produce ?
What did the State ever produce ? What can the State
ever produce? Water, gas? When Individualism has
once produced these the question is mainly one of distribu
tion. Mrs. Besant says that somebody has invented an
improvement in water-supply and that municipalities are
taking it up. Well, I have not much information on that
point. Mrs. Besant does not say who the man is, or what
the invention is. I should like to investigate it before I
take a mere statement like that absolutely. Not that I
distrust Mrs. Besant, but when a statement passes from
one to another, although there may be no intention to ex
aggerate, there may be some exaggeration. I should like to
investigate it fully before I dealt with that improved
machine. But meanwhile I will say this : No municipality
invented it. It was invented by an individual seeking his
own gain. (Cheers.) Then again, education is not pro
duction. It is a question of distribution; the State does
not produce its schoolmasters ; the State does not produce
its scholars. All the State does is to put the children and
i
�114
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
the teachers into juxtaposition. It is a question of distri
bution. (Hear, hear.) The Post Office itself is simply a
question of distribution. Our Socialist friends often
attach great importance to it, and I find Mrs. Besant’s
colleagues introducing it as a very fine Socialistic experi
ment. But let us see. The Post Office produces nothing.
It distributes an article which is peculiarly imperishable.
It is not like meat, or fish, or tea, or sugar. Letters,
newspapers, and book-post parcels, whatever the climate
or the temperature may be, whether it be wet or dry,
hot or cold, arrive at their destination pretty much
what they were when they were posted. (Hear, hear, and
a voice : “What about the parcels post ? ”.) I will say a
word about that in a moment. The Post Office is also
protected by law against competition. The Post Office is
allowed to charge its own price. And how is the work
done under these conditions ? There is no datum to go
upon in deciding whether the Post Office is cheap or not.
You have no private enterprise competing with it, for
competition is prevented by law. But here and there
an illustration does sometimes arise which shows that the
Post Office is not so cheap after all. The Post Office says
it carries letters from one part of England to another
for one penny, just as it carries a letter round the corner.
But the cost is nearly the same, whether the letter is
carried round the corner or to Newcastle. The difference
is simply in the cost of the transit paid to the railway
company. The labor of collecting letters, sorting them,
and delivering them, is the same whether they go to the
next street or to Scotland. (Hear, hear.) It was found,
even in the old coaching days, that the cost of taking a
letter to Edinburgh was only the fraction of a farthing,
and that all the other expense was incurred in collecting
and distributing and other forms of labor. The other day
I had to send a parcel across London. The Post Office
wanted eighteenpence, but the Parcels Delivery Company
wanted fourpence. Of course, I sent it by the latter. This
is a good illustration of the advantage of private com
petition. Individualism will beat your Socialist produc
tion or distribution right out. You know it. You are
afraid to compete with it. Therefore you want the law to
crush all rivalry. You would show Socialism the brightest
star by darkening all the rest of the sky. (Cheers.)
�115
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
FOURTH NIGHT.
Mr. 2Eneas Smith in the Chair.
The Chairman : Ladies and gentlemen, I am sure the
debate to-night will require little preface from me. Will
you allow me to impress upon you the absolute necessity
of attention to the speakers ? The turn of a word, or even
an emphasis, may affect the meaning; and as this debate
is intended for others besides those who are here, I am
sure you will see the necessity of paying attention to both
sides. (Hear, hear.) I will now call upon Mr. Foote.
Mr. Foote: Although we have occupied three evenings in
discussing this question, there remains very much still to be
said—so much, indeed, that I shall, if possible, keep straight
on on my own lines this evening, leaving Mrs. Besant to
reply in her speeches to what I say. As on last Wednesday,
I prefer to begin with a few figures. Figures are facts—or
should be ; and there can be little dispute as to the truth
of the old proverb that an ounce of fact is worth a pound
of theory. Mrs. Besant proposes as a Socialist that all
capital as well as land should be appropriated by the State.
(Hear, hear.) And I can quite understand that a large
number of persons who are not much accustomed to
analysing figures, and who see wealth which they cair
never hope to possess often massed in the hands of one
man, fancy that if the State did appropriate all the-land and all the capital, there would be such an extraA
ordinary increase in the earnings, or at any rate in the • y
receipts, of the masses of the people, that the millennium
might almost be thought to have arrived. Now I am
really sorry to say that figures do not support this enchant
ing prospect. The Socialists are very fond of saying that
Mr. Giffen holds a brief for the capitalists. (Hear, hear.)
In fact, Mrs. Besant has said it in this debate. Yet I
notice that whenever Mr. Giffen serves their turn, they use
his figures without the least scruple, and only raise o'bjeci 2
�116
IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
tions when the figures seem to go in the opposite direction.
It seems to me that if Mr. Giffen’s figures are not correct,
and the Socialists know it, they should compile a different
set of statistics, and let us see what, according to Socialistic
research, the real facts of the case are. (Hear, hear.)
But fortunately for my purpose Mrs. Besant has, in one
of her articles in her magazine, virtually admitted, with
respect to Mr. Giffen’s division of the £1,200,000,000 at
which he places the annual income of this country, that he
is practically right. Now the £1,200,000,000 is divided as
follows. Capital, according to Mr. Giffen’s figures, and
according to Mrs. Besant’s admission, receives £400,000,000,
although on that point, I think it only fair to say that Mr
Giffen thinks the amount is relatively exaggerated; but
still he puts it at the highest possible figure. Working
incomes that are taxed amount to £180,000,000; and the
working classes receive incomes which are not assessed
amounting, to £620,000,000. Now that £400,000,000
which capital receives undoubtedly looks a large sum,
At a superficial glance, it may seem that Mrs. Besant is
perfectly right when she contends that what she calls idle
capital ought not to receive this large amount every year
in the shape of interest. (Hear.) But let us look'below
the surface, and see what this £400,000,000 return on
capital really implies. Of this amount, I think, Mrs.
B esant is prepared to admit that something like£100,000,000
comes as return on English capital invested abroad. Now
if the Socialists appropriated all the capital in this country,
unless all the world were socialised at the same time—
which is very much of a dream—it would be impossible
to exploit that hundred millions. It is paid by foreign
countries, and foreign countries would in all probability
continue to pay the interest on these investments to the
persons who made them. This sum must therefore be
deducted. It is not a sum which can by any means be
appropriated. Next, Mr. Giffen states—and I think he
cannot be far from the truth—that about £200,000,000
every year are added to the amount of the national capital,
which is, of course, required to find employment for the
increasing number of the workers; for although the law
of population is going to be dealt with in the Socialist
millenium, it is not dealt with at present, and it requires
more capital to keep a larger number of persons every
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
117
year in productive work. There would, therefore, only
remain £100,000,000, if so much as that, to be seized, or
appropriated, or rescued, according as Mrs. Besant pleases
to term it, and to be distributed among the workers. Now
if we take the workers as the main body of the population,
and I presume Mrs. Besant would agree to that, this
£100,000,000 would only amount to about one shilling a
week, or less than three pounds per year. If the whole
of the £180,000,000 at present received by skilled labor,
either of hand or head, should also be appropriated, there
would be a further sum of from five to six pounds a year
for each person available, the total amount thus obtained
coming to about eight pounds a year per head, or in other
words about three shillings a week. Now is that three
shillings a week anything like what Mrs. Besant’s picture
of the Socialist millenium implies ? To my mind it is
not. And that amount could not be increased unless we
found some means of increasing, first the sum total of the
capital of the country, and next the income of the country
which arises from the productive use of that capital.
(Hear, hear.)
Now let us look at these figures in another way. The total
income of the country, setting aside nearly £100,000,000
derived from foreign investments, and £200,000,000 saved
every year to increase the capital for further production,
amounts to about £900,000,000. Taking the entire popu
lation of the country, it amounts, roughly speaking, to £20
per head. That is, for a family of five there would be an
income of £120. Of course this implies that the present
long hours of labor are to continue, and the extensive
employment of women and children as at present. But if
the hours of labor were shortened, if only the adult males
were employed, if the females and the children were no
longer allowed to engage in industrial pursuits as they
now do, you would probably have little more than half
that sum; that is something over £60 per family of five.
(Hear, hear.) But I will take it at the outside, and regard
the total for a family of five as £120. On the most
sanguine estimate then, by equalising everybody all round,
there would only be £2 6s. a week for every family; and
that wage would have to be made up to the inferior workers
by taking from the reward of skilled labor. There is no
escape from this dilemma that I can perceive. Perhaps
�118
IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
Mrs. Besant. may be more sagacious. If so, all the better
for her position. But if she cannot see any escape it
simply comes to this: that unless you can exploit the
wages of skilled labor, and give a portion of them to
unskilled labor, the millenium would be as far off as ever.
(Hear, hear.) Now I deny that that would be right, to
begin with. And I deny, in the second place, that it would
be economically sound. (Hear, hear.) Not only is skill
necessary, but I venture to say the reward of unskilled
labor is greater where skill directs it than it could be with
out that direction, even if skilled labor takes what seems
to unskilled labor a preposterous share. (Cheers.) If you
contravene this, by all means let us see on what grounds
you contravene it. It will not do simply to say the wages
of superintendence are too high, or that skill receives too
much. I say that skill will be paid. (Hear, hear.) I
say that if you don’t pay in our country for skill it will
emigrate to countries where it would find its proper
reward. (Cheers.)
Now having adduced these figures, which are at least
worthy of some attention, I propose to deal with some
of the practical difficulties of Mrs. Besant’s scheme. You
will perhaps remember that I said she had not by an
effort of constructive imagination attempted to show us
that her scheme would work well in practice. But that is
absolutely necessary. Any scheme can be made to look
well on paper. (Hear, hear.) Any scheme which can put
its good side forward, and never have any of its ill aspects
presented, would naturally gain a great deal of acceptance
among the unthinking, and a good deal of applause among
those whose hearts on this subject are a good deal bigger
than their heads. (Cries of “Oh, oh”.) I am sorry that
any gentleman should resent the idea that he has a big
heart, and if it pains him to think so I will retract the
observation. (Cheers and laughter.) Unfortunatelv what
ever scheme you propose would have to work in practice
with the same old human nature we all know. (Hear,
hear.) I have said that in my opinion Mrs. Besant takes
too optimistic a view of human nature. That is not a matter
we can easily discuss, because all people differ more or
less in their estimate of human nature, and the thing must
be left for overyone to decide for himself. But certainly
there is a great deal of improvidence in human nature.
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119
There is a great of want of forethought in human nature.
There is a great deal of stupidity in human nature. (Laugh
ter.) There is a great deal of idleness in human nature.
(Hear, hear.) If you have a scheme which looks excellent
on paper, promising to work with a brand-new form of
human nature, in which all the old evils are eliminated
and only its better qualities survive, naturally you have
not a very difficult task before you. But taking human
nature as we know it, leaving a slight margin for probable
improvement in the immediate future, let us see how this
scheme of Mrs. Besants would be likely to work. First
let us deal with its economical aspect. Mrs. Besant holds—
following Gronlund in this, as she follows him in so many
other points—that the industries of the country would be
conducted by groups of workers holding capital—that is
holding all the machinery and all the tools, every kind
of plant and every kind of structure necessary for carrying
on their trade. Now as I pointed out in a previous part of
this discussion there are no fewer than twelve thousand
different trades tabulated by the Registrar General. At
the outset it looks an extremely difficult thing for nominees
of the State, public committees, or what not, to decide how
much capital is the proper amount for each of these twelve
thousand groups. I should be very sorry to sit on the
committee myself. (Laughter.) It would tax more powers
than I possess. But as very sensible persons are going to
turn up in the immediate future, that may not be a very
great difficulty after all. (Laughter and hear, hear.)
Now I put it to Mrs. Besant that these groups would
either be related to each other under a central Board, or
they would be separate. In either case you would have
to face one of two evils. If they are connected together
under one Board, if they have all the capital necessary to
conduct their enterprise, if they also have complete control
over it so that they can fix their wages and decide the
prices of the commodities which they will put into the
market, all the community will be absolutely at the mercy
of any particular group; and if the group be the producers
of one of the prime necessaries of life, in a manufacturing
country like ours, the dependence of the rest of the com
munity upon it would be something shocking to contem
plate. (Hear, hear.) Now suppose the groups are
separate. Then the competition which Mrs. Besant so
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much, dreads will simply continue—for group will still
compete with group. I suppose people will not be obliged
to purchase from whatever group the committee may
specify. The better kinds of work would, of course, be
done by the better kinds of workmen, and these would
gradually find each other out. They would group together,
and the most skilled groups would get the largest share
of public support, while the unskilled would be gradually
driven out of employment, and in all periods of commercial
distress they would be thrown upon the community, whowould have to be responsible for their support. (Cheers.)
Even if all your groups were connected under one Board,
you would have the evils of competition, because the groups
of persons in similar industries in other countries would
compete with ours in the general market. In fact, as I
have said before, you could not by any mechanism destroy
that competition, which is not a hindrance to progress, but
rather, as I hold, the very essence of progress, stringing
the faculties of men in the great battle of life, where if
occasionally the sluggish are left behind, there is reward
for those who have the courage and the energy to hold their
own. And this applies to the great mass of the people.
Even in the greatest commercial crisis—and you hear so
much now in the papers about public distress—the great
majority of the workers are in fair remunerative employ
ment. It is only a small percentage who are out of work,
depending upon public or upon private charity. (Hear,
hear.)
I should like to know how these groups are going to
settle prices. Suppose a group fixes the price of an article,
and says, “ That is what it takes us to produce it ” ? Who
is to estimate this ? There is a very good way of estima
ting whether a thing is offered at the right price or not now.
Supply and demand settles it in the open market. But if'
the price is to be fixed by a group, then one of two things
would happen—either that group would be able to exact
something which under the present competitive system
it would not be able to get from the community, or else
all the other groups would raise their prices as well, and I
need not say that a common rise of prices would leave
things exactly the same as before, without the least advan
tage to anybody concerned. (Hear, hear.)
Next, I should like to know whether foreign compe
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121
tition would not have something to do with the price of
commodities in our own country even under Socialism.
All the world is some day to be Socialised, but still it will
take a good deal of time. Perhaps it may be said that
the Social Democrats are making advances in Germany.
(Cheers.) Well, perhaps so; but if you were to ask the
Social Democrats of Germany to sit down and write out
what they all want, you would find there are large differ
ences between them. In my opinion, the social democracy
of Germany is largely a reaction against the oppressive
militarism of Bismarck and Moltke. (Hear, hear.) If
the country were allowed, not only nominal, but actual
free institutions, we should hear a great deal less of
fanciful schemes and extreme ideas. (Cheers.)
I should also like to know how wages are to be settled.
Mrs. Besant says in one of her pamphlets that the worker
would have control over the price of his own labor,
exactly as he has now. Well, I fail to see this. Wages
would have to be fixed by a committee, and from what I
know of human nature I should think it highly probable,
if there are eleven commonly skilled persons and one
exceptionally skilled person, that they would pull him
down to their economical level. (Hear, hear.) I believe
that if salaries had to be fixed, salaries would be fixed
by the vast majority pretty much on their own level, and
in that case, as I have said before, I believe they would
drive skill out of the market. (Hear, hear.) But how
would the wages of the general run of workers be fixed ?
How could it be fixed, in the long run, except by the
market value of'lhe commodities they produced ? Well,
that is exactly how wages are fixed, in the long run,
now. There would have to be a return on capital, as
there is now. There would have to be, if your industrial
enterprises are to be fairly successful, the same payments
for skill as at present. Then, if the groups were overrun,
as many of them would be, owing to the pressure of popu
lation ; if the lower unskilled labor-market were flooded
by this growth of population—a disaster to which the
higher skilled groups would be less subject; then wages
would gradually get lower and lower. The only remedy
would be to raise prices. But that is impossible. In the
long run the only way of fixing wages is leaving it to be
determined by the price of the commodity; and the price
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
of the commodity in the open market, no matter whatever
Socialism may do, would inevitably be determined by the
great economical law of supply and demand. (Cheers.)
Next, I should like to know how you are going to
settle the question of occupations. Mrs. Besant thinks it
would be pretty much the same as now, and that if a
particular trade were flooded, a man would have to go
into something else—or rather a boy, for that is the end
of life at which you begin learning a business. Well, that
may seem very nice to some people, but to my mind it seems
an intolerable tyranny. (Hear, hear.) Occupations are
not so easily settled. There would, of course, be a rush
for the best kind of work. Who is to settle who shall
have them ? Would it not be a question of first come
first served ? And would not those who got inside stand as
a rampart to guard the rings, and keep outsiders from
coming in and lowering the wages of their privileged
groups. (Cheers.) The inferior groups would naturally take
all the rest. But suppose you had a more ideal system, and
the occupations were determined by fitness. How will
you estimate the fitness ? Who is to decide whether a
gloomy, melancholy youth like James Watt has in him
the capacity which he manifests in after life ? Who is to
decide whether Shakspere, running away from home, is
going to be the mightiest poet in the world ? (Cheers.)
Who is to decide whether Robert Burns at the plough-tail
is to be the greatest glory of Scotland? (Cheers.) Who
is to decide these things ? You cannot decide them by
forethought. You can only allow them to be decided by
Nature herself, giving free play and exercise to all quali
ties, and letting the highest and the best come to the front.
■( Cheers.)
Then, of course, in all societies there is a great deal of
•dirty and irksome work to be done. (Hear, hear.) It is
idle to shun facts. I have said before in this debate, and
I repeat it now, that the sure sign of a man of judgment
is the recognition of a fact as unalterable, and the sure
sign of a fool is the inability to recognise that facts are
unalterable. Now, this dirty and irksome work would
have to be performed by somebody. Mrs. Besant thinks
that in the Socialist State there will be a much greater
mixture of labor than at present. She says the clerk will
be as ready to fill the cart as a carter, and that the carter
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123
will be as ready to handle the pen as the clerk. (Laughter.)
I do not believe it. Still, I do not deny Mrs. Besant her
right to believe it. What is the fact at present ? The fact
is, human nature consists of all levels—from Newton and
Shakspere to the lowest forms of mentality outside the
walls of a lunatic asylum. There are all grades. What
to one man is utterly disgusting, to another man is scarcely
irksome. What to a man of very fine tastes and feelings
would be simply intolerable, to another man would be
simply something which he would perhaps rather avoid,
but it does not make his daily life a burden, and his nightly
life sleepless. (Hear, hear.) Now, at present the lower
forms of human nature fall into positions where they do
the more irksome and dirty work, and it is less irksome
and disagreeable to them than to others. (Hear, hear,
and “Oh, oh.”) If you were to put Shakspere, if you
were to put a highly skilled physician, or a consummate
artist, to the same kind of labor which is done as a matter
of course by some of the coarser human organisms, it
would be infinitely more distressing to them. (Hear,
hear.) And I say that generally the finer intellect goes
with finer tastes. (Hear, hear.) But suppose this dirty
work, this irksome work—as Mrs. Besant proposes—
should be divided among all. What would be the result ?
Here is a skilled surgeon who has to perform the most
delicate operations. With a sensitive touch, the lancet
being inside the skin and invisible, he has to discriminate
between one tissue and another, and the life or death of
the patient depends upon his hand not swerving a hair’sbreadth from the right line. To tell me that that man can
go out for half-an-hour to fill the place of a carter, and
come back retaining his previous fine skill, is to tell me
something utterly repugnant to common-sense. (Cheers.)
I shall conclude this half-hour’s speech—for I have a
good deal more to urge—by dealing with the question of
amusements. All theatres, concert rooms, parks, public
galleries, museums, etc., are to be regulated by State com
mittees. Fancy a State committee trying to manage the
Lyceum Theatre. (Laughter.) Fancy a State committee
dictating what Mr. Irving shall play. Fancy a State
committee deciding all these things. What would happen ?
The great general average of low taste would swamp the
better taste. The average taste, I believe, would not be
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
for Patti, but for Jenny Hill. (Hear, hear.) Those whowanted the higher and better forms of amusement would
be asked if they were so much better than their neighbors,
and whether what was good enough for Smith, Brown,
Jones, and Robinson, was not good enough for all the rest.
(Cheers, and hear, hear.) I am not surprised at that “ hear,
hear ”, but I am sorry. I say that the better forms of amuse
ment suit the better natures. The highest natures require
the highest forms of recreation. Under the present system
they can gratify their tastes. But if all the means of pro
duction, all the capital of the country, all the halls, and
all the theatres, are to be under State regulation, the
great mass of lower tastes will swamp the superior. In
stead of the world being advanced in all those higher
qualities that are of the very essence of progress, it would
be driven back, generation after generation, until in the
course of time we should return to the savagery and
anarchy from which we have emerged. (Great cheers.)
Annie Besant : Friends, in making my last half hour’s
speech in this debate, I propose to mark exactly the stage
that we have reached; to note what are the difficulties
that I have put before Mr. Foote, which he has not met,
and to point out also how many of the difficulties that he
has raised are difficulties of the nature of a nightmare
rather than of reality. The position that I put first in
this debate was, that so long as private property existed
in the material necessary for wealth-production then
whether you take the theory of political economy, or
whether you take the facts of society around you, you find
that that property in the material of wealth-production
must result in the continued subjection of the wage
earners, and in the impossibility of the masses rising far
above the level of subsistence. I put that to Mr. Foote
first as a fair deduction made by the leading economists of
our own times ; and next, as proved by the facts of society
visible to us as we study the pheenomena around us. I
pointed out to him thefactthat in every civilised country that
result had followed from the appropriation, that in every
civilisation around you, you had the extreme of wealth and
the extreme of poverty. That central proposition has only
been met by raising difficulties in the details of its possible
application, and not by grappling with it; not by showing
us how these evils might be prevented while private pro
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125
perty in those materials remained, but only by asking us
how, in a variety of minute details, are you going to try to
apply it, and how are you going to try to work out your
new system; and my answer to that is, that difficulties in
the way of application are difficulties in the way of every
veforming body—(cheers)—and that while those difficulties
are, as I put it to you the first night, a reason for caution
in our movement, they are no reason for despair. And I
pointed out to him, and he never tried to answer the diffi
culty^—that every difficulty of detail that he put to me with
regard to the total material for wealth-production was an
equal difficulty on his own shoulders with respect to the
nationalisation of the land, or to that half-and-half Socialism
which he advocates without knowing the principle which
underlies it, and the results that would flow from it.
(Cheers.) I put to him on the next night on which I led
the debate the historical difficulty, that every civilisation
in which this private property had existed had its pro
prietary and its slave classes. I pointed out to him that
on that division of classes each civilisation in its turn had
been wrecked; that the upper classes grew effeminate,
lazy, and luxurious, while the lower class were degraded,
helpless, without self-respect. I pointed out to him that
in the older ones we had chattel slaves, in the Middle Ages
we had serfs, and in our own times we have wage slaves ;
and I showed him that the difficulties on which the other
civilisations had been wrecked were difficulties in our own
time. Yet he never tried to meet that position, but simply
sneered at my raising a historical question. (Cheers.) I
submit to you that in dealing with a question like this you
must try and go to the root of the matter. I submit to you
that the causes which have destroyed every previous Indi
vidualistic society are at work in your own society. Take
America, where the land in proportion to the population is
practically boundless. The difficulties in America are as
great as in our own country, the same extremes of wealth
and poverty, the same sub] ection of the workers, the same
■divorcebetween classes; even wider divisions than we have
here; for here they are modified by some of the old
traditions of feudal duty on the one sideband feudal looking
for help on the other; whereas in America you have your
modern Individualistic system utterly naked, utterly un
ashamed, and you have the whole mass of society there
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
restless and troubled, and giving rise to the same Socialist
agitation that you find yourself face to face with at your
own doors. (Cheers.) Your Individualistic society is being
destroyed from within more than it is in danger of being
overthrown from without. The causes of its failure are
within itself, and those causes are becoming more and more
palpable, and their results more clear. The result of the
international capitalism is the driving of our home trades
down to the lowest level of the worst paid foreign work
men. (Hear, hear.) Even during the last week, with all
the difficulties in our own coal trade, the difficulty is in
creased by the joining together of a number of capitalists
to bring over Belgian coal raised by Belgian miners at the
starvation wage paid in the Charleroi basin; this is to be
put on the London market at 2s. 6d. per ton cheaper than
any coal which can be brought from South Wales. How
are you going to deal with that under the Individualistic
system ? It can only be met in two ways : either by your
capital, or so much of it as can do so, leaving the country
to be invested in lands where labor is cheaper than at
home ; or in the way it will be chiefly done, by the sinking
of your mining population to the level of the worst paid
workmen; and the degradation of our Northumberland,
of our Durham, of our Yorkshire, and of our South
Wales miners to the miserable condition in which the
Belgian miners are starving at the present time.
(Cheers.) Not only so, but I say that the present system
of competition leads to monopoly more and more. Your
great industries are falling into fewer hands, more and
more they are passing into joint stock companies, and in
America you see this system carried further yet. But when
they become monopolies, as they are becoming; when the
smaller men are crushed out, as they are being crushed out
at the present time ; then you will be face to face with an
absolute tyranny over society as you have got it in America,
where a ring of capitalists simply plays with the market
for its own profit and plunders the community for its own
gain. You must either submit to that or you must adopt
the Socialist plan, and take over those monopolies into the
power of the community, and make them social instead of
anti-social as they are under your Individualistic system.
(Cheers.)
And at this point I naturally come to those figures with
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127
which. Mr. Foote dealt in the early part of his speech.
Mr. Foote stated—and stated accurately enough—that there
would not be an enormous increase of wage if the pro
portion of land and of capital he mentioned were divided
up among the workers. But he will pardon me, I am sure,
for saying that he very much understated it, because I
have the figures here to prove the contention that I shall
put to you. In the first place the 400 millions which
Mr. Giffen gives include not only interest on capital,
as Mr. Foote was putting it, but the whole of the rental
also which goes into the pocket of the landlord. (Hear,
hear.) These do not include the wages of superintendence
at all. I am not dwelling on the fact that Mr. Giffen
gives his figures on one occasion as 407 millions,
and at another as 400 millions, because seven millions,
are a trifle for the purpose of this argument. But
I would point out to you that you practically get400 millions to dispose of by the admission of Mr.
Giffen, and that Mr. Foote in his argument managed to
whittle the 400 millions down to 100 millions, and
then to base the rise that would take place in the wages
of workers on the lower figure. And let me say why
it is I take Mr. Giffen’s figures, although I—to quote
his own phrase—think that he was fairly accused of holding
a brief for the capitalists. I take them because, although
they are understated and unfair to our side of the question,
they are quite strong enough to bear the weight of the
whole of the Socialists’ contention. (Hear, hear.) Out of
our enemies’ mouth we can prove our case. For what are
Mr. Giffen’s figures ? According to Mr. Giffen 400
millions go for rent and interest to idle capitalists—
(cries of “Shame”)—out of the total income of 1,200
millions, from which we are to take 100 millions forinterest on foreign investments. The wages for special
ability are variously reckoned by Mr. Giffen, Mr. Mulhall,
and Professor Leoni Levi, but we find that they comeroughly to 350 millions. That is to say: that out of theproduce of the country, when you have taken interest on
capital and rent of land, when you have taken higher salaries
and wages, which are sometimes called rent of ability, then
you have left to divide amongst the manual labor class only
450 millions out of 1,250 millions, with which you started ;
that is 800 millions of pounds made by the workers go
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
completely out of their hands. And now what does that
mean ? It means in the first place that those who get these
three rents, as the economists call them—of land, of
capital, and of special ability—numbering, as they do, ac
cording to Mr. Giffen’s computation, two millions of
families, take 800 millions out of the national income ; and
the producers, numbering five million families, get
450 millions; that is, that the two million families get
800 millions, and the 5,000,000 get 450 millions. Then I
find Mr. Giffen again stating that out of the 16^ millions
of separate incomes, which are made in this country only
millions are over £150 a year. I find Mulhall, in the
‘ ‘ Dictionary of Statistics, ’ ’ giving 222,000 families of the very
rich, that is with incomes over £1,600 a year, and 604,000
families of the rich, that is with incomes of £320 a year,
and 1,220,000 in the middle and trading classes; and that
if those figures are added together you get two-thirds of the
total income of the country. Now I submit that if you
recovered even one-third of the income of the country for
the producers, and distributed it among them in addition
to the one-third already held by them, no twisting of figures
can leave the wages at the point at which they are to-day,
for you would at least increase them by bringing that onethird more within the workers’ reach to be used for their
benefit. (Cheers.) No Socialist pretends that the whole
of that rent and the whole of that interest on capital can
ever under a Socialistic condition go directly into the hands
of manual workers: but it says this—that while your
economic rent must remain, while your payment for ad
vantages in productivity in machinery must remain, to
equalise the condition of the workers ; that that rent, and
that interest on capital, instead of going to the support of
the class who are absolutely idle, and who therefore act as
a poison to the community, will go into the national
exchequer to be used for national purposes, to remove the
burden of taxation from labor, and to be utilised for the
benefit of those from whom it came, and to whom it should
go. (Cheers.)
Now what is the result of your present industrial
system ? Compare your death-rate of rich and poor.
Mr. Foote wants figures. I intend to-night to give him
some. You can go to the Registrar-General’s report and
•compare the death-rates of rich and poor. I will first take
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children under five years of age; you will find that ac
cording to Dr. Playfair the death-rate of children of the
upper classes is only 18 per cent., as against tradesmen 36
per cent., and workmen 55 per cent. (A Voice : “ Hor
rible.”) That is, more than half the children of the workers
die before they reach the age of five years. And it is not
only amongst the children. The children, inheriting feeble
frames from underfed parents, die very fast, and the un
derfeeding, the slow starvation, of the parents shortens their
lives even when they reach the adult condition; and I
find in the report made by Dr. Drysdale to the Industrial
Remuneration Conference that, comparing the average age
at death among the nobility and professional classes with
that of some classes of the poor, that the average age of
death of the so-called higher classes was fifty-five years,
while the average age amongst the artisan class of Lam
beth only amounted to twenty-nine years. Now, I want
to know why that is, if everything is for the best in this
best of all possible worlds; if the division of profits is so
admirably made by the law of supply and demand, and by
those laws of which we hear so much, why is it that those
who supply the demand supply death also with so many ?
(Cheers.) Why is it that the poor man’s child has so much
less chance of life than the rich man’s, if it is not that your
society is built up on the plan of putting at the base of
your social pyramid a class which you exploit to the utter
most, and of whose life you are absolutely careless ; while
at the apex you have persons whom you point to as pro
ducts of your magnificent civilisation, and who are as use
less in their lives as they are mischievous in their action on
society. (Cheers.) I admit that under any conditions life
for some time to come will be a hard struggle. I admit
that the conditions that surround us are such that life
without hard labor is impossible; and I say that that
fact is no reason for allowing a class that earns nothing to
appropriate so much, and that the very fact that much
work is wanted to produce the necessities of life is a reason
for getting rid of the drones who eat so much honey while
they do nothing to increase the store. (Cheers.) I will go
a step further. I find Mr. Mulhall, reckoning the pauper
class from the figures of paupers receiving relief in Eng
land, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, and reckoning the
whole pauper class, put it at three million persons, or one
K
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
in eight of the manual labor class. I find Mr. Giffen, the
great authority, talking of the residuum of five millions
whose condition is a stain on our civilisation. Mr. Foote
talks of a small minority, but one in eight is not a small
minority—when that means a pauper class in the midst of
industrial civilisation, and when you take five millions of
residuum whose condition is a disgrace to our civilisation.
When you remember that the total number of manual
workers in the country only amounts to not quite
16 millions, I ask you to think of the five millions who are,
according to Mr. Giffen’s own account, a stain on our
civilisation. (Cheers.)
Well, but, says Mr. Foote, when you deal with this
question how are you going to get on with your change ?
I submit that if I show a grave cause for change; if I
prove that the result of the present economical and indus
trial system is the degradation which we see around us,
and which is proved by figures, that then the question is
no longer—“ is the change needed ?” but “ how shall that
change be made in the most rapid and most efficient way?”
(Cheers.) And I come to the points which were put by
Mr. Foote. Mr. Foote states that I take a too optimistic
view of human nature. No, it is because I do not take an
optimistic view of human nature that I advocate Socialism.
(Hear, hear.) I believe that men are selfish; I believe
that men are apt to trample on their fellows; I believe
that the result of centuries of struggling for life has been
to make men much more hard-hearted than they ought to
be, and that when they can take advantage of their fellows
they will do so ; and therefore I want to do away with the
opportunities of living on other persons which human
selfishness, sloth, and greed will most certainly take ad
vantage of. (Hear, hear.) I want to say to the selfish
man living on his brother, “We will take away from you
the possibility of living upon another by making you work
for anything you desire to get ”. It is because I do not be
lieve that human nature is perfect that I want to take
away the opportunities of exploitation which are enjoyed
by men under the present conditions of society. But Mr.
Foote goes on to say that an unskilled man gets more by
being directed by the skilled; and I am not prepared to
challenge that statement. I believe the working together
of skilled and unskilled is good for both, but I do not want
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
to try to keep the unskilled, class where they are, but to
raise them up into the skilled ; and while I admit the value
of skilled over unskilled, labor, I say that the amount it
gets as proved by the figures of the other side is far too
high. (Hear, hear.) Mr. Foote says that skilled, labor
will emigrate ; but there are two sides to that question. If
all the skilled persons go out of the country to foreign
countries they will become a drug in the foreign market,
and will drive down their own wages by competition among
themselves. If they desert us, they will at least no
longer exploit the laborers. (Hear, hear.) But I am in
clined to think that it may be worth our while to keep
some of them, and that until they are civilised into beings
with higher sense of duty to society than they have now,
it may be worth while to grant them some exceptional pay
for the work that they do, and so keep some of them to
direct our industrial enterprises. I believe amongst Social
ists I am in a minority in thinking that the various forms
of labor should be equally paid; I believe the majority are
in favor of unequal payment, so that you may still be able
to give some extra advantages to the extra skill. But
however that may be, equal or unequal remuneration is
not of the essence of Socialism. But it is of the essence
of Socialism that you should not have any payment what
ever made to an idle class. (Hear, hear.) And that is
why I pointed out before that Mr. Foote was confusing
wages of superintendence with the interest paid on capital
to persons who do nothing at all. That 407 millions are
rent and interest on capital without one stroke of work
being done in return; and it is not fair to speak as though
the whole or any of that came as remuneration for skill,
when really it only comes as remuneration for being born
the eldest son of your father and your mother.
Let us take a step further. Mr. Foote raised a great
many difficulties about occupations. He wanted to know
how Socialists were going to manage the 12,000 trades;
he wanted to know how prices were to be fixed either by
the groups or federations of groups; he said if one group
stood out you would have the whole community at its
mercy, or the groups thrown on the community for support.
But is there any reason why the Socialists should be such
fools as Mr. Foote supposes ? He is good enough to tell us
that our hearts are bigger than our heads, and then he
G 2
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
complained that his sneer was not taken as a compliment,
as if he had dealt with the largeness of our hearts and not
with the smallness of our heads. But I would point out
to Mr. Foote that Socialists are not fools enough to believe
that they can settle beforehand every detail of a future
condition of society. (Hear, hear.) What the Individualist
prefers to do is to get away from the central principle on
which we stand, and put conundrums of this kind to which
he challenges us to find an answer. Our answer is that
you will have working then the natural laws of society as
you have them now. Demand and supply will still exist;
prices will still be fixed by demand and supply ; and when
you deal with foreign goods taken in exchange for your
own products, if the foreigner has a more limited amount
to exchange and you are in need of it, his price will go up,
that is, you will have to give more of your commodities in
exchange for his goods ; and you will have to require more
labor here from those who desire to possess a portion of that
which has been obtained at the higher price. We do not
propose to start a new heaven and a new earth with laws
different from what they are now. (Hear, hear.) We
propose to destroy private property in the material of
production, and then to let economic forces mould the
details of the new condition of things, as they have
moulded the old. But we say, if we start on a basis which
is sound instead of on one that is rotten, we may reason
ably hope that the structure will be sounder than the one
you have to-day. (Cheers.) Then Mr. Foote put the
difficulty of the division of labor, and spoke about the refined
man feeling the intolerable burden of heavy work and the
lower human organism who is only fit for the work he does.
Then I ask Mr. Foote whether he deliberately means that
his Individualist society is based on the existence of a
helot-class, in which every taste, every feeling of art, every
longing for beauty and refinement, is to be crushed out in
order that a small minority may usurp all. (Hear, hear.)
If that be what he means, then the moral difference
between us is indeed deep and wide. (Hear, hear.) We
deny that there should be a helot-class. We do not ask
that a physician with his delicate fingers should go into the
streets and sweep up, nor do the scavanger’s work there,
for every society must have division of labor. But we say
that the physician is useful to society and the scavenger is
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133
useful to society; that under Socialism the scavenger’s
work will be honorable ; that he shall not be a mere helot,
a mere drudge, but shall have the enjoyment of hearing
a Patti and of higher art, and we say that the civilisation
which is based on helotry will fall. (Cheers.)
Mr. Foote : Sometimes I envy Mrs. Besant’s power of
appealing to people’s feelings. (Hear, hear.) Fortunately
this debate will be reported verbatim, and will be read in
cold blood. Mrs. Besant says that she objects to a helot
class. At the same time she says that under Socialism
there will be men set apart for surgery and men set apart
for scavenging. Exactly so. And why ? Because some
are fit for surgery and some are fit for scavenging. Other
wise you are going to appoint them because they are unfit
for the special work they have to do. (Hear, hear.) But
mark. Mrs. Besant says the scavenger who does this—I
am but speaking the plain truth—disgusting work—
(Interruption)—why this complaint, when under Socialism
somebody will have to do it ? Mrs. Besant says that the
scavenger shall, under Socialism, hear Patti. Well, if he
has a taste for Patti, he can hear her now. (Cries of
“ No, no ”.) Can’t he ? I can remember the time when
my earnings were not greater than any scavenger’s in the
country, yet I still saved my two shillings for a treat at
the Italian opera, climbing the flight of stairs that led to
the gallery. Although I did not sit in a luxurious seat,
I heard Patti and Albani as well as the man who paid
his guinea. (Cries of “No, no”.) I say, yes. I heard
the music and the singing, and he could do no more.
(Cheers.)
Mrs. Besant says that if we do not pay for skill, and it
emigrates, it will bring down the value of the skill abroad.
But that depends upon where the skill goes. There is
Australia, there is South Africa, there are large parts of
North America, there are other portions of the globe at
present being colonised by the English-speaking race,
which could take as much skill as ever the old countries
could send them. (Hear, hear.) It is not skill that they
object to. Skill can always find its reward. (Cries of
“ No, no ”.) It is persons going there with no skill and no
means that they object to. (Hear, hear, and “No, no”.)
Why, even now, on the landing-stage at New York they
turn emigrants back if they have not a fair prospect before
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
them, and make them return to the country they camefrom or anywhere else they can go to.
Mrs. Besant also says there is a great deal of selfishness
in human nature. She believes that human nature has a
large amount of ingrained selfishness. Yet she proposes
to take away all opportunity for using a faculty which is
more or less in everybody. You will need a very stringent
law to frustrate a faculty in everybody, and a faculty which
has hitherto been legitimate, and will not therefore feel
criminal all at once. It is very much like saying that be
cause persons sometimes cut their throats with razors,
no more razors shall be made. Is selfishness a bad thing ?
It is more than selfishness when it steps out of its way to
inflict suffering upon others. That is not mere selfishness,
but crime. It is aggressive egoism, which the law of every
civilised society represses and punishes. But that is not a
bad selfishness which enables a man to work hard, to fore
see consequences, to make provision for the morrow, toforego a present gratification for a more important future
one, and to strive to make provision for the wife and
children in his own home, whom he must love more
than the wives and the children of society in general.
That selfishness is not a crime. If you could eliminate
it from society you would kill society. But the passion is
indestructible and society is safe. (Cheers.)
I did not say in any part of this debate that everything
was for the best. I said that man was a gradually im
proving creature. I did not say there was no room for
improvement. Mrs. Besant cannot deplore more than I do
the evils that afflict mankind. (Hear, hear.) And I have
in my own way done my little share towards making the
world a trifle better. (Cheers.) The question between us
is not whether the world requires reform, but what is the
kind of reform it requires. (Hear, hear.) If a patient is
sick, Mrs. Besant and I may both deplore his condition,
but the question of what is the best remedy for his dis
order is entirely independent of our appreciation of the
fact that he is ill. You may as well say there is no use in
discussing the merits of allopathy and homoeopathy while
patients are sick. I say our patient must be treated care
fully in cold blood, by persons who subordinate their
feelings to their skill. You may work as much mischief
by good feeling wrongly directed as by bad feeling itself.
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
135
If you could measure all the evil done in society by mis
directed benevolence it would appal you. (Hear, hear.)
Pauperism itself is intensified by this evil. I admit that
society requires change; but how is the change to be
brought about ? Mrs. Besant says let us turn over a brandnew leaf. I say there is plenty of good message on the
leaf we have not yet exhausted. It is not a fact that in
our present system we have merely exchanged the old
slavery for a new one. (Cries of “ Oh, oh”.) It is not a
fact. Words often cheat people. They fancy that two
different things, because they can be called by the same
word, are really identical. Do you mean to tell me there
is any identity between the black slave, put up in the mar
ket for sale, and knocked down to the highest bidder,
separated from his wife and family probably never to see
them more, driven to work in the fields with a whip, and
not having a single thing to call his own, even his life
being almost absolutely at the mercy of his master—and
the skilled mechanic—(Cries of “ Oh, oh ”.) One moment.
If there are persons who are unskilled, whose fault is it ?
Cannot the unskilled laborer become a skilled laborer ?
(Cries of “ No, no ”.) Is there any penal statute in the
wide universe to prevent any man with the capacity getting
as much skill as any other man with the same capacity.
(Cheers.) I repeat, then, What analogy is there between
that black slave and the skilled or half-skilled mechanic,
who goes to work five and a half days in the week, and has
his evenings to himself ; who, if he does not live altogether
on the fat of the land, at least has his own inviolable domi
cile, where he can shut his door, and enjoy unmolested the
society of those he loves ? It may not be quite so large as
he might like ; but it is his. (Hear, hear.) Why, if you
were to call half the working men in this country in their
own workshops slaves, they would feel insulted. (Hear,
hear.) Although I daresay some will go to a public hall
and cheer the utterance when it serves their side of the
dispute. These workers are not slaves. (Cries of “We
are ”.) Well, if any gentleman feels he is a slave, I will
not dispute the fact any further. (Laughter.)
Now is it a fact that the working classes have no means
of redress ? I said before that they had. I say their
proper road to salvation is not through enforced co-opera
tion, but through voluntary co-operation. (Cheers.) No
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
State co-operation, can. succeed until the necessary qualities
are there ; and if they were there, they would make volun
tary co-operation possible to-morrow. (Hear, hear.) Volun
tary associations have succeeded; succeeded with picked
men it is true, but no new enterprise, no progressive
movement, can ever succeed except with picked men.
(Hear, hear.) The mass of mankind go on doing pretty
much the same thing from the cradle to the grave. It is
only the exceptional persons who strike out in fresh direc
tions, and they are followed by-and-bye when the experi
ment they began has proved a success. Many co-operative
societies have succeeded. Mill mentions some of them in
his chapter on the Probable Future of the Working Classes.
Others are mentioned by Thornton. You will also find
others in the Government' “Report on Co-operation in
Foreign Countries ” issued last summer. Mrs. Besant says
the workers cannot obtain capital, but she is entirely
wrong. These experiments prove the very opposite. Nay
more, while nearly all—I believe absolutely all—the State
subventioned enterprises failed in France in 1849, the
successful ones were those animated wholly by the spirit
of self-help. Let me cite a few instances from the Govern
ment Report:
“In 1849, fifty-nine tailors started with some assistance
from outsiders, a co-operative tailors’ shop. They soon
raised a business capital of 200,000 francs in fifty franc
shares, which were to be paid for in weekly one franc instal
ments. In 1851 this association was doing work on a large
scale, and had at the same time a benefit fund formed by re
taining five per cent, on salaries, and ten per cent, on profits.”
“ Fourteen piano makers in 1848, without any means of
their own, or Government aid, after great hardships and
difficulties in starting, founded and carried on successfully,
a business which two years afterwards owned 40,000 francs’
worth of property.”
“A small association of armchair makers, which started in
1849 with 135 francs, made 37,000 francs of net profits, and
could afford to pay 5,500 francs per annum for their work
shop.”
“A co-operation of file-makers, starting with fourteen
members and 500 francs, acquired a capital of 150,000
francs, and two houses of business, one in Paris, the other
in the provinces.”
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
137
“A successful co-operation of boot-form makers began
with two francs. One of spectacle makers, with 650 francs,
had in 1883 a capital of over 1,270,000 francs.” (Cheers.)
You see, then, that the statement that labor, if it be
energetic, earnest, possessed with the necessary intellectual
and moral qualities, cannot get capital, is belied by these
facts, which are of infinitely more value than all the de
clamations and theories in the world. (Cheers.)
Now just a word in concluding this speech. Mrs. Besant
says she is not here to solve conundrums. I never asked
her to. She says she is not going to trouble herself about
details, as it is not necessary to work them out. But
everything in the long run consists of details. (Hear,
hear.) Great masses are made up of small quantities.
Details mean everything in the end. Mind you, the ques
tion between us is, not whether society requires improve
ment, but whether Mrs. Besant’s particular scheme for
improvement is likely to turn out a good one. You may
as well say that a Prime Minister should bring in a Bill
for Home Rule, without telling the House or the country
any of the details of the scheme by which he proposes to
carry his principles out, as shirk the practical details of
a question like Socialism. Mr. Gladstone was opposed
by many who approved his object but disapproved his
method. They agreed on the principle, but split on the
ways and means. So I approve Mrs. Besant’s principle
of agitating for the improvement of society, but I object
to her method. I know that reform is wanted, but I also
know that to shirk the details of new proposals is to over
look the fact that life is made up of details, and that men
must be guided by experience. H you will shirk the prac
tical difficulties of your scheme, you have no right to ask
us to accept it. (Applause.)
Annie Besant : Let me say at once that I thoroughly
and gladly admit that Mr. Foote is as earnest for social
reform as I am myself. (Hear, hear.) I should be
sorry in the strictures I level against the system of
society he supports, to be supposed in any way to
make any kind of imputation against his sincerity or
against his earnest desire to see improvement. It is
the system he advocates I am attacking, without throwing
any kind of slur on his own desire of making any
improvement. And on the question of detail there is
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
one more word I should like to say. Suppose a naturalist
desires to breed to any particular type, he will select
his type, and then basing his actions on scientific prin
ciples, he will try to breed towards that type, knowing
generally what he desires to attain. But he will not be
able to tell you the exact length of the animal’s ears, the
number of curls there will be in his tail, or the particular
direction in which his eyes may slope. (Laughter.) Those
are the kind of details about which the scientific naturalistwould not try to prophesy. (Hear, hear.) He would take
his general type as I have done in this subject, but he
would not commit himself to prophecies for which the
foundation is not in any way attainable. Mr. Foote gives
me an illustration of the present Socialist policy by refer
ring to a Prime Minister. He says that a Prime Minister
must not bring in a mere abstract of a Bill without details;
but I ask Mr. Foote whether anything is more common
than that a statesman should bring in an abstract resolution
embodying some particular principle, and try to carry that
resolution, and thus to gather the general sense of the
House before he passes into the details of the Bill, details
which are, I grant, necessary, when it becomes a project
for immediate legislation. (Cheers.) That is exactly our
Socialist position at the present time. (Hear, hear.)
We are trying to carry a resolution before the public in
favor of the Socialist principle; and, mark you, we are
giving our definite reason for doing it. We have said over
and over again, and I say it now for the last time in
this debate, that we allege that private property in
the material of wealth-production is at the root of
poverty. (Hear, hear.) That as long as that lasts you
must have your propertied and your slave classes. We
allege that this is the source from which the evils flow, and
we must fight out that question of principle before it is
even worth while to go into minute details, which must be
considered, I thoroughly accept that, before you can make
a Socialist community; but it is idle to discuss the details
so long as the main principle of difference between the
Individualists and the Socialists remains undecided by the
public voice. (Hear, hear.) I go back to the speech of
Mr. Foote, which, he very fairly said, I did not completely
answer. There was a slight error in quotation Mr. Foote
made in connexion with the question—How wages should
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
13^
be settled, when he quoted me as saying the worker
should have control over the value of his labor. The whole
context of the passage shows that what I was arguing wasthat when the workmen had received a return for the labor
he had done, that amount which he received would beentirely under his own control. Just as now, a man re
ceiving wage from an employer can spend that wage as hepleases; so the workman employed, as he may be, by a
group of workers, or by whatever other phrase you may
use, when he receives the recompense of his labor, would
be able to use that recompense as he chose, as he thought
best. (Hear, hear.) That is the point I put in my essay,
and it appears that Mr. Foote has entirely misconceived it,
and has turned it into the man fixing his own wage instead
of controlling the equivalent for his own labor. (Hear,
hear.) Then Mr. Foote asks us to take a case which we
find in our present society—take the case of men like
Burns or Watt—what shall they do, and who shall decidein what way they shall be employed ? One of the reasons
why we want to press the Socialist solution is because,
under your present Individualistic system, you crush out
such an enormous amount of talent that might make its
way if it only had the opportunity. (Cheers.) If, as the
Socialists propose, the people were educated thoroughly
and completely in the years of their childhood and of their
youth, do you mean to say that it would be possible that
the talent of a Burns would escape notice, as it did when
he was sent to the plough-tail in his childhood, and had no
possibility of education which would enable him to show
his literary power ? (Hear, hear.) Under your present
system it is but a mere chance whether the child
of great ability succeeds or not. It depends largely
on the rank of society in which he is born. (Hear,
hear.) I do not say that you may not here and there havea child born under unfavorable conditions, who has talent
which amounts to absolute genius, and a strength of will
as of iron, so that even circumstances cannot break it. I
do not say that such a one amongst a myriad may not fight
his way to the front despite all that is against him. But
I do say that under your present system you practically
lose to society thousands upon thousands of personsdowered with real ability, whose ability would have been
discovered had they had a reasonable and rational educa
�140
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
tion, but whose ability is crushed out of them in their
•childhood and their youth by the hard circumstances of
their life. (Cheers.) And that is why we say that your
Individualistic system crushes Individualism. That is
why we say that only under Socialism can you hope to get
all the benefit through individual development which
■comes from removing persons from the constant strain and
struggle for existence, and, by securing the means of liveli
hood to all, give time and opportunity for the development
of the particular capacity. (Hear, hear.)
Then Mr. Foote asks, are you going to have all your
amusements arranged by public committees, because if so
their low tastes will swamp the higher tastes for the fine
arts. Now that is exactly what happens at the present
time, because the managers are now ruled by the receipts,
and the receipts come from the majority. Mr. Foote says
that low tastes are the tastes of the majority, and that it is
only the small minority that have the higher tastes. And
what is the result ? Your wretched melodrama and the
• comic opera are what the manager readily accepts, because
they appeal to the majority. (Hear, hear.) And even
Irving, great as he is, has his genius stunted, and, like a
fine jewel in tawdry setting, he has to fall back on fine
upholstery and limelight because he dares not trust to the
attraction of his own genius, for he knows it would not
pay. (Hear, hear.) It is the testimony of everyone who
has looked into the subject—(cries of “No, no”)—I am
going to give you a fact—(cries of “ Question! ”)—the
question is that of amusements under Socialism, and I am
dealing with that. (Hear, hear.) It is a fact which
everyone knows who has looked into the subject that the
only countries in which new genius—either dramatic or
artistic of any kind—can really make its way and be heard
by the public are those countries where theatres and places
of amusement are endowed by the State. (Hear, hear.)
The French stage is the very model of the other European
theatres. And why ? Because there a man of genius can
really bring forward a play that has to wait before it is
. appreciated. But your stage here falls back upon the off
scourings of the French theatres, and plays adapted from
the lower stage of France are played at your best theatres
here. (Hear, hear.) And so in Germany. Take the case
of Wagner. He was on the verge of starvation, was nearly
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
141
killed by your Individualistic system, until an endowed
theatre made it possible for him to get his music heard.
And these are facts for Mr. Foote to deal with instead of
theorising and floating about in the clouds. (Hear, hear.)
But Mr. Foote argues that the scavenger can hear Patti if
he is prepared to pay his two shillings, and to wait two
hours at the doors. But the scavenger cannot easily pay
that money and wait two hours or more. I have paid that
and waited—(A Voice : “It’s half-a-crown”)—the gentle
man is quite right, it is half-a-crown and not two shillings,
(Laughter.) But I do not think that a scavenger with a
small family of hungry children at home, can afford to
spend 2s. 6d. and to wait two hours, and then spend three
or four more in listening to Patti. (Cheers.) And what
is worse, he does not want to do so. He has not had the
education which would make it possible for him to enjoy
such music ; and he won’t have the desire until the educa
tion given by the community includes art and literary
culture as well as the mere elements it now gives. (Cheers.)
I pass on to yield my perfect agreement to Mr. Foote’s
statement of what we are seeking—viz., the best remedy.
And that is why I complain that he has not tried to deal
with the fundamental remedy of Socialism, and has ap
pealed to feeling and prejudice instead of dealing with my
proposals. (Hear, hear.) I pointed out to Mr. Foote that,
if he speaks of words leading to mistakes, that is the very
complaint which the Socialists make. We say that the
word “freedom”, applied to any laborer who has only a
choice of accepting the contract offered him and starvation,
is but a word, and is not a thing. (Hear, hear.) When
freedom of contract is spoken of, I say that that can only
take place between persons tolerably equal; and when Mr.
Foote speaks of the tension of muscles caused by compe
tition, I answer that such benefit can only result when each
competitor has a chance of reaching the winning-post.
There is no stimulating competition, but only a crushing
feeling of disqualification, if you set to race one man who
is only allowed to go on one leg and is carrying a heavy
chain, and another man who is allowed to use a bicycle to
get round the course. (Hear, hear.) The man with the
disadvantage finds it practically impossible for him to race
at all. And I allege that in your modern society the man
of the bicycle is the landlord and the capitalist who has
�142
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
everything made easy for him in the life-race ; and the man
with one leg and the chain, who is asked to compete with
him, and to feel the benefit of freedom of competition and
free contract, is the laborer who has nothing whatever but
his labor to sell, and who must starve unless he can sell
it. (Cheers.)
Mr. Foote : Mrs. Besant says that if a naturalist wishes
to produce a particular variety of dog, he does not before
hand say what length its tail is going to be, or how many
hairs it is going to have on its body. But if he proposes
to breed a long-tailed dog, surely the length of the tail
would have something to do with his prevision. If that
naturalist proposed to produce a special variety of dog,
and made it a condition of his experiment that he should
have every dog in the country under his control, the rest
of us would want to know what he was going to do before
■consenting to allow him to make such a vast experiment.
(Hear, hear.)
Mrs. Besant'reiterates that private property in capital is
at the root of all the poverty there is. Now we have had
three nights of this debate already. This point has been
•debated over and over again, and why Mrs. Besant wants
that particular point debated afresh to-night I do not
understand. I contravene it. I say there is no one root,
but many roots of evil, and the cause of all the roots of
evil lies in the fact that man is as yet only partially
evolved. He has advanced a long way from his brutish
progenitors, but he has yet higher ranges of capacity, of
thought, and of feeling, to reach in his development.
(Hear, hear.) You cannot do with your present human
nature what you could do with a better human nature.
The better human nature will come in time, for the Dar
winian theory which gives us a certitude of progress in the
past gives us a reasonable guarantee of progress in the
future.
I gave as one of the causes of poverty the pressure of
population on the means of subsistence. (Cheers.) Mrs.
Besant herself has given it. She has to-night told you
that the death-rate is lower among the upper classes than
among the lower classes. (Hear, hear.) If I had known
that Mrs. Besant was going to use those particular
statistics to-night, instead of following my lead, I should
have come prepared with some counter statistics. But I
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
143
now make the broad statement that the birth-rate among
the lower classes is as high as their death-rate relatively
to the upper classes. (Hear, hear.) They marry earlier,
breed faster, and therefore their numbers are kept down
by a heavy death-rate. I never said that the poor man
was in as good a condition as the man who is better off.
(Laughter.) But that is not our argument. How are the
great mass of people to be improved ? is the question at
issue. And after all, it is not my remedy, but Mrs.
Besant’s remedy, that is under discussion. When she
says I have not dealt with the difficulties she raised, I beg
to say that she has to deal with the difficulties which I have
raised against the system she wants us to embrace. (Hear,
hear.) . She says that, under the Individualist system,
talent is crushed down for want of education. We all
know that to some extent, but we did not wait for
Socialism to provide education in the Board Schools for
every boy and girl. We did not wait for Socialism to
found our system of secondary education, and we shall not
wait for Socialism to realise the dream of Radicals that
the endowments of the universities shall be put to their
right purposes, and applied to the education of those
higher capacities that are selected from the lower schools
to which all the mass of the children go. (Cheers.)
It is perfectly true that to some extent the lower taste
at present swamps the higher taste. But if the lower
taste gets the reins of power in its hands it will be an
overwhelming deluge. Now you can paddle your own boat,
but then you will have no boat to paddle. (Hear, hear.)
It is perfectly true that what pays best is put on the stage ;
but I said that there was a select circle of finer tastes, and
that they can get what they want. It may be true that
Mr. Irving has too much recourse to upholstery and lime
light, but that may be due to his melodramatic instincts.
He has played in many Shaksperian characters, however,
and in other legitimate dramas, and I do not see how his pos
turing in “Faust ” proves that he is a panderer to the lowest
tastes of the day. (Hear, hear.) If you can go and see
low comedy, you can also go and see high comedy. Tf
you want your tastes gratified with the best music, or
drama, or literature, you can have it. Shakspere is brought
into our homes, decently printed, for a shilling; and in
all sorts of ways the highest taste in such things can be
�144
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
gratified without a very great expenditure. The poorest,,
even, can sometimes have the pleasure of hearing a great
singer like Patti ; and even under Socialism she could not
sing every night to everybody, unless the opera house
were large enough to hold the nation. Wagner was a
poor illustration. He was outlawed for fighting on behalf
of liberty against what turned out to be the majority of
his countrymen. Mrs. Besant says his musical genius
stood no chance till he was endowed. But the person who
assisted him with money was the mad King of Bavaria.
That fact does not favor Mrs. Besant’s position. It rather
tells, if at all, on behalf of the monarchy which she and I
are both opposed to. (Hear, hear.)
I will now take a few more difficulties. I do not know
much about carpentering, and I think Mrs. Besant knows
as little. (Laughter.) I have no practical knowledge of
a variety of trades. But I do know something about
writing and publishing, and so does Mrs. Besant. Under
Socialism, Mrs. Besant would like to write and publish
articles and pamphlets maintaining her Freethought, Mal
thusian, and other views. Yet if all the means of produc
tion were in the hands of State officials, or under the
control of industrial groups, how does she know that she
would be able to do what she wanted ? Gronlund says
that society would not allow anything and everything to
be printed. It would draw the line somewhere. Yes,
and I think the line would be very hard upon the minority
and all unpopular ideas. It would seriously hamper the
advanced few who are the cream of every generation, and
whose thought to-day decides the action of to-morrow.
(Cheers.) Mrs. Besant knows very well that she is not in
the majority at present. Her Malthusianism is unpopular
with general society, and she regrets to say that among
her Socialist friends it is more unpopular still. She and !
would continne to hold unpopular opinions, and if we did
not, other persons would. Now those opinions would have
to be ventilated, and in a highly organised society like
ours they cannot be ventilated, except through the press
and the pl at,form. But all the halls, all kinds of meeting
places, are to be controlled by public committees, and all
printing plant is to be under similar management. Would ,
Mrs. Besant get what she wanted printed, if it were
generally distasteful? Would not the managers of the
�145
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
printing group be very reluctant to offend their constituents
and imperil their prospect of re-election to office ? She
would also probably find that if the hall she wanted was
not absolutely refused, it would be required for something
else on that date. The free play of mind would thus be
checked. But upon that very thing all progress hinges.
What is progress ? The only valuable, or indeed intelli
gible definition I know of is Sir Henry Maine’s “progress
is the constant production of fresh ideas”. Fresh ideas
might be produced, but they would be absolutely abortive,
unless there were the means of disseminating them and
carrying them out. Could those means be counted on when
all the agencies were in the hands of the majority who
would naturally be content with the state of things in
which they exercised supreme power ? How can you praise
liberty, when under your system liberty would be arrested
at its source ? Mrs. Besant may smile at this. She may
say, as she has said, that if you cannot get a hearing in a
hall you must go to some open space. But if the officials
would not let you speak in public halls, they would put
obstacles in the way of your speaking in public places of
other kinds. (Hear, hear.) You would then have to hold
forth on Dartmoor or the Yorkshire wolds, where the
chances of finding an audience are exceedingly limited
(Laughter.) I really wish Mrs. Besant would tell us how
these difficulties are to be surmounted.
Individualism will produce all the benefits Socialism
could possibly bestow, and it gives us other benefits which
Socialism would destroy. It was finely said by Channing
that you may spring a bird into the air by mechanism,
but its flight is only admirable when it soars with its own
vital power. So the mechanism which would elevate
people despite themselves does not really elevate them.
They are only lifted up when their life is improved by
their own energy, foresight, and capacity. (Cheers.) If
you gave a man with the lowest tastes ten times his present
income, do you mean to tell me that he would be ten times
better ? He would probably spend it all very much as he
spends his money now. But if he got more by voluntary
co-operation with his fellows, his character would be
elevated in the very process of bettering his material con
dition. (Cheers.)
Mrs. Besant complains that competition is impossible
L
�146
IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
with those who have personal advantages. Yes, and I
know that without riding on bicycles there are some
stronger and fleeter than others. Those with the most
powerful and subtle brains must win the first prizes in the
race of life. But there are many competitions and millions
of minor prizes of all degrees. We cannot all run in the
race for the Premiership. Only a few can compete for
that, and let us hope the best man gets it. But if a man
cannot compete for the Premiership, he may be first in the
making of good honest boots. (Hear, hear.) There are
thousands of races, and if a man cannot succeed in one he
may enter another. Competition is not the frightful
thing Mrs. Besant supposes. It does not imply that only
one wins and all the rest absolutely lose. In our com
petition there is a first prize, a second, a third, a fourth,
and'so on down to the point at which there really is com
plete failure, and a man is thrown out of employment.
But the great mass of workers are in employment, and
there is something even for those who are farthest behind.
The vast majority get what is worth having, though all
cannot be first. (Hear, hear.)
Now, in conclusion, let me say a word as to what Indi
vidualism has done. There was a time when man fought
for the possession of caves with his brute contemporaries.
There was a time when man was so low in the scale of life
that he could scarcely be discriminated from his ape-like
progenitor. Through countless ages he has advanced to
his present position. And that position gives only a fore
taste of what he will realise in the days to come. The science
which affords us so many benefits is still in its childhood,
and what it has done is but “ an earnest of the things
that it shall do ”. Individualist competition, man wrest
ling with nature and the brutes, man matched against
man, thrift against improvidence, sagacity against dulness,
energy against indolence, courage against cowardice, sense
against stupidity—this has brought civilisation to its pre
sent pitch. Individualism has constructed railways, made
the steam-engine, bridged rivers, covered the ocean with
ships, invented the printing press, and given us all our
science and art. Individualism has given to “the poor”
what they consider necessaries of life, but what once were
luxuries to princes and kings. And what has your State
done? It has always been trying to “ regulate ” things,
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
147
making mistake after mistake with the best intentions, and
failing again and again because it could not possibly succeed.
It has tried to take men’s religion under its control; it has
tried to take all their thoughts and all their actions under
its control. It decreed the status in which men should
remain from the cradle to the grave. It hemmed them in
on every side. And while individual Europeans have gone
all over the world, colonising and founding new empires,
what have the Europeans States done ? They have hurled
people against people. They have contracted four thou
sand five hundred millions of debt in senseless quarrels.
The 1 ‘ State ’ ’ has done more harm than good. Individualism
has made progress. Without it none is possible. Col
lectivism, State control, crushes liberty, hinders Indi
vidualism, and prevents that noble progress which we all
see brightening and heightening in the great future before
us. (Prolonged applause.)
Annie Besant : I did not state in my last speech that
the present system of private property in the material of
wealth production is at the root of all the poverty. Mr.
Eoote has put in the word all. I quite admit that there
are other influences at work as well; and you know that
in dealing with the question of population I have pointed
to that cause. But Mr. Eoote rightly said in an earlier
speech that under the present system that difficulty was
not dealt with, because it is to the interest of the capitalist
that the workers should rapidly increase, that he may play
off the one against the other. (Hear, hear.) Then Mr,
Eoote stated—and I agree with him—that society will
improve by evolution. And it is because I am an evolu
tionist that I am a Socialist; it is because I see that society
is evolving in the direction of Socialism, and that the
tendency of the most Radical legislation is to promote the
growth of Socialism. (Hear, hear.) And then Mr. Eoote
says that the birth-rate and the death-rate balance each
other. But surely Mr. Eoote must have noticed that I
gave percentages, and not absolute numbers, of deaths,
and that brief answer of his does not deal with my diffi
culty, which really was the price that society pays for the
maintenance of the present system. (Hear, hear.) Then
Mr. Foote says we don’t wait for Socialism to get educa
tion. But your education is founded on the Socialist
principle ; you tax the community for a special benefit of
�148
IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
which, some only take advantage; the State compels
parents to do their duty towards their children, forcing
upon them that which otherwise they would not do, and
intruding even within the circle of the home; in fact, you
treat the children as belonging in the highest sense to the
community rather than to the parents, and you forbid the
parent to inflict an injury upon the community by keeping
the child in ignorance, and therefore in degradation.
(Cheers.) I admit in that good work has been done; but
it is work done by society—by the State that Mr. Foote
attacks—and not by Individualistic effort. (Hear, hear.)
The voluntary school system was the growth of Indi
vidualism ; the national system is the growth of the
tendency towards Socialism in the State.
Mr. Foote goes on to say a word about publishing
papers and pamphlets : Here are Mrs. Besant and Mr.
Foote. Their opinions are in a minority. How are they
to publish their views under Socialism? But we are
in a minority now, and we have paid for it under your
Individualistic system. (Hear, hear.) We have found
not only that it is very difficult to get a hearing for the
views of the minority, but that a man may be sent to gaol
for putting his views in print. What worse tyranny than
this can Socialism inflict ? (Hear, hear.) Individualistic
society shuts up a man in prison because he dared to print
something against the views of the majority. (Cheers.)
What more could Socialism do ? But let us be frank in
this matter. Socialism will not at once quite alter human
nature. These difficulties which Mr. Foote speaks of are
the difficulties of minorities everywhere, and there is no
way of getting over them save by courage on the part of
the minority, and the gradual growth of education and of
a feeling of respect in the majority for the opinions of
others. (Hear, hear,) But I can tell you why we think
that under Socialism the minority would have a better
chance of making itself heard than it has now. It is
because even under the present condition of things those
institutions which are most nearly on the road to Socialism
are those where the greatest liberty is already permitted.
(Hear, hear.) Co-operation, for instance, which is the
grouping of many together to work side by side and there
fore is only in a small way—when it is real, and not mere
dividend hunting—what the Socialist State will be in a
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
149
large form—co-operation may serve as an instance. Mr.
Foote knows that it is the halls scattered over the country
which have been built by the co-operative societies, and
which are controlled by committees and not by individual
owners, which are most readily granted for the propaga
tion of the opinions of the minority. (Hear, hear.) Often
when an individual owner refuses to let me his hall, I find
the co-operative society readily grant it, although many
members of their committee are in opposition to my views.
(Hear, hear.) The truth is that where an individual refuses
to let any views be heard but his own, the clash of opinions
on a committee makes each member disposed to give others
a hearing in order that his own views may obtain a hearing
in turn. Take another case. You speak of the tyranny
of the State. I take as an illustration of the difference
between being under a State and being under the indi
vidual, an incident that happened at the British Museum.
There was a gardener there who committed the horrible
crime of calling by his first name the son of one of the
officials—he called him George instead of Master George.
(Laughter.) Such a piece of gross insolence on the part of
a gardener could not be overlooked, and the result was that
he was dismissed. So far he shared the fate which would
have befallen him had he been hired by an individual owner.
But as he was a servant of the State and not the mere
hired servant of an individual owner, his complaint was
listened to, an inquiry ordered, and the result was that a
fresh post was found for the gardener to compensate him
for the loss he had undergone. H he had called an indi
vidual’s son George he would have been thrown out into
the world to seek a fresh livelihood for himself; but as he
called the State functionary’s son George, the State inter
fered in order to protect him, and gave him another place
instead of the one he lost. (Cheers.)
But Mr. F oote points to what Individualism has done—
it has covered the sea with ships. Aye, with coffin ships,
which went to the bottom until the State interfered to save
life. (Hear, hear.) Individualism has done much. On
my very first night I said that being an evolutionist I
recognised the fashion in which society had grown ; from
my point of view it is idle to find fault with what has been
done in the past; it is for us to try with the experience of
the race, by the study of history, by the growing knowledge
�150
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
of man, and by our increased scientific ability, to find a
better road for the future, than our ancestors have struggled
along in the past. (Hear, hear.) And the difference
between Mr. Foote and myself is this—that I recognise
that evolution has brought us to the point where this
Individualistic struggle must give way to organised action.
And I notice that we have grown from the Individualism
of the savage up to the co-operative Socialism of civilisa
tion : because as Mr. Foote truly says—civilisation is co
operation ; that is, it is the raising of the group and the
group interests above the interests of the units who compose
the group.
I put to you now in closing this debate one or two points
which I venture to think are not unworthy your careful
■consideration. Mr. Foote says that we have been making
progress, we have been improving in the past. I have
urged on him, on the other side, that the improvement has
been far slower than it need be, and that the root of the question of poverty must be dealt with if improvement is
to go on. I have pointed out to him that while there is
improvement in one part of society there is retrogression
in another. I have pointed out to him the ever-widening
of the gulf between the rich and the poor—the evergrowing division between the cultured and the masses of
the people—the ever-increasing danger of that which
Sidgwick pointed out, viz., that the tendency of our
present industrial system is to make the rich grow richer
and the poor grow poorer. (Cheers.) That I hold to be
the position in which we stand to-day; and I, a Socialist,
come forward, and pointing to these evils in modem
society say they are evils which are inherent in the system.
Under a Socialist system—and only under that system—
is the change and the remedy for us possible. Mr. Foote,
I recognise, desires that improvement should go on. He
says to us: Your Socialism will fail when it is tried. I
answer him: Your Individualism has been tried and
has failed—(cries of “No, no!”)—and our wars, our
poverty, our misery, our ignorance, our wretchedness,
are the proofs of the failure of an Individualistic
system of society. (Cheers.) You say it has not
failed. How then is it that in every civilised country
the millionaire and the pauper stand side by side ? How
is it, if it be a success, that in this great metropolis of ours
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
151
where thousands of pounds are given for a china dish
hundreds of men and women are dying of slow starvation ?
(Hear, hear, and cries of “ Shame ”.) Go down to Shadwell
High Street when the crowds are turning out of the music
rooms and gin palaces, and next morning go to the Ladies’
Mile; see how the West End differs from the East End,
and then ask yourself, can a civilisation last where the
contrasts are so glaring, where the divisions are so
extreme? (Hear, hear.) Eor remember that you have
no longer the safety of the past—the safety of the ignorance
of the masses of your people. (Hear, hear.) While there
was no penny press, while there was no public education,
much of the luxury of the rich man remained hidden from
the eyes of the poor, starving in their cellars and in their
garrets. But to day your halfpenny paper takes the news
everywhere. The sempstress reads of the great ladies
decked in diamonds at a Court ball, and the costermonger
•reads of the millionaire giving thousands for a race horse,
spending thousands in luxury and in vice. These are
beginning to think—beginning to ask questions ; beginning
to ask, must these things always be ? is there not something
fundamentally wrong in a condition of society where such
things exist ? And that is not all. Your idle classes are
the very cancer of society. (Hear, hear.) The luxury in
which they live makes them rotten by its very idleness.
They consume without producing; they enjoy without
discharging a duty; they live easily, smoothly, without
difficulty, and society takes nothing from them in ex
change for what they take from it. And what is the
result ? Your higher classes with their profligacy are
the scandal of the whole civilised world at the present
time. A press, greedy for profit, tears down every curtain
in the desecrated home, and exhibits it to the eyes of the
whole of Europe, until the very noblest of human passions
becomes as filth, fit only to roll through the sewer which
runs beneath your streets. (Cheers.) And this is the
outcome of the Individualistic system. This is the result of
luxury and idleness, the result of the neglecting of duty,
and of the making possible of luxury without service done
in exchange for those who give it. And one plea I make
to you—to you, the majority of whom in this Hall are
against me—the large majority of whom judge us harshly
and blame us sternly, because looking at the misery, and
�152
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
the luxury of society we strive to bring about a remedy
which may make things other than they are to-day. (Hear,
hear.) Many of us are ignorant; most of us are poor.
Tongues of education and of culture are but here and
there amongst us, and rough men speak for us out of the
miseries that they feel. What wonder that sometimes the
tongues should be reckless; what wonder that some
times the speech should be bitter; what wonder that
men, feeling what they might have been, and knowing
what they are, speak words that may not be measured as
carefully as the perfectly cultured and the unsuffering
may measure theirs; what wonder if their indignation
grows hot against the wrongs they know. But this I ask
of you. If sometimes we speak too hotly; if sometimes
our passion gets the better of our judgment; if sometimes
the misery of the poor voices itself too sharply in our
words and rings out in a fashion that the easy and idle
class may not like ; at least do us this justice: that in a
society where the stronger trample upon the weak ; in a
society where most men seek for power, for luxury, or for
money; at least admit this to the despised Socialists
amongst you—that in that society we have withdrawn from
the strife for gold, we have turned aside from the struggle
for power, and we have eyes that see and hearts that love
some nobler ideal of society than you have yet found
possible in your Individualistic life. (Great cheering.)
Mr. Foote : I rise to propose with great pleasure a very
hearty vote of thanks to the chairman.
‘ Annie Besant : I second that.
The motion was carried, and the meeting dispersed.
�
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Is socialism sound? : verbatim report of a four nights' debate between Annie Besant and G. W. Foote : at the Hall of Science, Old St., London, E.C. : on February 2nd, 9th, 16th and 23rd, 1887
Creator
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Besant, Annie Wood
Foote, G. W. (George William)
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 152 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Stamp on title page: 'South Place Chapel Finsbury, Lending Library'.
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Freethought Publishing Company
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1887
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T404
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Socialism
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (Is socialism sound? : verbatim report of a four nights' debate between Annie Besant and G. W. Foote : at the Hall of Science, Old St., London, E.C. : on February 2nd, 9th, 16th and 23rd, 1887), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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Debates and Debating
Socialism
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CIVIL & RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.
WITH SOME HINTS TAKEN FROM
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.
BY ANNIE BESANT,
(Second Edition).
LONDON:
FREETHOUGHT PUBLISHING COMPANY,
28, Stonecutter Street, E.C,
PBICE THREEPENCE.
�LONDON
FEINTED BY ANNIE BESANT AND CHARLES BP.ADLAUGHZ
28, STONECUTTER STREET, E. C.
�g
CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.
« O Liberty ! how many crimes are committed in thy
name1” So exclaimed Madame Roland, one of the most
heroic and most beautiful spirits of the great French Revo
lution, when above her glittered the keen knife of the
guillotine, and below her glared the fierce faces of the
maddened crowd, who were howling for her death. But
Madame Roland, even as she spoke, bowed her fair head
to the statue of Liberty which—pure, serene, majestic—
rose beside the scaffold, and stood white and undefiled in
the sunlight, while the mob seethed and tossed round its
base. Madame Roland bent her brow before Liberty, even
as the sad complaint passed her lips; for well that noblehearted woman knew that the guillotine, by which she was
to die, had not been raised in a night with the broken
chains of Liberty, but had been slowly building up, during
long centuries of tyranny, out of the mouldering skeletons
<of the thousands of victims of despotism and misrule. The
taunt has been re-echoed ever since, and lovers of repression
have changed its words and its meaning, and they have said
what noble Madame Roland would never have said: “ O
Liberty, how many crimes are committed by thee, and
because of thee 1” They have never said, they have never
cared to ask, how many crimes have been committed against
Liberty in the past; how many crimes are daily committed
against her in the England which we boast as free. They
have never said, they have never cared to ask, whether th©
excesses which have, alas ! disgraced revolutions, whether
the bloodshed which has ofttimes stained crimson-red the
fair, white, banner of Liberty, are not the natural and the
necessary fruits, not of the freedom which is won, bu'c of
the tyranny which is crushed. Society keeps a number of
its members uneducated and degraded; it houses them
worse than brutes; it pays them so little that, if a man
would not starve, he must toil all day, without time for
�4
CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.
relaxation or for self-culture; it withdraws from them all
softening influences ; it shuts them out from all intellectual
amusements; it leaves them no pleasures except the purely
animal ones ; it bars against them the gates of the museums
and the art galleries, and opens to them only the doors of
the beer-shop and the gin-palace; it sneers at their folly,
but never seeks to teach them wisdom; it disdains their
“ lowness,” but never tries to help them to be higher; and then,
when suddenly the masses of the people rise, maddened by
long oppression, intoxicated with a freedom for which they
are not prepared, arrogant with the newly-won consciousness
of their resistless strength, then Society, which has kept them
brutal, is appalled at their brutality; Society, which has
kept them degraded, shrieks out at the inevitable results of
that degradation. I have often heard wealthy men and
women talk about the discontent and the restlessness of the
poor; I have heard them prattle about the necessity of
“keeping the people down;” I have heard polite and
refined sneers at the folly and the tiresome enthusiasm of
the political agitator, and half-jesting wishes that “the whole
tribe of agitators ” would become extinct. And as I have
listened, and have seen the luxury around the speakers; as
I have noted the smooth current of their lives, and marked
the irritation displayed at some petty mischance which for a
moment ruffled its even flow; as I have seen all this, and then
remembered the miserable homes that I have known, the
squalor and the hideous poverty, the hunger and the pain,
I have thought to myself that if I could take the speakers,
and could plunge them down into the life which the despised
“ masses ” live, that the braver-hearted of them would turn
into turbulent demagogues, while the weaker-spirited would
sink down into hopeless drunkenness and pauperism. These
rich ones do not mean to be cruel when they sneer at the
complaints of the poor, and they are unconscious of the
misery which underlies and gives force to the agitation
which disturbs their serenity; they do not understand how
the subjects which seem to them so dry are thrilling with
living interest to the poor who listen to the “ demagogue,”
or how 'his keenest thrusts are pointed in the smithy of
human pain. They are only thoughtless, only careless,
only indifferent; and meanwhile the smothered murmuring
going on around them, and grim Want and Pain and
Despair are the phantom forms which are undermining their
palaces; and “ they eat, they drink, they marry, and are
�CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.
5
given in marriage,” heedless of the gathering river which is
beginning to overflow its banks, and which, if it be not
drained off in time, will “ sweep them all away.” If they
knew their best friends, they would bless the popular
leaders, who are striving to win social and political reforms,
and so to avert a revolution.
The French Revolution is so often flung, by ignorant
people, in the teeth of those who are endeavouring to extend
and to consolidate the reign of Freedom, that it can
scarcely be deemed out of place to linger for a moment
on the threshold of the subject, in order to draw from past
experience the lesson, that bloodshed and civil war do not
spring from wise and large measures of reform, but from the
hopelessness of winning relief except by force, from over
taxation, from unjust social inequality, from the’grinding of
poverty, from the despair and from the misery of the people.
It shows extremest folly to decline to study the causes of
great catastrophes, to reject the experience won by the
misfortunes and by the mistakes of others, and to refuse to
profit by the lessons of the past.
Of course I do not mean to say, and I should be very
sorry to persuade any one to think, that our state to-day in
England is as bad as that from which France was only
delivered through the frightful agony of the Revolution.
But we have in England, as we shall see as we go on, many
of the abuses left of that feudal system which the Revolution
destroyed for ever in France. The feudal system was spread
all over Europe in the Middle Ages, those Dark Ages when
all sense of equal justice and of liberty was dead. It con
centrated all power in the hands of the few; it took no
account of the masses of the people; it handed over the
poor, bound hand and foot, to the power of the feudal
superior, and it cultivated that haughty spirit of disdainful
contempt for labour, which is still, unfortunately, only too
widely spread throughout our middle and upper classes in
England. This system gradually lost its harsher features
among ourselves ; but in France it endured up to the time
of the Revolution; and in this system, added to the fearful
weight of taxation under which the people were absolutely
crushed and starved to death, lies the secret of the blood
shed of the Revolution.
Therefore, before passing on to the parallel between our
state and that of ante-revolutionary France, I would fain put
into the mouths of our friends an answer to those who say
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CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.
that the excesses of the French Revolution are the necessary
outcome of free thought in religion and of free action in
politics. It is perfectly true that the determination to
shake off a cruel and unjust yoke was implanted in the
bosoms of the French people by the writings of those who
are commonly called the Encyclopaedists. These men were
Freethinkers; some of them—as Holbach and Diderot—
might fairly be called Atheists ; some were nothing of the
kind. These men taught the French people to think; they
nurtured in their breasts a spirit of self-reliance; they roused
a spirit of defiance. These /men rang the tocsin which
awoke France, and so far it is true that Freethought pro
duced the Revolution, and so far Freethought may well be
proud of her work. But not to Freethought, not to Liberty,
must be ascribed the excesses which stained a revolution
that was in its beginning, that might have been throughout,
so purely glorious. For do you know what French Feudal
ism was ? Do you know what those terrible rights were,
which have branded so deeply into the French peasant’s
heart the hatred of the old nobility, that even to the present
day he will hiss out between clenched teeth the word
“ aristocrat,” with a passionate hatred which one hundred
years of freedom have not ’quenched ?
In the reign of Louis XIV. there was a Count, the Comte
de Charolois, who used to shoot down, for his amusement,
the peasants who had climbed into trees,-and the tilers who
were mending roofs. The chasse aux paysans, as it was
pleasantly termed, the “ hunt of peasants,” was remembered
by an old man who was in Paris during the Revolution as
one of the amusements of the nobility in his youth. True,
these acts were but the acts of a few; but they were done,
and the people dared not strike back Then there was
another right, a right which outraged ’ all humanity, and
which gave to the lord the first claim to the serf’s bride.
The terrible story in Charles Dickens’s “Tale of Two
Cities ” is no fiction, except in details, if we may judge from
some of the chronicles of the time. (Dufaure gives many
interesting details on French feudalism.) Then they might
harness the serfs, like cattle, to their carts; they might keep
them awake all night beating the trenches round their
castles, lest noble slumbers should be disturbed by the
croaking of the frogs. When any one throws in*lhe Radical’s
teeth the excesses of the French Revolution, let the Radical
answer him back with these rights, and ask if it is to be
�CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.
7
'wondered at that men struck hard, when the outrages and
the oppressions of centuries were revenged in a few wild
months ? Marvel not at the short madness that broke out
at. last; marvel rather at the cowardice which bore in
■silence for so long.
I pass from these hideous rights of feudalism to its milder
■features, as they existed in France before the Revolution,
and as they exist among us to-day in England. The laws
by which land is held and transmitted, the rights of the
first-born son, the laying-on of taxation by those who do
not represent the tax-payer, a standing army in which birth
helps promotion, the Game Laws—all these are relics of
■feudalism, relics which need to be swept away. It is on
the existence of these that I ground my plea for wider
freedom ; it is on these that I rely to prove that Civil and
Religious Liberty are still very imperfect among ourselves.
In France, before the revolution, people in general, king,
queen, lords, clergy, thought that things were going on very
■nicely, and very comfortably. True, keener-sighted men
saw in the misery of the masses the threatened ruin of the
throne. True, even Royalty itself, in the haggard faces
and gaunt forms that pressed cheering round its carriages,
■read traces of grinding poverty, of insufficient food. True,
some faint rumour even reached the court, amid its luxury,
that the houses of the people were not all they should be,
nay, that many of them were wretched huts, not fit for cattle.
But what of that ? There was no open rebellion; there
was no open disloyalty. What disloyalty there was, was
confined to the lower orders, and showed itself by a fancy
of the people to gather into Republican clubs, and other
such societies, where loyalty to the Crown was not the lesson
which they learned from the speakers’ lips. But such dis
loyalty could of course be crushed out at any moment, and
the court went gaily on its way, careless of the low, dull
growling in the distance which told of the coming storm.
We, in England, to-day, are quite at ease. True, some of
our labourers are paid starvation-wages of ios., iis., 12s.,
a week, but again I ask, what of that? Has not Mr. Fraser
Grove, late M.P., told the South Wiltshire farmers that they
had a right to reduce the labourer’s wage to ns. a week, if
he could livp upon it; and, if he did not like it, he could
take his labour to other markets ? Why should the labourer
complain, so long as he is allowed to live? Then the houses
of our people are scarcely all that they should be. I have
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CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.
been into some so-called homes, composed of two smalF
rooms, in one of which father and mother, boys and girls
growing up into manhood and womanhood, were obliged
to sleep in the one room, even in the one bed. I have seen
a room in which slept four generations, the great-grandfather
and his wife, the grandmother (unmarried), the mother (un
married), and the little child of the latter, and in addition to
these relatives, the room also afforded sleeping accommoda
tion to three men lodgers. Yet people talk about the “im
morality of the agricultural poor,” as though people could
be anything except immoral, when the lads and lasses have.
to grow up without any possibility of being even decent,
much less with any possibility of retaining the smallest
shred of natural modesty. The only marvel is how, among
our poor, there do grow up now and then fair and pure
blossoms, worthy of the most carefully-guarded homes. But
avery short time since there were worse hovels even than those
I have mentioned. Down at Woolwich there were “homes”
composed of one small room, 12 feet by 12, and 8J feet
high in the middle of the sloping roof, and the huts were
built of bad brick, the damp of which sweated slowly
through the whitewash, and the floor was made of beaten
earth, lower in level than the ground outside, and in front
of the fire they kept a plank all day baking warm and dry,
in order that at night they might put it into the bed, tokeep the sleeper next the wall from being wet through by
the drippings as he slept. And in other such huts as* these
four families lived together, with no partition put up between
them, save such poor rags as some lingering feeling of de
cency might lead them to hang up for themselves—and
these huts, these miserable huts, were the property of
Government, and in them were housed her Majesty’s married
soldiers, housed in such abodes as her Majesty would not
allow her cattle to occupy near Windsor or near
Balmoral. Yet among us there is no open rebellion; there
is no open disloyalty. Among us, too, what disloyalty there
is, is chiefly confined to the lower orders, and that, as every
one knows, can be snuffed out at a moment’s notice.
Among us, it also shows itself in that fancy of the people to
gather into Republican clubs and other such societies,
where loyalty to the Crown is not the lesson most enforced
by the speakers. The quiet, slow alienation of the people
from the Throne is going on unobserved ; a people who
are loyal to a monarchy will not form themselves into Repub
�CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.
•
9
lican Clubs; yet our rulers never dream that the people'are
•discontented, and. that these clubs are signs of the times.
They fancy that the agitation is only the work of the few,
and that there is no widely-spread disaffection behind the
Republican teachers; only the leaders of popular move
ments know the vast force which they can wield in case
of need, but the Government will never listen to these men,
any more than in France they would listen to Mirabeau,
until it was too late. Yet do sensible people think that a
• soUjpd and a healthy society can rest upon the misery of the
masses? and do our rulers think that palaces stand firm
when they are built up upon such hovels-as those which I
have described? It appears they do ; for our Queen
and our Princes seem to believe in the lip-loyalty of
the crowds which cheer them when they make us happy
by driving through our streets, loyalty that springs
from the thougl^essness of custom, and not from true
and manly reverence for real worth. For I would not
be thought to ' disparage the sentiment of loyalty; I
hold it to be one of the fairest blossoms' which flower
•on the emotional side of the nature of man. Loyalty
to principle, loyalty to a great cause, loyalty to some true
leader, crowned king of men by reason of his virtue, of his
» genius, of his strength—such loyalty as this it is no shame
■for a freeman to yield, such loyalty as this has, in all ages
of the world, inspired men to the noblest self-devotion,
nerved men to the most heroic self-sacrifice. But just as
•only those things which are valuable in themselves are
-thought worthy of imitation in baser metal, so is this
irue,golden loyalty imitated by the pinchbeck loyalty, which
shouts in our streets. For what true loyalty is possible from
us towards the House of Brunswick ? Loyalty to virtue ?
as enshrined in a Prince of Wales ? loyalty to liberality,
and to delicacy of sentiment ? as exemplified by a Duke of
Edinburgh ? loyalty to any great cause, whose success in
this generation is bound up with the life oi any member of
our Royal House ? «The very questions send a ripple of
, laughter through any assemblage of Englishmen, and they
•Sare beginning to feel, at last, that true loyalty can only be
paid to some man who stands head and shoulders above
his fellows, and not to some poor dwarf, whom we can only
see over the heads of the crowd, because he stands on the
artificial elevation of a throne.
The court in France was very extravagant: it spent
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CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.
^34,000,000 in eight years, while the people were starving;our princes do not spend so much ; they dare not; but that,
the spirit is the same is clearly seen when a wealthy queen
sends to Parliament to dower her sons and her daughters r.
when the scions of a family so rich as are the Brunswicks,
become beggars to the nation, and pensioners on the pockets
of the poor. However, courts are expensive things, and if.
we want them we must be content to pay for them. Now,
in France, the nobles, the clergy, the great landed proprie
tors, paid next to nothing: the heavy burden of taxation
fell upon the poor. But the poor had not much money1
which they could pay out to the State, and it is not easy toempty already empty pockets with any satisfactory results
so, in France, they hit upon the ingenious system called
indirect taxation; they imposed taxes upon the necessaries
of life; they squeezed money out of the food which the
people were obliged to buy. Also, those^who imposed the
taxes were not those who paid them : tney laid on heavy
burdens, which they themselves did not touch with one of
their fingers. We, in England, also think that it conducesto the cheerful paying of taxes that they should be laid
chiefly upon those who have no voice wherewith to com
plain of their incidence in Parliament. If you want to
knock a man down, it is very wise to choose a dumb man,
who cannot raise a cry for help. A large portion of the
working, classes, and all women, have no votes in the election
of members of Parliament, and have therefore no voice in
the imposition of the taxes which they are, nevertheless,
obliged to pay. It is a long time since Pitt told us
that “ taxation without representation is robberyit is a
yet longer time since John Hampden taught us how toresist the payment of an unjust tax, and yet we are still
such cravens, or else so indifferent, that we pay millions a
year in taxation, without determining that we will have a.
voice in the control of our own income. We are crushed
under a heavy and a yearly increasing national expenditure,
partly because of our extravagant administration, partly
because the burden falls unequally, weighing on the poor
more than upon the rich, and wholly because we have not
brotherhood enough to combine together, nor manhood
enough to say that these things shall not be. Our system
of taxation is radically vicious in principle, because it must
of necessity fall unequally. Those who impose the burdens
know perfectly well that it is impossible for the poor to
�CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.
11
refuse to pay indirect taxes, however onerous those taxes
may be : they must buy the necessary articles of food,
whether those articles be taxed or no; a refusal to pay is
impracticable, and no combination to abstain from buying is
possible, because the things taxed are the necessaries of life.
Yet as long as indirect taxation is permitted—and the major
part of our annual revenue is drawn from Customs and from
Excise—so long must taxation crush the poor, while it falls
lightly on the rich.
On this point I direct your attention to the following ex
tract* taken from the Liverpool Financial Reformer, and
quoted by Mr. Charles Watts in his “ Government and the
People —
“ A recent writer in the Liverpool Financial Reformer,
divided the community into three divisions—first, the aristo
cratic, represented by those who have an annual income of
^1,000 and upwards ; the middle classes were represented by
those who had incofties from ^ioo to /’i,ooo; and the artisan
or working classes were those who were supposed to have in
comes under ,£ioo per year. He then assessed their incomes
respectively at ^£208,385,000 ; ^£174,579,000; and ^149,745,000.
Towards the taxation, each division paid as follows. The
aristocratic portion contributed ff ,500,000, the middle classes
^19,513,453, and the working classes ^£32,861,474. The writer
remarks : ‘ The burden of the revenue, as it is here shown to
fall on the different classes, may not be fractionally accurate,
either on the one side or the other, for that is an impossibility
in the case, but it is sufficiently so to afford a fair representation
in reference to those classes on whom the burden chiefly falls.
Passing over the middle classes, who thus probably contribute
about their share, the result in regard to the upper and lower
classes stands thus :—Amount which should be paid to the
reveime by the higher classes (that is, the classes above
^1,000 a year), ^£23,437,688 ; amount which they do pay,
,£8,500,000; leaving a difference of ^£14.937,688, so that
the higher classes are paying nearly ^£15,000,000 less than their
fair share of taxation. Amount which should be paid by the
working classes (or those having incomes below ^£100),
^16,846,312 ; amount which they do pay, ,£32,861.474 ;
making a difference of ^16,015,162; so that the working
classes are paying about ,£16,000.000 more than their fair
share. In other words, the respective average rates paid upon
the assessable income of the two classes are—by the higher
classes, iod. per pound ; the working classes, 4s. 4d. That
is to say, the working classes are paying at a rate five times
more heavily than the wealthy classes.5 55
The whole system of laying taxes on the necessaries of life
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CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTV.
is radically vicious in principle; to tax the necessaries of
life is to sap the strength and to shorten the life of those
men and those women on whose strength and whose life
the prosperity of the country depends; it is to enfeeble the
growing generation; it is to make the children pale and
stunted; it is, in fact, to undermine the constitution of the
wealth-producers. To tax food is to tax life itself, instead
of taxing incomes; it is a financial system which is, at once,
cruel and suicidal. As a matter of fact, taxes taken off
food have not decreased the revenue, and when this policy
of taxing food shall have become a thing of the past, then
a healthier and more strongly-framed nation will bear with
ease all the necessary burdens of the State. Indirect taxa
tion is also bad, because it implies a number of small taxes
(some of which are scarcely worth the cost of collecting),
and thus necessitates the employment of a numerous staff
of officials, whereas one large direct tax would be more
easily gathered in.
It is also bad, because, with indirect taxation, it is
almost impossible for a man to know what he really
does pay towards the support of the State. It is right and
just that every citizen in a free country should consciously
contribute to the maintenance of the Government which he
has himself placed over him; but when he knows exactly
what he is paying, he will probably think it worth while to
examine into the national expenditure, and to insist on a
wise economy in the public service. I do not mean the
kind of economy which is so relished by Governments, the
economy which dismisses skilled workmen, whose work is
needed, while it retains sinecures for personages in high
places; but I mean that just and wise economy which gives
good pay for honest work, but which refuses to pay dukes,
earls, even princes, for doing nothing, This great problem
of fair and equal taxation ought to be thoroughly studied
and thought over by every citizen ; few infringements on
equal liberty are so fraught with harm and misery as arc
those which pass almost unnoticed under the head of
■* collection of the revenue few reforms are so urgently
needed as a reform of our financial system, and a fair adjust
ment of the burdens of taxation.
In France they had Game Laws. If the season were
cold the farmers might not mow their hay at the proper
time, lest the birds should lack cover; they might not hoe
the com, lest they should break the partridge eggs; the
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13
birds fed off the crops, and they might not shoot or trap
them; if they transgressed the Game Laws they were sent
to the galleys; herds of wild boarand red deer roamed over the
■country, and the farmers and the peasants were forbidden to
interfere with them. Englishmen! who call yourselves free,
do you imagine that these relics of barbarism, swept away
by the French Revolution in one memorable night, are
nothing but archaeological curiosities, archaic remains, fossil
ised memorials of a long-past tyranny ? On the contrary,
pur Game Laws in England are as harsh as those I have
cited to you, and the worst facts I am going to relate you
have no parallel in the history of France. These cases are
so shameful that they ought to have raised a shout of exe
cration through the land ; they have been covered up, and
hushed up, as far as possible, and I have taken them from a
Parliamentary Blue-book; and I have taken them thence
• myself, because I would not quote at second-hand deeds so
■disgraceful, that had.I not read them in the dry pages of a
Parliamentary Commission I should have fancied that they
had been either carelessly or purposely exaggerated in order
to point a tirade against the rich. I allude to the deerforests of Scotland.
But before dealing with these it is interesting to note
the curious points of similarity between our Game Laws
and those of the French. In France, they were some
times forbidden to mow the hay because of the cover
it yielded to the birds : in England, you will sometimes find
a clause inserted in the lease of a farm, binding the farmer
to reap with the sickle instead of with the sbythe, that is, to
reap with an instrument that does not cut the corn-stalks off
close to the ground, so that cover may be left for'the birds ;
thus the farmers’ profits are decreased by the amount of
straw which is left to rot in the ground for the landlord’s
amusement. In France, the game might not be touched
even if the crops were damaged;’ in England, the hares may
ruin a young plantation, and the farmer may not snare or
shoot them. In France, those who transgressed the Game
Laws were sent to the galleys; in England, we send them
to prison with hard labour, and we actually pay for the
manufacture of 10,000 criminals every year, in order that
our Princes of Wales and our landed proprietors may make
it the business of their lives “ to shoot poultry.” In France,
.. the herds of wild boar and red deer might not be molested;
in England we manage these things better; we have, un
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CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.
fortunately, no wild boar, but we-clear our farmers and our
peasants out of the way in order that we may be sure that
our deer are not interfered with. As the son of a Highland
proprietor said, when planning a new deer-forest: “ the first
thing to do, you know, is to clear out the people.” The first
thing to do is to clear out the people I Yes ! clear out the
people : the people, who have lived on the land for years,,
and who have learned to love it as though they had been
born landowners ; the people who have tilled and cultivated
it, making it laugh out into cornfields which have fed hun
dreds of the poor ; the people, who have wrought on it, and
toiled with plough and spade; turn out the people and
make way for the animals; level the homes of the people
and make a hunting ground for the rich. “ It is no deerforest if the farmers are all there,” said a witness before the
Commission; and so you see the farmers must go, for of
course it is necessary that we should have deer-forests. No
less than forty families, owning seven thousand sheep,
seven thousand goats, and two hundred head of cattle,
were turned out from their homes in the time of the
present Marquis of Huntly’s grandfather, their houses were
pulled down, and their land was planted with fir-trees ;
some of the leases were bought up; in cases where they
had expired the people were bidden go. And thus it comes
to pass, according to the evidence of one witness—a witness
whom members of the Commission tried hard to browbeat,
but whose evidence they utterly failed to shake—thus it
comes to pass that “ you see in, the deer-forests the ruins,
of numerous hamlets, with the grass growing over them.”
A pathetic picture of homes laid desolate, of the fair course
of peaceful lives roughly broken into; of helpless and
oppressed people, of selfish and greedy wealth. “ From
Glentanar, thirty miles from Aberdeen, you can walk in
forests until you come to the Atlantic.” And this evil is
growing rapidly; in 1812 there were only five deer-forests
in Scotland: in 1873 there were seventy. In 1870,
1,320,000 acres of land were forest; in 1S73, there were
2,000,000 acres thus rendered useless. Under these cir
cumstances, it is scarcely to be wondered at that the popu
lation is decreasing; the population of Argyleshire in 1831
was 103,330 ; in 1871, forty years later, when it ought to
have largely increased, it had, on the contrary, decreased to
755635 > in Inverness it was 94,983 ; during the same time?
it has gone down to 87,480.
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But this is not all. While some farmers and peasants are
“ cleared out ” altogether, those who are allowed to remain
suffer much from the depredations of the deer and other
game. In Aberdeenshire alone no less than 291 farmers
complained of the enormous damage that was done to their
crops by the deer. The deer-forest is not generally fenced
in ; and as deer are very partial to turnips, it naturally follows
that the herds come out of the forest and feed off the
farmers’ crops. One proprietor graciously states that he
does his best to keep the deer away from the farms, but—
judging by the complaints of the farmers—these laudable
efforts scarcely appear to be crowned with the success
that they deserve. Not only, however, do the deer stray
out of the forests, but the farmers’ sheep stray in, and as
sheep are not game he is not permitted to follow them to
fetch them out. When such evidence as this comes out,
and we know the pressure that is put upon tenants by their
landlords, and the danger they run by giving offence to their
powerful masters, we can judge how much more remains
behind of which we know nothing. And, in the name of'
common justice; what is all this for? Why should a farmer
be compelled to keep his landlord’s game for him ? Why
should the farmer’s crops suffer to amuse a man who does
nothing except inherit land ? This wide-spread loss, these
desolated homes, these ruined lives, what mighty national
benefit have these miseries bought for England ? They all,
occur in order that a few rich men may occasionally—whenother pleasures pall on the jaded taste, and ennui becomes
insupportable—have the novel excitement of shooting at
a stag. Verily we have a right to boast of our freedom
when thousands of citizens suffer for the sake of the amuse
ment of the few.
• But these deer-forests do not only injure the unfortunatepeople who are turned out to make room for the deer, and
the farmers who lose the full profit of their labour; to turn
cultivable land into deer-forests is to decrease the food-suffly of
the country.. Some people say that only worthless land isused for this purpose; but this is not true, for pasture-ground
has been turned into forests. In one place, 800 head of'
cattle and 500 sheep were fed upon one quarter of the land
which now supports 750 red deer. That is to say, that 1,300.
animals good for food were nourished by the land which is.
now devoted to the maintenance of 187^ useless deer.
Judge then of the decrease of the food supply of the country
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CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.
which is implied in the fact that one-tenth part of Scotland
is now moor and forest. A baillie of Aberdeen calculates
the loss to the country at no less than 20 millions of pounds
of meat annually. In England things are not so bad; but
in England, also, the cultivation of the land wasted in game
preserving would increase to an almost incalculable extent
the food supply of the country. There is the vast estate of
Chillingworth, kept for a few wild cattle, in order that a
Prince of Wales may now and then drive about it, and from
the safe eminence of a cart may have the pleasure of shoot
ing at a bull. But at this point the question of the Game Laws
melts insensibly into that of the Land Laws, for under a
just system of Land Tenure such deeds as these would be
impossible; then, men could not, for their own selfish
amusement, turn sheep-walks into forests, and farms into
moors.
With our great and increasing population it is abso
lutely necessary that all cultivable land should be under
cultivation. To hold uncultivated, land which is capable of
producing bread and meat is a crime against the State. It
is well known to be one of the points of the “ extreme ”
Radical programme that it should be rendered penal to hold
large quantities of cultivable land uncultivated. Then,
instead of sending the cream of our peasantry abroad, to seek
in foreign countries the land which is fenced in from them
at home; instead of driving them to seek from the stranger
the work which is denied to them in the country of their
birth; we should keep Englishmen in England to make
England strong and rich, and give land to the labour which
is starving for work, and labour to the land which is barren
for the lack of it. “ Land to labour, and labour to land ”
ought to be our battle-cry, and should be the motto engraven
on our shield.
But it is impossible to throw land open to labour so long
as the laws render its transmission from seller to buyer so
expensive and so cumbersome a proceeding. It is impossible
also to effect any radical improvement so long as the land
is tied up in the hands of the few fortunate individuals who
are now permitted to monopolise it. Half the land of
England, and four-fifths of the land of Scotland, is owned by
360 families. These few own the land which ought to be
'■devoted to the good of the nation. Land, like air, and like
-all other natural gifts, cannot rightly be held as private
.property. The only property which can justly be claimed
�CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. '
17
in land is the improvement wrought in the soil. When a
man has put labour or money into the land he farms, then
he has a right to the advantages which accrue from his toil
and from his invested capital. But this principle is the very
contrary of that which is embodied in our Land Laws. The
great landowners do nothing for the land they own; they
spend nothing on the soil which maintains them in such
luxury. It is the farmers and the labourers who have a
right to life-tenancy in the soil, or, more exactly, to a
tenancy, lasting as long as they continue to improve
it. The farmer, whose money is put. into the land—
the labourer, whose strength enriches the soil—these are
the men who ought to be the landowners of England. As
it is, the farmer takes a farm; he invests capital in it; he
rises early to superintend his labourers ; the land rewards
him with her riches, she gives him fuller crops and fatter
cattle, and then the landlord steps in, and raises the rent,
and thus absolutely punishes the farmer for his energy and
his thrift. The idle man stands by with his hands in his
pockets, and then claims a share of the profits which accrue
from the busy man’s labour. Meanwhile the labourer—he
whose strong arms have guided the plough, and wielded the
spade, he who has made the harvest and tended the cattle
—what do our just Land Laws give to him ? They give
him a wretched home, a pittance sufficient—generally at
least—to “ keep body and soul together,” parish pay when
he is ill, the workhouse in his old age, and he sleeps at last
in a pauper’s grave. O ! just and beneficent English Law I
To the idle man, the lion’s share of the profits; to the
man who does much, a small share; to the man who
does most of all, just enough to enable him to work for
his masters. But if this gross injustice be pointed out, if
we protest against this crying evil, and declare that these
crimes shall cease in England, then these landowners arise
and complain that we are tampering with the “sacred rights
of property.” Sacred rights of property ! But what of the
more sacred rights of human life ? The life of the poor is
more holy than the property of the rich, and famished men
and women, more worthy of care than the acres of the
nobleman. If these vast estates are fenced in from us by
parchment fences, so that we cannot throw them open to
labour, so that we cannot make the desert places golden
with corn, and rich with sheep and oxen; if these vast
estates are fenced in from us by parchment fences, then I
�is
CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.
say that the plough must go through the parchment, in order
that the people may have bread.
The maintenance of a standing army, in which birth helps
promotion, is another blot upon our shield. A Duke of
■Cambridge, General Commanding-in-Chief, and Colonel of
four regiments, who holds these offices by virtue of his “ hi^h”
-birth, and in spite of the most palpable incapacity, is°an
absurdity which ought not to be tolerated in a country
which pretends to be free. A Prince of Wales, who has
never seen war, made a Field-Marshal; a Duke of Edinburgh,
•created a Post-Captain; such appointments as these are a
disgrace to the country, and a bitter satire on our army and
■our navy. Carpet-soldiers are useless in time of war, and
they are a burden in time of peace; and to squander
England’s money on such officers as these, simply because
they chance to be born Princes, is a distinct breach of equal
Civil Liberty.
The need of Electoral Reform is well-known to all students
•of politics. No country is free in which all adult citizens
have not a voice in the government. A representation
which is based upon a property qualification is radically
vicious in principle. But not only is our civil liberty
cramped by the fact that the majority of citizens are not
represented at all, but even the poor representation we have
is unequally and unjustly distributed. In one place 136
men return a member to Parliament; in another, 18,000
fail t(jreturn their candidate. In Parliament no members
represent 83,000 voters. The next no represent 1,080,000.
A group of 70,000 voters return 4 members ; another group
■of 70,000 return 80. In one instance, 30,000 voters out
weigh 546,000 in Parliament by a majority of 9. Hence
it follows that a minority of electors rule England, and,
however desirable it may be that minorities should be re
presented, it is surely not desirable that they should rule.
Our present system throws overwhelming power into the
hands of the titled and landowning classes, who, by means
of small and manageable boroughs, are able to outvote the
masses of the people congregated in the large towns. As long
as this is the case, as long as every citizen does not possess
a vote, as long as the few can, by means of unequal dis
tribution of electoral power, control the actions of the
many, so long England is not free, and civil liberty is not
won.
To strike at the House of Lords is to strike at a dying
�CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.
19
institution; but dying men sometimes live long, and dying
institutions may last for centuries if only they are nursed
and tended with sufficient care. A. House in the election
-of whose members the people have no voice ; a House
whose members are born into it, instead of winning their
way into it by service to the State ; a House which is built
upon cradles and not upon merit; a House whose delibe
rations may be shared in by fools or by knaves, provided
only that the brow be coronetted—such a House is a dis
grace to a free country, and an outrage on popular liberty.
As might be expected from its constitution, this House
of Lords has ever stood in the path of every needed reform,
until it has been struck out of the way by hidden menace
or by stern command. Is there any abuse whose days are
numbered? be sure it will be defended in the House of
Lords. Is there a monopoly which needs to be abolished?
be sure it will be championed in the House of Lords. Is
there any popular liberty asked for ? be sure it will
be refused in the House of Lords.
Is there any
fetter struck from off the limbs of progress ? be sure that
some cunning smith will be found to weld the fragments
together again, under the name of an amendment, in the
House of Lords. The only use of the thing is, that
it may act as a political barometer by which to prognosticate
the coming weather; that which the House of Lords blesses
is most certainly doomed, while whatever it frowns upon is
-crowned for a speedy triumph. It has not even the merit
of courage, this craven assemblage of toy-players at legisla
tion ; however boldly it roars out its “ No,” a frown from
the House of Commons makes it tremble and yield; like a
reed, it stands upright enough in the calm weather; like a
reed, it bows before the storm-wind of a popular cry. As a
-question of practical politics, the House of'Lords should be
struck at almost rather than the Crown, because the whole
principle of aristocracy is embodied in that House, the
whole fatal notion that the accident of birth gives the right
to rule. Our puppet kings and queens are less directly
injurious to the commonwealth than is this titled House.
The gilded figure-head injures the State-vessel less than the
presence of hands on her tiller-ropes which know naught of
navigation. And with the fall of the House of Lords must
crash down the throne, which is but the ornament upon its
roof, the completion of its elevation; so that when the toy
house has fallen at the breath of the people’s lips, and we
�20
CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.
can see over the near prospect which it now hides from our
gaze, we shall surely see, with the light of the morning on
her face, with her golden head shining in the sun-rays, with
the day-star on her brow, and the white garments of peace
upon her limbs, with her sceptre wreathed in olive-branches,
and her feet shod with plenty, that fair and glorious
Republic for which we have yearned and toiled sb long.
Having seen the chief blots upon our Civil Liberty, let us
turn our attention to the defects in our religious freedom.
And here I plead, neither as Freethinker nor as Secularist,
but simply as a citizen of a mighty State, and member of a
community which pretends to be free. For every shade of
Nonconformity I plead, from the Roman Catholic to the
Atheist, for all whose consciences do not fit into the mould
provided by the Establishment, and whose thought refuses to
be fettered by the bands of a State religion. I crave for every
man, whatever be his creed, that his freedom of conscience be
held sacred. I ask for every man, whatever be his belief, that he
shall not suffer, in civil matters,for his faith orfor his want offaith.
I demand for every man, whatever be his opinions, that he
shall be able to speak out with honest frankness the results
of honest thought, without forfeiting his rights as citizen,
without destroying his social position, and without troubling
his domestic peace. We have not to-day, in England, the
scourge and the rack, the gibbet and the stake, by which
men’s bodies are tortured to ' improve their souls, but
we have the scourge of calumny and the rack of severed
friendship, we have the gibbet of public scorn, and the stake
of a ruined home, by which we compel conformity to
dogma, and teach men to be hypocrites that they may eat a
piece of bread. The spirit is the same, though the form of
the torture be changed; and many a saddened life,and many
a wrecked hope, bear testimony to the fact that religious
liberty is still but a name, and freedom of thought is still a '
crime. Public opinion, and social feeling, we can but strive
to influence and to improve; what I would lay stress upon
here, is the existence of a certain institution, and of certain
laws,’ which foster this one-sided feeling, and which are a
direct infringement of the rights of the individual conscience.
First and foremost, overshadowing the land by her gigantic
monopoly, is the Church as by law established. This body
—one sect among many sects—is given by law many privi
leges -which are not accorded to any other religious deno
mination. Her ministers are the State-officers of religion;
�CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.
21
her highest dignitaries legislate for the whole Empire ;
national graveyards are the property of her clergy; and the
best parts of national buildings are owned by her rectors.
■So long as the State was Christian and orthodox, so long
might the Establishment of the State-religion be defensible,
but the moment that the Church ceased to be co-extensive
with the nation, that same moment did her Establishment
become an injustice to that portion of the nation which did
not conform to her creed. Every liberty won by the Non
conformist has been a blow struck at the reasonableness of
the Establishment. ' She is nothing now but a palpable
anachronism. Jews, Roman Catholics, even “Infidels”
(provided only that they veil their Infidelity), may sit in
the House of Parliament. They may alter the Church’s
articles, they may define her doctrines, they may change
her creed; she is only the mere creature of the State,
bought by lands and privileges to serve in a gilded slavery.
The truth or the untruth of her doctrines is nothing
to the point. I protest in principle against the establish
ment by the State of any form of religious, or of anti-religious,
belief. The State is no judge in such matters; let every
man follow his own conscience, and worship at what shrine
his reason bids him, and let no man be injured because he
differs from his neighbour’s creed. The Church Establish
ment is an insult to every Roman Catholic, to every Protes
tant dissenter, to every Freethinker, in the Empire. The
national property usurped by the Establishment might
lighten the national burdens, were it otherwise applied, so
that, indirectly, everynon-Churchman is taxed for the support
of a creed in which he does not believe, and for the main
tenance of ministrations by which he does not profit. The
Church must be destroyed, as an Establishment, before
religious equality can be anything more than an empty name.
There are laws upon the Statute Book which grievously
outrage the rights of conscience, and which subject an
“ apostate ”—that is, a person who has been educated in, or
who has professed Christianity, and has subsequently
renounced it—to loss of all civil rights, provided that the
law be put in force against him. The right of excommunica
tion, lodged in the Church, is, I think, a perfectly fair right,
provided that it carry with it no civil penalties whatsoever.
The Church, like any other club, ought to be able to exclude
an objectionable member, but she ought not to be able to call
in the arm of the law to impose non-spiritual penalties. But
�“2
CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.
*
the apostate loses all civil rights. The law, as laid down
is as follows : “ Enacted by statute 9 and 10, William III ’
cap 32, that if any person educated in, or having made profes’sion of, the Christian religion, shall by writing, printing,
teaching, or advised speaking, assert or maintain there are
more Gods than one, or shall deny the Christian religion to
be true [this Act adds to these offences, that of “denying any
one of the. persons in the Trinity to be God,” but it was
repealed quoad hoc, by 53 George III., c. 60] or the Holy
Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be of divine
authority, he shall upon the first offence be rendered in
capable to hold any ecclesiastical, civil, or military office, or
employment, and for the second, be rendered incapable of
bringing any action, or to be guardian, executor, legatee, or
grantee, and shall suffer three years’ imprisonment without
bail. To give room, however, for repentance, if within
four months after the first conviction, the delinquent will, in
open court, publicly renounce his error, he is discharged
for that once from all disabilities.” Some will say that this
law is never put in force j true, public opinion would not
allow of its general enforcement, but it is turned against
those who are poor and weak, while it lets the strong go
free. Besides, it hangs over every sceptic’s head like the
sword of Damocles, and it serves as a threat and menace in
the hand of every cruel and bigoted Churchman, who wants to
■extract any concession from an unbeliever. No law that can
be enforced is obsolete; it may lie dormant fora time, but it
is a sabre, which can at any moment be drawn from the
sheath j the “ obsolete ” law about the Sabbath closed the
Brighton Aquarium, and Rosherville Gardens, and is found
to be quite easy of enforcementj though people would have
laughed, a short time since, at the idea of anyone grumbling at
its presence on the Statute Book. Poor, harmless, half-witted,
Thomas Pooley, in 1857, found the Blasphemy Laws by no
means “a dead letter” in the mouth of Lord Justice Cole
ridge. And there are plenty of other cases of injustice
which have taken, and do take place under these laws, which
might be quoted were it worth while to fill up space with
them, and but little is needed to fan the smouldering fire of
bigotry into a flame, and to put the laws generally in force
once more. . Already threats are heard, murmurs of the old
wicked spirit of persecution, and it behoves us to see to it
that these swords be broken, so that bigots may be unable to
wield them again among us.
,
�CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.
23
I do not, as I have said, protest now against these laws as
a Secularist; I challenge them only as unjust disabilities im
posed on men’s consciences, and I appeal to all lovers of liberty
to agitate against them, because they impose civil disabilities
on some forms of religious opinion. And to you, O Chris
tians 1 I would say : fight Freethought, if you will; oppose
Atheism, if you deem it false and injurious to humanity:
strike at us with all your strength on the religious platform ;
it is your right, nay, it is even your duty; but do not seek to
answer our questions by blows from the statute book, nor to
check our search after truth by the arm of the law. I im
peach these laws against “ infidels,” at the bar of public,
opinion, as an infraction of the just liberty of the individual,
as an insult to the dignity of the citizen, as an outrage on
the sacred rights of conscience.
I do not pretend, in the short pages of such a paper
as this, to have done more than to sketch, very briefly
and very imperfectly, the chief defects of our civil and
religious liberty. I have only laid before you a rough draft
of a programme of Reform. Each blot on English liberty
which I have pointed to might well form the sole subject of
an essay ; but I have hoped that, by thus gathering up into
one some few of the many injustices under which we suffer,
I might, perchance, lend definiteness to the aspirations after
Liberty which swell in the breasts of many, and might point,
out to the attacking army some of the most assailable points
of the fortress of bigotry and caste-prejudice, which the
soldiers of Freedom are vowed to assail. I have taken, as
it were, a bird’s-eye view of the battle-ground of the near
future, of that battle-ground on which soon will clash
together the army which fights under the banner of privileges,
and the army which marches under the standard of Liberty.
The issue of that conflict is not doubtful, for Liberty is
immortal and eternal, and her triumph is sure, however it
may be delayed. The beautiful goddess before whom we
bow is ever young with a youth which cannot fade, and
radiant with a glory which nought can dim. Hers is the
promise of the future; hers the fair days that shall dawn
hereafter on a liberated earth; and hers is also the triumph
of to-morrow, if only we, who adore her, if only we can be
true to ourselves and to each other. But they who love her
must work for her, as well as worship her, for labour is the
only prayer to Liberty, and devotion the only praise. To
her we must consecrate our brain-power and our influence
�24
CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.
among our fellows ; to her we must sacrifice our time, and,,
if need be, our comfort and our happiness; to her we must,
devote our efforts, and to her the fruits of our toil. And
at last, in the fair, bright future—at last, in the glad to
morrow—amid the shouts of a liberated nation, and the joy
of men and women who see their children free, we shall see
the shining goddess descending from afar, where we have
worshipped her so long, to be the sunshine and the glory of
every British home. And then, O men and women of
England, then, when you have once clasped the knees of
Liberty, and rested your tired brows on her gentle breast,
then cherish and guard her evermore, as you cherish the
bride you have won to your arms, as you guard the wife
whose love is the glory of your manhood, and whose smile
is the sunshine of your home.
Printed by Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh, 28, Stone
cutter Street, London, E.C.
�
Dublin Core
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
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Pamphlet
Dublin Core
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Title
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Civil & religious liberty : with some hints taken from the French Revolution; a lecture
Description
An account of the resource
Edition: 2nd ed.
Place of publication: London
Collation: 24 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Creator
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Besant, Annie Wood [1847-1933]
Publisher
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Freethought Publishing Company
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[n.d.]
Identifier
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N062
Subject
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Freedom of religion
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Civil & religious liberty : with some hints taken from the French Revolution; a lecture), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Civil Rights
Freedom of Religion
French Revolution
Liberty
NSS
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
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Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The myth of the resurrection
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Besant, Annie Wood [1847-1933]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 133-144 p. ; 19 cm.
Series title: Atheistic Platform
Series number: No. 9
Notes: Extensive annotations in ink. Short pieces from other journals or pamphlets cut out and stuck in. Donated by Mr Garvey. Publisher's series list on preliminary pages. Printed by Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh, 63 Fleet Street, London.
Publisher
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Freethought Publishing Company
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1884
Identifier
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G5084
Subject
The topic of the resource
Christianity
Atheism
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The myth of the resurrection), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Atheism
Resurrection
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NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
THE
SOCIALIST MOVEMENT.
BY
ANNIE
[Reprinted
from the
BESANT.
“Westminster Review”.]
LONDON :
FREETHOUGHT PUBLISHING COMPANY,
63, FLEET STREET, E.C.
1 8 8 7.
PRICE
THREEPENCE.
�I
LONDON :
TRINTED BY ANNIE BESANT AND CHARLES BRADLAVGH,
63, FLEET STREET, E.C,
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THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT.
Some good-hearted people must have felt an uncomfortable
thrill when they heard Professor Huxley declare that he
would rather have been born a savage in one of the Fiji
Islands than have been born in a London slum. The
advantages of civilisation, from the slum point of view,
must appear somewhat doubtful; and as a considerable
part of the population of every large city live in the slums,
the slum view has an importance of its own as a factor in
the future social evolution. For it must be remembered
that the slum population is not wholly composed of
criminals and ne’er-do-weels—the “ good-for-nothings ”
•of Herbert Spencer. The honest workman and struggling
seamstress live there cheek by jowl with the thief and
and the harlot; and with the spread of education has
arisen an inclination to question whether, after all, every
thing has been arranged quite as well as it might be in
this best of all possible worlds. The question, Whether
• on the whole civilisation has been an advantage? has
been a theme of academical discussion since Rousseau
won the prize for an essay on 11 Has the restoration of the
• Sciences contributed to purify or to corrupt Manners ? ”
■ and laid down the audacious thesis that riches gave birth
to luxury and idleness, and from luxury sprang the arts,
from idleness the sciences. But it has now changed its
form, and has entered the arena of practical life: men
. are asking now, Is it rational that the progress of society
should be as lopsided as it is ? Is it necessary that,
while civilisation brings to some art, beauty, refinement—
all that makes life fair and gracious—it should bring to
•others drudgery, misery, degradation, such as no un
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THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT.
civilised people know; and these emphasised and rendered
the bitterer by the contrast of what life is to many, thedream of what it might be to all ? For Professor Huxley
is right. The savage has the forest and the open sea, the
joy of physical strength, food easily won, leisure sweet
after the excitement of the chase; the civilised toiler hasthe monotonous drudgery of the stuffy workshop, the hell
of the gin-palace for his pleasure-ground, the pande
monium of reeking court and stifling alley for his lullaby :
civilisation has robbed him of all natural beauty and
physical joy, and has given him in exchange—the slum.
It is little wonder that, under these circumstances, there
are many who have but scant respect for our social fabric,
and who are apt to think that any change cannot land
them in a condition worse than that in which they already
find themselves.
The tendency to think of complete social change as a
possible occurrence has come down to the present genera
tion as an inheritance of the past. Old men still dwell
fondly on the hopes of the “ social missionaries ” who were
preaching when the men now of middle-age were born.
Some even fem ember the experiments of Fobert Owen and
of his personal disciples, the hopes raised by New Lanark
and Arbiston, the chill disappointment of New Harmony.
The dream that glorified their youth has remained a sacred
memory, and they have told how all might have been
different had society been prepared in Owen’s time for the
fundamental change. And the great and far-reaching
co-operative movement, born of Owen’s Socialism, has kept
“his memory green”, and has prepared men to think of
a possible future in which co-operation should wholly re
place competition, and Owen’s dream of universal brother
hood become a living reality. Such part of the energy of
the Owenite Socialists as was not merged in co-operative
activity was swamped in the sudden rush of prosperity
that followed the repeal of the Corn Laws and the English
triumph of Free Trade. Now that that rush is long over,
and the old misery is on the workers once .more, their
minds turn back to the old schemes, and they listen readily
to suggestions of a new social order.
.
The abnormally rapid multiplication characteristic of the
very poor is at once constantly rendering the problem to
be solved more difficult and more imperatively pressing.
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5
Unhealthy conditions force the young into premature
nubility; marriage takes place between mere lads and
lasses; parenthood comes while father and mother are
themselves legally infants; and the dwarfed, peaky little
•mortals, with baby frames and wizened faces, that tumble
-over each other in the gutters of the slums, are the un
wholesome and unlovely products of the forcing-house of
extreme poverty.
The spread of education and of religious scepticism has
added the last touch necessary to make the poor ripe for
social change. Ignorance is a necessary condition for
prolonged submission to remediable misery. The School
Boards are teaching the children the beauty of order,
•cleanliness, and decency, and are waking up in them desire
for knowledge, hopes, and aspirations—plants unsuited for
■cultivation in the slums. They are sowing the seeds of a
noble discontent with unworthy conditions, while at the
same time they are developing and training the intelli
gence, and are converting aimless, sullen grumbling into
a rational determination to understand the Why of the
present, and to discover the How of change. Lastly, reli
gious scepticism has enormously increased the value put
upon the life which is. So long as men believed that the
present life was the mere vestibule of an endless future, it
was possible to bribe them into quiescence in misery by
.representing poverty as a blessing which should hereafter
bring in its train the “kingdom of heaven”. But now
that many look on the idea of a life beyond the grave with
•doubt, and even with disbelief, this life has taken giant
proportions in their eyes, and the human longing for
happiness, which erstwhile fed on hopes of heaven, has
fastened itself with passionate intensity on the things of
•earth.
Such is the soil, ploughed by misery, fertilised by edu
cation and scepticism, ready to receive and nourish the
seed of social change.
While the soil has been thus preparing, the sowers who
•are to scatter the seed have been fashioning. Thoughtful
persons have noted the regular cycle of alternate depres
sion and inflation trodden by industrialism during the last
century. At one time industry progresses ‘ ‘ by leaps and
bounds ”, employment is plentiful, wages high (as wages
.go), prices of coal and iron high, profits increase, and
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THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT.
fortunes are rapidly built up. This inflation after a whilepasses away, and is succeeded by depression ; 11 short time
is worked, wages are reduced, profits diminish, the “ market
is overstocked”. This in its turn passes away, and tem
porary prosperity returns, to be after a while succeeded
by another depression, and that by another inflation. But
it is noticeable that the depressions become more acute and
more prolonged as they return time after time, and that
there is less elasticity of revival after each. The position
of England in the world’s markets becomes yearly one of
diminished advantage ; other nations raise their own coaland their own iron instead of buying from us, and as thecompetition of nations becomes keener, English trade can
no longer monopolise the custom of the world. The radical
weakness of our industrial system is thus becoming patent
•—no longer veiled, as it was during the first half of the
century, by a monopoly which brought such enormousgains that the drain of wealth into a few hands was com
paratively little felt. Now that there is so much less to.divide, the unfairness of the method of division is becoming
obvious.
Nor can we overlook, in tracing the fashioning of thosewho are to sow the seeds of change, the effect on English
thought of the greatly increased communication with
foreign countries, and especially with Germany. English
religious thought has been largely influenced by the worksof Strauss and Eeuerbach ; philosophic thought by those
of Hegel, Kant, and Schopenhauer ; scientific by the specu
lations of Goethe, the practical labors of Vogt, Buchner,
and Haeckel. English insularity has been broken down
in every domain of theoretical and speculative thought ; it
was inevitable that it should also be broken down in the ■
domain of practical sociology, and that German proposals-'for social change should win the attention of English
students of social problems. The works of Marx, Bebel,.
Liebknecht, and Engels have not reached any large num
ber of English people ; neither have those of Strauss,
Hegel, and Kant. None the less in each case have they
exercised a profoundly modifying influence on religious,
philosophical, and sociological thought respectively ; for,
reaching a small band only, that band has in its turn in
fluenced thought in the direction taken by itself, and has
modified the views of very many who are unconscious of the.-
�THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT.
7
change thus wrought in their own attitude towards. pro
gress. At the same time the German graft has been itself
modified by the English stock, and English Socialism is
beginning to take its own distinctive color ; it is influenced
by English traditions, race, habit, and methods of public
procedure. It shows, at its best, the influence of .the openair of English political life, the tolerance, of diversity of
thought which is bred of free speech ; it is less arrogant,
less intolerant, than it is with Germans, or witn those
English who are most directly under German influence.
In Germany the intolerance of oppression has caused in
tolerance of revolt ; here the very power of the democracy
has a tendency to sober its speech, and to make it take its
Own way in the quiet consciousness of its resistless strength.
This peculiarity of English life must modify Socialism,
and incline it to resort to methods of legislation rather
than to methods of dynamite.
Nor has the effect of foreign thought been confined to
the influence exerted by thinkers over thinkers, through
the medium of the press. A potent worker for the inter
nationalisation of thought has been silently busy for many
years past. At first insular prejudices were broken down
only for the wealthy and the nobles, when the ‘ grand
tour ” was a necessary part of the education of the fine
gentleman. Then the capitalist broke down.national fences
for his own gain, feeling himself nearer in blood to his
foreign colleagues than to the workers in his own land ;
for, after all, common interests lie at the root of all. fellowfeeling. And the capitalist abolished nationalism for
himself : he hired Germans and Erenchmen for his count
ing-house work, finding them cheaper and better educated
than English clerks ; when his English wage-workers
struck for better wages he brought over foreigners to take
their place, so that he might live on cheap foreign labor
while he starved the English into submission. . The effect
of foreign immigration and of foreign importation has not
in the long run turned wholly to the advantage of the
capitalist ; for his foreign clerks and his foreign workers
have fraternised with the English they were brought, over
to displace. They have taken part in club discussions ;
they have spread their own views ; they have popularised
in England the ideas current among workers on the
tinent ; they have made numbers of Englishmen acquainted
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THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT.
with the solutions suggested abroad for social problems.
Thus, the internationalism of the luxurious idle and of the
wealthy capitalist has paved the way for the interna
tionalism of the future—the internationalism of the prole
tariat, the internationalism of Socialism.
From this preliminary sketch of the conditions which
make for a Socialist movement in England at the present
time we must turn to an examination of the doctrines held
and taught by the modern school, which claims to teach
what is known as Scientific Socialism. The allegation, or
even the proof, that modern civilisation is to a large ex
tent a failure, is obviously not sufficient ground for a com
plete social revolution. Appeals to the emotions by means
of word-pictures of the sufferings and degradation of the
industrious, poor, may rouse sympathy, and may even
excite to. riot, but can never bring about fundamental
changes in society. The intellect must be convinced ere
we can look for any wise movement in the direction of
organic improvement; and while the passion of the igno
rant has its revolutionary value, it is on the wisdom and
foresight of the instructed that we must rely for the work
of social reconstitution.
The. first thing to realise is that the Socialist move
ment is an economic one. Despite all whirling words,
and revolution fire, and poetic glamor, and passionate
appeal, this one dry fact is the central one — Socialism
rej ects the present industrial system and proposes an ex
ceedingly different one. No mere abuse can shake the
Socialist; no mere calling of names can move him.
He holds a definite economic theory—a theory wbieb
should neither be rejected without examination, nor ac
cepted without study.
The preliminary stock objection which is often held to
be sufficient to wave Socialism out of court is the statement
that it is “against the laws of political economy”. No
statement could be more erroneous; though it may be
pleaded in extenuation that the abuse levelled by ignorant
Socialists at political economy has given excuse for sup
posing that it is in antagonism to Socialism. With political
economy, as the science which deals with the nature, the
production, and the distribution of wealth, Socialism can
have no quarrel. Its quarrel is with the present industrial
�THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT.
9
system, not with the science which points out the ascer
tained sequence of events under that system. Suppose
a régime of avowed slavery : political economy, dealing
with the production of wealth in such a state, would lay
down how slaves might be worked to the best advantage—
how most might be got out of them with least expenditure.
But it would be irrational to attack political economy as
brutal under such conditions ; it would be the slave system
which would be brutal, and blame of the science which
merely dealt with the existent facts would be idle. The
work of political economy is to discern and expound for
any type of social system the best methods of producing
and distributing wealth under that system ; and it can as
easily study and develop those methods under a régime of
universal co-operation such as Socialism, as under a régime
of universal competition such as the present. Socialism is
in antagonism to the present system, and seeks to over
throw it ; but only the ignorant and the thoughtless con
found in their hatred the system itself, and the science that
deals with its phænomena.
In truth, Socialism founds part of its disapproval of
the present industrial system on the very facts pointed
out by orthodox economists. It accepts Ricardo’s “iron
law of wages ”, and, recognising that wages tend to fall
to the minimum on which the laborer can exist, it de
clares against the system of the hiring of workers for a
fixed wage, and the appropriation of their produce by the
hirer. It accepts Ricardo’s theory of rent, with such
modifications as are adopted by all modern economists.
It assents to, and indeed insists on, the facts that all
wealth is the result of labor applied to natural agents,
that capital is the result of labor and abstinence, that in
all save the most primitive forms of industry capital and
labor—that is, the unconsumed result of past labor and
present labor—are both necessary factors in the produc
tion of wealth.
Nor does Socialism challenge the aecuracy of the deduc
tions from the “laws of political economy” in a com
petitive system drawn by the trading community. That
a man who desires wealth should buy in the cheapest
market and sell in the dearest ; that he should drive the
hardest possible bargains ; that in selling he should be
guided by the maxim, caveat emptor ; that in buying he
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THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT.
should take advantage of the ignorance or the necessities
of the seller; that the weakest should go the wall; that
feeling should not interfere with business; that labor
should be bought at the lowest possible price, and as
much got out of it as may be; that trade morality differs
from the morality of private life—all these maxims the
Socialist regards as the evil fruits of the perpetuation
among men of the struggle for existence; a struggle which,
however inevitable among brutes, is from his point of view
unworthy of human civilisation.
Recognising thus the unsatisfactory results which flow
naturally and inevitably from the present system, Socialism
proceeds to analyse the way in which wealth is produced
and accumulated under it, to seek for the causes of the
extreme wealth and. extreme poverty which are its most
salient characteristics.
Applying ourselves, then, to the study of the produc
tion of wealth, we find taking part therein three things—
natural agents, capital, and labor. These, under the pre
sent system, are represented in England by three types—
the landlord, the capitalist, and the proletarian. The
transitional organisms need not detain us: the landlord
who tills his land with his own hands, the capitalist who
works in his own mill—these are exceptions ; andwe are
concerned with the normal types. Abroad, the landlord
pure and simple is comparatively rare. Of these three, the
landlord owns the natural agents ; no wealth can be pro
duced without his consent. John Stuart Mill (“Principles
of Political Economy”, bk. ii., ch. xvi., sec. 1) remarks
that “ the only person, besides the laborer and th©
capitalist, whose consent is necessary to production, and
who can claim a share of the produce as the price of that
consent, is the person who, by the arrangements of society,
possesses exclusive power over some natural agent ”.
Given a person who, by possession of the natural agents
from which wealth can be produced, can prevent the pro
duction of wealth by withholding the raw material, and
you have a person who can successfully claim part of the
wealth to be produced as a condition of allowing produc
tion to take place. He gains, by virtue of his position,
wealth which one less fortunately placed can only acquire
by prolonged labor. Nay, more ; since many capitalists
will compete for the raw material when it is advantageously
�THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT.
11
situated, he will be able to obtain an ever higher price
from the most eager bidder ; as towns increase . and. trade
develops, competition will drive the price up still higher ;
and this ever-mounting “ rent”, paid, to the owner of the
natural agents, will enrich the lucky possessor, however
idle, ignorant, or useless he may be. Thus is produced
a class which has a vested right to tax industry, and
which taxes it in proportion to its success. Not an
improvement can be effected, nor a railway constructed,
nor a road made, without toll being first paid to the
owner of the soil. The whole nation is at the mercy
of a comparatively small class, so long as it consents to
admit that this class has a right to own the ground on
which the nation lives. Here is a point at which Socialism
finds itself in direct antagonism to the present system of
society. Socialism declares that natural agents ought not
to be private property, and that no idle class should be
permitted to stand between land and labor, and demand
payment of a tax before it will permit the production, of
wealth. Socialism holds that the soil on which a nation
is born and lives ought to belong to the nation as a whole,
and not to a class within the nation ; that the soil should
be cultivated by individuals, or by co-operative groups,
holding directly under the State—the ‘.‘State” here
meaning central organising body or district oiganising
body, according as the organisation is communal or cen
tralised. And here, among different Socialist schools,
difference in detail manifests itself. All agree that the
soil must in some fashion be controlled by the community,
and the benefits derivable from it spread over the com
munity. But some Socialists would have each commune
practically independent, with the soil on which it lives
vested in each; the agriculturists of the commune would
form an organised body for cultivating the soil, and the
agricultural products would be collected in the communal
store, and thence distributed as each member of the
commune had need of them. Nothing would here be
recognised as “ rent ”, since the total produce would pass
under communal control. Other Socialists favor a system
of more centralised management. But all agree that in
dividual property in land must disappear, and that in. the
future land must not be used as an investment which is to
bring in a profit in the shape of rent to some speculator or
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THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT.
idler, but must be used for purposes of production for the
general good, yielding food and raw materials for clothing
and other necessaries of life, but profit in the shape of
rent to no individual.
The extreme Radical school of politicians accepts the
Socialist theory of land, and denounces private property in
the soil as vigorously as does the Socialist. In fact, the
Radical is a half-fledged Socialist—indignant as many
would be at the description: he is in favor of the State
being the landowner, but he boggles at the idea of
the State being the capitalist. His attitude to the land
is, however, an important factor in the Socialist move
ment, for it familiarises the national mind with the idea
of the State absorbing the functions hitherto belonging
to a class. The establishment of Land Courts, the fixing
of judicial rents, the legal restrictions put on the “rights”
of landlords—all these make for Socialism. M. Agathon
de Potter, a well-known Continental writer, rejoices over
the introduction of Mr. Charles Bradlaugh’s Bill for expro
priating landlords who keep cultivable land uncultivated,
and for vesting the forfeited lands in the State, as a direct
step towards Socialism. The shrinking of English poli
ticians from the name does not prevent their advance
towards the thing, and the Liberty and Property Defence
League is justified in its view that politics are drifting
steadily in a Socialist direction.
Pass we from the landlord who holds the natural agents
to the capitalist who holds the means of production. What
is capital, and how has it come into existence ? Capital is
any wealth which is employed for profit. On this there is
no dispute. As Senior says: “Economists are agreed
that whatever gives a profit is properly called capital ”.
Now, as all wealth is the result of labor applied to natural
agents, capital, being wealth, must have been so produced.
But another factor has been at work; as Marshall says:
it is “ the result of labor and abstinence ”. Wherever there
is capital there has been labor, and there has also
been abstinence from consumption. But in studying
the origin and the accumulation of capital, this remark
able historical fact stares us in the face—that capital is
not found in the hands of the laborious and the
abstemious, but is obtained by a process of confiscation
of the results of labor and the imposition of privation on
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the laborious. On this John Stuart Mill has the following
pregnant passage :
“ In a rude and violent state of society it continually happens
that the person who has capital is not the very person who has
Saved it. but someone who, being stronger, or belonging to a
more powerful community, has possessed himself of it by
plunder. And even in a state of things in which property was
protected, the increase of capital has usually been, for a long
time, mainly derived from privations which, though essentially
the same with saving, are not generally called by that name,
because not.voluntary. The actual producers have been slaves,
compelled to produce as much as force could extort from them,
and to consume as little as the self-interest or the usually very
slender humanity of their taskmasters would permit. (“ Prin
ciples of Political Economy”, bk. i., ch. v., sec. 5).
Capital always has been, and it always must be,
obtained by the partial confiscation of the results of
labor ; that is, it must be accumulated by labor which
is not paid for, or by labor of which the payment is
deferred. In slave communities the slave-owner becomes
a great capitalist by appropriating the total results of
his slaves’ toil, and returning to them only such small
portion of it as suffices to keep the wealth-producers in
capable working order. That is, the wealth produced
minus the amount consumed by the producers, goes to
the owner, and that part of it which he does not consume
is laid by to be employed as capital. And it is worth
noting that no considerable accumulation of capital was
made, and no rapid progress in civilisation was possible,
until slavery was introduced. In a low stage of evolution
men will not deny themselves present for the sake of future
enjoyment, nor incur present toil for the sake of future
ease. But when, as was neatly said to me, the barbarian
discovered that he could utilise his conquered enemy to
much greater advantage by making him work than by
merely eating him, civilisation had a chance. Slavery
was, in truth, a necessary stage in social evolution ; only
by forced toil and forced privation was it possible to accu
mulate capital, and without capital no forms of complex
industry are realisable. At the present time that which
was done frankly and unblushingly in the slave régime is
done under a veil of fine phrases, among which free con
tract, free laborer, and the like, play a striking part. But
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THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT.
in reality the “free laborer” only obtains as wage such
portion of the results of his labor as enables him to exist
at the standard of living current for his class at the time,
and the remainder of his produce goes to his employer.
And too often this portion of his is not sufficient to keep
him in capable working order, as is shown by the sombre
fact that the average age of the hand-workers at death is
far less than that of the idlers. For in truth the slave of
the past had this advantage over the wage-worker of the
present—-that it was to his master’s interest to keep the
slave in high physical condition, and to prolong his working
life ; whereas it is to the modern employer’s interest to
get as much work out of the “ free laborer ” as is possible
in a short time, and then to fling him aside as he begins
to flag, and hire in his place a younger and more vigorous
competitor, to be in his turn wrung dry and thrown away.
Before considering what Socialism would do with the
capitalist, we must turn to the proletarian, his necessary
correlative. A proletarian is a person who is possessed of
labor-force, and of nothing else. He is the incarnation of
the “labor” necessary for the production of wealth, the
third factor in our trio. This type, in our modern society,
is numerous, and is rapidly increasing. He is the very
antithesis of the really free laborer, who works on his own
raw material with his own instruments of production, and
produces for his own subsistence. In the country the
proletarian is born on somebody else’s land, and as he
grows up he finds himself owner of nothing except his
own body. The raw material around him is owned by the
landlord ; the instruments of production are owned by the
capitalist farmers. As he cannot live on his own labor
force, which can only become productive in conjunction
with raw material and means of production (capital), he
must either sell it or starve. Nominally he may be free ;
in reality he is no more free than is the slave. The slave
is free to refuse to work, and to take in exchange the lash,
the prison, the grave ; and such freedom only has the
present proletarian. If he refuses to work, he must take
the lash of hunger, the prison of the workhouse, and, on
continued refusal, the actual gaol. Nor can he put his
own price on this solitary property of his, his body—he
must sell it at the market rate ; and in some agricultural
counties of England at the present time the market rate
�THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT.
15
is from 7s. to 9s. a week. It is most significant of the
bearing of the propertyless condition of the proletarian
that many farmers obj ect to the very slight improvement
made in the laborer’s position by his being permitted to
rent at a high price a small allotment which he cultivates
for himself. The ground of the farmer’s objection is that
even such small portion of freedom makes the laborer
“too independent”, and thereby drives up wages. To
get the full advantage out of him, the proletarian must be
wholly dependent for subsistence on the wages he earns.
The town proletarian is in a similar position—neither land
nor instrument of production is his; but he also has his
labor force, and this he must sell, or he must starve.
We have arrived at the citadel of the Socialist position.
Here is this unpropertied class, this naked proletariat, face
to face with landlord and capitalist, who hold in their grip
the means of subsistence. It must reach those means of
subsistence or starve. The terms laid down for its accep
tance are clear and decisive : “We will place within your
hands the means of existence if you will produce sufficient
to support us as well as yourselves, and if you will consent
that the whole of your produce, over that which is sufficient
to support you in a hardy, frugal life, shall be the property
of us and of our children. If you are very thrifty, very
self-denying, and very lucky, you may be able to save
enough out of your small share of your produce to feed
yourself in your old age, and so avoid falling back on us.
Your children will tread the same mill-round, and we hope
you will remain contented with the position in which
Providence has placed you, and not envy those born to a
higher lot.” Needless to say, the terms are accepted by
a proletariat ignorant of its own strength, and the way to
profit is open to landlord and capitalist. The landlord,
as we have seen, obtains his share of the gains by taxing
the capitalist through raising his rent. The capitalist
finds his profit in the difference between the. wage he pays
and the value of the produce of his hired workers. The
wage is fixed by the competition for employment in the
labor market, and limited in its downward tendency by
the standard of living. The minimum wage is that on
which the worker can exist, however hardly. For less
than this he will not work. Every shilling above this is
fought over, and wage rises and falls by competition. At
�16
THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT.
everstage of their relationship there is contest betweèn
employer and employed. If the wage is paid for a fixed
day’s work—as in nearly every trade—the employer tries
to lengthen the day, the employed to shorten it ; the
longer the day, the greater the production of “surplus
value ”—¿<?., of the difference between the wage paid and
the value produced. The employer tries to increase surplus
value by pressing the workers to exertion ; they lessen
exertion in order not to hasten the time of their discharge.
The employer tries still to increase surplus value by sup
planting male labor with female and child labor at lower
wages. The men resist such introduction, knowing that
the ultimate result is to increase the amount taken by
capital and to lessen that obtained by labor.
Now the Socialist alleges that these antithetical interests
can never be reconciled while capital and labor are the
possessions of two distinct classes. He points to the results
brought about by the capitalist class while it was left un
shackled by the State. The triumph of capitalism, and of
laisser-faire between employers and employed, was from
1764 to 1833. During that time not only adults but young
children were worked from fifteen to sixteen hours a day,
and the production of surplus value was enormous. The
huge fortunes of the Lancashire “cotton-princes” were
built up by these overtasked, quickly worn-out workers.
The invention of machinery centupled man’s productive
power, and its benefits were monopolised by a compara
tively small class ; while those who made the wealth
festered in closely crowded courts, those who appropriated
the wealth luxuriated in country seats ; one side of industri
alism is seen in the Lancashire mansions, pleasure-grounds,
and hothouses ; the Other in the reeking slums within the
sound of the factory bells. Under a saner system of pro
duction, the introduction of machinery would have lightened
toil, shortened the hours of necessary labor, and spread
abundance where there was want. Under capitalistic in
dustrialism it has built up huge fortunes for a few, and
has reduced thousands to conditions of insanitary living
and dreary degradation, worse than anything the world
has hitherto known. It has poisoned our rivers, polluted
our atmosphere, marred the beauty of our country’s face,
bestialised large numbers of our people. Improvements in
machinery, which should be hailed with joy, are regarded
�THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT.
17
with dread by large classes of workers, because they will
throw numbers out of work, and reduce men, who were
skilled laborers with the old machinery, into the ranks of
the unskilled. True, the result of the introduction of
machinery has been to cheapen—in consequence of com
petition among capitalists—many commodities, especially
articles of clothing. But this effect is little felt among the
laboring classes. They can buy perhaps three coats where
they used to buy one, but the easily worn-out shoddy,
thought good enough for clothes sold in poor quarters, is
but a poor exchange for the solid hand-made stuffs worn
by their ancestors.
What, then, is the remedy proposed by Socialism ? It
is to deal with capital as it deals with land; to abolish the
capitalist as well as the landlord, and to bring the means
of production, as well as the natural agents on which they
are used, under the control of the community.
Capital is, as we have seen, the result of unpaid labor;
in a complex system like our own it is the result of co
operative—that is, of socialised—labor. It has been found
Iby experience that division of labor increases productive
ability, and in all forms of industry numbers now co
operate to turn out the finished product. In each com
modity is embodied the labor of many workers, and the
Socialisation of labor has reached a very advanced stage.
But while industrialism has been socialised in its aspect of
labor, it has remained individualistic in its aspect of capi
tal ; and the results of the combined efforts of many are
appropriated to the advantage of one, and when the one
has exhausted his power of consumption he retains the
remaining results, and employs them for the further
enslavement and exploitation of labor. Thus labor con
stantly adds new links to the chain which fetters it, and
is ever increasing the capital which, let out at interest by
its owners, becomes ever a heavier tax upon itself. Social
ism contends that these unconsumed results of socialised
labor ought not to pass into the hands of individuals to be
used by them for their own profit; but should pass either
into the industrial funds of the several trades that produce
them, or into a central industrial exchequer. In either
case, these funds created by past labor would be used for
the facilitation of present and future labor. They would
be available for the introduction of improved machinery,
�18
THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT.
for the opening up of new industries, for the improvement
of means of communication, and for similar undertakings.
Thus, in a very real sense, capital would become only the
deferred payment of labor, and the whole results of toil
would be constantly flowing back upon the toilers. Under
such conditions, fixed capital or plant would, like land, be
held for purposes of use by the workers who used it. Its
replacement would be a constant charge on the commodities it helped to produce. A machine represents so much
human labor; that embodied labor takes part in producing
the finished commodity as much as does the palpable labor
of the human worker who superintends the machine; that
worker does not produce the whole value added in the
factory to the material brought into it, and has no claim
to that whole value. The wear and tear of the machine is
an offset, and must be charged on the products, so that
when the machine is worn out there may be no difficulty
in its replacement. Under such conditions also the dis
tinction between employers and employed would disappear.
All would be members of industrial communities, and the
necessary foremen, superintendents, organisers, and officers
of every kind, would be elected as the officers of trades
unions are elected at the present time.
Poverty will never cease so long as any class or any indi
viduals have an interest in the exploitation of others.
While individuals hold capital, and other individuals can
not exist unless that capital is used for their employment,
the first class will prey upon the second. The capitalists
will not employ unless they can “make a profit ” out of
those they hire to work for them; that is, unless they pay
them less than the value of the work produced. But if
one man is to have value for which he has not worked,
another must have less than the value of his work; and
while one class grows wealthy on unpaid labor, another
must remain poor, giving labor without return. Socialism
would give to each return for labor done, but it recognises
no claim in the idle to grow fat on the produce of the in
dustrious.
Interest on capital, paid to individuals, has—as is obvious
from the foregoing—no place in Socialism. Strongly as
Socialism protests against the whole system of which land
lords and capitalists form an integral part, it reserves its
uttermost reprobation for the theory which justifies a class
�THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT.
19
of the latter in living solely on money drawn as interest on
investments. If a man possesses three or four thousand
pounds he can invest them, and live all his life long on
the interest without ever doing a stroke of honest work,
and can then bequeath to some one else the right to live in
idleness ; and so on in perpetuity. Money in the capitalist
system is like the miraculous oil in the widow’s cruse—it
can always be spent and never exhausted. A man in sixty
years will have received in interest at five per cent, three
times his original fortune, and although he may have spent
the interest, and thus have spent every penny of his for
tune three times over, he will yet possess his fortune as
large as it was when he began. He has consumed in com
modities three times the sum originally owned, and yet is
not one penny the worse. Other people have labored for
him, fed him, clothed him, housed him, and he has done
nothing in exchange. The Socialist argument against this'
form of interest lies in a nutshell: a man earns £5 ; he
gives labor for which he receives in exchange a power of
possession over £5 worth of commodities; he desires only
to consume £1 worth now, and to defer the consumption
of the remaining £4. He buys his £1 worth of commodi
ties, and considers himself repaid for the fifth portion of
his work by possessing and consuming these. But he ex
pects to put out his saved £4 at interest, and would con
sider himself hardly used if, fourteen years hence, when he
desired to exercise his power of consumption, deferred for
his own convenience, that power had not increased although
he had done nothing to increase it. Yet it can only be in
creased by other people’s labor being left unpaid for, while
he is paid twice over for his; and this arrangement the
Socialist stamps as unjust. So long as capital remains in
the hands of individuals, interest will be demanded by
them for its use, and will be perforce paid; and so long
also will exist an idle class, which will consume without
producing, and will remain a burden on the industrious^
who must labor to support these as well as themselves, and
must produce sufficient for all.
Now, Socialism aims at rendering impossible the exist
ence of an idle class. No healthy adult but will have to
work in exchange for the things he requires. For the
young, freedom from labor ; they have to prepare for life’swork. For the aged, freedom from labor: they have.
�:20
THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT.
worked, and at eventide should come rest. For the sick
also, freedom from labor ; and open hospitals for all, with
out distinction of class, where tendance and all that skill
•can do shall be at the service of each. But for the strong
and the mature, no bread of idleness, no sponging upon
other people. With division of labor will come also divi
sion of leisure ; the disappearance of the languid lady, full
of ennui from sheer idleness, will entail the disappearance of
the overworked slavey, exhausted from unending toil; and
there will be two healthy women performing necessary
work, and enjoying full leisure for study, for art, for
recreation, where now are the over-lazy and the over
driven.
In thus condemning the existence of an idle class, Social
ism does not assail all the individuals who now compose it.
These are not to blame for the social conditions into which
they have been born; and it is one of the most hopeful
■signs of the present Socialist movement, that many who
are working in it belong to the very classes which will be
.abolished by the triumph of Socialist principles. The man
who has inherited a fortune, and has embraced Socialism,
would do no good by throwing it away and plunging into
the present competitive struggle; all he can do is to live
simply, to utilise his position of advantage as a pedestal
•on which to place his advocacy of Socialism, and to employ
his money in Socialist propaganda.
It is feared by some that the success of the Socialist
movement would bring about the crushing of individualism
and an undue restriction of liberty. But the Socialist
contends that the present terrible struggle for existence is
the worst enemy of individualism, and that for the vast
majority individuality is a mere phrase. Exhausting toil
■and ever-growing anxiety, these crush out individuality,
-and turn the eager promising lad into the harassed drudge
■of middle age. How many capable brains are wasted,
how many original geniuses lost to the nations they might
illuminate, by the strife for mere livelihood ? The artist
.fritters away his genius in u pot-boilers ” ; the dramatist
writes down to the piece that will “pay”, and harnesses
h.is delicate fancy into coarse burlesque full of wretched
witticisms ; in the stress of the struggle to live, patient
study and straining after a great ideal become impossible.
Individualism will only develop fully when Socialism has
�TIIE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT.
21
lifted off all shoulders the heavy burden of care, and hasgiven to all leisure to think and to endeavor.
Nor is the fear of undue restriction of liberty better
founded than that of the crushing out of individualism.
One kind of liberty, indeed, will be restricted—the liberty
to oppress and to enslave other people. But with this
exception liberty will be increased. Only the very wealthy
are now free. The great majority of people must work,
and their choice of work is very limited. The poor. must
take what work they can get, and their complaint is not
that they are compelled to work, but that they often cannot
get work to do. In satisfying the complex wants of the
civilised human being there is room for all the most diverse
capacities of work; and if it be said that there, are un
pleasant. kinds of work that must be done, which none
would willingly undertake, it may be answered that those
kinds of work have to be done now, and that the com
pulsion of the community would not be a greater restriction
of personal liberty than the present compulsion of hunger;
and further, that it would be easy to make a short period
of unpleasant toil balance a long period of pleasant; and
that it would be far better to have such tasks divided
among a number, so that they would press very lightly upon
each, than have them, as now, pushed on to a compara
tively few, whose whole lives are brutalised by the pressure.
The very strictest organisation of labor by the community
that can be imagined, would be to the great majority far
less oppressive than the present system, for at the worst,
it would but control an extremely small portion of each
working day, and would leave the whole of the rest of the
existence free, to be used at the pleasure of the individual,
untrammelled by anxiety and harassing care for the mere
necessaries of life. The pride in skill, the stimulus of
honorable ambition, the pleasure of success, all these would
be present, as they are to-day; but instead of being the
privilege of the few, they would brighten the life of all.
A profound moral impulse really underlies the whole
of the Socialist movement. It is a revolt against the
callous indifference of the majority in the “ comfortable
classes ” to the woful condition of large numbers of the
workers. It is an outburst of unselfish brotherhood,
which cannot bear to sit at ease while others suffer,
which claims to share the common human lot, and to bear
�22
TIIE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT.
part of the burden now pressing with crushing weight on
the shoulders of the poor. It detests the theory that there
must always be hewers of wood and drawers of water for
a luxurious class, and proclaims that human degradation
lies in idle living, not in earnest work. It would have
all work, that all may have leisure, and would so distribute
the necessary work of the world that none may be crushed
by it, but that all may be disciplined. And this very out
burst of human brotherhood is in itself a proof that society
is evolving Socialismwards, and that the evolution of
humanity is reaching a stage in which sympathy is tri
umphing over selfishness, and the desire for equality of
happiness is becoming a potent factor in human conduct.
The Socialist ideal is one which could not meet with wide
acceptance if humanity were not marching towards its
realisation.
On one matter the Socialist movement, both abroad and
at home, has set itself in opposition to science and to right
reason—<?.y., on the law of population. It is easy to see
how this opposition has arisen, and it may be hoped that
when Socialists in general disentangle the scientific state
ment of facts from Malthus’ unwise applications of them,
Socialism and prudential restraint will be seen to be
indissolubly united. Malthus accurately pointed out that
population has a tendency to increase beyond the means
of subsistence ; that as it presses on the available means,
suffering is caused ; and that it is kept within them by
what he termed “positive checks ”—¿.0, a high death-rate,
especially among the children of the poor, premature death
from disease, underfeeding, etc. The accuracy of his state
ment has been proved up to the hilt by Charles Darwin,
who describes with abundant illustrations the struggle for
existence—a struggle which is the direct result of the fact
stated in the law of population, of the tendency of all
animated things to increase beyond their food supply ; this
has led, and still leads, to the survival of those who are
fittest for the conditions of the struggle. Unhappily, Malthus
added to his scientific exposition some most unfortunate
practical advice ; he advised the poor not to marry until,
practically, they had reached middle life. The poor felt,
with natural indignation, that in addition to all their other
deprivations they were summoned by Malthus to give up
tfie chief of the few pleasures left to them, to surrender
�TIIE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT.
23
marriage, to live in joyless celibacy through, the passion
season of life, to crush out all the impulses of love until
by long repression these would be practically destroyed.
Under such circumstances it is little wonder that “ Mal
thusianism ” became a word hated by the poor and
denounced by those who sympathised with them. It is
true that the advice of Malthus as to the putting off of
marriage has been and is very widely followed by the
.middle classes; but it is perfectly well known that the
putting off of marriage does not with them mean the
■observance of celibacy, and the shocking prostitution
which is the curse of every Christian city is the result of
the following of the advice of Malthus so far as marriage
is concerned. It is obvious that Malthus ignored the
strength of the sexual instinct, and that the only possible
result of the wide acceptance of his teaching would be
the increase of prostitution, an evil more terrible than
that of poverty. But the obj ection rightly raised to the
practical teaching of Malthus ought not to take the form of
assailing the perfectly impregnable law of population, nor
is it valid against the teachings of Neo-Malthusians, who
advise early marriage and limitation of the family within
the means of existence.
The acceptance of this doctrine is absolutely essential to
the success of Socialism. Under a system in which children
are forced to labor, they may begin to “keep them
selves ” at a very early age; but under a Socialist system,
where education will occupy childhood and youth, and
where old age is to be free from toil, it will soon be found
that the adult working members will not permit an un
limited increase of the mouths which they have to fill.
Facilitate production as we may, it will always take more
hours to produce the necessaries of life for families of ten
or twelve than for families of three or four. The practi
cal enforcement of the question will probably come from
the women; highly educated women, full of interest in
public work and taking their share in public duty, will
not consent to spend year after year of their prime in
nothing but expecting babies, bearing babies, and suckling
babies. They will rebel against the constant infliction of
physical discomfort and pain, and will insist on the limita
tion of the family as a condition of marriage. The sooner
this is recognised by Socialists the better, for at present
�24
THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT.
they waste much strength by attacking a doctrine which
they must sooner or later accept.
A glance backward over the history of our own country,
since the Reform Bill of 1832 opened the gate of political
power to those outside the sacred circle of the aristocracy,
will tell how an unconscious movement towards Socialism
has been steadily growing in strength. Our Factory Acts,
our Mines Regulation Acts, our Education Acts, our Em
ployers’ Liability Acts, our Land Acts—-all show the set
of the current. The idea of the State as an outside power
is fading, and the idea of the State as an organised com
munity is coming into prominence. In the womb of time
the new organism is growing: shall the new birth come in
peace or in revolution, heralded by patient endeavor or by
roar of cannon ? Who can tell ? But this one thing I
know, that come it will, whether men work for it or
hinder; for all the mighty, silent forces of evolution make
for Socialism, for the establishment of the Brotherhood of
Man.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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The socialist movement
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Besant, Annie Wood [1847-1933]
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 24 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Reprinted from the "Westminster Review". Printed by Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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1887
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Socialism
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NSS
Socialism
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national secular society
Qlatfarivi.
XII.
WHY SHOULD
I ATHEISTS BE
PERSECUTED?
BY
ANNIE
BESANT.
LONDON:
FREETHOUGHT
PUBLISHING
63, FLEET STREET, E.C.
1 8 84.
PRICE
ONE
PENNY.
COMPANY,
�THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM.
Under this title is being issued a fortnightly publi
cation, each number of which consists of a lecture
delivered by a well-known Freethought advocate. Any
question may be selected, provided that it has formed the
subject of a lecture delivered from the platform by an
Atheist. It is desired to show that the Atheistic platform
is used for the service of humanity, and that Atheists war
against tyranny of every kind, tyranny of king and god,
political, social, and theological.
Each issue consists of sixteen pages, and is published at
one penny. Each writer is responsible only for his or her
own views.
1. —“ What is the use of Prayer ? ” By Annie Besant.
2. —“ Mind considered as a Bodily Function.” By At,tor
Bradlaugh.
3. —“ The Gospel of Evolution.” By Edward Aveling,
D.Sc.
4. —“England’s Balance-Sheet.” By Charles Bradlaugh.
5. —“ The Story of the Soudan.” By Annie Besant.
6. —“ Nature and the Gods.” By Arthur B. Moss.
These Six, in Wrapper, Sixpence.
7.—“ Some Objections to Socialism.” By Charles Bradlaugh.
8. —“Is Darwinism Atheistic ?” By Charles Cockbill
Cattell.
9. —“The Myth of the Resurrection.” By Annie
Besant.
10. —“ Does Royalty Pay ? ” By George Standring.
11. —“ The Curse of Capital.” By Edward Aveling, D.Sc.
Part II. of the “Atheistic Platform,” containing Lec
tures 7—12 can be had in paper wrapper, Price Sixpence.
Also Parts I. and II., bound in one, forming a book of
192 pages, can be had, price One Shilling.
�WHY SHOULD ATHEISTS BE
PEESECUTED ?
Friends,—In. the old days, when Christianity was feeble
and Paganism was strong, when Christians had to plead
to Pagans for toleration as Atheists have to plead to Chris
tians now, Christians from time to time pnt forth an
Apology for their faith. Thus Justin Martyr pleaded
before the Emperor Antoninus, and other Apologies are to
be found in the literature of the early Christian Church.
The word Apology was not used in its modern sense of
excuse, of submissive phrase; it was an Apologia, a
defence of the faith believed in, a vindication of the
principles held. To-day, I Atheist, in a Christian com
munity, stand as did the Christian in the second century in
a Pagan society ; and I put forth an Apologia, a defence, a
vindication of my faith. Faith, in the noblest sense of that
much-abused word, for it is a belief based on reason, in
tellectually satisfying, morally regulative, socially re
formatory.
I will take it for granted, for the purposes of this lec
ture, that the majority of you present here—as of the
wider public outside—-belong to the religion known as
Christian. It is to Christians that this vindication of
Atheism is addressed, and my aim in this lecture is a welldefined one; I am not going to ask from you any agree
ment in my speculative views; I am not going to try to
convince you that Atheism is speculatively accurate ; I am
only going to propose to you, and to answer in the nega
tive, the following question : Granted an Atheist or a small
number of Atheists, in a Christian community, is there any
reason why he or they should be persecuted, for the intel
lectual, moral, or social doctrines held and published ? Is
�180
THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM.
there anything in Atheism, in its intellectual speculations,
in its moral teaching, in its social theories, which makes it
dangerous to the prosperity, progress and well-being of
the society in which it is professed ?
Such is the question I propose to you. I of course shall
answer it in the negative, and shall try to show you that
whether Atheistic speculations be true or false, the Athe
istic spirit isl of vital importance to society. And at the
very outset let me remind you of the remarkable testi
mony borne to the social aspect of Atheism by the great
philosopher Bacon: ‘‘Atheism leaves a man to sense, to
philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation, all of
which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, though
religion were not; but superstition dismounts all these and
erecteth an absolute monarchy in the mind of men; there
fore Atheism never did perturb States, for it makes men
wary of themselves, as looking no further ; and we see the
times inclined to Atheism, as the times of Augustus Csesar,
were civil times; but superstition has been the confusion
of many States.” Yet though he thus wrote, Bacon was
not an Atheist, for he said (I here quote from memory):
“A little knowledge inclineth a man to Atheism, but
deeper search brings him back to religion.” These are
not, therefore, the words of the Atheist on his own behalf,
but the testimony of an opponent who has studied the his
tory of the past.
Strange, indeed, it is to those who know that record of
history to remark how Superstition is condoned to-day,
while Atheism is condemned. The wildest vagaries of
Superstition are excused, while the very word Atheism is
held to connote immorality. Take the Salvation Army ; it
may shut up young lads and lasses for an “ all-night ser
vice,” in which they “creep for Jesus” in a hall with
locked doors; when the natural result follows of gross
immorality, excuses are made for the leaders that “their
motives are good.” But let a man be known as an Atheist,
and though his life be spotless, his honor unstained, his
integrity unsoiled, there is no slander too vile to be be
lieved of him, no libel too baseless or too foul to be credited
about his character. Superstition has lighted stakes, built
Inquisitions, turned the wheels of the rack, made red-hot
the pincers to tear men’s flesh, has slaughtered, tormented,
burned and ravaged, till the pages of her history are
�WHY SHOULD ATHEISTS BE PERSECUTED ?
181
blotted with, tears and drip with, blood. Atheism, has slain
none, tortured none; yet men welcome the cubs of the
wolf that will prey on them, and hunt down the watch-dog
that would protect.
1. Is there anything in Atheism in its intellectual aspect
which should make-it mischievous to society ? To answer
this part of the question we must analyse the Atheistic
type of mind and seek its chief and essential character
istic. If you do this you will, I think, find that the
Atheistic mind is essentially of the challenging, the
questioning, the investigating type. It is of that type
which will not accept a thing because it is old, nor believe
it because it is venerable. It demands to understand before
it admits, to be convinced before it believes. Authority,
qua authority, it does not respect; the authority must
prove itself to be based on reason and on knowledge before
cap may be doffed to it or knee bent in homage. Nor is
this questioning silenced by an answer that really leaves
unresolved the problem. The Atheistic spirit remains un
satisfied until it has reached, to use an expressive Ameri
canism, “the bed-rock” of the matter in hand. If an
answer is not to be had, the Atheistic spirit can contentedly
keep its opinion in suspense, but cannot believe.
Now there is no doubt that this type of mind—which is
in the psychical world like the explorer in the physical—is
one which is very unpleasant to the mentally lazy, and
unfortunately the majority, even in a civilised land, is
composed of mentally lazy people. Words are very loosely
used by most folk, and they are apt to be angry when they
are forced, by questioning, to try and think what they really
do mean by the phrases they employ as a matter of course.
We all know how impatient foolish mothers and nurses
grow with a child’s ceaseless questions. A bright, healthy,
intelligent child is always asking questions, and if it is
unlucky enough to live among careless, thoughtless people,
it too often happens that, unable to answer fully, and too
conceited to say “I do not know,” the elder person will
give it a slap, and tell it not to be so tiresome. The Atheist
questioner meets with similar treatment; society, too ig
norant, or too lazy to grapple with his enquiries, gives him
a slap and puts him in the corner.
None the less is this challenging, questioning type of the
most priceless value to society. Without it, progress is
�182
THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM.
impossible. _ Without it every childish superstition would
be immortal, every mouldy tradition would reign for ever
over men. And the challenge is useful, whether addressed
to truth or to falsehood. It injures no truth. A truth is
vindicated by enquiry ; those who hold a truth only become
more certain of it when questioning forces them to re
examine the grounds on which it rests. But a lie perishes
under investigation as a moth shrivels in the flame.
Progress can be made only by re-affirming truth known,
by discovering truth hitherto unknown, and by destroying
ancient falsehoods. Hence the value to society of the
challenging Atheistic type, whether its speculations be
right or wrong.
Professor Tyndall has proclaimed in noble words his pre
ference for intellectual effort, rather than for intellectual
sleep. In his celebrated Presidential Address at the meet
ing of the British Association at Belfast, he said, dealing
with his own views, and in warning to his hearers : “ As
regards myself, they are not the growth of a day; and as
regards you, I thought you ought to know the environment
which, with or without your consent, is rapidly surrounding
you, and in relation to which some adjustment on your
part may be necessary. A hint of Hamlet’s, however,
teaches us all how the troubles of common life may be
ended; and it is perfectly possible for you and me to
purchase intellectual peace at the price of intellectual
death. The world is not without refugees of this
description; nor is it wanting in persons who seek
their shelter, and try to persuade others to do the
same. The unstable and the weak have yielded, and
will yield to this’ persuasion, and they to whom repose is
sweeter than the truth. But I would exhort you to refuse
the offered shelter and to scorn the base repose—to accept,
if the choice be forced upon you, commotion before stag
nation, the leap of the torrent before the stillness of the
swamp.”
It is this leap of the torrent which the Atheist faces,
feeling that he can better breast the rapids, even if drown
ing be the penalty, than float idly on down the lazy
current of popular opinion. To “ refuse the offered shelter
and to scorn the base repose” is to show the martyr-spirit
that welcomes death rather than dishonor, and the noblest
faith in Truth that man can have is proved when he flings
�WHY SHOULD ATHEISTS BE PERSECUTED ?
183
himself into the billows of fact, let them cast him up on
what shore they may.
Well was it said by a noble and earnest thinker that
Atheism was oft-times “ the truest trust in Truth.” A
legend says that in a pagan land a God was worshipped,
at whose shrine was sacrificed all that was most precious
and most beloved. At last, revolt was made against the
hideous deity, and one man, young and brave, stood forth
to challenge the wrath of the mighty God. Round the
statue of the deity stood thousands of his worshippers; amid
■dead silence walked forth the heroic youth, a javelin in his
hand. Face to face he stood with the God, and poising his
weapon, he cried aloud: “God, if God thou be, answer
with thy thunderbolt the spear I fling! ” And as he spoke,
the strong right arm launched the javelin, and it struck full
and fair, and quivered in the heart of the God. An awful
silence fell on the crouching multitude, as they waited for the
lightning which should flash out in answer to the insult.
But lo! there was none, nor any that regarded, and the
silence brooded unbroken over the pierced statue, and the
blasphemer who had defied the God. There was silence.
Then, a long breath of relief ; then, a cry of rapture ; and
the crowd who had knelt flung itself on the riven statue
and only a heap of dust told where a God had been. Athe
ist was that bold challenger, that questioner of a long-held
faith; and he freed his nation from the yoke of a spectre,
and shivered one of the superstitions of his time. Atheist
is each who challenges an ancient folly, and who, greatly
daring, sets his life as wager against a lie.
This same questioning spirit, applied to the God-idea,
has given Atheism its distinctive name. It finds the God
idea prevalent and it challenges it. It does not deny, but
it “wants to know” before it accepts, it demands proof
before it believes. The orthodox say: “Do you believe
in God?” The Atheist answers: “What is God? You
must tell me what you believe in, ere I can answer your
question.” And then arises the difficulty, for the word
“God” is used “rather to hide ignorance, than to express
knowledge ” (Bradlaugh), and the worshipper anathema
tises the Atheist because he does not adore that which he
himself cannot explain or define.
Sometimes the Atheist analyses the metaphysical defi
nitions of God and finds them meaningless. One instance
�184
THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM.
will here serve as well as a dozen. Take the phrase that
“ God is Absolute Being.” Bnt, says Dean Mansel, in his
famous Bampton lectures (2nd. Ed., pp. 44, 45, 49), “ by
the Absolute is meant that which exists in, and by itself,
having no necessary relation to any other being............
That which is conceived as absolute and infinite, must be
conceived as containing within itself the sum, not only of
all actual, but of all possible modes of being. Eor if any
actual mode can be denied of it, it is related to that mode,
and limited by it; and if any possible mode can be
denied of it, it is capable of becoming more than it
now is, and such a capability is a limitation...............
The absolute cannot be conceived as conscious, neither
can it be conceived as unconscious; it cannot be con
ceived as complex, neither can it be conceived as simple ;
it cannot be conceived by difference, neither can it be
conceived by the absence of difference; it cannot be
identified with the universe, neither can it be distin
guished from it.” Such is the description of the Abso
lute, given by a great Christian philosopher. If then
by knowledge or by worship I enter into a relation with
God, I at once destroy him as the Absolute. If he be Ab
solute Existence, he is for ever unknowable to man. Why
should the Atheist be persecuted because he refuses either
to affirm or to deny that which by the definition of the'
believer cannot be known or distinguished ?
Pass from metaphysics, and take God as “the First
Cause.” “Every effect must have a cause, and therefore
the universe must have a creator.” Will you kindly tell
me, ere I examine your argument, what you mean by the
word “effect” ? Only one definition can be given : some
thing that results from a cause. “Everything that results
from a cause must have a cause.” Granted. “ Therefore
the universe must have a creator.” Stop, not so fast.
You must show that the universe is an effect, i.e., that it
results from a cause, before you can logically make this
statement, and that is the very point you set out to prove.
You are begging the very question in dispute. Besides
if your argument were valid, it would go too far, for then
behind your creator of the universe, you would need a
creator of the creator, and so on backwards ad infinitum.
The truth is that in speaking of causation we must keep
within the realm of experience; we might as well try to
�WHY SHOULD ATHEISTS BE PERSECUTED ?
185-
plumb the mid-Atlantic with a five-fathom line, as try to
fathom the mystery of existence with our brief experi
mental sounding lead. Christians believe where their
knowledge ends; Atheists suspend their judgments and
wait for light.
“God is the designer of the world, and it shows the
marks of his handiwork.” Did he design the beast of
prey, the carnivorous plant, the tape-worm, the tsetze?
did he design that life should be sustained by slaughter,,
and the awful struggle for existence ? did he design the
pestilence and the famine, the earthquake and the volcanic
eruption ? Is “Nature, red in tooth and claw with ravin,”
the work of all-loving God ?
“God is all-good.” Then whence comes evil? As
long as man has thought, he has wearied himself over the
problem of the existence of evil in the work of an all-good
God. If evil be as eternal as good, then the Persian view
of the co-equal powers of darkness and light as fashioners
of the world is more rational than the Christian. If it be
not eternal, if there were a time when only God existed
and he was good, then evil can only have resulted from
his creative will, and sustained approval. Man Friday’s
question, “Why does not God kill the Devil? ” puts in a
concrete form the problem that no Christian philosopher
has ever solved. The scientific student recognises the
nature and the reason for what we call evil; the Christian
gazes with hopeless bewilderment at the marring of the
work of his all good and almighty God.
Further; from his examination of the many Gods of
the world, the Atheist comes to the conclusion that they
are man-made. The God of every nation is in the same
stage of civilisation as is the nation itself. Such variety
would be incredible if there were an entity behind the
fancy. Compare the God of the savage and of the
European philosopher; the savage worships a concrete
being, brutal, bloody, ferocious as himself; the philoso
pher an abstract idea, a tendency “not ourselves, which
makes for righteousness.” Is there one reality which is
worshipped by the King of Dahomey and by Matthew
Arnold ? In face of such varieties what can the Atheist
think but that “ God” is the reflexion of man, an image
not an object ?
The Atheist waits for proof of God. Till that proof
�186
THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM.
■comes he remains, as his name implies, without God. His
mind is open to every new truth, after it has passed the
warder Reason at the gate. AR his hope for a true theory
■of the world is fixed on Science, Science which has written
for us the only trustworthy record of the past, and which
is daily writing new pages of the book of knowledge.
What is there in all this to make men persecute the
Atheist ? In this intellectual attitude there is surely no
■crime. Some people say that Atheists lack a sense possessed
by others, in that they do not intuit God, as blind men
lack the vision others enjoy. Suppose it be so, is that any
reason for persecuting them ? Do the people who can see
try to hunt down those who are blind ? I could understand
their pitying us if they possess a joy we do not share, but
I cannot understand their wanting to make us suffer be
cause we are bereft of a faculty enjoyed by them. And
indeed I believe that the noblest and best Christians thus
regard the matter, and regard Atheists with generous
sorrow, not with hatred. But the vast majority have but
little faith in God and little love to man. Our outspoken
unbelief stirs the hidden doubts which lie in their own
minds, and they fear lest we should wake them into activi
ty. They want to believe, because belief is easy and un
belief hard, belief is profitable and unbelief dangerous, and
so they hate and persecute those whose courage is a reproach
to their cowardice. It is not Christian faith nor Christian
truth that incites to modern persecution; it is Christian
hypocrisy and Christian doubt.
Turn from the intellectual to the moral aspect of Atheism
and it is on this that the bitterest attacks are made. Athe
ism being without God, it must seek in man the basis for
its moral code,' and being without immortality it must find
its motives and its sanctions on this side the grave. Athe
istic morality must be founded on man as a social being,
■and must be built up by observation and reflexion. Clearly,
then, it must be Utilitarian; that is, it must set before it
Happiness as the obj ect of life; all that, generally practised,
tends to increase the general happiness is Right; all that,
generally practised, tends to decrease the general happiness
is Wrong.
To this theory the objection is often raised that Virtue
and not Happiness should be the end of life. But what
are virtues save those qualities which tend to produce
�WHY SHOULD ATHEISTS BE PERSECUTED ?
187
happiness, vices those which tend to produce misery and
social disorganisation ? If murder strengthened respect
for human life ; if falsehood increased confidence between
man and man; if love and trust and purity shattered the
society in which they flourished; in a word if virtue made
society miserable while vice raised and ennobled it, do you
think that vice would long be stamped with social disap
proval ? Men are unconsciously Utilitarian, and what is
•called virtue is the means to the end, happiness. By the
Law of Association the means and the end become joined
in thought, and the longing for the end brings about love
of the means.
Let me illustrate what I mean by a case in which pre
judice is less felt than in that of virtue and happiness.
Money is valuable as a means to all it can purchase; when
a man earns and saves money, he earns and saves it not
for itself but for all which he can procure with it. The
little bits of gold and silver have no value in themselves ;
they are valuable only for the comfort, the enjoyment, the
leisure which they symbolise. Yet sometimes the means,
money, takes the place of the end it is generally used to
procure, and the miser, forgetting the end, sets his heart
on the means for itself, and he loves the coins and gathers
them together and heaps them up, and denies himself all
money could buy for the sake of hoarding the gold. In
similar fashion have men learned to love virtue, first for
the sake of the happiness it brought, and then by natural
transition for itself.
But, it is said, the renunciation of personal happiness is
often right; how can Utilitarianism be consistent with the
noblest of human virtues, self-sacrifice. When is the
renunciation of personal happiness right ? WTien the re
nunciation of happiness by one renders needless the renun
ciation of happiness by many; that is, when it tends to the
general good. The man who sacrifices himself for nothing
is a lunatic; he who sacrifices himself to save others from
suffering is a hero. The individual suffers loss, but the
general good is increased.
A curious volte-face is often made by our antagonists.
After declaring that Utilitarianism is low and selfish, they
suddenly assert that the Utilitarian motive is too high to
affect ordinary folk. The “ general good,” they say, is
too vague and abstract a thing to be used for moralising
�188
THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM.
the populace. I deny it. If a man is exceptionally de
graded, you may find your only appeal must be to himself
or to his immediate surroundings, but the great majority
answer to a wider summons, as do plants to the sunlight.
For your lowest type of man you must use selfish motives,
but even with him you may endeavor to at least touch him
with family, if not with social claims, and so gradually
train him to regard himself as a unit in a community rather
than as an isolated existence. Penalty must educate the
lowest types into recognition of social duty, but the ma
jority of civilised mankind respond to a higher call. And
that this is so we may prove by a mere appeal to statistics.
The Atheists, with no fear of hell nor hope of heaven, with
only the general good as motive and social happiness as
aim, contribute fewer, in proportion to their number, to
the criminal classes, than does any Christian sect, with all
the supposed advantages of Christianity. If Atheism be
morally dangerous to Society, why should Atheism have a
cleaner record than that of any Christian body ?
I ask again : What is there in our Atheistic Utilitarian
code of morals that should justify our persecution ? It
tends to make us seek the happiness of Society in pre
ference to our own, and to put the general before our
individual good. Christians who look to be rewarded for
their goodness may scoff at our disinterestedness, but at
least it does not injure them, and they lose nothing because
we seek not a crown on the other side the grave. To us
“ Virtue is its own reward ; ” we sing with Alfred Tenny
son, ere he sank into a Baron :
“ Glory of warrior, glory of orator, glory of song,
Paid with a voice flying by to be lost on an endless sea—•
Glory of virtue to fight, to struggle, to right the wrong—
Nay, but she aimed not at glory, no lover of glory she;
Give her the glory of going on, and still to be.”
But is there anything in the social views of theAtheist which may, perchance, justify his ostracism ? And
here, at last, we shall come to the crux of our difficulty.
The Atheist, being without God, cannot recognise as
Divine the present order of Society; he claims happinessfor all, and he sees one portion of Society rioting in luxury
while another is steeped in penury; at one end of the
social scale he sees men so wealthy that they cannot even
�WHY SHOULD ATHEISTS BE PERSECUTED ?
189
waste fast enough the riches they own, while at the other
men are so poor that they cannot even feel sure whence
shall come their next week’s food; he notes that the
wealthiest are the idlest, while the poorest are the most
laborious; that those who produce least consume most,
while those who produce most consume least; and he
demands social reconstruction.
No one with a brain and a heart can contrast the dif
ferent conditions into which the children of the rich and
the poor are born, and remain satisfied with Society as it
is. The rich man’s child is born into pure air, into healthy
surroundings; its food is carefully suited to its delicate
organs; its clothes vary with the changes of the weather ;
the most watchful care fosters and cherishes it; as its
faculties expand it is guarded from every injurious influ
ence ; it is coaxed along the right road; all good is made
easy and attractive to it, all evil difficult and repulsive;
the best education is given to the growing lad that money
can buy; body and brain are alike tended and developed ;
in manhood, life’s prizes are open to him, and if he plunges
into crime he does it from an inborn tendency that no
purity of environment has been able to eradicate.
Now contrast the case of the child born into some filthy
overcrowded den in a thieves’ quarter. Its father is a
burglar, its mother a harlot. It is born into squalor, and
foul air, and noisome surroundings; 'its mother’s milk is
gin-polluted; its clothes are filthy rags ; its education con
sists of kicks and curses; foul language is its grammar,
foul thoughts its mental, food; crime is a necessity of its
life; there is no possibility open to it save the reeking
court and the gaol.
The case of the child of the honest but poor worker is
far other than this, but it is not what it should be. The
family is but too often overcrowded and underfed; the
father is over-burdened with wage-winning; the mother
over-sharpened with anxiety; education is rushed through;
work comes too early in life; and while dauntless courage,
unwearying patience and mighty brain power may raise
the poor man’s son into prominence, he can only win by
most exceptional endowment that which comes to the rich
man’s son by chance of birth. Again I say, that looking
at these tremendous inequalities, the Atheist must demand
social reconstruction.
�190
THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM.
And first, he declares that every adult member of society
should be a worker, that none should live who does not
labor. There is a certain amount of work to be done, and
if some shoulders bear none of the burden, others must
bear more than ought fairly to fall to their lot. If an
idle class exists in a community, an over-worked class
must exist to balance it. The Christian declares that
labor is a curse ; the Atheist that labor is a good; neither
brain nor muscle can be developed without exercise, and
both mental and physical effort are necessary for the due
growth of man. Even the idle classes recognise that
physical exertion is necessary for physical strength, and
there is no reason why the muscle developed by them in
games, should not be developed equally well, and with
equal physical enjoyment, in useful work. I do not want
to see games abolished, but I do want to see them more
equally distributed. All would be the better if the athletic
“ aristocrat ” spent some of his strength in labor, and the
artisan some of his in sport.
Further, the Atheist declares that each should have time
of leisure. Without leisure, no mental improvement is
possible. If a man is wearied out physically, he is not fit
to toil mentally, and only as all take their share of work
can all enjoy their share of leisure. Those who make
society’s wealth have but small share of leisure to-day;
and remember that leisure should include time for mental
work and for complete relaxation. Healthy human life
should be made up of physical effort, mental effort, play,
food-time and sleep. Not one of these can be omitted
from a healthy life.
And see the gain in enjoyment brought about by the train
ing of mental faculty. Lately I went for a brief holiday into
a lonely part of Scotland; there was no “ society” there,
but there were hills and water and clouds; glorious fight
and shade and color ; radiant glow of flowers and plash of
mountain rills. To me, the beauty, the stillness, the ripple
of water, the glory of moor and wood, gave the most ex
quisite enjoyment. But imagine a woman taken from
some filthy London court, and set down in the midst of
that solitude ; ere a day was over she would be wearying
for the revelry of the gin-palace, the excitement of the
fifth-rate music-hall. Why such difference between her
and me ? Because I am educated and she is not. Because
�WHY SHOULD ATHEISTS BE PERSECUTED ?
191
my faculties have been drawn out, trained, and cultured..
Hers have been dwarfed, withered and destroyed.
I claim for all the joy that I have in life, in beauty, in
nature and in art. Why should Society have bestowed so>
much on me, while it leaves my sister beggared ?
But in order that the adult may be cultivated, the child
must be educated. The school-life of the workers is too
short. The children’s pennies are wanted to swell thewages of the family, whereas the father’s wage should be
sufficient for all until the children grow into manhood and
womanhood. And the children should have technical, as
well as book education. In Germany all children learn a
trade, and the present Crown Prince is said to be a cabi
net-maker, some of his palace furniture having been made
by his own hands. If all children were trained in brain
and in fingers, then ability, not birth, would decide the
path in life. There is many a brain now lying fallow in
workshop and behind the plough, which might have been of
priceless service to England had it been set to its fit work;
and there is many a brain, high in the council-chambers
of the nation, scarce fit to direct the fingers in the most
unskilled labor. A just system of national education would
classify thinkers and manual laborers aright, and would
draft the one for higher education, the other for rougher
forms of toil, without regard to the superstition of birth,
or to anything save the capacities given by Nature to each
child.
Moreover this education should be really “national.”
All children, rich and poortogether, should go to the National
Schools. There should be no distinctions, no differences
of rank permitted in the schools, save the distinctions of
ability and of merit. Thus would class-distinctions be
eradicated, and those who had sat side by side on the
same schoolbench could never, in later life, dream they
were of different clay. To such suggestion as this it is
sometimes objected that the vulgar manners of the poor
child would coarsen those of the rich. Friends, the Atheist
seeks to destroy that vulgarity; it is the outcome of
neglected education, of that absence of refinement of
thought and of life, that results from the shutting up of
the poor into one dreary round of ceaseless toil. The
difficulty would only arise during the first generation of
common school-life, and the teachers by careful supervision
�192
THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM.
might easily prevent any real harm from arising. If any
children were found to use coarse language, they could be
separated off, until they understood that indecency would
not be tolerated. As a rule, absolute coarseness of language
and gesture would be found only in the children of the
'Criminal classes, and they should be taught in different
schools.
The Atheist looks forward to, and works towards, a
Society in which class-distinctions shall have vanished, in
which all shall be equal before the law, all shall be given
equal opportunities, and shall share equal education in
their youth. From that Society both crime and poverty
shall have vanished; the workhouse and the gaol shall
have passed away. Small wonder then that the Atheist
should be persecuted; he is hated by the idle wealthy, by
the aristocratic pauper who lives on other men’s toil; these
set the fashion of social ostracism, and the fashion is
followed by the thousands who ape and echo those above
them in the social scale. None the less is the Atheist hope
already shining above the horizon, and sunned in tlie
warmth of that radiance he waits patiently for the coming
noon.
Printed by Annie Besant and Charles Beajdlaugh, 63, Fleet Street,
London E.C.
�
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Why should atheists be persecuted?
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Besant, Annie Wood [1847-1933]
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Place of publication: London
Collation: [179]-192 p. ; 18 cm.
Series title: Atheistic Platform
Series number: 12
Notes: Printed by Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Freethought Publishing Company
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Atheism
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IS THE BIBLE INDICTABLE?
DY
ANNIE
BESANT.
BEING AN ENQUIRY WHETHER THE BIBLE COMES
WITHIN THE RULING OF THE LORD CHIEF
TUSTICE AS TO OBSCENE LITERATURE.
LONDON:
FREETHOUGHT PUBLISHING COMPANY,
28, Stonecutter Street, E.C.
PRICE
%
TWOPENCE.
�LONDON :
TRINTED BY ANNIE BESANT AND CHARLES BRADLAUGH,
28, STONECUTTER STREET, E.C.
�IS THE BIBLE INDICTABLE?
AN enquiry whether the bible comes within
THE RULING OF THE LORD CHIEF JUSTICE
AS TO OBSCENE LITERATURE.
The ruling of Sir Alexander Cockburn in the late trial, the
'Queen against Bradlaugh and Besant, seems to involve
wider issues than the Lord Chief Justice intended, or than
the legal ally of Nature and Providence can desire. The
question of motive is entirely set on one side; the purest
motives are valueless if the information conveyed is such as
is capable of being turned to bad purposes by the evilminded and the corrupt. This view of the law would not
he enforced against expensive medical works ; provided that
the price set on a book be such as shall keep it out of reach
of the “ common people,” its teaching may be thoroughly
immoral but it is not obscene. Dr. Fleetwood Churchill,
for instance, is not committing an indictable offence by
;giving directions as to the simplest and easiest way of pro
curing abortion; he is not committing a misdemeanour,
although he points out means which any woman could
obtain and use for herself; he does not place himself within
Teach of the law, although he recommends the practice of
abortion in all cases where previous experience proves that
the birth of a living child is impossible. A check to popu
lation which„ destroys life is thus passed over as legal, per
haps because the destruction of life is the check so largely
employed by Nature and Providence, and would thus ensure
the approval of the Solicitor-General. But the real reason
why Dr. Churchill is left unmolested and Dr. Knowlton
is assailed, lies in the difference of the price at which
the two are severally published. If Dr. Knowlton was
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IS THE BIBLE INDICTABLE?
sold at ios. 6d. and Dr. Churchill at 6d., then
the vials of legal wrath would have descended on theadvocate of abortion and not on the teacher of prevention.
The obscenity lies, to a great extent, in the price of the book
sold. A vulgar little sixpence is obscene, a dainty halfsovereign is respectable. Poor people must be content toremain ignorant, or to buy the injurious quack treatises;
circulated in secret; wealthier people, who want knowledge
less, are to be protected by the law in their purchases of
medical works, but if poor people, in sore need, finding
“ an undoubted physician ” ready to aid them, venture to
ask for his work, written especially for them, the law strikes
down those who sell them health and happiness. They
must not complain; Nature and Providence have placed
them in a state of poverty, and have mercifully provided for
them effectual, if painful, checks to population. The same
element of price rules the decency or the indecency of
pictures. A picture painted in oils, life size, of the naked
human figure, such as Venus disrobed for the bath, or
Phryne before her judges, or Perseus and Andromeda,
exhibited to the upper classes, in a gallery, with a shilling
admission charge, is a perfectly decent and respectable work
of art. Photographs of those pictures, uncoloured, and
reduced in size, are obscene publications, and are seized as
such by thd police. Cheapness is, therefore, an essential
part of obscenity.
If a book be cheap, what constitutes it an obscene book ?
Lord Campbell, advocating in Parliament the Act against
obscene literature which bears his name, laid down very
clearly his view of what should, legally, be an obscene work.
It must be a work “written for the single purpose of
corrupting the morals of youth, and of a nature calculated
to shock the feelings of decency in any well-regulated
mind ” (Hansard, vol. 146, No. 2, p. 329). The law,,
according to him, was never to be levelled even against
works which might be considered immoral and indecent,,
such as some of those of Dryden, Congreve, or Rochester.
“The keeping, or the reading, or tve delighting in such
things must be left to taste, and was not a subject for legal
interference; ” the law was only to interpose where the motive
of the seller was bad; “ when there were people who
designedly and industriously manufactured books and prints
with the intention of corrupting the public morals, and when
they succeeded in their infamous purpose, he thought it was
�IS THE BIBLE INDICTABLE ?
5
►necessary for the legislature to interpose ” (Hansard, vol.
146, No. 4, p. 865).
The ruling of the present Lord Chief Justice in the late
■trial is in direct opposition to the view taken by Lord
Campbell. The chief says : “ Knowlton goes into physio
logical details connected with the functions of the genera
tion and procreation of'children. The principles of this
.pamphlet, with its details, are to be found in greater
abundance and distinctness in numerous works to which
your attention has been directed, and, having these details
before you, you must judge for yourselves whether there is
-anything in them which is calculated to excite the passions
of man and debase the public morals. If so, every medical work
is open to the same imputation” (Trial, p. 261). The Lord Chief
Justice then refers to the very species of book against which
Lord Campbell said that he directed his Act. “ There are
books,” the chief says, “ which have for their purpose the
■exciting of libidinous thoughts, and are intended to give to
persons who take pleasure in that sort of thing the impure
gratification which the contemplation of such thoughts is
calculated to give.” If the book were of that character it
4‘ would be condemnable,” and so far all are agreed as to the
law. But Sir Alexander Cockburn goes further, and here is
the danger of his interpretation of the law: “ Though the
■intention is not unduly to convey this knowledge, and gratify
prurient and libidinous thoughts, still, if its effect is to excite
and create thoughts of so demoralising a character to the
mind of the reader, the work is open to the condemnation
asked for at your hands ” (Trial, p. 261).. Its effect on what
reader? Suppose a person of prurient mind buys Dr.
Carpenter’s “Human Physiology,’’and reads the long chapter,
containing over 100 pages, wholly devoted to a minute des
cription of generation; the effect of the reading will be “ to
excite and create thoughts of” the “demoralising character”
spoken of. According to the Lord Chief Justice’s ruling, Dr,
Carpenter’s would then become an obscene book. The evil
motive is transferred from the buyer to the seller, and then
the seller is punished for the buyer’s bad intent; vicarious
punishment seems to have passed from the church into the
law court. There can be no doubt that every medical book
-now comes under the head of “ obscene literature,” for they
may all be read by impure people, and will infallibly have
the affect of arousing prurient thoughts ; that they are written
for a good purpose, that they are written to cure disease, is
�6
IS THE BIBLE INDICTABLE?
no excuse; the motive of the writer must not be considered
the law has decided that books whose intention is to*
convey physiological knowledge, and that not unduly, areobscene, if the reader’s passions chance to be aroused by
them; “ we must not listen to arguments upon moral obli
gations arising out of any motive, or out of any desire tobenefit humanity, or to do good to your species ” (Trial,
p. 237). The only protection of these, otherwise obscene,
books lies in their price; they are generally highly-priced,
and they do thus lack one essential element of obscenity.
For the useful book that bad people make harmful must be
cheap in order to be practically.obscene ; it must be within
reach of the poor, and be “ capable of being sold at the
corners of the streets, and at bookstalls, to every one who
has sixpence to spare” (Trial, p. 261).
The new ruling touches all the dramatists and writers that
Lord Campbell had no idea of attacking ; no one can doubt
that many of Congreve’s dramas are calculated to arousesexual passion; these are sold at a very low price, and they
have not even the defence of conveying any useful informa
tion ; they come most distinctly within the ruling of theLord Chief Justice ; why are they to be permitted freecirculation ? Sterne, Fielding, Smollett, Swift, must all be
flung into the dusthole after Congreve, Wycherley, Jonson ;
Dryden, of course, follows these without delay, andSpencer, with his “ Faerie Queene,” is the next victim.
Shakespeare can have no quarter shown him ; not only aremost gross passages scattered through his works, but the
motive of some of them is directly calculated to arouse thepassions ; for how many youthful love fevers is not “ Romeo
and Juliet ” answerable; what of “Cymbeline,” “Pericles,”
or “ Titus Andronicus ” ? Can “ Venus and Adonis ” tend
to anything except to the rousing of passion ? is “ Lucrece”
not obscene? Yet Macmillan’s Globe Edition of Shakes
peare is regarded as one of the most admirable publishing
efforts made by that eminent firm to put English master
pieces in the hands of the poor. Coming to our time, what
is to be done with Byron ? “ Don J uan ” is surely calculated
to corrupt, not to speak of other poems, such as “ Parisina.”
What of Shelley, with his “ Cenci ?” Swinburne, must of
course, be burned at once. Every one of these great
names is now branded as obscene, and under the ruling of
the Lord Chief Justice every one of them must be con
demned. Suppose some one should follow Hetherington’s-
�IS THE BIBLE INDICTABLE?
7
example ? Suppose that we should become the prosecutors
instead of the prosecuted ? Suppose that we should drag
Others to share our prison, and should bring the most hon
oured names of authors into the same condemnation that
has struck us? Why should we show to others a con
sideration that has not been shown to us ? If it is said
that we should not strike, we answer; “ Then leave tis
alone, and calculate the consequences before you touch
us again.” The law has been declared by the Lord Chief
Justice of England; why is not that law as binding on Mac
millan as on us ? The law has been narrowed in order to
enmesh Freethought: its net will catch other fishes as well,
or else break under the strain and let all go free. The
Christians desire to make two laws, and show their hands
too plainly : one law is to be strict, and is to apply wholly
to Freethinkers; cheating Christians, who sell even Knowl-.
ton, are to be winked at by the authorities, and are to be let
off scot free; but this is not all. Ritualists circulate a book
beside which Knowlton is said to be purity itself, and the
law does not touch them ; no warrants are issued for their
apprehension; no prosecution is paid for by a hidden
enemy ; no law-officer of the Crown is briefed against them.
Why is this ? because to attack Christians is to draw atten
tion to the foundation of Christianity ; because to attack the
“ Priest in Absolution ” is to attack Moses. The Christian
walls are made out of Bible-glass, and they fear to throw
stones lest they should break their own house. Listen to
Mr. Ridsdale, a brother of the Holy Cross : “ I wonder,”
he says, “ why some one does not stand up in the House of
Lords and bring a charge against the Bible (especially Levi
ticus) as an immoral book.” The Church Times, the organ
of the Ritualists, has a letter which runs thus : “ Suppose a
patrician and a pontifex in old Rome had with care and
deliberation extracted sentences from Holy Writ, separated
them from their context, suppressed the general nature
and character of the book, and then accused the bishop
and his clergy of deliberately preparing an obscene
book to contaminate the young (how readily he might
have made such extracts !), what should we have said of
such ruffians?” This, then, is the shield of the clergy;
the Bible is itself so obscene that Christians fear to prosecute
priests who circulate obscenity.
Does the Bible come within the ruling of the Lord Chief
Justice as to obscene literature ? Most decidedly it does,
�8
IS THE BIBLE INDICTABLE?
and if prosecuted as an obscene book, it must necessarily be
condemned, if the law is justly administered.
Every
Christian ought therefore to range himself on our side, and
demand a reversal of the present rule, for under it his own
sacred book is branded as obscene, and may be prosecuted
as such by any unbeliever.
First, the book is widely circulated at a low price. If the
Bible were restricted in its circulation by being sold at
ios. 6d. or a guinea, it might escape being placed in the
category of obscene literature under the present ruling.
But no such defence can be pleaded for it. It is sold at
8d. a copy, printed on cheap paper, and strongly bound, for
use in schools ; it is given away by thousands among the
“ common people,” whose morals are now so carefully looked
after in the matter of books ; it is presented to little chil
dren of both sexes, and they are told to read it carefully.
To such an extent is this carried, that some thousands of
children assembled together were actually told by Lord
Sandon, the Vice-President of the Committee of Council on
Education, to read the Bible right through from beginning
to end, and were bidden not to pick'and choose. The ele
ment of price is clearly against the Bible if it be proved to
have in it anything which is of a nature calculated to sug
gest impure thoughts.
As to the motives of the writers, we need not trouble
about them. The law now says that intention is nothing,
and no desire to do good is any excuse for obscenity (Trial,
P- 257)There remains the vital question : is the effect of some of
its passages to excite and create demoralising thoughts?
(Trial, p. 261).
The difficulty of dealing with this question is that
many of the quotations necessary to prove that the Bible
■ comes under the ruling of the Lord Chief Justice are
of such an extremely coarse and disgusting character, that
it is really impossible to reproduce them without intensi
fying the evil which they are calculated to do. While I
see no indecency in a plain statement of physiological
facts, written for people’s instruction, I do see indecency
in coarse and indelicate stories, the reading of which can do
no good to any human being, and can have no effect save
that of corrupting the mind and suggesting unclean
ideas. I therefore refuse to soil my pages with quotations,
and content myself with giving the references, so that any
�IS THE BIBLE INDICTABLE?
9
one who desires to use the ruling of the Lord Chief Justice
to suppress the Bible may see what certainty of success
awaits him if justice be done. I shall not trouble about
simple coarseness, such as Gen. iv. i, 17, 25; Gen. vi. 4;
or Matt. i. 18-20, 25. If mere coarseness of expression
were to be noted, my task would be endless. But let the
intending prosecutor read the following passages. A little
boy of 8 or 10 would scarcely be improved by reading Gen.
ix. 20-25 1 the drunkenness, indecency, and swearing in
these six verses is surely calculated to corrupt the boy’s
mind. The teaching of Gen. xvi. 1-5 is scarcely elevating
for the “ common people,” seeing the example set by the
“friend of God.” Gen. xvii. 10-14 and 23-27 is very coarse.
Would Gen. xix. 4-9 improve a young maiden, or would it
not suggest the most impure thoughts, verse 5 dealing with
an idea that should surely never be put into a girl’s
mind ? The same chapter, 30-38, is revolting; and Deut.
ii. 9 and 19 implies God’s approval of the unnatural
crime. The ignorance of physiology which is thought best
■for girls would receive a shock, when in reading the Bible
straight through, the day’s portion comprised Gen. xxv., 2126. Gen. xxvi., 8 is not nice, nor is Gen. xxix., 21-35, and
Gen. xxx. The story of Dinah, Gen. xxxiv.; of Reuben,
Gen. xxxv., 22 ; ofOnan, Gen. xxxviii., 8-10 ; of Judah and
Tamar, xxxviii., 13-26 ; of the birth of Tamar’s children,
xxxviii., 27-30, are all revolting in their foulness of phrase
ology. Why the Bible should be allowed to tell the story of
Onan seems very strange, and the “ righteousness ” of Tamar
(v. 26) wins approval. Is this thought purifying teaching for
the “ common people ” ? The story of Joseph and Potiphar’s
wife, Gen. xxxix., 7-18, I have heard read in church to the
manifest discomfort of some of the congregation, and the
amusement of others, while Joseph flying from temptation
and leaving his garment with Potiphar’s wife is a picture
often seen in Sunday schools. Thus twelve out of the fifty
chapters of Genesis are undeniably obscene, and if there is
any justice in England, Genesis ought to be suppressed.
We pass, to Exodus. Ex. i., 15-19 is surely indecent. I am
not dealing with immoral teaching, or God’s blessing on the
falsehood of the midwives (20, 21) would need comment.
Ex. iv., 24-26, is very coarse; so also Ex. xxii., 16, 17, 19.
Leviticus is coarse throughout, but.is especially so in chaps,
v., 3; xii.; xv.; xviii., 6-23; xx., 10-21; xxii., 3-5. The
trial of jealousy is most revolting in Numb, v., 12-29.
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IS THE BIBLE INDICTABLE?
Numb, xxv., 6-8 is hardly a nice story for a child, nor is that
of Numb, xxxi., 17,18. Deut. xxi., 10-14 is not pure teaching"
for soldiers. Deut. xxii,, 13-21 is extremely coarse; the re
mainder of the chapter comes also within the Chiefs ruling,
as do also chaps, xxiii., 1, 10, 11; xxv., 11, 12 ; xxvii., 20,.
22, 23 ; xxviii., 57. The fault of the book of Joshua lies
chiefly in its exceeding brutality and bloodthirstiness, but it,
also, does not quite escape the charge of obscenity, as may
be seen by referring to the following passage : chap, v., 2-8.
Judges is occasionally very foul, and is utterly unfit for
general reading, according to the late definition;
Ehud and Eglon, Judges, iii., 15-25, would not bear
reading aloud, and the story might have been
told equally well in decent language. Or take the
horribly disgusting tale of the Levite and his concubine
(Judges xix.), and then judge whether a book containing
such stories is fit for use in schools. Dr. Carpenter’s book
may do good there, because, with all its plain speaking, it
conveys useful information; but what good—mental,
physical, or moral—can be done to a young girl by reading
Judges xix. ? And the harm done is intensified by the fact
that the ignorance in which girls are kept surrounds such a
story with unwholesome interest, as giving a glimpse into
what is, to them, the great mystery of sex. The story of
Ruth iii. 3—14 is one which we should not like to see
repeated by our daughters; for the virtue of a woman who
should wait until a man was drunk, and then go alone at
night and lie down at his feet, would, in our days, be
regarded as problematical. 1 Sam. ii. 2 2, and v. 9 are both
obscene; so are 1 Sam. xviii. 25—-27 and xxi. 4, 5.
1 Sam. xxv. 22, 34 are disgustingly coarse, and there are
many similar coarse passages to be found in “ holy ” writ.
2 Sam. vi. 14, 16, 20, is a little over-suggestive, as is also
2 Sam. x. 4. The story of David dancing is told in
1 Chron. xv. 27—29 without anything offensive in its tone.
The story of David and Bathsheba is only too well known, and
as told in 2 Sam. xi. 2—13 is far more calculated to arouse
the passions than is anything in Knowlton. The prophecy
in 2 Sam. xii. 11, 12, fulfilled in xvi. 21, 22, is repulsive in
the extreme, more especially when we are told that the
shameful counsel was given by Ahithophel, whose counsel,
“ which he counselled in those days, was as if a man had
inquired at the oracle of God.” If God’s oracles give such
counsel, the less they are resorted to the better for the
�IS THE BIBLE INDICTABLE?
IE
welfare of the state. We are next given the odious story of
Amnon and Tamar (2 Sam. xiii. 1—22), instructive for Lord
Sandon’s boys and girls to read together, as they go through
the Bible from beginning to end. 1 Kings i. 1—4 conveys
an idea more worthy of George IV. than of the man after
God’s own heart. In 1 Kings xiv. 10, the coarseness is inex
cusable, and verse 24 is only too intelligible after Judges xix.
2 Kings ix. 8, xviii. 27, are thoroughly Biblical in their
delicacy. 1 Chron. xix. 4 repeats the unpleasant story of
2 Sam. x. 4; but both 1 and 2 Chronicles are, for the Bible,
remarkably free from coarseness, and are a great improve
ment on the books of Kings and Samuel. The same praiseis deserved by Ezra and Nehemiah., The tone of the story
of Esther is somewhat sensual throughout: the drunken
king commanding Vashti to come in and show her beauty,
Esther i. 11 ; the search for the young virgins, Esther ii.
2—4; the trial and choice, Esther ii. 12—17, these are
scarcely elevating reading ; Esther vii. 8 is also coarse.
To a girl whose safety is in her ignorance, Job iii. 11 is very
plain. Psalm xxxviii. 5—7 gives a description of a certain
class of disease in exact terms. Proverbs v. 17—20 is good
advice, but would be condemned by the Lord Chief Justice;
Proverbs vi. 24—32 is of the same character, as is also
Proverbs vii. 5—23. The allusion in Ecclesiastes xi. 5
would be objected to as improper by the Solicitor-General.
The Song of Solomon is a marriage-song of the sensual
and luxuriant character : put Knowlton side by side with it,
and then judge which is most calculated to arouse the
passions. It is almost impossible to select, where all is of
so extreme a character, but take i. 2, 13; ii. 4—6, 17;
iii. 1, 4 ; iv. 5, 6, 11; v. 2—4, 8, 14—16 ; vii. 2, 3, 6—10, 12;
viii. 1—3, 8—10. Could any language be more alluring,
more seductive, more passion-rousing, than the languid,
uxorious, “ linked sweetness long drawn out ” of this
Eastern marriage-ode ? It is not vulgarly coarse and offen
sive as is so much of the Bible, but it is, according to the
ruling of the Lord Chief Justice, a very obscene poem.
One may add that, in addition to the allusions and descrip
tions that lie on the surface, there is a multitude of sugges
tions not so apparent, but which are thoroughly open to all
who know anything of Eastern imagery.
After the Song of Solomon, it is a shock to come to the
prophets; it is like plunging into cold water after being in
a hothouse. Unfortunately, with the more bracing atmo
�12
IS THE BIBLE -INDICTABLE?
sphere, we find the old brutality coming again to repel us,
■and coarse denunciation shocks us, as in Isaiah iii. 17. How
would the Lord Chief Justice have dealt with Isaiah if he
had lived in his day, and acted as is recorded in Isaiah xx.,
2—4 ? He clearly would have put him in a lunatic asylum
(Trial, p. 168). If it were not that there are so many worse
passages, one might complain of the taste shown in the com
parison of Isaiah xxvi. 17, 18; the same may be said of
Isaiah xxxii. 11, 12. In Isaiah xxxvi. 12 we have a repe
tition of 2 Kings xviii. 27, which we could weli have spared.
In Isaiah lvii. 8, 9, we meet a favourite simile of the Jewish
prophets, wherein God is compared to a husband, and the
people to an unfaithful wife, and the relations between them
are described with a minuteness which can only be fitly
designated by the Solicitor-General’s favourite word. Isaiah
lxvi. 7—12 would be regarded as somewhat coarse in an
■ordinary book. The prophets get worse as they go on.
Jeremiah i. 5 is the first verse we meet in Jeremiah which the
Solicitor-General would take exception to. We next meet the
simile of marriage, in Jeremiah ii., 20,iii. 1—3,6—9, verse 9
being especially offensive. Jer. v. 7, 8, is coarse, as are also
Jer. xi. 15 andxiii. 26, 27. Ought the girl’s schools to read
Jer. xx. 17, 18? But, perhaps, as Ezekiel is coming, it is
hypercritical to object to Jeremiah. Lamentations i. 8, 9, is
revolting, and verse 17 of the same chapter uses an extremely
coarse simile. Ezekiel is the prophet who eat a little book
and found it disagree with him : it seems a pity that he did
■not eat a large part of his own, and so prevent it from
poisoning other people. What can be more disgusting than
Ez. iv. 12—15? the whole chapter is absurd, but these
verses are abominable. The prophet seems, like the drawers
of the indictment against us, to take pleasure in piling up
uncomfortable terms, as in Ez. vi. 9. We now come to
a chapter that is obscene from beginning to end, and may,
I think, almost claim the palm of foulness. Let any one
read through Ez. xvi., marking especially verses 4—9, 15—17,
25, 26, 33, 34, 37, 39, and then think of the absurdity of
prosecuting Knowlton for corrupting the morals of the
young, who have this book of Ezekiel put into their hand.
After this, Ez. xviii. 6, 11, and 15 seem quite chaste and
delicate; and no one could object to Ez. xxii. 9—n.
Ez. xxiii. is almost as bad as chapter xvi., especially verses
6—9, 14—21, 29, 41—44. Surely if any book be indict
able for obscenity, the Bible should be the first to be prose
�IS THE BIBLE INDICTABLE?
13
cuted. I know of no other book in which is to be found such
utterly unredeemed coarseness. The rest of Ezekiel is only
bloodthirsty and brutal, so may, fortunately, be passed over
without further comment. Daniel may be left unnoticed ;
and we now come to Hosea, a prophet whose morals were,
to speak gently, peculiar. The “ beginning of the word of
the Lord by Hosea/’ was the Lord’s command as to his
marriage, related in Hosea i. 2 ; we then hear of his children
by the said wife in the remainder of the chapter, and
in the next chapter we are told, Hosea ii. 2, that the
woman is not his wife, and from verse 2—13 we have an ex
tremely indecent speech of Hosea on the misdeeds of the
unfortunate creature he married, wherein, verse 4, he com
plains of the very fact that God commanded in chap. i. 2.
Hosea iii. 1—3 relates another indecent proceeding on
Hosea’s part, and his purchase of another mistress; whether
girls’ morals are improved by the contemplation of such
divine commands, is a question that might fairly be urged
on Lord Sandon before he next distributes Bibles to little
children of both sexes. The said girls must surely, as they
study Hosea iv. 10—18, wonder that God expresses his in
tention not to punish impurity in verse 14. It is impossible,
in reading Hosea, to escape from the prevailing tone of
obscenity; chaps, v. 3, 4, 7; vi. 9, 10; vii. 4; viii. 9;
ix. 1, 10, 11, 14, 16; xii. 3 ; xiii. 13, every one of these
has a thought in it that all must regard as coarse, and which
comes distinctly within the ruling of the Lord Chief Justice
as to obscenity; there is scarcely one chapter in Hosea that
does not, with offensive reiteration, dwell on the coarsest
form of wrongdoing of which women are capable. Joel iii.
3 is objectionable in a comparatively slight degree. Amos,
although occasionally coarse, keeps clear of the gross
obscenity of Hosea, as do also Obadiah and Jonah. Micah i.
7, 8, 11, would scarcely be passed by Sir Hardinge Giffard,
nor would he approve Micah iv. 9, 10. Nahum iii. 4—6
is almost Hoseatic, and Habakkuk ii. 5, 16 runs it close.
The remaining four prophets are sometimes coarse, but
have nothing in them approaching the abominations of the
others, and we close the Old Testament with a sigh of
relief.
The New Testament has in it nothing at all approaching
the obscenity of the Old, save two passages in Revelation.
The story of Mary and Joseph is somewhat coarse, espe
cially as told in Matt. i. 18—25. Rom. i. 24—27 is distinctly
�^4
IS THE BIBLE INDICTABLE?
obscene, and i Cor. v. i, vi. 9, 15, 16, 18, would all be
judged indelicate by Her Majesty’s Solicitor-General, who
objected to the warnings given by Knowlton against sexual
sin. The whole of 1 Cor. vii. might be thought calculated
to arouse the passions, but the rest of Paul’s Epistles may
pass, in spite of many coarse passages, such as 1 Thess. iv.
3—7. Heb. xiii. 4 and 2 Peter ii. 10—18 both come into
the same category, but it is useless to delay on simple
■coarseness. Revelation slips into the old prophetic inde
cency; Rev. ii. 20—22 and xvii. 1—4 are almost worthy
•of Ezekiel.
Can anyone go through all these passages and have any
•doubt that the Bible—supposing it to be unprotected by
statute—is indictable as an obscene book under the ruling
of the Lord Chief Justice? It is idle to plead that the
writers do not approve the evil deeds they chronicle, and
that it is only in two or three cases that God appears to en
dorse the sin ; no purity of motives on the writers’ parts can
be admitted in excuse (Trial, p. 257). These sensuous stories
■and obscene parables come directly under the censure of the
Lord Chief Justice, and I invite our police authorities to
show their sense of justice by prosecuting the people who
circulate this indictable book, thereby doing all that in them
lies to vitiate and corrupt the morals of the young. If they
will not do this, in common decency they ought to drop
the prosecution against us for selling the “ Fruits of
Philosophy.”
The right way would be to prosecute none of these
books. All that I have intended to do in drawing attention
to the “ obscene ” passages in the Bible, is to show that to
•deal with the sexual relations with a good object—as is
presumably that of the Bible—should not be an indictable
misdemeanour. I do not urge that the Bible should be
prosecuted : I do urge that it is indictable under the present
ruling; and I plead, further, that this very fact shows how
the present ruling is against the public weal. Nothing could
be more unfortunate than to have a large crop of prosecu
tions against the standard writers of old times and of the
present day, and yet this is what is likely to happen, unless
some stop is put to the stupid and malicious prosecution
against ourselves. With one voice, the press of the country
—omitting the Englishman—has condemned the “ foolish ”
verdict and the “ vindictive ” sentence. When that sentence
as carried out, the real battle will begin, and the blame of
�IS THE BIBLE INDICTABLE?
15
the loss and the trouble that will ensue must rest on those
who started this prosecution, and on those who shield the
hidden prosecutor. The Christians, at least, ought to join
with us in reversing the ruling of the Lord Chief Justice,
since their own sacred book is one of those most easily
assailable. The purity that depends on ignorance is a
fragile purity ; the chastity that depends on ignorance is a
fragile chastity; to buttress up ignorance with prison and
fine is a fatal policy; and I call on those who love freedom
and desire knowledge, to join with us in over-ruling by
statute the new judge-made law
��
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Is the Bible indictable? Being an enquiry whether the Bible comes within the ruling of the Lord Chief Justice as to Obscene Literature
Creator
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Besant, Annie Wood [1847-1933]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of Publication: London
Collation: 15 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Printed by Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh,28, Stonecutter Street. Date of publication from KVK. Originally published as a series of articles in the National Reformer and later condensed into this pamphlet. Issued during the Besant/Bradlaugh obscenity trial presided over by Lord Chief Justice Cockburn. They were tried for publishing Charles Knowlton's birth control pamphlet entitled 'Fruits of Philosophy'.
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Freethought Publishing Company
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[1884]
Identifier
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CT83
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Is the Bible indictable?),identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
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Text
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English
Subject
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Bible
Obscenity (Law)
Bible-Criticism and Interpretation
Charles Bradlaugh
Conway Tracts
Freedom of the Press
Obscenity
-
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cab9b801a35d24a14e0135ee9a14a694
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Text
SECULAR SOCIETY
y ,
^platform*
V.
THE STORY
OF
THE SOUDAN.
BY
ANNIE BESANT.
LONDON:
FREETHOUGHT
PUBLISHING
63, FLEET STREET E.C.
1 8 84.
PRICE
ONE
PE NN Y.
COMPANY,
�THE STOBY OF THE SOUDAN.
(Told from the Parliamentary Pa^oers.}
------------- 4.--------------
Friends,—The thoughts of England have been turned
much during these latter weeks to the Soudan, and as
there is the profoundest and most widespread iguorance
concerning that vast country, it, may, I think, be helpful
at the present crisis if I take it as the subject of my lecture
this morning, and try to throw some light on that dim
strange land.
The country now named the Soudan embraces the whole
of Nubia, as well as Kordofan and Darfour. It stretches
from Assouan on the first cataract on the Nile southwards
as far as the equator; on the east it is bounded by the
Red Sea, the kingdom of Abyssinia, and the districts
inhabited by the Caffre and Galla tribes; on the South
stretch vast deserts inhabited by Gallas, Somalis, and
others, who “ do not encourage travellers,” and which are
“practically almost quite unknown.” (“Report on the
Soudan,” by Lieutenant-Colonel Stewart, p. 7 Parlia
mentary paper, “Egypt, No. 11, 1883.” This document
will henceforth be referred to simply as Report). On the
West is the Libyan desert inhabited by Bedouin Arabs,
andthe boundaries are undefined, but run between the 22nd
and 30th parallels of longitude. In length about 1650
miles, and at its broadest part from 1200 to 1400 miles, •
it forms a country, according to General Gordon, covering
an area larger than that of France, Germany, and Spain
put together, or larger than dur Indian Empire.
In this enormous district there are naturally vast
differences of race, soil, and climate. “Between Assouan
and Khartoum, beyond the narrow strip of cultivation
along the Nile, the country is almost a desert, and
inhabited by nomads belonging, it is said, to aboriginal
tribes. A low range of broken and barren hills separates
the Nile valley from the coast. Another low range to the
west shuts out the Nile from the Desert of Bayuda. The
�THE STORY OF THE SOUDAN.
67
climate is dry and enervating. The summer heat is
excessive .... To the country west of the White Nile,
between the parallels of Khartoum and Kaka (about 1,1 °
latitude) the general appearance is that of a vast steppe,
covered with low thorny trees (mimosa, gum-trees, etc.)
and prickly grass. Occasionally low groups of bare hills
are met with. The villages and the patches of cultivated
ground are few and far between. Water is scarce, and
stored in wells and trunks of baobab trees. In the
extreme west of the Darfour Province the country greatly
improves in appearance. The hills are more lofty and
continuous, and the cultivation is luxuriant. In summer
the heat is excessive. Prom September to May the climate
is dry, with no rain. The rainy season lasts from about
the middle of May to the end of September .... East
of the White Nile, and for some degrees south of the
parallel of Khartoum, the country is a well-cultivated and
a well-watered plain .... From the parallel of Kaka
(11° north) to that of Gondokoro (5° north), the country
is a perfectly level plain, with huge marshes on both banks
of the Nile and the Bahr Ghazelle. South of the Gondo
koro to the equator the country becomes more and more
mountainous. The forests are everywhere very extensive,
and with a large variety of trees, fruit-trees, etc. Water
is everywhere abundant, and owing to it the climate to the
west of the Nile is unhealthy. The heat is very great ”
(Report, pp 7, 8).
Taking this description as accurate, we cannot wonder
at General Gordon’s estimate of the Soudan as a whole:
“The Soudan is a useless possession, ever was so, and ever
will be so ... . No one who has lived in the Soudan
can escape the reflection, ‘What a useless possession is
this land.’ Few men also can stand its fearful monotony
and deadly climate” (Parliamentary paper, Egypt, No. 7,
1884, pp. 2, 3).
Turning to the history of the Soudan, we find that
Arabs, crossing the Red Sea from Arabia, settled there in
700 and 800 a.d. These intermarried with the native
negroes, and became “known collectively under the name
of Fung,” and the Fung kingdom spread far and wide.
The pure-blooded negroes were constantly attacked by the
more warrior mixed race, and were carried captive into
slavery; these settled in villages and cultivated the ground,
while the Fung tribes were mostly nomadic, their wealth
consisting in these slaves, cattle, camels, and horses. In
�68
THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM.
1786 this Fung kingdom perished by intestine wars, and
general anarchy prevailed, tribe fighting with tribe for the
supremacy. In 1819 Mehemet Ali, then ruler of Egypt,
“wishing to introduce the benefits of a regular govern
ment, of civilisation, and at the same time to occupy his troops
(the italics are mine), ordered his son Ismael, with a
numerous army of regulars and irregulars, with many
learned men and artisans, to invade the country ” (Report
p. 4). Ismael was murdered, in revenge for his barbarities,
but. from that time forth the Soudan was claimed as
subject to Egypt, and the former anarchy continued, with
such additional disorder as was imported by the Egyptian
governors. In 1874 Colonel (now General) Gordon was
appointed by the Khedive Governor-General of the
Equatorial Provinces. Two years later he was raised to
the Governor-Generalship of the Soudan.
In August, 1881, a remarkable personage appeared on
the scene, Mahomet Achmet, the Mahdi. He proclaimed
himself sent from God as the foretold prophet, to raise
Islam, and to drive the infidels before him. The people
were superstitious and credited his mission; they were
miserable, and hoped it was true. To understand the
welcome given to him, you must listen to what Colonel
Stewart tells us of the administration of “justice,” and of
taxation under the Egyptian rule. In each province there
is a chief town, and here was established a court, consisting
of a president and eight members. At Khartoum was a
Court of Appeal, and all very serious cases were carried
to Cairo. Both the Court of First Instance and Court of
Appeal might only inflict imprisonment up to a certain
maximum. But “although these courts are thus tied down
as to the amount of imprisonment they may award, there
is no limit as to the length of time to which they can keep
a ease pending, so that practically an accused person can
be kept in prison awaiting trial for a period perhaps
considerably exceeding that to which he could be legally
sentenced if guilty of the crime of which he is accused . . .
With reference to this point, there are now in the Istinaff
Court seven cases pending, and in the Malhalla Court (of
Khartoum) eighteen to twenty-one. The oldest of these
cases dates back twelve years. It is presumably worse
in the provinces.” Colonel Stewart alleges “General
ignorance of the president and members .... The
members being unpaid, and having other business to
attend to, are with difficulty induced to attend in sufficient
�THE STORY OF THE SOUDAN.
69
numbers to form a court .... Their decisions are liable
to be biassed by their enmities and friendships. Probably
bribery and corruption exert a considerable influence.”
He further speaks of “the ease and facility with which
false testimony can be procured” (Report, pp. 11, 12).
The raison d'etre of a government being to administer
justice, I consider that the utter failure of the Egyptian
rulers on this head justified the Soudanese in revolt.
When invaders seize and cannot administer, surely the
invaded may throw off the forcibly imposed yoke.
But this was not all. The governors who could not
govern could tax, and used their power to wring the very
last piastre from the burdened and suffering people. One
instance given by Colonel Stewart is eloquent of the sys
tem. Jaafar Pasha, Governor- General, fixed a certain
tax at 500 piastres. “This officer stated openly that he
was quite aware the tax was excessive, but that he had
fixed it at that rate in order to see how much the peasant
would really pay, and that he hoped after three years’
trial to be able to arrive at. a just mean.” He was, how
ever, removed long before his three years were over, and
his successors, either through ignorance or indifference,
allowed the tax to continue. In the Report just quoted a
melancholy account is given of the ruin this excessive
taxation brought on the country. Many were reduced to
destitution, others had to emigrate, and so much land
went out of cultivation that in 1881, in the Province of
Berber, there were 1,442 abandoned sakiyes (waterwheels)
and in Dongola 613” (Report, p. 14). This is not won
derful when we learn that a commission found on examin
ing' “two sakiyes irrigating fair average land .... that
the net returns, exclusive of taxes, were for one sakiye
391 piastres, and for the other 201 ” (Report, p. 15). As
Jaafar Pasha had put a tax of 500 piastres on each sakiye,
and as in addition to this there were other taxes raising
the taxation to 607 piastres per sakiye, it is hardly sur
prising that the people found it cheaper to abandon them,
and with this abandonment necessarily went the non-cultivation of the ground.
In a despatch forwarded home on January 20th, 1883,
Colonel Stewart says: “The chief means of oppression is
through the tax-gatherer. AR over the country is a class
of smaU officials, on salaries from 200 to 400 piastres, who
have the very responsible duty of coUecting the taxes.
These officials are irregular soldiers (Bashi-Bazouks),
�70
THE ATHEISTIC PEATFORM.
Turks, Tunisians, Dongolauroi, etc., the former race per
haps predominating. As there can be but little supervi
sion over such an immense area, these men have it pretty
much their own way, and squeeze the people to their
hearts’ content. I have heard of instances where the
Bashi-Bazouk on his small salary maintains twelve horses,
twenty servants, and a number of women, and this in
places where the payment for the water for his cattle
alone would have cost more than three times his salary.
It is no uncommon thing for a peasant to have to pay his
taxes four or five times over, without the treasury being
any the richer” (Egypt, No. 13, 1883, p. 4). “ One octroi
farmer actually defended himself on the ground that for
every piastre he took others stole dollars; that he robbed
the poor, but did not meddle with the wealthy; that I
showed great ingratitude in finding fault with him, after
his hospitable reception............ I think there can be no
doubt that the whole local government is in league to rob
and plunder” (Egypt, No. 22, 1883, p. 7). “They (the
Bashi-Bazouks) appear to consider themselves in a con
quered country, and that they have a right to take any
thing they choose ” (p. 9).
It was to these people, oppressed and burdened, highspirited and smarting with a sense of wrong, hating and
despising their Egyptian rulers, and longing for the return
of their old freedom, that the Mahdi appeared as a
messenger of deliverance and of independence. Little
wonder that they crowded to his standard, and hoped that
the disorder and civil war in Egypt might facilitate their
own struggle for freedom. Lord Dufferin on April 2nd,
1883, wrote to Lord Granville his belief “that the recent
disturbances were mainly to be attributed to the mis
government and cruel exactions of the local Egyptian
authorities at Khartoum, and that, whatever might be the
pretensions of the Mahdi to a divine mission, his chief
strength was derived from the despair and misery of the
native population ” (Egypt, No. 13, 1883, p. 54). So also
Colonel Stewart said that “ the real cause of the rebellion
was misgovernment and oppression, and that all the Mahdi
did was to apply a lighted match to the fully prepared
tinder” (Egypt, No. 22, 1883, p. 6).
During 1882 almost constant conflict seems to have been
going on in the Soudan; the various towns garrisoned by
the Egyptian troops became more and more imperilled;
“rebels” appeared and disappeared, cutting off stragglers,
�THE STORY OF THE SOUDAN.
71
fighting when fighting at advantage was possible, vanish
ing when hardly pressed. Colonel Stewart on January
5th, 1883, described their tactics : “I am constantly hear
ing of small fights and of the slaughter of a few rebels.
The rebels attack, are driven back, and disperse to
reassemble on the following day ” (Egypt, No. 13, p. 9). So
troublesome was the aspect of affairs that on October 2nd,
1882, Sir E. Malet forwarded to Earl Granville a memo
randum from Sir Charles Wilson stating that 11 it would
be advisable to send two English officers to the Soudan to
report on the state of the country and the steps which will
be necessary to insure its pacification”; to this Sir E.
Malet added: “I do not think we can possibly be in a
position to form a correct opinion as to the state of affairs
in the Soudan unless we obtain information from agents
of our own, and I therefore beg to recommend Sir Charles
Wilson’s suggestion of sending officers to your lordship’s
favorable consideration” (Egypt, No. 1, 1883, p. 31). Lord
Granville assented to the proposition, giving permission
to “ send Captain Stewart to the Soudan to report of the
state of that district” (p. 35). He was, however, careful
to guard against the idea that England had any responsi
bility for the state of affairs in the Soudan, and on Novem
ber 3rd he wrote to Lord Dufferin (p. 48): “Her Majesty’s
Government are not prepared to undertake any expedition
into the Soudan,” and again on November 7th to Sir E.
Malet (p. 50): “I have to inform you that Her Majesty’s
Government are unwilling to take any responsibility for
the proposed expedition or military operations in that
district. They assent to Colonel Stewart and the two
other officers named proceeding thither to make enquiries,
but it must be distinctly understood that these gentlemen
shall under no circumstances assume to act in any military
capacity.”
But why, under these circumstances, send English officers
into the Soudan at all ? Why make enquiries which were
to lead to no results? The time was not suitable for
enquiries of merely historical interest, and what was the
sense of sending English officers into a district where
fighting was going on, if England had there no responsi
bility ? Confusion was rendered the more likely, and misconception the more probable, by the presence of other
English officers in the Soudan who were fighting in the
■Egyptian army. Was it likely that these officers, some
fighting as Egyptians, others surveying operations as
�7^
THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM.
Englishmen, would hold no communications with each
other? Was it likely that they would miss so fine an
opportunity of dragging England into the melee on the side
of their adopted country ?
That which happened was exactly what might have, been
expected. On December 10th, 1882, Colonel Stewart had
reached Berber, and telegraphed to Sir E. Malet that a
reinforcement of 800 men had reached Khartoum and that
all was safe (p. 91). He continued to send home detailed
reports on military matters as well as on the causes of
Soudanese discontent. On March 2nd, after a long report
on military affairs, he remarked : “I expect Colonel Hicks
to arrive either to-morrow or the day following ” (Egypt,
No. 13, 1883, p. 54), and he telegraphed on the 10th from
Khartoum : “ General Hicks arrived here on the 2nd inst.”
(p. 26). Colonel Hicks during March—he is called Colonel
and General indifferently—telegraphed to Lord Dufferin
accounts of his proceedings at Khartoum, as though Lord
Dufferin were his employer, and Lord Dufferin sent on the
telegrams to Lord Granville. At last Lord Granville took
alarm, and though he had hitherto accepted copies of
Colonel Hicks’ telegrams without protest, he wrote on May
7 th the following letter to Mr. Cartwright: “I notice that
io. your despatch of the 10th ultimo you inclose a telegram
from General Hicks to Sir E. Malet, on the subject of the
military operations in the Soudan. I understand the whole
of that telegram, with the exception of the first sentence,
to be a message from General Hicks to General Baker, and
I presume that it was addressed to Sir E. Malet because
General Hicks found it convenient to forward it through
Colonel Stewart. But it is unnecessary foi* me to repeat
that Her Majesty’s Government are in no way responsible
for the operations in the Soudan, which have been under
taken under the authority of the Egyptian Government, or
for the appointment or actions of General Hicks ” (p. 65).
But the situation was becoming complicated; English
General Hicks, General Baker, General Wood were irre
sponsible ; English Colonel Stewart and Sir E. Malet were
responsible; General Hicks, irresponsible, “found it con
venient ” to telegraph to General Baker, irresponsible, via.
Sir E. Malet, responsible, and with the help of Colonel
Stewart, responsible. No wonder the position of the Eng
lish became rather difficult to understand. Lord Dufferin’s
position complicated matters even more, for General Hicks
telegraphed to Lord Dufferin on May 3rd about his victory
�THE STORY OF THE SOUDAN.
,
73
on April 29th, and his intentions, and asked Lord Dufferin
to “ communicate to Baker Pasha and ask him to send to
War Office” (Egypt, No. 22, 1883, p. 1). Ten days later
he telegraphed again, and Lord Dufferin having left Cairo,
Sir E. Malet forwarded the telegram to Cherif Pasha, say
ing that “although General Hicks finds it convenient to
communicate with Lord Dufferin or with me, it must not
be supposed that we indorse in any way the contents of his
telegrams. It is, I am sure, unnecessary for me to repeat
to your Excellency, that Her Majesty’s Government are in
no way responsible for the operations in the Soudan which
have been undertaken under the authority of His High
ness’ Government, or for the appointment or actions of
General Hicks” (p. 27). Nevertheless, on June 5th, Sir
E. Malet telegraphed to Lord Granville, sending on a
telegram he had received from the General, in which the
latter asked what troops could be sent to him by the
Egyptian Government, and Sir E. Malet in forwarding this
told Lord Granville that it was “impossible for the Egyptian
Government to supply the funds demanded for the Soudan,”
and remarked that “ a question arises as to whether General
Hicks should be instructed” to narrow the sphere of his
operations (p. 27). Here, again, if “ Her Majesty’s Govern
ment are in no way responsible for the operations in the
Soudan,” why should Her Majesty’s officials accept tele
grams on military details, and take into consideration the
giving of instructions to the commanding officer ?
On August, 1883, the East Soudan joined in the insur
rectionary, movement, and “Osman Digna, the Vizier of
the Mahdi,” summoned the sheiks to follow him in the
war (Egypt No. 1, 1884, p. 13). In this district Tewfik
Bey was holding.Sincat, and defending it with remarkable
courage and ability. Meanwhile things were going from
bad to worse. Captain Moncrieff, British Consul at Sua
kin,left his post at the end of October, with 500 Egyptian
soldiers, who were endeavoring to relieve Tokar. Sir E.
Baring, on the ground that he could not “ do any good,
whilst he may do harm, by joining the Egyptian troops,”
telegraphed to his superior officer to instruct Captain Mon
crieff to “return to his post at Suakin, and remain there ”
(p.. 83), an English ship being sent to Suakin to protect
British subjects. Unfortunately, Captain Moncrieff’s rash
ness proved fatal to him; before the message of recall
could, reach him, the Egyptian troops whom he had so in
judiciously and improperly accompanied, had been attacked
�a
THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM.
"by the Arabs near Tokar, and Captain Moncrieff fell in
the battle.
During October and November no news from General
Hicks reached Cairo. On November 19th, Sir E. Baring
telegraphed home that great anxiety was felt as to the
general’s fate, and added : “ I think that it is not at all
improbable that the Egyptian Government will request
Her Majesty’s Government to send English or Indian
troops”; to this Lord Granville promptly replied: “We
cannot lend English or Indian troops. If consulted, re
commend abandonment of the Soudan within certain
limits ” (p. 93). On November 22nd, news arrived : “ A fight
took place at Kuz, between rebels and Egyptian troops;
rebels in great numbers. During two first days rebels
suffered great loss; Mahdi, seeing this, advanced with
his regular troops from Obeid, all well armed. Fighting
continued from 2nd to 5th November, when Hicks’ whole
army was destroyed ” (p. 94).
If the Government had now remained true to their declara
tions that they would accept no responsibility for General
Hicks, all might yet have been well. The Arabs would
have driven the Egyptians out of the Soudan, and would
have regained their freedom. Unhappily Lord Granville
hesitated. On November 1 st he had instructed Sir E. Baring
that the English force in Egypt was to be reduced, and
only 3,000 men were to be left in Alexandria (p. 19), the
duty of preserving civil order being remitted into the
hands of the constabulary under General Baker. But at
the request of the Egyptian Government, after General
Hicks’ defeat, although he had refused to lend English
troops, he practically did so by countermanding the order
for withdrawal (Nov. 25th), thus setting free the Egyptian
forces to carry on the iniquitous war. At the -very same
time that this help was given, the parrot-phrase was re
peated: “Her Majesty’s Government can do nothing in
the matter which would throw upon them the responsibility
of operations in the Soudan ” (p. 98).
“ And saying she will ne’er consent,
Consented.” ■
Lord Granville next bent his efforts towards forcing the
Egyytian Government to surrender the Soudan. At first,
as we see above, he only directed Sir E. Baring to recom
mend that course “if consulted.” On December 13th, he
no longer awaited consultation, but wrote : “Her Majesty’s
�THE STORY OF THE SOUDAN.
75
Government recommend the Ministers of the Khedive to
come to an early decision to abandon all territory south of
Assouan, or at least of Wady Haifa” (p. 131). Cherif
Pasha, however, declined to adopt this course: “His
Highness’ Government could not adopt the decision to
abandon territory which they regarded necessary for the
safety and even existence of Egypt ” (p. 146). Accordingly
Cherif Pasha made vigorous efforts to send forth another
army. Zebehr Pasha was communicated with, and directed
to raise some negro regiments, with which to proceed to
Suakin ; Sir E. Baring, fearing that “the employment of
Zebehr Pasha may not improbably attract attention in
England,” very justly urged: “Up to the present time
[Dec. 9thJ the whole responsibility for the conduct of the
affairs in the Soudan has been left to the Egyptian Govern
ment. It appeared to me that, under present circumstances,
it would not have been just, whilst leaving all responsi
bility to the Egyptian Governmemt, to have objected to
that Government using its own discretion on such a point
as the appointment of Zebehr Pasha” (p. 137). Baker
Pasha was also called on for aid, Zebehr being placed under
his orders, and on December 17th, he was nominated “to
take command of the operations which have for their object
the pacification of the region lying between Berber and
Suakin ” (p. 161).
Lord Granville, however, remained resolute against these
proposed measures. On January 4th, 1884, he wrote to Sir
E. Baring that the English Government “ see no reason to
modify their conclusions,” and at last he claimed on behalf
of England the absolute right to dictate the Egyptian
policy, declaring- that it was “indispensable” that the
“advice ” tendered by England “should be followed,” and
declared that, in view of 1 ‘ the responsibility which for the
time rests on England,” the Government must “insist on
the adoption of the policy which they recommend, and that
it will be necessary that those ministers and governors who
do not^follow this course should cease to hold their offices ”
(pp. 1/5, 176). Rather a change this from the repudiation
responsibility, and the advice which was to be tendered
“ if consulted. ”
On this the Cherif Pasha Ministry resigned, and the
more flexible Nubar Pasha accepted office, entirely conof abandoning the Soudan” (p.
Meanwhile Baker Pasha had reached Suakin, and on
�THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM.
the 18th January he left Suakin to endeavor to relieve
Tokar. His troops were of the most wretched description;
many were carried in irons on board the steamers in which
they were embarked, weeping and praying to be left in
peace at home. With such troops, undrilled, half-armed,
filled with fear of the Soudan and its wild tribes, the failure
of his expedition was fore-doomed. On February 5th, Sir
. Hewett telegraphed from Suakin that the Egyptian
army under Baker Pasha had been defeated, and that he
intended to land “men to take charge of town and allay
panic” (Navy, Egypt, c. 3890). Upon this all the “non
responsibility ” was suddenly dropped, and all the previous
policy reversed. Lord Northbrook telegraphed to Sir W.
Hewett to ask how many men were wanted to relieve
Sinkat and Tokar by arms (p. 8); Sinkat fell on February
12th and on the same day Sir W. Hewett was ordered to
‘ ‘ try by native messenger, at any expense, to tell garrison
[of Tokar] they will be relieved by British troops before end
of month” (p. 9). On the same day the Adjutant-General
telegraphed to the general officer commanding in Egypt:
“ Force to be collected at Suakim with the object, if pos
sible, of relieving Tokar garrison,” and desiring “the
greatest publicity to be given to the determination to re
lieve Tokar by British soldiers ” (c. 3889, p. 314). Tokar,
however, surrendered before we reached it.
Why this sudden, this extraordinary change? Why
should British troops have been sent to relieve Tokar, after
they had been so long and so steadily refused ? Was it
done to pacify the factitious cry raised by the idlers in the
London clubs, the loudly proclaimed sympathy with Pashas
Hicks, Baker and other English adventurers in Egypt ?
It was said that England should step in to avenge Hicks
and to save the others. Why ? Free-lances, who hire
themselves out to foreign Governments and degrade them
selves into leading savages against savages in brutal and
barbarous warfare, should be left to the companions they
have deliberately chosen. The hired bravos should lose
all rights of English citizenship, and should take the riskswith the gains of their ignoble trade.
It is not necessary to trace in detail the brief and shame
ful campaign. As we invaded without reason, so we slew
without ruth. In two frightful battles some 6,000 Arabs
were killed and some 18,000 wounded; Arabs fighting on
their own soil, in defence of their own land, fighting with
dauntless bravery, with splendid self-devotion, but, to
�THE STORY OF THE SOUDAN.
77
quote from a war-correspondent: “they never reached
our square ; they were mown down in layers as they came.”
Who is answerable to humanity for that awful slaughter ?
at whose door flows that river of uselessly shed human
blood ? We penetrated into the wilds as far as the chief
village of Osman Digna; the women and children had
wisely fled, and only mud huts remained, “not worth a
lucifer match.” These we burned “to show we had put
our foot there ”—beautiful mark of English civilisation—
careless that while not worth a match to us, they were the
homes of the natives of the land, and dear to them as ours
to us. When we had performed all these horrors, we left
the Soudan again, having quenched many brave lives,
broken many hearts, left many maimed for life, and be
yond this—Nothing. Our retreat was as inexplicable as
our advance. Having protested we would not go, why did
we go ? Having gone, why did we return with nothingsettled ?
While all these events were passing in East Soudan, a
most curious tale, the denoument of which is still unreached,
was being told in the central part of the country—the
mission of General Gordon.
On December 1st, 1883, Lord Granville telegraphed to
Sir E. Baring : “ If General Gordon were willing to go to
Egypt would he be of any use to you or to the Egyptian
Government, and if so, in what capacity?” The reply
came promptly : “ The Egyptian Government is very much
averse to employing General Gordon, mainly on the ground
that the movement in the Soudan being religious, the
appointment of a Christian in high command would
probably alienate the tribes who remain faithful.” (hi
January 10th, 1884, Lord Granville again telegraphed:
“ Would General Charles Gordon or Sir C. Wilson be of
assistance under altered circumstances in Egypt?” The
Egyptian Government again refused. On the 15th Lord
Granville tried again, and on the 16th the Egyptian
Government gave way, and “ would feel greatly obliged if
Her Majesty’s Government would select a well-qualified
British officer to go to Khartoum.” On this Gordon was
appointed (Egypt, No. 2, 1884, pp. 1, 2). His instructions
were to report “on the military situation in the Soudan,
and on the measures which it may be advisable to take for
the security of the Egyptian garrisons still holding
positions in that country, and for the safety of the Euro
pean population in Khartoum. You are also desired to
�78
THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM.
consider and report upon the best means of effecting the
evacuation of the interior of the Soudan,” and “you will
consider yourself authorised and instructed to perform
such other duties as the Egyptian Government may desire
to intrust to you ” (pp. 2, 3). A most extraodinary mission,
in which an Englishman is to try to serve two masters, and
is to receive orders from London and Cairo indifferently.
General Gordon’s view of the situation had at least the
merit of clearness : i ‘ My idea is that the restoration of the
country should be made to the different petty Sultans who
existed at the time of Mehemet Ali’s conquest, and whose
families still exist; that the Mahdi should be left alto
gether out of the calculation as regards the handing over
the country; and that it should be optional with the
Sultans to accept his supremacy or not .... the arsenals
.... should be handed over to the Sultans of the states
in which they are. placed .... Her Majesty’s Govern
ment will now leave them as God has placed them; they
are not forced to fight among themselves” (Egypt, No. 7,
1884, pp. 2, 3).
Why, with such a policy accepted by the Government,
we should have tried to destroy Osman Digna, a man of
one of these ruling families, and why we should call those
rebels in East Soudan to whom in Central Soudan Gordon,
our accredited agent, was proclaiming freedom from
the Egyptian yoke, it is impossible to say. If the Govern
ment understands its own policy, it is a pity it does not
explain it, for most certainly no one else can see any co
herency or consistency in it.
General Gordon arrived at Khartoum on February 18th,
and one of his first acts was to recognise the slave trade.
He issued the following proclamation: “ To all the people ;
my sincerest desire is to adopt a course of action which
shall lead to public tranquillity, and knowing your regret
at severe measures taken by government for suppression
of slave traffic, and seizure and punishment of all concerned
according to Convention and Decrees, I confer upon you
these rights, that henceforth none shall interfere with your
pioperty; whoever has slaves shall have full right to their
services, and full control over them.”
General Gordon at the same time proclaimed Mahomet
Ahmet, the Mahdi, as Sultan of Kordofan, and telegraphed
(still on Feb. 18th) to Sir E. Baring recommending Zebehr
Pasha as his own successor at Khartoum : “As for the man,
Her Majesty’s Government should select one above all
�THE STORY OF THE SOUDAN.
79
others, namely Zebehr. He alone has the ability to rule
the Soudan, and would be universally accepted by the
Soudan” (Egypt, No. 12, 1884, p. 72). Sir E. Baring en
dorsed the recommendation : “I believe Zebehr Pasha to
be the only possible man” (p. 73). To this Lord Granville
replied that “The public opinion of this country would
not tolerate the appointment of Zebehr Pasha” (p. 95);
Gordon shortly answered: “ That settles question for me.
I cannot suggest any other. Mahdi’s agents active in all
directions” (p. 115). Sir E. Baring, in forwarding this
telegram to Lord Granville, urged strongly that some clear
policy should be adopted; two courses were possible, he
argued : to evacuate the Soudan and leave it to anarchy ;
or to set up a capable governor acceptable to the Soudanese
and able to hold his own as Sultan independently: “What
ever may be said to the contrary, Her Majesty’s Govern
ment must in reality be responsible for any arrangements
which are now devised for the Soudan, and I do not tbink
it is possible to shake off that responsibility. If, however,
Her Majesty’s Government are unwilling to assume any
responsibility in the matter, then I think they should give
full liberty of action to General Gordon and the Khedive’s
Government to do what seems best to them. I have no
doubt as to the most advisable course of action. Zebehr
Pasha should be permitted to succeed General Gordon. . .
I think General Gordon is quite right when he says that
Zebehr Pasha is the only possible man. I can suggest
none other, and Nubar Pasha is strongly in favor of bim.
It is for Her Majesty’s Government to judge of the impor
tance to be attached to public opinion in England, but I
venture to think that any attempt to settle Egyptian ques
tions by the light of English popular feeling is sure to be
productive of harm, and in this, as in other cases, it would
be preferable to follow the advice of the responsible au
thorities on the spot ” (pp. 114, 115). Colonel Stewart
advanced the same opinion (p. 137). General Gordon
repeatedly telegraphed, pleading and urging that Zebehr
should be sent: “I tell you plainly it is impossible to get
Cairo employes out of Khartoum, unless the Government
helps in the way I told you. They refuse Zebehr, and are
quite right (may be) to do so, but it was the only chance ”
(March 1st, p. 152). “The sending of Zebehr means the
extrication of the Cairo employes from Khartoum, and the
garrisons from Senaar and Kassala. I can see no possible
way to do so except through him” (March Sth, p. 145). The
�SO
x
THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM.
General was evidently intensely depressed by the refusal of
the Government to follow his advice; on March 9th and
1 Oth, he sent telegram after telegram, begging for definite
instructions, urging that there was no use in holding out at
Khartoum if nothing was to be done, that all the roads
were being closed; “you must give a prompt reply”
(p. 161). Leave Khartoum he would not till the safety of
those surrounding him was secured; “how could I look
the world in the face if I abandoned them and fled ? ”
(p. 156). At last he seems to despair; he will send all the
white troops and employes to Berber with Colonel Stewart,
and will “ask her Majesty’s Government to accept the
resignation of my commission, and I would take all steam
ers and stores up to the Equatorial and Bahr Gazelle Pro
vinces, and consider those provinces as under the King of
the Belgians” (p. 161). The last telegram from him was
dated April 8th, and of this Sir E. Baring says: “he
evidently thinks he is to be abandoned, and is very indig
nant.” Apparently, however, General Gordon does not at
present regard himself as in immediate danger; his chief
difficulty is that he sees no prospect of improvement. At
last on April 23rd, Lord Granville appears to have realised
that it was the duty of the Government to ensure General
Gordon’s safe retreat from Khartoum, and telegraphed
asking what force was “necessary in order to secure his
removal” (Egypt, No. 13, 1884, p. 15).
That he shoidd be removed is clear. Gordon went to
Khartoum as an English agent, and whatever blunder was
committed in sending him, England’s honor would be
stained by allowing him to perish at his post. And.his
rescue should be effected as rapidly as possible, and so an
end put to the weary vacillations of our policy. We ought
never to have interfered, and the sooner we cease inter
fering the better. Enough blood has been shed ; enough
ruin has been wrought. Nothing that Lord Beaconsfield
ever did was worse* than oui* bloody incursion into East
Soudan, and well may Eadicals blush for the conduct
denounced in Opposition and practised in Government.
The least that can now be done is to prevent further
mischief, leaving the Story of the Soudan to take its place
in history with those of the Transvaal, of Zululand, and of
Afghanistan.
Printed by Annie Besant and Charles Bradlalgh, at 63, fleet
Street, London, E.C.—1884.
�
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The story of the Soudan
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Besant, Annie Wood [1847-1933]
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Place of publication: London
Collation: [66]-80 p. ; 18 cm.
Series title: Atheistic Platform
Series number: 5
Notes: "Told from the Parliamentary papers." Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Sudan
International relations
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Sudan-History-1881-1899
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¥
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
THE
EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY
BY
ANNIE BESANT.
[Reprinted from Our Corner.]
LONDON:
EREETHOUGHT
PUBLISHING
63, FLEET STREET, E.C.
COMPANY,
�LONDON:
TRINTED BY ANNIE BESANT AND CHARLES BRADLAUGH,
63, ELEET STREET, E.C.
�THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY.
---------- ---------- —
The recognition of Evolution in the physical world, of
gradual progress from the simple to the complex, of reiter
ated integration as the steps of that progress, has led to the
application of the same unifying principle to the psychical
world, and to the suggestion of its application to the socio
logical. As the lowest forms of life consist of simple
independent cells, as these cells become grouped, differen
tiated, integrated into tissues, as these tissues become more
complex in arrangement, more co-ordinated, in the highest
organisms, so, it is argued, do the individual human units
become grouped into families and tribes, integrated into a
social organism, of which the multiplicity of the composing
elements is the measure of its adaptability, the unity and
the correlation thereof the measure of its strength. If
Society be thus regarded as an organism instead of as a
bag of marbles, if it be conceded that the health of the
whole depends upon the healthy functioning of every part,
in correlation not in independence, then all that tends to
wards integration will be recognised as of life, all that
tends towards disintegration as of death. Judging the
future by the past we shall be prepared to look forward to
the realisation of a fuller social unity than has yet been
reached, and to recognise that by an inexorable necessity
Society must either integrate yet further, or must begin a
movement which will result in its resolution into its ele
ments. The further integration may be regarded as an
ideal to be embraced, or as a doom to be striven against, as a
brotherhood to be rejoiced in or as a slavery to be abhorred;
�4
THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY.
but the believer in Evolution must acknowledge that if
Society is to endure, this further integration is inevitable.
The object of this and of the following papers is to
roughly outline this Evolution of Society, and to consider
the type towards which it is working ; and they will deal
with: I. The Barbaric Period and its Survivals; II. The
Industrial Period and its products; III. The Conflict be
tween Social and Anti-Social Tendencies; IV. The Becoacilement of Diverging Interests.
I.—The Barbaric Period and its Survivals.
Association for the common weal is, as is well knows* by
no means confined to man. Many herbivorous animals live
in herds, and in the pastures the females and the young’
graze in the centre, while the males form a protective ring,
and sentinels, carefully posted, give warning cries of alarm
if danger approaches. Wolves hunt in packs, and together
pull down prey with which singly they could not cope.
Bees and ants live in thickly populated communities, with
their builders, food-gatherers, nurses, and in many cases,
soldiers, all working for the Society as a whole. Man’s
nearest congeners, the apes, are social animals and differ
little in their qualities and morality from the lowest savages.
And in all these one phsenomenon is noteworthy: the sub
mission of the individual to restraints for the general good^
When a tribe of monkeys goes out on a predatory expedi
tion—as to rob an orchard—the young ones are slapped if
they are not silent and obedient. When a goat is dis
charging a sentinel’s duty, he may not feed at ease on th#
tempting grass on which his comrades are luxuriating, con
fident in his vigilant loyalty. The working-bee must not
keep the honey it gathers, but must carry it home for stor
ing. Each member of the community yields up something
of individual freedom, receiving in exchange the benefits
of association, and it is among those who—like the bees
and ants—have carried very far the subordination of the
unit to the social organism that the most successful com
munities are found.
In the Barbaric Period of human society the virtues
evolved are much the same as those which characterise the
brute communities—courage, discipline of a rudimentary
kind, loyalty to the head of the tribe. These are evolved
�THE EVOLUTION OE SOCIETY.
5
because they are necessary to the success of the tribe, and
those who are weak in them perish in the struggle for
existence. They are evolved by the pressure of necessity,
by the exigencies of the common life. As disputes can only
be settled by war, the military chief is indispensable, and
the strong and cunning man is made the head of the com
munity. As social conditions become a little more settled,
and the conventions which grew up from necessity become
gradually crystallised into law, the hereditary principle
ereeps in, and the most capable adult member of a family
—now recognised as royal—is selected to fill the throne ;
as law increases yet more in authority, the personal capacity
of the sovereign becames a matter of less vital necessity,
and the eldest son succeeds to his father’s crown, whether
he is major or minor; at last the time is reached, as with
ourselves, in which a monarch is simply a survival, in
teresting—as are all rudimentary organs, because marks
of an ancestral condition—but perfectly useless: a mere
excrescence like the dew-claw of a St. Bernard dog. Es-sentially barbaric, it is an anachronism in a civilised
society, and only endures by virtue of its inoffensiveness
and of the public inertia.
Still keeping within the Barbaric Period, but passing
out of the stage in which every man was a warrior, we
come to the time in which Society was constituted of two
olasses: the fighting class, which consisted of king and
nobles; the working class, which consisted of those who
toiled on the land and of all engaged in commerce of any
kind, whether by producing goods for sale or by selling
them when produced. The fighting class had then its real
utility; if the king and the nobles claimed the privilege of
governing, they discharged the duty of protecting, and
while they tyrannised and robbed at home to a consider
able extent, they defended against foreign oppression the
realm to which they belonged. Fighting animals they
were, like the big-jawed soldiers of the Termites, but they
were necessary while the nations had not emerged from
barbarism. But these were not in the line of evolution;
the evolving life of the nation was apart from them ; they
were the wall that protected, that encircled the life that
was developing, and their descendants are but the
crumbling ruins which mark where once the bastions and
the ramparts frowned.
�£
THE EVOLUTION OE SOCIETY.
The life of the nation was in its workers, among whom
the agriculturists claim our first attention. The villeins
who tilled the soil under the feudal system were, in a very
real sense, the chattels of their lord. They were bound
to the soil, might be recovered by a legal suit if they left
their lord’s estate, were liable to seizure of all their pro
perty by their lord at his mere will, might be imprisoned er
assaulted by him, and in many cases the lord held over them
a power of life and death. These feudal privileges of the
lord gradually disappeared in England during the Middle
Ages; many villeins fled their native soil, hired themselvesout in other parts of the country, and were never recovered
by their lords ; residence for a year and a day in a walled
town made a villein free: relaxations of servitude madeby an indulgent lord became customary: villeins became
transformed into copyholders in many cases, and in one
way or another the peasantry emerged from nominal slavery.
In trying to realise the lot of the villein and to compare
it with that of his modern descendant, the agricultural
laborer, it is not sufficient to study only the conditions of
his servitude, the extreme roughness and poorness of his
house, his ignorance, the frequent scarcity and general
coarseness of his food. It must be remembered that if his
lord was his owner he was also his protector, and that the
landowner’s feeling of duty to his tenants and the tenants’
feeling of dependence and claim for assistance on the land
owner which still exist in some old-world parts of Eng
land, are survivals of the old feudal tie which implied
subjection without consciousness of degradation. Further,
while the hut of the villein was of the poorest kind, the
castle of the lord by no means realised our modern idea of
a comfortable house: the villein had straw on his floor,
but the lord had only rushes; and the general roughness
of the time effected all alike. If the villein was ignorant,
so was the lord, and if the lord tilted gaily with the lance,
the villein broke heads as gaily with his staff. If the
villein was sometimes sorely put to it to find bread, at
other times he revelled in rough abundance, and the dolesat the monastery gates often eked out his scanty supply
when Nature was unkind. Speaking broadly, there was
far less difference then in fashion of living between lord
and villein than now between lord and laborer: less
difference of taste, of amusements, of education, and
�THE EVOLUTION OE SOCIETY.
7
therefore more comradeship: the baron’s retainers then
dined at the table of the lord without shocking any
fastidious taste, while my lord marquis now would find his
dinner much interfered with if his servants sat at it as of
old. And since happiness is very much a matter of com
parison, it may be doubted whether the villein was not
happier than the agricultural laborer is now, and whether
the lop-sided progress of Society, which has given so little
to the toiler in comparison with what it has given to the
idler, has been much of a blessing to the laboring agri
cultural class.
The growth of industries other than agricultural marked
with unmistakable distinctness the evolution of society
from barbarism. Handworkers in these tended to produce
in groups, and soon associated themselves in towns, partly
for convenience in production and distribution, partly for
self-defence; divorced from the land, they were naturally
less directly dependent on the landowners than were the
agriculturists, and as the king’s wish to plunder them was
checked by the nobles, and the nobles’ wish to plunder
by the king, they gradually secured charters which pro
tected them from both, and waxed free and prosperous.
Each craft had its guild, and the apprentice entering to
learn his trade worked his way step by step up to the
position of a master craftsman. There were then no large
aggregations of workers, as in our modern factories, but
the lad placed in a workshop was one of a small group,
and was trained as a member of a family rather than as a
“ hand ”. Entrance into the workshop of a famous master
was eagerly sought for, and in consequence of the slight
division of labor there was a pride in capable workman
ship which is now almost impossible. Individual ability,
under this system, was at once apparent and had scope for
development, so that art and industry were more closely
united than they have ever been since. The artist was
largely a handicraftsman in the industrial sense, and the
handicraftsman was largely an artist; and side by side with
this mental development existed physical vigor, in conse
quence of the small size of the towns and the accessibility
of the open country. In industrial pursuits, as in those of
the countryside, the great division between classes which
is now so grievous did not exist; the “master” worked
with his men, eat with them, lived with them, and the
�THE EVOLUTION OE SOCIETY.
4‘industrious apprentice” who “married his master’s
daughter’’ was not a poetic fiction, but an inspiring and
realisable ideal. Certainly the amount of products turned
out could not rival the vast quantities now produced, but
the lives of the producers were healthier and more human
than those of too many of the handicraftsmen of to-day.
Among the survivals from the Barbaric Period present
in modern society, the monarch has already been men
tioned. Perhaps no form of monarchy exposes its anachro
nistic character more completely than the “ limited
monarchy ” of modern England. There is an exquisite
absurdity in the man who can being changed into the man
who can not.1 The hereditary aristocracy is another sur
vival from barbarism, and is a curious travesty of the
scientific truth as to race. The analogy of a high-bred
horse and a high-bred man is misleading, for the bum an
breeding is a matter of name, not of qualities. There can
be no doubt that a human aristocracy might be bred, by
matching men and women who showed in marked degree
the qualities which might be selected as admirable, but
the aristocracy which proceeds from male idlers, profligate
in their undisciplined youth and luxurious in their pam
pered maturity, matched with female idlers, whose useless
ness, vanity, and extravagance are their chief recom
mendations, is not one which should bear rule in a strong
and intellectual nation. To the barbaric Past it belongs,
not to the semi-civilised Present, and the lease of its
power will be determined when the workers realise the
power which has now passed into their hands.
II-—The Industrial Period and its Products.
The Industrial Period may fairly be taken as beginning
for all practical purposes with the invention of the Spinning
Jenny by Hargreaves, a weaver, in 1764 ; of the Spinning
Machine by Arkwright, a barber, in 1768 ; of the Mule,
by Crompton, a weaver, 1776. If to these we add the
virtual invention of the Steam Engine by Watt in 1765, we
have within these twelve years, from 1764 to 1776, the
vastest revolution in industry the world has known, the
birth of a new Period in the Evolution of Society. As
1 King-, German Ivo/iiy, has the same root as Konnen, to be able.
�TOE EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY.
9
Green points out in his “ History of the English People ”,
the “handloom used in the Manchester cotton trade had
until that time retained the primitive shape which is still
found in the handlooms of India” (p. 768), and the con
ditions of labor were feudal, patriarchic, domestic, not
industrial, in the modern sense of the word. The intro
duction of machinery (other than the simple kinds used in
earlier times) revolutionised social life as well as industry,
and the vast increase of man’s power over nature not only
affected the production of manufactured goods, but affected
also the condition of the worker, the climate and aspect of
the country, as also, with the most far-reaching results, the
framework and tendencies of society. These all are the
products of the Industrial Period, and these all must be
taken into consideration if we would estimate fairly and
fully the net result of good or of evil which remains.
It is obvious that the great value of machinery lies in
the fact that it produces much with little labor; in the
words of a Report: “One man in a cotton-mill superin
tends as much work as could have been done by two
hundred, seventy years ago.” The result of this should
have been widespread comfort, general sufficiency of the
necessaries of life, a great diminution of the hours of labor :
the result of it has been the accumulation of vast fortunes
by a comparatively few, the deadening and the brutalising
of crowds of the handwoi’kers. Wliether we regard the
immediate or the general results, we shall find them very
different from the rosy hopes of those who gave to the
world the outcome of their inventive genius.
lhe immediate result of the introduction of machinery
was, as everyone knows, terrible suffering among handi
craftsmen. Let us hear Green, an impartial witness.
“Manufactures profited by the great discoveries of Watt
and Arkwright; and the consumption of raw cotton in
the mills of Lancashire rose during the same period
from fifty to a hundred millions of pounds. The
vast accumulation of capital, as well as the constant
recurrence of bad seasons at this time, told upon the
land, and forced agriculture into a feverish and un
healthy prosperity. Wheat rose to famine prices, and the
value of land rose in proportion with the price of wheat.
Inclosures went on with prodigious rapidity; the income
of every landowner was doubled, while the farmers were
�10
THE EVOLUTION OE SOCIETY.
able to introduce improvements into the processes of agri
culture which changed the whole face of the country. But
if the increase of wealth was enormous, its distribution
was partial. During the fifteen years which preceded
Waterloo, the number of the population rose from ten to
thirteen millions, and this rapid increase kept down the
rate of wages, which would naturally have advanced in
a corresponding degree with the increase of the national
wealth. Even manufactures, though destined in the long
run to benefit the laboring classes, seemed at first
rather to depress them. One of the earliest results of
the introduction of machinery was the ruin of a number
of small trades which were carried on at home, and the
pauperisation of families who relied on them for support.
In the winter of 1811 the terrible pressure of this transi
tion from handicraft to machinery was seen in the Luddite,
or machine-breaking, riots which broke out over the
northern and midland counties, and which were only sup
pressed by military force. While labor was thus thrown
out of its older grooves, and the rate of wages kept down
at an artificially low figure by the rapid increase of popu
lation, the rise in the price of wheat, which brought
wealth to the landowner and the farmer, brought famine
and death to the poor, for England was cut off by the
war from the vast cornfields of the Continent or of America,
which nowadays redress from their abundance the results of
a bad harvest. Scarcity was followed by a terrible pauperi
sation of the laboring classes. The amount of the poorrate rose fifty per cent., and with the increase of poverty
followed its inevitable result, the increase of crime ”
(“Hist, of the English People”, pp. 805, 806).
It is noteworthy that where handworkers are concerned,
no claim for compensation is ever put forward when they
are deprived of their means of livelihood. If it is pro
posed to nationalise the land, it is at once alleged that the
present owners must be bought out, on the ground that
it would be unjust to deprive them of their incomes from
land and to reduce them to poverty for the benefit of the
community. But no one is so scrupulous, or so tender
hearted, when only laborers are ruined; no one ever pro
posed to compensate the handicraftsmen who were robbed
of their means of existence by the introduction of machinery.
Great stress is laid on the general benefit of the community,
�THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY.
11
for which, it appears it is right to sacrifice the worker, but
wrong to sacrifice the idler. And further, if a starving
laborer fall back on the poor-rate he is at once
“pauperised”, and everyone knows it is a disgrace to be
a pauper—on the parish : but if a Dake of Marlborough,
with huge estates, pockets a sum of £107,000 out of the
taxes he is not “pauperised”, and everyone knows it is
no disgrace to be a pauper—on the nation.
The general result of the introduction of machinery has
clearly been a great increase of comfort and wealth to the
upper and middle classes, and to the upper stratum of the
artisans; but great masses of the people are worse off
absolutely, as well as relatively, in consequence of its in
troduction. They are more crowded together, the air they
breathe is fouler, the food they eat is more unwholesome,
the trades they live by are more ruinous to health, than
they were in the time when towns were smaller, the open
country more accessible, the air unpoisoned by factory
chimneys and chemical works; the times when “master
and man ” slept in the same house, dined at the same
table, worked in the same room.
Machinery has enormously increased the amount of
goods produced, but it has not lightened the toil of the
workers; it has sent down prices, but the laborer must
work as long to gain his bare subsistence. The introduc
tion of sewing-machines may serve as a typical instance.
It was said that they would lighten the toil of the needle
woman, and enable her to earn a livelihood more easily.
Nothing of the sort has happened; the needlewoman
works for quite as many hours, and earns quite as meagre
a subsistence ; she makes three or four coats where before
she made one, but her wages are not trebled or quadrupled;
the profits of her employer are increased, and coats are
sold at a lower price. The real value of machinery, again,
may be seen when a sewing machine is introduced into a
house where the needlework is done at home; there the
toil is lightened; the necessary work is done in a fifth
part of the time, and the workers have leisure instead of
long hours of labor. The inference is irresistible ; machinery
is of enormous value in lessening human toil when it is
owned by those who produce, and who produce for use,
not for profit; it is not of value to those who work it for
wages, for the wages depend, not on the worth of the goods
�12
THE EVOLUTION OE SOCIETY.
produced, but on the competition in the labor-market and
the cost of subsistence.
In dealing with the products of the Industrial Period,
the human products are of the most extreme importance.
How have the conditions of labor, the environment, and
therefore the life of the laborer, been affected by the intro
duction of machinery ? I say, without fear of contradic
tion, that the environment of the manufacturing laborers
has altered for the worse, and that the result of that
worsening may be seen in the physical deterioration of
the great masses of the workers in factory towns. Com
pare the tall, upright, brown laborer of Lincolnshire with
the short, bowed, pallid knife-grinder of Sheffield;
compare the robust, stalwart Northumberland miner
with the slender, pasty-cheeked lads who come troop
ing out of a Manchester cotton-mill; and you will
soon see the physical difference caused by difference of
labor-conditions. Sheffield workers die young, their lungs
choked with the metal dust they inhale; cotton-factory
“ hands ” die of the fibre-laden air they breathe. I grant
that Sheffield goods are cheap, if by cheapness is meant
that fewer coins are paid for them than would have been
required ere they were made by machinery; but to me
those things are not cheap which are rendered less in
money-cost by destruction of human life. Hood once
wrote of cheap shirts :
“ O men with sisters dear,
O men with mothers and wives,
It is not linen you’re wearing out,
But human creatures’ lives I ”
And to me there is many a “ cheap ” article which is dear
by the price that has been paid for its cheapness, price of
human health, price of human happiness, price of human
life, making it costly beyond all reckoning, for it incarnates
the misery of the poor.
I grant readily that things were worse before the Factory
Acts were passed; but this truth only makes me desire
their extension, and also a far greater insistence on sanita
tion than at present prevails. It is necessary that a large
number of workers should co-operate in production by
machinery; it is not necessary that they should be poisoned
or wearied out with toil. The working-day should be
�THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY.
13
short, because mechanical toil tends to stupefy; and
every factory should have a recreation-ground, prettily
laid out, with facilities for games, to which the workers
might resort for the intervals between the hours of labor.
Thorough ventilation should ensure the wholesomeness of
the air within the factory, a task which would be greatly
facilitated by each factory standing alone and being treesurrounded.
«
The law should also promptly concern itself with the
scandalous pollution of the atmosphere and of rivers by
the smoke and refuse of factories. There is no reason
why every factory should not consume its own smoke, and
the law already existing on this matter should be sternly
enforced, by imprisonment, not by fine. A man who
poisons ope person is punished; a man who poisons a
whole neighborhood goes free. The thick cloud of black
smoke. hanging over a town like Sheffield or Manchester
is a sickening sight; it blights the trees, destroys the
flowers, soils every house, dirties every article of clothing.
Who that has lived in Manchester can forget “Manchester
blacks ” ? It is pitiable to go through the country and
see exquisite landscapes destroyed by smoke and refuse ;
huge chimneys belching out black torrents; streams that
should be dancing in the sunlight gleaming with phos
phorescent scum, and rolling along thick and black with
tilth. What sort of England is the Industrial Period
going to leave to its successors ?
If there be any truth in the scientific doctrine that the
environment modifies the organism, what can be the
tendency of the modifications wrought by such an environ
ment as the Black Country ? AVhat is there of refining,
of elevating, of humanising influence in those endless
piles of cinders, that ruined vegetation, that pall of smoke,
lighted at night by the lurid glare of the furnaces ? What
kind of race will that be whose mothers work in the chain
fields till the children come to the birth, and who return
thither sometimes on the very day on which they have
given new lives to the world ?
Many people, true products of the Industrial Period, are
indifferent to natural beauty, and only see in a waterfall
a source of power, in a woody glen a waste of productive
soil. But if, again, the environment modifies the organism,
beauty is useful in the highest degree. A high human
�14
THE EVOLTTIO^ OF SOCIETY.
type cannot be bred in a back slum, trained amid filth and
ugliness and clangor, sent to labor ere maturity ; it must
be bred in pure air, trained amidst sights and sounds that
are harmonious and beautiful, educated until mature ; then
let it turn to labor, and give back to the community the
wealth of love and comfort which shielded its eaTlier
years. On the faces of the lads and lasses who come
tumbling out of factories and great warehouses at the
dose of every day, filling the streets with tumult and
rough horseplay, is set the seal of the sordid conditions
under which they live. The lack of beauty around them
has made them unbeautiful, and their strident voices are
fitted to pierce the din amid which they live.
In truth, in its effect on Society, the wealthy manufac
turing class is far worse than the feudal nobility it is
gradually pushing aside. The feudal lords lived among
their tenantry, and there were ties of human sympathy
between them which do not exist between the manufac
turer and those whom he significantly calls his “ hands
The manufacturers live away from the place in which their
wealth is made, dwelling luxuriously in beautiful suburbs,
and leaving the “hands ” to stew in closely-packed dwel
lings under the shadow of the huge and unsightly factories.
The division of classes becomes more and more marked;
between the rich and the poor yawns an ever-widening gulf.
The tendency of Industrialism to produce castes should
not be overlooked. Practical men have noted that when
people have for generations lived by weaving, their chil
dren learn weaving far more easily than children who come
from a mining district. If a trade becomes hereditary, the
aptitude for the trade becomes marked in members of the
family. And this is not well. It is a tendency to produce
fixed castes of workers, instead of fully-developed various
human beings. It means, if present forces go on working
unrestrained, the dividing of society into castes, the forma
tion of rigid lines of demarcation, the petrifaction which
has befallen some older civilisations.
Over against those who laud the present state of Society
with its unjustly rich and unjustly poor, with its palaces
and its slums, its millionaires and its paupers, be it ours
to proclaim that there is a higher ideal in life than that of
being first in the race for wealth, most successful in the
scramble for gold. Be it ours to declare steadfastly that
�THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY.
15
health, comfort, leisure, culture, plenty for every individual,
are far more desirable than breathless struggle for exist
ence, furious trampling down of the weak by the strong,
huge fortunes accumulated out of the toil of others, to be
handed down to those who have done nothing to earn
them. Be it ours to maintain that the greatness of a
nation depends not on the number of its great proprietors,
on the wealth of its great capitalists, on the splendor of
its great nobles; but on the absence of poverty among its
people, on the education of its masses, on the uni
versality of enjoyment in lifeill.—The Conflict between Social and Anti-Social
Tendencies.
The conflict between social and anti-social tendencies has
existed as long as Society itself. It is the contest between
the integrating and disintegrating forces, between the
brute survival and the human evolution. The individual
struggle for existence which had gone on through countless
centuries over the whole world had become to some extent
modified among the social animals, and savage man, as
the highest of these, had also modified it within the limits
of each community. As Society progressed slowly in civi
lisation, the contest went on between the surviving brutal,
or savage, desire for personal accumulation and personal
aggrandisement without regard for others, and the social
desire for general prosperity and happiness with the readi
ness to subordinate the individual to the general good. It
is the still-enduring conflict between these tendencies
which now claims our attention. The openings for per
sonal accumulation offered during the Industrial Period
gave a great impetus to the anti-social tendencies; the
codification of the laws of wealth-getting in Political
Economy was seized upon for defence, as though Political
Economy offered any law for the general guidance of
human conduct, or held up any object as the aim of human
life. In their eagerness to represent as right and useful
their own greed of gain, members of the laissez-faire school
sheltered themselves under philosophic names, and used
Political Economy as though instead of laying down the
conditions of wealth-getting, it had declared it to be the
one duty of human beings to get wealth.
The anti-social tendencies seized on three sources of
�16
THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY.
wealth as especially promising: mines, factories, landed
estates. So ruinous in each department proved their unre
stricted play, that in each case law had to be called in to
check their operation.
Mines.—In these the anti-social tendency of unrestricted
accumulation, by competition with others, led to the em
ployment of women and children in labor for which they
were unfitted, at wages lower than those obtained by men.
Women worked half-naked, with band round forehead
dragging laden trucks up steep inclines. Children were
born in the darkness, and grew up underground, never
seeing the brightness of the sun. The most frightful
demoralisation existed, and infants, sleeping at their trap
doors, were crushed beneath the hurrying truck. Manly
decency, womanly modesty, childly weakness, all went
down before the Juggernaut car of unrestricted competi
tion, until the social tendency, in the guise of law, stepped
in to curb the brutality of anti-social greed.
Factories. — Here, again, the labor of women and
children has been utilised in antagonism to the better-paid
labor of men. And both women and children were
scandalously overworked until law intervened to protect
them. In Our Corner for March, 1885 (vol. v., pp. 158,
159), I gave some details of the labor imposed on children
before the legislature interposed, and when we find such
Acts as the Factory and Workshops Acts attacked by those
who pretend to defend Liberty (see report of the 3rd annual
meeting of the Liberty and Property Defence League, p.
10), we know that the liberty they defend is the liberty to
plunder others unchecked, the liberty which the burglar
might claim in annexing his neighbors’ goods. At the
present time the chain-works in Warwickshire and Worces
tershire show us examples of overmuch liberty in dealing
with other people’s lives. Women there work semi-nude,
dragging heavy chains. A young girl will be absent from
her work one day, and reappearing on the morrow will
excuse her languid work to the inspector on the ground:
“I had a baby yesterday”. Child-bearing girls, to the
anti-social school, are only “hands” worth so much less
in the labor market. These facts have to be faced. No
vague talk of “general improvement” will avail us here.
These people are suffering while we are discussing, and
dilettante sympathy is of small use.
�THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY.
17
Landed Estates. Here, again, the anti-social tendencies
have had full swing. Taxation, levied on land as the
rent to the State for the privilege of holding it, has been
shifted off the land on to the people, and the land has
been claimed as private property instead of as public
trust. Improvements made by the tenant have been con
fiscated, and then the improved condition of the land has
been utilised as a reason- for raising the rent of the tenant
who improved it. Bents have been raised to an extent
the tenant could not meet, until he has become hopelessly
indebted to his landlord, and so bound to him, hand and
foot. Game has been preserved until the crops of farmers
have been ruined by it, and until wild animals luxuriated
while human beings starved. When the anti-social
tendency has had full play and when it has spread abroad
sufficient misery for purblind eyes to recognise, then the
social tendency has asserted itself, and has established
Land Courts in Ireland to fix fair rents; has secured to
the tenant the results of his own labor; has permitted the
farmer to kill the ground game preying on his crops.
In towns the landlord has been even a greater curse
than he has been in the country. Undrained, filthy, rotten
hovels have been rented by him to the poor. The slums
of all great cities testify to the results of the anti-social
tendency, and warn us that the deepest and widest degra
dation will never touch men’s hearts sufficiently to over
bear the desire for personal gain.
Law, and law alone, can curb these anti-social tendencies.
Granted that a time will come when men shall be too
noble to profit by the misery of their fellows, that time is
not yet. The anti-social tendencies ruin and degrade,
and the few who recognise the evil while not personally
experiencing it, aided by the many who suffer from it
without fully understanding it, must carry legislation
which shall fetter the savage inclination to prey on human
beings.
So far we have considered the play of anti-social tenden
cies in modern society. Let us turn now to the social
tendencies, to those which make for integration.
The first of these which we will note is the tendency to
■co-operation. Handicapped as it is by being compelled to
make its way in a society based on competition, co-opera
tion has yet done much to better the lot of the poor. How
�18
THE EVOLUTION OE SOCIETY.
much, it might do if everywhere it replaced competition,
may be guessed at from what it has done despite the evil
atmosphere which has surrounded it. Anyone who goes
over the stores of the Rochdale Pioneers, who sees the
great library it has gathered there, who knows the educa
tional agencies centred there, must recognise the enormous
good done by even partial co-operation under uncongenial
circumstances. That productive co-operation has not suc
ceeded as well as distributive is due partly to the fact that
the co-operative workers have sought too eagerly and paid
too highly for “influential names” to “float” their com
panies ; and partly to the fact that production, under the
present system, needs a larger capital to withstand trade
crises than workers are able to command. Many promi
sing enterprises have been ruined by straining after large
profits, while working with an undue proportion of borrowed
money, money which, in times of panic, has been suddenly
withdrawn.
The social tendency is shown in the assignment of public
money for educational purposes, the passing of the Educa
tion Acts, the pressure of public feeling in favor of ratesupported schools, of higher education for all at the public
expense. It is shown in the demand for shorter hours of
labor; the insistence that all should work; the attempts
—at present only by agitation—to enact limits to the
accumulation by individuals of land and capital.
And above all the social tendency is shown in the incli
nation to resort to law for the effecting of the desired
changes; ih the recognition that social, not individual
effort is necessary for the reform of the social system; in
the feeling that the continuance of vice and misery side by
side with civilisation is intolerable, and that some means
must be found to put an end to them.
The problem now set before us is how to eradicate the
anti-social, and to cultivate the social, instincts in men and
women. Much would be gained if once it were generally
recognised that the desire for huge personal accumulation
is essentially anti-social, is a survival from the brute. At
the present time this desire is veiled under less offensive
names, such as “ business ability ”, “sharpness”, “energy”,
etc., etc., but when the veil is stripped away it standsforth in its repulsive nudity. To desire sufficiency, suffi
ciency for health and pleasure now, and for the time when
�THE EVOLUTION OE SOCIETY.
19’
work-power has failed, that is natural and reasonable; todesire superfluity, superfluity for ostentation and waste,
that is barbaric.
Enough for each of work, of leisure, of joy; too littlefor none; too much for none; such is the Social Ideal.
Better to strive after it worthily, and fail, than to die with
out striving for it at all.
IV.—The Reconcilement oe Diverging Interests.
Wherever a school of thought has succeeded in gaining
many adherents, and in holding its ground for a consider
able period, it is probable that it possesses some truth, or
part of some truth, valuable to humanity. Very often it
may see only one side of the truth, and so may present a
half as though it were the whole ; and the bitterest combats
are generally waged between those who hold separately
the two halves which, united, would form the perfect whole.
Truths which are complementary to each other are held as
though they were mutually destructive, and those whoshould be brothers in a common strife turn their weapons
against each other’s breasts. Such has been the conflict
between the “Individualistic” and the “Socialistic”
schools; each holds a truth and does well to cling to it, for
neither truth could be lost without injury to Society; the
whole truth is to be found by joining the twain, for there
is needed for the highest humanity the perfecting of the
Individual within a highly organised Society.
Looking back for a moment at our Industrial Period,,
which may be taken as incarnated in the “Manchester
School ”, we shall find that it has given to the world some
important information touching production. It has proved
that the productiveness of labor can be enormously increased
by co-operation and the division of labor ; that individual
production of the ordinary necessaries of life is a mistake ;
that it is cheaper to weave cotton goods by machinery than
to loavo each housekeeper to do her own spinning and
weaving. The Manchester School has for ever rendered
it impossible that we shall return to genoral production by
“cottage industries”: it has proved that largo numbers
should co-operate in production; that labor should be
economised by much division; that machine-made goods
should supersede hand-made in large departments of in
�20
THE EVOLUTION OE SOCIETY.
dustry; these are the contributions of the Manchester
School to progress. With these truths which it taught
were bound up errors which raised against it a widespread
revolt. Its system appeared as though it were based on
the assumption that, while labor was to be co-operative,
the profits arising from the associated labor were to go to
the enrichment of an individual. It deified competition,
and consecrated as its patterns those who could best outwit
their rivals and outstrip them in the race for wealth. Its
maxim, “buy in the cheapest market and sell in the
dearest”, while admirable as counsel for money-making,
did not always conduce in practice to perfect honesty, and
is scarcely sufficient as the end of life. “Get money; by
fair means if thou canst, but by all means get money ”,
was a somewhat brutally frank way of putting “ business ”
morality. It tended to regard men too much as mechanical
instruments of production, significantly calling men, women,
and children “hands”, instead of human beings. This
school it was of which I spoke on p. 15 as having misused
Political Economy, and as having taught as though the
laws of Political Economy said “Get rich”, instead of
stating the conditions of getting rich; they have used it
as the science of Mechanics might be used, if instead of
teaching by it how a weight may be lifted with least exer
tion of muscular strength, it were appealed to as declaring
that everyone should lift weights.
Turning to the Socialistic School, we find that it enshrines
the truth that man is a social animal, and that his progress
must lie in the direction of closer social union. Within
this school again we find three camps, the Collectivist, the
’Communistic, and the Anarchist, the latter of which is
really tenanted by extreme Individualists, who are separated
from the ordinary Individualistic School by their desire to
•overturn the present social system, and to destroy the
“rights of property ”.
The Socialists have learned from the Manchester School
the conditions of wealth-production on a large scale, and
seeing that industry as now conducted leads to the en
riching of a few and the hopeless poverty of the many, it
lays hands on the raw material and the means of production
and claims these as collective property. There is, perhaps,
among many of us who belong to this school too great an in
clination to think that the environment is everything, and to
�THE EVOLUTION OE SOCIETY.
21
ignore the reaction of the organism on the environment.
There is too much forgetfulness of the worse types of men
and women, results of the Industrial Period, who would
not be suddenly changed even if their environment could
be suddenly transformed; there is too reckless a desire to
overturn, without asking what curb would be kept, in the
general overturning, on the degraded and criminal products
of our present civilisation.
The Individualistic School, whether it is carried to the
extreme Anarchist position, or maintains the sufficiency of
reform along the broad lines of the present social state,
brings into prominence the right of individual liberty, and
the value of individual initiative. One outside, and one
inside, nominal Socialism, each is the result of a dread of,
a recoil against, over-much State regulation and State
interference. Each lays down the vital truth that free
play for human faculties, encouragement not discourage
ment of variations, are necessary to human progress.
Each points out that a perfect State is only possible by the
perfecting of individual citizens, and each is apt to lay so
much stress on the organism as to overlook the immense
importance of the environment. There is, of course, as I
have said above, the fundamental difference between the
Anarchists and those generally recognised as Individualists,
that the former appear to negate, while the latter maintain,
the right of private property. I have only put them to
gether as alike in one thing, that they assert the right of
the Individual against the State, while the Collectivist
Socialist asserts the right of the State as against the In
dividual.
Pressed on the matter, however, both Individualist and
Socialist are found to hold a common object; the Indi
vidualist admits that the claims of the unit must yield if
they come into conflict with those of Society : the Socialist
admits that he is working for a higher social state in order
that each individual may have room and opportunity to
develop to the highest point of which he is capable. Is
there not here a possible reconcilement ? Is not the ideal
of all good and earnest reformers practically the same,
although seen by them from different sides ? True, the
Individualist is not generally in favor of nationalising the
means of production, and herein differs in his method from
the Socialist; but is this difference any reason for their
�-22
THE EVOLUTION OE SOCIETY.
posing as antagonists ? The difference is not greater than
that between the Socialist who secures to the worker the
private property he has himself earned, and the Communist
who would have all property common; or between the
Collectivist and the Anarchist schools. Yet these can work
together for common objects, while differing in much ; and
so should work the Socialist and the Iladical Individualist
against the common foe, the idle class that lives as parasite
•on Society.
The first matter on which all agree is that the environ
ment must be largely modified by law. The Socialist will
•carry this modifying process further than will the Indi
vidualist, but here again it is a question between them of
degree. Speaking as a Socialist, I desire to see laws passed
which will render education tax-supported, compulsory,
and secular, so that all the children of the community may
receive a common education; which will fix a normal
working day; which will render factory inspection more
•efficient, and extend inspection to shops and rooms of every
kind in which employees work; which will enforce sanitary
inspection and prevent it from being the farce it now is ;
which will enable the building of healthy houses, and
provide plenty of recreation ground in every town. All
these measures are imperatively necessary now, and imme
diately necessary, in order that the environment may be
•changed sufficiently for the development of healthier or
ganisms. After a while most of them will not be needed;
when all have felt the benefit of education, compulsion to
educate will become a dead letter; when labor is better
•organised, when the words employer and employee shall
no longer have any facts answering to them, when all
production is for use, not for profit, there will be no need
•of a law limiting the working day, for none will be driven
to over-long labor by the awful pressure of starvation and
of fear of future distress. Factory inspection will be a
very easy task when there are no longer over-greedy owners
trying to wring every possible penny out of their “hands ” ;
and the need for sanitary inspection will pass when there
are no slums, and when every householder understands the
•conditions of health.
The organism, bom into and growing up in a healthier
environment, will be more vigorous and therefore more
capable of evolving a higher individuality, a more marked
�TIIE EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY.
23
personality. The evolution of individuality is now checked,
in some by poverty and over-hard and prolonged toil, in
some by the strict conventions .of fashion, in some by the
unsuitability of their work to their capacities, in some
by a narrow and superstitious education, in all by the
unhealthy social atmosphere they are compelled to breathe.
The loss to the community by waste of power, due to the
"Crushing out of all individuality among hundreds upon
hundreds of thousands, is a loss simply incalculable.
When all are fully educated through childhood and youth,
■the faculties of each developed and trained, then each indi
vidual will be able to evolve along his own line, and the
full value of each personality will enrich Society. It is
often argued that a wide and thorough education will unfit
people for the drudgery necessary for supporting the exis
tence of Society, and that 11 some one ”-—-never the speaker,
of course!—must do the 11 dirty work”. There are two
lines of answer to the objection. First, education does not
unfit people for doing any necessary work; it is the
ignorant, superficial, “genteel” person who fears that the
veneer of polish may rub off in use. The educated brain,
brought to bear on manual work, economises labor and
minimises drudgery. General education will certainly
bring about the substitution of machinery for men and
women wherever possible, for doing really unpleasant
labor; and ingenuity will be exerted in the invention of
labor-saving machinery when educated people find them
selves face to face with repulsive kinds of toil. At pre
sent they shove off all the unpleasant work on to others:
then, all being educated and there being no helot class,
means will be found to avoid most of the really disagree
able work. If any such remains, which cannot be done by
machinery, those who by doing it serve Society will be
honored, not looked down on as they are now; or possibly
some minute fraction of it will fall to the lot of each.
Secondly, if it were as true as it is false that education
unfitted people for “menial” work, no class has the right
to keep another class in ignorance and degradation, in
order that its own fingers may not be soiled. The answer
to the querulous argument: “Who is to light our fires
and cook our dinners, when the servants are as good as
their masters? ” is the very plain one : “You yourself, if
you want the things done, and cannot find anyone willing
�24
THE EVOLUTION OE SOCIETY.
to do those services for you, in exchange for services you
are able to do for them.” In the coming times everyonewill have to do something, and to do some one thing well.
We shall not all have to light fires, for the principle of
division of labor will come in, but the one who lights the
fire will be a free and independent human being, not a
drudge. There is no doubt that domestic labor will be
very much lessened, when those who enjoy the results can
no longer put off all the toil which produces them on some
one else. Even now, the work of a house can be wonder
fully diminished if a little intelligence be brought to bear
upon it, although domestic labor-saving machines are still
in their infancy. The great “servant problem” will besolved by the disappearance of servants, the wide intro
duction of machinery, and the division among the mem
bers of each domestic commonwealth of the variousnecessary duties. The prospect is really not so very terri
ble when quietly surveyed.
Whither is Society evolving ? It is evolving towards a
more highly developed individuality of its units, and
towards their closer co-ordination. It is evolving towards
a more generous brotherhood, a more real equality, a
fuller liberty. It is evolving towards that Grolden Age
which poets have chanted, which dreamers have visioned,
which martyrs have died for : towards that new Republic
of Man, which exists now in our hope and our faith, and
shall exist in reality on earth.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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The evolution of society
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Besant, Annie Wood [1847-1933]
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 24 p. ; 19 cm.
Series title: Socialism
Notes: Reprinted from Our Corner. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Printed by Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh.
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Freethought Publishing Company
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1886
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N064
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Socialism
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Social change
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Socialism
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■
1
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-
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
WH¥ I DO NOT BELIEVE
IN GOD.
BY
I
ANNIE BESANT.
r
J./
LONDON:
FREETHOUGHT PUBLISHING COMPANY,
63, FLEET STREET, E.C.
1 887.
PRICE
THREEPENCE.
.
�LONDON :
PRINTED BY ANNIE BESANT AND CHARLES BBADLAUGH,
63, ELEET STREET, E.C.
�WHY I DO NOT BELIEVE IN GOD.
■There is no doubt that the majority of people in most
parts of the world—save in those in which Buddhism is
supreme—believe in the existence of a God. The kind of
God may vary indefinitely, but there is generally “some God
Or other ”. Now a growing minority in every civilised
■Country finds it intellectually impossible to make the affir
mation which is necessary for belief in God, and this
growing minority includes many of the most thoughtful
and most competent minds. The refusal to believe is
unfortunately not always public, so cruel is the vengeance
Worked by society on those who do not bow down to its
dretish.es; but as John Stuart Mill said: ‘1 The world would
be. astonished if it knew how great a proportion of its
brightest ornaments—of those most distinguished even in
popular estimation for wisdom and virtue—are complete
sceptics in religion” (“Autobiography,” p. 45).
It is sad that all should not recognise that, as the late
Professor Clifford put it, Truth is a thing to be shouted
from the housetops, not to be whispered over the walnuts
and wine after the ladies have left; for only by plain and
honest speech on this matter can liberty of thought be
won. Each who speaks out makes easier speech for others,
and none, however insignificant, has right of silence here.
Nor is it unfair,. I think, that a minority should be chal
lenged on its dissidency, and should be expected to state
clearly and definitely the grounds of its disagreement with
the majority.
Ere going into detailed argument it may be well to remind
the reader that the burden of affording proof lies on the
afiirmer of a. proposition; the rational attitude of the
human mind is not that of a boundless credulity, accepting
every statement as true until it has been proved to be
false, but is that of a suspension of judgment on every
�4
WHY I DO NOT BELIEVE IN GOD.
statement which, though not obviously false, is not sup
ported. by evidence, and of an absolute rejection of a state
ment self-contradictory in its terms, or incompatible with
truth® already demonstrated. To remove this position
from the region of prejudice in which theological discus
sion is carried on, it may be well to take the following*
illustration : a man asks me, “Do you believe that Jupiter
is inhabited by a race of men who have one eye in the
middle of their foreheads, and who walk about on three
legs, with their heads under their left arms ? ” I answer
“No, I do not believe it; I have no evidence that such
beings exist”. If my interlocutor desires to convince mo
that Jupiter has inhabitants, and that his description of;
them is accurate, it is for him to bring forward evidence
in support of his contention. The burden of proof evi
dently lies on him; it is not for me to prove that no such
beings exist before my non-belief is justified, but for him
to prove that they do exist before my belief can be fairly
claimed. Similarly, it is for the affirmer of God’s existence
to bring evidence in support of his affirmation; the burden
of proof lies on him.
Tor be it remembered that the Atheist makes no general
denial of the existence of God; he does not say, “There is
no God”. If he put forward such a proposition, which he
can only do intelligently if he understand the term “God”,
then, truly, he would be bound to bring forth his evidence
in support. But the proof of a universal negative requires
the possession of perfect knowledge of the universe of
discourse, and in this case the universe of discourse
is conterminous with the totality of existence. No*
man can rationally affirm “There is no God”, until
the word “ God ” has for him a definite meaning, and until
everything that exists is known to him, and known with
what Leibnitz calls “perfect knowledge”. The Atheist’s
denial of the Gods begins only when these Gods are defined
or described. Never yet has a God been defined in terms
which were not palpably self-contradictory and absurd ;•
never yet has a God been described so that a concept of
him was made possible to human thought. Again I fall
back on an illustration unconnected with theology in order
to make clearly apparent the distinction drawn. If I am
asked: “Do you believe in the existence of a triangle in
space on the other side of Saturn?” I answer, “I neither
�WHY I HO HOT BELIEVE IN GOD.
5
lielieve in, nor deny its existence; I know nothing about it”.
But if I am asked: “Do you believe in the existence
there of a boundless triangle, or of a square triangle ? ”
-then my answer is : “I deny the possibility of the exist
ence of such triangles”. The reason for the different
answers to the two questions is that as I have never visited
the other side of Saturn I know nothing about the exist
ence or non-existence of triangles there ; but I deny the
possibility of the existence of a boundless triangle, because
the word triangle means a figure enclosed by three limiting
lines; and I deny the possibility of the existence of a square
triangle, because a triangle has three sides only while a square
has four, and all the angles of a triangle taken together
ar® equal to two right angles, while those of a square are
equal to four. I allege that anyone who believes in a
square triangle can have no clear concept either of a
triangle or of a square. And so while I refuse to say
“there is no God”, lacking the knowledge which would
justify the denial, since to me the word God represents no
.concept, I do say, “there is no infinite personality, there
is no infinite creator, there is no being at once almighty
and all-good, there is no Trinity in Unity, there is no
-eternal and infinite existence save that of which each one
• of us is mode”. Dor be it noted, these denials are justified
.by our knowledge: an undefined “God” might be a
limited being on the far side of Sirius, and I have no
knowledge which justifies me in denying such an existence;
but an infinite God, i.e., a God who is everywhere, who
has no limits, and yet who is not I and who is therefore
limited by my personality, is a being who is self-contra
dictory, both limited and not-limited, and such a being
■ cannot exist. No perfect knowledge is needed here. “ God
is an infinite being” is disproved by one being who is not
God. “God is everywhere ” is disproved by the finding
• of one spot where God is not. The universal affirmative
-is disproved by a single exception. Nor is anything
gained by the assertors of deity when they allege that he
is incomprehensible. If “God” exists and is incompre
hensible, his incomprehensibility is an admirable reason
for being silent about him, but can never justify the affirma
tion of self-contradictory propositions, and the threatening
. of people with damnation if they do not accept them.
I turn to examine the evidence which is brought forward
�6
WHY I DO NOT BELIEVE IN GOD.
in support of the existence of God, taking “ God ” to mean
some undefined being other than and superior to the
various forms of living and non-living things on thisearth—or those forming part of the 1 ‘material universe”
in which we exist—and related to these as creator and
controller. Now the existence of anything may be sensated or it may be inferred; the astronomer believed in
the existence of Saturn because he saw it; but he also
believed in the existence of the planet afterwards named
Neptune before he saw it, attaining this belief by way of'
induction from the otherwise inexplicable behavior of
Uranus. Can we then by the senses or by the reason find
out God ?
The most common, and to many the most satisfactory
and convincing evidence, is that of the senses. A child
bom into the world has open to him these sense avenues
of knowledge; he learns that something exists which is
not he by the impressions made on his senses; he sees, he
feels, he hears, he smells, he tastes, and thus he learns to
know. As the child’s past and present sensations increase
in number, as he begins to remember them, to compare,
to mark likenesses and unlikenesses, he gathers the
materials for further mental elaboration. But this sen
sational basis of his knowledge is the limit of the area on
which his intellectual edifice can be built; he may rear it
upward as far as his powers will permit, but he can neverwiden his foundation, while his senses remain only what
they are. All that the mind works on has reached it by
these senses; it can dissociate and combine, it can break
in pieces and build up, but no sensation no percept, and
no percept no concept.
When this fundamental truth is securely grasped it will'
be seen of what tremendous import is the admitted fact
that the senses wholly fail us when We seek for proof of
the existence of God. Our belief in the existence of all
things outside ourselves rests on the testimony of the
senses. The “objective universe” is that which we sensate. When we reason and reflect, when we think of love,,
and fear, when we speak of truth and honor, we know
that all these are not susceptible of being sensated, thatis, that they have no objective existence; they belong to
the Subject universe. Now if God cannot be sensated healso must belong to the Subject world; that is, he must
�WHY I DO NOT BELIEVE IN GOD.
7
be a creation of the mind, with no outside corresponding
reality. Granted that we can never know “the thing in
itself ” ; granted that all we know is only the effect on the
■mind produced by something which differs from the effect
it produces ; yet this fundamental physiological distinction
remains between the Object and the Subject worlds, that
the Object world announces itself by nervous action which
is set up at the periphery, while the Subject world results
from the centrally initiated travail of the brain.
It might., indeed, be argued by the Theist that God may
exist, but may be incognisable by our senses, we lacking
the sense which might sensate deity. Quite so. There
may be existences around us but unknown to us, there
being no part of our organism differentiated to receive
from them impressions. There are rays beyond the solar
spectrum which are invisible to us normally, the existence
of which was unknown to us some years ago, but some
of which apparently serve among light rays for the ant;
so there may be all kinds of existences in the universe
of which we are unconscious, as unconscious as we were
of the existence of the ultra-violet rays until a chemical
reagent rendered them visible. But as we cannot sensate
them, for us they do not exist. This, then, cannot avail
the Theist, for an incognisable God, a God who can enter
into no kind of relation with us, is to us a non-existent
God. We cannot even conceive a sense entirely different
from those we possess, let alone argue over what we should
find out by means of it if we had it.
It is said that of old time the evidence of the senses for
the existence of God was available; the seventy elders
“ saw the God of Israel” ; Moses talked with him “ face
to face ”; Elijah heard his “ still small voice ”. But these
experiences are all traditional; we have no evidence at
first hand; no witness that we can examine ; no facts that
we can investigate. There is not even evidence enough
to start a respectable ghost story, let alone enough to bear
the tremendous weight of the existence of God. Yet, if
some finite “God” exist—I say finite, because, as noted
above, the co-existence of an infinite God anda finite creature
is impossible—how easy for him to prove his existence;
if he be too great for our “comprehension”, as some
Theists argue, he might surely bestow on us a sense which
■might, receive impressions from him, and enable us to
�8
WHY I DO NOT BELIEVE IN GOD.
reach, at least a partial, an imperfect, knowledge of him.
But if he exist, he wraps himself in darkness; if he exist,
he folds himself in silence. Leaning, as it were, over the
edge of being, men strive to pierce the dark abyss of the
unknown, above, below; they strain their sight, but they
see nothing; they listen, but nothing strikes their ear;
weary, dizzy, they stagger backwards, and with the dark
ness pressing on their eyeballs they murmur 11 God!
Bailing to discover God by way of the senses, we turn to
such evidence for his existence as may be found by way of
the reason, in order to determine whether we can establish
by inference that which we have failed to establish by
direct proof.
As the world is alleged to be the handiwork of God, it
is not unreasonable to scrutinise the phenomena of nature,
and to seek in them for traces of a ruling intelligence, of
a guiding will. But it is impossible even to glance at
natural phenomena, much less to study them attentively,
without being struck by the enormous waste of energy,
the aimless destruction, the utterly unintelligent play of
conflicting and jarring forces. For centuries “nature”
has been steadily at work growing forests, cutting out
channels for rivers, spreading alluvial soil and clothing it
with grass and flowers ; at last a magnificent landscape is
formed, birds and beasts dwell in its woods and on its
pastures, men till its fertile fields, and thank the gracious
God they worship for the work of his hands; there is a
far-off growl which swells as it approaches, a trembling
of the solid earth, a crash, an explosion, and then, in a
darkness lightened only by the fiery rain of burning lava,
all beauty, all fertility, vanish, and the slow results of
thousands of years are destroyed in a night of earthquake
and volcanic fury. Is it from this wild destruction of
slowly obtained utility that we are to infer the existence
of a divine intelligence and divine will ? If beauty and
use were aimed at, why the destruction? If desolation
and uselessness, why the millenniums spent in growth ?
During the year 1886 many hundreds of people in
Greece, in Spain, in America, in New Zealand, were killed
or maimed by earthquakes and by cyclones. Many more
perished in hurricanes at sea. Many more by explosions
in mines and elsewhere. These deaths caused widespread
misery, consigned families to hopeless poverty, cut short
�WHY I DO NOT BELIEVE IN GOD.
9
•careers of use and of promise. They were caused by
“ natural ” forces. Is “ God ” behind nature, and are all
these horrors planned, carried out, by his mind and will ?
•John Stuart Mill has put the case clearly and forcibly :
“Next to the greatness of these cosmic forces, the quality
which most forcibly strikes everyone who does not avert his
•eyes from it is their perfect and absolute recklessness. They
go straight to their end, without regarding what or whom they
crush on the road. Optimists, in their attempts to prove that
‘ whatever is, is right ’, are obliged to maintain, not that nature
‘ ever turns one step from her path to avoid trampling us into
destruction, but that it would be very unreasonable in us to
•expect that she should. Pope’s ‘ Shall gravitation cease when
you go by ?’ may be a just rebuke to anyone who should be so
silly as to expect common human morality from nature. But
if the question were between two men, instead of between a
man and a natural phenomenon, that triumphant apostrophe
Would be thought a rare piece of impudence. A man who
should persist in hurling stones or firing cannon when another
man ‘ goes by ’, and having killed him should urge a similar
plea in exculpation, would very deservedly be found guilty of
murder. In sober truth, nearly all the things which men are
hanged or imprisoned for doing to one another, are Nature’s ,
■everyday performances. Killing, the most criminal act recog
nised by human laws, Nature does once to every being that
lives; and in a large proportion of cases, after protracted
tortures such as only the greatest monsters whom we read of
ever purposely inflicted on their living fellow creatures. If, by
an arbitrary reservation, we refuse to account anything murder
but what abridges a certain term supposed to be allotted to
human life, nature also does this to all but a small percentage
of lives, and does it in all the modes, violent or insidious, in
which the worst human beings take the lives of one another.
Nature impales men, breaks them as if on the wheel, casts them
to be devoured by wild beasts, burns them to death, crushes
them with stones like the first Christian martyr, starves them ;
With hunger, freezes them with cold, poisons them by the quick
■ or slow venom of her exhalations, and has hundreds of other
hideous deaths in reserve, such as the ingenious cruelty of a
Nabis or a Domitian never surpassed. All this, Nature does
with the most supercilious disregard both of mercy and of
Justice, emptying her shafts upon the best and noblest indiffer
ently with the meanest and worst; upon those who are engaged
in the highest and worthiest enterprises, and often as the direct
consequence of the noblest acts; and it might almost be imagined
as a punishment for them. She mows down those on whose
existence hangs the wellbeing of a whole people, perhaps the
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WHY I DO NOT BELIEVE IN GOD.
prospects of the human race for generations to come, with aslittle compunction as those whose death is a relief to them
selves, or a blessing to those under their noxious influence”"
(“Three Essays on Religion,” pp. 28, 29, ed. 1874).
It is not only from the suffering caused by the unde
viating course of the phenomena which from the invariable
sequence of their happening are called “laws of nature”
that we infer the absence of any director or controller of
these forces. There are many absurdities as well as
miseries, caused by the “uniformity of nature”. Dr.
Buchner tells us of a kid he saw which was born perfect
in all parts save that it was headless (“Force and Matter”,
page 234, ed. 1884). Here, for weeks the kid was a-forming,
although life in the outer world was impossible for it.
Monstrosities occur in considerable numbers, and each one
bears silent witness to the unintelligence of the forces that
produced it. Nay, they can be artificially produced, as
has been shown by a whole series of experiments, eggstapped during incubation yielding monstrous chickens. In
all these cases we recognise the blind action of unconscious
forces bringing about a ridiculous and unforeseen
result, if turned slightly out of their normal course.
From studying this aspect of nature it is certain that we
cannot find God. So far from finding here a God to
worship, the whole progress of man depends on his
learning to control and regulate these natural forces, so asto prevent them from working mischief and to turn them,
into channels in which they will work for good.
If from scrutinising the forces of nature we study the
history of the evolution of life on our globe, and the
physical conditions under which man now exists, it is
impossible from these to infer the existence of a benevolent
power as the creator of the world. Life is one vast battle
field, in which the victory is always to the strong. More
organisms are produced than can grow to maturity; they
fight for the limited supply of food, and by means of this
struggle the weakest are crushed out and the fittest survive
to propagate their race. Each successful organism stands
on the corpses of its weaker antagonists, and only by this
ceaseless strife and slaying has progress been possible.
As the organisms grow more complex and more developed,
added difficulties surround their existence; the young of
the higher animals are weaker and more defenceless at-
�WHY I DO NOT BELIEVE IN GOD.
ii
■birth than those of the lower, and the young of man, the
highest animal yet evolved, is the most helpless of all, and
his hold of life the most precarious during infancy.
So clumsy is the “plan of creation” that among the
most highly-evolved animals a new life is only possibleby peril to life already existing, and the mother must
pass through long weeks of physical weariness and
hours of acute agony ere she can hold her baby in her
arms. All these things are so “natural” to us that weneed to think of them, not as necessary, but as deliberately
planned by a creative power, ere we can realise the mon
strous absurdity of supposing them to be the outcome of’
“design”. Nor must we overlook the sufferings caused
hy the incomplete adaptation of evolving animals to the
conditions among which they are developing. The human
race is still suffering from its want of adaptation to theupright position, from its inheritance of a structure from
quadrupedal ancestors which was suited to the horizontal
position of their trunks, but is unsuited to the vertical
position of man. The sufferings caused by child-birth,
and by hernia, testify to the incomplete adaptation of therace to the upright condition. To believe that all the
slow stages of blood-stained evolution, that the struggle
for existence, that the survival of the fittest with its other
side, the crushing of the less fit, together with a million
subsidiary consequences of the main “plan”, to believethat all these were designed, foreseen, deliberately selected
as the method of creation, by an almighty power, to believe
this is to believe that “ God ” is the supreme malignity, a
creator who voluntarily devises and executes a plan of the
most ghastly malice, and who works it out with a cruelty
in details which no human pen can adequately describe.
But, again, the condition and the history of the world
are not consistent with its being the creation of an
almighty and perfect cruelty. While the tragedy off
life negates the possibility of an omnipotent goodness asits author, the beauty and happiness of life negate equally
the possibility of an almighty fiend as its creator. Thedelight of bird and beast in the vigor of their eager life
the love-notes of mate to mate, and the brooding ectasy of
the mother over her young; the rapture of the song which
sets quivering the body of the lark as he soars upwards
in the sun-rays; the gambols of the young, with every
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WHY I DO NOT BELIEVE IN GOD.
curve telling of sheer joy in life and movement; the
beauty and strength of man and woman; the power of
intellect, the glory of genius, the exquisite happiness of
■sympathy; all these things could not find place in the
handiwork of a power delighting in pain. We cannot,
then, from the study of life on our globe infer the exist
ence of a God who is wholly good ; the evil disproves
him: nor can we infer the existence of a God who is
wholly evil; the good disproves him. All that we learn
from life-conditions is that if the world has a creator his
■character must be exceedingly mixed, and must be one
to be regarded with extreme suspicion and apprehension.
Be it noted, however, that, so far, we have found no reason
to infer the existence of any creative intelligence.
Leaving the phenomena of nature exclusive of man, as
yielding us no information as to the existence of God, we
turn next to human life and human history to seek for
traces of the “divine presence”. But here again we are
met by the same mingling of good and evil, the same
waste, the same prodigality, which met us in non-human
nature. Instead of the “Providence watching over the
affairs of men” in which Theists believe, we note that
“there be just men, unto whom it happeneth according to
the work of the wicked; again, there be wicked men, to
whom it happeneth according to the work of the righteous ”.
A railway accident happens, in which a useful man, the
mainstay of a family, is killed, and from which a profligate
escapes. An explosion in a mine slays the hardwork
ing breadwinners at their toil, and the drunken idler
whose night’s debauch has resulted in heavy morning
sleep is “providentially” saved as he snores lazily at
home in bed. The man whose life is invaluable to a
nation perishes in his prime, while the selfish race-haunt
ing aristocrat lives on to a green old age. The honest
•conscientious trader keeps with difficulty out of the bank
ruptcy court, and sees his smart, unscrupulous neighbor
pile up a fortune by tricks that just escape the meshes of
the law. If indeed there be a guiding hand amid the
vicissitudes of human life, it must be that of an ironical,
mocking cruelty, which plays with men as puppets for
the gratification of a sardonic humor. Of course, the real
■explanation of all these things is that there is no common
factor in these moral and physical propositions; the
�WHY I BO NOT BELIEVE IN GOD.
1®
quantities are incommensurable; the virtues or vices of
a man ar® not among the causes which launch, or do not
launch, a chimney pot at his head.
Outside these “changes and chances” of human life,,
the thoughtful mind feels conscious of a profound
dissatisfaction with many of the inevitable conditions
of human existence: the sensative faculties are at
their keenest when the intelligence is not sufficiently
developed to utilise them; the perceptive faculties begin
to fail as the reflective touch their fullest development;
and when experience is ripest, judgment most trained,
knowledge most full, old age lays its palsy on thebrain, and senility shakes down the edifice just
when a life’s toil has made it of priceless value. To-,
recognise our limitations, to accept the inevitable, to amend
—so far as amendment is possible—both ourselves and
our environment, all this forms part of a rational philo
sophy of life ; but what has such self-controlled and keen
eyed sternness of resolve to do with hysterical outcries for
help to some power outside nature, which, if it existed as
creator, must have modelled our existence at its pleasure,
and towards which our attitude could be only one of bit
terest, if silent, rebellion ? To bow to the inevitable evil,
While studying its conditions in order to strive to make it
the evitable, is consistent with strong hope which lightens
life’s darkness; but to yield crushed before evil delibe
rately and consciously inflicted by an omnipotent intelli
gence—in such fate lies the agony of madness and despair.
Nor do we find any reliable signs of the presence of a
God in glancing over the incidents of human history.
We note unjust wars, in which right is crushed by might,
in which victory sides with “the strongest battalions”, in
the issue of which there appears no trace of a “ God that
judgeth the earth”. We meet with cruelties that sicken
us inflicted on man by man; butcheries that desolate a
city, persecutions that lay waste a province. In every
civilised land of to-day we see wealth mocking poverty,,
and poverty cursing wealth ; here, thousands wasted on a
harlot, and there children sobbing themselves in hunger to
sleep. Our earth rolls wailing yearly round the sun,
bearing evidence that it has no creator who loves and
guides it, but has only its men, children of its own
womb, who by the ceaseless toil of countless genera
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WHY I DO NOT BELIEVE IN GOD.
lions are hewing out the possibility of a better and gladder
world.
Similar testimony is borne by the slow progress of the
human race. Truth is always fighting; each new truth
undergoes a veritable struggle for existence, and if Her
cules is to live to perform his labors he must succeed in
strangling the serpents that hiss round his cradle. The
new truth must first be held only by one, its discoverer ; if
he is not crushed at the outset, a few disciples are won;
then the little band is persecuted, some are martyred, and,
it may be, the movement destroyed. Or, some survive,
and gain converts, and so the new truth slowly spreads,
winning acceptance at the last. But each new truth must pass
through similar ordeal, and hence the slowness of the up
ward climb of man. Look backwards over the time which
has passed since man was emerging from the brute, and
then compare those millenniums with the progress that has
been made, and the distance which still separates the race
from a reasonably happy life for all its members. If a
God cannot do better for man than this, man may be well
content to trust to his own unaided efforts. Weturn from
the phenomena of human life, as from those of non-human
nature, without finding any evidence which demonstrates,
or even renders probable, the existence of a God.
There is another line of reasoning, however, apart from
the consideration of phenomena, which must, it is alleged,
lead us to believe in the existence of a God. This is
the well-used argument from causation. Every effect
must have a cause, therefore the universe must have a
cause, is a favorite enthymeme, of which the suppressed
minor is, the universe is an effect. But this is a mere
begging of the question. Every effect must have a
cause; granted; for a cause is defined as that which
produces an effect, and an effect as that which is pro
duced by a cause; the two words are co-relatives, and
the one is meaningless separated from the other. Prove
that the universe is an effect, and in so doing you will
have proved that it has a cause; but in the proof of that
quietly-suppressed minor is the crux of the dispute. We
see that the forces around us are the causes of various
effects, and that they, the causes of events which follow
their action, are themselves the effects of causes which
preceded such action. From the continued observation
�WHY I DO NOT BELIEVE IN GOD.
■of these sequences, ourselves part of this endless chain,
the idea of causation is worked into the human mind,
and becomes, as it were, part of its very texture, so that
we cannot in thought separate phsenomena from their
causes, and the uncaused becomes to us the incon
ceivable. But wo cannot rationally extend reasoning
wholly based on pheenomena into the region of the noumenon. That which is true of the phsenomenal universe
gives us no clue when we try to pass without it, and to
penetrate into the mystery of existence per se. To call
God “the first cause” is to play with words after their
meaning has been emptied from them. If the argument
from causation is to be applied to the existence of the
universe, which is, without any proof, to be accepted as
an effect, why may it not with equal force be applied to
“ God ”, who, equally without any proof, may be regarded
as an effect ? and so we may create an illimitable series of
Gods, each an assumption unsupported by evidence. If we
once begin puffing divine smoke-rings, the only limit to the
exercise is our want of occupation and the amount of suit
able tobacco our imagination is able to supply. The belief
of the Atheist stops where his evidence stops. He believes
in the existence of the universe, judging the accessible proof
thereof to be adequate, and he finds in this universe sufficient
cause for the happening of all pheenomena. He finds no
intellectual satisfaction in placing a gigantic conundrum be
hind the universe, which only adds its own unintelligibility
to the already sufficiently difficult problem of existence.
Our lungs are not fitted to breathe beyond the atmosphere
which surrounds our globe, and our faculties cannot
breathe outside the atmosphere of the phsenomenal. If I
went up in a balloon I should check it when I found it
carrying me into air too rare for my respiration; and I
decline to be carried by a theological balloon into regions
wherein thought cannot breathe healthily, but can only
fall down gasping, imagining that its gasps are inspiration.
There remain for us to investigate two lines of evidence,
either of which suffices, apparently, to carry conviction to
a large number of minds; these are, the argument from
human experience, and the argument from design.
I have no desire to lessen the weight of an argument
drawn from the sensus communis, the common sense, of
mankind. It is on this that we largely rely in drawing
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WIIY I DO NOT BELIEVE IN GOD.
distinctions between the normal and the abnormal; it isthis which serves as test between the sane and the insane
no thoughtful student can venture to ignore the tre
mendous force of the consensus of human experience.
But while he will not ignore, he must judge : he must
ask, first, is this experience universal and unanimous ?
Secondly, on what experimental or other evidence is it
based ? The universal and unanimous verdict of human
experience, based on clear verifiable experience, is one
which the thinker will challenge with extreme hesitation.
Yet cause may arise which justifies such challenge.
Perhaps no belief has at once been so general, and so
undeniably based on the evidence of the senses, as the
belief in the movement of the sun and the immobility of
our globe. All but the blind could daily see the rising of'
the sun in the eastern sky, and its setting in the west; alL
could feel the firmness of the unshaken earth, the solid
unmoving steadfastness of the ground on which we tread.
Yet this consensus of human experience, this universality
of Tinman testimony, has been rejected as false on evidence
which none who can feel the force of reasoning is able to
deny. If this belief, in defence of which can be brought
the no plus ultra of the verdict of common sense, be not
tenable in the light of modern knowledge, how shall a
belief on which the sensus communis is practically non
existent, on which human testimony is. lacking in many
cases, contradictory in all others, and which fails to main
tain itself on experimental or other evidence, how shall it
hold ground from which the other has been driven ?
The reply to the question, “Is the evidence universal
and unanimous ? ” must be in the negative. The religion
of Buddha, which is embraced by more than a third of the
population of the globe, is an Atheistic creed; many
Buddhists pay veneration to Buddha, and to the statues of
their own deceased ancestors, but none pretend that these
objects of reverence are symbols of a divine power. Many
of the lower savage tribes have no idea of &od. Darwin
writes: “There is ample evidence, derived not from hasty
travellers, but from men who have long resided with
savages, that numerous races have existed, and still exist,
who have no idea of one or more Gods, and who have no
words in their language to express such an idea” (“Descent
of Man,” pp. 93, 94, ed. 1875). Buchner (“Force and
�WHY I DO NOT BELIEVE IN GOD.
17
Matter,” pp. 382—393) has collected a mass of evidence
showing that whole races of men have no idea of God at
all. Sir John Lubbock has done the same. When
savages reach a stage of intelligence at which they begin
to seek the causes of phenomena, they invariably postulate
many Gods as causes of the many objects around them.
A New Zealander who was told of the existence of the one
God by a missionary, asked him scoffingly if, among
Europeans, one man made things of every sort; and he
argued that as there were various trades among men, so
there were various Gods, each with his own business, and
one made trees, another the sea, another the animals, and
so on. Only when intelligence has reached a comparatively
high plane, is evolved the idea of one God, the creator and
the rurs^of the universe. Moreover this idea of “God”
is essentially an abstract, not a concrete idea, and the fancy
that there ia an entity belonging to it is but a survival of
Realism, a/meory which is discredited in everything save
in this one theological remnant.
It has been alleged by some writers that, however
degraded may be the savage, he still has some idea of
supernatural existences, and that error on this head has
arisen from the want of thoroughly understanding the
savage’s ideas. But even these writers do not allege that
the belief of these savages touches on a being who can be
called by the most extreme courtesy “God”. There may
be a vague fear of the unknown, a tendency to crouch
before striking and dangerous manifestations of natural
forces, an idea of some unseen power residing in a stone
or a relic—a fetish; but such things—and of the existence
of even these in the lowest savages evidence is lacking—
can surely not be described as belief in God.
Not only is the universal evidence a-wanting, but such
evidence as there is wholly lacks unanimity. What at
tribute of the divine character, what property of the
divine nature, is attested by the unanimous voice of human
experience ? What is there in common between the
Mumbo-Jumbo of Africa, and the “heavenly Father”, of
refined nineteenth century European Theism.? What tie,
save that of a common name, unites the blood-dripping
Tezcatlepoca of Mexico with him “ whose tender mercy is
over, all his works ” ? Even if we confine ourselves to the
Gods of the Jews, the Christians, and the Mahommedans,
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WHY I DO NOT BELIEVE IN GOD.
how great is the clash of dissension. The Jew proclaims
it blasphemy to speak of a divine Trinity, and shrinks
with horror from the thought of an incarnate God. The
Christian calls it blasphemy to deny the deity of the man
Christ Jesus, aqd affirms, under anathema, the triune
nature of the Godhead. The Mahommedan asserts the
unity of God, and stamps as infidel everyone who refuses
to see in Mahommed the true revealer of the divinity.
Each is equally certain that he is right, and each is
equally certain that the others are wrong, and are in peril
of eternal damnation for their rejection of the one true
faith. If the Christian has his lake of fire and brimstone
for those who deny Christ, the Mahommedan has his drinks
of boiling water for those who assert him. Among 'this
clash of tongues, to whom shall turn the bewildered
enquirer after truth ? All his would-be teachers are
equally positive, and equally without evidence. All are
loud in assertion, but singularly modest in their offers of
proof.
Now, it may be taken as an undeniable fact that where
there is confusion of belief there is deficiency of evidence.
Scientific men quarrel and dispute over some much con
troverted scientific theory. They dispute because the
experimental proofs are lacking that would decide the
truth or the error of the suggested hypothesis. While
the evidence is unsatisfactory, the controversy continues,
but when once decisive proof has been discovered all
tongues are still. The endless controversies over the ex
istence of God show that decisive proof has not yet been
attained. And while this proof is wanting, I remain
Atheist, resolute not to profess belief till my intellect can
find some stable ground whereon to rest.
We have reached the last citadel, once the apparently
impregnable fortress of Theism, but one whose walls are
now crumbling, the argument from design. It was this
argument which so impressed John Stuart Mill that he
wrote in his Essay on “ Theism ” : “I- think it must be
allowed that, in the present state of our knowledge, the
adaptations in Nature afford a large balance of probability
in favor of creation by intelligence. It is equally certain
that this is no more than a probability ” (“ Three Essays
on Religion ”, p. 174). This Essay was, however, written
between the years 1868 and 1870, and at that time the
�■WHY I DO NOT BELIEVE IN GOD.
19
tremendous effect of the hypothesis of evolution had not
yet made itself felt; Mill speaks (p. 172) of the “recent
speculations ” on “ the principle of the ‘ survival of the
of the fittest’ ”, and recognising that if this principle were
sound “there would be a constant though slow general
improvement of the type as it branched out into many
different varieties, adapting it to different media and
modes of existence, until it might possibly, in countless
ages, attain to the most advanced examples which now
exist ” (p. 173), he admits that if this be true “ it must be
acknowledged that it would greatly attenuate the evidence
for ” creation. And I am prepared to admit frankly that
until the “how” of evolution explained the adaptations
in Nature, the weight of the argument from design was
very great, and to most minds would have been absolutely
decisive. It would not of course prove the existence of an
omnipotent and universal creator, but it certainly did
powerfully suggest the presence of some contriving intel
ligence at work on natural phenomena. But now, when
we can trace the gradual evolution of a complex and highly
developed organ through the various stages which separate
its origin from its most complete condition ; when we can
study the retrogression of organs becoming rudimentary
by disuse, and the improvement of organs becoming
developed by use; when we notice as imperfections in the
higher type things which were essential in the lower: what
wonder is it that the instructed can no longer admit the
force of the argument from design ?
The human eye has often been pointed to as a trium
phant proof of design, and it naturally seemed perfect in
the past to those who could imagine no higher kind of
optical instrument; but now, as Tyndall says, “Along
list of indictments might indeed be brought against the
eye—its opacity, its want of symmetry, its lack of achro
matism, its absolute blindness, in part. All these taken
together caused Helmholtz to say that, if any optician sent
him an instrument so full of defects, he would be justified
in sending it back with the severest censure” (“On
Light”, p. 8, ed. 1875). It is only since men have made
optical instruments without the faults of the eye, that we
have become aware how much better we might see than
we do. Nor is this all; the imperfections which would
show incompetence on the part of a designer become inte
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WHY I DO NOT BELIEVE IN GOD.
resting and significant as traces of gradual development,
and the eye, which in the complexity of its highest form
seemed, notwithstanding its defects, to demand such great
intelligence to conceive and fashion it, becomes more in
telligible when we can watch it a-building, and, as it were,
See it put together bit by bit. I venture to quote here
from a pamphlet of my own a very brief statement of the
stages through which the eye has passed in its evolution:
“ The first definite eye-spot that we yet know of is a little
colored speck at the base of the tentacles of some of the
Hydromedusse, jelly-fish in common parlance. They are
only spots of pigment, and we should not know they were
attempts at eyes were it not that some relations, the Discophora, have little refractive bodies in their pigment
spots, and these refractive bodies resemble the crystalline
cones of animals a little higher in the scale. In the next
class (Vermes), including all worms, we find only pigment
spots in the lowest; then pigment spots with a nerve
fibre ending in them; pigment spots with rod-shaped cells,
with crystalline rods ; pigment spots with crystalline cones.
Next, the cones begin to be arranged radially; and in
the Alciopidse the eye has become a sphere with a lens
and a vitreous body, layer of pigment, layer of rods, and
optic nerve. To mark the evolution definitely in another
way, we find the more highly developed eye of the
adult appearing as a pigment spot in the embryo, so
that both the evolution of the race and the evolution
of the individual tell the same story. In the Echino
derma (sea-urchins, star-fishes) we find only pigment
spots in the lower forms, but in the higher the rod-shaped
cells, the transparent cones projecting from pigment cells.
In the Arthropoda (lobsters, insects, etc.,) the advance
continues from the Vermes. The retina is formed more
definitely than in the Alciopidm, and the eye becomes more
complex. The compound eye is an attempt at grouping
many cones together, and is found in the higher members
of this sub-kingdom. In the lowest vertebrate, the Amphioxus, the eye is a mere pigment spot, but in the others
the more complex forms are taken up and carried on to
the comparative perfection of the mammalian eye” (“Eyes
and Ears”, pp. 9, 10). And be it noted that in the
most complex and highly developed eye there is still the
same relation of pigment layer, rod layer, cone layer,
�WHY I DO NOT BELIEVE IN GOD.
21
seen in its earliest beginnings in the Discophora and the
worms.
The line of argument here applied to the eye may be
followed in every instance of so-called design. The ex
quisite mechanism of the ear may be similarly traced, from
the mere sac with otoliths of the Medusse up to the elabo
rate external, middle, and internal ears of man. Man’s
ear is a very complex thing. Its three chambers ; the
curious characteristics of the innermost of these, with its
three “semi-circular canals”, its coiled extension, like a
snail-shell, called the cochlea, its elaborate nervous mechan
ism ; the membrane between the middle and outer cham
bers, which vibrates with every pulsation of the air; we
can trace all these separate parts as they are added one to
one to the auditory apparatus of the evolving race. If we
examine the edge of the “ umbrella ” of the free-swimming
Medusa, we shall find some little capsules containing one
or more tiny crystals, the homologues of the inner ear; the
lower forms of Vermes have similar ears, and in some there
are delicate hairs within the capsule which quiver con
stantly ; the higher worms have these capsules paired and
they lie close to a mass of nervous matter. Lobsters and
their relations have similar ears, the capsule being some
times closed and sometimes open. In many insects a
delicate membrane is added to the auditory apparatus, and
stretches between the vesicle and the outer air, homologue
of our membrane. The lower fishes have added one semi
circular canal, the next higher two, and the next higher
three : a little expansion is also seen at one part of the
vesicle. In the frogs and toads this extension is increased,
and in the reptiles and birds it is still larger, and is curled
a little at the further end. In the lowest mammals it is
still only bent, but in the higher it rolls round on itself
and forms the cochlea. The reptiles and birds have the
space developed between the vesicle and the membrane,
and so acquire a middle ear; the crocodile and the owl
show a trace of the external ear, but it is not highly
developed till we reach the mammals, and even the lowest
mammals, and the aquatic ones, have little of it developed.
Thus step by step is the ear built up, until we see it com
plete as a slow growth, not as an intelligent design.
And if it be asked, how are these changes caused, the
answer comes readily : “ By variation and by the survival of
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WHY I DO NOT BELIEVE IN GOD.
the fittest ”. Since organisms and their environments re-act
on each other, slight variations are constantly occurring;
living organisms are ever in very unstable equilibrium,
chemical association and disassociation are continually going
on within them. Some of these changes are advantageous
to the organism in the struggle for existence; some are
indifferent; some are disadvantageous. Those that are
advantageous tend to persist, since the organism possessing
them is more likely to survive than its less fortunate com
petitors, and — since variations are transmissible from
parents to progeny—to hand on its favorable variation to
its young. On the other hand the disadvantageous varia
tions tend to disappear, since the organism which is by
them placed at a disadvantage is likely to perish in the
fight for food. Here are the mighty forces that cause evo
lution ; here the “ not ourselves which makes for righteous
ness”, i.e., forever-increasing suitability of the organism
to its environment.
It is, of course, impossible in so brief a statement as
this to do justice to the fulness of the explanation of all
cases of apparent design which can be made in this fashion.
The thoughtful student must work out the line of argu
ment for himself. Nor must he forget to notice the argu
ment from the absence of design, the want of adaptation,
the myriad failures, the ineptitudes and incompetences of
nature. How, from the point of view of design, can he
explain the numerous rudimentary organs in the higher
animals ? What is the meaning of man’s hidden rudimen
tary tail? of his appendix coeci vermiformis? of the
branchial clefts and the lanugo of the human being dur
ing periods of ante-natal life ? of the erratic course of the
recurrent laryngeal? of the communication between the
larynx and the alimentary canal ? I might extend the list
over a page. The fact that uninstructed people do not
appreciate these difficulties offers no explanation to the
instructed who feel their force; and the abuse so freely
lavished on the Atheist does not carry conviction to the
intellect.
I do not believe in God. My mind finds no grounds
on which to build up a reasonable faith. My heart revolts
against the spectre of an Almighty Indifference to the pain,
of sentient beings. My conscience rebels against the
injustice, the cruelty, the inequality, which surround me
�WHY" I DO NOT BELIEVE IN GOD.
23
on every side. But I believe in Man. In man’s redeeming
power; in man’s remoulding energy; in man’s approach
ing triumph, through knowledge, love, and work.
��
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Why I do not believe in God
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Besant, Annie Wood [1847-1933]
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Place of publication: London
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1887
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Atheism
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403
MODERN SOCIALISM.
BY
ANNIE BESANT.
LONDON
FKEETHOUGHT PUBLISHING COMPANY,
63, FLEET STREET, E.C.
1 8 8 6.
�LONDON
PRINTED BY ANNIE BESANT AND CHARLES BRADLAUGH,
G3, ELEET STREET, E.C.
�*
MODERN SOCIALISM.
Great changes are long in the preparing, and every
thought that meets ultimately with wide acceptance is
lying inarticulate in many minds ere it is syllabled out by
some articulate one, and stands forth a spoken Word. The
Zeitgeist has its mouth in those of its children who have
brain to understand, voice to proclaim, courage to stand
alone. Some new Truth then peals out, sonorous and farsounding as the roll of the thunder, melodious to the ears
attuned to the deep grand harmonies of Nature, but terrible
to those accustomed only to the subdued lispings of artificial
triflers, and the murmurs which float amid the hangings of
courtly halls.
When such an event occurs a few hearken, study, and
then rejoicingly accept the new Truth; these are its
pioneers, its apostles, who go out to proclaim it to the as
yet unbelieving world. They meet with ridicule, then with
persecution; for ever the new Truth undermines some
hoary Lie, which has its band of devoted adherents living
on the spoils of its reign. Slowly,- against custom and
tradition, against selfishness and violence, even against
indifference, deadliest foe of all, this band of devoted
teachers makes its onward way. And the band grows and
grows, and each convert becomes in his turn a pioneer;
until at last the victory is won, and the minority has
become the majority; and then the time comes for some
new Truth once more, and the old struggle is gone over
afresh, and so again and again ; and thus the race makes
progress, and humanity climbs ever upward towards the
perfect life.
During the last century and a quarter the social problem
has been pressing for solution on all who have brains to
�4
MODERN SOCIALISM.
think and hearts to feel. The coexistence of wealth and
penury, of idle prodigality and laborious stint; the terrible
fact that “ progress and poverty ” seem to march hand-inhand ; the growing slums in large towns; the huge for
tunes and the starving poor; these things make content
impossible, and force into prominence the question: “Must
this state of things continue ? Is there no possible change
which will cure, not only palliate, the present evils ?
Great hopes have sprung into being from time to time,
each in turn to be blighted. Machinery was to double
production and diminish toil, to spread comfort and suffi
ciency everywhere. It made cotton-lords and merchant
princes with one hand, and with the other created a prole
tariat unlike aught the world had seen, poor in the midst
of the wealth it created, miserable in the midst of luxury,
ignorant in the midst of knowledge, savage in the midst
of civilisation. When the repeal of the Corn Laws was
striven for and accomplished, once more hope rose high.
Cheap food was to put an end to starvation. Alas! in
the streets of the wealthiest city in Christendom, men and
women perish for lack of a loaf of bread.
Nor is this persistence of misery and of squalor the only
sign which troubles the brain and the heart of the student
of the social problem. He notes the recurring crises in
industry, the inflations and depressions of trade. At one
time all is prosperous; demand is brisk, and supply can
scarce keep pace with it; wages rise, full time is worked,
production is enormously increased. Then a change creeps
over all; supply has overtaken, has surpassed demand;
the market is glutted; the warehouses are filled with
unsaleable goods; short time begins; wages fall; mills are
closed; furnaces are damped out; many workers are dis
charged. Then the unemployed in the large towns increase
in number ; the poor-rate rises ; distress spreads upwards.
After a while the depression passes ; trade improves ; and
the whole weary circle is trodden once more. Nor is this
all; although there has been “ over-production ” there is
want of the necessaries of life; there are unsaleable clothing
goods in the warehouses, and half-naked people shivering
outside; too many blankets, and children crying them
selves to sleep for cold. This monstrous absurdity, of com
modities a drug in the market, and human beings perishing
for want of those very commodities, stares us ever in the
�MODERN SOCIALISM.
5
face. Cannot human brain discover some means to put an
end to this state of things, a state which would be ludicrous
were it not for the horrible suffering involved in it ? Some
say, this must always be so; that the poor shall be for
ever with us; that commercial crises are inevitable; that
these evils' are not susceptible of complete cure. If tffis
indeed be true, then I know not that any better advice can
be given to humanity than that given to Job by his wife,
to “ curse God and die ”. But I think not so meanly of
human intelligence ; I believe not that our present indus
trial system, little more than a century old, must needs be
eternal; I believe that the present system, devised by man
and founded in greed of gain, may by man be changed;
and that man’s growing power over external nature may
be used to bring comfort and wealth to each, and not, as
now, to enrich the few at the cost of the enslavement of
the many.
Various attempts to bring about a better social state
have been made by earnest and noble-hearted men during
the last hundred years. I leave aside such systems as
those of the Moravians, because they cannot be regarded
as in any sense schemes for the reconstruction of society.
They, like the monastic communities, were merely attempts
to create oases, fenced in from the world’s evils, where
men might prepare for a future life. The efforts I allude
to are those classed as “Socialistic”; they were really
■crude forms of Communism. With these the name of
Robert Owen will be for ever associated.
Owen’s first experiment was made at New Lanark, in
connexion with the cotton-mills established there by Mr.
Dale, his father-in-law. He became the manager of these
in 1797, and set himself to work to improve the condition
•of the operatives and their families. The success which
attended his efforts, the changes wrought by education
and by fair dealings, encouraged him to plan out a wider
scheme of social amelioration. In 1817 he was asked to
report on the causes of poverty to the Committee on the
Poor Laws, and in this report he dwelt on the serious in•crease of pauperism which had followed the introduction
of machinery, and urged that employment ought to be
found for those who were in need of it. He “ recommended
that every union or county should provide a farm for the
employment of their poor; when circumstances admitted
�6
MODERN SOCIALISM.
of it, there should be a manufactory in connexion with it”
(“Robert Owen,” by A. J. Booth, p. 70). On the farm,
buildings were to be built for housing the laborers, con
sisting of “a square, divided into two parallelograms by
tl^e erection of public buildings in the centre ” ; these would
consist of “a kitchen, mess-room, school-rooms, library
and lecture-hall. The poor would enjoy every advantage
that economy could suggest: the same roof would cover
many dwellings : the same stove might warm every room :
the food would be cooked at the same time, and on the
same fire : the meals would be eaten from the same table,
in the society of friends and fellow-workers. Sympathies
now restricted to the family would be thus extended to
a community: the union would be still further cemented
by an equal participation in the profits, an equal share in
the toil............ Competition is the cause of many vices;
association will be their corrective” {Ibid, pp. 70-72).
Soon after this report, Mr. Owen published a letter, urging
the reconstitution of “the whole of society on a similar
basis”; the lowest class was to consist of paupers, to be
drafted into the proposed establishments; the second of
the “working-class”; the third of laborers, artisans, and
tradesmen, with property-of from £100 to £2,000; the
fourth of persons unable or unwilling to work, owning
from £1,000 to £20,000; these were to employ the second
class. The workman was to be supported by this class in
comfort for seven years in exchange for his labor, and then
was to be presented by it with £100, so that he might
enter class three; if he remained as a worker for five years
more he was to have £200.
A community of workers, as recommended by Owen, was
started in 1825, under the management of Abraham
Combe, at Orbiston, nine miles east of Glasgow, and it
began well; but Combe died in 1827, and with his death
the whole thing went to pieces. A few months before the
settlement at Orbiston, Robert Owen sailed for America,
and he purchased a property named Harmony, consisting
of 30,000 acres in Indiana, from the Rappites, a religious
communistic body. He advertised for inhabitants, and
gathered together a mixed crowd; “there were some
enthusiasts who had come, at great personal sacrifice, to
face a rude life and to mix among rude men, who had no
object but to work out the great problem of a New Society;
�MODERN SOCIALISM.
7
there were others who fancied they could secure abundance
with little labor, prepared to shirk their share in the toil,
but not to forego their share in the reward ” {Ibid, p. 106).
In the following year, 1826, “New Harmony ” inaugurated
a system of complete Communism, much against OwSn’s^
judgment; a number of small independent communities'^
were soon formed, eight of these having already broken
off from New Harmony early in 1827, the difficulties
attendant on widely extended common life being found
insuperable. In 1828, Robert Owen was forced to confess
that his effortshad failed, and that “families trained in
the individual system ” could not suddenly be plunged into
pure Communism with success. It boots not to dwell here
on his further efforts in England. Robert Owen’s experi
ments failed, but out of his teaching arose the co-operative
movement, and the impulse to seek some rational system
of society has, since his time, never quite died out in
England.
In America, a large number of communities have been
established, mostly religious in character. Erom the
careful account given of them by Charles Nordhoff, the
following brief details are taken (all numbers relate to
1874). The Amana community consists of 1,450 members ;
they have a property of 25,000 acres, and live in seven
small towns; they are Germans, very pious and very
prosperous ; their head is a woman, who is directly inspired
by God. The Harmony Society, Economy, near Pittsburg,
consists of followers of Rapp, who founded the society in
1805. They are all Germans and number 110, in addition
to about 100 hired laborers and some sixty children. They
live in comfort, and have clearly done well unto themunto themselves, owning now a very large amount of pro
perty. The Separatists of Zoar, Ohio, are, once more,
Germans: they started in 1817, have now about 300
members, own 7,000 acres of land, and are prosperous
exceedingly. The Shakers, established in 1792, are scat
tered over several States,-number about 2,415, own about
100.000 acres of land, are divided into fifty-eight commu
nities, and are wealthy and prosperous ; the members are
American and English. The Perfectionists of Oneida and
Wallingford are American, and the first attempt by them
at communal living took place in 1846. They number 521,
and own 894 acres of land. They also are prosperous.
�8
MODERN SOCIALISM.
The Aurora and Bethel Communes, in Oregon, are German,
or 11 Pennsylvania Dutch ”; they started in 1844, and now
number some 600 persons: their property extends to
23,000 acres, and they live in much comfort. The Icarians,
founded by Etienne Cabet in 1848, are nearly all French;
ch^have hitherto been less fortunate than the preceding
societies, in consequence of mismanagement at the start;
a heavy debt was incurred early in the movement, and
members fell off; but a few resolute men and women
settled down steadily in Iowa, with 4,000 acres of land,
and 20,000 dollars of debt; they had to give up the land
to their creditors, but managed to redeem nearly half of it,
and they are now 65 in number, own 1,936 acres,
have no debts, and have acquired a large live stock. They
still live very plainly, but are on their way to prosperity,
having conquered all the difficulties amid which they
started; their constitution is perfectly democratic and they
are without religion. A Swedish community at Bishop
Hill, Illinois, was formed by a pietist sect which emi
grated to America to escape persecution in 1846-1848.
They were terribly poor at first and lived in holes in the
ground, with a tent for a church, but gradually acquired
property; until in 1859 they owned 10,000 acres of land,
worth 300,000 dollars, and some magnificent live stock.
Unfortunately their piety led to such extreme dullness that
the younger members of the society revolted: debt was
incurred, individuality was advocated, the property was
divided, and the community ceased to exist. Lastly, there
are two small communities, founded in 1871 and 1874 ; the
former, the Progressive Community, at Cedar Vale, consists
partly of Russians; it possesses 320 acres of good land,
and has only eight members, of whom one is a child. The
second, the Social Freedom Community, consists of three
adults and three lads, Americans, and has a farm of 333
acres.
The whole of these societies can only be regarded as in
the nature of experiments, and as such they are extremely
interesting; each community has succeeded in gaining
comfort and independence, but these small bodies, living
chiefly by agriculture in a thinly-populated country on
virgin soil, while they show the advantages of associated
labor, really offer no data for the solution of the problems
which beset a complex society. They are a return to more
�MODERN SOCIALISM.
9
primitive forms of living, not an onward social evolution,
and they are only possible in a “ new country ”. Further,
while they are communistic so far as their own members
are concerned, they are individualistic and competitive in
their aspect to the outer world; each small group holds.Wrs
own property, and transacts all its business on the old lines
in its dealings with the rest of the nation. This is, of
course, inevitable, since each is encircled by competition;
but it must not be overlooked that all these organisations,
like co-operative societies at home, are nothing more than
enlarged families, and are essentially individualistic ; win
ning sufficiency for their own narrow, isolated circles, but
leaving untouched the question of national poverty. They
are arks, rescuing their inmates from the deluge, but they
do nothing to drain away the seething ocean of misery.
We turn next to Socialism, as distinct from Communism.
The distinction between these, though recognised by so
orthodox an economist as John Stuart Mill, is generally
ignored by those who oppose any radical reconstruction of
Society. Mr. Mill divides into two classes the assailants
of the present system of purely individualistic property :
“ those whose scheme implies absolute equality in the
distribution of the physical means of life and enjoyment,
and those who admit inequality, but grounded on some
principle or supposed principle, of justice or general
expediency, and not, like so many of the existing social
inequalities, dependent on accident alone. At the head of
the first class, as the earliest of those belonging to the
present generation, must be placed Mr. Owen and his fol
lowers. M. Louis Blanc and M. Cabet have more recently
become conspicuous as apostles of similar doctrines (though
the former advocates equality of distribution only as a
transition to a still higher standard of justice, that all
should work according to their capacity, and receive
according to their wants). The characteristic name for
this economical system is Communism, a word of conti
nental origin, only of late introduced into this country.
The word Socialism, which originated among the English
Communists, and was assumed by them as a name to
designate their own doctrine, is now, on the Continent,
employed in a larger sense; not necessarily implying
Communism, or the entire abolition of private property,
but applied to any system which requires that the land and
�10
MODERN SOCIALISM.
the instruments of production should be the property, not
of individuals, but of communities or associations, or of
the government” (“Principles of Political Economy”,
Book II., chap, i., sec. 2). Communism implies the complete abolition of private property, and the supply of the
wants of each individual from a common store, without
regard to the contributions to that common store which
may, or may not, have been made by the individual.
Socialism merely implies that the raw material of the soil
and the means of production shall not be the private pro
perty of individuals, but shall be under the control of the
community; it leaves intact a man’s control over himself
and over the value of his work—subj ect to such general
laws as are necessary in any community—but by socialising
land and capital it deprives each of the power of enslaving
his fellows, and of living in idleness on the results of their
labor instead of on the results of his own. It may be that at
some future time humanity shall have evolved to a point
which shall render Communism the only rational system;
when every man is eager to do his share of work ; anxious
not to make too much for his own enjoyment: holding the
scales of justice with a perfectly even hand; his one aim
the general good, and his one effort the service of his
brethren; when each individual is thus developed, law will
have become unnecessary, and Communism will be thenatural expression of social life; perfect freedom will be
the lot of each, because each will have become a law unto
himself. But to that stage of development man has not
yet attained, and for man as he is Communism would mean
the living of the idle on the toil of the laborious, the
rebirth, under a new name, of our present system.
Modern Socialism is an attempt to get at the root of the
poverty which now prevails ; to find out how fortunes are
made; why commercial crises occur; what are the real
relations of capital and labor at the present time.
In speaking of “fortunes”, I do not here include for
tunes made by gambling, as on the Stock Exchange. They
fall under another category, for in gambling, whether on
the Stock Exchange or on the card table, wealth is not
really made; it only passes from one pocket to another.
The gambler, or the burglar, may “ make a fortune ” sofar as he is himself concerned; but it is not done by the
creation of wealth, but only by transferring wealth already
�MODERN SOCIALISM.
II
existing from, the pocket of its temporary possessor into
his own ; in both businesses the profits are large because
the risks are great, and the penalty for failure heavy for
the moment.
Socialism, as an industrial system, is chiefly concerned
with fortunes in the making, with the way in which the
wealth created by associated labor passes into the handsof individuals who do little or nothing in exchange for it.
These fortunes arise from the ownership of the instrumentsof production, or of the raw material out of which wealth isto be manufactured; from the ownership, that is, of capital,
or of land.
Production.
Let us take the case of the possessor of capital employed
in manufacture. This man desires to obtain more wealth
than he can produce alone, more than he can individually
produce even with the help of machinery. He must con
sequently hire others, who, in exchange for a certain fixed
sum to be paid to them by him, shall allow him to take
over the whole results of their labor, and to pocket the
difference between those results and the fixed sum paid
by him. This fixed sum is known as wage, and is “the
market price of labor”. We have therefore here twoclasses face to face with each other: one is a class which
is the owner of capital, that is, which possesses the instru
ments of production; the other is a class which possessesthe labor-force, without which the instruments of produc
tion are useless, but which must perish if it cannot get
hold of some of those instruments. (Behind the capitalists
is a third class, the land-owning, with which the capitalist
has to come to terms ; that will be dealt with afterwards.)
This second class stands therefore at this disadvantage; that
while the capitalist can, if he pleases, utilise his own labor
force for his own subsistence, it cannot subsist at all except
with his consent and aid, being shut out from the raw
material by the landowner, and from the instruments of
production by himself. Put a naked man on fertile soil in
a decent climate and he will subsist; he will live on fruit
and berries while with his hands he fashions some rough
tool, and with the help thereof makes him a better one
out of the. raw material he will form an instrument of pro
duction with those original instruments of production given.
�12
MODERN SOCIALISM.
him bv nature, his fingers and the muscles of his body;
then with his instrument and the raw material at his feet
he will labor and win his livelihood. But in our complex
society this opening is not before him; the raw material
is enclosed and trespassers are prosecuted; if he picks fruit
for food, he is a thief; if he breaks off a bough to make
a rough tool, he is arrested ; he cannot get an instrument
of production, and if he could he would have nothing to use
it on; he has nothing but his labor-force, and he must either
sell that to someone who wants it, or he must die. And the
sale must be complete. His labor-force is bought for so
much down per week or per month ; it no longer belongs
to himself, it is owned by his master, and he has not any
right over that which it produces; he has sold it, and if he
wants to resume possession he must give notice of his wish
to the owner thereof; having resumed possession it is of no
use to him; he can only live by selling it to somebody else.
He is “free”, in so far that he is able to change his
master; he is a slave in that he must sell the labor force
in his body for food. The man whose labor-force has been
sold to another for life is regarded by all as a slave; the
man whose labor-force is sold for stated terms is regarded
by most as free; yet in comparing the conditions of the two,
it is well to bear in mind that the slave, in becoming a
chattel, becomes of value to his master, and it is the
interest of the latter to feed him well and to keep up his
physical strength as long as is possible; also in old age he
is fed and housed, and can die in peace amid his fellows.
Whereas the wage-earner has no such value, but it is his
master’s interest to get as much work out of him as is
possible, without regard for his health, there being plenty
to take his place when he is worn out; and when he is
old, he is separated from wife and child and is left to die
in the prison we call a workhouse. The slave is valuable,
as the horse and the ox are valuable, to his owner; the
wage-earner is valuable only as a garment, which is cast
into the dusthole when it is worn out.
It may be answered that the wage-earner by good for
tune, industry, and thrift, may be able so to save of his
-earnings that he may escape the workhouse, and may even
himself become independent and an “ employer of labor ”.
True. So might a lucky slave become free. But the
truth that some may rise out of their class does not render
�MODERN SOCIALISM.
13
satisfactory the state of the class, and the very fact that
such rising is held out as a reward and a stimulus is an
admission that an escape from the proletariat must be the
natural longing of every proletarian. The rising of a few
does not benefit the proletariat as a whole, and it is the
existence of this unpropertied proletariat which is the evil
thing.
To this proletariat, waiting to sell its labor-force, the
capitalist goes, for it is here that he will be able to obtain
the wealth-making strength which he requires. The next
question is: What determines the wage which he is to
pay ? That is: what fixes the market price of labor
force ? Putting on one side temporary and comparatively
trivial causes, which may slightly affect it one way or the
other, there are two constant determinants : population,
and standard of living. The market-price of labor-force
will largely depend on the quantity of labor-force in the
market; if the supply exceed the demand, the price will
be low; if the demand exceed the supply, the price will
go up. If an employer requires fifty laborers, and two
hundred laborers compete with each other for the employ
ment he offers, and if the employment stands between
them and starvation, he will be able to beat down their
price until it touches the lowest point at which they can
subsist. The more rapid the multiplication of the prole
tariat, the better for the capitalist class.
The other determinant is the “standard of living” or
“standard of comfort”. Wage can never sink beyond
the point at which a man and his family can exist thereon;
this is the extreme limit of its fall, inasmuch as a man
will not work unless he can exist on the results of his
work. As a matter of fact, it does not often sink so low;
the wage of an ordinary operative is more than barely
suffices to keep him and his family alive, but large num
bers of the laboring poor are habitually underfed, and are
liable to the diseases brought on by low living, as well as
to premature aging and death arising from the same cause.
It is a significant fact that the deathrate of the poor is
much higher than the deathrate of the rich. Wage is
lower in countries in which the standard of living is low,
than in those in which it is, by comparison, higher. Thus
in parts of Scotland, where oatmeal is much used for food,
and children run much barefoot, wage is normally lower
�14
MODERN SOCIALISM.
ih.an in. England, where wheaten flour and shoes and
-stockings are expected. Any general lowering of the
standard of living is therefore to be deprecated—as the
wide substitution of cheap vegetable food-stuffs for more
■expensive articles of diet. The standard of living also
(and chiefly, in any given country) affects wages through
its effect on population. Mill points out (“ Principles of
Political Economy,” Book II., chap, xi., sec. 2) that
“wages do adapt themselves to the price of food ”, either
(«) from children dying prematurely when food rises, and
wages were before barely sufficient to maintain them, or
(J) from voluntary restriction of the growth of population
when the laborers refuse to sink below a certain standard
of living. In each case the diminution of labor supply
■causes a rise of wage. “Mr. Ricardo”, says Mill, “con
siders these two cases to comprehend all cases. He as
sumes, that there is everywhere a minimum rate of wages:
-either the lowest with which it is physically possible to
keep up the population, or the lowest with which the
people will choose to do so. To this minimum he assumes
that the general rate of wages always tends; that they
■can never be lower, beyond the length of time required for
a diminished rate of increase to make itself felt, and can
never long continue higher.” This is the “iron law of
wages ”, and it is the recognition of its truth which, among
other reasons, sets Socialists against the wage-system of
industry. [It must not be forgotten that the phrase
“ordinary operative” does not include all the workers.
There is a large class which obtains barely subsistence
wage, and those who are not regularly employed are on
the very verge of starvation. The hard lot of these must
not be left out of sight in impeaching the present social
state.]
The capitalist, then, buys as much labor-force as he
desires, or as his means allow, at the market price, deter
mined in the way we have seen. This labor-force he pro
poses to utilise for his own advantage; with some of his
capital he buys it; some of his capital consists in machinery,
and the labor-force set at work on this machinery is to
produce wealth. The labor-force and the instruments of
production are now brought together ; they will now pro
duce wealth, and both they and the wealth they produce
are the property of the capitalist.
�MODERN SOCIALISM.
15
Our next inquiry is : Where does the capitalist look for
his profit ? He has bought machinery; he has bought
labor-force ; whence comes the gain he is seeking ? The
profit of the capitalist must arise from the difference be
tween the price he pays for labor-force and the wealth
produced by it; out of this difference must be paid his
rent, the loss incurred by wear-and-tear, and the price of
the raw material on which his machinery works; these
provided for, the remainder of the difference is his “profit”.
The analysis of the way in which this profit arises is, then,
the task that comes next.
In Karl Marx’s “Das Capital” may be found a carefully
•elaborated exposition of “ surplus-value ”. The term is a con
venient one, and the student will do well to read his 7th chap
ter, on the “production of use-value and surplus-value”;
in reading, he must remember Marx’s definitions of value
and use-value, which of course govern the whole. Value
is human labor incorporated in a commodity; use-value
is that which in a commodity satisfies some human want.
The “ use-value ” of Marx is identical with the “ intrinsic
natural worth” of Locke. Locke says: “The intrinsic,
natural worth of any thing, consists in its fitness to supply
the necessities, or serve the conveniences of human life ”
(“Considerations of the Lowering of Interest,” etc., Locke’s
Works, vol. ii., p. 28, ed. 1777). As an instance of the
production of surplus-value—that is of the difference be
tween the capital which the capitalist expends in produc
tion and that which he possesses when the production is
complete—Marx takes the case of the manufacture of ten
pounds of thread. The capitalist buys ten pounds of
cotton at 10s.; wear-and-tear of machinery in the spinning
of the cotton into thread raises his expenditure to 12s.;
further, six hours of work are necessary to turn the ten
pounds of cotton into ten pounds of thread.
Now suppose that a man in six hours is able to produce
sufficient to maintain himself for a day;—that is that he
produces as much as might be exchanged for a day’s con
sumption of the necessaries of life. Let us value this at
3s. in money. That 3s. which is the monetary equivalent
of his six hours’ labor must be added to the cost of pro
duction of the thread ; its value has therefore risen finally
to 15 s. If the capitalist now sells his ten pounds of thread
for 15s., he will only receive back as much as he has
�16
MODERN SOCIALISM.
expended ; he will have made no profit. But suppose the
working day be of twelve hours instead of six, the wages
paid will none the less be fixed at 3s. by the standard of
living; but in that second six hours the operative can
transform another ten pounds of cotton into another ten
pounds of thread; as before, cotton and wear-and-tear will
-amount to 12s.; but these ten pounds of thread have a
value of 15s. as had the previous ten pounds, although they
have only cost the capitalist 12s. Hence the final product
of the day’s labor has a value of 30s., but has cost the
capitalist only 27s. The value added by the operative in
the second six hours has brought him no equivalent; it is
“ surplus-value”, value added by him over the value whose
equivalent he receives in wage; this creation of surplus
value is the aim of the capitalist.
Now without tying ourselves down to the exact figures,
given by Marx, we may yet see by a little thought that his
position as to “ surplus-value ” is essentially correct. If a
capitalist buys £1 worth of raw material; if his machinery
is depreciated say by the value of one shilling in workingup the raw material; if he pays in wage 5s. for the labor
force expended on it; he will most certainly not be content
with selling the finished product for 26s. He demands a
“profit” on the transaction, and this profit can only be the
difference between that which is paid to labor, and the
value, in the ordinary sense of the word, which labor
creates.
It is sometimes objected that nothing is gained by
Marx’s divisions of “value”, “ surplus value ”, and “ex
change value”, but that, on the contrary, they transport
economics into a metaphysical region away from the solid
ground of facts. It is urged that it is better to represent the
conditions thus: that the worker produces a mass of com
modities ; that the capitalist sells these commodities for
what they will fetch in the market, the price being fixed,
not by the duration of the labor embodied in them, but by
the relative utilities of money and commodity to buyer and
seller; that the capitalist gives over to the producer suffi
cient of the results of the sale to enable the producer to
exist, and pockets the remainder. This presentment is a
statement of the facts as they are; Marx’s “value” is
a metaphysical abstraction, corresponding to nothing exist
ing at the present time, however true it would be under
�MODERN SOCIALISM.
17
ideal conditions. The main point to grasp, however, is
obvious, whichever of these presentments is thought pre
ferable. Capital, under our present industrial system, is
the result of unpaid labor—a matter to be further con
sidered later in this essay. But it must be remembered
that, as a matter of fact, the profit made by the capitalist
is not a fixed quantity, as is the “ surplus value ” of Marx; z
but that the capitalist not only preys on the worker, but
also on the necessities of the consumer, his profit rising
and falling with the changes of demand and supply. The
phrase “ surplus value ” is, as I have said, a convenient
one, but it might well be extended to cover the whole
difference between the price paid to labor for the com
modities it produces, and the price obtained for those com
modities by the capitalist employer of labor. It is in this
wide sense that the phrase is used in the following pages,
not in the metaphysical sense of Marx.
We are now in a position to understand how large for
tunes are made, and why Capital and Labor are ever at
war.
Before the commencement of the Industrial Period—
which may be fairly dated from the invention of the Spin
ning Jenny in 1764—it was not possible to accumulate
great wealth by the employment of hired labor. By hand
work, or by the use of the very simple machines available
prior to that date, a single operative was not able to pro
duce sufficient to at once support himself and to largely
enrich others. “Masters and men” consequently formed
a community of workers, without the sharp divisions that
now exist between capitalist and “hands”; and the em
ployer would have been as much ashamed of not working
deftly at his trade, as the son of a Lancashire cotton-lord
would be if he were suspected of throwing a shuttle in
one of his father’s looms. Under these conditions there
was very little surplus-value to be absorbed, and there
were consequently no great aggregations of purely indus
trial classes. The introduction of machinery multiplied
enormously the productive power of the operative, while it
did not increase the wage he received. A man receiving
3s. for a day of twelve hours, produced, we will say for the
sake of illustration, surplus-value to the amount of Is.;
after the introduction of machinery he received the same
wage and produced an enormously increased surplus-value.
c
�18
MODERN SOCIALISM.
Thus the fortunes of the lucky possessors of the new
machinery rose by “ leaps and bounds ”; lads who began
at the loom were owners of palaces by middle age; even
later on, after the first rush had spent itself, I have myself
met Lancashire cotton-lords who were mill-hands in their
youth; but most certainly their wealth had only been made
by the results of the toil of many becoming concentrated in
the hands of one.
Another step was taken to increase surplus-value. De
pending, as it does, on the difference between the value
produced by the worker and the amount paid to him as
wage, it is obvious that if it be possible to obtain the same
amount of produce from purchased labor-force while re
ducing the purchase-money, the surplus-value will become
larger. This step was soon taken, for it was found that
many machines could be superintended by a woman quite
as effectively as by a man, while female labor-force was
purchasable in the market at a lower rate. Hence the
large introduction of female “hands” into cotton mills, and
as married women were found more “docile” than un
married—docility increasing with the number of mouths
crying for bread at home—there came the double curse on
the producers, of male labor being pushed aside by female
labor at lower wage, and of untidy home and neglected
children, bereft of mother’s care. Yet another step. Child
labor was cheaper even than woman-labor, and by utilising
children, with their pitiful wage, surplus-value might be
swollen to yet larger proportions; and as wives had fought
with husbands for wage, so children now fought with
fathers and mothers, until verily a man’s foes in the labormarket were they of his own household.
There was, however, a way of increasing surplus-value
apart from the amount of daily wage. The lengthening of
the hours of labor has obviously the same result in this
respect as the lowering of wage. The very zenith of the
production of surplus-value, the most complete exploitation
of the producers, the perfect triumph of the capitalist ideal
of free contract and of laissez-faire, were reached when little
children, at nominal wage, were worked from fifteen to
sixteen hours a day, and princely fortunes were built up
by human sacrifice to the devil of greed, in fashion that
shall never, so help us tongue, and pen, and arm, be again
possible in this fair English land.
�19
MODERN SOCIALISM.
We have at the present time no exact figures available
which can enable us to judge of the precise amount of sur
plus value produced in the various departments of industry.
In America, the Bureaus of Labor Statistics help us, and
from these we learn some suggestive facts.
Average wage paid
to worker.
1850
1860
1870
1880
..
£49 12
58 8
62 0
69 4
Extra net value pro■ duced by worker.
..
£41 16
65 10
69 0
64 14
(Taken from Laurence Gronlund’s quotation of these re
turns in his 11 Co-operative Commonwealth”, chap. i. The
same figures, as regards total net produce and wages paid,
have appeared in a capitalist work.) I trust that we shall
soon have in England Labor Bureaus similar to those now
existing in the United States and in Canada. Charles
Bradlaugh, M.P., has succeeded in passing a resolution in
favor of the official publication of similar statistics through
the House of Commons, and among the many priceless ser
vices he has done to the workers, the obtaining of these is by
no means the least. Exact knowledge of the present state
of things is a necessary precedent of organic change, and
the figures supplied by the Labor Bureaus will give us
the very weapons that we need.
The absolutely antithetical interests of Capital and
Labor have necessitated—and must continue to necessitate
while the present system lasts—a constant and embittered
war. As Capital can only grow by surplus value, it strives
to lengthen the working day and to decrease the daily
wage. Labor struggles to shorten the hours of toil, and
to wring from Capital a larger share of its own product in
the form of higher wage. While Capital is the possession
of one class, and Labor is the only property of the other,
this strife must go on. There can never be industrial
peace until this root of war be pulled up, and until Capital,
under the control of the community, shall be used for the
fertilisation, instead of for the oppression of Labor.
Since large fortunes are made by manufacturers, and
there is no source of wealth save labor applied to natural
objects, it is clear that these fortunes are due to the fact
that the manufacturers are able to become the owners of
c2
�20
MODERN SOCIALISM.
the means of production and of labor-force; even these very
means of production, with which the present labor-force
works, are but past labor-force crystallised. The wage
earners must produce sufficient to maintain themselves
from day to day and to increase the capital of the wage
payers, else they will not be employed. Hence arises
another evil, the waste of productive force. Men are not
employed because their labor-force, embodied in the neces
saries of life, will spread sufficiency and comfort throughout
the community. They are only employed when the articles
produced can be sold at a profit by a third party; their
products, fairly exchanged for the products of their fellow
laborers—woven cloth, say, for shoes—would clothe warmly
the shivering population ; but above the cloth produced by
the one, and the shoes produced by the other, stand the
capitalists, who demand profit for themselves ere the cloth
shall be allowed to shield the naked back, or the shoes
keep off the pavement the toes blued by the frost. If the
employment fails, the wage-earner is out of food; but the
erstwhile wage-payer has the capital made by the former
to live upon, while its maker starves. The capitalist, truly,
cannot increase his capital, unless he can buy labor-force ;
but he can live on his capital. On the other hand the
labor-force must perish unless it can find a purchaser.
Lotus put the position plainly, for as the great majority
•of people think the arrangement a perfectly fair one, there
is no need to cover it over with a veil of fine phrases and
roundabout expressions. The owner of raw material and
of the means of production faces the unpropertied pro
letarian, and says to him : “I hold in my hands the means
of existence; unless you can obtain the means of existence
you will die; but I will only let you have them on one
condition. And that is that you shall labor for me as
well as for yourself. For each hour that you spend in
winning bread, you shall spend another in enriching me.
I will give you the right to win a hard existence by your
labor, if you will give me the right to take whatever you
produce beyond that bare existence. You are perfectly
free to choose ; you can either accept my terms, and let
me live on your work, or you can refuse my terms, and
starve.” Put so baldly, the proposition has a certain
brutality in it. Yet when we Socialists argue that a system
is bad which concentrates the means of existence in the
�MODERN SOCIALISM.
21
hands of a propertied class, and leaves an unpropertied
class under the hard condition of winning only the right
to exist on such terms as may be granted by the propertied ;
when we urge this, we are told that we are incendiaries,
thieves, idiots, or, at the mildest, that our hopes of freeing
these enslaved ones are dreams, mere castles in the air.
We have now reached the foundation of modern So
cialism. We say: As long as the industrial classes are
divided into capitalists and proletarians, so long must con
tinue the present strife, and the present extremes of wealth
and of poverty. It is not a mere modification, but a com
plete revolution of the industrial system which is required.
Capital must be controlled by labor, instead of controlling
it. The producers must obtain possession of their own
product, and must regulate their own labor. The present
system has been weighed in the balances and found wanting,
and on the wall of the capitalist banqueting-room is written
by the finger of modern thought, dipped in the tears and
in the bloody sweat of the over-tasked proletariat: “Man
hath numbered thy kingdom and finished it. It is divided
among the myriads thou hast wronged.”
Competition.
Strife is the normal condition of the whole industrial
world; Capital strives against Labor, and Labor against
Capital, lock-outs and strikes being the pitched battles of
the struggle; capitalists strive against capitalists for profits,
and the list of the vanquished may be read in the bank
ruptcy court; workers strive against workers for wage, and
injure their own order in the fratricidal combat. Every
where the same struggle, causing distress, waste, hatred,
in every direction ; brothers wronging brothers for a trifling
gain ; the strong trampling down the weak in the frantic
race for wealth. It is the struggle of the wild beasts of
the forest transferred to the city; the horrible struggle
for existence, only in its “civilised” form hearts are
wrenched and torn instead of limbs.
It is constantly urged that competition is advantageous
because it develops capacity, and by the struggle it causes
it brings about the survival of the fittest. The allegation
may be traversed on two grounds : granting that capacity
is developed by struggle, it is yet developed at great cost
of suffering, and it would be more worthy of reasoning
�22
MODERN SOCIALISM.
beings to seek to bring about the capacity and to avoid the
suffering; to borrow an illustration which suggests itself
by the very word “ struggle ”, we know that actual fighting
develops muscle, endurance, readiness of resource, quick
ness of the senses ; none the less do we regard war as a
disgrace to a civilised people, and we find that the useful
capacities developed by it may be equally well developed
in the gymnasium and the playing-field, without the evils
accompanying war. So may education take the place of
competition in developing useful qualities. Further we
deny that “the fittest ” for social progress survive in the
competitive struggle. The hardest, the keenest, the most
unscrupulous, survive, because such are the fittest for the
brutal strife; but the generous, the magnanimous, the
just, the tender, the thoughtful, the sympathetic, the very
types in whose survival lies the hope of the race, are
crushed out. In fact, competition is war, and the very
reasons which move us to endeavor to substitute arbitra
tion for war, should move us to endeavor to substitute
co-operation for competition.
But it is urged, competition among capitalists is advan
tageous to the public, and it is shown that where two or
three railway lines compete for custom, the public is better
served than where there is only one. Granted. There is
an old adage which says that “when thieves fall out,
honest men come by their own ” ; none the less is it better
to stop thieving, than to encourage it under the hope that
the thieves may fall out, and some of the stolen goods be
recovered. So long as capitalists are permitted to exploit
labor, so long is it well that they should compete with each
other and so have their profits lessened; but it would be
still better to stop the exploitation. Accepting the railway
instance, it may be rejoined that the German State railways
have comfortable carriages that can hold their own against
all comers, and that whereas a railway company, eager for
dividends, can only be forced into providing decent carri
ages by fear of losing customers to a rival, a State railway
is managed for the benefit of the public, and improvements
are readily introduced. Our post-office system shows how
improvements are made without any pressure of competi
tion ; it has given us cheaper postage, cheaper telegraphing,
and is giving us cheaper parcel-delivery ; so that we can
send from London a letter to Wick for a penny, a telegram
�MODERN SOCIALISM.
23
thither for sixpence, and a parcel for threepence; it is a
matter of pride to the Postmaster-General of the day, as a
public servant, to improve his department, although he is
protected by law (save in the case of parcels, only just
undertaken) from competition.
Even some economists who approve of competition see
the need of limiting its excesses. Mr. R. S. Moffat, for
instance, approves of it and thinks that “competition is
not only the best, but the only practical means of meet
ing” “the conflicting natural conditions, between the
exigencies of an unknown demand and the fluctuations of
an uncertain supply”, “that ever has been, or is ever
likely to be, discovered” (“The Economy of Consump
tion,” p. 114, ed. 1878). Yet Mr. Moffat points out that
“ the material cost of competition includes two items: first,
superfluous production, or wasted labor; and secondly, illbalanced distribution, or misdirected labor ” (p. 115); and
he declares: “Not content with promoting a healthful
industry, it enforces tyrannous laws upon labor, and exacts
from the free laborer an amount of toil which the hardest
taskmaster never succeeded in wringing from the slave.
It disturbs by its excesses the balance of industry which
its moderation had established. In times of prosperous
production it accumulates stocks till they become a nuisance
and a source of the most serious embarrassment to pro
ducers, who do not know where to turn for employment to
their productive resources ; and in adverse times it gambles
with them, and deprives consumption of their support at
the very time for which they were provided” (pp. 116, 117).
“ It is upon laborers”, he says, “ not only as individuals,
but as a class, that the great burden of over-production
falls” (p. 119).
I propose to consider, I., the evils of competition; II.,
the remedy proposed by Socialism.
I.—The Evils.—Many of these lie on the surface; others
become palpable on very slight investigation. They affect
the capitalist manufacturer; the distributor; the con
sumer ; and the producing classes.
An ingenious capitalist sees a want and devises an article
to meet it; or he devises an article and sets to work to
create the want. He places his article before the public,
and a demand for it arises. The article either supplies a
real want, or it becomes “the fashion”, and the demand
�24
MODERN SOCIALISM.
increases and outstrips the supply. Other capitalists rush
in to compete for the profit which is to be made; capital
flows rapidly into the particular industry concerned ; high
wages are offered; operatives flock to it; the supply swellsuntil it overtops the demand. But when this point is
touched, the supply is not at once lessened; so long as
there is any hope of profit, the capitalists manufacture;
wage is lessened to keep up the profit, but this expedient
fails; short hours are worked ; at last the market becomes
thoroughly overstocked. Then distress follows, and while
capital seeks new outlets, the operatives fall into the great
army of unemployed; and very often the small capitalists,
who went into the rush just when profit was at its highest,,
and who have not sufficient capital to hold out against the
fall, and to await a rise, meet the fate of earthenware
pots, carried down a torrent among iron ones. When this
happens, the result of their speculative folly is held up as
an example of the “risks run by capitalists ”. Nor is this
the only way along which a small capitalist sometimestravels to the bankruptcy court. He often borrows money
“to extend his business”, and if the business shrinks
instead of expanding, he becomes bankrupt. In the uni
versal war, the big capitalist fish devour the small fry.
And, after all, even the “successful man” of our com
petitive society is not one whose lot is to be envied by
the healthy human being. Not for him the pure joy in
natural beauty, in simple amusements, in intellectual
triumph, which is the dower of those unstained by thefight for gold. For the successful competitor in com
mercial war Nature has no laurel-crown. He has bartered
himself for a mess of pottage, and his birthright of healthy
' humanity is gone from him for evermore. Well doesMoffat write his fate : “The man who strives to make a
fortune contemplates his own ease and enjoyment, not the
good of society. He flatters himself that through his
superior skill, tact, wisdom, energy, or whatever quality it
is he thinks himself twice as strong in as his neighbors,
he will be able to do in half a lifetime what it takes them
* their whole lives to do. For this he toils and sacrifices hishealth ; for this he rushes upon reckless speculations, and
hazards his character and reputation; for this he makes
himself indifferent to the rights and callous to the feelings
of others; for this he is sordid, mean, and parsimonious.
�MODERN SOCIALISM.
25'
All these are the means by which, according to different
temperaments, the same end is pursued. And what is the
end? An illusion, nay, worse, a dishonesty. The man
who pursues a fortune is not qualifying himself for any
other course of life besides that which he at present lives.
He is merely striving to escape from duty into enjoyment.
And the fever of the strife frequently becomes his whole
existence; so that when he has obtained his object, he finds
himself unable to do without the excitement of the struggle ”
(p. 220). Surely in judging the merits of a system it is
fair to take into account the injuries it works to its most
successful products. Its masterpieces are the withered and
dehumanised; its victims are the paupers and the suicides.
Nor can we leave out of account in studying competitive
production the waste of material, and of the time spent in
working it up, which result from over-production. The
accumulation of stock while the demand is lessening means
the making and storing of unneeded wares. Some of these
are forced into the market, some lie idly in the great
warehouses. The retail dealers find themselves over
stocked, their shelves laden with unsaleable goods. These
fade, and spoil, and rust away—so much good material
wasted, so much human labor spent for nought, monu
ments of a senseless system, of the barbarous, uncalcu
lating blindness of our productive force.
More heavily yet than on the capitalist does competition
press on the distributor. A dozen traders compete for the
custom which one could satisfactorily supply. The com
petition for shops in a thickly populated neighborhood
drives up the rent, and so adds to the retailer’s burden. He
is compelled to spend large sums in advertising, striving
by brilliancy of color or eccentricity of design to impress
himself on the public mind. An army of commercial
travellers sweeps over the country, each man with his
hand against his neighbor in the same trade, pushing,
haggling, puffing his own, depreciating his rival’s wares.
These agents push their goods on the retailer, often when
no real demand for them is coming from the public, and
then the retailer puffs them, to create a demand on his
supply. Nor must we omit from notice the enormous
waste of productive energy in this army of canvassers,
advertisers, bill-posters, multiplied middlemen of every
kind. The distributive work done by these is absurdly out
�:26
MODERN SOCIALISM.
of proportion to their number. We see several carriers’
carts half-filled, instead of half the number filled; each
carrier has to deliver goods over the whole of a wide area,
so that a man may have to drive five miles to deliver a
single parcel at a house a stone’s throw from a rival office.
Yet each man must receive his full day’s wage, and must
be paid for the hours he is compelled to waste, as well
as for those he spends in useful work. It is the ■ same
thing in every business. Three or four carts of each
trade daily down each road, covering the same ground,
supplying each one house here and one there, losing time,
wearing out horses and traps, a foolish shameful waste.
And all these unnecessary distributors are consumers when
they might be producers, and are actually making unneces
sary work for others as well as for themselves.
Short-sighted people ask: Would you add all these to
the crowds of half-starving unemployed now competing
for work? No, we answer. We would not add them to
the ^employed; it is only in a system of complete com
petitive anarchy that there could be unemployed labor on
the one hand, and people clamoring for the necessaries
of life on the other. We have already seen that under
the present system men are only employed where some
profit can be made out of them by the person who hires
them. Under a saner system there would be none unem
ployed while the food and clothing supply was insufficient,
and the turning of non-productive consumers into produc
tive ones would only mean shorter hours of labor, since
the labor necessary to supply the consumption of the
population would be divided among a larger number than
before. If wealth be the result of labor applied to raw
material, poverty may come from the pressure of popula
tion on the raw material which limits the means of sub
sistence, but never from the greater part of the population
working to produce wealth on raw material sufficient for
their support.
On the consumer falls much of the needless additional
expense of advertisements, canvassers, and the rest. The
flaming advertisements we see on the walls we pay for in
the price of the puffed articles we buy. The trader feels
their burden, and tries to recoup himself by adding u
fraction of it to the price of the goods he sells. If he is
forced to lower his nominal prices in consequence of the
�MODERN SOCIADISM.
27
pressure of competition with his rivals, yet by adulteration
he can really raise, while he seems to lower, them. The
nominal width of fabrics does not correspond with the
real; woollen goods are sold of which the warp is cotton ;
tobacco is sold damped unfairly to increase its weight;
sand is mixed with sugar; lard or dripping with butter ;
chicory with coffee; sloe-leaves with tea; turnip with
orange in marmalade ; foreign meat is offered as home
grown ; damaged flesh is chopped up for sausages; until,
at last, as Moffat caustically remarks: “It is not rogues
and vagabonds alone who have recourse in trade to ex
pedients which could not be justified by a strict theoretical
morality. When this incline is entered upon, there is no
resting upon it. Morality itself becomes subject to com
petition ; and the conventional standard of trade morality
gets lower and lower, until the things done by respectable
people can hardly be distinguished from those done by
people who are not respectable, except by the respectability
of the people who do them” (p. 154). And in all this
adulteration the consumer suffers in health, comfort, and
temper. Not only does he pay more than he should for
what he buys, but he buys a good deal more than he
pays for.
Heaviest of all is the burden on the operative classes,
and they suffer in a double character, both as consumers
and producers. As consumers, they share the general in
jury ; as producers, their case is yet more serious. If they
are in work, their wages are driven down by the competi
tion for employment; they are the first to feel a lessening
demand in lengthened hours, in lower wage; as the de
pression goes on, they are thrown out of work; illness not
■only incapacitates them for the time, but their place is filled
up, while they lie helpless, by the eager waiters for hire ;
when they combine to strike for fairer treatment, the fringe
of unemployed labor around is used against them by the
employers ; the lowest depth is reached by the crowd who
at the dockyard gates at the East of London literally fight
for a place in which the foreman’s eye may fall on them,
and out of the struggling hundreds units are taken on for
the day at miserable wage for heavy exhausting work, to
be turned out at night to undergo a similar struggle next
morning.
The only classes who gain by competition are the big
�28
MODERN SOCIALISM.
capitalists and the landlords. The big capitalists engaged
in manufacture gain by the crushing out of their smaller
rivals, and by their ability to hold over stocks produced
when wages are low until prices are high. Capitalists
who only lend out money on usury, and live on the interest
thereby obtained, flourish when the demand for money is
brisk. Most of all do landlords, who live on rent, profit
by the struggle. In a growing neighborhood rents of
commercial premises rise rapidly, and the shopkeeper finds
himself heavily taxed by the landlord, who imposes on him
practically a graduated income-tax for his own advantage.
Thus the chief gainers by competition are the idlers who
are permitted to hold the nation’s soil, and who live in
luxury on the toilers, laughing to see how the fratricidal
struggles of those who labor turn to the advantage of
those who lounge. And so the strain of living constantly
increases for the one class, while the luxury and ostenta
tion of those who levy tax on toil become ever greater,
and more aggressive by the contrast.
II. The Remedy.—These evils can be radically cured
only in one way; it is by the substitution of co-operation
for competition, of organisation for anarchy in industry.
The relation of employer and employed must disappear,
and a brotherhood of workers, associated for facilitation
of production for use, must replace the band of servants
toiling for the enrichment of a master by profit. The full
details of socialised industry cannot be drawn at length ;
but it is not difficult to see that the already existent co
operative societies offer a suggestive model, and the trades
unions a sufficiently competent means for change. Pro
bably each industry in each district will organise itself,
and own, for use, all its means of production; thus the
miners of Durham, for instance, organised in their lodges,
with their central executive, would form the mining trade
society of that district; all the mines of that district
would be under their control, and they would elect their
officers of all grades. So with all mining districts through
out the land. These separate trade societies would be
federated, and a General Board elected by all. The
elements of such a self-organised industry exist at the
present time, and the more closely the miners can band
themselves into district unions, and the unions into a
national federation, the more prepared will they be to play
�.MODERN SOCIALISM.
29
their part in the great industrial revolution. It is probable
that something of the nature of the royalties now paid to
the individual mine-owners will be paid into the National
Exchequer, in exchange for the right to work the national
soil. A similar organisation would be needed for each
productive industry, and probably representatives of each
separate industry would form a central Industrial Board.
But, I repeat, these details cannot now be laid down autho
ritatively, any more than the details of the present in
dustrial competitive system could have been laid down
before the Industrial Period. On these details Socialists
would inevitably differ considerably at the present time,
and no special scheme can be fairly stamped as “ Socialist ”
to the exclusion of the rest. But on this main principle all
Socialists are agreed; that the only rightful holders of
capital are industrial groups, or one great industrial group
—the State, i.e., the organised community; that while
individuals may hold private property for use, none should
hold capital—that is wealth employed in production—for
individual profit; that while each may have property to
consume and to enjoy, none should be allowed to use
property to enslave his neighbor, to force another to work
for his advantage.
The revolution in distribution will be as great as that
in production, and here again co-operation must take the
place of competition. We already see the beginnings of a
distributive change in the establishment of huge stores for
the supply of all the necessaries of life, and the way in
which these are crushing out the smaller retail shops.
Housewives find it more convenient to go to the single
building, than to trudge wearily from shop to shop. Goods
bought in very large quantities can be sold more cheaply
than if bought in small, and economy, as well as con
venience, attract the purchaser to the store. At present
these stores are founded by capitalists and compete for
custom, but they are forerunners of a rational distributive
system. The very enmity they create in the minds of the
small traders they ruin is paving the way for the com
munity to take them over for the general advantage.
Under Socialism all goods manufactured by the producers
would be distributed to the central store of each district;
from this central store they would be distributed to the
retail stores. Anyone who thinks such distribution im-
�30
MODERN SOCIALISM.
possible had better study the postal system now existing ;
we do not have post-offices jostling each other as dobaker’s and butcher’s shops: there are sufficient of them
for the requirements of the district, and no more. The
letters for a town are delivered at the General Post Office;
they are sorted out and delivered at the subordinate offices ;
the distribution of the correspondence of millions is carried
on by a Government Department, quietly, effectively,
without waste of labor, with celerity and economy. But
then in -the Post Office co-operation has replaced com
petition, organisation has replaced anarchy. Such a system,
one hundred years ago, would have been pronounced
impossible, as the Conservative minds of to-day pronounce
impossible its extension to anything except letters and
telegrams and parcels. I look for the time when the
success of the Post Office will be repeated—and improved
—in every department of distribution.
Capital.
We have already seen that Capital is accumulated by
withholding from the producer a large part of the value he
produces, and we have now to look more closely into the
growth of Capital and the uses to which it is put. A
glance over the historical Past, as well as the study of
the Present, inform us that Capital has always been—as
indeed it always must be—obtained from unpaid labor, or,
if the phrase be preferred, by the partial confiscation of
the results of labor. In communities the economic basis of
which was slave-labor, this fact was obvious; the owner
confiscated the whole products of his slaves’ toil, and he
became a capitalist by this process of continued confiscation ;
while the slave, fed, clothed, and housed out of the fruit
of his own labor by his master, never owned anything as of
right, nor had any property in that which he created. As
civilisation advanced, serf-labor replaced slave-labor; here
also the confiscation of the results of labor was obvious.
The serf was bound to give so many days of work to his
lord without payment; this service rendered, the remainder
of his time was his own, to produce for his own subsist
ence ; but the lord’s capital increased by the confiscation
of the results of the serf’s labor during the days whereon
he worked for his lord. In modern times “free labor”
has replaced serf-labor, but in the present industrial system,
�MODERN SOCIALISM.
31
as truly as in slave and in serf communities, Capital resultsfrom unpaid labor, though now from the unpaid labor of
the wage-earner. We may search the whole world over,
and we shall find no source of wealth save labor applied
to natural agents. Wealth is never rained down from
heaven, nor is it ever a spontaneous growth; unless indeed
wild fruits taken for food be counted wealth, and even to
these must human labor be applied in the form of picking
ere they can be used. It is the result of huipan labor;
and if one man has more than he has produced, it neces
sarily follows that another man has less than he has pro
duced. The gain of one must be the loss of another. There
are but sixteen court cards in the fifty-two, and if by in
genious shuffling, packing, and dealing, all the court cards
fall to one player, only the lower cards can remain for the
others.
Separating “Capital” from “Wealth” we may conve
niently define it as “wealth devoted to purposes of profit”,
and as “wealth is the result of labor applied to raw ma
terial”, Capital becomes the result of labor devoted to
purposes of profit. John Stuart Mill says the “ accumu
lated stock of the produce of labor is termed Capital ”.
Macleod: “ Capital is any Economic Quantity used for the
purpose of Profit ”. Senior: “Economists are agreed that
whatever gives a profit is properly called Capital ”. Some
thing more, however, than the activity of labor is implied
in the existence of Capital. There must have been saving,
as well as production. Hence Marshall speaks of Capital
as “the result of labor and abstinence”; Mill of Capital
as “ the result of saving ” ; and so on. It is obvious that
if the products of labor were consumed as fast as they
were made, Capital could not exist. We have, therefore,
reached this certainty when we contemplate Capital; some
one has worked, and has not consumed all that he has
produced.
Under these circumstances, we should expect to find
Capital in the hands of industrious and abstinent pro
ducers. But as Mill very justly points out: “In a rude
and violent state of society it continually happens that the
person who has Capital is not the very person who has
saved it, but some one who, being stronger, or belonging
to a more powerful community, has possessed himself of
it by plunder. And even in a state of things in which
�32
MODERN SOCIALISM.
property was protected, the increase of Capital has usually
been, for a long time, mainly derived from privations
which, though essentially the same with saving, are not
generally called by that name, because not voluntary. The
actual producers have been slaves, compelled to produce
as much as force could extort from them, and to consume
as little as the self-interest or the usually very slender
humanity of their task-masters would permit.” How
many of our great capitalists have produced and saved
until they accumulated the fortunes they possess ? These
fortunes are greater than any human being could save
out of his makings, even if he lived most abstemiously,
instead of with the luxury and ostentation of a Rothschild
or a Vanderbilt. But if they have not made and saved,
how come they to possess ? Mill gives the answer, though
he did not mean it to be applied to modern industrialism.
“Ina rude and violent state of society ” Capital is not in
the hands of the producer and saver, but in the hands of
those who possess themselves “of it by plunder”—legal
ised plunder, in our modern days. The “saving” is not
voluntary; it is “derived from privations ” ; the “actual
producers ” are wage-earners, who are “ compelled to pro
duce as much as” pressure can extort from them, and to
“consume as little” in the form of wage as they can be
beaten down to by the competition of the labor-market.
These men “ have labored, and” others “have entered into
their labors ”.
A very brief comparison of those who produce and save,
and those who possess themselves of the results of labor
and abstinence, will suffice to show the inequality which
characterises the present system. The worker lives hardly
and dies poor, bequeathing to his children the same neces
sity of toil: I do not forget that the more fortunate workers
have shares in Building Societies, a few pounds in the
Savings Bank, and even an interest in a Burial Club, so
that the parish may not have the expense of burying them ;
but I say that these poor successes—vast indeed in the
aggregate, but paltry when the share of the individual is
looked at—bear no kind of reasonable proportion to the
wealth created by the worker during his life-time. On
the other hand the capitalist either starts with inherited
wealth, grows richer, and bequeaths the increased wealth
to his children; or he begins poor, saves a little, then
�33
MODERN SOCIALISM.
makes others work for him, grows rich, and bequeaths his
wealth. In the second generation, the capitalist can simply
invest his wealth and live on the interest; and since all in
terest must be paid out of the results of labor, the workers
not only lose a large proportion of their produce, but this
very confiscated produce is made into a future burden for
them, and while the fathers build up the capitalist, the
children must toil to maintain his children in idleness.
Capital may also be accumulated by the ownership of raw
material, since no wealth can be produced until labor can
get at this. The question of rent will be considered under
the head of Land; here we are only concerned with the
fact that wealth appropriated in this way is investible, and
on this also interest can be obtained.
Now the enormous burden placed on labor by the invest
ment of money at interest, is not appreciated as it ought
to be. The interest on the National Debt, including terminable annuities, amounted in 1884-5 to £28,883,672 12s.;
how much is paid in dividends on railway, tram-car, and
companies’ shares, it would be difficult to discover. Mr.
Giffen, in his “ Progress of the Working Classes ”, esti
mates that the capitalist classes receive from capital—ex
cluding “wages of superintendence” and salaries—some
£400,000,000 a year. In 1881, the income-tax returns
quoted by Mr. Giffen show that the income from capital
was no less than £407,000,000, and in estimating those in.
Schedules B and D (Part I.) Mr. Giffen certainly takes care
to make the gains on “idle capital” as small as he can.
Mr. Giffen takes the aggregate income of the whole nation
at about £1,200,000,000, so that according to his own
figures Capital takes more than a third part of the national
income. I should be prepared to contend that the burden
on the producers is heavier than he makes out, but even
taking his own calculations the result is bad enough. For
all this money which goes to capitalists is money not earned
by the receivers—mark that all which is in any sense
earned, as wages of superintendence, etc., is excluded—and
by . all this is lessened the share of the produce of labor
which goes to labor.
We have already dealt with the way in which the worker
suffers injustice when capital is invested in machinery
owned by private individuals; we have now to consider
the portion of it used as loans, cases in which the capitalist
D
�34
MODERN SOCIALISM.
takes no part in the management of any industrial con
cern, but merely lends his money at usury, living on the
interest he receives. There is so much confusion of thought
on this subject, so much idea that a man has “a right”
to invest money at interest, that it is necessary to try to
get at the “bed-rock” of the question. Take the case of
a man who earns 30s. in a week; suppose he spends 20s.
and saves 10s. For the 20s. he spends he receives their
equivalent in commodities, and these he consumes; he has
had his “money’s worth”, and he is content, and if he
requires more commodities he knows he must labor again
to earn their equivalent in money. The 10s. he has saved,
however, are to have a different fate; they represent, also,
so much possibility of possession of their equivalent in
commodities which he could consume; but he desires to
defer this consumption to a future day, to defer it, perhaps,
until he is too old to give labor in exchange for his needs.
One might suppose that the equivalent of commodities for
the 10s. would be as satisfactory as the equivalent of com
modities for the 20s. But it is not so. He desires to in
vest his 10s. at interest; let us suppose he invests it at 5
per cent.; at the end of twenty years he will have received
back his 10s. by instalments of 6d. a year, and will have
exchanged it for 10s. worth of commodities; yet at the end
of the twenty years he expects to receive back in addition
his full 10s.; to have spent it all, and yet to find it un
diminished ; so that for his 10s. saved he expects to receive
20s. worth of commodities in twenty years, to have his
labor paid for twice over. In the case of money only is it
possible to eat your cake and have it, and after you have
eaten it to pass it on as large as ever to your descendants,
so that they may eat it and yet find it, like the widow’s
cruse, ever miraculously renewed.
Those who defend usury do so generally on its supposed
collateral advantages, rather than on its central theory. It
is argued that “ if a man gets no interest on his savings, he
has no incitement to work ”. To this it may be answered: (a)
That there is clearly no incitement to work on the part of
those who live on interest, since their money comes tumbling
in whether they work or idle ; it is the labor of others on
which the interest-receiver lives. (J) That the incitement
to work would be greater if the reward of work were not
diminished by the imposition on it of a tax for the benefit
�MODERN SOCIALISM.
35
of the idle ; surely the abstraction of £400,000,000 annually
for interest can hardly act as an incitement to those whose
Habor returns are diminished to that extent. (<?) That the
real incitement to work is the desire to possess the result
of labor, and that the more completely that desire is satis
fied the greater will the incitement become. Would the
incitement to tramcar employees be lessened, if the necessity
of paying 10 per cent, on shareholders’ capital no longer
kept down their wages ? But, in truth, this argument as
to incitement to workers is either ignorant, or disingenuous.
'The mainspring of the worker’s toil is, as a matter of fact,
•compulsion, not the incitement of hope of reward. Had
he control over the product of his own labor, then thp
desire to obtain more might incite him to work harder, as,
indeed, has been found to be the case with piece-work, and
in co-operative undertakings: with his fixed wage it is to
him a matter of indifference how much or how little he
produces. The desire for interest is an incitement to the
capitalist to press his wage-toilers to work harder, so that
■after he has satisfied his own power of consumption he
may lay by all the surplus value he can squeeze out of
them, and increase the capital he has out at interest. The
higher the interest obtainable, the greater the compulsion
to work put upon the producers. But this compulsion is
■clearly an evil, not a good, and in the case of the tramcar
employees just cited, it is compulsion which forces them to
accept the long hours of labor, and the compulsion is exer
cised in order to obtain interest for the shareholders.
11 The incitement to thrift will disappear.” But (a) the
interest obtainable by “thrift” is too small to serve as an
incitement, for the savings of the industrious poor are not
sufficient to give interest enough to subsiston. The Savings
Banks are resorted to as a convenient place wherein to put
money saved for future use; it is the safe keeping of the
money “for a rainy day ”, not the trifling interest, which is
the attraction to the anxious poor. The small amount per
mitted to an individual and the low interest are sufficient
proofs of this assertion; no one must put in more than £30
in a year, the interest is only 2-| per cent., and this is not
paid yearly, but is added to the principal. And this future
necessity is the real incitement to thrift. A man earns, say,
sufficient this week to support himself for a fortnight;
having satisfied his needs, he does not want to satisfy them
d 2
�36
MODERN SOCIALISM.
twice over ; he knows that some years hence his power of
work will have disappeared, while his necessity of consump
tion will remain, and he defers his consumption of half theresults of his labor till that time. Why should he look
for added power of consumption as a reward for deferring
his consumption for his own convenience? Without in
terest, thoughtful people would save, for the sake of com
fort in their old age. It may however be conceded that
the incitement to annex the results of the thrift of others—the only way in which big fortunes can be made—will
disappear with the disappearance of interest, and the pos
sibility of living idly by taxing the labor of others.
• “ It will not be possible to get money for railroads, tramcars,
etc., if interest on share capital disappearsi But the indes
tructible reason for making railroads, tramways, etc., is theneed for the conveniences they afford. And Socialism
would place the making and carrying on of all means of
transit in the hands of local bodies, municipalities, and soforth, who would raise the requisite funds from the com
munity which is to enjoy the increased facilities. Thesefunds would be used in remuneration of the labor expended
on them, and none would have a right to levy a perpetual
tax on the public on the pretence of having lent the
money originally employed in the construction. Now a
man claims the right to tax all future labors and all future
consumers for the benefit of his posterity, as a reward
for having worked and saved, or mostly as a reward for
having transferred into his own pockets the results of his
neighbor’s toil. It is time that the immorality of this claim
should be pointed out, and that people should be told that
while they may rightly save and live on their savings,
they ought not to use their savings for the enslavement
and the taxing of other people. An effective step towards
the abolition of interest might be taken by the closing of
the sources of idle investment, the taking over by local
bodies of the local means of transit, the gas and water
supply, etc., while the central authority takes over the
railways. The question of compensation would be solved
with the least amount of injustice to exploiters and ex
ploited by paying over a yearly dividend to shareholders
until the dividends amounted to a sum equal to the nominal
value of the shares held; thus a £100 share would be
extinguished by the payment of a sum of £ 10 annually for
�MODERN SOCIALISM.
37
ten years, leaving the shareholder richer than he was
originally by all the interest received during the past, but
terminating his right to tax within a brief period.
There is, however, one argument in favor of interest
which brings conviction to many minds; an individual
wants to perform a piece of productive work, but has no
•capital and is unable to do it; he borrows the capital and
performs the work; since the man who lent the capital has
facilitated the doing of the work, ought he not to share
in the product, which would have had no existence but for
his capital ? Now it might be answered to this that if his
capital is returned to him in full he has lost nothing by
the transaction, but has, on the contrary, gained the ad
vantage of having his money taken care of without trouble
to himself, and returned to him uninjured at the time that
he requires it. But the real answer is that interest is in
evitable so long as Capital remains in private hands, so
long as individuals are permitted to annex the results of
the unpaid labor of others, and so manufacture a lien on
all future industry. Interest will only be abolished when
the results of the past unpaid labor of many are held by
the many to facilitate the future labor of many. Now,
industry can only be carried on with the permission and
the assistance of those whose stores of wealth have been
piled up for them by thousands of patient toilers; and that
permission and assistance can only be gained by taxing
labor for the enrichment of the lender. In the future those
vast stores will be used to carry on production, and while
labor will constantly replace the capital it uses in produc
tion, it will not also be taxed for the benefit of individuals.
Interest and private property in the means of production
must stand and fall together. At the present time no law
against usury could be passed, and even were the passing
of such a law possible it would be a dead letter, so
thoroughly is the present system built on the paying of
interest. All Socialists can do for the moment is to expose
the fundamental dishonesty and injustice of usury, and so
pave the way for a better state of things.
Apart from the abuse of Capital here indicated Capital
has a function which, of course, no Socialist ignores. Capital
is necessary for all forms of industry, and its function is:
to save labor, as by machinery; to facilitate it, by the in
troduction of improvements therein ; to support it while it
�38
MODERN SOCIALISM.
is employed in production, and until its products are ex
changed. The true use of the savings of past labor is ta
lighten future labor, to fertilise production. But in order
that it may be thus used, it must be in the hands of the
community instead of in the hands of individuals. Beingas it is, and must be, the result of unpaid labor, it should
pass to the community to be used for the common good,
instead of to individuals to enrich them to the common
loss.
Land.
It is hardly necessary to argue, at this time of day, that
Land, i.e., natural agents, ought not to be the private pro
perty of individuals. No absolute property in land is in
deed recognised by the laws of this realm, but the proposi
tion that land ought not to be private property goes, of
course, much further than this legal doctrine. It declares
that the soil on whieh a nation lives ought to belong tothe nation; that those who cultivate it, or who mine in it,
and who for practical purposes must have for the time the
exclusive usufruct of portions of it, should pay into the
national exchequer a duly-assessed sum, thus rendering an
equivalent for the privilege they enjoy, and making the
whole community sharers in the benefits derived from
natural agents.
The present system of permitting private ownership of
land has led to three great and increasing evils ; the esta
blishment of an idle class, which grows richer by increas
ingly taxing the industrious; the divorce of the really
agricultural class from the soil; the exodus from the country
districts into the towns.
Private ownership of natural agents must inevitably re
sult in the first of these three evils. These natural agents
are the basis of wealth; the very subsistence of the nation
depends on their utilisation; yet a comparatively small class
is permitted to claim them as private property, and to appro
priate the rent to its private use. Hence, one of the first
charges on the results of labor is rent, and rent, be it
noted, not to the community, but to an individual who has
acquired the legal right to stand between labor and land.
Now just as wage is determined practically by the standard
of living, so is rent determined by the same thing. The
landlord exacts as rent the value of the produce minus the
�MODERN SOCIALISM.
39
subsistence of the tenant, and in many cases, if the farmer’s
receipts sink and there is no corresponding lowering of
rent, the farmer cannot even subsist, and becomes bank
rupt. Hence, if a farmer improves the land and so obtains
from it larger returns, the landlord steps in and raises his
rent, claiming ever as his, produce minus subsistence, and
confiscating for his own advantage the results of the labor
and invested capital of the farmer. Thus also with the
spread of commercial prosperity comes a rise in the tax
levied by the landlords; as towns grow larger the land
around them becomes more valuable, and thus the Stanleys
grow wealthy by the growth of Liverpool, and the Gros
venors and Russells by that of London : competition drives
up rents, and landlords may live in Italy or Turkey, and
become ever wealthier by the growth of English trade, and
the toil of English laborers. Moffat points out (“ Economy
of Consumption,” p. 142) that part of the retailer’s profit,
and possibly the larger part of it “ is purely local, and
which he could not carry away with him. It distinguishes
the site of his business, and resolves itself into rent. If
the retailer owns his own premises, he may be content with
this part of his profits, and handing the business to another
become a landlord. If they are owned by another, the owner,
unless the retailer is able to find other suitable premises
within a moderate distance, will be able to levy all the
extra profit from him in the shape of rent. Hence the
rapid rise of rents in the central localities of large towns.”
Socialists are accused of desiring to confiscate property but
the regular and uncensured confiscation of the property of
busy people by idlers, the bloodsucking of the landlord
leeches, pass unnoticed year by year, and Society honors
the confiscators. The expropriation of small cultivators
has been going on for the last 400 years, partly by big
landlords buying up small ones, and partly by their thefts
of common land. The story of Naboth’s vineyard has been
repeated in hundreds of country districts. The exorbitant
rents demanded by landlords, with the pressure of Ameri
can competition aided by capitalists on this side, have
ruined the farming class, while the absorption of small
holdings has turned into day-laborers at miserable wage
the class that formerly were independent tillers of the soil.
Attracted by the higher wage ruling in manufacturing
towns this dislanded class has flocked into them, has
�40
MODERN SOCIALISM.
crowded into unsuitable houses, increased the slums of our
great cities, and, under most unwholesome conditions has
multiplied with terrible rapidity. This exodus has been
further quickened by the letting of formerly arable land
for sheep-pasture, and the consequent forced migration of
the no longer needed tillers. And thus have come about
the under-population of the agricultural districts, and the
over-crowding of cities : too few engaged in agricultural,
and too many competing for industrial, employment; until
we find our own land undercultivated, and even in some
districts going out of cultivation, while food is being im
ported to an alarming extent, and the unemployed are
becoming a menace to public tranquillity. The effect on
England of revolution abroad is apt to be overlooked in
studying our own labor difficulties. A considerable portion
of our imports represents rent and interest from estates
abroad and foreign investments. This portion would sud
denly stop as regards any country in which a revolution
occurred, and foreign workmen were, in consequence, no
longer subjected to exploitation for the benefit of English
capitalists. Now this likelihood of foreign revolution is
yearly increasing, and Europe is becoming more and more
like a boiler with armed forces sitting on the safety valve.
The first attempt to move in the right direction is the
Land Cultivation Bill introduced into the House of Com
mons by Charles Bradlaugh. This proposes to expropriate
landlords who hold cultivable land waste; to give them,
as compensation, payment for twenty-five years equal in
amount to the annual value of the produce obtained from
the confiscated land—so that if there is no produce there
will be no payment; to vest the land in the State, and to
let it, not sell it, to cultivators. Thus, if the Bill passed,
a large area of land would be nationalised early in next
year. Such an Act, followed up by others taking over all
land let on building leases as they run out—probably pay
ing to the present landlords, for life, the original ground
rents ; making the Land Tax an adequate rent paid to the
State; taking back without compensation all common lands
that have been stolen; breaking up the big estates by crush
ing taxation; steps like these, if taken with sufficient
rapidity, may effect a complete Land Revolution without
violence, and establish Socialism so far as the ownership of
natural agents is concerned.
�MODERN SOCIALISM.
41
It is of vital importance to progress in a Socialist direc
tion that an uncompromising resistance should be offered
to all schemes for the creation of new proprietors of the
soil. Peasant cultivators, paying rent to the State, are
good. Peasant proprietors are a mere bulwark, raised by
landlords to guard their own big estates, and will delay the
realisation of the true theory that the State should be the
only landowner. It is also important that Socialists should
popularise the idea of communal, or co-operative, farming.
There can be no doubt that cereal crops can be raised most
economically on large holdings, and such holdings should
be rented from the body or bodies representing the com
munity by groups of cultivators, so that both large and
small farms should be found in agricultural districts. But
it must be distinctly stated that the Socialisation of Land
without the Socialisation of Capital will not solve the social
problem. No replanting of the people in the soil, no im
proved balance of agricultural and industrial production,
will by themselves free the wage-slaves of our towns.
Means of production, as well as natural agents, must come
under the control of the community, before the triumph of
Socialism can be complete. The tendency of Radicals to
aim only at the nationalisation of land has an effect, how
ever, which will ultimately prove of service. It irritates
the landlord class, and the landlords devote themselves to
proving that there is no essential difference between pro
perty in Land and property in Capital. Just as they helped
to pass the Factory Acts to restrain capitalists as a retort
for the capitalist agitation against the Corn Laws, so they
will be likely to help in nationalising Capital in revenge
for the nationalisation of Land.
Education.
For the successful maintenance of a Socialist State a wide
and thorough system of national education is an absolute
necessity. A governed people may afford to be ignorant;
a self-ruling community must be instructed, or it must
perish. And the education contemplated by Socialism is
a very different thing from the paltry modicum of know
ledge deemed sufficient for the “masses” to-day. Under
our present system education is a matter of class, and it
is a misnomer to call it “national” ; it is partly supported
by the parents of the children who attend the Board
�42
MODERN SOCIALISM.
Schools, and partly by the rates and taxes; it is limited to
the mere elements of learning; the one object of the
teachers is to cram the children so that they may pass
stated examinations, and thus obtain a Government grant
per head. Under Socialism the whole system will be
revolutionised, as the one aim then will be to educate in
such a way as will ensure the greatest possible healthy
development of the young, with a view to their future
position as members of a free community.
The foundations of complete social equality will be laid
in the school. All the children will be educated in the
communal schools, the only distinction being that of age.
Boys and girls will not be separated as they are now,
but a common education will prepare for common work.
Every child will be led through a course, which will em
brace a thorough training in the elements of the various
sciences, so that in after life he may feel an intelligent
interest in each, and if his taste so lead him acquire later
a fuller knowledge of any special branches. He—and
“ he ” here includes “ she ”—will be instructed also in the
elements of art, so that the sense of beauty may be
developed and educated, and the refining influence of
instructed taste may enrich both mind and. manners. .A
knowledge of history, of literature, and of languages will
widen sympathy and destroy narrowness and national
prejudices. Nor will physical training be forgotten;
gymnastics, dancing, riding, athletic games, will educate
the senses and the limbs, and give vigor, quickness,
dexterity, and robustness to the frame. To this will be
superadded technical training, for these educated, cultured,
graceful lads and lasses are to be workers, every one of
them. The foundations of this technical training will be
the same for all; all will learn to cook and scrub, to dig
and sew, and to render quick assistance in accidents; it
is probable also that the light portions of household
duties will form part of the training of every child. But
as the child grows into the youth, natural capacities will
suggest the special training which should be given, so. as
to secure for the community the full advantages which
might accrue from the varied abilities of its members. No
genius then will be dwarfed by early neglect, no rare
ability then perish for lack of culture. Individuality will
then at last find full expression, and none will need to
�MODERN SOCIALISM.
43-
trample on his brother in order to secure full scope for
his own development. It is probable that each will learn
more than a single trade—an easy task when brain acute
ness and manual dexterity have been cultured—so as topromote adaptability in the future industrial life.
Now to many, I fear to most, of my readers, this sketch
of what education will be in a Socialist community will
appear a mere Utopian dream. Yet is it not worth while
for such to ask themselves: Why should not such an
education be the natural lot of every child in a wellordered community ? Is there anything in it superfluous
for the thorough development of the faculties of a human
being? And if it be admitted that boys and girls thuseducated would form nobler, completer, more many-sided
human beings than are the men and women of to-day,
is it not a rational thing to set up as an object to beworked for the realisation of an idea which would proveof incalculable benefit to the community ?
It is hardly necessary to add that education, in a Socialist
State, would be “free ”—i.e., supported at the public cost,
and compulsory. Free, because the education of the young
is of vital importance to the community; because classdistinctions can only be effaced by the training of children
in common schools; because education is too important a
matter to be left to the whims of individuals, and if it be
removed from the parent’s direction and supervision it is
not just to compel him to pay for it. Compulsory, because
the State cannot afford to leave its future citizens ignorant
and helpless, and it is bound to protect its weak members
against injustice and neglect.
Two objections are likely to be raised: the question of
cost, and the question of unfitting persons for “the dirty
work of the world, which someone must do ”.
As to cost. It must not be forgotten that this education
is proposed for a Socialist community. In such a Statethere would be no idle adult class to be supported, but
all would be workers, so that the wealth, produced would
be much greater than at the present time. Now according
to the figures of anti-Socialist Mr. Giffen, the aggregate
income of the people is at present about £1,200,000,000 ;
of this the workers are assigned by him £620,000,000;
deduct another £100,000,000 for return from investments
abroad; this leaves £480,000,000 absorbed by the non
�44
MODERN SOCIALISM.
producing class. (It must be remembered, further, that a
large number of the “workers” are unnecessary distribu
tors, whose powers could be utilised to much better purpose
than is done to-day.) The wealth producers have to bear
the Church on their shoulders, and provide it with an
income variously stated at from £6,000,000 to £10,000,000
a year. They have to bear the “landed interest”, with
its appropriation in rents, royalties, etc., of something like
£200,000,000. They have to bear the ultimate weight of im
perial and local taxation, estimated at about £120,000,000
for the present year. All these charges, by whomsoever
nominally paid, have to come out of the wealth produced
by the workers. Is it then to be pretended that when the
idle class has disappeared there will not be wealth enough
produced for the education of the children, or that their
■education will be as heavy a burden as the drones are to
day ? Nor must it be forgotten that there are millions of
acres of land that would produce wealth if labor were sent
to them, and that plenty of our idlers will there find produc
tive work which will enormously increase the national wealth.
Nor also that the waste which results from luxurious idle
living will be of the past, and that a simpler, manlier rate
of expenditure will have replaced the gluttony and intem
perance now prevalent in the “ higher circles of society ”.
But it will indeed be of vital importance that the propor
tion of workers to non-workers shall be considered, and
that there shall not be in a Socialist community the over
large families which are a characteristic of the present
system. Families of ten or a dozen children belong to
the capitalist system, which requires for its success a
numerous and struggling proletariat, propagating with
extreme rapidity, so as to keep up a plentiful supply of
men, women, and children for the labor-market, as well
as a supply of men for the army to be food for cannon,
and women for the streets to be food for lust. Under a
Socialist regime, the community will have something to
■say as to the numbers of the new members that are to
be introduced into it, and for many years supported by it;
and it will prefer a reasonable number of healthy, welleducated children, to a yearly huge increase which would
overburden its industry.
As to unfitting persons for work. So long as manual work
is regarded as degrading, education, by increasing sensi
�MODERN SOCIALISM.
45
tiveness to public opinion, tends to make people shrink
from it, at least if their sensitiveness is greater than their
intelligence. But even now an educated person of strong
will and clear judgment, who knows that all useful work
is worthy of respect, finds that his education fits him to
perform work more quickly and more intelligently than is
possible to an ignorant person ; and respecting himself in
its thorough accomplishment he is conscious of no degra
dation. Weak persons, compelled to labor for their bread,
and aware that manual work is considered to place the
worker in a subordinate social class, feel ashamed of the
inferior position assigned to them by public opinion; and
knowing by experience that they will be snubbed if they
treat their “ superiors” as equals, they live down to their
social rank, and long to raise their children into a class
above their own. One consequence of the absurd artificial
disadvantage attached to manual work, is that the children
of the more successful workers crowd the inferior profes
sional occupations, and a man prefers to be a clerk or a
curate on £90 a year to being an artisan on £150. But in
the Socialist State only idleness will be despised, and all
useful work will be honored. There is nothing more
intrinsically degrading in driving a plough than in driving
a pen, although the ploughman is now relegated to the
kitchen while the clerk is received in the drawing-room.
The distinction is primarily a purely artificial one, but it is
made real by educating the one tvpe while the other is left
ignorant, and by teaching the one to look on his work as
work “fit for a gentleman”, while the other is taught that
his work is held in low social esteem. Each reflects the
surrounding public opinion, and accepts the position
assigned by it. In Socialism, both will be educated
together as children; both will be taught to look on. all
work as equally honorable, if useful to the community;
both will be cultured “ gentlemen ”, following each his
natural bent; the ploughman will be as used to his pen
as the clerk; the clerk as ready to do heavy work as the
ploughman; and as public opinion will regard them as
equals and will hold them in equal honor, neither will feel
any sense of superiority or inferiority, but they will meet
on common ground as men, as members of a social unity.
As to the physically unpleasant work—such as dealing
with sewers, dung-heaps, etc.—much of that will probably
�46
MODERN SOCIALISM.
be done by machinery, when there is no helpless class on
whose shoulders it may be bound. Such as cannot be
■done by machinery, will probably be divided among a
large number, each taking a small share thereof, and the
amount done by each will thus become so insignificant,
that it will be but slightly felt. In any case the profound
■selfishness, which would put all burden on a helot class,
and rather see it brutalised by the crushing weight than
bear a portion of the load on one of its fingers, must be
taught that Socialism means equality, and that the divine
right of idlers, to live at ease on the labor of others and
to be shielded by the bodies of the poor from all the un
pleasantnesses of the world, is one of the notions against
which Socialism wars, and which must follow the corre
lative superstition of the divine right of kings.
Justice.
The pretence that under the present system there is one
law for rich and poor is so barefaced a piece of impudence,
that it is hardly worth while to refute it. Everyone knows
that a rich man is fined for an offence for which a poor
man is sent to gaol; that no wise man goes to law unless
he has plenty of money ; that in a litigation between a rich
and a poor man, the poor man practically stands no chance,
for even if he at first succeeds the rich man can appeal,
and secure in the power of his money-bags wear out his
poor antagonist by costly delays and by going from court
to court. The poor man cannot fee first-class counsel, seek
out and bring up his witnesses from various parts of the
•country, and keep a stream of money continually running
through his solicitor’s hands. There might be the same
law for him as for the rich man, if he could get it;
but it is far away behind a golden gate, and he lacks the
key which alone will fit the wards of the lock. Yet surely
one of the primary duties of a State is to do justice among
its members, and to prevent the oppression of the weak
by the strong. In a civilised State justice should be dealt
out without fee or reward; if a man gives up his inherent
right to defend himself and to judge in his own quarrel,
he ought not to be placed in a worse position than he would
be in if society did not exist. Lawyers, like judges,
should be officials paid by the State, and should have no
�MODERN SOCIALISM.
47
pecuniary interest in winning the case in which they are
engaged.
The administration of justice in a Socialist State will be
a very much simpler matter than it is now. Most crimes
arise from the desire to become rich, from poverty, and
from ignorance. Under Socialism poverty and ignorance
will have disappeared, and the desire to grow rich will
have no raison d'etre when everyone has sufficient for com
fort, is free from anxiety as to his future, and sees above
him no wealthy idlers whose luxury he desires to ape, and
whose idleness is held up to him as a matter of envy, as
the ideal state for man.
Amusement.
There is a curious inconsistency in the way in which
people deal with the question of amusement at the present
time. We should have an outcry about “pauperisation”
and “ interference with private enterprise ”, if anyone pro
posed that the theatres should be open to the public without
•charge. Yet Hyde Park is kept gorgeous with flowers,
Eotten Eow is carefully attended to, a whole staff of
workers is employed, in order that the wealthy may have
a fashionable and pleasant lounge ; and all this is done at
the national expense, without any expression of fear Jest
the wealthy should be pauperised by this expenditure on
their behalf. Nor is complaint made of the public money
spent on the other parks in London; the most that is
suggested is that the money wanted ought to be taken
from the London rates and not from the national taxes.
No one proposes that the parks should be sold to the
highest bidder, and that private enterprise should be
encouraged by permitting some capitalist to buy them, and
to make a charge at the gate for admission. It is signi
ficant that once anything gets under State control, the
advantages are found to be so great that no one would
■dream of bringing it back under private exploitation. In
some parks a band plays, and people are actually de
moralised by listening to music for which they do not pay
directly. Nay more ; the British Museum, the National
Gallery, the South Kensington Museum, are all open free,
and no one’s dignity is injured. But if the National
Gallery be open free, why not the Eoyal Academy ? If
a band may be listened to in the open air without pay
�48
MODERN SOCIALISM.
ment, why not in a concert room ? And if a concert may
be free, why not a theatre ? Under the present system,
the Royal Academy, the concert, the theatre, are all private
speculations, and the public is exploited for the profit of
the speculators. The National Gallery and the Museums
are national property, and the nation enjoys the use of its
own possessions. In a nation which has gone so far in
the direction of providing intellectual amusement, it cannot
be pretended that any principle is involved in the question
whether or not it shall go further along the same road.
A nation which collects the works of dead painters can
hardly, on principle, refuse to show the works of living
ones; and we Socialists may fairly urge the success of
what has already been done in the way of catering for the
public amusement as a reason for doing more.
As it is, with the exception of a few places, the poor,
whose lives most need the light of amusement and of
beauty, are relegated to the very lowest and coarsest
forms of recreation. Unreal and intensely vulgar pictures
of life are offered them at the theatres which specially
cater for them; they never have the delight of seeing
really graceful dancing, or noble acting, or of hearing
exquisite music. Verily, the amusements of the wealthier
leave much to be desired, and theatre and music-hall alike
pander to a low and vulgar taste instead of educating and
refining it; but still these are better than their analogues
at the East End. Under Socialism, the theatre will be
come a great teacher instead of a catch-penny spectacle ;
and dramatists and actors alike will work for the honor
of a noble art, instead of degrading their talents to catch
the applause of the most numerous class of an uneducated
people. Then an educated public will demand a higher
art, and artists will find it worth while to study when
patient endeavor meets with public recognition, and crude
impertinence suffers its due reproof. Theatres, concerts,
parks, all places of public resort, will be communal pro
perty, open alike to all, and controlled by elected officers.
Conclusion.
It remains, in conclusion, to note the chief objections
raised to Socialism by its opponents. Of these the .most
generally urged are three: that it will check individual
�MODERN SOCIALISM.
49
initiative and energy; that it will destroy individuality;
that it will unduly restrict personal liberty.
That it will check individual initiative and energy. This
objection is founded on the idea that the impulse to initia
tive must always be desire for personal money gain. But
this idea flies directly in the face of facts. Even under the
individualistic system, no great discovery has ever been
made and proclaimed merely from desire for personal
money profit. The genius that invents is moved by an
imperial necessity of its own nature, and wealth usually
falls to the lot of the commonplace man who exploits the
genius, and not to the genius itself. Even talent is moved
more by joy in its own exercise, and in the public approval
it wins, than by mere hope of money gain. Who would
not rather be an Isaac Newton, a Shelley, or a Shakspere,
than a mere Vanderbilt ? And most of all are those of
strong individual initiative moved by desire to serve their
“larger self”, which is Man. The majority of such
choose the unpopular path, and by sheer strength and
service gradually win over the majority. We see men and
women who might have won wealth, position, power, by
using their talents for personal gain in pursuits deemed
honorable, cheerfully throw all aside to proclaim an un
popular truth, and to serve a cause they believe to be
good and useful. And these motives will become far more
powerful under Socialism than they are now. For the
possession of money looms unduly large to-day in conse
quence of the horrible results of the want of it. The
dread of hunger and of charity is the microscope which
magnifies the value of wealth. But once let all men be
secure of the necessaries and comforts of life, and all the
finer motives of action will take their proper place.
Energy will have its full scope under Socialism, and in
deed when the value of a man’s work is secured to him
instead of the half being appropriated by someone else, it
will receive a new impulse. How great will be the in
centive to exertion when the discovery of some new force,
or new"application of a known force, means greater com
fort for the discoverer and for all; none thrown out of
work by it, none injured by it, but so much solid gain
for each. And for the discoverer, as well as the material
gain common to him and his comrades, the thanks and
praise of the community in which he lives. And let not
�50
MODERN SOCIALISM.
the power of public opinion be undervalued as a stimulus
to exertion. What Greek athlete would have sold his
wreath of bay for its weight in gold ? Only one kind of
energy will be annihilated by Socialism—the energy that
enslaves others for its own gain, and exploits its weaker
brethren for its own profit. For this kind of energy
there will be no room. The coarse purse-proud mediocrity,
who by sheer force of pushing brutality has trampled
his way to the front, will have vanished. The man who
grows rich by underpaying his employees, by being a
“hard business man”, will have passed away. Energy
will have to find for itself paths of service instead of
paths of oppression, and will be honored or reprobated
according to the way in which it is used.
That it will destroy individuality. If this were true, the
loss to progress would indeed be incalculable. But So
cialism, instead of destroying individuality will cultivate
and accentuate it, and indeed will make it possible for
the first time in civilisation for the vast majority. For
it needs, in order that individuality shall be developed,
that the individual shall have his characteristics drawn out
and trained by education; it needs that he shall work,
in maturity, at the work for which his natural abilities fit
him ; it needs that he shall not be exhausted by excessive
toil, but shall go fresh and vigorous to his labor; it
needs that he shall have leisure to continuously improve
himself, to train his intellect and his taste. But such
education, such choice of work, such short hours of labor,
such leisure for self-culture, where are all these to-day for
our laboring population ? A tremendous individuality,
joined to robust health, may make its way upward out
of the ranks of the handworkers to- day; but all normal
individuality is crushed out between the grinding-stones
of the industrial mill. See the faces of the lads and
lasses as they troop out of the factory, out of the great
mercantile establishments; how alike they all are ! They
might almost have been turned out by the dozen. We
Socialists demand that individuality shall be possible for
all, and not only for the few who are too strong to crush.
That it will unduly restrict personal liberty. Socialism,
as conceived by the non-student of it, is an iron system,
in which the “ State ”—which is apparently separate from
the citizens—shall rigidly assign to each his task, and
�MODERN SOCIALISM.
51
deal out to each his subsistence. Even if this caricature
were accurate, Socialism would give the great majority
far more freedom than they enjoy to-day ; for they would
only be under the yoke for their brief hours of toil, and
would have unfettered freedom for the greater portion of
their time. Contrast this compulsion with the compulsion
exercised on the workers to-day by the sweater, the
manager of the works or business, and above all the
compulsion of hunger, that makes them bend to the yoke
for the long hours of the working day, and often far into
the night: and then say whether the “freedom ” of Indus
trialism is not a heavier chain than the “tyranny ” of the
most bureaucratic Socialism imagined by our opponents.
But the “tyranny of Socialism”, however, would consist
only in ordering-—and enforcing the order if necessary—
that every healthy adult should labor for his own subsist
ence. That is, it would protect the liberty of each by not
allowing anyone to compel another person to work for him,
and by opening to all equal opportunities of working for
themselves. The worker would choose his own work
certainly as freely as he does now : at the present time, if
one class of work has enough operatives employed at it,
a man must take some other, and I do not see that
Socialism could prevent this limitation of choice. At any
rate, the limitation is not an argument against Socialism,
since it exists at the present time.
Imagine the glorious freedom which would be the lot of
each when, the task of social work complete, and done
under healthy and pleasant conditions, the worker turned
to science, literature, art, gymnastics, to what he would,
for the joyous hours of leisure. For him all the treasures
of knowledge and of beauty; for him all the delights of
scenery and of art; for him all that only the wealthy
enjoy to-day; all that comes from work flowing back to
enrich the worker’s life.
I know that our hope is said to be the dream of the
enthusiast; I know that our message is derided, and that
the gospel of man’s redemption which we preach is scorned.
Be it so. Our work shall answer the gibes of our oppo
nents, and our faith in the future shall outlast their
mockery. We know that however much man’s ignorance
may hinder our advance ; however much his selfishness
may block our path; that we shall yet win our way to the
�52
MODERN SOCIALISM.
land we have seen but in our visions, and rear the temple
of human happiness on the solid foundation stones of
science and of truth. Above all sneer and taunt, above all
laughter and bitter cries of hatred, rings out steadily our
prophecy of the coming time :
‘ ‘ O nations undivided,
O single People, and free,
We dreamers, we derided,
We mad blind men that see,
We bear you witness ere ye come that ye shall be.”
�
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
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Original Format
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Pamphlet
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Modern socialism
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Besant, Annie Wood [1847-1933]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 52 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Printed by Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh.
Publisher
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Freethought Publishing Company
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1886
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
T403
Subject
The topic of the resource
Socialism
Rights
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (Modern socialism), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Social change
Social conditions
Socialism