1 10 21 https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/18cc653202e396e9ab0c2ae58ac2a2df.pdf?Expires=1782345600&Signature=Fv%7E2yeav%7ENxErLUsRgmAF37tgn2FrJElR7VTqhoxP7A08VuZQ5Tt3UUWOZh0aWIN%7EMa8RC-8i9SUy17wVIkPJ3909GiLAmWg3wv1oVEH-IiOCblLUpSDVcYM8JNZkpzbJ5mnx8dSPGQ5DM7sf4TyhO23xHnAAbhopp2S%7EAF%7El-wFVhD5hR0KPRkdmxX3KEjvvmJzqJELk9qziXKjpKOl-O3SeshvZYcePI8%7EMRcdhrJxC9fTzfBrRfbBdwB8tsjHr60oBoCZvJoJS8HuRoVaCTXtER1DVmwCoO3fbJ5LlsnEANHffI7Qw0PTZ2DOPRP%7E6AXJ3wQHBO--nOGy7IUkMg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 2c361b8eb3f816d215a18de092e14318 PDF Text Text A '■ , . . ■ \ SUMMARY OF THE PRINCIPLES OF SOCIALISM Written for the Democratic Federation, BY H» M, Hyndman and William Morris, LONDON! THE MODERN 13 AND 14, PRESS, PATERNOSTER 1884. ROW, E.C. ��A SUMMARY OF THE PRINCIPLES OF SOCIALISM. O OCIALISM, as a social and political system, depends altogether upon the history of mankind for a record of its growth in the past, and bases its future upon a knowledge of that history in so far as it can be accura­ tely traced up to the present time. The groundwork of the whole theory is, that from the earliest period of their existence human beings have been guided by the power they possessed over the forces of nature to supply the wants arising as individual members of any society. Thus Socialism rests upon political economy in its widest sense—that is, upon the manner in which wealth is produced and distributed by those who form part of society at a given time. Slavery, for instance, arose when men had reached such a point in the progress of the race that each labourer could produce by his work for a day, a week, a month, or a year more than was needed to keep him in health during that period. Then captives in war, instead of being killed, were enslaved, and the fruits of their labour, over and above their necesssary food, were taken by the conquering tribe; for though slavery arose in the nomadic state the �earliest form of co-operation and ownership was by a tribe; and in the tribal relations common property was the rule alike in the soil and in the produce of labour. As this common property broke up owing to the pro­ gress of the economical forms, the growth of exchange, the superiority of individuals or families in war or in the chase, classes or castes were gradually formed, resting in the first instance upon a necessary division of labour, though often existing, as in village communities, where a modified form of common property was still the rule. Thence,again,institutions developed through custom and law; religion sanctifying what had previously been found to be on the whole necessary or expedient. These institutions, though arising from the material power of man over nature, had in turn a great influence upon the manner in which that power was used, and appeared as the conservative side of human development con­ flicting with the progressive or revolutionary side, which necessarily follows upon the improvement and adaptation of the methods of producing food and wealth. From this essential and constant antagonism arises the conflict between classes in every civilisation of which we have any knowledge; and upon the struggles due to this conflict all progress has hitherto depended. A slight consideration will serve to show that this is the true explanation of the growth of mankind. The first object of every animal, man included, is to feed itself and its offspring ; and man began in the nomadic state by feeding upon fruits and berries. That the growth from the early brutish habits upwards to the taming of beasts and ordered agriculture was the process, not of thousands but of millions of years, is �5 now admitted by all scientific writers on the records of primeval man. But the need for food was followed by the need for clothing, for warmth, for shelter; and each of these wants corresponded in turn with changing forms of social life as they were gratified. The whole, in fact, moved in one piece as the economical forms developed : the nomadic life of the woods and plains ; the common property of the tribe or clan scanty and insufficient; the more confined area of operations as agriculture became an increasing business; the struggle with neigh­ bouring tribes about rights of pasture or to obtain coveted spoils; the earlier or later introduction of slavery in place of wholesale slaughter of captives; the develop­ ment of division of labour and exchange slowly break­ ing up the common property ; the institution of private property in land, rendered necessary by the simul­ taneous improvements in agriculture; the increase of individual wealth, as cultivation and division of labour progressed on a larger scale, due to money­ usury and slave-ownership ; the construction of classes representing divergent interests; the struggle between the various classes and those above them; the enormous development of the slave class and the poorer citizens in Greece and still more in Rome; the gradual forma­ tion of customs, laws, religions growing out of these ever-changing, ever-progressing, economical forms; the constant appeals of the privileged orders to these cus­ toms, laws, and religious doctrines as the wisdom of the past not to be rudely shaken by the new-fangled, subversive theories of revolutionists, who were them­ selves but the unconscious exponents of such inevitable modifications — a careful study of each link in the �6 chain of this long development, will show clearly how man in society has been the result of ages on ages of slow growth, in which the individual is lost in utter insignificance, and special inventions such as fire, the wheel, the mining, smelting, and working of metals, become manifestly but the inevitable results of the social state which produces them. Leaving on one side the civilisations of Egypt and Eastern Asia, important as they are to a knowledge of our social growth—for only seventy generations of thirty years each take us back to a period when Britain was practically unknown, and Roman civilisation was in its infancy—it is sufficient to deal briefly with the decay of the Roman Empire, the feudal institutions which sprang up on its overthrow, and, more in detail, with the special circumstances which have influenced the progress of the people of Western Europe to the existing capitalist rule. The fact that the ancient civilisations of Greece and Rome were supported by open and acknowledged slavery of the mass of the producing class, renders all comparison of democracy, in the modern sense, with the so-called democracies of Greek or Roman society utterly futile. The economical and social conditions are entirely different. Those Greek republics, which have so often been the theme for adulation on the part of democratic orators, poets, and artists, were themselves but close oligarchies; and the slave-class below was the basis of the whole super-structure alike at Athens, Corinth, and Sparta. The very numbers of the slaves show how completely the social arrangement was accepted as inevitable ; for at Athens there were at least 120,000 slaves’ to 20,000 �7 citizens, while at Corinth the slaves at one period numbered 460,000. Moreover, economical causes hav­ ing produced slavery, force was long little needed to maintain the supremacy of the upper classes, who could carry on their own warfare among themselves almost undisturbed by fears of a slave revolt. In Rome the same forms appeared in rather different clothing, though in both the slaves were often learned, highlytrained men, widely different from the ignorant human machines whom we are accustomed to associate in our minds with the word slaves. In Rome, the insurrections of the slaves were more numerous and more formidable than in Greece. But, in this case, too, the conflicts between the various sections of the privileged classes were almost undisturbed, if we except the great insur­ rection of Spartacus, by the efforts at enfranchisement on the part of the slaves, who rarely timed their risings well and were massacred wholesale in Italy and Sicily at comparatively little cost of life to their masters. Early in the record the slave-industry, controlled by the powerful landlord-capitalists of Rome and the other great cities of the Empire, began to crush out and even to enslave the small freeholders who had arisen on the break up of the tribes, or who belonged to conquered nations. Their independent work, with a few slaves around them, could make no head against the enormous production for gain which their large competitors carried on. The Licinian Law, and the agitations of the Gracchi were meant to protect the vigorous yeomen from forcible and still more from economical expropriation. But the movement was too strong to be resisted. Large pro­ perties grew steadily larger, and these great farms �8 ruined not only Italy but other portions of the empire. The soil, though rich, was exhausted in the course of generations by ceaseless over-cropping for profit alone; the slave class of the country supported a useless and very numerous slave class in the towns ; and the con­ dition of the poor, free, Roman citizen became so bad that economically it could scarcely be worse. Thus, the prosperity of the whole empire was steadily sapped, and some regions have scarcely recovered the process unto this day. The Eastern Provinces, which had a history of their own even throughout the period of Roman domination, suffered less than the rest, whilst they provided the great proprietors of the metro­ polis with their luxuries, and thus regained in part by commerce what they lost by tribute. The whole system of production and exchange was such that mercenary armies were needed to replace the old independent military service. Rome followed in the path of Carthage. Slowly the economical forms changed, and afterwards the social and political. From what seemed to contemporary observers the most dangerous or most worthless portions of the exist­ ing civilisation, a new life arose and progress followed. Out of the rottenness of the Roman Empire of the West, the slaves within and the barbarians from with­ out formed the nucleus of another society. The spread of a new revolutionary Asiatic creed, with a higher morality than the popular forms of Paganism, was accompanied throughout the empire by a rising spirit among the slave class which provided its earliest converts, and the barbarian invaders, driven onwards probably by the exhaustion of their own sources of food supply found �that the inhabitants of the territories they overran almost welcomed them. The downfall of the Roman Empire of the West was, in short, due to the necessary growth of fresh forces below, which took the place of worn-out forms that hampered the advance. Thenceforward slavery in its old form faded into modern serfdom; and Catholicism, true to its origin, strove to uproot both, whilst maintaining an equality of conditions at the start within its own body. Organised Christianity exercised, in some sense, as a religion, the power which had belonged to Rome as a centre of empire. In Western Europe, through the long period of the so-called dark ages—so hard to under­ stand even by the full light of modern scientific research—new methods of production and exchange were taking the place of the old, new relations were being established between men as individuals, and men as classes. The decay of the Roman roads shut off the new communities to a great extent from one another, as the disbandment of the legions loosened the bonds of authority; a new art and a new literature grew up in each country, founded doubtless on the old, but fresh and vigorous indeed compared with the bastard work of servile copyists, which well reflected the degradation of Greek as well as of Roman civilisation; new laws and new customs necessarily grew out of the changed con­ ditions, notwithstanding the partial influence of the Roman codes. Above all there was the new religion, which, rising triumphant over the old pagan creeds, had nevertheless adopted, perforce, the old pagan ceremo­ nial and the old pagan festivities; in the same way that the serfs and domestic retainers, though holding �far different relations to their superiors from those of the slaves to their masters, still used the agricultural implements and handled almost the same primitive machines as the slave class, who were, so to say, their economical ancestors. Instead of the combined landlord and capitalist con­ trolling tens, hundreds, or thousands of toilers on his estate through a bailiff, we have the disruption again of village communities of free men—traces of which can be found in all European countries to this day—develop­ ing into a system of serfdom where the serfs were bound to the soil, but bound also by direct personal relations to their masters. So, too, as these changes acted and reacted new class-struggles took the place of the old. Oppressors and oppressed, dominant and servile, lord and burgher, master and craftsman, seigneur and serf, stood in antagonism, as mankind were feeling their way to a wider economical development. Centuries of dis­ integration and reconstruction were needed to bring forth the complete feudal system ; and the earliest development of modern trade and commerce took place on the shores of that great inland sea which for ages was the cradle of western civilisation. Venice, Genoa, Pisa, followed in the footsteps of Tyre, Corinth, and Carthage. Rome, instead of being the metropolis of a great empire, became the head-quarters of a religious organisation which exercised an influence that reached the uttermost parts of the western world. That the influence of the Catholic Church was, in the main, used in the interest of the people against the dominant classes can scarcely now be disputed ; nor that the equality of conditions to start with in the �II organisation itself was one of the great causes of its extraordinary success throughout the so-called dark ages. Catholicism, in its best period, raised one continuous protest against serfdom and usury, as early Christianity, in its best form, had denounced slavery and usury too. But the economical tendencies were too strong for any. protest to be much regarded at first. Divison of labour,, and the structure of society thence resulting, at a time. when the powers of man over nature were still limited, gave power and importance to the warrior caste and the priestly caste over the mere hinds and handicrafts­ men. Yet, even in the earliest period of feudalism, the risings of the trading class, and with them at times the peasants and artizans, against the nobles and territorial clergy, were neither few nor far between. The engage­ ment of the knight and his retainers to defend the agriculturists, handicraftsmen, and traders who clustered round the fortress of which he was the lord, led to demands on his side which the burghers and their people resented. In Italy, in Germany, in France, and in England, the great nobles and their feudatories were in time confronted by municipalities with privileges granted in return for services rendered, and the great cities of Flanders and Western Germany almost rivalled the Italian Republics in the influence they manifested of town over country which then first began to be felt in its modern form. The definite struggle between the nobility and the bourgeoisie, therefore, took shape at the same time, though assuming different aspects, in different countries. On, the other hand, the unorganised risings of the peasantry, such as the Peasants’ War in England, the �12 great insurrections of the J acquerie in France, and of the serfs in Germany, were the attempts of the proletariat of the middle-ages to obtain some improvement in their lot apart from the traders, whose position was of course very different. The serf of the middle-ages shows but as a sorry figure, indeed, in all countries, as compared with that splendid chivalry, whose resplendent armour and noble individual prowess have been the theme of so much glorification. Yet, for centuries, these despised churls provided in the form of food and wares, furnished by the number of days’ work due to their lord for nothing, the means of providing all the magnificence which decked out the baron, the abbot, and the fair ladies of the court. Everywhere, however, at the height of the feudal domination, the handicraftsman, more especially at the later period which preceded its disruption, was a free man. The contrast between the position of such a man or the yeoman, and the villeins, was most striking in every respect. The latter were mere chattels: the former were independent men; more independent perhaps in England than the people as a body have ever been economically, socially, and politically, at any other period of our history. For in England—and this it is which renders our own country the most fitting field for the study of modern development — the enfranchisement of the peasantry and their settlement upon the land as free yeomen, took place at a much earlier date than in any other nation. These yeomen were in fact the main­ stay of England for several hundred years, and their influence can be traced in our national history long before the enfranchisement of the serfs as a body. The �great risings, however, of the fourteenth century, secured for the mass of our people that freedom and well-being which made common Englishmen for at least two centuries the envy of Europe. Serfdom was almost entirely done away, men were masters of them­ selves, their land, and their labour. Labourers and craftsmen were alike well-paid, well-fed people, who were not only in possession of the land which they might occupy and till, but were also entitled to rights of pasturage over large tracts of common land, since robbed from their descendants by the meanness of an usurping class who made laws in their own favour to sanctify pillage. England, far more densely peopled at that time than is generally supposed, was in fact inhabited by perhaps the most vigorous, freedom-loving set of men the world ever saw, who, having shaken themselves free from the slavery of the feudal system, were still untrammelled by the worse slavery of commercialism and capital. The economical forms, the methods of production, were the direct cause of this universal well-being and sturdy independence. Instead of men working under the con­ trol of the landlord or the landlord-capitalist as slaves or serfs for the sake of wealth and profit for their owners, the yeomen were owners themselves of their own means of production, and produced for the use of the family, only paying a portion of such production as tithes, or dues, or taxes. Rent, in the sense of a com­ petition price paid for the occupation of land, was at this period almost unknown'in Northern and Western Europe as well as in these islands. Production therefore being carried on for use, though �i4 i only in primitive fashion with small implements adapted to individual handling, most of the products being consumed or worked up into rude manufactures on the farm itself, only the superfluity after the yeoman and his family were well-fed and well-clothed came into exchange. And this exchange itself, like the production, was carried on by the individual. Craftsmen were economically as independent as the yeomen and free-labourers, though laws were early made (happily for many generations without effect) to limit their powers of combination, and to keep down the rates of wages which either they or the agricultural labourers could command. They also were in control of their means of production, and what they made was the result of their own labour on raw materials, which they in turn exchanged for other goods made by men as free as themselves, or were paid for by the lord or the abbot. Still the relations were in the main personal, and not pecuniary, still a man who earned wages for a day was by no means forced to compete with his neighbour for hire by an employer as a wage-earner all his life through. The trade guilds which in the first instance were thoroughly democratic in their constitution, protected the craftsmen against unregulated competition, or from the attempt to oppress them in any way. Moreover, as it was easy then for a labourer to obtain a patch of land, and to remove himself wholly or in part from the .wage-earners, so a journeyman apprentice starting in life as a mere worker could and generally did attain to the dignity of a master craftsman in mature age. The amount of capital to be amassed ere a man could work for himself was so small that no serious barrier was �placed between the journeyman and independence; besides, the arrangements of the guilds were such that wherever a craftsmen wandered he was received as a brother of his particular craft. Although also the rest of Europe was behind England in the settlement of the people on the soil, the craft-guilds were even more important in the Low Countries and part of Germany in the Middle Ages than in England. Thus it should appear that in the record of the feudal development the period reached in each country when the peasant was a free man working for himself upon the land, and the craftsman was likewise a free man master of his own means of production represents the time of greatest individual prosperity for the people. England, where this independence was on the whole earliest developed, presented on this very account a marked contrast to France where the risings of the Jacquerie had not resulted so well for the people as our Own peasant insurrections. In Germany and Italy the rural population was much behind the townspeople though in Spain, the early communal forms being there retained, the peasants were better off. The really important point is that, under such conditions of pro­ duction as those described, where the means of pro­ duction are at the disposal of the individual, who also controls the exchange of the superfluity, perfect economical freedom, as well as political freedom or freedom before the law, is possible and indeed cannot be avoided. Men then had something worth fighting for at home and abroad, and were quite ready to spend theii" own blood and their own money in fighting for a cause which they held to be their own. Vicarious sacrifice of the �i6 lives of mercenary troops and posterity’s money was nowise to their minds; they took note that such methods of warfare were at once cowardly and mean. The Church as a collective body supplemented the needs of this thoroughly individualist society. The services rendered by the monasteries, priories, and nunneries to the people in the shape of constant em­ ployment on their estates, of almsgiving, maintenance of hospitals, schools, inns, maintenance of roads, have been systematically depreciated by middle-class historians; but these semi-socialist bodies were of the highest value in the economy of the middle-ages, more especially in England, and the lands which they held were used and their revenues applied in such manner that during their most flourishing period the noblest institutions were kept up by their aid. Permanent pauperism was un­ known, and vagrancy was charitably restrained so long as these institutions were in existence. The services rendered by them in the direction of art and letters it is needless to recount. But at the risk of being compelled to repeat later what is urged here, it is well to consider at this point the effect which the full development of the individual man and his power over his own tools, materials, and the objects he worked upon, had upon art. The ordinary opinion seems to be that art is bred and sus­ tained by the luxury resulting from the present state of society, with its monstrous contrasts of riches and poverty. A very brief survey will be enough to show the falsity of this notion. The slave-served society of the classical peoples intellectual and highly-refined but simple in life, and free, in Greece at any rate, from what �*7 is now called luxury, looked upon art as a necessity, and found no serious obstacle in the way of surrounding the daily life of man with beauty. The rigid caste system of the feudal hierarchy kept up the most vio­ lent arbitrary distinctions between classes, but had no temptation to extend those distinctions to the minds and imaginations of men, and no means whereby it could do so. Thus the artificer was left free to express, ac­ cording to his capacity, the ideas which he shared with the noble, developing as a class a hereditary skill and dexterity in the handling of the simple tools of the time. Under the craft-gilds of the latter middle-ages the industrial arts were divided rigidly into corporations, but inside those corporations division of labour was yet in its infancy; so that each fully instructed crafts­ man was master of his own handicraft, and was by all surrounding circumstances encouraged to be an artist whose labour could not be wholly irksome to him. By this means the taste and knowledge of what art was then possible were spread widely among the people and became instinctive in them, so that all manufactured articles as it were grew beautiful in the unobtrusive and effortless way that the works of nature grow. The result of five centuries of this popular art is obvious in the outburst of splendid genius which lit up the days of the Italian Renaissance: the strange rapidity with which that splendour faded as commercialism advanced is proof enough that this great period of art was born not of dawning commercialism but of the freedom of the intelligence of labour from the crushing weight of the competition market, a freedom which it enjoyed throughout the middle-ages. G �i8 The exquisite armour of the knights , their swords and lances of perfect temper, the splendid and often humorous decorations of the stone and wood-work in the cathedrals, churches and abbeys, the illuminations of the missals, the paintings of the time, the manner in which beautiful designs and tracery nestled even in places where it might be thought that the human eye could rarely or never reach, nay, even such frag­ ments of ordinary domestic furniture and utensils as have been preserved, all show that the art of the middle Ages, like the art of Greece, was something loved and cherished and made perfect for its own sake, that beauty welled up unbidden from the spontaneous flow of the ideas of the time. But just at this period of the fullest individual perfection the necessities of com­ petition, arising out of economical changes in the conditions of labour which have yet to be traced, gradually turned the workman from the mediaeval artist­ craftsman into the mere artisan of the capitalist sys­ tem, and almost entirely destroyed the attractiveness of his labour ; so that when about the end of the 17th century the work-shop system of labour which had pushed out the gild system was struggling to perfect its speciality, the division of labour namely, wherein the unit of labour is not a single workman but a group, it found the romance, the soul, both of the higher and the decorative arts, gone though the commonplace or body of them still existed. How then was the artist-craftsman thus turned into a mere artisan ? How did the competition arise in such shape that not free rivalry in the creation of beauty but fierce antagonism in the greed for gain became the rule of �19 production ? Once more the economical forms changed and destruction of the old society was the inevitable result. As the feudal system was introduced into different European countries at different periods, as again the gradual conversion of serfs into free yeomen and lifeholders was by no means simultaneous in every nation, as further the formation of the craft-gilds varied, so the decay and final disruption of the feudal system took place at widely separated periods of time. In England the end of the wars of the Roses saw the commencement of this rapid disintegration. During those wars the barons had largely increased the numbers of their retainers, and had thus impoverished them­ selves ; the people as a whole standing aloof from the bootless and bloody Civil War between the houses of York and Lancaster. Many of the ancient nobility were utterly exterminated in the course of the struggle ; and the successors to their estates, when peace was finally proclaimed on the accession of Henry VII., carried on a process, which had begun even earlier, of turning out their now useless retainers to shift for themselves. These people formed the first set of vagrants and wandering bands, who without house, home, land or any recognised position in, or claim upon society, roamed through the country in search of labour and food. The monasteries, however, were still in full organisation and provided to a large extent for these wanderers. But at the same time pressure was brought to bear upon the innumerable small farmers and yeomen, common land was ruthlessly enclosed, and the nobles 51 / �20 adopted every conceivable device to enrich themselves at the expense of those who had a better title to the land than they had. Hence more vagrants, more homeless and a manifest decay in the real strength of the kingdom. Here again the reasons of the change were economical. The nobles wanted money to pay the debts which they had incurred during the wars, and also to maintain themselves at Court which they now more regularly frequented; just at this time too the Flanders market afforded a most profitable outlet for wool. Hence it was advantageous for the land­ holders in every way to remove men and substitute sheep ; since pasture farming, needed fewer hands than arable and sheep paid better than human beings. This process of expropriation therefore' went relentlessly on during the whole of the latter part of the sixteenth century in spite of numerous statutes against such action and the never-ceasing protests of men like More, Latimer, &c., against the mischief that was being done. Thus by degrees a landless class was being formed with no property beyond the bare force of labour in. their bodies; and these people were slowly driven into the towns where they formed the germ of our modern city proletariat. The breakdown of the feudal system led in almost every country to the establishment of a despotism, and England formed no exception to the rule. . Henry VIII. and Thomas Cromwell answer closely enough . to Louis XIII. and Richelieu. It was the object of king and minister alike that the crown should be . supreme, and to a large extent they succeeded in attaining it: though Cromwell, less dexterous than the �31 French minister, lost his own head after having removed the heads of so many others. But the Reformation and the consequent downfal of the monas­ teries were the most important events in English history between the Peasant’s War and the great industrial revolution at the end of the eighteenth century. The Reformation in Germany was as far from being a movement of the people as it was in England; in France also the Protestants were as little representative of peasantry as the Catholic nobles. Luther himself, that fierce champion of individualism, was a bitter opponent of the peasants in their risings against the nobles. In fact the Reformation every­ where, though partly directed against undoubted abuses in the church, was a thorough middle-class movement representing fully middle-class aspirations for individual aggrandisement here and hereafter. . In England the king was shrewd enough to put him­ self at its head knowing that more solid gain was to be had by the plunder of the church than by maintaining a resolute attitude as Defender of a Faith that gave him nothing and took much. Thus the monasteries were destroyed, and the king was enabled to reconcile the barons to this pillage by giving them a good share of the plunder of the lands of the church and the people. Nearly one-half of the land of England, which had up to this time been used to a large extent for public purposes, now became the property of a number of nobles and courtiers who recognised little or no duty of trusteeship, and who even allowed the public roads which the monks had kept up to go to ruin, as they suffered the magnificent abbeys to decay or be turned �22 into quarries for building materials. Henceforth the people of England had no hold upon their own land; and all the duties which the monks and nuns had filled in the economy of the middle-ages fell into abeyance and were left unperformed. As to the inhabitants of the monasteries, the monks and nuns, friars and sisters who were turned out of their houses, they joined the army of miserable vagrants now yearly increasing on the public highways. With no means of earning a liveli­ hood, they and the discharged retainers, the expropri­ ated yeomen and the discharged hinds, were a neverceasing source of annoyance to the classes which had driven them out to starve ; whilst the very abolition of the monasteries, which intensified the mischief, deprived these poor people of their last hope of succour. Such was the pressure on the peasantry, owing to the enclosures, the robberies of commons, and the seizure of the Church Lands, that m spite of the infamous atrocities wreaked upon all disturbers of order and upon the wretched vagrants themselves, who were hanged and disembowelled, tortured and flogged in batches, there were a whole series of insurrections after the sup­ pression of the monasteries, some of which were supported by the well-to-do, and even, as in the case of the insurrec­ tion of the Northern Earls, by the nobles themselves. The new system of production for profit and constant competition for wages, involving though it did progress, in the sense of producing more wealth with fewer hands, by the division of labour and co-operation, was thus not introduced without a frightful and bloody class struggle on the part of the people to maintain their old individual independence. The risings were put down �23 with frightful cruelty, however, and the laws against vagrants who were forced to wander by the changed conditions of agriculture, were harsher than ever under the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the monarch whose reign is supposed to embrace the most glorious period of English history. It is worthy of remark also that during the whole Of the sixteenth century the attempts made to stop the uprooting of the people from the soil by law were absolutely unavailing. The class now gaining power in the country, namely the landlords with bailiffs, and the large farmers, who both regarded the land only as a means of making gain, rode rough­ shod over the enactments of Parliament in favour of the poor; though they took care to give full force to all those which tended in any way to strengthen their own power. The same with the rising bourgeoisie, who rapidly gained influence under Elizabeth, and used it as far as possible to remove those restrictions upon usury, and laws in favour of the labourers, which in the middle-age polity had balanced the futile statutes against combination. By the end of the sixteenth •century consequently all was ready in our country for the gradual formation of a competitive wage-slave class divorced from the soil and deprived of the means of production, which class must therefore be in a growing •degree at the mercy of the classes that possessed the land and the capital. The increasing amount of capital also needed for success in business as the markets grew, and the town supplied not only the country but foreign lands, gradually broke down the democratic constitution of / �24 the trade-gilds. It was no longer a matter of course for a capable apprentice and journeyman to become in due time master of the craft. On the contrary, the minority, the capitalist masters, exercised increasing authority within the gild and turned its machinery to the disadvantage of the poorer members. Thus, between the landless proletariat, which was being created by social and economical oppression, and the landlords letting land for money-rentals in place of the old feudal services due to the nobles, the middle or capitalist class, the bourgeoisie, was growing up, whose bitter antagonism to the landlords has been carried on, as the necessary result of economical progress, even to our own day. Farmers who farmed for profit, and. merchants and manufacturers who employed their men to gain a profit from their competitive labour, quite replaced the simpler economy of the middle ages, when nearly all were farming or producing for direct use. During this period of fearful suffering for the mass of the people, when the foundations of our modern capitalist society were laid, the greatest and most sudden development of commerce ever seen on the planet took place, and international production and exchange gradually overshadowed the old national markets and methods of working up home products. The discovery of America and of the new route round the Cape to India and China, the conquest of Mexico and Peru, the conquest of Asia Minor by the Ottoman Turks, all took place within two generations. A new world of adventure, a new world of thought, were opened up before mankind. A flood of the precious �25 metals was poured into Europe from America giving in many ways increased power to the trading and profit­ making class, and increasing the accumulation of capital. The spoils of Mexico and Peru, the wealth ol. all kinds gained by commerce, forced on the develop­ ment at headlong speed. Spain was ruined by the very circumstances which gave her strength. The Italian cities lost their commercial supremacy from this time forward, owing in part to the decay of Asia Minor and the breakdown of the overland connection . with the East, following upon the Turkish rule, and partly to the change in the relative importance of the trade to America and the West Indies. In consequence England, France, Spain, Portugal, and the Low Countries became the chief competitors for the com­ merce of the world, Venice lending her spare capital to the Dutch at good rates of interest, thus encouraging the very competition that must eventually ruin her. Hence arose the commercial wars and commercial rivalries of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in which Spain at the first had every apparent advan­ tage. Meanwhile in England feudalism had been com­ pletely destroyed as a system, and commercialism was being substituted. Keeping pace with the change in ■ the forms of production, progress in all directions helped on the new development. The spread of printing destroyed the monopoly of letters which had been enjoyed by the clergy and the learned of high' rank ; the application of gunpowder to war rendered the common man-at-arms the superior of the most gorgeously equipped knight. Thus the increase of t- �26 general knowledge sapped superstition, and the musket swept away the last relics of warrior chivalry. As the markets expanded also, the results of these great changes in every direction became more and more apparent. The miserable state of the internal com­ munications forced Englishmen more and more into foreign commerce, which was rendered exceptionally profitable, not only by the discovery of new markets that gave great returns to the trader, but also by the useful adjuncts of piracy and slavery. To keep pace with this growth of commerce wider organisation of labour was needed, and, therefore, as already stated, the group of workmen toiling under the superintendence of the master, with a more and more regulated division of labour, supplanted the old handi­ craft. Workshops grew larger and larger, small factories were formed in certain trades. The workmen ceased to own any portion of their own product: that, as a whole, went into the hand of the employer who paid for a part of its value in wages ; in the same way the agri­ cultural labourer ceased to have any interest in the crops which he raised: they, too belonged to the far­ mer, subject to a deduction, for rent to the landlord; and the labourer also received a part of the value of his labour in wages. Production had become or was rapidly becoming social: appropriation and exchange remained under the control of the individual. During the whole of the seventeenth and the first half of the eighteenth century this process went on. Organised handicraft, factory industry, and house industry, were still to be seen together. A good many yeomen remained in some districts, but they were becom- �ing continually less numerous; though the agricul­ tural regions were still much more populous than the towns, and so remained until the end of the eighteenth century. On every side commerce was the one prevail­ ing object, and to that all was subordinated. Religion naturally adapted itself to the tone of the time; and the Protestantism of England became what it has ever since remained—essentially a creed for the successful trafficker in wares or in souls. All through Europe the system of to-day in credit, competition, and national rivalry was practically established, and the era of foreign conquest and colonial empire began. But still the conflict of the middle-class against the king and the landed aristocracy loomed ahead. Wise sovereigns had shown true policy in yielding to and even in fostering the grow­ ing power. Others, perhaps more upright but certainly less dexterous, precipitated the struggle. In England it first took shape in serious organised warfare. The bloody civil war of the seventeenth century was clearly a, struggle between the ideas of divine right and land­ owner supremacy on the one side, against the sanctity of profit and freedom for the middle-class on the other. The economical victory already gained in the counting­ house was but confirmed in the field; and the reign of Cromwell served as an introduction to the thorough middle-class rule of William III. From this time forward the question was merely how long it would take for the middle-class to establish in outward seeming that supremacy which, in regard to production, they had already to a large extent secured. Their power was still somewhat �28 hampered by the relics of the old middle-age restrictions even after the accession Of William ol Orange and the House of Brunswick had virtually pro­ claimed that capitalism, with its debt funded for payment by posterity, its standing mercenary army, and its worldwide international production and exchange, had become master of the economical, and, in the strict sense, social field. But division of labour was carried farther and farther, trade and commerce developed exceedingly, the settlements in America and the factories in India helped on the growth, until in the eighteenth century, the period had manifestly arrived fpr yet another development which would enable the productive forces to supply the ever-growing market. Prior to this new manifestation of the powers of man over nature and of the method in which, under such social conditions, as now existed, these powers were turned to the sole advantage of a class, the condition of the English worker was better than it had been at any period since the fifteenth century. His wages both in town and country bore a higher ratio to the cost of living than at any intermediate time. Agriculture had recovered in some degree from the depression of the. sixteenth century, owing to the demand for cereals in the growing comercial cities; and the artisan, under the.? division of labour and the group system of factory pro-, due <. ion, was in a more favourable position than he had been when home competition was more severe and foreign markets were less open. In France, on the contrary, the peasantry had not gained ground against the barons to nearly the same, extent, nor were the bourgeoisie nearly so advanced in �29 their political struggle as the corresponding classes in England. Though the serfs had to some degree been settled upon the land, the oppression of the nobles and the pressure of taxation, owing to the wars of Louis XIV., ground down the poor to a level wholly unknown on this side of the Channel. Moreover, the rush of speculation and commercialism produced a far more rapid and complete deterioration of the character of the whole upper classes in Paris, and in France generally, than it did in London and England. ' Thus at the end of the eighteenth century France was fully prepared for a political and social, England was more ready for an industrial, revolution. The ideas of the time were much the same in both countries ; but whereas our middle-class had taken order with their king and his aristocrats in the seventeenth century, and capital had secured its firm foothold at that time alike in town and country, France had yet to pass through a whole series of events parallel to what had already taken place here generations before. The English Revolution, the American War of Independence, stirring the minds of the middle-class and the people, the utter degradation of the French nobility by the scenes in the Rue Quincampoix occasioned by their endeavours to make gain out of Law’s Mississippi scheme and similar ventures, the destruction of faith in the prevailing religion among the educated by Voltaire and Rousseau, and the Encyclopae­ dists, the prevailing misery among the entire population, which was totally disregarded by the nobles and the court, were factors that all tended relentlessly to a political overthrow. . . ’ . The change in the conditions of the time had not �30 been recognised. Those economical and social dis­ placements which had already prepared the revolution in the body of society had passed unheeded; and thus the French Revolution, which was clearly predicted by a few careful observers, came upon the world at large as a surprise. It was a rising against a tyranny alike corrupt, mean, and obsolete. Its influence spread rapidly at first and, coming after the noble American Declaration of Independence, produced a great effect in every European country, not least in England. That glorious struggle for Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, which began in 1789, that temporary alliance of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, though it gave rise to some splendid episodes for the people, ended in victory for the bourgeoisie alone. The really great names of the French revo­ lution have, of course, been honoured by middle­ class abuse. Napoleon, the hero of reaction, used the enthusiasm born of revolution to spread his self­ seeking imperialism through Europe, and enabled reactionists in other countries to pose as the champions of national freedom. The effect of the great revolutionary war upon Eng­ land, and the increased power which the long conflict placed in the hands of the aristocratic and capitalist classes, was most disastrous from every point of view. Political progress was thrown back nearly a century, social reforms were indefinitely postponed, and the new industrial forces went almost without heed or pro­ test into the hands of the profit-making class. And these industrial forces were of a magnitude, and pro­ duced effects the like of which had never been seen in �3i the world before. As the great geographical and mer­ cantile discoveries at the end of the sixteenth century, with the rapid development of shipping, ended by giving England the control of commerce ; so the great inventions at the end of the eighteenth century resulted in giving this country the lead in industry. But the effect upon the people was terrible almost from the beginning. At first a few benefited by the increased powers of production alike in labouring on the land and with respect to working up raw materials.; and the initial steps were taken towards the formation of an aristocracy of labour to protect, by means of secret societies, the interests of the skilled artisans. But the power of machinery soon broke down these earlier combinations. The cottage industry was ere long completely de­ stroyed. In every branch of trade the development became so extraordinary that nothing but a constant supply of fresh hands to work the machines, and in turn an improvement of machines to restrain the demands of the hands could keep pace with the growing markets opened by the increasing cheapness of production. Competition took another great stride in advance. Poor Irishmen, driven from their own country by land­ lord rascality and oppression, came in to compete at the lowest standard of life with the already impoverished Englishmen. Towns grew in magnitude with amazing rapidity as steam and greater knowledge of the use of water power increased the size of the factories and the number of, men, women, and children who could work under the control of one employer. From being an agricultural country England in the course of fifty or sixty years became essentially a country of great. �32 cities with a proletariat under the control of the capitalist class in a worse condition (this all official reports show) than any slave class of ancient times had ever lived in. For ere long the capitalist class, now almost at the height of its economical power, had swept away entirely the restrictions imposed by the middle-age polity. Freedom of contract between the pauper and the plutocrat, unrestrained competition between men and women in order that they might be able to get enough out of the product of their labour merely to keep body and soul together, wholesale slaughter of children by overwork and insufficient nourishment in unhealthy, overheated factories and ill-ventilated mines—the whole system was based upon never-ending oppression of the most horrible kind. Wages fell in proportion to the cost of living at the very time when enormous fortunes were being accumulated in the cotton, wool, silk, iron, and other industries. Women and children were brought in to reduce the wages of their own fathers and brothers by competing for under-pay. The legislature, under the direct control of the classes interested in maintaining this atrocious slavery under the guise of freedom, refused at first even to bring in laws to prevent babes from three to nine years of age from being worked fourteen,fifteen, sixteen hours a day. Capital had full swing in every direction and ground down the body of the people into a hopeless degradation from which they have never yet emerged. Risings there were from time to time in the earlier part of this century against this fearful oppression brought about by sheer greed for gain. But they were all unsuc­ cessful, and not until the half of the century had passed �33 away were any effective laws enacted, at the instance of such men as Robert Owen, to check the capitalist class in their furious haste to be rich at the expense of the men, women, and children, whom they robbed wholesale of their labour and ruined in their health. For now man was slave to the machine, no longer a free agent in any sense. Division of labour in the workshop faded into the great factory industry ; and machines, as they were introduced, served not to benefit the community and lessen the amount of labour needed to produce wealth but absolutely to increase the hours of labour, to degrade the workers more and more, and, by frequently throwing hands out into street, gradually to form a fringe of labour, ever on the verge of pauperism—ready to take the lowest wages, even when an impetus to trade rendered the capitalist class anxious for more hands. This introduction of machinery, this complete domination of the capitalist class and sweeping expropriation of the labour of the workers, piled up the wealth for the few which enabled us to come out triumphant from the great war. But whence came the wealth thus accumulated by the few out of the labour of others—by the capitalist farmers in the country, by the capitalist factory owners and loiterers in the towns ? Out of the excessive labour of the workers who were hopelessly divorced from the means of production, and were compelled to sell their labour-force to the capitalist for the lowest subsistence wages. The economical law of such competition among the workers as that which has gone on in England since the end of the eighteenth century, is admitted by the capitalists, and their fuglemen, the D �political economists, themselves. The one object of production being production for profit, the capitalist of course buys the labour-force which the needy worker is driven to sell at the lowest possible price in wages. This price, it is now agreed, corresponds on the average to the social needs represented by the standard of life in the class to which the seller of the labour-force belongs. At times the wages may, and do, fall far below this level of necessary subsistence, at other times combination among the workers, or a period of exceptionally prosperous trade, may temporarily raise them above this level. But the tendency is always as stated ; nor does the existence of an aristocracy of labour modify the truth of the proposition. But when the capitalist, whether a farmer or a factory-lord, has bought the destitute worker’s labour-force on the market, he does so with the intention of applying it to the growing of his crops, or to the manufacture of the raw materials which he has purchased at their market value. Labour-force embodied in commodities, the cost of production or re-production, that is, of articlesreckoned useful in the social conditions of the time, is the basis and measure of their average exchange-value when brought forward for exchange. In the first two or three hours of the day’s work, however, the labouring class whose labour-force is thus purchased, refund to the em­ ploying class the full value ofthe wages which they receive in return for the whole day’s work. But the entire product of the day’s work, or the week’s work, or the month’s work, or the year’s work, is at the control of the capitalist who thus appropriates two-thirds or three quarters of the labourers’ work without paying for it. �35 In the factory, that is to say, and to an ever increas­ ing degree on the farm, the labourers work as a portion of an association ; their labour is socialised in the highest degree. But both their products and the exchange of their products are at the disposal of individuals who compete with one another for gain above, as the workers compete against one another for bare subsistence below. Here then are the two main features of our modern system of production for profit. First. The labourers on the average replace the value of their wages for the capitalist class in the first few hours of their day’s work ; the exchange value of the goods produced in the remaining hours of the day’s work constitutes so much embodied labour which is unpaid; and this unpaid labour so embodied in articles of utility, the capitalist class, the factory owners, the farmers, the bankers, the brokers, the shopkeepers, and their hangers-on the landlords, divide among themselves in the shape of profits, interests, discounts, commissions, rent, &c. Second. The other feature is the antagonism between the socialised method of production and the individualised system of exchange. This brings about unmitigated anarchy in the shape of a world-wide crisis every ten years, which throws labourers out of work when they are as anxious to toil for subsistence as ever they were; and piles up quantities of goods which these very labourers are eager to buy, but which owing to the crisis they cannot earn the means of purchasing, because the capitalist class will not employ them unless a profit is to be made, and this profit is rendered impossible by the very glut of the goods. Such crises �3^ have now occurred every ten years since 1825, and owing to these, men and women have been continually thrown out of work and flung into misery from no fault whatever of their own. The introduction of fresh machines is similarly against workers, tending as it does to increased uncertainty of employment and to reduce skilled workers to a lower class. Thus the tendency is to produce not merely a destitute proletariat forced to remain as a class wage-slaves to their m isters, body-slaves to the machine, their life long; but also a fringe of labour employed at scant wages in “ good times,” thrown into pauperism and starvation in bad. Hence freedom of contract between those who have no means of production, and those who have a monoply of them, simply involves the most terrible economical tyranny the world has yet seen : the surplus value provided under this illusory freedom out of unpaid labour enables the idle classes and their dependants to live in luxury at the expense of persistent overwork and misery for the producers themselves. Thus individual exchange uncontrolled by thought of collective advantage brings about fearful anarchy in every direction, which is a satire indeed upon the middle-class cuckoo cry of “order, order.” Children are ill-nurtured and underfed, women are worked to within a few hours of pregnancy, the condi­ tions of existence for the mass of the people are such that health, happiness, and morality are impossible, and still the capitalist class and their champions, the political economists, tell us that such is the inevitable outcome of our mock civilisation. Nor is there any real standard of honour among the competitors for wealth themselves. �37 Having robbed the labourers wholesale of their labour, they proceed to rob one another by underselling, adulter­ ation and fraud. As a general result of the system mere pecuniary relations are paramount. How to make money is the be-all and end-all of this ruinous system of com­ petitive production for profit. Love, honour, ability, beauty, all are in the market—going, going, going, gone 1 knocked down to the highest bidder. Art! that necessarily fades under such conditions ; and machine-work, literally and figuratively, is the pro­ duct of the time. This has been gradually brought about through the operation of the economical forms whose development has been briefly traced. Throughout the 18th century the idea that the making of goods is the end and aim of manufacture still struggled, with ever-increasing feebleness, against the real view of capitalism, that manufacture has no essential aim save profit for the capitalist-class, and mere occu­ pation for the workman: occupation, that is, daily leisureless labour with no pretence to attractiveness in it, rewarded by a livelihood whose standard is forced down by competition, to the lowest point which will be endured without active discontent. This view is accepted as a matter past discussion by the fully-developed capitalism of the 19th century which has in its turn supplanted the workshop, with its groups of workmen each skilled in a narrow round of labour, by the factory with its machines tended by women and children or by a mere labourer of whom neither skill nor intelligence is necessarily required. This system withits unavoidable consequence that the greater and (commercially) more important part of the wares it �38 produces are made for the consumption of poor and degraded people without leisure or taste wherewith to discern beauty, without money or labour to pay for excellence of workmanship—this system makes labour so repulsive and burdensome that art, in the long run, is impossible under it. Instead of the pleasant, intellectual, fruitful labour of the middle-ages, we have the barren, hideous drudgery of the factory and the cotton-mill. While it lasts all the ordinary surround­ ings of life must of necessity be ugly and brutal, and ’ what of art is left for a time, depending as it does, not on ' its own life, but on the memory of past days of glory " and beauty, must be produced by men of exceptional ' gifts, living isolated amidst the ugliness and brutality of ' their own time and protesting against the spirit of their own age. Thus the capitalist system threatens to dry up the very springs of all art, that is, of the external beauty of life, and to reduce the world to a state of barbarism. The proletariat, however, as already remarked, were not crushed into this helplessness in England without having struggled against the meanest tyranny that ever oppressed them. From the end of the last century, when Trade Societies were established throughout the king­ dom, vainly endeavouring to make head against the steadily growing power of capital, the working classes kept up an increasing agitation in favour of a more reasonable lot for themselves and their children. Another serious class fight had begun. What the workers saw was this: — that the introduction of machinery, though it might give wealth to the capitalist class and to the country at large, brought with it for them �39 ^starvation and intolerable misery, owing to the displace­ ment of the old methods and the competition of the labour of women and children with that of grown men. During the first three-quarters of the eighteenth cen­ tury also the people, as we have seen, were on the whole better off, their wages would buy them more and better food and raiment than for two centuries before. Con­ sequently the pressure being sudden was more severely felt and more vigorously resisted than it is to-day. The 'workers saw that the unregulated introduction of machines meant for them ruin; as Sir James Steuart, the famous economist, plainly stated it must, ten years before the publication of “The Wealth of Nations.” They, therefore, in the first place attacked the machines themselves ; and bands of workpeople under the name of Luddites destroyed machinery in many industrial centres, with the impression that thus they were striking heavy blows at the real enemy. As a matter of course their adversaries were not the inert machines, which "only produced more wealth at the cost of less and less expenditure of human labour, but the class appropria­ tion of these improvements which gave to the labourers, owing to competition among themselves for employment, a less and less proportionate share of the wealth created. For the cheapening of the products did not benefit the workers as a class. It only enabled them to take a lower average wage in times of pressure without ab­ solute starvation; whilst the uncertainty arising from constant improvements and the competition of their own families rendered their position even worse than the mere amount of wages for long hours and excessive �40 overwork would betoken. Thus the very circumstances which should have bettered their condition and rendered their life more easy, actually pressed them down to a K ,< lower standard of existence. Not until 1802 was any step taken to recognise even that children were overworked, and the Act then passed was wholly abortive. In 1814 the capitalist class even succeeded in removing the last vestige of the old restrictions notwithstanding the overwhelming array of petitions from the workers against any such action. At this time it must be remembered that all combina­ tions among the workers to raise wages, or to strike for any reason whatsoever, were illegal. Soon afterwards the great war came to an end which had so much strengthened the power of the landowners, farmers and capitalists, at the expense of the people; and with its termination, and the consequent collapse of the fic­ titious prosperity created for certain classes, came a period of even greater pressure upon the people. From 1817 to 1848 was therefore one of almost continuous turmoil. The middle-class were striving to secure their complete control over the House of Commons by a limited extension of the suffrage, and a disfranchise­ ment of rotten boroughs; the wage-earners were combining in all directions to obtain the suffrage for their class, but also to relieve themselves from the hideous economical injustice they suffered under. Riots in the towns and rick-burnings in the country were frequent. The time of the fiercest struggle was shortly after the enaction of the Reform Bill of 1832. Then the effect of the New Poor Law, the constant immigration from �41 Ireland owing to economical causes due to landlord oppression, and the continuous operation of capitalism, produced such distress that from 1835 to 1842 the country was described by a careful foreign observer as in a state of permanent revolt. Now it was that a portion of the middle-class made common caus with the workers in their agitation; that the Trade Unionists free to com­ bine since 1824, acted in concert to a great extent with the rank and file of labourers; and that utopian Socialism, in the shape of schemes for the nationalisa­ tion of the land, inherited from Spence and others, as well as Robert Owen’s plans of co-operation, began to be recognised as a definite school. The Trade Unionists at this time were the advanced guard of the working class party ; and although, early in the day, the sense of superiority to the unskilled workers began to show itself among the members, much of the success which was obtained could never have been got without their aid. Thus the gradual enaction and enforcement of Factory Acts, in favour of the restriction of the labour of women and children within more reasonable limits as to the number of hours worked, the rights of free meeting and a free press, were obtained owing in large part to the steady organised support given by the Trade Unionists to these mea­ sures. In the chartist agitation also which was a decided movement of the proletariat against the landlord and capitalist class many Trade Unionists took an active share, as also in the serious risings which occurred in Wales, Manchester, Birmingham, Nottingham and elsewhere. But for the counter-agitation got up by the capitalists �42 in favour of Free Trade in corn it is even possible that the Chartists and Socialists together might have ■achieved, at any rate, a temporary success for the cause of the people. As it was the Corn Law League drawing the people off on a false scent—for all can see nowadays that cheap food meant little more than increased profits for the capitalist class—the leaders were left almost without followers; and though in 1848 the renewed stir on the Continent of Europe gave the workers in this country every encouragement and an exceptional opportunity, they failed to resuscitate the energetic movement of 1842. In fact almost the only great result of all the long series of agitations for the benefit of the workers was the final settlement and consolidation in 1852 of the Factory Act of 1847. ' . But 1848 on the Continent of Europe was a far more important date than in England. Then first, it may be said, since Babceufs conspiracy in 1796,—for the Days of July ” in 1830 in Paris or the outbreak at Lyons in 1834.were comparatively trifling—did the pro­ letariat again show that it had interests which were not pnly not in accord with, but diametrically hostile to the interests of the middle class. All over Europe scientific, as distinguished from mere utopian, Socialism now began to be felt beneath the efforts for national independence. The famous Communist Manifesto of Marx and Engels which first formulated in a distinct shape the great truth of the inevitable Struggle of classes so long as classes exist, the agitations of Blanqui and the theories of Louis Blanc, Ledru Rollin, &c., all pointed to an international combination of ' the workers in the interests of the labouring class �43 which should have a far wider, nobler and more beneficial influence than endeavours, however glorious, for mere national independence. It was Socialism as an organised force based upon the sure ground of science and political economy which frightened the statesmen of all countries far more than any idea of mere national movements in which class gradations Would still be maintained. The time was not yet. The middle class triumphed not only in England but in every European country, the thousands who fell fighting for the people in Paris died vainly for the time, and the bourgeoisie gladly supported order ” under President, King, or Emperor, which ensured the butchery of the champions of the proletariat and made them certain of the continuance of the universal reign of production for profit and the conse­ quent wage-slavery of the mass of the producers in all lands. From 1848 onwards, however, Socialism itself, international, organised Socialism, has been a moral, intellectual and physical force to be counted with in all the councils of Europe. Thenceforward the leaders of ■the proletariat of the world could feel assured that when the time was ripe for action they had an unshakable scientific foundation on which to build, to which indeed each year has added another layer of solid theory and fact combined. England, unfortunately, the country where the struggle between the workers and the capitalists first took an organised and manifest shape, now, to all appearance, fell behind. The working classes of England, owing to the enormous expansion of foreign markets, to the fact that this country was the first in the field with improved �44 , .’* K machinery and highly socialised factories, to the earlier development of railways here than elsewhere, to the Free Trade Policy which kept the necessary standard of life cheap, to emigration which took off the more energetic political leaders of the people and afforded a further out­ let for goods, to the stagnation of the Trade Unions which, when they had got what the higher grade of workers needed most, cared little or nothing for the welfare of the other classes of labour—the workers of England, we say, fell behind in their efforts for the enfranchisement of their class and have been content since 1848 with that moderation in their requirements and that bated breath method of urging their simplest demands which naturally find favour with their Capi­ talist masters. During the thirty-five years which have passed, how­ ever, since 1848, wealth in England has increased far beyond all previous computation or imagination. From all quarters of the globe the profits ofthe world-market have been poured into the lap of our merchants and Capitalists. The landlords also , have gained in rents, but in a very trifling degree compared with the gain ofthe trading class. The income tax returns alone show that the increase in assessable incomes has been from ^275,000,000 in 1848 to nearly £600,000,000 in 1882. The total of realised wealth seems incredible, being given, by an official statist, at over £8,500,000,000. In every direction this expansion of wealth is to be observed. The rich quarters of our cities have spread beyond all bounds ; numerous and populous lounger towns have sprung up around our coasts, where the indolent wealthy may conveniently kill time in healthy uselessness; the standard of living among �the middle-class is so high that their chief diseases arise from gluttony or drink. Yet at this very time official returns prove conclusively that vast masses of our countrymen are living on the very verge of starvation ; that much of the factory popu­ lation is undergoing steady physical deterioration ; that the agricultural labourers rarely get enough food to keep them clear of diseases arising from insufficient nourish­ ment ; while such is the housing of the wage-earners in our great cities and in our country districts that even the leading partisans of our political factions at length have awakened to the fact that civilisation for the poor has been impossible for nearly two generations under these conditions, and that some steps ought really to be taken to remedy so monstrous an evil. Drink, debauchery, vice, crime inevitably arise under such conditions. For indigestion arising from bad food, cold arising from insuf­ ficient firing,depression arising from unhealthy air and lack of amusement, necessarily drive the poor to the public­ house ; while even the sober have had, too often, no edu­ cation which should fit them for the full enjoyment of life. And drunken and sober, virtuous and vicious—if they can be called vicious who are steeped in immorality from their very babyhood—are all subject to never-ceasing uncertainty of earning a livelihood, due to the constant introduction of fresh machines over which they have no control, or to the great commercial crises which come more frequently and last for a longer time at each recur­ rence. There is therefore complete anarchy of life and anarchy of production around us. Order exists, morality exists, comfort, happiness, education, as a whole, exist only for the class which has the means of production, at �46 the expense of the class which supplies the labour-force that produces wealth. The total income of the country is ^1,300,000,000 ; of this the producers receive ^300,000,000 in wages ; and of these wages they pay back one-fifth to one-third to the landlord and capitalist class in rent, apart from the amount they refund in profits on retail and adulterated goods. The producers live on the average one-half the number of years the comfortable classes live. The total amount of property owned by 220,000 families is nearly /’6,ooo,ooo,oou, whilst millions are living on insufficient food and 4,500,000 persons receive charitable relief in England and Wales alone, in one shape or another, during the course of the year. The land of England is practically owned by 30,000 people against 30,000,000 and 8,000 landowners in Great Britain and Ireland receive no less than ^"35,000,000 a year in rents. Such plain facts as these are sufficient of themselves to show the anarchy of what we call civilisation. There have been no fewer than six commercial crises since the beginning of the century to crush the workers, not count­ ing the Lancashire cotton famine due to the American Civil War. Meanwhile commercial war—competition in cheapness, that is, adulteration to make great profits, and attacks upon helpless people to open up new markets—has been going on all round. Yet in the face of all this a certain school still contend that thei e is no class robbery; that there should be no class antagonism; that the blessings of peace and eternal money-getting for all would be ever with us if only our people—our producing people—would cease to have any families at all. What is it produces value ?—labour �applied to natural objects. What is it produces sur­ plus value, and thus provides profit, interest, rent, commissions, &c.—labour applied to natural objects under the control of the capitalist class who take all the value produced less the mere average subsistence wages of the labourer. Yet to provide more wealth we are to cut off the supply of labour by breeding no labourers. This foolish Malthusian craze is itself bred of our anarchical competitive system; and those who are smitten with it cannot see that the power of man over nature is such that, if his labour were properly organised, he would produce in food or its equivalent at least four times more than the amount of wealth which he would require, if he lived in absolute comfort, provided he worked only six hours a day. Were machinery properly applied, far less than two hours labour a day for each male above twenty-one would suffice for all to live in comfort, if none lived in excessive luxury on the labour of others. As it is, about one-fourth of our adult population are engaged in actual useful production, often with inferior machinery, yet the total income is £1,300 ,000,000 a year. That the power of man over nature increases in a far more rapid ratio in all progressive societies than the increase of population ; that the well-to-do—such as all would be in an organised Socialist community—breed, slowly, the poor fast; that the supposed law of dimin­ ishing returns to capital (which means in one shape and another labour) expended on the soil is demonstrably false ; that England alone could profitably produce food enough to feed its present population, the return increasing with each improvement in agriculture ; that �48 North America by itself would still export enormous quantities of food after all its inhabitants were well fed even if it had 800,000,000 inhabitants: these are facts and estimates of the very highest agricultural and economical authorities which ought finally to dispose of the so-called Malthusian theory, even if the supposed necessity of fictitiously limiting the number of producers were not on the face of it an absurdity where idlers who eat enormously and produce not at all form the majority ofthe population. From 1848 to 1864 there was little sign of Socialist movement of an international character, and although Lassalle’s vigorous agitation in Germany which began in 1862 produced a great effect in that country no serious attempt was made to organise a general com­ bination of Socialists until two years later. In November 1864 a meeting was held in London which laid the foundation of the International Working Men’s Association. Karl Marx was the brain of the move­ ment which soon spread to every civilised country and occasioned grave uneasiness to the courts and cabinets of Europe. The International in effect proclaimed the “ Solidarity ” of interest between the workers of all nations, and called upon them to unite in order to obtain control of the means of production, including the land, in every country; its leaders declared also that the war between classes in each state was the real matter of importance to the labouring class, which every where suffered from the oppression of the classes above; that therefore they should sink national differences in a great international struggle for the emancipation of the �49 workers. These ideas obtained more ready acceptance in Germany than elsewhere as might have been expected from the superior education of the German working classes and from the fact that the heads of the movement were Germans; but up to the date of the declaration of war between France and Germany the International bid fair to become a most important body, and to combine the proletariat in a really formid­ able movement all over Europe. When the war was over Paris found that though she had got rid of the Emperor with his gang of profession­ al gamblers and prostitutes, France was to be handed to the exploitation of a reactionist Republic. The Parisians, therefore, resenting this mean substitution, made an attempt to secure perfect commercial indepen­ dence before admitting the troops from without. The movement was at first necessarily in middle-class hands, and the Socialists of Paris were warned by the leaders of the International that as a simultaneous rising in Berlin, Vienna, Madrid, &c., had been impossible to arrange, failure was certain. The French Socialists were incensed at this prediction and set to work to discredit its authors. But, when the Commune had once been set on foot, it soon became clear that Paris was destined to be the scene of another bloody but again for the time, fruitless campaign of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie. Yet the champions of that class alone showed unfaltering resolution and dauntless courage in the face of danger and in the face of death. Paris was to a large extent injured by the attacks of the troops, and partly by the action of the beaten forces of the insurgents ; but the horrors of the cold-blooded E �So massacre which followed, the infamous misdeeds of the Versailles troops, with such monsters as Gallifet at their head, and the fearful scenes on the plain of Satory have effaced almost all memory of the errors of the vanquished. Once more “ order *’ rose in place of the best government for the many that Paris had ever seen. Throughout the world to-day the remembrance of that fearful struggle and defeat strengthens the determination of the real leaders of the proletariat revolution. From that date forward organised Socialism has made way against many difficulties, the apathy of Englishmen having largely contributed to check any real re-commencement of the international movement. But of late years a change has taken place and the rapidly growing influence of the Democratic Federation shows that an avowed Socialist propaganda of an international character has at last taken root in this country. What we have to face now is a bitter class antagon­ ism between the classes who own the means of production which they use to enslave their fellows to those means of production and the labourers who are thus economically and socially enslaved. With these labourers must be numbered a large portion of the lowest middle-class who practically depend upon and are a portion of the proletariat, certain of the intellectual proletariat, clerks, &c., who are learning how they are being exploited themselves by their employers, and the domestic servants, whose servile, degraded position will be felt more and more as education spreads. Here is the last class antagonism, which indeed is world-wide— the antagonism between the slaves of the machine, the �mere social engines for producing surplus value and contributing to luxury, against the capitalist class and their hangers-on, the landlords. All other antagonisms,, complicated as they were, have now faded into this one simple unmistakeable hostility of clearly defined inimical interests between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. Proletariat production—capitalist appropriation: workers make—traders take. Socialised production ; individual exchange. Work in concert: exchange at war. Supremacy of town: subservience of country. Overcrowded cities: empty fields. Such are the briefest possible statements of the economical and social forms which result in our present anarchy, not for one class alone, though that suffers far the most, but for all. And the system as a whole, is now world-wide,, though in different shapes. Capital dominates the planet, acts irrespective of all nationalities, grabs itsprofits irrespective of all creeds and conditions: capital is international, unsectarian, destitute of regard, for humanity or religion. The proletariat must learn from the system which they have to overthrow to be equally indifferent to class, creed or colour, religion or nationality, so long as the individuals sink their personal objects in a resolute endeavour against the common enemy. Unite ! for this we educate, to this, end we agitate, to achieve a certain victory for all we organise. Unite ! Unite ! Unite ! But we are all only working in a great economical movement, which we can help in some degree to advance or retard, but which will proceed whatever we do to push on or to hinder. The very conditions o£ �52 production are bringing about changes in spite of the efforts of the capitalist class themselves. It has been found necessary to use the power of the State more and more to check the unbridled greed of the classes who confiscate labour. Even the middle-class debating club at Westminster, which passes muster as the English House of Commons, has found itself compelled by the exigencies of the case to interpose between the employers and their wage-slaves, between the Irish landlords and their serfs, between adulterating poisoners and their victims. The domain of laissez-faire, the hideous realm of mis-rule, has been invaded year by year by the State, controlled though it is by the oppressing classes, because some steps were absolutely essential to save the mass of the population from utter physical, moral and intellectual deteroriation. Education Acts, Irish Land Acts, Employers’ Liability Acts, Factory Acts, Artisans’ Dwellings Acts, these and others, are direct evidence of the tendency to limit that unrestrained free contract so dear to the capitalist slave-driver of modern times. They are but half-way measures at best. What more could they be when enacted, administered and applied by the very classes which, according to the debased estimate of the aims and pleasures of life commonly held among those classes themselves, have most to lose by a thorough reorganisation ? But their very appearance •on the Statute Book proves that the era of middle class rule, and the period of working class apathy are alike coming to an end. The fear of pressure from without of a threatening kind leads the luxurious classes to try to negotiate. Bankrupt of ideas, destitute of principles, their one �53 endeavour is to compromise on favourable terms. But for us no compromise is possible which shall carry with it the continuance of the present misery. Yet again we see the power of the State extending. It organises as well as orders, developes as well as restrains. This too in despite of huckster economy and huckster economists, whose principal professors are forced to eat their own words as administrators and to stultify their teaching as thinkers by sheer pressure of the course of events. At this hour the State is by far the largest employer of labour in the kingdom. The Post Office, the Telegraphs, the Parcels Post, the State Banks, the Arsenals, the Dockyards, the Clothing Establishments, the Army and Navy, are all managed by the State, and administered by State officials, who organise the labour below. The objection to the system is not inefficiency nor even extravagance, but the fact that those who labour are brought into competition with the lowest wages outside; and that the profits of their production or distribution are used by the State to reduce the taxation which has to be paid by the middle class. But in this direction lies the best prospect for reform and re-organisation without bloodshed. The Railways, the Shipping Companies, the great Machine Factories, are even now ready to be handled by the State through their present officials, but under the direct control of the producing class (which will comprise the whole community) and without the endeavour to exact a profit at the expense of the overwork of the em­ ployes as is at present the case. Shareholders and factory lords have no more power, as assuredly they �54 have no more right, than landlords to keep back that organisation of the labour of all, for the benefit of all, which is the only possible outlet from our pre­ sent anarchical system of production for profit and never-ending round of commercial crises, due to the revolt of the socialised method of production against the individualised form of exchange. When a glut of goods exists on one hand, and men ■eager for those goods and anxious to work stand idle and foodless on the other, when these two factors of well-being cannot be brought together because of the necessity to produce for profit which the very glut itself prevents, surely anarchy in production and exchange has been driven to the last ditch of absurdity. When hundreds of thousands of children are brought into the world under such conditions that good food, good health, good education, are for them impossible, the essential foundations though all three are of true morality and sound citizenship in later life, surely here too the anarchy in our commonest social relations is clearly manifested. When also we look around at the complete divison between classes, their utter ignorance of what one another think and feel, the incapacity of men and women of different classes to sit comfortably at the same meal table, though of the same race, language and creed, here, even apart from the necessary antagonism of economical interests, the social anarchy which the middle-classes call order once more stares us in the face. After these instances of disintegration and disorder, the ugliness, waste, and adulteration seem comparatively trifling. Yet so long as competitive commerce and �55 production for profit continue, based upon wage­ slavery below, no change for the better can be wrought. As capitalism saps :all healthy social relations and reduces even the closest connection between the sexes to a mere question of bargain and sale, so it threatens to destroy the springs of all art, that is of the external beauty of life, and to reduce the world to a state of barbarism ; a threat which can only be met by the demands of social order for the com­ munising of exchange and the means of production, so that labour may be freed from the merely useless toil in which it is to a large extent at present employed, so that while machinery is used for performing labour repulsive to men, the intelligence of the workmen may be made available for the higher needs of the community, so that the greater and better part of productive labour may become a voluntary, reasonable and pleasureable exercise of the human faculties, instead of a compulsory, degrading and unhappy struggle for existence, human in nothing save its suffering, the tragedy of the battle against starvation. How then would individuality, that unceasing cry of the bore and the dullard, be stunted by a system which should leave full play to the highest faculties of every man in return for trifling, pleasant social labour, nay, which should develope those facul­ ties for all classes far more than they are developed to-day ? Under such a system, where mankind collectively controlled their means of production, with •machinery ever improving by the genius of their fellows, but used for instead of against the mass of the human race, men would at length be really free in every sense �56 economical, social, and political, save that they would no longer possess the freedom to enslave and embrute their fellow men. Individuality is crushed to­ day in every direction. The poor slave to the machine, the overworked hind or domestic drudge have no time for individuality, no strength left for their own education or development. Under our present system there is no individuality for the mass of mankind. For re-construction and re-organisation, therefore, we Socialists continually strive, looking to the completest physical, moral and intellectual development of every human being as the highest form of the social state, as the best and truest happiness for every individual and for every class, where, as none need overwork, so none shall be able to force others to work for their profit. And this is Utopian ! Nay; it was utopian perhaps, when the powers of man over nature were trifling compared with what they are to-day, and mere division of labour almost necessarily involved the formation of castes and classes. But now steam, electricity, the forces growing daily under our hand, render equality a necessity unless barbarism and bootless destruction are to come upon us in our very midst. For as ideas grow, as education spreads, so does the knowledge of how to turn the increasing powers of devastation to account increase among the needy and the oppressed. Gunpowder helped to sweep away feudalism with all its beauty and all its chivalry, when new forms arose from the decay of the old; now far stronger explosives are arrayed against capitalism; while the ideas of the time are as rife with revolution as they were when feudalism fell. To avoid alike the crushing anarchy of to-day and the �57 fierce anarchy of to-morrow, we strive to help forward the workers to the control of the State, as the only means whereby such hideous trouble can be avoided, and production and exchange can be organised for the benefit of the country at large. Thus, therefore, we propose that all should have the vote ; not that the vote will free them from economical oppression, but because in this way alone is a peaceable issue possible for the possessing classes. It is better for them to yield to the vote of organised numbers than to the victory of even organised force. What then are our objects at this hour ? Some of them we have already stated. We can but point the road that we believe will be travelled in the near future. To assert definitely that this or that step must be taken at any given time would be directly contrary to our general principles, which depend for their full develop­ ment upon the reasoning action ot the class still to be set free. Forms of government, political devices, party arrangements, the devious tricks of faction, we contemn as useless or denounce as harmful. The only end to be sought in the organisation and representation of the people is the domination by the people of all social forces now and in the future. We claim then the land for the people, that the soil of our country with whatever is useful or beautiful in or upon it, should no longer be held by a small minority for their aggrandise­ ment and greed, but that it should be owned by all for all collectively, to be occupied, cultivated, enjoyed, mined or built over as the majority of the people shall see fit to ordain. That the economical forms are not yet fully ready for the completest development of agricul- �58 rural management is no reason why a handful of persons should draw vast revenues from a monopoly fraudulently seized from their countrymen ; still less why the land in towns, and the minerals below the land in country should be held for the benefit of the few. But Socialists have no factious prejudices, and are influenced by no jealousies of a clique. We call there­ fore also for the immediate management and ownership of the railways by the State, so that the inland communications of the country may be under the control of the people at large, and carried on for their benefit, regard being had to the full remuneration of the labour of all who are engaged in the work of transport. Here is no difficulty beyond the prejudice born of a flagitious monopoly, wrongfully granted by the landlord and capitalist House of Commons in favour of the capitalist class. Labour made the railways, and living labour is confiscated daily to pay interest to the labour of the dead. It would be far better and easier for the State as the organised representative of a thorough democratic community to manage the railways through the present paid officials than to leave them under the control of a coterie of political and social adventurers, who use their railways to serve their politics, and their politics to serve their railways. As with railways so with shipping. There the whole economical forms are ready, in the same way, for immediate management by the State, and the transfer, could be arranged almost without a hitch. With mines, factories, and workshops more direct interest by the workers engaged in them would be needed, but as education extends, and the habit of economical collective �59 freedom grows, it will be as easy for the labourers to choose their own superintendents, and apply the best machinery, as it is for the capitalist to choose and use them to-day. The inventor, the organiser, the manager are not the people who sweep off the bulk of the surplus value made by labour as it is, but the idle, useless capitalists who sit at home and appropriate other men’s work by means of social conventions which they them­ selves have formulated, and they themselves give effect to by force of law. Similarly the handling of money and credit must neces­ sarily be carried on in future for the advantage of the com­ munity at large. National banks, national credit establish­ ments, State and Communal centres of distribution for the purchase and exchange of goods will supplant and take over the huge enterprises for the gain of a class which now exercise such enormous influence, and accu­ mulate such vast profits under protection of the middle-class State. As production is inevitably social, exchange must be social too. Simply as a steppingstone to the attainment of this State organisation of production and exchange do we advocate the heaviest cumulative taxation rising upon all incomes derived from trade or business, as well as upon those drawn from the land. Only by collective superintendence of production and exchange, only by the scientific organi­ sation of labour at home and supply of markets abroad, can our present anarchy be put an end to, and a better system be allowed to grow up. Removal and recon­ struction must go on together, and at the same time. The very existence and increase of Companies, the very development of State management now going on, point out �II 6o ' clearly the lines of necessary progress: with the com­ plete organisation of democracy the State, in its present meaning of class predominance, necessarily disappears. But this is confiscation. Far from it, it is restitution. Those who cry for compensation for past robbery, and shriek confiscation because the right to rob in future is challenged, should bear in mind that the men and women whom we would compensate are those who are now stumbling half-clothed and half-fed from a pauper cradle to a pauper grave, in order that capitalists and landlords may live in luxury and excess. The dead have passed beyond compensation : it will be well if the living do not call for vengeance on their behalf. Our first principle as Socialists is that all should be well-fed, wellhoused, well-educated. For this object we urge forward the Revolution which our enemies hysterically shriek at, and frantically try to dam back. But we mean wrong to none. Rather would we claim the aid of such of the luxurious classes as are willing, so long as they have still enough and to spare, to forego the frightful privilege of feeding fat upon the wretchedness of others. Good housing for all cannot be got if greed is to organise the new arrangements: good food and physical, mental, and moral education for all classes cannot be obtained if factitious superiority and harmful social distinctions are to be kept up. Therefore, we say once more this is a class war ; we know it; we are preparing for it; we rejoice at its near approach. We mean to break down competition, and to substitute universal organisation and co-operation. There lie around us the necessary methods: they need but to be applied. But there are many difficulties and �6i dangers, the power of wealth is great, the unscrupulous­ ness of property knows no bounds ? We are well aware of this : we see and do not shrink from the inevitable struggle. But the numbers over against us, the hosts who may be bribed to fight for their oppressors, even to their own hurt; there are thousands, perhaps millions, of such men ? There are. We know that too. But in a cause like ours, we refuse to recognise difficulties, with such misery around us we cannot stop to calculate forces, with such a future before us we will never count heads. The Revolution is prepared in the womb of society, it needs but one strenous and organised effort to manifest the new period in legal and acknowledged shape to the world. To attempt to return to the old forms of individual production, would be at the same reactionary and anarchical. We cannot, if we would, so put back the hands upon the dial of human development. It is nowise desirable we should. The increased power of man over nature is gained by co-operation, by social machinery, by associated labour, by skilfully concerted work. This has been due to countless ages of growth and develop­ ment, involving often the most horrible oppression, but ever producing more wealth with less labour. We inherit the results of this long martyrdom of man to the forms of production and exchange. It is for us to take hold of and use these improvements for the enfranchisement of the people, and for the establish­ ment of happiness and organised contentment for man­ kind. We in England have arrived at the completest economical development. Our example therefore, will guide and encourage the world. All over the planet the �62 same ideas are abroad. In Germany, France, Scandi­ navia, Russia, Italy, Spain, far away in the ancient empires of Asia, as well as in America, and the other flourishing Colonies of our days, the labourers stretch out their hands to one another for help, co-operation and encouragement in the struggle which manifestly draws near. Confident in their cause the Socialists alone of modern parties can march steadily forward in inter­ national comity, to the assurance of victory for all. Thus then, based upon science and political economy, rejoicing in the beauty of an enfranchised art, with our social creed as our only religion—the scientific organi­ sation of labour, and the universal brotherhood of man we appeal to men and women of all classes, all creeds and all nationalities to join us in the struggle wherein none can fail, to prepare for themselves, and for their children a nobler, higher lot than has hitherto been theirs, and to pass on to countless generations that joy, that beauty and that perfect contentment which can arise from true Socialism alone. Signed the Executive Committee of the Democratic Federation. Herbert Burrows. R. D. Butler. H. H. Champion, Hon. Secretary. W. J. Clark, Lecture Secretary. H. A. Fuller. H. M. Hyndman, Chairman. J. L. JOYNES. Tom. S. Lemon. James Macdonald. William Morris, Hon. Treasurer James F. Murray. H. Quelch. A. Scheu. Helen Taylor. John E. Williams. �THE MODERN PRESS. 16 pp., Crown 8-vo., in wrapper. SOCIALISM versus SMITHISM, An open letter from H. M. Hyndman to Samuel Smith, M. P. for Liverpool. PRICE TWOPENCE. *** A reply to an attack by Mr. Smith on “ Socialism made "Plain,” the manifesto issued by the Democratic Federation.. THE NEW BOOK OF KINGS, By j. Morrison Davidson. Price 6d. Henry George says:—" It would be a great thing if it could be scattered broadcast over England by hundreds of thousands.” “ Vivacious and trenchant. . . . Is calculated to open the eyes of people who now worship monarchy as a fetish."—London Echo. Monthly, Price One Shilling “TO-DAY,” THE SOCIALIST MAGAZINE. Amongst the Contributors are H. M. HYNDMAN, STEPNIAK, WILLIAM MORRIS, W. HARRISON RILEY, ELEANOR MARX, EDWARD CARPENTER, MICHAEL DAVITT, E. B. AVELING, PAUL LAFARGUE, VERA SASSULITCH, E. BELFORT BAX, REV. S. D. HEADLAM, J. L. JOYNES, WILLIAM ARCHER, Win. LIEBKNECHT, &c., &c. THE ADVENTURES OF A TOURIST IN IRELAND. By J. L. Joynes. Second Edition. (Reduced to) Is. SOCIALISM AND SLAVERY, A Reply to Mr. Herbert Spencer’s Article on “The Coming Slavery,” by H. M. Hyndman. Price 6d. 13 and 14, Paternoster Row, London, E.C. �THE MODERN PRESS. NOW READY. PRICE SIXPENCE. The Working Man’s Programme, (A RBEITER-PROGRA MM} By FERDINAND LASSALLE, Translated hy EDWARD PETERS (late of the Madras Civil Service) THE COMING FREEDOM, A Reply to Mr. Herbert Spencer ON THE COMING SLAVERY. “Out of thine own mouth will I condemn thee.” PRICE ONE PENNY. HYMNS OF PROGRESS, SPECIALLY COMPILED FOR THE PROGRESSIVE ASSOCIATION. A Collection of Songs not directly founded on theological conceptions, nor directly antagonistic thereto, but dealing solely with the largest and simplest aspects of human life, human love, and human Dope. _ _______ Price Twopence. Cloth Fourpenee. Demy, 8-vo., in wrapper, One Shilling. THE ROBBERY OF THE POOR, By W. H. P. Campbell, The writer shows in this pamphlet the justice of the attack of the Socialists on private property and vindicates the right to “ expropriate the expropriators.” 13 and 14, Paternoster Row, London, E.C. � 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 &amp; 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 An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available 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 The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 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 A summary of the principles of socialism: written for the Democratic Federation Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hyndman, Henry Mayers [1842-1921] Morris, William Description An account of the resource Place of publication: London Collation: 62, [2] p. ; 19 cm. Notes: Publisher's advertisements on unnumbered pages at the end. Written for the Democratic Federation. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Modern Press Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1884 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context T463 Subject The topic of the resource Socialism Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (A summary of the principles of socialism: written for the Democratic Federation), 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 The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Socialism Socialism-Europe Socialism-Great Britain William Morris https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/62e966be2e8a7fb66ccb935d42dc8a9f.pdf?Expires=1782345600&Signature=YaJngcLk9I7gm1rkkPzJxPY8OPVzKJB8pLS3yENtwHXNfdcLirhg4gcc6xY%7E1eL3%7ErUxaFHvKD%7E2A1Q2pF8iNWfPZfbJfBdGwKypzNOPRaMRtbmnsoa65lNHwqXjwJCEOKM2S01kUENcTpE3hMUoCRZ%7EiEcoDdJ%7EV-MqyHZsPmbQsxWejsGxAgy5YK-9JHqUyLcRqCJZKH7hiNnLhCiXK9Y8wNB6eCtS6B47VRRqj8iGt0XpKrrbuTg2DF36AjrTDaCVau9l90HvJeYb44xDA%7E3m1o8eCMYnEO%7EvrFcCia26NMtydfW9wsovenmzhV8NFGer7V730TL3zYyQsPT9Ww__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 8a48984ad0fda6268a197945b685dd4e PDF Text Text Price One Penny. NOW SUFFFRING FIVE YEARS* IMPRISONMENT UNDER THE FRENCH REPUBLIC FOR ADVOCATING THE CAUSE OF THE PEOPLE. Translated by H. M. Hyndman. Reprinted from “TO-DAY" (Monthly 3d.). 1885. Published at The Modern Press, 13, Paternoster Row, E.C. T T is to the young that I wish to address myself to-day. Let the -L old—I mean of course the old in heart and mind—lay the pamphlet down therefore without tiring their eyes in reading what will tell them nothing. I assume that you are about eighteen or twenty years of age ; that you have finished your apprenticeship or your studies; that you are just entering on life. I take it for granted that you have a mind free from the superstition which your teachers have sought to force upon you ; that you don’t fear the devil and that you do not go to hear parsons and ministers rant. More, that you are not one of the fops, sad products of a society in decay, who display their well-cut trousers and their monkey faces in the park and who even at their early age have only an insatiable longing for pleasure at any price. ... I assume on the contrary that you have a warm heart and for this reason I talk to you. A first question, I know, occurs to you—you have often asked yourself—“ What am I going to be ? ” In fact when a man is young he understands that after having studied a trade or a science for several years—at the cost of society, mark—he has not done this in order that he should make use of his acquirements as instru­ ments of plunder for his own gain, and he must be depraved indeed and utterly cankered by vice, who has not dreamed that one day he would apply his intelligence, his abilities, his knowledge to help on the enfranchisement of those who to-day grovel in misery and in ignorance. You are one of those who has had such a vision, are you not ? Very well, let us see what you must do to make your dream a reality. I do not know in what rank you were born. Perhaps, favoured �2 by fortune, you have turned your attention to the study of science; you are to be a doctor, a barrister, a man of letters, or a scientific man ; a wide field opens up before you ; you enter upon life with extensive knowledge, with a trained intelligence ; or, on the other hand, you are, perhaps, only an honest artisan whose knowledge of science is limited by the little that you have learnt at school; but you have had the advantage of learning at first hand what a life of exhausting toil is the lot of the worker of our time. I stop at the first supposition, to return afterwards to the second ", I assume then that you have received a scientific education. Let us suppose that you intend to be a—doctor. To-morrow a man in corduroys will come to fetch you to see a sick woman. He will lead you into one of those alleys where the opposite neighbours can almost shake hands over the heads of the passers-by ; you ascend into a foul atmosphere by the flickering light of a little ill-trimmed lamp ; you climb two, three, four, five flights of filthy stairs and in a dark, cold room you find the sick woman, lying on a pallet covered with dirty rags. Pale, livid children, shivering under their scanty garments, gaze at you with their big eyes wide open. The husband has worked all his life twelve or thirteen hours a-day at no matter what; now he has been out of work for three months. To be out of employ is not rare in his trade; it happens every year, periodically; but, formerly, when he was out of work his wife went out as a char­ woman—perhaps to wash your shirts—at the rate of fifteen-pence a-day ; but now she has been bedridden for two months and misery glares upon the family in all its squalid hideousness. What will you prescribe for the sick woman, doctor ? you who have seen at a glance that the cause of her illness is general anaemia, want of good food, lack of fresh air ? Say a good beef­ steak every day ? a little exercise in the country ? a dry and wellventilated bed-room ? What irony ! If she could have afforded it this would have all have been done long since without waiting for your advice I If you have a good heart, a frank address, an honest face, the family will tell you many things. They will tell you that the woman on the other side of the partition, who coughs a cough which tears your heart, is a poor ironer; that a flight of stairs lower down all the children have the fever ; that the washerwoman who occu­ pies the ground floor will not live to see the spring, and that in the house next door things are still worse. What will you say to all these sick people ? Recommend them generous diet, change of air, less exhausting toil. . . . You only wish you could, but you daren’t, and you go out heartbroken with a curse on your lips. The next day, as you still brood over the fate of the dwellers in this dog-hutch, your partner tells you that yesterday a footman came to fetch him, this time in a carriage. It was for the owner of a fine house, for a lady worn out with sleepless nights, who devotes all her life to dressing, visits, balls, and squabbles with a stupid husband. Your friend has prescribed for her a less preposterous habit of life, a less heating diet, walks in the fresh air, an even temperament and, in order to make up in some measure for the want of useful work, a little gymnastic exercise in her bedroom. �3 The one is dying because she has never had enough food nor enough rest in her whole life ; the other pines because she has never known what work is since she was born. If you are one of those miserable natures who adapt themselves to anything, who at the sight of the most revolting spectacles console themselves with a gentle sigh and a glass of sherry, then you will gradually become used to these contrasts and the nature of the beast favouring your endeavours, your sole idea will be to lift yourself into the ranks of the pleasure-seekers, so that you may never again find yourself among the wretched. But if you are a Man, if every sentiment is translated in your case into an action of the will, if, in you, the beast has not crushed the intelligent being, then you will return home one day saying to yourself, “ No, it is unjust; this must not go on so any longer. It is not enough to cure diseases, we must prevent them. A little good living and intellectual development would score off our lists half the patients and half the diseases. Throw physic to the dogs! Air, good diet, less crushing toil,—that is how we must begin. Without this, the whole profession of a doctor is nothing but trickery and humbug.” That very day you will understand Socialism. You will wish to know it thoroughly and if altruism is not a word devoid of significance for you, if you apply to the study of the social question the rigid induction of the natural philosopher you will end by finding yourself in our ranks, and you will work, as we work, to bring about the Social Revolution. But perhaps you will say, “ Mere practical business may go to the devil! I will devote myself to pure science ; I will be an astronomer, a physiologist, a chemist. Such work a 5 that always bears fruit, if only for future generations.” Let us first try to understand what you seek in devoting your­ self to science. Is it only the pleasure—doubtless immense— which we derive from the study of nature and the exercise of our intellectual faculties ? In that case I ask you in what respect does the philosopher, who pursues science in order that he may pass his life pleasantly to himself, differ from that drunkard there, who only seeks for the immediate gratification that gin affords him ? The philosopher has, past all question, chosen his enjoyment more wisely, since it affords him a pleasure far deeper and more lasting than that of the toper. But that is all! Both one and the other have the same selfish end in view, personal gratification. But no, you have no wish to lead this selfish life. By working at science you mean to work for humanity, and that is the idea which will guide you in your investigations. A charming illusion ! Which of us has not hugged it for a moment when giving himself up for the first time to science ? But then, if you are really thinking about humanity, if you look to the good of mankind in your studies, a formidable objection rises before you ; for, however little you may have of the critical spirit, you must at once note that in dur society of to-day science is only an appendage to luxury which serves to render life pleasanter for the few, but remains absolutely inaccessible to the bulk of mankind. �4 Now more than a century has passed since science laid down sound propositions as to the origin of the universe, but how many have mastered them or possess the really scientific spirit of criticism ? A few thousands at the outside, who are lost in the midst of hundreds of millions still steeped in prejudices and super­ stitions worthy of savages, who are consequently ever ready to serve as puppets for religious impostors. Or, to go a step further, let us glance at what science has done to establish rational foundations for physical and moral health. Science tells us how we ought to live in order to preserve the health q£ our own bodies, how to maintain in good conditions of existence the crowded masses of our population. But does not all the vast amount of work done in these two directions remain a dead letter in our books ? We know it does. And why ?—Because science to-day exists only for a handful of privileged persons, because social inequality which divides society into two classes—the wage­ slaves and the grabbers of capital—renders all its teachings as to the conditions of a rational existence only the bitterest irony to nine-tenths of mankind. I could give plenty more examples, but I stop short : only go outside Faust’s closet, whose windows, darkened by dust, scarce let the light of heaven glimmer on its shelves full of books, look round, and at each step you will find fresh proof in support of this view. It is now no longer a question of accumulating scientific truths and discoveries. We need above everything to spread the truths already mastered by science, to make them part of our daily life, to render them common property. We have to order things so that all, so that the mass of mankind, may be capable of understand­ ing and applying them ; we have to make science no longer a luxury but the foundation of every man’s life. This is what justice demands. I go farther: I say that the interests of science itself lie m the same direction. Science only makes real progress when a new truth finds a soil already prepared to receive it. The theory of the mechanical origin of heat, though enunciated in the last century in the same terms that Hirn and Clausius formulate it to-day, re­ mained for eighty years buried in the Academical Records until such time as knowledge of physics had spread widely enough to create a public capable of accepting it. Three generations had to go by before the ideas of Erasmus Darwin on the variation ot species could be favourably received from his grandson, and that they should be admitted by academical philosophers, not without pressure from public opinion even then. The philosopher, like the poet or artist, is always the product of the society m which he moves and teaches. ... , , But, if you are imbued with these ideas, you will understand that it is above all important to bring about a radical change in this state of affairs, which to-day condemns the philosopher to be crammed with scientific truths, and almost the whole of the rest of human beings to remain what they were five, ten centuries ago, that is to say in the state of slaves and machines, incapable ot mastering established truths. And the day when you are imbued with wide, deep, humane and profoundly scientific trutn, tha ay you will lose your taste for pure science. You will set to work to �5 find out the means to effect this transformation, and if you bring to your investigations the impartiality which has guided you in your Scientific researches you will of necessity adopt the cause of Socialism ; you will make an end of sophisms and you will come amongst us ; weary of working to procure pleasures for this small group, which already has such a large share of them, you will place your information and your devotion at the service of the oppressed. And be sure that then the feeling of duty accomplished, and of a real accord established between your sentiments and your actions, you will find powers in yourself of whose existence you »ever even dreamed. When, too, one day—it is not far distant in any case, saving the presence of our professors—when one day, I say, the change for which you are working shall have been brought about, then, deriving new forces from collective scientific work, and from the powerful help of armies of labourers who will come to place their energies at its service, science will take a new bound forward, in comparison with which the slow progress of to-day will appear the simple exercises of tyros. Then you will enjoy science ; that pleasure will be a pleasure for all. If you have finished reading law and are about to be called to the Bar, perhaps you too have some illusions as to your future activity—I assume that you are one of the nobler spirits, that you know what altruism means. Perhaps you think “ To devote my life to an unceasing and vigorous struggle against all injustice ! To apply my whole faculties to bringing about the triumph of law, the public expression of supreme justice—can any career be nobler? ” and you begin the real work of life confident in yourself and in the profession you have chosen. Very well: let us turn to any page of the Law Reports and see what actual life will tell you. Here we have a rich landowner; he demands the eviction of a cottier tenant who has not paid his rent. From the legal point of view the case is beyond dispute ; since the poor farmer can’t pay, out he must go. But if we look into the facts we shall learn some­ thing like this. The landlord has squandered his rents persistently in rollicking pleasure; the tenant has worked hard all day and ■every day. The landlord has done nothing to improve his estate, nevertheless its value has trebled in fifty years owing to the rise in price of land due to the construction of a railway, to the making of new highroads, to the draining of a marsh, to the enclosure and cultivation of waste lands; but the tenant who has contributed largely towards this increase has ruined himself; he fell into the hands of usurers and, head over ears in debt, he can no longer pay the landlord. The law, always on the side of property, is quite clear : the landlord is in the right. But you, whose feeling of justice has not yet been stifled by legal fictions, what will you do ? Will you contend that the farmer ought to be turned out upon the high road ?—for that is what the law ordains—or will you urge that the landlord should pay back to the farmer the whole of the increase of value in his property which is due to the farmer’s labour ?—this is what equity decrees. Which side will you take ? for the law and against justice ? or for justice and against the law? �W" 6 Or when workmen have gone out on strike against a master without notice, which side will you take then ? The side of the law, that is to say the part of the master who, taking advantage of a period of crisis, has made outrageous profits ? or against the law, but on the side of the workers who received during the whole time only 2s. a day as wages, and saw their wives and children fade away before their eyes? Will you stand up for that piece of chicanery which consists in affirming “ freedom of contract ” ? Or will you uphold equity, according to which a contract entered into between a man who has dined well and the man who sells his labour for bare subsistence, between the strong and the weak, is not a contract. Take another case. Here in London a man was loitering near a butcher’s shop. He stole a beefsteak and ran off with it. Arrested and questioned, it turns out that he is an artisan out of work, and that he and his family have had nothing to eat for four days. The butcher is asked to let the man off, but he is all for the triumph of justice ! He prosecutes, and the man is sentenced to six months’ imprisonment. Blind Themis so wills it! Does not your conscience revolt against the law and against society when you hear similar judgments pronounced every day ? Or again, will you call for the enforcement of the law against this man who, badly brought up and ill-used from his childhood, has arrived at man’s estate without having heard one sympathetic word, and completes his career by murdering his neighbour in order to rob him of a shilling ? Will you demand his execution, or—worse still—that he should be imprisoned for twenty years, when you know very well that he is rather a madman than a criminal, and, in any case, that his crime is the fault of our entire society ? Will you claim that these weavers should be thrown into prison who in a moment of desperation have set fire to a mill ? That this man who shot at a crowned murderer should be imprisoned for life ? That these insurgents should be shot down who plant the flag of the future on the barricades ?—no, a thousand times no ! If you reason instead of repeating what is taught you; if you analyse the law and strip off those cloudy fictions with which it has been draped in order to conceal its real origin, which is the right of the stronger, and its substance, which has ever been the consecration of all the tyrannies handed down to mankind through its long and bloody history; when you have comprehended this, your contempt for the law will be profound indeed. You will understand that to remain the servant of the written law is to place yourself every day in opposition to the law of conscience, and to make a bargain on the wrong side ; and since this struggle cannot go on for ever you will either silence your conscience and become a scoundrel, or you will break with tradition, and you will work with us for the utter destruction of all this injustice, economical, social, and political. But then you will be a Socialist, you will be a Revolutionist. . And you, young engineer, you who dream of improving the lot of the workers by the application of science to industry,—what a sad disappointment, what terrible disillusions await you ! You devote the youthful energy of your mind to working out the scheme �7 of a railway which, running along the brink of precipices anti burrowing into the very heart of mountains of granite, will bind, together two countries which nature has separated. But, once at work, you see whole regiments of workers decimated by privations and sickness in this dark tunnel, you see others of them returning home carrying with them may be a few pence and the undoubted seeds of consumption, you see human corpses—the results of a grovelling greed—as landmarks along each yard of your road, and, when the railway is finished, you see lastly that it becomes the highway for the artillery of an invading army. . . . You have given up the prime of your youth to perfect an in­ vention which will facilitate production, and, after many experi­ ments, many sleepless nights, you are at length master of this valuable discovery. You make use of it and the result surpasses your expectations. Ten, twenty thousand men are thrown out upon the streets ! Those who remain, most of them children, will be reduced to mere machines I Three, four, ten masters will make their fortunes and will drink deep on the strength of it. . . . Is this your dream ? . , , , .u <Finally, you study recent industrial advances and you see that the sempstress has gained nothing, absolutely nothing, by the in­ vention of the sewing machine; that the labourer m the bt. Gothard tunnel dies of ankylostoma, notwithstanding diamond drills • that the mason and the day labourer are out of work just as before at the foot of the Giffard lifts—and, if you discuss social problems with the same independence of spirit which has guided you in your mechanical investigations, you necessarily come to the conclusion that under the domination of private property and wage-slavery, every new invention, far from increasing the well­ being of the worker, only makes his slavery heavier, his labour more degrading, the periods of slack work more frequent, the crisis sharper, and that the man who already has every conceivable pleasure for himself is the only one who profits by it. . What will you do when you have once come to this conclusion . —either you will begin by silencing your conscience by sophisms ; then one fine day you will bid farewell to the honest dreams of your youth and you will try to obtain, for yourself, what commands pleasure and enjoyment—you will then go over into the camp of the exploiters. Or if you have a tender heart, you will say to yourself “ No, this is not the time for inventions. Let us work first to transform the domain of production ; when private property is put an end to, then each new advance in industry will be made for the benefit of all mankind ; and this mass of workers, mere machines as they are to-day, will then become thinking beings who apply to industry their intelligence, strengthened by study and skilled in manual labour, and thus mechanical progress will take a bound forward which will carry out in fifty years what nowa­ days we cannot even dream of. And what shall I say to the schoolmaster—not to the man who looks upon his profession as a wearisome business, but to him who when surrounded by a joyous band of young pickles feels exhilarated by their cheery looks, and in the midst of their happy laughter,and who tries to plant in their little heads those ideas of humanity which he cherished himself when he was young. �8 Often I see that you are sad and I know what it is that makes you knit your brows. This very day, your favourite pupil, who is not very well up in Latin it is true, but who has none the less an excellent heart, recited the story of William Tell with so much vigour! his eyes sparkled, he seemed to wish to stab all tyrants there and then ; he gave with such fire the passionate lines of Schiller:— Before the slave when he breaks his chain, Before the free man tremble not. But when he returned home, his mother, his father, his uncle, sharply rebuked him for want of respect to the minister or the rural policeman ; they held forth to him by the hour on “ prudence, respect for authority, submission to his betters ”, till he put Schiller aside in order to read “ Self-Help.” And then only yesterday you were told that your best pupils have all turned out badly ; the one does nothing but dream of becoming an officer ; another in league with his master robs the workers of their slender wages ; and you, who had such hopes of these young­ people, you now brood over the sad contrast between your ideal and life as it is. You still brood over it ! then I foresee that in two years at the outside, after having suffered disappointment after disappointment, you will lay your favourite authors on the shelf, and you will end by saying that Tell was no doubt a very honest fellow, but after all a trifle cracked, that poetry is a first-rate thing for the fireside, especially when a man has been teaching the rule-of-three all day long, but still poets are always in the clouds and their views have nothing to do with the life of to-day, nor with the next visit of the Inspector of Schools. . . . Or, on the other hand, the dreams of your youth will become the firm convictions of your mature age. You will wish to have wide, human education for all, in school and out of school; and, seeing that this is impossible in existing conditions, you will attack the very foundations of bourgeois society. Then, discharged, as you will be by the Education Department, you will leave your school and come among us and be of us; you will tell men of riper years but of smaller attainments than yourself, how enticing knowledge is, what mankind ought to be, nay what we could be. You will come and work with Socialists for the complete trans­ formation of the existing system, will strive side by side with us to attain true equality, real fraternity, never-ending liberty for the world. Lastly you, young artist, sculptor, painter, poet, musician, do you not observe that the sacred fire which inspired your prede­ cessors is wanting in the men of to-day ? that art is commonplace and mediocrity reigns supreme ? Could it be otherwise ? The delight of having re-discovered the ancient world, of having bathed afresh in the springs of nature which created the master-pieces of the Renaissance no longer exists for the art of our time ; the revolutionary ideal has left it cold until now, and, failing an ideal, our art fancies that it has found one in realism when it painfully photographs in colours the dewdrop on the leaf of a plan# imitates the muscles in the leg of a �9 eow, or describes minutely in prose and in verse the suffocating filth of a sewer, the boudoir of a whore of high degree. “ But, if this is so, what is to be done ? ” you say.—If, I reply, the sacred fire that you say you possess is nothi ng better than a smoking wick, then you will go on doing as you have done, and your art will speedily degenerate into the trade of decorator of tradesmen’s shops, of a purveyor of libretti to third-rate operettas and tales for Christmas Annuals—most of you are already running down that grade with a fine head of steam on. .... But, if your heart really beats in unison with that of humanity, if like a true poet you have an ear for Life, then, gazing out upon this sea of sorrow whose tide sweeps up around you, face to face with these people dying of hunger, in the presence of these corpses piled up in the mines, and these mutilated bodies lying in heaps on the barricades, looking on these long lines of exiles who are going to bury themselves in the snows of Siberia and in the marshes of tropical islands, in full view of this desperate battle which is being fought, amid the cries of pain from the conquered and the orgies of the victors, of heroism in conflict with cowardice, of noble determination and contemptible cunning—you cannot re­ main neutral: you will come and take the side of the oppressed because you know that the beautiful, the sublime, the spirit of life itself are on the side of those who fight for light, for humanity, for justice! You stop me at last! “ What the devil!” you say. “ But if abstract science is a luxury and the practice of medicine mere chicane ; if law spells injustice and mechanical invention is but a means of robbery; if the school, at variance with the wisdom of the practical man,” is sure to be overcome, and art without the revolutionary idea can only de­ generate, what remains for me to do ?” Well, I will tell you. A vast and most enthralling task ; a work in which your actions will be in complete harmony with your conscience, an undertaking capable of rousing the noblest and most vigorous natures. What work ?—I will now tell you. It rests with you either to palter continually with your con­ science, and in the end to say one fine day “ Perish humanity, provided I can have plenty of pleasures and enjoy them to the full, so long as the people are foolish enough to let me.” Or, once more the inevitable alternative, to take part with the Socialists and work with them for the complete transformation of society. Such is the irrefragable consequence of the analysis we have gone through. That is the logical conclusion which every intelligent man must perforce arrive at, provided that he reasons honestly about what passes around him, and discards the sophisms which his bourgeois education and the interested views of those about him whisper in his ear. This conclusion once arrived at, the question, “ What is to be done ?” is naturally put. The answer is easy. Leave this environment in which you are placed and where it is the fashion to say that the people are nothing but a lot of brutes, Come among these people—and the answer will come of itself. �IO You will see that everywhere, in England as well as in France, in Germany as well as in Italy, in Russia as well as in the United States, everywhere where there is a privileged and an oppressed class, there is a tremendous work going on in the midst of the working-class, whose object is to break down for ever the slavery enforced by the capitalist feudality and to lay the foundation of a. society established on the basis of justice and equality. It is no longer enough for the man of the people to-day to pour forth his complaints in one of these songs whose melody breaks your heart, such as were sung by the serfs of the eighteenth century and are still sung by the Slav peasant; he labours with his fellow-toilers for his enfranchisement, with the knowledge of what he is doing and against every obstacle put in his way. His thoughts are constantly exercised in considering what should be done in order that life, instead of being a curse for threefourths of mankind, may be a real enjoyment for all. He takes up the hardest problems of sociology and tries to solve them by his good sense, his spirit of observation, his hard experience. In order to come to an understanding with others as miserable as himself, he seeks to form groups, to organise. He forms societies, main­ tained with difficulty by small contributions ; he tries to make terms with his fellows beyond the frontier, and he prepares the day when wars between peoples shall be impossible far better than the frothy philanthropists who now potter with the fad of universal peace. In order to know what his brothers are doing, to have a closer connection with them, to elaborate his ideas and pass them round, he maintains—but at the price of what privations, what ceaseless efforts!—his working press. At length when the hour has come he rises, and reddening the pavements and the barricades with his blood, he bounds forward to conquer those liberties which the rich and powerful will afterwards know how to corrupt and to turn against him again. What an unending series of efforts ! what an incessant struggle ! What a toil perpetually begun afresh; sometimes to fill up the gaps occasioned by desertion—the result of weariness, corruption, prosecutions ; sometimes to rally the broken forces decimated by fusillades and cold-blooded butchery I at another time to recom­ mence the studies sternly broken off by wholesale slaughter. The newspapers are set on foot by men who have been obliged to force from society scraps of knowledge by depriving themselves of sleep and food ; the agitation is kept up by halfpence deducted from the amount needed to get the barest necessaries of life ; and all this under the constant dread of seeing his family reduced to the most fearful misery, as soon as the master learns that “ his workman, his slave, is tainted with Socialism.” This is what you will see if you go among the people._ And in this endless struggle how often has not the toiler vainly asked, as he stumbled under the weight of his burden : “ Where, TAUGHT AT then, are these OUR EXPENSE ? young THESE CLOTHED WHILE THEY STUDIED ? people who have YOUTHS WHOM WE FED been AND WHERE ARE THOSE FOR WHOM, �II OUR BENT BACKS DOUBLE BENEATH BURDENS OUR OUR AND BELLIES EMPTY, WE HAVE BUILT THESE HOUSES, THESE COLLEGES, THESE LECTURE-ROOMS, THESE MUSEUMS ? FOR WHOSE BENEFIT PRINTED THESE read ? Where POSSESS ITSELF IS THE WITH WE, FINE are OUR BOOKS, MOST they, SCIENCE NOT WORTH OF these WORN FACES, HAVE WE CANNOT OF WHICH professors MANKIND, AND A RARE WHERE ARE THE MEN PALE, WHOM FOR MEN WHO ARE EVER SPEAKING IN PRAISE OF LIBERTY, THINK TO CHAMPION OUR BENEATH THEIR FEET ? FREEDOM, TRAMPLED AS WHERE THE WHOLE WITH TEARS FIND GANG IN OF THEIR THEMSELVES HYPOCRITES WHO EYES BUT WHO AMONG US HELPING ARE THE AND NEVER IT IS EACH DAY ARE THEY, THESE POETS, THESE PAINTERS AND SCULPTORS? to HUMANITY WHERE CATERPILLAR ? EVEN claim who WRITERS AND WHERE IN A WORD IS SPEAK OF NEVER, BY US IN THE PEOPLE ANY CHANCE, OUR LABORIOUS WORK ?” Where are they, indeed ? Why, some are taking their ease with the most cowardly in­ difference; others, the majority, despise the “dirty mob,” and are ready to pounce upon them if they dare touch one of their privileges. Now and then, it is true, a young man comes among us who* dreams of drums and barricades, and seeks sensational scenes; but he deserts the cause of the people as soon as he perceives that the road to the barricade is long, that the work is heavy, and that the crowns of laurel to be won in this campaign are inter­ mingled with thorns. Generally these are ambitious schemers out of work, who having failed in their first efforts, try in this way to cajole people out of their votes, but who a little later will be the first to denounce them, when the people wish to apply the principles which they themselves have professed ; perhaps will even be ready to turn artillery and Gatlings upon them if they dare to move before they, the heads of the movement, give the signal. Add mean insult, haughty contempt, cowardly calumny from the great majority, and you know what the people may expect now-a-days from most of the youth of the upper and middle classes in the way of help towards the social evolution. But then you ask, “ What shall we do ? ” When there is every­ thing to be done I When a whole army of young people would find plenty to employ the entire vigour of their youthful energy, the full force of their intelligence and their talents to help the people in the vast enterprise they have undertaken 1 What shall we do ? Listen. You lovers of pure science, if you are imbued with the principles of Socialism, if you have understood the real meaning of the revo­ lution which is even now knocking at the door, don’t you see that all science has to be recast in order to place it in harmony with the new principles; that it is your business to accomplish in this field �12 ;, a revolution far greater than that which was accomplisnea m every branch of science during the eighteenth century ? Don’t you under­ stand that history—which to-day is an old wife’s tale about great kings, great statesinen and great parliaments—that history itself has to be written from the point of view of the people, from the point of view of work done by the masses in the long evolutions of mankind ? That social economy—which to-day is merely the sanctification of capitalist robbery—has to be worked out afresh as well in its fundamental principles as in its innumerable applica­ tions ? That anthropology, sociology, ethics must be completely recast, and that the very natural sciences themselves, regarded from another point of view, must undergo a profound modification, alike in regard to the conception of natural phenomena and with respect to the method of exposition. Very well, then. Set to work I Place your abilities at the com­ mand of the good cause. Especially help us with your clear logic to combat prejudice and to lay by your synthesis the foundations of a better organisation ; yet more, teach us to apply in our daily arguments the fearlessness of true scientific investigation, and show us, as your predecessors did, how men dare sacrifice even life itself for the triumph of the truth. You, doctors, who have learnt Socialism by a bitter experience, never weary of telling us to-day, to-morrow, in season and out of season, that humanity itself hurries onward to decay if men remain in the present conditions of existence and of work ; that all your medicaments must be powerless against disease while the majority of mankind vegetate in conditions absolutely contrary to those which science tells us are healthful; that it is the causes of disease which must be uprooted, and what is necessary to remove them. Come with your scalpel and dissect for us with an unerring hand this society of ours hastening to putrefaction. Tell us what a rational existence should and might be. Insist, as true surgeons, that a gangrenous limb must be amputated when it may poison the whole body. You, who have worked at the application of science to industry, come and tell us frankly what has been the outcome of your dis­ coveries. Convince those who dare not march boldly towards the future, what new inventions the knowledge we have already acquired carries in its womb, what industry could do under better conditions, what man might easily produce if he produced always with a view to enhance his own production. You poets, painters, sculptors, musicians, if you understand your true mission and the very interests of art itseli, come with us. Place your pen, your pencil, your chisel, your ideas at the service of the revolution. Figure forth to us, in your eloquent style or your impressive pictures, the heroic struggles of the people against their oppressors ; fire the hearts of our youth with that glorious revolutionary enthusiasm which inflamed the souls of our ancestors ; tell women what a noble career is that of a husband who devotes his life to the great cause of social emancipation. Show the people how hideous is their actual life, and place our hand on the causes of its ugliness; tell us what a rational life would be if it did not encounter at every step the follies and the ignominies of our pre­ sent social order. �J3 Lastly, all of you who possess knowledge, talent, capacity, industry, if you have a spark of sympathy in your nature, come, you and your companions, come and place your services at the disposal of those who most need them. And remember, if you do come, that you come not as masters, but as comrades in the struggle ; that you come not to govern but to gain strength for yourselves in a new life which sweeps upwards to the conquest of the future; that you come less to teach than to grasp the aspira­ tions of the many : to divine them, to give them shape, and then to work, without rest and without haste, with all the fire of youth and all the judgment of age, to realise them in actual life—then and then only will you lead a complete, a noble, a rational existence. Then you will see that your every effort on this path bears with it fruit in abundance, and this sublime harmony once established between your actions and the dictates of your conscience, will give you powers which you never dreamt lay dormant in yourselves. The never-ceasing struggle for truth, justice, and equality among the people, whose gratitude you will earn—what nobler career can the youth of all nations desire than this ? It has taken me long to show you of the well-to-do classes that in view of the dilemma which life presents to you, you will be forced, if courageous and sincere, to come and work side by side with Socialists, and champion in their ranks the cause of the social revolution. And yet how simple this truth is after all I But when one is speaking to those who have suffered from the effects of bourgeois surroundings, how many sophisms must be combated ! how many prejudices overcome ! how many interested objections pushed aside 1 It is easy to be brief to-day in addressing you, the youth of the people. The very pressure of events impels you to become Social­ ists, however little you may have the courage to reason and to act. To rise from the ranks of the working people, and not devote oneself to bringing about the triumph of Socialism, is to miscon­ ceive the real interests at stake, to give up the cause and the true historic mission. Do you remember the time, when still a mere lad, you went down one winter’s day to play in your dark court ? The cold nipped your shoulders through your thm clothes, and the mud worked into your worn-out shoes. Even then when you saw chubby children richly clad pass in the distance, looking at you with an air of contempt—you knew right well that these imps, dressed up to the nines, were not the equals of yourself and your comrades, either in intelligence, common sense, or energy. But, later, when you were forced to shut yourself up in a filthy factory from five or six o’clock in the morning, to remain twelve hours on end close to a whirling machine, and, a machine yourself, forced to follow day after day for whole years in succession its movements with their relentless throbbing—during all this time they, the others, were going quietly to be taught at fine schools, at academies, at the universities. And now these same children, less intelligent, but better taught than you, and become your masters, are enjoying all the pleasures of life, and all the advantages of civilisation—and you ? What sort of lot awaits you ? �T4 You return to little, dark, damp lodgings where five or six human beings pig together within a few square feet; where your mother, sick of life, aged by care rather than in years, offers you dry bread and potatoes as your only food, washed down by a blackish fluid called, in irony, tea ; and to distract your thoughts you have ever the same never-ending question, “ How shall I be able to pay the baker to-morrow, and the landlord the day after ? ” What! must you drag cn the same weary existence as your father and mother for thirty or forty years ? Must you toil your life long to procure for others all the pleasures of well-being, of knowledge, of art, and keep for yourself only the eternal anxiety as to whether you can get a bit of bread ? Will you for ever give up all that makes life so beautiful, to devote yourself to providing every luxury for a handful of idlers ? Will you wear yourself out with toil and have in return only trouble, if not misery, when hard times—the fearful hard times—come upon you ? Is this what you long for in life ? Perhaps you will give up ? Seeing no way out of your con­ dition whatever, maybe you say to yourself, “ Whole generations have undergone the same lot, and I, who can alter nothing in the matter, I must submit also ! Let us work on then and endeavour to live as well as we can ! ” Very well. In that case life itself will take pains to enlighten you. One day a crisis comes, one of those crises which are no longer mere passing phenomena, as they were a while ago, but a crisis which destroys a whole industry, which plunges thousands of workers into misery, which crushes whole families. You struggle like the rest against the calamity. But you will soon see how your wife, your child, your friend, little by little succumb to privations, fade away under your very eyes, and for sheer want of food, for lack of care and medical assistance, they end their days on the pauper’s stretcher, while the life of the rich sweeps past in joyous crowds through the streets of the great city gleaming in the sun­ light—utterly careless and indifferent to the dying cries of those who perish. Then you will understand how utterly revolting this society is ; you will reflect upon the causes of this crisis, and your examina­ tion will go to the very depths of this abomination which puts millions of human beings at the mercy of the brutal greed of a handful of useless triflers ; then you will understand that Socialists are right when they say that our present society can be, that it must be, reorganised from top to bottom. To pass from general crises to your particular case, one day when your master tries by a new reduction of wages to squeeze out of you a few more sous in order to increase his fortune still further, you will protest; but he will haughtily answer, “ Go and eat grass, if you will not work at the price I offer.” Then you will under­ stand that your master not only tries to shear you like a sheep, but that he looks upon you as an inferior kind of animal altogether; that not content with holding you in his relentless grip by means of the wage-system, he is further anxious to make you a slave in every respect. Then you will either bow down before him, you �IC will give up the feeling of human dignity, and you will end by suffering every possible humiliation. Or the blood will rush to your head, you will shudder at the hideous slope on which you are slipping down, you will retort, and, turned out workless on the street, you will understand how right Socialists are when they say “ Revolt 1 rise against this economical slavery, for that is the cause of all slavery.” Then you will come and take your place in the ranks of the Socialists, and you will work with them, for the complete destruction of all slavery,—economical, social and political. Some day again you will learn the story of that charming young girl whose brisk gait, frank manners, and cheerful conversation • you so lovingly admired. After having struggled for years and years against misery, she left her native village for the metropolis. There she knew right well that the struggle for existence must be hard, but she hoped at least to be able to gain her living honestly. Well, now you know what has been her fate. Courted by the son of some capitalist she allowed herself to be enticed by his fine words, she gave herself up to him with all the passion of youth, only to see herself abandoned with a baby in her arms. Ever courageous she never ceased to struggle on ; but she broke down in this unequal strife against cold and hunger, and she ended her days in one of the hospitals, no one knows which........................................ What will you do ? Once more there are two courses open to you. Either you will push aside the whole unpleasant reminiscence with some stupid phrase :—“ She wasn’t the first and won’t be the last,” you will say; perhaps, some evening, you will be heard in a public room, in company with other beasts like yourself, out­ raging the young girl’s memory by some dirty stories ; or, on the other hand, your remembrance of the past will touch your heart; you will try to meet the wretched seducer to denounce him to his face ; you will reflect upon the causes of these events which recur every day, and you will comprehend that they will never cease, so long as society is divided into two camps, on one side the wretched and on the other the lazy—the jugglers with fine phrases and bestial lusts. You will understand that it is high time to bridge over this gulf of separation, and you will rush to place yourself among the Socialists. And you, woman of the people, has this tale left you cold and unmoved ? While caressing the pretty head of that child who nestles close to you, do you never think about the lot that awaits him, if the present social conditions are not changed ? Do you never reflect on the future awaiting your young sister, and all your own children ? Do you wish that your sons, they too, should vegetate as your father vegetated, with no other care than how to get his daily bread, with no other pleasure than that of the gin­ palace ? Do you want your husband, your lads, to be ever at the mercy of the first comer who has inherited from his father a capital to exploit them with ? Are you anxious that they should always remain slaves of a master, food for powder, mere dung wherewith to manure the pasture-lands of the rich expropriator ? Nay, never ; a thousand times no ! I know right well that your blood has boiled when you have heard that your husbands after 4C �16 ' they entered on a strike, full of fire and determination, have ended by accepting, hat in hand, the conditions dictated by the bloated bourgeois in a tone of haughty contempt! I know that you have admired those Spanish women who in a popular rising presented their breasts to the bayonets of the soldiery in the front ranks ot the insurrectionists ! I am certain that you mention with rever­ ence the name of the woman who lodged a bullet in the chest of that ruffianly official who dared to outrage a Socialist prisoner in his cell. And I am confident that your heart beat faster when you read how the women of the people in Paris gathered under a rain of shells to encourage “ their men ” to heroic action. All this, I say, I have no doubt about, and that is why I cannot question that you also, you will end by joining those who work for the conquest of the future. Every one of you then, honest young folks, men and women, peasants, labourers, artisans and soldiers, you will understand what are your rights and you will come along with us ; you will come in order to work with your brethren in the preparation of that Revolution which sweeping away every vestige of slavery, tearing the fetters asunder, breaking with the old worn-out traditions and opening to all mankind a new and wider scope of joyous ex­ istence, shall at length establish true Liberty, real Equality, un­ grudging Fraternity throughout human society; work with all% work for all—the full enjoyment of the fruits of their labour, the complete development of all their faculties ; a rational, human and happy life ! Don’t let anyone tell us that we—but a small band—are too weak to attain unto the magnificent end at which we aim. Count and see how many of us there are who suffer this in­ justice. We peasants who work for others and who mumble the straw while our master eats the wheat, we by ourselves are millions of men ; so numerous are we that we alone form the mass of the people. We workers who weave silks and velvets in order that we may be clothed in rags, we, too, are a great multitude ; and when the clang of the factories permits us a moment’s repose, we overflow the streets and squares like the sea in a spring tide. We soldiers who are driven along to the word of command, or by blows, we who receive the bullets for which our officers get crosses and pensions, we, too, poor fools who have hitherto known no better than to shoot our brothers, why we have only to make a right-about-face towards these plumed and decorated personages who are so good as to command us, to see a ghastly pallor over­ spread their faces. Ay, all of us together, we who suffer and are insulted daily, we are a multitude whom no man can number, we are the ocean that can embrace and swallow up all else. When we have but the will to do it, that very moment will Justice be done: that very instant the tyrants of the earth shall bite the dust. Catalogue of Publications of the Modern Press sent on receipt of stamped envelope. � 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 &amp; 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 An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available 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 The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 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 An appeal to the young Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kropotkin, Petr Alekseevich [1842-1921] Description An account of the resource Place of publication: London Collation: 16 p. ; 23 cm. Series number: no. 6 Notes: Stamp on title page: 'South Place Chapel Finsbury, Lending Library'. Reprinted from 'To-Day'. At the time of publication the author was serving "five years' imprisonment under the French Republic for advocating the cause of the people" [Title page]. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Modern Press Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1885 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context G4969 Subject The topic of the resource Socialism Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Hyndman, H. M. (Henry Mayers) (tr) 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 (An appeal to the young), 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> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Peter Kropotkin Socialism Young people https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/54cd8af8e0594eaa98c93e38915e3b76.pdf?Expires=1782345600&Signature=cMKmmSyrcz-Ueh%7EzCjQOA9gJyz1iqeuYEsBfem0kdTbtOv3y600gbBIEf48IQ1b7Ax1OxCdH13ISMkyK5ZNwChmkioiz43mDiNj0ShxQjC6bKFLxrAw%7EfpBU5Dx%7EGtL0lhnBEh7cTFbx1m9SV40QFc9OZaXMqQsB69%7E9R1tfR3O6ykuh9yPrG4q2LO8zSbB1RaB24xg61CA4FgSlASx0eEQEMH0Av4UNIrSBZKgf003-IGmzxZwJokXzP8P-uDzW71jzFRsblcRGy10YPZq-O7jCuFG-TKaFmlmHZ3x7iiVDwCvRh8-johdS9Ky%7EsVf%7EAc9YD3PxgV1AsyiexTXYeQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 95cfc601431d1df87ee8a03f6667db94 PDF Text Text Co-operati WITH REFERENCES TO THE EXPERIMENT OF LEGLAIRE. A LECTURE Given at the Hall of Science, Sheffield, Sunday, March i8th, 1883. BY EDWARD CARPENTER. SECOND EDITION. PRICE ONE PENNY. Published at THE MODERN PRESS, 13, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON. 1886. �........... . ''WWxWWWsMWsis^^ BY THE SAME AUTHOR. Towards Democracy. New edition, with numerous added Poems, crown 8vo, cloth. 260 pp. Price 2s. 6d. “ A book whose power will certainly make it known.”— Dublin University Review. “ Truly ‘ mystic, wonderful ’—like nothing so much as a nightmare after too earnest a study of the Koran!”— Graphic. “ Its plan includes a poetical appeal to the different nationalities of the world, a sketch of the characteristic features of England and English towns, and all kinds of industrial work, finally a series of dramatic pictures whose vividness and beauty seem magical.”—Cambridge Review. Modern Science: a Criticism. Crown 8vo, paper, 76 pp. Price is. Modern Money-Lending ; or, the Meaning of Divi­ dends. A Pamphlet. Price 2d. Second edition. England’s Ipeal. Price 2d. John Heywood, Deansgate 11, and Ridgefield, Manchester; Paternoster Buildings, London. and ALSO Social Progress and Individual Effort. from To-Day. Price id. Reprinted Desirable Mansions : A Tract. Reprinted, with a few alterations, from Progress, June, 1885. Price id. THE MODERN PRESS, 13, Paternoster Row, London, E.C. For popular pamphlets on all political, social, and economical subjects, apply to The Modern Press, or send stamped envelope for catalogue. �CO-OPERATIVE PRODUCTION. R. CHAIRMAN AND FRIENDS,—The widespread presen­ timent of Change which hovers like a cloud over our modern world—and which makes us feel that our present social and political forms, our customs, our religions even, are in a state of Transition, that they are not permanent but are leading forward to something perhaps more permanent in the future—this presentiment of Change, Isay, is in nothing.more strongly felt than in the relations of Capital and Labour. These relations are in the present day so monstrous, so unnatural, so productive of manifold evil and suffering that it is felt to be impossible that they should continue; the only question is—To what new form will they give place ? At this vast problem what may be called Underground Europe is working—that Europe which though it is comparatively unrepresented in our governments, though it is almost unexpressed in our newspapers, though it is ignored by the higher forms of society, is really the great undercurrent of our modern life, and the source from which the forms of the future will spring. Nihilists in Russia, socialists in Germany, communists in the United States and in France, landleaguers in Ireland, and in every place those who favour the welfare of the People, are essentially—however different their modes of work and the ground which they cover—working at this same problem: the problem, namely, how to enfranchise Labour, how to give it its just and equal rights in the face of Capital, and how to bring it face to face and into direct contact with the Land—the source of all production. Certainly you will all agree that nothing can be more desperate than the present evil. Every man who has done honest work knows, that such work is a pleasure—one of the greatest pleasures in life. If it was pronounced as a curse upon Adam that “ in the sweat of his brow he should eat bread,” yet we must conclude that the force of evolution acting through centuries has adapted man to his environment in that respect! For there is no doubt now that Labour, under right conditions, is a blessing and not a curse. In fact, to use your skill and your strength in producing that which is beneficial to yourself and to others, to look back afterwards on the work of your own hands, to see that as far as may be it has been well done, that it will serve its time and the purpose for which it was intended—these things in themselves cannot but be a pleasure. When we consider moreover that a large part of �I 4 L life must always be given to Labour, it becomes obvious to us that if such labour might not be pleasurable Life would indeed be a poor thing,, and the question “ Is life worth living” really worth asking. But it does not surely require a great effort of imagination to picture ■ to ourselves a state of things in which this idea should be realised. It does not, I say, require a great effort to picture to ourselves an Island say—in some far sea—where the inhabitants favoured by a genial soil and climate are able to produce for themselves all that is necessary for their subsistence. Blessed with a tolerably contented disposition and simple tastes these good people find that their wants are few and that a few hours’ labour a day are amply sufficient to provide them collectively with all they need. Not being therefore hurried in their work they are able to do it thoroughly well and to enjoy all the more in consequence the doing of it. And not being hurried they are able to see to it that the conditions under which they work are favorable to health, both of body and soul—that they are neither painful nor degrading. On the contrary each man as he rises in the morning looks forward with agree­ able sentiments to the labour of the day, and a fair amount of neigh­ borliness and mutual helpfulness among the inhabitants contribute to make this Island a pleasant scene of harmonious and peaceful activity. It does not, I say, require a very exaggerated effort of the imagination to picture such a state of affairs. Nor have I the least doubt that in its main outlines it has been realised over and over again in the past, that it is realised in the present day in many parts of the globe. Well, Great Britain is an island. It enjoys, whatever its detractors may say, a fair climate—the best perhaps for open air work in the world —and a varied and productive soil. Yet glance over this land to-day, and what a contrast to the picture I have just drawn ! Go into any factory in Sheffield: and what do you see ? I will tell you. You see depressed gloomy faces, pallid features, stunted sickly forms—on all sides dirt, and thick polluted air—you see scrambling hurried work, badly done, deceptively done, you see deception and jealousy between man and man, you see deception and hatred between workman and employer. I ask you, is it possible that there can be any pleasure in work here ? It is impossible. Not long ago I was in a nailmaker’s shop in Sheffield—they were making horse nails, 2^ inches long or so. The operation requires some little skill. The nailmaker takes his rod heated from the fire and hammers it on an anvil, till he has drawn the end out into a long point; with two or three blows on a certain part of the anvil he fashions the head, and with a couple more blows with another instrument he severs the nail from the rod, and casts it on a heap with others, returning the rod to the fire and taking out another already heated in its place. You would not perhaps think a minute too much for this operation. Probably it is not, to perform it well. But if the nailmaker were to make only one nail a minute he would not be able to earn sufficient to support himself and family. He therefore makes one in half a minute. By dint of scrambling through his work and not being very particular how it is done he finds he can just manage this. A thousand times a day does this wretched man hurry through this one operation—and this is the labour of his life, day after day, week after week, month after month, and year after year. I ask you, what sort of scramble is this to form the life of a human being ? What sort of training is this for body and soul ? Whither does it natu­ rally tend—but to the beershop ? �5 . Many of you are familiar with the interior of filecutters’ shops in this neighbourhood. You know that the file-cutter sits on a high stool, bending with cramped spine and contracted chest over a bench on which his file is bedded—in lead. The poisonous lead-dust flies all about the shop. In his hand he holds a hammer, sometimes 71bs. or 81bs. in weight, with which by repeated blows on a chisel held between the thumb and fingers of the left hand he cuts the teeth of the file. The trade is soon learnt; it is not well paid ; women often work at it. To make a living you must cut from fifty thousand to one hundred and fifty thousand teeth a day, each with a sharp blow of your hammer. There is no variety, or change; each blow is like the last. What wonder if to the evils of a cramped contracted body, and lead poisoning, are added frequent paralysis of the thumb and wrist of the left hand, which holds the chisel, and sometimes also I believe of the other arm and shoulder. And this is the life to which a whole useful section of the community is condemned, to which it partly condemns itself. Yet there is nothing necessarily evil in file-cutting. The conditions might be improved, and the monotony of the work obviated by seeing to it that each man took part in the other processes of making, tempering and hardening, or even in some quite different branch of industry. Let me take another instance. An important branch in carriage works is the painting. The coachpainters’ shop is large, roomy and well lighted; in it a number of painters are at work on various carriages. On entering you are met by a stifling atmosphere laden with the warm poison-smell of paints and varnishes. You wonder that a man can do a single day’s work in such a place; you do not wonder that his life is shortened, and disease rapidly induced by continuance in it. But why is there no ventilation ? There are plenty of windows—why is there not one open ? Because if one window were open ever so little, even only enough to provide air for one man—or if a system of ventilation were organised (as might easily be done) to supply the whole shop on the most approved principles—still, even with all care, a little dust— not much, but a little—would be sure to get in. And for this little dust many men must be sacrificed. In order that grand people may drive about in carriages stainless of any speck, other people (not so grand, but possibly more useful) must spend their lives under conditions which take all heart and enjoyment out of their labour, and which threaten them continually with disease and premature death. Mind, there is no one who thinks more of perfect and stainless work than I do; and I would be the last to encourage bad and slovenly work. But surely the cost at which these carriages are painted is rather too great. Meanwhile the Capitalist—we have spoken of the Laborer—does the Capitalist have any pleasure in his work, does he encourage good work ? On the contrary he winks at the bad so long as it sells. That is his one standard. Nor do I blame him—for he is engaged in a tremendous battle, a fratricidal battle in which every other consideration must be sacrificed. What a curious spectacle is this ! When we organise a military force, it has a duty to fulfil. Its captains have to lead it against the common enemy and drive him from our shores. So when a nation organises a great industrial army, it has a duty to fulfil. What is that ? It has to win for the nation those products of toil which are necessary for its use; it has to drive the common enemies of Poverty and Hunger from that �6 nation’s shores. What should we say if in that other army the captains instead of allying themselves against the invader, turned their regiments on each other and engaged in a fierce and fratricidal battle? Yet this is exactly what our captains of Industry do—using their forces to hurt and hinder each other in every possible way, and absolutely allying themselves with Poverty and Hunger as their friends—since it is these that force the workers to accept lowest wages. To carry out this warfare, they go to enormous expense—all wasted. For this, hundreds of thousands of pounds spent in advertisements—all wasted; for this, the labour of thousands of commercial travellers—all wasted ; for whatever one firm gains by its advertisements, its travellers, another firm inevitably loses. For this, rubbishy articles poured out upon the market, all wasted, cast away almost as soon as bought; for this, wages rammed down to the lowest pittance which will support life. It is a fight for life or death that the Capitalist is engaged in, and for this all honour, all justice and equity, every sentiment of pity, gentleness, common humanity even, must be sacrificed. Meanwhile some one makes a great discovery. Some capitalist, more ingenious and less scrupulous than his fellows, makes the discovery that he can carry on his firm almost, practically speaking, without paying any wages. He finds that with the aid of machinery and one or two experienced workman as overlookers, he can for the rest get on by employing only boys and girls. These receive a merely nominal wage for their work. As apprentices (the boys at least) they are sup­ posed, in consideration of the low wage, to be taught the trade. But, as you know in the present day, they are not taught. Instead of being carried on through all the operations of the trade, a boy is taught one operation, and kept to that. It is quickly learnt; his work thus is most remunerative to the employer; his employer, in fact, steals the extra advantage ; the boy loses it. He grows up; and at the age of 21, when he should know his trade well, he is an untaught and crippled work­ man ; and then—when he should in increased wages be reaping the fruits of his years of apprenticeship—he is turned away to make room for another boy in his place! Delightful, is it not ? The ingenious Grinder of bodies and souls can now produce an article at less cost than before ; he can undersell other Capitalists; and they, willing or not, are forced to adopt the same treacherous and wicked practices as he. Such is the result of our present wretched system of Production which, as far as I can see, leaves no choice to humane and just-minded Capitalists (of whom there are many) but to level them down to the standard of the most unscru­ pulous and degraded among their body. What a spectacle does all this present ? Half-taught boys and girls doing half the work of the country—scrambling through it amid dirt and ill-health; vast mud-floods of rubbish poured out over the land, adulteration and deception in everything; capitalists flying at each others throats, intent only to maim and slay; shareholders screaming for dividends, regardless how they are got; able-bodied men and women on tramp up and down the country, unable to obtain employment— complaints of insufficient work in every direction—and all the while the LAND—the source of all production—staring them in the face, half-cultivated, undrained, uncared for, reverting to ruin and to waste ! �7 From this iniserable picture let us turn to something more hopefuL That such a state of things should continue is impossible. It is suffi­ cient to say that it must not and it shall not be. Underground Europe, as I have said, is working at this vast problem —has been working at it for some time. There have been many trials already,-for the establishment of a better system, many failures, many successes too. But we must not expect so great a matter to be worked out all at once. The revolution of the Industrial organisation of Society may perhaps take centuries to complete itself. When Nature creates a new species among the animals it appears that she throws out thousands of tentative forms before one arises that is fitted to survive and supplant the old; and so when it is a question of a new form of Society shall we not expect that there shall be many tentatives, many failures, a long period of evolution, before the forms (be they one or many) of the future are finally produced and established ? It is not my purpose, however, in the present lecture, to present you with anything like a history of men’s efforts, so far, in this direction. One of the first steps towards the organisation of Industry is Co­ operation ; and I desire now, out of many, successful experiments in Co-operation, to single out just one—one that has been talked about a good deal lately—that namely of Leclaire—as an example for our encouragement and instruction, and to show (what cannot now be doubted) that success in this direction is abundantly possible. * Leclaire was born—of poor parentage—in the year 1801, in Central France. His father was a shoemaker, but Leclaire did not learn the trade. He received but a poor education, and to the end of his life was not a good scholar. At the age of 17 he left home to try his fortune in Paris, and there after a time became apprenticed to a house painter. He got on well, saved a little money, married when he was 22, and at the age of 26 was able to set up in business for himself. He struck out boldly from the first. Leclaire had a “ royal ” mind— straight and true. From the first he went on the principle of good wages and good work. He determined that all the work connected with his firm should be thoroughly well done, and to arrive at this he saw it was necessary to employ good workmen well paid. He did so, and the result justified his expectations. He became known and sought out. The Government officials employed him, and by the year 1835 he had realised a neat little fortune. It was then that he actually (is it not surprising ?) set himself to solve the problem of Co-operation. Finding that he had amply sufficient for his own wants and those of his small household (for he had no children) he actually, instead of spending the rest of his life in the accumulation of more (to him) useless money, set about trying to better the condition of the men connected with his firm. And I must say it surprises me to think that out of the hundreds and thousands of capitalists who at one time or another have been similarly situated to Leclaire, there have been so few—so very few—to whom it has occurred to follow a similar course. Let us however do all honour to his noble wife who instead of drawing him back, as so many would have done, with all manner of * Not that, as I think, isolated co-operative ventures can be durable in a society whose very atmosphere is Competition. Unless the network of such enterprise extends till it covers practically the whole nation, co-operation will be in great danger of dying out again. �petty and domestic doubts, urged him generously forward, and was to the end his trusted and helpful counsellor in his great enterprise. The form in which the problem presented itself to him is expressed in the following paragraph. * “ ‘ I asked myself,’ said Leclaire, ‘could a workman in our business by putting more heart into his work produce in the same lapse of time—i.e. a day—a surplus of work equivalent to the value of an hour’s pay, 6d. ? Could he, besides, save 2^d. a day by avoiding all waste of materials entrusted to him, and by taking greater care of his tools ?’ Every one would answer he could. Well then, if a single workman could arrive at the result of realising for the benefit of the concern an additional 8^d. a day, in 300 working days that would amount to a gain of £to 4s. 2d. per man, or upwards of ^3,000 a year in a business like Leclaire’s, which at that time employed 300 men on the average. Here would be a handsome profit to be shared with his men, and gained as it were out of nothing.’ ”f In 1838 then Leclaire took his first step in this direction by estab­ lishing what he called a Mutual Help Association. This was practically a benefit club (with a subscription of is. 8d. a month) which provided not only medical attendance but reading rooms and educational facilities, and ultimately became in its corporate capacity a partner in the firm. In 1840 Leclaire held a meeting of workmen interested in the subject, to discuss certain plans of Co-operation, and in 1842 another meeting was organized for carrying these into practice; but this latter was vetoed by the Police, who thought they scented Socialism somewhat strongly 1 Leclaire however, who saw it was necessary above all things to convince his workmen that his scheme was practical, took a bag of gold one day containing ^475 and divided it among a number, 44, of his workmen who were in favour of his plans. In the next year, 1843, calculating again on the basis of his profits for the year, he divided /490 among 44 men. The effect was irresistible. In 1844 there was ^788 to divide amongst 82, and from that time forward large bonuses were every year divided, the average value of these during the last decade, 1870-80, having been as much as 15 per cent on the total wages earned. It was about the year 1842 that Leclaire also published some pam­ phlets on the Tricks of the Trade. Having determined that all the work of his firm should be thoroughly good and honest, and seeing that in that case it would have to compete at a disadvantage with much dishonest and superficial work commonly done, he set himself about to expose some of the false practices current in his trade (as they are current in every trade) yet which were then unknown to the general public. Was * Quoted from Mr. W. H. Hall’s pamphlet on Leclaire, published by the Centra Co-operative Board, Manchester. t “The 500 employes of a Newark (New Jersey) firm which does a large business in the manufacture of fertilizers were pleasantly surprised the other day by the distribution among them of sums of money, ranging from 1,000 dollars for the three most responsible to 7 dollars for the lowest grade of labourers. The money represented a certain per­ centage of the earnings during 1882, which the firm decided a year ago to divide among their hands annually thereafter, according to the skill and value of their labour. Alfred and Edwin Lister, who compose this firm, are canny Scotchman, and they adopt this system from motives of business quite as much as from philanthropic impulses, believing that their employes will do enough better work to make up for the sum required if they know that they are virtually sharers in the profits of the manufacture. The only wonder is that more of our shrewd business men do not appreciate the wisdom of such a policy.”—Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, Feb. 3rd., 1883. New York. �9 ever such a thing done before by a man engaged in business ? Imagine the sensation it produced, and the indignation of his competitors in the same trade—who attacked him in return with all manner of calumnious accusations, and doubtless were the cause of police interference with his plans ! There was another point to which Leclaire turned his attention, and which must not be passed over. He saw with grief the exceedingly injurious effect which the white of lead used in painting had upon his workmen. He could not rest till he had investigated the subject. With the aid of a chemist he went into it thoroughly, and the result was the discovery of a similar preparation, the white of zinc, which is perfectly innocuous, and which Leclaire substituted for the other thenceforward throughout his firm. Now I think I hear some one saying, “ Ah, but the white of zinc is not so good, is not so durable, as the white of lead ! ” Well, that is just the point that I want to face. I do not know enough of the subject to have any opinion of my own. Perhaps someone here can supply some practical information. But let us suppose that the white of zinc is not so durable, let us suppose * that with this preparation a house has to be painted, say, once in four years, to once in five the other way, still the question in my mind is whether for the sake of this gain we have any right to sacrifice a whole useful class of the community, to shorten their lives and to render their daily work penal and repulsive to them. Or, rather, there is no question about it in my mind. Nor does there seem to have been any question in Leclaire’s, for he banished the poisonous material; and it is reported, I am glad to say, that in Paris the white of zinc is now used in 75 per cent, of house painting jobs. Thus for many years Leclaire kept on working at and elaborating his scheme of Co-operation. He granted large subventions to the Mutual Help Association, and in i860 made its capital up to ^4,000. This was equivalent to making the men, corporately, shareholders in the business ; for the Mutual Help Association received 5 per cent, on its capital invested in the concern. Of the remaining annual profits, 20 per cent, went to the Mutual Help Association, 30 per cent, was divided indi­ vidually among the men, and 50 per cent, went to Leclaire and the other partners.In 1865 Leclaire sustained a great blow in the death of his wife. Weary of the turmoil of the great city he retired for repose to the village of Herblay, a few miles west of Paris. But he was not destined to rest long. He was made Mayor, and becoming interested in philanthropic schemes in his new neighbourhood—amongst which was one of agricultural co-operation—he worked harder than ever. His object now with regard to the Paris business was to teach the firm to go on of itself, without his supervision ; and, in fact, in 1869, he retired—all but in name. In this year the final organisation was drawn up, and deeds of incorporation were signed. Printed lists of questions had been sent round to all the workmen, the two hundred answers that had been sent * As a matter of fact the contrary seems to be the case. For Mr. Sedley Taylor, in his article on Leclaire in the Nineteenth Century, for September, 1880, writes as follows . —‘‘I am assured by M. Marquot that the white of zinc, now exclusively used by the house, is not only perfectly innocuous to the painters, but that work executed with it is both fresher and more durable than that done with the old deleterious ingredient.” �IO up had been analysed and reported on, and the final scheme was approved at a general meeting. It was as follows. The kernel of the constitution was a body of workmen (it numbered 122 in 1880) chosen by their fellows, on account of their superior character, education and skill, to be the governing body of the concern. It was called the noyau, and candidates for admission to it had to be between the ages of 25 and 40 at the time of election. The advantages of belonging to this body were higher pay, and prior claim to employment in slack times ; the duties consisted in the election of foremen and of the general managers, and in the trial (by a committee) of all cases of misconduct. The noyau was thus, it will be seen, the supreme power in the firm—whose constitu­ tion was (and is) therefore thoroughly democratic. Yet it is most im­ portant to observe that the two managing partners once elected were unfettered in the business work actually committed to them—a most wise arrangement, without which the democratic tendencies would pro­ bably have brought about their own ruin. The Capital was at this time fixed at ^16,000; of which Leclaire owned ^4,000, M. Defourneaux, the acting manager, ^4,000, and the M. H. A. ^8,000. There was a first charge on the whole profits of 10 per cent, for a reserve fund, and 5 per cent, for interest on Capital ; of the remainder, 25 per cent, was to go to the acting manager, 50 per cent, to the officials and workmen individually, and 25 per cent, to the Mutual Help Association. For the rest I will finish these few words about Leclaire’s experi­ ment by a quotation from Mr. Hall’s excellent pamphlet—to which I am so largely indebted. "Id July, 1872, the day before his death, Leclaire wrote to M. Defourneaux, ‘All who have grown old with me have been more or less martyrs to me, but you espec­ ially have had most to suffer from my exactions in respect of the changes and modifi­ cations I found it necessary to introduce into the management of the business. There­ fore, for you I shall entertain feelings of the liveliest gratitude all my life, and beyond the grave, if possible. I beseech you take care of yourself, and think of those who will still long have great need of you. Until sound learning shall have replaced ignorance amongst the masses, until the disinherited shall have strength to raise themselves to us, we must hold out a hand to them. Otherwise the rooted antagonism between the suffering classes and the more fortunate will never cease.” " On July 13, 1872, Leclaire passed away, having enjoyed the rare felicity of seeing the dreams of his youth realised in his old age. He left a private fortune of ^48,000, an inconsiderable amount to what he might have left had money, instead of menmaking, been his object in life................... " For some years before his death, Leclaire was permitted the gratification of seeing not a few of the pensioners of the firm in the enjoyment of the retiring income of i,ooof., or ^40, which enabled some of them to end their days, like himself, in a country retreat. “ His business in no way suffered by his death, as it had been the preoccupation of his declining years to provide that it should not. On the contrary, it went on steadily increasing. In the year 1877, five years after Leclaire’s death, as many as 984 work­ men shared in the profits, of whom 450 on an average were at work at one time. In that year a trifle under ^40,000 was paid in wages. Altogether, since 1842, /8o,ooo has been divided as the men’s share of the profits. On September 1, 1877, the capital of the firm had increased to /4O,394, and the business done in that year to /8o,ooo. In 1868 the Mutual Aid Society possessed a capital of /i 3,000, ^8,000 of which was invested in the firm. Its capital has since considerably increased, and in 1877 it had depending on it twenty-four pensioners, receiving a yearly pension of /40 each, and eleven widows, pensions of /20. “The principle of the election of the managing partners by the general assembly of the noyau is found to work admirably. “ In 1872, M. Redouly was unanimously chosen to succeed Leclaire, and in 1875 M. Marquot, with a single dissentient voice, was elected in the place of M. Defourneaux, who unhappily followed Leclaire to the grave within three years. �II “ From his death-bed, Leclaire sent this last message to his men, ‘ that he exhorts them to remember constantly that in working for the business, they not only work to improve their own condition, but that they set a noble example, and that this reflection ought to be an incessant encouragement to them to do their duty thoroughly, since by so doing they contribute to the enfranchisement of those who have nothing but their labour to live by.’ " In conclusion, let me say a few words by way of moral. I have taken just this one instance of Co-operation out of many that I might have taken. I might have taken other instances where the thing has been started and carried on from the capi­ talist side, so to speak; and I might have taken instances where the workmen have joined together and with little or no Capital to begin with have yet succeeded in founding prosperous and even wealthy corporations. But I thought it would be better in the present lecture to keep to one example ; and the example of Leclaire has the advantage of having been lately brought before the public more than once, and of affording some good lessons. In the first place I would say to you, Do not be discouraged in this matter by the finger of scorn. Remember that Leclaire took 30 years to work out his experiment, and that every good thing is of slow growth ; and do not be discouraged if now and then your enemies can point to a case in which Co-operative production has failed. In France, I believe I may say, there are at least a hundred successful Co-opera­ tive firms at the present moment; but on this side of the Channel we seem to be slower in taking the matter up. New ideas always make slow work amongst us; we are suspicious of them. Then we English are very independent; we like each to go our own way, and are not ready to join with others in any movement; and this individualism—• though a valuable quality in its way—hinders united action. Another thing against us is that the Press—being almost entirely in the hands of the Capitalist class, and representing the views and feelings of that class—has consistently, and for many years done everything in its power to throw cold water on the co-operative movement and to represent it as of no importance. Still, these are only obstacles, which have to be overcome, and which perhaps when overcome will render the interests of labour in this country all the more solid and united. All we have got to do is to determine that they shall be over­ come—and then they will be. For the present let us consider what lessons are to be drawn from the case we have before us. The first principle which underlies Leclaire’s work seems to me plainly to lie in that passage which I quoted from Mr. Hall’s pamphlet, in which Leclaire asks himself whether men working under a system of mutual help and confidence would produce more than they would under a system of mutual division and jealousy. The question answers itself in asking. Mutual helpfulness and trust underlie our human life ; they are planted deep in the human breast ; if we would help on Co­ operation one of the first things (perhaps the first thing) we should do is to help to spread abroad these principles of life. Let no man call this a merely sentimental matter. If these things are sentiments they are the sentiments which create society. The wonderful monuments of civilization,—great nations, cities, telegraphs, railroads, the huge machinery of commerce—are but so many expressions of that which is eternal here—in the human breast—the desire and the need of man for dependence on his fellow man; and the cry for Co-operation to-day �12 is only another effort forwards in the long line which man has travelled since first he came to be a social animal. Remember always and always that these desires and needs, though hidden, are really, far more than laws and governments, the agents which construct and create our social life as it is; and neither be ashamed to confess them nor be inclined to pass them over as of little importance because they are not tangible or measurable. The second principle which underlay Leclaire’s work is illustrated by the pamphlet he wrote on the ‘ tricks of the trade.’ It is the principle of honest work. Leclaire had to compete with bad ; but he was farseeing enough to be sure that if his labours were to be of permanent value, they must be founded on good work. He was determined that they should be so. The result proved that he was right. And we may be sure that if a new industrial system is to supplant the wretched chaos (it cannot be called a system) of to-day, it must be founded on the prin­ ciple of good work, and on no other. It is impossible that a system founded on dishonest and bad work can succeed. Yet so corrupted are our modes of thought in the present day that this idea is unfamiliar to most people, and it is generally supposed that the badness or good­ ness of work is merely a question (like everything else) of Supply and |f Demand—to be dismissed as soon as those deities are satisfied. Let me, on this point, borrow a word from Mr. Ruskin. He says (that every class of the community has a duty to fulfil towards the community at large. The soldier for instance has a duty—it is to defend his country. The schoolmaster has a duty—it is to teach the young. Both these parties receive due payment for their services, but that fact does not modify the nature of the work they are bound to fulfil. The merchant (and with him the tradesman and artizan) has a duty to fulfil. What is it ? It is to supply the nation with good things in the way of material produce—with goods, not with evils. What should we think of the schoolmaster who taught lies to his children, or of the soldier who ran away in the time of the nation’s danger—and what do we think of the merchant who allows himself to supply the community with bad, dishonest and useless articles ? It is no good. Until the industrial classes of this country shall have got back to the notion that they have a duty to the community at large —which they are bound to fulfil, at times even at the cost of personal loss—it is impossible that any good thing can come from them, it is impossible that any saving and redeeming faith can spread amongst them. No sophistry of Political Economy, no babble about Supply and Demand, can ever get over this point, or make what is essentially a lie into a fair and reasonable thing. Nor can any industrial organisa­ tion of the future find a permanent foundation in any principle other than that of good and honest work. There is another point. I have said that no man can enjoy doing bad work. If we are to make work an enjoyable thing in the future we must (if for that reason alone) see to it that our work is good and thorough. And if, for a time, such work should bring a less return, a less material advantage, in consequence, still I maintain it would bring us more real advantage, more enjoyment and content, than the money we so lose. The third principle which, to my mind, emerges from a study of Leclaire’s work lies in that affair about the white of zinc. It is the question of men versus commodities. There is such a rage for cheap �13 commodities in the present day—and a superficial view of Political Economy has so fostered it—that it seems to be the prevalent idea that the main glory and advancement of a nation is to get its commodities, its crops, plentiful and cheap. Wherein it is forgotten that there is one commodity, one crop, which in importance entirely surpasses all the others, and on account of which only, in fact, the others are of value— I mean the crop of men and women over a country. Leclaire struck at the root of this matter. He said the community had no right to sacrifice its producers, their health and well-being, for the sake of the mere cheapness of the article produced. And any one who looks calmly at the matter must agree with him. But steam with its marvellous and unprecedented power of production has for the time made us maniacs on this subject. We are deluged with commodities. “ Cheap and nasty and plenty of them ” is our motto. What if the kettle bottom comes out shortly after we have bought it. “ Oh ! but it is so cheap, what can you expect ? ” Chairs give way when we sit upon them, shirts wear out, our houses tumble about our ears. “ Oh ! but they are so cheap—we can soon get new ones ! ” So we can, and so we do. Buying to-day and throwing away to-morrow we go on till our houses are choked with useless lumber, and our towns are laid upon a foundation of old boots and salmon tins 1 And there sitting on the top of this our rubbish heap of civilisation we congratulate ourselves, crowing to the other nations, and sending forth our missionaries and our soldiers to improve into our likeness the very savages who have more dignity than us. Meanwhile shall we not rather ask, before we congratulate ourselves so freely, at what cost to the souls and bodies of men have these cheap goods been won ? When we buy a file for the price of an old song, and six boxes of matches for a penny, shall we not first, before we glorify their cheapness, enquire how it is they are so cheap ? And if we find that to produce this result men and women have been pinned down in squalor and wretchedness till the divine image in them has been blurred almost past recognition, if for this backs have been bowed and eyes grown dim, and all belief in human or divine goodness has gradually faded away—shall we not rather be ashamed to have bought things at such a price ? Shall we not rather turn and cleanse first this Augaean dung-heap of our own iniquities, before we dare to improve others, or presume for a moment to think ourselves worthy of imitation ? At the bottom of this whole matter, as I think, lies (what lies at the bottom of so many things) the question of Ideals. If we look into our own minds we shall, I think, generally find that there in the depths, consciously or not, lurks some figure : some personage or character that we have met, heard of, read of; whom we admire, envy, or desire to be like. This is our ideal. It shapes, for the time being, our actions, our lives. At the root of a nation’s life, similarly, there lurks an ideal, which does perhaps more than anything else to shape its growth. What has been England’s Ideal for the last 20 or 30 years ? Shall I tell you ? It can be said in two words. To get on. What does to get on mean ? It means if you live in a cottage to get on to live in a house with a bay window ; if you live in a house with a bay window to get on to live in one with a drawing-room and dining-room ; if you live in a house with a. drawing-room and dining-room, to add a coach-house and stables; 1 �J4 11 . |/ finally perhaps to land yourself in solitary grandeur in the midst of a large park. Now I have nothing to say against this ideal—if it amuses or pleases any one to take these successive steps I have no objection to offer, and it would be the merest impertinence in me to do so—provided that in following out this plan of life you do not trample on the heads of other people. But if you do so, if in order to mount to your grand station in life it is necessary to kick some one else into the ditch, then I say simply that we shall have to stop your little game. There was a time doubtless when this ideal of material rank and grandeur was rightful and in place. In the old Feudal society, which depended so much for its stability on gradations of class and caste, it was perhaps necessary that this kind of worship of class-position should exist. And in that time it was practically impossible for a person to pass over from one class to another—so that the feeling did not disturb the relations of classes, but rather gave those relations intensity. But in the present day the invention of steam and the vast development of mercantile movement and machinery have entirely broken down these old class barriers—they have let loose the demon of worldly advance­ ment—and the consequence is that the last 20 or 30 years in England have witnessed a spectacle—than which if you were to go all round the savage nations of the world I doubt if you could witness anything more degrading and disgusting— the spectacle of a whole nation (or nearly all of it) occupied in scrambling insanely up into high places of display and lucre over the tops of each other’s heads! It is in fact the break­ down, it is nothing more or less than the decay and putrefaction of Feudalism ; it is a process inevitable, and the stench and mephitic vapour that arise from it are I suppose no more than natural; but it is a process which, one must hope, will not last long—will soon give place to something more hopeful and organic. And in truth here and there, it seems to me, there are signs (like grass in spring) of a new life, a new ideal, arising out of the ground: an ideal which, as I think, is destined to be the central life of a new age of the world, and to inspire for centuries new forms of society at least as permanent fruitful and important as those old forms of Feudalism which are now passing away. What is this new Ideal ? It differs from the old one in this—its aim is not human grandeur, but human equality ; it does not consist in seeking to be above others, but to be with and of them. This Ideal does not require for its satisfaction that a man should occupy a grand position in the world, that he should be the centre of many eyes, or that he should have acquired wealth, power, learning even ; on the contrary, it looks for its material, and finds it, in just the ordinary surroundings of human life. It sees in ordinary men and women, toiling, suffering, enjoying, the materials of heroes and heroines equal to all in history ; it sees in some old woman sitting by her cottage door the equal of all the kings and queens that have ever lived ; it beholds the ever sacred face of our common humanity looking forth from the troubled and wandering eyes of the crazy and insane. This Ideal is not one which from the nature of the case can only be realised by the few; it does not turn a high light on just one small class or section and condemn the common crowd to obscurity and contempt. On the contrary it takes the life of the masses—the ordinary human life as in its main outlines it has been and seems likely to be—and proclaims that this is in effect as worthy, 1 �J5 as great and dignified, as any form of life can be; perhaps after all best of all. It says—This ordinary life is essentially grand, delightful and enjoyable, and it shall be made actually so. We are going henceforth to make the common occupations honorable and enviable. We will have it so that the gardening, baking, carpentering, file-cutting, nail­ making shall be a pleasure and an honour to work at. We will insist that the conditions under which all these trades are carried on are compatible with justice, health and self-respect. We will show in our­ selves that the simplest life is as good as any, that we are not ashamed of it—and we will so adorn it that the rich and idle shall enviously leave their sofas and saloons and come and join hands with us in it. , This is the drift of the new Ideal that 1 think I see springing up around us. We cannot all be Leclaires, but we can all, I believe, help forward the true cause of Co-operation (which in its essence is no other than the emancipation and redemption of Labour) by nourishing and cherishing this Ideal within us. There is many a hero to-day in the work-shop who despite the jeers of his fellow-workmen and the solicit­ ations of his employer still does honest and good work, because his soul abhors the bad. There is many an heroic mother in her cottage home who by gentleness and persuasion, courage and self-respect, casts a grace and brightness over the meanest of her occupations, and converts her little household into a Paradise. I ask you above all things to be practical—not merely to talk about schemes, but to act out in daily life these principles which underlie and precede the ripening of schemes ; above all to have done, in thought, word or deed, with this ancient sham of fleeing from manual labour, of despising or pretending to despise it. If you thus create the raw material of Co-operation you need not doubt I think but what the finished product—which you so desire—will swiftly appear among you. I �Socialism made Plain. The social and political manifesto of the Social-Democratic Federation issued in June 1883, with proposals for organisation of labour issued in November 1883. Fifty-first thousand. Crown 8-vo., paper cover, price id. “ JUSTICE,” the Organ of the Social Democracy. Every Saturday, one penny. Summary of the Principles of Socialism. By H. M. Hyndman and William Morris. Second edition, 64-pp. crown 8-vo., in wrapper designed by Wm. Morris, price 4d. This gives an account of the growth of capitalist production, and concludes with a statement of the demands of English Socialists for the immediate future. The Socialist Catechism. By J. L. Joynes. Reprinted with additions from Justice. Demy 8-vo., price id. Tenth thousand. Socialist Rhymes from Justice. By J. L. Joynes. Reprinted chiefly Demy 8-vo., price id. Wage-Labour and Capital. By Karl Marx. lated by J. L. Joynes and reprinted from Justice. Trans Price 2d. This is the only work of the great Socialist thinker which has been translated into English Socialism and the Worker. By F. A. Price id. Sorge. An explanation in the simplest language of tne main idea of Socialism. Socialism and Slavery. By H. M. Hyndman. (In reply Mr. Herbert Spencer’s article on the “ The Coming Slavery ”) Crown 8-vo., in wrapper, price 6d. Herbert Spencer on Socialism. By Frank Fairman. 16-pp. crown 8-vo., price id. The Working Man’s Programme (Arbeiter Programm). By Ferdinand Lassalle. Translated from the German by Edward Peters. Crown 8-vo., paper cover, price 6d. The Robbery of the Poor. By W. H. P. Campbell. Demy 8-vo., paper cover, price is. If The Future of Marriage- By a Respectable Woman. Crown 8-vo., paper cover, price 4d. Socialism versus Smithism: An open letter from Hi k H. M. Hyndman to Samuel Smith, M.P. for Liverpool. 8-vo. paper cover, price 2d. The Appeal to the Young. I IF Crown By Prince Peter Kropotkin. Translated from the French by H. M. Hyndman and reprinted from Justice. Royal 8-vo., 16-pp. Price one penny. The most eloquent and noble appeal to the generous emotions ever penned by a scientific man. Its author has just suffered five years imprisonment at the hands of the French Republic for advocating the cause of the workers Opening Address to the Trade Union Congress at Southport, September, 1885. Delivered by T. R. Threlfall. Royal 8-vo., 16-pp. Price one penny. An able address from a representative working man on political and social topics. � 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 &amp; 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 An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available 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 The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 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 Co-operative production with references to the experiment of Leclaire: a lecture given at the Hall of Science, Sheffield, Sunday, March 18th, 1883 Description An account of the resource Edition: 2nd ed. Place of publication: London Collation: 15 p. ; 23 cm. Notes: Other works by the same author listed on title page verso. Publisher's list on unnumbered page at the end. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Carpenter, Edward [1844-1929] Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Modern Press 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 G4974 Subject The topic of the resource Co-operative Movement Socialism 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 (Co-operative production with references to the experiment of Leclaire: a lecture given at the Hall of Science, Sheffield, Sunday, March 18th, 1883), 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> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Co-operative Movement Socialism https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/0c90e3b311155b46c37d98cc789d3d99.pdf?Expires=1782345600&Signature=b6IA51RbWpEfkXXTr2xJ69eIRd-tftPN257Kz6uzvJQTzpbrhMIgndbjR5w9DOdm2ZpM0YvS1JHHA24u%7EtCufiRkS8K4carq6m3cKuAwgIjdd5VGmtKKNuvxta9y3gHvFb-0cAY4GlYYWvcHfOVBk4YXjM4yAbjae8pDN50LwkwjbHrQXYqOeiqu9lAme0MXZrABa8N8ypDjmugu%7E43snhK47YA6344euu-b5KxcL3nRqEwZSIe9FzGegavBp0DHR0g7jWaWabNoK0NI43ApX0ySzNtfKROjS9W9PXpWgL3Pg3K8u3TBRQss8qezCbnPMBn2OR0V3wC7hh9gfQjfsw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 6713fa61109732cbccca1659b9fd6030 PDF Text Text Desirable Mansions: A TRACT Reprinted, with a few alterations, from “Progress, June, 1883. By EDWARD CARPENTER. THIRD EDITION PRICE ONE PENNY. Published by THE MODERN PRESS, 13, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON 1887. �BY THE SAME AUTHOR. Towards Democracy. New edition, with numerous added Poems, crown 8vo, cloth, 260 pp. Price 2s. 6d “ A book whose power will certainly make it known.”— Dublin University Review. “ Truly ‘ mystic, wonderful ’—like nothing so much as a nightmare after too earnest a study of the Koran! ”— Graphic. “ Its plan includes a poetical appeal to the different nationalities of the world, a sketch of the characteristic features of England and English towns, and all kinds of industrial work, finally a series of dramatic pictures whose vividness and beauty seem magical.” — Cambridge Review. Modern Science : a Criticism. pp. Price is. Crown 8vo, paper, 7.6 Modern Money-Lending; or, the Meaning of DividendsA Pamphlet. Price 2d. Second edition. England’s Ideal. Price 2d. John Heywood, Deansgate and Ridgefield’ Manchester: 11, Paternoster Buildings, London. and ALSO Social Progress and Individual Effort. Reprinted from To-day. Price id. Co-operative Production, with an account of the experi­ ment of Leclaire. Price id. THE MODERN PRESS, 13, Paternoster Row, London, E.C. For popular pamphlets on all political, social and, economical subjects, apply to The Modern Press, or send stamped envelope for catalogue. �DESIRABLE MANSIONS FTER all, why should we rail against the rich ? I think if anything they should be pitied. In nine cases out of ten it is not a man’s fault. He is born in the lap of luxury, he grows up surrounded by absurd and impossible ideas about life, the innumerable chains of habit and circumstance tighten upon him, and when the time comes that he would escape, he finds he cannot. He is condemned to flop up and down in his cage for the re­ mainder of his days—a spectacle of boredom, and a warning to gods and men. I go into the houses of the rich. In the drawing-room I see chill weary faces, peaked features of ill-health ; down­ stairs and in the kitchen I meet with rosy smiles, kissable cheeks, and hear sounds of song and laughter. What is this ? Is it possible that the real human beings live with Jeames below-stairs! Often as I pass and see in suburb or country some “ desir­ able mansion ” rising from the ground, I think : That man is building a prison for himself. So it is—a prison. I would rather spend a calendar month in Clerkenwell or Holloway than I would in that desirable mansion. A young lady that I knew, and who lived in such a mansion, used with her sisters to teach a class of factory girls. Every now and again one of the girls would say, “ Eh, Miss, how I would like to be a grand lady like you ! ” Then she would answer, “ Yes, but you know you wouldn’t be able to do everthing you liked ; for instance, you wouldn’t be allowed to go out walking when �4 you liked.” “ Eh, dear I ” they would say to one another, “ she is not allowed to go out walking when she likes—she is not allowed to go out walking when she likes ! ” Certainly you are not allowed to go out walking when you like. Reader, did you ever spend a day within those desirable walls ? I have, many. I wake up in the morning. It is fine and bright. I think to myself: I will have a pleasant stroll before breakfast. Yes—man proposes. It is all very well to meditate a morning walk, but where O where are my clothes ? I cannot very well go out without them. What can have be­ come of them ? Suddenly it occurs to me: James, honest soul, has taken them away to brush. Good. I wait. Nothing happens. I ring the bell. James appears. “ My clothes, James.” “Yes, sir.” Again I wait—an intolerable time. At last the familiar jacket and trousers appear. Good. Now * I can go out. Not so fast—where are your boots ? Boots, good gracious, I had forgotten them. Heaven knows where they are—I don’t. Probably fifty yards away. I creep downstairs. All is quiet. The servants are evidently at breakfast. It would be madness to hope to get boots brushed at such a moment. I would like to clean them myself. In fact I am fond of cleaning my own boots: the exercise is pleasant, and besides it is just such a little bit of menial work as I would rather do for myself than have others do for me; but, as I said before, one cannot do what one likes. In the first place, in this house where one is fifty yards away from everything one wants I have not the faintest idea where my boots are, or the means and instru­ ments of blacking them ; in the second place an even more fatal objection is that if I did succeed in committing this deed of darkness the consequent uproar in the house would be per­ fectly indescribable. The outrage on propriety would not only shock the feelings of the world below-stairs, but it would put to confusion the master of the house, upset the whole domestic machinery, create unpleasant qualms in the minds * A friend tells me that once, to revenge himself for this sort of trifling, he concealed his nether garment under the mattrass and then, in the morning, slyly watched the footman as he vainly sought round the room for it. The consequence however was that he fell very much in the esti­ mation of the latter, who doubtless thought that, like Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, his master’s visitor •' had gone to bed with his breeches on.” �5 of the other guests, and possibly make me feel that I had better not have lived. Accordingly, I abandon the idea of my pleasant stroll. It is not worth such a sacrifice. The birds are singing outside, the flowers are gay in the morning sun — but it must not be. Within, in the sitting-rooms, chaos reigns. Chairs and tables are piled in cheerful confusion upon one another, carpets are partially strewn with tea-leaves. To read a book or write an aimless letter to some one (the usual resource of people in desirable mansions) is clearly impossible; to do anything in the way of house-work is forbidden—it being well understood in such places that one may do any­ thing except what is useful. There remains nothing but to beat a retreat to my chamber again—put my hands in my pockets and whistle at the open window. “ Who was that I heard whistling so early this morning ? ” says my kindly old host at breakfast. “ O, it was you, was it ? I expect now you’re an early riser ; get up at seven, take a walk before breakfast; that sort of thing—eh ? ” “Yes, when I can,” I reply with ambiguous intent. “ Well, I call that wonderful,” says an elderly matron—not likely, as far as ap­ pearances go, to be accused of a similar practice—“ such energy, you know.” “ What a strong constitution you must have to be able to stand it! ” remarks a charming young lady on whom it has not yet dawned that the vast majority of human kind have their breakfast before half-past nine. This is not a good beginning to the day ; but the rest is like unto it. I find that there are certain things to be done—a certain code of things that you may do, a certain way of doing them, a certain way of putting your knife and fork on your plate. When you come down to dinner in the evening you must put on what the Yankees call a claw-hammer coat. It is not certain, (and that is just the grisly part of it) what would happen if you did not do this. In some societies evidently such a casualty has never been contemplated. I have heard people seriously discussing—in cases where the required article was missing—what could be done, where one might be borrowed, &c.—but clearly it did not occur to them that anyone could dine in his natural clothes. Sometimes, when in a fashionable church, I have wondered whether it would be possible to worship God in a flannel shirt— but I suppose that to go out to a dinner party in such a �6 costume would be even more unthinkable. As I said before, you are in prison. Submit to the prison rules, and it is all right—attempt to go beyond them, and you are visited with condign punishment. The rules have no sense, but that does not matter (possibly some ot them had sense once, but it must have been a very long time ago); the people are good people, no better nor worse in themselves than the real workers, the real hands and hearts of the world; but they are condemned to banishment from the world, condemned into the prison houses of futility. The stream of human life goes past them as they gaze wearily upon it through their plate-glass windows; the great Mother’s breasts of our common Humanity, with all its toils and suf­ ferings and mighty joys, are withheld from them. Dimly al last I think I understand why it is their faces are so chill and sad, their unnourished lives so unhealthy and over-sensitive. Truly, if I could pity anyone, I would them. By the side of the road there stands a little girl, crying ; she has lost her way. It is very cold, and she looks pinched and starved. “ Come in, my little girl, and sit by my cottage fire, and you’ll soon get warm; and I’ll see if I can't find you a bit of something to eat before you go on . . . Eh 1 dear ! how stupid I am—I quite forgot. I am sorry 1 can’t ask you in, but I am living in a desirable mansion now—and though we are very sorry for you, yet you see we could hardly have you into our house, for your dirty little boots would make a dreadful mess of our carpets, and we should have to dust the chairs after you had sat upon them, and you see Mrs. Vavasour might happen to come in, and she would think it so very odd ; and I know cook can’t bear beggars, and, O dear ! I’m so sorry for you—and here’s a penny, and I hope you’ll get home safely.” The stream of human life goes past. When a rich man builds himself a prison, he puts up all these fences to shut the world out—to shut himself in. If he can he builds far back from the high road. In the front of his house he has a bound­ less polite lawn, with polite flower beds, afar from vulgarpeople and animals. Rows of polite servants attend upon him; and there within of inanity and politeness he dies. Of what human life really consists in he has little idea. He has not the faintest notion of what is necessary for human life or happi­ �7 ness. Sometimes with an indistinct vision of accumulated evil, he says: “ Poor So-and-so, he has only ^200 a year to keep his wife and family on ! ” No wonder his own daughters dedicate themselves to “ good works.” They go out with the curate and visit at neighbouring cottages. Their visits have little appreciable effect on the people, but are a great benefit to themselves and the curate. They observe, for the first time, how life is carried on ; they see the operations of scrub­ bing and cooking (removed in their own houses afar from mortal polite eye) ; perhaps they behold a mother actually suckling her own babe, and learn that such things are pos­ sible ; finally, they “ wonder ” how “ those .people ” live, and to them their wonder (like the fear of God) is the beginning of wisdom. The lord of the mansion sits on the magisterial bench or strides about his fields, and lumps together all who are not in a similar position to himself as the “ lower classes.” After dinner in the evening, if the conversation turns on politics, he and his compeers discuss the importance of keeping the said lower classes in order, or the best method of “ raising ” them out of the ignorance and disorder in which they are supposed to wallow. And during the conversation it will be noticed that it is by everyone tacitly allowed and understood, and is, in fact, the very foundation of the whole argument, that the speakers themselves belong to an educated class, while the mass of the people are uneducated. Yet this is exactly the reverse of the truth—for they themselves belong to an ill-educated class, and the mass of the people are, by the very nature of the case, the better educated of the two. In fact, the education of the one set of people (and it is a great pity that it should be so) consists almost entirely in the study of books. That is very useful in its way, and if pro­ perly balanced with other things; but it is hardly necessary to point out that books only deal with phantoms and shadows of reality. The education of the world at large, and the real education, lies, and must always lie, in dealing with the things themselves. To put it shortly (as it has been put before), one man learns to spell a “ spade,” to write it, to rhyme it, to translate it into French and Latin—possibly, like Wordsworth, to address a sonnet to it—the other man learns to use it. Is there any comparison between the two ? �8 Now is it not curious that those good people sitting round their dinner table in the desirable mansion, or listening to a little music in the drawing-room, should actually be so ignorant of the world, and what goes on in it, as to think, and honestly believe, that they are, par excellence, the educated people in it ? * Does it ever occur to them, I often think, to inquire who made all the elegant and costly objects with which they are surrounded ? Does it ever occur to them, as they tacitly assume the inferiority of the working classes, to think of the table itself across which they speak—how beauti­ fully fitted, veneered, polished ; the cloth which lies upon it, and the weaving of it; the chairs and other furniture, so light and yet so strong, each requiring the skill of years to make ; the silver, the glass, the steel, the tempering, hardening, grinding, fitting, riveting ; the lace and damask curtains, the wonderful machinery, the care, the delicate touch, adroit manipulation ? the piano 1 the very house itself in which they spend their days ! Is there one, I say, who we will not say could make even the smallest part, but who even has the faintest idea how one of these things is.made, where it is made, who makes it ? Not one. All the care, the loving thought, the artistic design, the conscientious workmanship that have been expended, and are daily expended, on these things and the like of them—go past them unrecognised, unacknowledged. The great hymn of human labour over the earth is to them an idle song. There, in the midst of all these beautiful products of toil and ingenuity, possessing but not enjoying, futile they sit, and fancy themselves educated— fit to rule. I have heard of a fly that sat stinging upon the hindquarters of a horse, and fancied that without it the cart would not go. Fancied so, I say, until the great beast whisked its tail, and after that it fancied nothing more. Doi put these things in a strong light? May be, I do; but I put them faithfully as I have seen them, and as I see them daily. * “ . . . . People who roll about in their fine equipages scarcely knowing what to do with themselves or what ails them, and some of whom occasionally run to such places as ours to have their carriage linings or cushions altered, or to know if they *can be altered as they don't feel quite 1 comfortable.' I often think ‘ God help them,’ for no one else can. . . I insert this extract just to show how these things are regarded from the side which does not usually find expression. It is from a letter written by an elderly and gentle-hearted man, employed in a carriage factory. �9 I do not suppose that riches are an evil in themselves. I do not suppose that anything is an evil in itself. I know that even in the midst of all these shackles and impediments, that wonderfulest of things, the human soul, may work out its own salvation ; and well I know that there are no condi­ tions or circumstances of human life, nor any profession from a king to a prostitute, that may not become to it the gateway of freedom and immortality. But I daily see people setting this standard of well-to-do respectability before them, daily more and more hastening forth in quest of desirable mansions to dwell in ; and I cannot but wonder whether they realise what it is they seek ; I cannot lend my voice to swell the chorus of encouragement. Here are the clean facts. Choose for yourselves. That is all. Respectability ! Heavy-browed and hunch-backed word ' Once innocent and light-hearted as any other word, why now in thy middle age art thou become so gloomy and saturnine ? Is it that thou art responsible for the murder of the innocents ? Respectability! Vision of clean hands and blameless dress— why dost thou now appear in the form of a ghoul before me ? I confess that the sight of a dirty hand is dear to me. It warms my heart with all manner of good hopes and promises. Often and long have I thought about this matter, and in all good faith I must say that I fail to see how hands always clean are compatible with honesty. This is no play upon words. I fail to see how in the long run, any man that takes his share in the work of the world can keep his hands in this desirable state. How ? The answer is obvious enough—leave others to do the dirty work. Good ! Let it be so ; let it be granted that others shall do the scrubbing and baking, the digging, the fishing, the breaking of horses, the carpentering, build­ ing, smithing, and the myriad other jobs that have to be done, and you at the pinnacle of all this pyramid of work, above all, keep your hands clean. We shouting to you from below, exhort you—At all costs, keep your hands cle‘an ! Think how important it is, while the great ships have to be got into harbour, that your nails should be blameless ! Think if by any accident you were to do a real good piece of work, and get your hands thoroughly grimed over it, unwashable for a week, what confusion would ensue to yourself and �IO friends ! Think O think of your clients, or of the next dinner party, and earnestly and prayerfully resolve that such a fall may never be yours. Seek, we pray you, some secure work—some legal, clerical, official, capitalist, or land­ owning business, safe from the dread stain of dirty hands, whatever other dirt it may bring with it—some thoroughly gentlemanly profession, marking you clearly off from the vulgar and general masses, and the blessing of heaven go with you ! Shut yourself off from the great stream of human life, from the great sources of physical and moral health ; ignore the common labour by which you live, show clearly your contempt for it, your dislike of it, and then ask others to do it for you ; turn aside from nature, divorce yourself from the living breathing heart of the nation; and then you will have done, what the governing classes of England to-day have done, have given full directions to your own heart and brain how to shrivel and starve and die. Man is made to work with his hands. This is a fact which cannot be got over. From this central fact he cannot travel far. I don’t care whether it is an individual or a class, the life which is far removed from this becomes corrupt, shrivelled, and diseased. You may explain it how you like, but it is so. Administrative work has to be done in a nation as well as productive work ; but it must be done by men accustomed to manual labour, who have the healthy decision and primitive authentic judgment which comes of that, else it cannot be done well. In the new form of society which is slowly advancing upon us, this will be felt more than now. The higher the position of trust a man occupies the more will it be thought important that, at some period of his life, he should have been thoroughly inured to manual work ; this not only on account of the physical and moral robustness implied by it, but equally because it will be seen to be im­ possible for any one, without this experience of what is the very flesh and blood of national life, to promote the good health of the nation, or to understand the conditions under which the people live whom he has to serve. But to return to the sorrows of the well-to-do—and care that sits on the crupper of wealth. This is a world-old and well-worn subject. Yet, possibly, some of its truisms may �II bear repeating. A clergyman, preaching once on the trials of life, turned first to his rich friends and bade them call to mind, one by one, the sorrows and sufferings of the poor; then, turning to his “ poorer brethren,” he exhorted them also not to forget that the rich man had his afflictions—with which they should sympathise—amongst which afflictions, growing chiefly out of their much money, he reckoned “ last, but not least, the difficulty of finding for it an investment which should be profitable and also secure 1 ” It has been generally supposed that the poorer brethren failed to sym­ pathise with this form of suffering. But it is a very real one. What cares, what anxieties, what yellow and blue fits, what sleepless nights, dance at­ tendance on the worshiper in the great Temple of Stocks ! The capricious deity that dwells there has to be appeased by ceaseless offerings. Usury ! crookfaced idol, loathed, yet grovelled to by half the world, whose name is an abomination to speak openly, yet whose secret rites are practised by thousands who revile thy name, what spell of gloom and bilious misery dost thou cast over thy worshipers! Is it possible that the ancient curse has not yet lost its effect: that to acquire interest on money and to acquire interest in life are not the same thing ; that they are positively not com­ patible with each other; that to fly from one’s just share of labour in the world, in order to live upon the hard-earned profits of others, is not, and cannot come to good ? Is it possible, I say, reader, that there is a moral law in the world facing us quite calmly in every transaction of our lives by which it must be so—by which cowardice and sham cannot breed anything else for us but gloom and bilious misery ? In this age which rushes to stocks—to debenture, preference, consolidated, and ordinary stocks, to shares, bonds, coupons, dividends—-not even refusing scrip when it can get it—does it ever occur to us to consider what it all means ?—to con­ sider that all the money so gained is taken from some one else ; that what we have not earned cannot possibly be ours, except by gift, or (shall I say it ?) theft ? How can it then come with a blessing ? How can we not but think of the railway operatives, the porters, managers, clerks, superin­ tendents, drivers, stokers, platelayers, carriage - washers, navvies, out of whose just earnings (and from no other �12 source) our dividends are taken ? ■ Let alone honesty—what, surely, does our pride say to this ? Is it possible that this frantic dividend-dance of the present day is like a dance of dancers dancing without any music—an aimless incoherent impossible dance, weltering down at last to idiocy and oblivion ? Curious, is it not, that this subject (of dividends) is never mentioned before said wage-receiving classes ? I have often noticed that. When James enters the room, or Jeffery comes to look at the gas-fittings, the babble of stocks dies faintly away, as if ashamed of itself? and while a man will, without reserve, allude to his professional salary, he is generally as secret concerning his share-gotten gains as ladies are said to be about their age. But, as I said at first, these things are not generally a man’s fault. They are the product of the circumstances in which he is born. From his childhood he is trained osten­ sibly in the fear of God, but really in the fear of money. The * whole tenor of the conversation which he hears round him, and his early teaching, tend to impress upon him the awful dangers of not having enough. Strange that it never occurs to parents of this class to teach their children how little they can live upon, and be happy (but perhaps they do not know). Hence, the child of the poor man—even in these adverse times—grows up with some independence of mind, for he knows that if at any time he can obtain £50 or ^100 a year by the work of his hands, he will be able to bring up a little family; while the son of a rich man in the midst of a family income of fifty times ^50, learns to tremble slavishly at the prospect of the future ; dark hints of the workhouse are whispered in his ears ; father and mother, school-teachers and friends, join in pressing him into a pro­ fession which he hates—stultifying his whole life—because it will lead to ^500, or even ^1,000 a year in course of time. This is the great test, the sure criterion between two paths: which will lead to more money? The youth* Or as Mr. Locker has it, They eat and drink and scheme and plod, And go to church on Sunday; For many are afraid of God, And more of Mrs. Grundy. �i3 ful tender conscience soon comes to look upon it as a duty, and the acquisition of large dividends as part of the serious work of life. Then come true the words of the preacher: he realises with painful clearness the difficulty of finding investments which shall be profitable and also secure; circulars, reports, newspaper-cuttings, and warning letters flow in upon him, sleepless nights are followed by anxious days, telegrams and railway journeys succeed each other. But the game goes on : the income gets bigger, and the fear of the workhouse looms closer ! Friendsand relations also, have shares. Some get married and others die. Hence trustee-ships and executor-ships, increasing in number year by year, coil upon coil; solicitors hover around on all sides, jungles of legal red tape have to be waded through, chancery looms up with its “ obscene birds ” upon the horizon, and the hapless boy, now an old man before his time, with snatched meals and care-lined brow, goes to and fro like an automaton—a walking testimony to his own words that “ the days of his happiness are long gone past.” Before God, I would rather with pick and shovel dig a yearlong drain beneath the open sky, breathing freely, than I would live in this jungle of idiotic duties and thin-lipped respect­ abilities that money breeds. Why the devil should the days of your happiness be gone past, except that you have lived a life to stultify the whole natural man in you ? Do you think that happiness is a little flash-in-the-pan when you are eighteen, and that is all ? Do you not know that expanding age, like a flower, lifts itself ever into a more and more exquisite sun­ light of happiness—to which Death, serene and beautiful, comes only at the last with the touch of perfected assurance ? Do you not know that the whole effort of Nature in you is towards this happiness, if you could only abandon yourself, and for one child-like moment have faith in your own mother ? But she knows it, and watches you, half amused, run after your little “ securities,” knowing surely that you must at length return to her. But wherein the affluent classes suffer most in the present day perhaps is the matter of health. Into that heaven it is indeed hard for a rich man to enter. Here again the whole tradition of his life is against him. If there is one thing that appears to me more certain than another it is, as I have �partly said before, that no individual or class can travel far from the native life of the race without becoming shrivelled, corrupt, diseased—without suffering, in fact. By the native life I mean the life of those (always the vast majority of human kind) who live and support themselves in direct contact with Nature. * To rise early, to be mostly in the open air, to do some amount of physical labour, to eat clean and simple food, are necessary and aboriginal conditions of the life of our race, and they are necessary and aboriginal conditions of health. The doctor who does not start from these as .the basis of his prescriptions does not know his work. The modern money-lender, man of stocks, or what­ ever you call him, and his family, live in the continual violation of these conditions. They get up late, are mostly indoors, do little or no physical work, and take quantities of rich and greasy food and stimulants, such as would exhaust the stomach of a strong man, but which to them, in their already enervated state, are simply fatal. Hence a long catalogue of evils, ever branching into more. Hence dys­ pepsia, nerves, liver, sexual degeneracies, and general de­ pression of vitality ; a gloomy train, but whose drawn features you will recognise if you peep into almost anyone of those desirable mansions of which I have spoken. A terrible symptom of our well-to-do (?) modern life is this want of health, and one which presses for serious attention. There is only one remedy for it; but that remedy is a sure one— the return (or advance) to a simpler mode of existence. What is the upshot of all this? There was a time when the rich man had duties attending his wealth. The lord or baron was a petty king, and had kingly responsibilities as well as power. The Sir Roger, of Addison’s time, was the succeeding type of landlord. And even to the present day there lingers, here and there, a country squire who fulfils that * It must be noticed that the working masses of our great towns do not by any means fulfil this condition. Thrust down into squalor by the very effort of others climbing to luxury, the unnaturalness and misery of their lives is the direct counterpart and inseparable accompaniment of the un­ naturalness of the lives of the rich. That the great masses of our popula­ tion to-day are in this unhealthy state does not however disprove the statement in the text—i.e., that the vast majority of mankind must live in direct contact with Nature—rather it would indicate that the present conditions can only be of brief duration. �j M fl! IUHM 15 now antiquated ideal of kindly condescension and patronage. But the modern rush of steam-engines, and the creation of an enormous class of wealthy folk, living on stocks, have completely subverted the old order. It has let loose on society a horde of wolves !—a horde of people who have no duties attaching to their mode of life, no responsibility. They roam hither and thither, seeking whom and what they may devour. Personally I have no objection to criminals, and think them quite as good as myself. But, Talk of criminal classes—can there be a doubt that the criminal classes, par excellence, in our modern society, are this horde of stock and share-mongers ? If to be a criminal is to be an enemy of society, then they are such. For their mode of life is founded on the principle of taking without giving, of claiming without earning—as much as that of any common thief. It is in vain to try and make amends for this by charity organisations and unpaid magistracies. The cure must go deeper. It is no good trying to set straight the roof and chimneys, when the whole foundation is aslant. These good people are not boarded and lodged at Her Majesty’s pleasure, but the Eternal Justice, unslumbering, causes them to build prisons (as I have said) for themselves-—plagues them with ill-health and divers unseen evils— and will and must plague them, till such time as they shall abandon the im­ possible task they have set themselves, and return to the paths of reason. The whole foundation is aslant—and aslip, as anyone may see who looks. In short, it is an age of transition. No mortal power could make durable a Society founded on Usury—universal and boundless usury. The very words scream at each other. The baron has passed away; and the landlord is passing. They each had their duties, and while they fulfilled them served their time well and faithfully. The shareholder has no duties, and is miserable, and will remain so till the final landslip, when the foundations having completely given way, he will crawl forth out of the ruins of his desirable mansion into the life and light of a new day. Less oracular than this I dare not be! As I have said before there is no conceivable condition of life in which the human soul may not find the materials of its surpassing deliverance from evil and mortality. And I for �one would not, if I had the power, cramp human life into the exhibition of one universal routine. If anyone desires to be rich, if anyone desires to gradually shut himself off from the world, to build walls and fences, to live in a house where it is impossible to get a breath of fresh air without going through half a dozen doors, and to be the prisoner of his own servants; if he desires it so that when he walks down the street he cannot whistle or sing, or shout across the road to a friend, or sit upon a doorstep when tired, or take off his coat if it be hot, but must wear certain particular clothes in a certain particular way, and be on such pins and needles as to what he may or may not do, that he is right glad when he gets back again to his own prison walls ; if he loves trustee­ ships and Egyptian Bonds, and visits from the lawyer, and feels glad when he finds a letter from the High Court of Chancery on his breakfast table, and experiences in attend­ ing to all these things that satisfaction which comes of all honest work ; if he feels renovated and braced by lying in bed of a morning, and by eating feast dinners every day, and by carefully abstaining from any bodily labour ; if dyspepsia, and gout, and biliousness, and distress of nerves are not otherwise than grateful to him ; and if he can obtain all these things without doing grievous wrong to others, by all means let him have them. Only for those who do not know what they desire I would lift up the red flag of warning. Only of that vast and ever vaster horde which to-day (chiefly, I cannot but think, in ignorance) rushes to Stocks, would I ask a moment’s pause, and to look at the bare facts, If these words should come to the eye of such an one I would pray him to think for a moment—to glance at this great enthroned Wrong in its dungeon palace (notffhe less a wrong because the laws coun­ tenance and encourage it)—to listen for the cry of the home­ less many, trodden under foot, a yearly sacrifice to it—to watch the self-inflicted sufferings of its worshipers, the ennui, the depression, the unlovely faces of ill-health, to observe the falsehood on which it is founded, and therefore the falsehood, the futility, the unbelief in God or Man which spring out of it—and to turn away, determined, as far as in him lies, to worship in that Dagon-house no longer. � 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 &amp; 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 An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available 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 The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 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 Desirable mansions : a tract Description An account of the resource Edition: 3rd ed. Place of publication: London Collation: 16 p. ; 19 cm. Notes: Reprinted, with a few alterations, from Progress, June 1883. List of other works by author on p. 2. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Carpenter, Edward Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Modern Press Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1887 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context T395 Subject The topic of the resource Socialism Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (Desirable mansions : a tract), 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 The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Social change Socialism https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/0fc5552cd5e8fc29da1724397db0f46f.pdf?Expires=1782345600&Signature=riFpooJEr-qkME4u8Dti4KOKDnmIpeak7BfGjFMpFfvcIa1w49RmnklXg5ihhTVtlsMzlbeka3a2TY9QJ%7ExtWUYz2CVus1i1ovWHUZQnU8GtevMMd26GIWZ%7EEwd0CEthu35rNTHbpJusxOCuL-1RSYNbriWXvd8mQluJJIpIHwB0hHblg5vxOn4RCJ8kmIEhJXMtzYYPwIaWNmr3uLBBkp2o4BQtSuP5Eyj4U5n-c49mHAFU-VqlhqhxTQw8ilhnKU5iqUvcCHSMcjluJSzeEaiUrTmeNjidpQnto3MEmaizC5r3KpI%7ES4bfaQkgwJVxoRtORk9qPimfFXIMH5BAUg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM cdad33cf09b36e20f409a2fdda209682 PDF Text Text CT&> PRICE ONE PENNY. HERBERT SPENCER I ON SOCIALISM. A TO THE REPLY THE ARTICLE ENTITLED COMING SLAVERY, (In the “ Contemporary Review” for April, 1884.) BY v FRANK FAIRMAN/ l,e*( TheoAef-e THE 13 and R- UJKrlct" MODERN 14, PATERNOSTER PRESS, ROW, LONDON, E.C. AND OF W. REEVES, 185, FLEET STREET, LONDON, E C. 1884. �“ Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee.” �HERBERT SPENCER ON SOCIALISM. “ Is Saul also amongst the prophets ? ” seems to have been at one time the proverbial formula for expressing surprise, bordering on incredulity, at the appearance of any wellknown individual in a new and unexpected character, and the like feelings may probably be evoked by the inquiry—“ Is Herbert Spencer also amongst the humourists ? ” A careful and repeated perusal, however, of his latest deliverance on social questions in the April number of the Contemporary Review, and a comparison of it with other writings of his which are un­ doubtedly serious, almost forces one to the conclusion that he is on this occasion laughing in his sleeve at the British public, and enjoying the joke of being held up as Defender of the universal-scramble and Devil-take-the-hindmost Faith which not once only, but all his life, he has laboured to destroy. Probably no one—not even Dr. Marx, himself (his works being inaccessible in English) has done so much to promote the spread of socialistic ideas in England as Mr. Spencer, and to those who have for years felt that in the principles he has laid down they had a sure and solid founda­ tion on which to stand, and a clue to guide them in coming to a right conclusion on many vexed questions of political and social importance, it will be an immense relief to find that their great teacher has not really turned his back upon himself, but that like Rabelais and others, he is only con­ cealing his real purpose under a cloak—not of nastiness— which neither his own taste, nor the manners of the age would permit — but of apparent hard-heartedness and economic superficiality, both of which are alike repugnant to his real nature. What better evidence can we have that a writer is masquerading than to find— being a philanthropist, whose sympathies arq pot �4 limited by country, colour, or creed, he insults the unfor­ tunate and apparently depreciates all attempts to help them. 2. —That being an exact and profound thinker, he over­ states and mis-states his (nominal) opponent’s case in order to prejudice it, and trots out from the economic stable vener­ able old screws like “ wages-fund,” which though they made good running in their day, are now only fit for a fair-trade procession. 3. —That being probably the leading philosopher of the age, he condemns, because it bears an unpopular name, the very thing which he has himself held up as the grand desideratum. 4. —That being a master of the English language, he uses terms so exactly and admirably adapted to describe the effects of the present system of production that when applied to its rival they can only be taken ironically, and— Lastly, when there is an intelligible object for the grim joke, viz., that of sending those who are so delighted with this last essay, to study the other writings of their supposed champion, where, if they are at all amenable to reason, his inexorable logic can hardly fail to convince them of the necessity of at least as radical a reconstruction of society as even the Democratic Federation can desire. Furthermore, the dis­ covery that there is this vein of humour in Mr. Spencer’s composition will assist one to read between the lines of those portions of Social Statics in which he has denounced Socialism—in name—and even combatted, though, but im­ perfectly, some of its claims, though at the same time admitting that they spring naturally from the principles he has formulated. Let us take these various propositions in order and see whether or not they are justified. 1.—It is hardly necessary to prove that Mr. Spencer is a genuine philanthropist, but the following sentences show what was once the real attitude of his mind towards the poorer classes, and the hard conditions of their lot:— “ It is a pity that those who speak disparagingly of the masses have not wisdom enough, to make due allowance for the unfavourable circumstances in which the masses are placed. Suppose that after weighing the evidence it should turn out that the working men do exhibit greater vices than those more comfortably off; does it therefore follow that they are morally worse ? . . . Shall as much be expected at their hands as from those born �5 into a more fortunate position ? . . . Surely the lot of the hard-handed labourer is pitiable enough without having harsh judgments passed upon him. To be wholly sacrificed to other men’s happiness; to be made a mere human tool; to have every faculty subordinated to the sole function of work—this, one would say, is alone a misfortune, needing all sympathy for its mitigation. . . It is very easy for you, oh respectable citizen, seated in your easy chair, with your feet on the fender, to hold forth on the mis­ conduct of the people, very easy for you to censure their extravagant and vicious habits, very easy for you to be a pattern of frugality, of rectitude, of sobriety. What else should you be ? Here are you surrounded by comforts, possessing multiplied sources of lawful happiness, with a reputation to maintain, an ambition to fulfil, and prospects of a competency for old age. . . If you do not contract dissipated habits where is the merit ? How would these virtues of yours stand the wear and tear of poverty ? Where would your prudence and self-denial be if you were deprived of all the hopes that now stimulate you; if you had no better prospect than that of the Dorsetshire farm-servant with his 7s. a-week, or that of the perpetually straitened stocking weaver, or that of the mill-hand with his periodical suspensions of work ? Let us see you tied to an irksome employment from dawn till dusk; fed on meagre food, and scarcely enough of that; married to a factory girl ignorant of domestic management; deprived of the enjoyments which education opens up; with no place of recreation but the pot­ house, and then let us see whether you would be as steady as you are. Suppose your savings had to be made, not, as now, out of surplus ’income, but out of wages already insufficient for necessaries; and then consider whether to be provident would be as easy as you at present find it. . . “ How offensive it is to hear some pert, self-approving personage, who thanks God that he is not as other men are, passing harsh sentence on his poor, hardworked, heavily burdened fellow-countrymen; including them all in one sweeping condemnation, because in their struggles for existence they do not maintain the same prim respectability as himself. Of all stupidities there are few greater, and yet few in which we more doggedly persist, than this of estimating other men’s conduct by the standard of our own feelings. . . We cannot understand another’s character except by abandoning our own identity, and realising to ourselves his frame of mind, his want of knowledge, his hardships, temptations and discouragements. And if the wealthier classes would do this before framing their opinions of the working man, their verdict would savour somewhat more of that charity which covereth a multitude of sins." — Social Statics, part 3, chapter 20. What a striking contrast do those sentiments present to the opening of the article on the Coming Slavery, where the author speaks of “the miseries of the poor being thought of as the miseries of the deserving poor, instead of being thought of as in large measure they should be, as the miseries of the undeserving poor”; goes on to describe the idlers about tavern doors, the men who appropriate the wages of their wives, the fellows who share the gains of prostitutes, &c., �6 and then says—“ Is it not manifest that there must exist in our midst an enormous amount of misery which is a normal result of misconduct, and ought not to be dissociated from it ? ” Can any one doubt that Mr. Spencer is as perfectly well aware as any one who reads these lines, that it is the misery of the deserving poor, not that of the undeserving, which has excited so much sympathy :—and that if by toiling twelve or fourteen hours a day men and women could have secured as good accommodation as well kept pigs, and as good and sufficient food as cart-horses, we should have heard no “ bitter cry,” and had no Royal Commission ? The loungers who rush to open a cab-door are not to be lost sight of, but it is a mere gratuitous assumption that all or most of them could find better work to do. An equally patent fact is the immense rush for any opportunity of earning an honest living at even the lowest remuneration, as witness the crowds who besiege the London Docks at 6 o’clock every morning, 40 per cent, at least being stated by eye-witnesses to go away disappointed. Mr, Spencer has taken great pains to collect information regarding the aborigines of all parts of the globe, and can hardly have passed over his own countrymen ; if he has ever made a personal tour of our great metropolitan markets and leading thoroughfares, early in the morning or late at night, he must be convinced from witnessing the innumerable shifts and devices resorted to, the hard work undergone, and the discomfort endured, to gain a few miserable pence and so escape the workhouse, that taking the poorer classes as a whole, laziness is the last vice which can be laid to their charge. Thriftless they un­ doubtedly are, but what inducement have they to be other­ wise, when the most strenuous efforts would be so hopelessly futile of obtaining anything like a tangible result. In­ temperate, on occasion they are also, but there is much excuse, if no justification, for their indulging when they have the means in the only form of pleasurable excitement known or open to them. Unoerlying these opening sentences, is the common assumption that an honest, sober, and in­ dustrious workman can always find employment. It must be acknowledged that there is some slight colour for the assumption,but what doesit come to when analysed ? Simply that the best men get employed first. But if all were equally sober, industrious, and skilful, their good qualities would �7 bear no premium in the labour market, and what little foundation there is now for this assumption would vanish ; so that, in fact, it rather is to the bad qualities of their fellows than to their own virtues—to the existence in short, of the tavern and street corner loungers—that the elite of the working classes owe such advantages as they possess. Once more, can any one suppose that Mr. Spencer, of all men, needs to have this pointed out ? It is impossible. 2.—“ There is a notion,” says Mr. Spencer, “ always more or less prevalent, and just now vociferously expressed, that all social suffering is removable, and that it is the duty of somebody or other to remove it. Both these beliefs are false.” A great portion of social suffering arises from the death of relatives and friends, but no instructed Socialist has as yet proposed to remove it; on the contrary, unhappily, some ^instructed ones seem rather in favour of increasing it. Speaking seriously, however, what Socialists maintain is—not any such absurdity as the above, but that a great deal of suffering is removable, and in particular that an im­ mense deal of it results directly from defective social arrange­ ments ; and that this portion at least, can be, and ought to be, removed. They are firmly convinced that material im­ provement without moral and intellectual elevation is a chimera, but they are equally convinced that the moral eleva­ tion of the lowest class without material improvement is im­ possible. They agree with Mr. Spencer in accepting the scientific accuracy of the maxim, “ If any will not work neither shall he eat; ” but they also believe that “ if any do not eat neither can he work; ” and they object to the pre­ sent system of distribution because on the one hand it gives plenty to eat to those who do not work at all,. and on the other, leaves those who work the hardest the smallest possible means and opportunity of eating anything. The next suggestion is that the working classes are being supplied with dwelling accommodation at less than its com­ mercial value, because in Liverpool the municipality has spent ^200,000 in pulling down and reconstructing, and “ the implication is that in some way the ratepayers supply the poor with more accommodation than the rents they pay would otherwise have brought.” An equally logical implica­ tion would be, that in some way some of the non-working classes have obtained £200,000 of the ratepayer’s money be- �8x yond the commercial value of their property. Mr. Spencer also . says that the advantages derived from free libraries, public baths, Board schools, etc., are only a rate in aid of wages, and that these seeming boons are really illusory. It might be said that these things being necessaries, if they were not supplied by the public, the working classes would insist on such wages as would enable them to provide them for themselves ; and such an argument would be not only plausible, but sound, assuming the premises to be correct, which evidently they are not. But the line of reasoning adopted seems to be that capitalists give as high wages as ever they can afford, many of them even coming to grief from their liberality in this respect, and that any inroads by taxation on either profits or “wages fund” necessitate, much against their will, an equivalent reduction in wages. Whether either the premises or the argument in this case be sounder than m the previous one, those who understand anything of economics must judge. It may be pointed out, however, that this view accords very ill with the conclusions of Mr. Giffen, and similar optimists, who prove very much to their own satisfaction that the wages of the working classes have con­ siderably improved during the very period that the public have been providing these illusory benefits. Besides, supposing Mr. Spencer’s criticism on this point well founded, it is obviously only an argument against half and half measures, and in favour of real Socialism, (did he mean it as such ?) which would abolish this cut-throat competition between employers, by which both their own profits and the remuneration of labour are reduced to a minimum. 3-—The condemnation of Socialism by name is too obvious to need more than a general reference. To show that the thing itself is _ the only legitimate outcome of Mr. Spencer’s teaching, it is necessary to refer in some detail to Social Statics, especially as this book is not now readily accessible. It is understood that Mr. Spencer objects to its being re­ printed until he has time to revise and modify some portions, but judging by the preface to the last edition, such modifica­ tions will be confined to the practical applications of the prin­ ciples laid down, and will not interfere with the principles themselves. So firmly, indeed, has the author established these, that it would be difficult even for him to upset them. It is to these that attention will be chiefly directed, rather �9 than to special deductions which the writer draws from them ; and, be it said with all deference, it is not for a philosopher who succeeds in establishing a principle to dictate what con­ clusions may or may not be drawn from it; that must depend on the acknowledged rules of logic. Without unduly lengthening these pages by citations, it may fairly be said that the one great principle which Mr. Spencer establishes as the fundamental law of morality for human beings, is what he terms “the law of equal freedom ; ” that is, that every individual should enjoy perfect liberty to exer­ cise all his faculties, the only limitation being that he shall not in so doing infringe in any manner on the like freedom of others. As he puts it, “ man must have liberty to go and to come ; to see, to feel, to speak, to work, to get food, raiment, and shelter, and to provide for each and all the needs of his nature.” (p. 93.) Again, “If this law of equal freedom is the primary law of right relationship between man and man, then no desire to get fulfilled a secondary law can warrant us in breaking it.” It is here contended that the acceptance of this primary law inevitably leads to Socialism, and can lead to nothing else. Mr. Spencer has himself done the greater part of the work required to show that it does so, by himself drawing from it the deduction that it includes the right to the use of the earth. “ Each is free to use the earth for the satisfaction of his wants provided he allows all others the same liberty. And conversely it is manifest that no one may use the earth in such a way as to prevent the rest from similarly using it. Equity, therefore does not permit pro­ perty in land.” (p. 131). Again, “ It is impossible to dis­ cover any mode in which land can become private property.” And at p. 143 “ Bye and bye men may learn that to deprive others of their rights to the use of the earth is to commit a crime inferior only in wickedness to the crime of taking away their lives or personal liberties.” So far so good; but the author goes a step, and a very im­ portant step further, and when dealing with the rights of pro­ perty points out that all wealth being derived from the earth, the only legitimate basis qf property is the exercise of man’s labour upon land for which he has paid to society, the rightful owner thereof, a fair rent, and this never having been done, all personal as well as real property, is tainted and illegitimate in its origin. This important deduction of his own drawing �Mr. Spencer seems afterwards to have somewhat lost sight of. Well may he say, with reference to another matter, but it is equally applicable to this : “ Due warning was given that our first principle carried in it the germs of sundry unlooked for conclusions. We have just found ourselves committed to a proposition at war with the convictions of almost all. Truth, however, must of necessity be consistent; we have, there­ fore, no alternative but to re-examine our pre-conceived notions in the expectation of finding them erroneous.” (p. 195.) This is exactly what Socialists desire mankind to do with regard to their pre-conceived notions about the produc­ tion and distribution of wealth, bearing in mind that “ as liberty to exercise the faculties is the first condition of in­ dividual life, the liberty of each limited only bv the like liberty of all, must be the first condition of social life, the law of equal freedom is of higher authority than all other laws.” (p. 217.) Remembering also that “ before establishing a code for the right exercise of faculties there must be established the condition which makes the exercise of faculties possible. It is the function of this chief institution which we call a government, to uphold the law of equal freedom.” (p. 278.) Is not this precisely the contention of Socialists, that the first duty of the State is to see that each individual has a chance of exercising his faculties, the digestive ones included ? It is quite true that Mr. Spencer apparently shrinks from this “unlooked for conclusion,” and declines to recognise either a right to maintenance, or the right to labour; but, as observed at the outset, a suspicion not unnaturally arises that in so doing he was possibly actuated rather by policy than conviction, especially when we examine the mode in which he deals with these two claims. He disposes of the first by asserting that it cannot be entertained until an exact defini­ tion is arrived at of what a maintenance means, whether a bare subsistence, or a certain amount, and if so how much, of comforts or luxuries. It may be replied in the first place that though this task may be difficult, it does not follow that it is impossible ; and if confined, as is evidently contemplated, to those who cannot get their own living, those entrusted by society with the charge ofmaintaing them would easily estab­ lish a working scale, as is in fact done. Besides, as Mr. Spencer repeatedly points out in other cases, it by no means follows that the law of perfect morality is discredited because �ri it is difficult or even impossible of application in an imper­ fect state of society. Once more, Socialists do not contend that every one is entitled to a maintenance without earning it; quite the reverse. The real gist of the argument there­ fore, turns on the next point, the right to labour, which is dealt with still less satisfactorily. Mr. Spencer says, “ First, let us make sure of the meaning wrapped up in this expres­ sion—right to labour. Evidently, if we would avoid mistakes we must render it literally—right to the labour; ” (which does not seem to make it any plainer) “ for the thing deman­ ded is not the liberty of labouring ; this no one disputes ; ” (on the contrary it is the very thing which is disputed, unless swinging one’s arms and legs aimlessly is to be called labour­ ing) “ but it is the opportunity of labouring, the having re­ munerative employment provided, which is contended for.” Now, to take Mr. Spencer literally, one wants to know whether it is the liberty combined with the opportunity which he concedes (if he does he concedes the whole point), or the liberty without the opportunity, which he seems to mean ; if so, he may as well concede the liberty to fly. It is something like the liberty which calvinistic theologians accord to those predestined to damnation; just enough to save the credit of the deity, but not enough, without the effectual grace which they never get, to save their own souls. Again, “the word right, as here used, bears a signification quite different from its legitimate one, for it does not here imply something inherent in man, but something dependent upon external circumstances, not something pos­ sessed in virtue of his faculties, but something springing out of his relationship to others, not something true of him as a solitary individual, but something which can be true of him only as one of a community, not something antecedent to society, but something necessarily subsequent to it, not some­ thing expressive of a claim to do, but of a claim to be done unto.” With the exception of the last member of the sen­ tence, which might be disputed, this is an accurate criticism, but does it not strengthen the claim rather than weaken it ? The right, in its strict sense, on which the claim is founded, is the right to use the faculties, and the fact that everything on which that right can be exercised, every inch of ground, and every particle of wood, stone, iron, etc., has been previously appropriated by society seems a very insufficient reason for �1-3 rejecting the claim. To so reject it, is in fact to contravene one of the fundamental rules of equity, that no one may take advantage of his own wrong doing. Going on further, Mr. Spencer by that clear method of analysis of which he is a master, points out that when the proposition is reduced to its lowest terms, it only means that society is the employer, and therefore in efiect the labourer says that ABC and D are bound to employ him ; that he, with B C and D are bound to employ A; and so on with each individual of the twenty millions’of whom the society may be composed ; and then, with a fine touch of humour, he adds: “ Thus do we see how readily imaginary rights are distinguishable from real ones. They need no disproof, they disprove themselves. The ordeal of definition breaks the illusion at once.” It certainly does not break this illusion, if it be one ; on the contrary, this admirable mode of stating the case only confirms the justice of the claim, when the real facts are considered. It is in truth the veritable A B C of Socialism. All the letters of the social alphabet, large and small, furnish employment; even the veriest waif and outcast provides employment for others, be it only the policeman and gaoler ; and this claim of the right to labour is nothing more nor less than a protest on the part of the small letters, who each help to swell the demand, against the supply being mon­ opolized by the capitals for their own profit. As Mr. Spencer himself puts it at p. 345: “We must not overlook the fact that erroneous as are these poor law and communist theories, these assertions of a man’s right to maintenance and of his right to have work provided for him, they are nevertheless nearly related to a truth. They are unsuccessful efforts to express the fact that whoso is born on this planet of ours thereby obtains some interest in it—may not be summarily dismissed again—may not have his existence ignored by those in possession. In other words, they are attempts to embody that thought which finds its legitimate utterance in the law, all men have equal rights to the use of the earth. . . . After getting from under the grosser injustice of slavery men could not help beginning in course of time to feel what a monstrous thing it was that nine people out of ten should live in the world on suffrance, not having even standing room save by allowance of those who claim the earth’s surface. Could it be right that all these human beings should not only be with- �'r3 out claim to the necessaries of life, should not only be denied the use of those elements from which such necessaries are obtainable—but should further be unable to exchange their labour for such necessaries except by leave of their more for­ tunate fellows ? . . . . To all which questions now forced upon men’s minds in more or less definite shapes, there come amongst other answers these theories of a right to a mainten­ ance and a right of labour. Whilst, therefore, they must be rejected as untenable we may still ” [not give any definite answer which is more tenable, but] “ recognise in them the imperfect utterances of the moral sense in its efforts to express equity.” 4.—At p. 474 of the Contemporary Review Mr. Spencer says : “Why is this change described as the Coming Slavery? The reply is simple. All Socialism involves slavery,” and then, in an eloquent passage he asks and answers the question, “ what is essential to the idea of a slave ? ” The result being thus expressed. “ The essential question is, how much is he compelled to labour for other benefit than his own, and how much he can labour for his own benefit ? The degree of his slavery varies according to the ratio between that which he is forced to yield up and that which he is allowed to retain ; and it matters not whether his master is a single person or a society. If, without option he has to labour for the society and receives from the general stock such portion as the society awards him, he becomes a slave to the society.” Could there be a more exact description of the condition of the modern wage labourer under the capitalist system ? Yet Mr. Spencer adds, “ Socialistic arrangements necessitate an enslavement of this kind.” If they did, they would be no worse than present arrangements, but they do not. Socialistic arrange­ ments literally, etymologically, and reasonably, only mean such arrangements as will admit of the great primary law of equal freedom being carried out. As the whole work of Mr. Spencer’s life shows, Sociology as a science is still in its in­ fancy ; it is no wonder therefore that though many good men in former times have indistinctly seen the promised land afar off, or in visions, no Moses has yet arisen with sufficient knowledge, wisdom, and divine enthusiasm to lead the people out of their worse than Egyptian bondage, and guide them safely through the dreary wilderness of economic truisms and fallacies which have to be traversed ere that holy land is �T4 reached. Happily, a very good sketch map of the route has recently been laid down by Mr. Carruthers, some of whose observations on this particular point seem to have been written specially in anticipation of “ The Coming Slavery.” He says:— “ Without formally asserting that men under Communal Government could not be allowed every possible freedom, except that of compelling others to serve them, they (capitalists) assert that such freedom would not be granted if any but capitalists governed the world. Acting under these opinions, or rather prejudices, they devise an ideal commune, in which every public and private action would be guided by idiotic folly and per­ versity, and then triumphantly ask whether even the working classes are not better off under commercialism than they would be under so absurd a system. If we are to believe what they tell us, communal government would be entrusted to a huge bureaucracy, sitting at the capital town, like a spider in the middle of its web, and sending its commands over the country as to what every one should eat and drink, what clothes he should wear, what religion he should profess, at what sports he should play, what trade he should follow, when and whom he should marry, and finally, the shape and material of his coffin........................ Imperfect as the workmen’s freedom actually is, we are quite prepared to admit that mere material well-being would not compensate them for its loss, and that they would do better for themselves by upholding commercialism than by adopting such a scheme of communism as is sketched out for them by the capitalists. They are not, however, tied to this system, which is indeed such as no sane man would ever dream of establishing, nor need they fear that under the commune, anyone would lose any freedom he now enjoys.................... Instead of comparing commercialism with the form of communism that would be set up by men as foolish and meddling as the capitalists assume every one but themselves to be, we must compare it with a system in which no one desires, or would be permitted to interfere unnecessarily with his fellows, and in which the sphere of State control would be made as re­ stricted as was compatible with securing the end for which all government is established, namely, the well-being of the people.”—"Communal and Commercial Economy ” p. 321 et seq. Very much to the same practical effect are Mr. Spencer’s own words : “ Civilization is evolving a state of things and a kind of character in which two apparently conflicting require­ ments are reconciled. To achieve the creative purpose— the greatest sum of happiness—there must on the one hand exist an amount of population maintainable only by the best possible system of production ; that is, by the most elaborate subdivision of labour ; that is, by the extremest mutual de­ pendence, whilst on the other hand each individual must have the right to do whatever his desires prompt. Clearly these two conditions can be harmonized only by that adap­ tation humanity is undergoing, that process during which all �i5 desires inconsistent with the most perfect social organization are dying out, and other desires corresponding to such or­ ganizations are being developed.” (Social Statics, p. 482.) A better definition of the real aims of Socialism than the first portion of the above extract could hardly be given, and the conclusion seems inevitable, either that Mr. Spencer is having his little joke in denouncing the Coming Slavery; or, which seems still more difficult of belief, he has fallen into the vulgar error of condemning Socialism because he does not agree with what all who call themselves Socialists may say. He might as well deride all law, religion, medicine, and charity, because unscrupulous advocates, corrupt judges, self-seeking hypocrites, ignorant quacks, and misguided enthusiasts have sheltered themselves under these sacred names. In any case, genuine Socialists will be none the less grateful to him for affording this opportunity of supporting the cause which he and they alike have at heart, from the rich storehouse which he has provided. If, as may perhaps be inferred from the last sentence quoted, his objection is merely to the method, and he only fears that the desired re­ forms may be attempted too soon, or by wrong means, he may be reassured by a consideration of the fact, which he has over and over again insisted upon, that “ the sense of rights, by whose sympathetic excitement men are led to behave justly to each other, is the same sense of rights by which they are prompted to assert their own claims.” And conversely those who are most forward to assert their own claims are as a rule the most ready to respect the rights of others. Mr. Spencer has a well-founded dread of paternal legislation, and unlimited faith in the power of voluntary co-operation, but seems hardly to realize how far the government of the future will necessarily partake of the character of co-operation, for­ cible interference being limited almost entirely to his own minimum, that necessary to secure equal justice. In conclusion it may with all respect be submitted that his great powers would be more usefully employed in assisting the efforts of those who share his own aspirations, and found themselves upon his own principles, than in even appearing to lend the weight of his authority to the already overwhelm­ ing mass of stolid Conservatism. Intelligent criticism is always useful, and to none more so than to those who are en­ deavouring to devise a better mode of life ; but Mr; Spencer �i6 Claims to be a synthetical philosopher, and from him, there­ fore, something beyond mere criticism is expected. It is no use to tell us that “ the welfare of a society and the justice of its arrangements are at bottom dependent on the character of its members,” nor can Mr. Spencer claim any exclusive ownership in this idea. What is wanted before all things at the present day is some method of improving individual character, and especially that side of it which modern com­ mercialism does everything to foster, that grasping, selfish, greed of gain, which is at once corrupting the upper and degrading the lower sections of society. In an early essay Mr. Spencer depicted the vices of modern trade in a manner it would be difficult to rival; it is these very vices, springing from unchecked, almost inevitable selfishness, that Socialism seeks to uproot, and nothing in his last paper goes one inch towards showing that it would be ineffectual for the purpose, still less does he offer any alternative. Such may yet be forthcoming, and even if not complete, an instalment will be heartily wel­ comed by those earnest men who are less affected by specu­ lative and imaginary fears of the coming slavery, than by a deep and ever growing sense of the enormity of that present slavery which they see around them. Literature on Land, Labour and Capital, &c., Published by W. Reeves, 185, Fleet Street, London. THE CHRISTIAN SOCIALIST. Monthly, id.; is. 6d. a year 6 2 post free. The First Volume neatly bound in Cloth ART AND SOCIALISM, by William Morris. Large paper, is. Ordinary o 3 (postage id.), Cloth I o THE LAND QUESTION, by Henry George .. (postage id.) o 3 ,, ,, Popular Edition, PROGRESS AND POVERTY, by Henry George. 8-vo. Library size, Paper, is.; Limp Cloth, is. 6d.; Cloth, 2S. 6d. (postage 3d.) I o o I PORTRAIT OF HENRY GEORGE (Cabinet 2s. 6d.) LAND NATIONALISATION ; Its Necessity and its Aims, by A. Russell Wallace. Paper, 8d. (postage 3d.); Cloth I 6 ENGLAND FOR ALL, The Text Book of Democracy, by H. M. Hyndman ................................................. (postage 2d.) o 6 THE LAND LAWS, as they are and as they should be, by Hine i 0 Solon .. .. .. .. •• •• � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. 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Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 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 Herbert Spencer on socialism. A reply to the article entitled "The coming slavery" Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Fairman, Frank Description An account of the resource Place of Publication: London Collation: 16 p. ; 18 cm. Notes: Annotated in pencil "i.e., Theodore R. Wright" under author's name on title page. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. The Spencer article appeared in Contemporary Review 45 (April 1884). Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Modern Press Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1884 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CT86 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 (Herbert Spencer on socialism: A reply to the article "The coming slavery")  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> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Subject The topic of the resource Socialism Conway Tracts Herbert Spencer Socialism https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/abaa3b968d2b605afef2a38d68db5f33.pdf?Expires=1782345600&Signature=k1FODIZD-YnhnFRV1wViSUxxmxtA-96o-czmPLnnyMHt0yeSqsRBxtc2qRWV-rrV-BfgsBxiI6K3NOlslmih%7EyKlzXS-%7EH8I-ta69p2LR4SBx6Obg9yT1AltNdW7KTikhohtAvE3KHg1j7rB5TD%7EGBGB1TAYWA4NzFJTZAiVRoI%7EKbmlO6VJ5hghjqTcuWKCBQFMkuGH3olgd95S1r7uOzBlOK2R0TRhgU3Q4PaTDQ2C6hzXmTwBoO63QUmyVoKBKVvPX9xJHuNwRXYzgoOIOP6AJEENGX0h5GZmlSRZdLVCPcoYyjUCqp6%7EYENA0nsroHuqRxIxfgIU258SMN4Wrg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM d50665091f5b7b4de90cf53fb8d649b7 PDF Text Text Price One Penny. T4O/ POLITICS for the PEOPLE.—No. I. MINING RENTS — AND — ROYALTIES. By J. MORRISON DAVIDSON, BARRISTER-AT-LAW. Author of “Eminent Radicals,” “The New Book of Kings," “Book of Lords,” “ Useless, Dangerous, and Ought to be I I For Special Prices for quantities to distribute in to the Publishers. I Abolished,” &c., &c. Mining Districts apply LONDON : I THE MODERN PRESS, 13, Paternoster Row, E.C. agAgent for U.S.A, W. L. Rosenberg, 261, East Tenth Street, New \ ork City. �The Co-operative Commonwealth: Exposition of Modern Socialism. 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An explanation in the simplest language of the main idea of Socialism. The Appeal to the Young. By Prince Peter Kropotkin. Translated from the French by H. M. Hyndman and reprinted from Justice. Royal 8-vo., 16-pp. Price one penny. Tenth thousand. The most eloquent and noble appeal to the generous emotions ever pen­ ned by a scientific man. Its author has just suffered five years imprison­ ment at the hands of the French Republic for advocating the cause of the workers. Are You a Social-Democrat ? tinted paper. "Why 4-pp., on fine Price 5s. per 1,000, post free. am a Social-Democrat. I 4-pp., on fine tinted paper. Price 5s. per 1,000, post free. The above with announcement of Lectures, meetings, &c., printed on last page, 8s. per 1,000, 28s. for 5,000. The Modern Press, 13, Paternoster Row, E.C. And YNL L. ROSENBERG, 261, East Tenth Street, New York City. �MINING RENTS AND ROYALTIES. F there be one thing in this world more astonishing than that individuals should claim private property in the surface of this planet, and have their claims allowed by the Legislature of a free country, it assuredly is that they should pretend to have a right to the contents of its interior. A coal-hewer descends into the bowels of the cold earth, and with infinite toil and danger raises a ton of fuel for tenpence or even eightpence. Another man, calling himself a landlord, who is meanwhile, perchance, gambling at Monaco or bear-hunting in the Rocky Mountains, successfully exacts a toll of thirteen or fourteen pence per ton on the entire output of a mine, or, it may be, a score of mines ! Could there be a more startlinganomaly ? “ O Lord what fools these mortals be ! ” is all the comment that any rational being can, in the circumstances, make. I �4 Yet this was the kernel of the case which the influential deputation of Members of Parliament, who, in April, 1886, brought the question of mining royal­ ties before the Liberal Home Secretary, had to sub­ mit. True, Mr. Childers’ mind was a taint la 1 asa as regards mining royalties, and not one of the deputation ventured to suggest their nationalisation —the only true remedy for the serious evils com­ plained of. Still much good was effected by the bare recital of the atrocious exactions which the land­ lords habitually make both on mine lessees and miners. Mr. Stephen Mason, representing one of the divisions of Lanarkshire, where trade depression is peculiarly severe, instanced the case of a ducal high­ wayman who preys on the mining industry of the district to the extent of ^114,000 per annum. His method of blackmail is this :—He benignly grants leases for twenty-one years at fixed “ rents,” varying from Z500 to ,£5,000. These are payable whether the mine is worked or not. If worked, the moment a certain output is attained “ royalties ” come into play. These vary from çd. to is. 6d. per ton. No mediaeval Rhine robber ever devised a more effectual system of brigandage. Indeed, the landlord is the undisputed master of the situation, and it is a marvel that he has not succeeded long ere now in completely �5 destroying the industrial supremacy of the country. Mr. Mason told of an instance where a company spent ^50,000 to get at a seam of coal. They reached it, but found that rent and royalty would together absorb every penny of profit. The land­ lord would, nevertheless, have his entire pound of flesh. Consequently the machinery has been stand­ ing idle for four years ! But it is when leases come to be renewed that the landlords’ harvest is really ripe. Mr. Conybeare, who represents a mining division of Cornwall, revealed a state of things in his neighbourhood of a singularly aggravated kind. When the lease of the Dolcoath mine was renewed a fine of ,£2 5,000 was exacted, The Duke of Bedford, in the case of the Devon Great Consols Mine, levied a £20,000 fine. As for the unfortunate lessees they might like it or lump it. If they lumped it their engine-houses and all their improvements went to the landlord without compensation. The landlord, moreover, on the ground-rent monopoly principle, charged from five to ten times agricultural value for the surface. As to the amount ofannual tribute paid by the nation on its mineral wealth to the landlords, no exact figures can be given. But it is has been estimated that in the year 1883 they pocketed on coal and iron ore alone the vast sum of eight millions sterling. This enor­ �mous drain in the face of falling and stagnant mar­ kets, it is not too much to say accounts for half the privations which working men are now suffering from low wages and no wages. Our two staple industries are admittedly iron and coal. They are controlling elements in rails, ships, and manufactures of every description. Every private toll levied on them is a blight on every related form of employment. Mr. Mason gave an instructive example of the effect of a comparatively low royalty. In Scotland the minimum royalty on pig-iron is 6s. Some of the Cleveland royalties on the other hand do not exceed 3s. 3d. per ton. What is the con­ sequence ? Scotland, where all the other conditions of production are rather more than equal, is invaded weekly by Cleveland iron to the extent of from 6,000 to 7,000 tons. Nor is this the worst. Differential home dues might be endured, but to handicap the British iron trade in its strenuous grapple with foreign competition is a much more serious affair. In most parts of Germany the royalty on pig iron is 6d. per ton ; in France it is 8d., and in both these countries royalties are national dues, and not, as with us, private black­ mail. In Belgium the ordinary State royalty is is. 3d. per ton, and even that handicap not improbably accounts in no small degree for the pre­ valent turbulence in that country of miners. �7 I quote the following weighty sentences from an admirable address by Mr. William Forsyth, the eloquent President of the Scottish Land Restoration League:—“Out of the eighty blast furnaces in Cumberland forty are at this moment standing idle, and the others are but partially employed. There are many causes which might have the effect of keeping these forty blast furnaces idle. They might be idle for want of capital; they might be idle for want of men willing to work. Well, gentlemen, the Cumberland furnaces are put out not because of any lack of capital, for only within the last week or two a company of employers there were willing to sink £20,000 in raising iron-ore, and were only prevented from doing so by the landlord’s ultimatum that he would not reduce his royalty of 2s. 6d. per ton on the ore which might be raised. The company found thatwith this charge they could not raise ore as cheaply as it could be imported from Spain, and they, therefore, abandoned their project. Neither can it be that there are not men able and willing to work, for an ironmaster in Cumberland writes saying that there are thousands of men unemployed who would be glad to find work of any kind in order to save their wives and children from starvation.” “ I am informed that the girders of the St. Enoch Railway Station, in our city, were imported from j �8 Belgium, and we know that the Barnsley Railway Station was built of imported iron. ’ The Midland Railway Company is at present importing large quantities of iron and steel sleepers from Belgium. The streets of London, Liverpool, Dublin, and Belfast are being laid with tramway rails of foreign manufacture. Our Glasgow Municipal Buildings are at this moment being built with iron girders brought from Belgium, and paid for from the taxes collected from the people of Glasgow. On looking up at these girders we see in prominent letters the name “ Maclellan,” and in our innocence we think that if the cost of these buildings is great at any rate the work is done by our own people. But this is not so. The ironmaster to whom I have referred is himself the owner of eight furnaces specially adapted to the manufacture of pig-iron and steel rails. Four of these furnaces are idle, and yet he is actually importing thousands of tons of iron and steel from Belgium and Germany.” Talk of high wages and short hours of labour “ driving trade out of the country ! ” Why, if these royalty footpads are not speedily got rid of there will soon be neither trade nor wages left in it. One blast furnace produces in a week six hundred tons of pig-iron. On that quantity the landlord’s royalties amount to ^202 ; while the wages of the employes �9 —managers, engineers, chemists, workmen all told— average less than one half, or ^95. The royalties on British steel rails paid to the landlords amount to 9s. 6d. per ton ; in Belgium they average is. 9d. Is it any wonder that the Indian Department of Government is monthly sending out to India thou­ sands of tons of imported iron and steel rails and sleepers ? Is it any wonder if in most cases it costs about three times as much to construct a mile of British railway as any other ? A Cunard liner making the double or return jour­ ney across the Atlantic consumes four thousand one hundred and twenty-five tons of coal. This means a royalty to the landlord of ^206 5s., or more than the wages of the entire crew from captain to cabin boy. Ina word, the owners of steamers pay to the lords of land a tribute of ,£274,100 per annum. Of course passengers and the producers of exports and the consumers of imports are the ultimate victims. What, then, is the remedy for this ruinous system of exploitation ? Is it to be cured, as the deputation suggested, and as Mr. Conybeare’s Mining Rates Bill weakly proposes, by establishing a sliding scale as between landlords and mine-lessees ? Certainly not, unless the State is to step into the landlord’s shoes. Every scheme to enable landlords to rob in moderation is bad. �IO We are not without examples of the true solution of the royalty problem in other lands. In Germany, speaking generally, the Prussian law of 1865 prevails. It vests all mineral royalties in the State. No freeholder can raise minerals on his freehold without a concession from the Government. He dare not even, after due notice, prevent private persons irom entering on his land to bore for the discovery of minerals. The concessionaire of a mine is entirely independent of the lord of the surface. Concessions are made to any qualified person or persons by a district oberbergamt, or office, on certain conditions. Concessionaires must (1) pay to the State in royalty and inspection dues 2 per cent, per annum on net produce ; and (2) form a- Benefit Society, or Knappschajt Verein, for their workmen, they contributing one-half the funds, the “ hands ” the other. The Knappschaft Verein supports and doctors invalid and injured miners, pensions widows, and educates children free of expense. In France private royalties were abolished at the Revolution and made national property. The pre­ sent law bears date 1810. It is the same in principle as the German law. The concessionaire pays 5 per cent, net produce to the State plus 10 centimes per franc additional to form an Accidents Relief Fund. A strictly limited rent is also payable to the lords of the surface. �11 The Belgian law (1810) is in the main similar to the French law', but concessions made under the law of 1837 are of a less favourable character, and in some cases the dues mount up to 4s. in the pound. But we need not go beyond the limits of our own Islands for a sound model of mining legislation. An admirable Act of the Scottish Parliament (1592) still in force, but audaciously set at defiance by the land­ lords of Scotland since the union with England, appoints a “ Master of the Metals,” with full State control of all mines and minerals in the realm. He is to secure 10 per cent, to the State, and is allowed 5 per cent, for inspection dues, &c. “ And by reason that the said miners are in daily hazard of their lives by the bad air of the mines and the danger of falling in the same, and other infinite miseries which daily occur in the said work, therefore our Sovereign Lord (James VI.) exempts said miners from all taxa­ tion whatever, both in peace and war, and takes them all, their families and goods, in his special protection,” &c. This is the sort of thing that is wanted, and not sliding scales to. give perpetuity to a system of pal pable robbery, by which the State is defrauded of some ten millions sterling per annum. And the robbers ! �12 What are they ? The drones of the community ! They feed on the mechanic’s labour ; The starved hind for them compels the stubborn glebe To yield its unshared harvest. And yon squalid form, leaner than fleshless misery, Drags out his life in darkness in the unwholesome mine To glad their grandeur. Many faint with toil That few may know the cares and woes of sloth. r � 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 &amp; 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 An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available 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 The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 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 Mining rents and royalties Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Davidson, John Morrison [1843-1916] Description An account of the resource Place of publication: London Collation: 12, [4] p. ; 19 cm. Series title: Politics for the People Series number: No. 1 Notes: Publisher's advertisement p. 2. List of reviews of 'The New Book of Kings', by the author, on four unnumbered pages at the end. Tentative date of publication from KVK. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Modern Press Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [1885?] Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context T401 Subject The topic of the resource Working conditions Socialism 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 (Mining rents and royalties), 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> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Mining Royalties Social conditions Socialism Working Classes https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/7be69ad8f8c4ecb7c5744a0577af001f.pdf?Expires=1782345600&Signature=SibLCfxa3v59f6-94Dy3BIPxKS6rzX3ZuCe2N2mgWnZ3Oe7zTj28TtaICX91tZpBfYQwpCwygd1hxBecPBGlaFdNGDg3%7EYuN215M63D0VRaHZNf9KdWBxhQo-nE4oExjOMvx%7EkCD7QwuM1eJWNInMp2w8FONAw37Ft8il03asKkYgrCwn6-2AqneDVtwb7PlPE5xJgn1rELSgOwYJUMVOzQvr6QdoKzw3G1zPaGAOZtwMAgW9pBxJONoZrzQFrzMCCYGzb1IinzWSMxKwzZtdCk%7EZU6tMz25OR5xU4TkdMlH55am0uTxsEgJjUHv8qflZ%7EWGPgIxqvTvhQF-WA0q5Q__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM bf561e76bed248625997a91080bd344a PDF Text Text PRICE ONE PENNY^ AND EDWARD CARPENTER. (Reprinted from TO-DAY, February, 1885.^ UonHon : THE MODERN PRESS, 13, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C. 1886. ��HE Progress of Society is a subject which occupies much attention now-a-days. We hear the shouts and cries of reformers, and are inclined sometimes to be vexed at their noisy insistance and brandishing of panaceas ; but when we come to look into the evils to which they draw our attention-—under our very noses as it were—and see how serious they are : when we see the misery, the suffering all around us, and see too how directly in some cases this appears to be traceable to certain institutions, we can hardly be human if we do not make some effort to alter these insti­ tutions, and the state of society which goes with them; indeed at times we feel that it is our highest duty to agitate with the noisiest, and insist at all costs that justice should be done, the iniquity swept away. And yet, on the other hand, when retiring from the heat and noise of conflict, we mount a little in thought and look out over the world, when we realise what indeed every day is becoming more abundantly clear—that Society is the gigantic growth of centuries, moving on in an irresistible and ordered march of its own, with the precision and atality of an astronomic orb—how absurd seem all our demonstra­ tions ! what an idle beating of the air! The huge beast comes on with elephantine tread. The Liberal sits on his head, and the Con­ servative sits on his tail; but both are borne along whether they will or no, and both are shaken off before long, inevitably, into the dust. One reformer shouts, “ This way,” and another shouts “That,” but the great foot comes down and crushes them both, indifferent, crushes the one who thought he was right and the one who found he was wrong, crushes him who would facilitate its pro­ gress and him who would stop it, alike. , I confess that I am continually borne about between these two Opposing views. On the one hand is Justice, here and now, which must and shall be done. On the other hand is Destiny indifferent, coming down from eternity, which cannot be altered. Where does the truth lie ? Is there any attainable truth in the matter ? Perhaps not. The more I think of it, the more am I �4 persuaded that the true explanations, theories, of the social changes which we see around us, that the forces which produce them, that the purposes which they fulfil, lie deep, deep down unsuspected ; that the profoundest hitherto Science (Buckle, Comte, Marx, Spencer, Morgan, and the rest) has hardly done more than touch the skirt of this great subject. The surface indications, currents, are elusive; the apparent purposes very different from the real ones; individuals, institutions, nations, more or less like puppets or pieces in a game ; —the hand that moves them altogether unseen, screening itself effectually from observation. Let me take an illustration. You see a young plant springing out of the ground. You are struck by the eager vital growth of it. What elasticity, energy! how it snatches contributions from the winds and sunlight, and the earth beneath, and rays itself out with hourly fresh adornment! You become interested to know what is the meaning of all this activity. You watch the plant. It unfolds. The leaf-bud breaks and discloses leaves. These, then, are what it has been aiming at. But in the axils of the leaves are other leaf-buds, and from these more leaves! The young shoot branches and becomes a little tree or bush. The branching and budding go on, a repetition apparently of one formula. Presently, however, a flower-bud appears. Now we see the real object! Have you then ever carefully examined a flower-bud ? Take a rosebud for instance, or better still perhaps, a dahlia. When quite young the buds of these latter are mere green knobs. Cut one across with your pen-knife : you will see a green or whitish mass, apparently without organisation. Cut another open which is more advanced, and you will see traces of structural arrangement, even markings and lines faintly pencilled on its surface, like the markings that shoot thro’ freezing water—sketches and outlines of what is to follow. Later, and your bud will disclose a distinct formation ; beneath an outer husk or film—transparent in the case of the dahlia —the petals can already be distinguished, marked, though not actually separated from each other. Here they lie in block as it were, conceived yet not shapen, like the statue in the stone, or the thought in the brain of the sculptor. But they are growing mo­ mently and expanding. The outermost, or sepals, cohering form a husk, which for a time protects the young bud. But it also confines it. A struggle ensues, a strangulation, and then the husk gives way, falls off or passes into a secondary place, and the bud opens. And now the petals uncurl and free themselves like living things to the light. But the process is not finished. Each petal expanding shows another beneath, and these younger ones as they open push the older ones outwards, and while these latter are fading there are still new ones appearing in the centre. Envelope after envelope exfoliated—such is the law of life. �5 At last however within the most intimate petals appears the central galaxy—the group of the sexual organs ! And now the flower (the petal-flower) which just before in all its glory of form, colour and fragrance seemed to be the culminating expression and purpose of the plant’s life, appears only as a means, an introduction, a secondary thing—a mere advertisement and lure to wandering insects. With­ in it lies the golden circle of the stamens, the magic staff of the pistil, and the precious ark or seed-vessel. Now then we know what it has all been for! But the appearance of the seed-vessel is not the end, it is only a beginning. The flower, the petals, now drop off withered and useless; their work is done. But the seed-vessel begins to swell, to take on structure and form­ just as the formless bud did before—there is something at work within. And now it bursts, opens, and falls away. It too is a husk, and no longer of any importance—for within it appear the seeds, the objects of all this long toil! Is the investigation finished ? is the process at an end ?—No. Here within this tiny seed lies the promise, the purpose, the vital principle, the law, the inspiration—whatever you like to call it—of this plant’s life. Can you find it ? The seed falls to the ground. It swells and takes on form and structure—just as the seed-vessel which enclosed it took on form and structure before—and as the flower-bud (which enclosed the seed-vessel) did before that—-and as the leaf-bud (which enclosed the flower-bud) did before that. The seed falls to the ground ; it throws off a husk (always husks thrown off!)—and discloses an embryo plant—radicle, plumule and cotyledons—root-shoot, stem­ shoot and seed leaves—complete. And the circle begins again. * We are baffled after all! We have followed this extraordinary process, we have seen each stage of the plant-growth appearing first as final, and then only as the envelope of a later stage. We have stripped off, so to speak, husk afLer husk, in our search for the inner secret of the plant-life—we have got down to the tiny seed. But the seed we have found turns out (like every other stage) to be itself only an envelope—to be thrown away in its turn—what we want lies still deeper down. The plant-life begins again—or rather it never ends—but it does not repeat itself. The young plant is not the same as the parent, and the next generation varies again from this. When the envelopes have been thrown off a thousand and a hundred thousand times more, a new form will appear; will this be a nearer and more perfect expression than before of that withinlying secret—or otherwise ? To return to Society : I began by noting the contrast, often drawn, between the stern inexorable march of this as a whole, and the * Though not really a circle any more than the paths of the planets are really ellipses. �equally imperious determination of the individual to interfere with its march—a determination excited by the contemplation of what is called evil, and shapen by an ideal of something better arising with­ in him. Think what a commotion there must be within the bud when the petals of a rose are forming! Think what arguments, what divisions, what recriminations, even among the atoms. An organization has to be constructed and completed. It is finished at last, and a petal is formed. It rays itself out in the sun, is beautiful and unimpeachable for a day; then it fades, is pushed off, its work is done—another from within takes its place. One social movement succeeds another, the completion of one is the signal for the commencement of the next. Hence there can be no stereotyping: not to change is to die—this is the rule of Life ; because (and the reason is simple enough) one form is not enough to express the secret of life. To express that require an infinite series of forms. Even a crab cannot get on without changing its shell. It outgrows it. It feels very uncomfortable—pent, sullen and irritable (much as the bud did before the bursting of the husk, or as society does when dead forms and institutions—generally represented by a class in power—confine its growth)—anxious, too, and oppressed with fears, the crab—retires under a rock, out of harm’s way, and presently, crack! the shell scales off, and with quietude and patience from within another more suited to it forms. Yet this latter is not final. It is merely the prelude to another. The Conservative may be wron& but the Liberal is just as wrong who considers his reform as ultimate, both are right in so far as they look upon measures as transitory. Beware above all things of utopianism in measures ! Beware, that is, of regarding any system or scheme of society whatever as final or permanent, whether it be the present, or one to come. The feudal arrangement of society succeeded the clannish and patriarchal, the commercial or competi­ tive system succeeds the feudal, the socialistic succeeds the commercial, and the socialistic is succeeded in its turn by other stages ; and each of these includes numerous minor developments. The politician or reformer who regards any of these stages or steps as containing the whole secret and redemption of society commits just the same mistake as the theologian who looks upon any one doctrine as necessary to salvation. He is betrayed into the most frightful harshness, narrow-mindedness, and intolerance—and if he has power will become a tyrant. Just the same danger has to be guarded against by every one of us in daily life. Who is there who. (though his reason may contend against it) does not drop into the habit of regarding some one change in his life and surroundings as containing finally the secret of his happiness, and excited by this immense prospect does not do things which he afterwards regrets, and which end in disappointment ? There is a millennium, but it- �7 does not belong to any system of society that can be named, nor to any doctrine, belief, circumstance or surrounding of individual life. The secret of the plant-life does not tarry in any one phase of its growth; it eludes from one phase to another, still lying within and within the latest. It is within the grain of mustard seed ; it is so small. Yet it rules and is the purpose of every stage, and is like the little leaven which, invisible in three measures of meal, yet leavened the whole lump. Of the tendency, of which I have spoken, of social forms to stereo­ type themselves, Law is the most important and in some sense the most pernicious instance. Social progress is a continual fight against it. Popular customs get hardened into laws. Even thus they soon constitute evils. But in the more complex stages of society, when classes arise, the law-making is generally in the hands of a class, and the laws are hardened (often very hardened) class practices. These shells have to be thrown off and got rid of at all costs—or rather they will inevitably be thrown off when the growing life of the people underneath forces this liberation. It is a bad sign when a patient ‘ law-abiding ’ people submit like sheep to old forms which are really long out-worn. “ Where the men and women think lightly of the laws. . . . there the great city stands,” says Walt Whitman. I remember once meeting with a pamphlet written by an Italian, whose name I have forgotten, member of a Secularist society, to prove that the Devil was the author of all human progress. Of course that, in his sense, is true. The spirit of opposition to established order, the war against the continuance (as a finality) of any institution or order, however good it may be for the time, is a necessary element of social progress, is a condition of the very life of Society. Without this it would die. Law is a strangulation. Yet while it figures constantly as an evil in social life, it must not therefore be imagined to be bad or without use. On the contrary, its very appearance as an evil is part of its use. It is the husk which protects and strengthens the bud while it confines it. Possibly the very confinement and forcible repression which it exercises is one element in the more rapid organization of the bud within. It is the crab’s shell which gives form and stability to the body of the creature, but which has to give way when a more extended form is wanted. In the present day in modern society the strangulation of the growth of the people is effected by the capitalist class. This class together with its laws and institutions constitutes the husk which has to be thrown off just as itself threw off the husk of the feudal aristocracy in its time. The commercial and capitalist envelope has undoubtedly served to protect and give form to (and even nourish) the growing life of the people. But now its function in that respect is virtually at an end. It appears merely as an obstacle �8 and an evil—and will inevitably be removed, either by a violent disruption or possibly by a gradual absorption into the socialised proletariat beneath. At all times, and from whatever points of view, it should be borne in mind that laws are made by the people, not the people by the laws. Modern European Society is cumbered by such a huge and complicated overgrowth of law, that the notion actually gets abroad that such machinery is necessary to keep the people in order —that without it the mass of the people would not live an orderly life ; whereas all observation of the habits of primitive and savage tribes, destitute of laws and almost destitute of any authoritative institutions —and all observation of the habits of civilised people when freed from law (as in gold-mining and other backwood communities)— show just the reverse. The instinct ofamanis to an orderly life, the law is but the result and expression of this. As well attribute the organization of a crab to the influence of its shell, as attribute the orderly life of a nation to the action of its laws. Law has a purpose and an influence—but the idea that it is to preserve order is elusive. All its machinery of police and prisons do not, cannot do this. At best in this sense it only preserves an order advan­ tageous to a certain class ; it is the weapon of a slow and deliberate warfare. It springs from hatred and rouses opposition, and so has a healthy influence. Fichte said : “ The. object of all government is to render govern­ ment superfluous.” And certainly if external authority of any kind has a final purpose it must be to establish and consolidate an internal authority. Whitman adds to his description of “ the great city,” that it stands “ Where outside authority enters always after the precedence of inside authority.” When this process is complete government in the ordinary sense is already “rendered superfluous.’ Anyhow this external governmental power is obviously self-destruc­ tive. It has no permanence or finality about it, but in every period of history appears as a husk or shell preparing the force within which is to reject it. Thus I have in a very fragmentary and imperfect way called attention to some general conditions of social progress, conditions by which the growth of Society is probably comparable with the growth of a plant or an animal or an astronomic organism, subject to laws and an order of its own, in face of which the individual would at first sight appear to count as nothing. But there is, as usual, a counter-truth which must not be overlooked. If Society moves by an ordered and irresistible march of its own, so also—as a part of Society, and beyond that as a part of Nature—does the individual. In his right place the individual is also irresistible. Now then, when you have seized your life-inspiration, your absolute determination, you also are irresistible, the whole weight of this vast force is behind you. Huge as the institutions of Society �are, vast as is the sweep of its traditions and customs, yet in face of it all, the word “I will ” is not out of place. Let us take the law of the competitive struggle for existence— which has been looked upon by political economists (perhaps with some justice) as the base of social life. It is often pointed out that this law of competition rules throughout the animal and vegetable kingdoms as well as through the region of human society, and there­ fore, it is said, being evidently a universal law of Nature, it is useless and hopeless to expect that society can ever be founded on any r other basis. Yet I say that granting this assumption—and in reality the same illusion underlies the application of the word 1 “ law ” here, as we saw before in its social application—granting I say that competition has hitherto been the universal law, the last word, of Nature, still if only one man should stand up and say, “ It shall be so no more,” if he should say, “ It is not the last word of my nature, and my acts and life declare that it is not,”—then that so-called law would be at an end. He being a part of Nature has I as much right to speak as any other part, and as in the elementarylaw of hydrostatics a slender column of water can balance (being at l the same height) against an ocean—so his Will (if he understand it aright) can balance all that can be arrayed against him. If only one man — with regard to social matters — speaking from the very depth of his heart says “This shall not be: behold something better; ” his word is likely stronger than all insti­ tutions, all traditions. And why ?—because in the deeps of his P individual heart he touches also that of Society, of Man. Within ft himself, in quiet, he has beheld the secret, he has seen a fresh crown of petals, a golden circle of stamens, folded and slumbering in the L bud. Man forms society, its laws and institutions, and Man can ! reform them. Somewhere within yourself be assured, the secret of that authority lies. The fatal words spoken by individuals—the words of progress— are provoked by what is called evil. Every human institution is good in its time, and then becomes evil—yet it may be doubted whether it is really evil in itself, but rather because if it remained it would hinder the next step. Each petal is pushed out by the next one, A new growth of the moral sense takes place first withinthe individual—and this gives birth to a new ideal, something to love better than anything seen before. Then in the light of this new love, this more perfect desire, what has gone and the actually existing things appear wizened and false (i.e., ready to fall like the petals). They become something to hate, they are evil; and the perception of evil is already the promise of something better. Do not be misled so as to suppose that science and the intellect • are or can be the sources of social progress or change. It is the moral births and outgrowths that originate, science and the intellect only give form to these. It is a common notion and one apparently �gaining ground that science may as it were take Society by the hand and become its high priest and guide to a glorious kingdom. And this to a certain extent is true. Science may become high-priest, but the result of its priestly offices will entirely depend on what kind of deity it represents—what kind of god Society worships. Science will doubtless become its guide, but whither it leads Society will entirely depend on whither Society desires to be led. If Society worships a god of selfish curiosity the holy rites and priest­ hood of science will consist in vivisection and the torture of the loving animals ; if Society believes above all things in material results, science will before long provide these things—it will surround men with machinery and machine-made products, it will whirl them about (behind steam-kettles as Mr. Ruskin says) from one end of the world to the other, it will lap them in every luxury and debility, and give them fifty thousand toys to play with where before they had only one—but through all the whistling of the kettles and the rattling of the toys it will not make the still small voice of God sound nearer. If Society, in short, worships the devil, science will lead it to the devil; aud if Society worships God science will open up, and clear away much that encumbered the path to God. (And here I use these terms as lawyers say “ without prejudice.”) No mere scientific adjustments will bring about the millenium. Granted that the problem is Happiness, there must be certain moral elements in the mass of mankind before they will even desire, that kind of happiness which is attainable, let alone their capacity of reaching it—when these moral elements are present the intellectual or scientific solution of the problem will be soon found, without them there will not really be any serious attempt made to find it. That is—as I said at the head of this paragraph —science and the intellect are not, and never can be, the sources of social progress and change. It is the moral births and outgrowths that originate; the intellect stands in a secondary place as the tool and instrument of the moral faculty. The commercial and competitive state of society indicates to my mind an upheaval from the feudal of a new (and perhaps grander) sentiment of human right and dignity. Arising simultaneously with Protestantism it meant—they both meant—individualism, the assertion of man’s worth and dignity as man, and as against any feudal lordship or priestly hierarchy. It was an outburst of feeling first. It was the sense of equality spreading. It took the form of individualism—the equality of rights—Protestantism in religion, competition in commerce. It resulted in the social emancipation of a large class, the bourgeoisie. Feudalism, now dwindled to a husk, was thrown off; and for a time the glory, the life of society was in the new order. But to-day a wider morality, or at least a fresh impulse, asserts itself. Competition in setting itself up as the symbol of human �II equality, was (like all earthly representations of what is divine) only an imperfect symbol. It had the elements of mortality and dissolution in it. For while it destroyed the privilege of rank and emancipated a huge class, it ended after all by enslaving another class and creating the privilege of wealth. Competition in fact represented a portion of human equality but not the whole: in­ sisting on individual rights all round, it overlooked the law of charity, turned sour with the acid of selfishness, and became as to-day the gospel of “ the devil take the hindmost.” Arising glorious as the representative of human equality and the opponent of iniquity in high places, it has ended by denying the very source from whence it sprung. It passes by, and like Moses on the rock we now behold the back parts of our divinity ! Competition is doomed. Once a good, it has now become an evil. But simultaneously (and probably as part of the same pro­ cess) springs up, as I say, a new morality. Everywhere to-day signs of this may be seen, felt. It is felt that the relation which systematically allows the weaker to go to the wall is not human. Individualism, the mere separate pursuit, each of his own good, on the basis of equality, does not satisfy the heart. The right (un­ doubted though it may be) to take advantage of another’s weakness or inferiority, does not please us any longer. Science and the intel­ lect have nothing to say to this, for or against,—they can merely stand and look on—arguments may be brought on both sides. What I say is that as a fact a change is taking place in the general senti­ ment in this matter; some deeper feeling of human solidarity, brotherliness, charity, some more genuine and substantial apprehen­ sion of the meaning of the word equality, is arising—some broader and more determined sense of justice, Though making itself felt as yet only here and there, still there are indications that this new sentiment is spreading ; and if it becomes anything like general, then inevitably (I say) it will bring a new state of society with it— will be in fact such new state of society. Some years ago at Brighton I met with William Smith, the author of “Thorndale ” and other works—a man who had thought much about society and human life. He was then quite an invalid, and indeed died only a week or two later. Talking one day about the current Political Economy he said : “ They assume self-interest as the one guiding principle of human nature and so make it the basis of their science—but,” he added, “ even if it is so now it may not always be so, and that would entirely re-model their science.” I do not know whether he was aware that even then a new school of political economy was in existence, the school of Marx, Engels, Lassalle, and others—founded really on just this new basis, taking as its point of departure a stricter sense of justice and a new conception of human right and equality. At any rate, whether aware or not, I contend that this dying man—even if he had been �12 alone in the world in his aspiration—-feeling within himself a deeper, more intimate, principle of action than that expressed in the existing state of society, might have been confident that at some time or other—if not immediately—it would come to the surface and find its due interpretation and translation m a new order of things. And I contend that whoever to-day feels in himself that there is a better standard of life than the higgling of the market, and a juster scale of wages than “what A. or B. will take," and a more important question in an undertaking than “ how much per cent, it will pay ”—contains or conceals in himself the germs of a new social order. Socialism, if that is to be the name of the next wave of social life, springs from and demands as its basis a new sentiment of humanity, a higher morality. That is the essential part of it. A science it is, but only secondarily ; for we must remember that as the bourgeois political economy sprang from certain moral data, so the socialist political economy implies other moral data. Both are irrefragable on their own axioms. And when these axioms in course of time change again (as they infallibly will) another science of political economy, again irrefragable, will spring up, and socialist political economy will be false. The morality being the essential part of the movement, it is im­ portant to keep that in view. If Socialism, as Mr. Matthew Arnold has pointed out, means merely a change of society without a change of its heart—if it merely means that those who grabbed all the good things before shall be displaced, and that those who were grabbed from shall now grab in their turn—it amounts to nothing, and is not in effect a change at all, except quite upon the surface. If it is to be a substantial movement, it must mean a changed ideal, a changed conception of daily life ; it must mean some better conception of human dignity—such as shall scorn to claim anything for its own which has not been duly earned, and such as shall not find itself degraded by the doing of any work, however menial, which is useful to society; it must mean simplicity of life, defence of the weak, courage of one’s own convictions, charity of the faults and failings of others. These things first, and a larger slice of pudding all round afterwards! How can such morality be spread ?—How does a plant grow ?— It grows. There , is some contagion of influence in these matters. Knowledge can be taught directly ; but a new ideal, a new sentiment of life, can only pass by some indirect influence from one to another. Yet it does pass. There is no need to talk—-perhaps the less said in any case about these matters the better—but if you have such new ideal within you, it is I believe your clearest duty, as well as your best interest, to act it out in your own life at all apparent costs. Then we must not forget that a wise order of society once estab­ lished (by the strenuous action of a few) reacts on its members. To �T3 a certain extent it is true, perhaps, that men and women can be grown—like cabbages. And this is a case of the indirect influence of the strenuous few upon the many. Thus—in this matter of society’s change and progress—(though I feel that the subject as a whole is far too deep for me)—-I do think that the birth of new moral conceptions in the individual is at least a very important factor. It may be in one individual or in a hundred thousand. As a rule probably when one man feels any such impulse strongly, the hundred thousand are nearer to him than he suspects. (When one leaf, or petal, or stamen begins to form on a tree, or one plant begins to push its way above the ground in spring, there are hundreds of thousands all round just ready to form.) Anyhow, whether he is alone or not, the new moral birth is sacred—as sacred as the child within the mother’s womb—it is a kind of blasphemy against the Holy Ghost to conceal it. And when I use the word “ moral ” here—or anywhere above—I do not, I hope, mean that dull pinch-lipped conventionality of negations which often goes under that name. The deep-lying ineradicable desires, fountains of human action, the life-long aspirations, the lightninglike revelations of right and justice, the treasured hidden ideals, born in flame and in darkness, in joy and sorrow, in tears and in triumph, within the heart—are as a rule anything but conventional. They may be, and often are, thought immoral. I don’t care, they are sacred just the same. If they underlie a man’s life, and are nearest to himself—they will underlie humanity. “To your own self be true . . . Anyhow courage is better than conventionality : take your stand and let the world come round to you. Do not think you are right and everybody else wrong. If you think you are wrong then you may be right; but if you think you are right then you are certainly . wrong. Your deepest highest moral conceptions are only for a time. They have to give place. They are the envelopes of Free­ dom—that eternal Freedom which cannot be represented—that peace which passes understanding. Somewhere here is the invisible vital principle, the seed within the seed. It may be held but not thought, felt but not represented—except by Life and History. Every individual so far as he touches this stands at the source of social progress—behind the screen on which the phantasmagoria play. �THE INTERNATIONAL LIBRARY OF SOCIAL SCIENCE. Vol. I. Woman, in the Past, Present, and Future. By August Bebel, Deputy in the Reichstag. Translated from the German by H. B. Adams Walther. Demy 8-vo., cloth, price 5s. Vol. II. The Co operative Common­ wealth : an Exposition of Modern Socialism. By Laurence Gronlund, of Philadelphia. cloth, price 3s. 6d. Demy 8-vo., “ The book, while just as readable and captivating as Henry George’s Progress and Poverty, is far more logical and thoughtful: at the same time, it is in a masterly manner adapted to the Anglo-Saxon public.”—New York Volkszeitung (one of the largest Socialist papers in America). ‘‘The best account of German or State Socialism in English.”—-Mw York Sun (the largest capitalist newspaper in the States). “The grandest and highest minded statement of Socialism I have ever seen.”—H. D. Wright, Chief of Massachussetts Bureau of Labour Statistics. Socialism made Plain. The social and political manifesto of the Social-Democratic Federation issued in June 1883, with proposals for organisation of labour issued in November 1883. Fifty-first thousand. Crown 8-vo., paper cover, price id. 44 JUSTICE,” the Organ of the Social Democracy. ' Every Saturday, one penny. Summary of the Principles of Socialism By H. M. Hyndman and William Morris. Second edition, 64-pp. crown 8-vo., in wrapper designed by Wm. Morris, price 4d. This gives an account of the growth of capitalist production, and con­ cludes with a statement of the demands of English Socialists for the imme­ diate future. The Socialist Catechism. By J. L. Joynes. Reprinted with additions from Justice. price id. Tenth thousand. Socialist Rhymes. By Reprinted chiefly from Justice. J. Royal 8-vo., L. Joynes. Royal 8-vo., price id. The Modern Press, 13, Paternoster Row, E.C. �Wage-Labour and Capital. By Karl Marx. Translated by J. L. Joynes and reprinted from Justice,. Price 2d. This is the only work of the great Socialist thinker which has been translated into English. Socialism and the Worker. Sorge. By F. A. Price id. An explanation in the simplest language of the main idea of Socialism. Socialism and Slavery. By H. 4 M. Hyndman. (In reply Mr. Herbert Spencer’s article on the li Coming Slavery”). Crown 8-vo., in wrapper, price 6d. The Working Man’s Programme (Arbeiter Programm). By Ferdinand Lassalle. Translated from the German by Edward Peters. Crown 8-vo., paper cover, price 6d. Socialism versus Smithism: An open letter from H. M. Hyndman to Samuel Smith, M.P. for Liverpool. Crown 8-vo., paper cover, price 2d. The Appeal to the Young. By Prince Peter Kropotkin. Translated from the French by H. M. Hyndman and reprinted from Justice. Royal 8-vo., 16-pp. Price one penny. Tenth thousand. The most eloquent and noble appeal to the generous emotions ever pen­ ned by a scientific man. Its author is now suffering five years imprison­ ment at the hands of the French Republic for advocating the cause of the workers. The Future of Marriage. Woman. By a Respectable Crown 8-vo., paper cover, price 4d. English and French Morality; from a Frenchman’s point of view. Paper cover, is. By Yves Guyot, Depute. Herbert Spencer on Socialism. By Frank Fairman. 16-pp. crown 8-vo., price id. The Modern Press, 13, Paternoster Row, E.C. ' �BY THE SAME AUTHOR. Towards Democracy. New edition, with numerous added Poems, crown 8vo, cloth. 260pp. Price 2s. 6d. Modern Science : a Criticism. Crown 8vo, paper, 76 pp. Price is. Modern Money-Lending ; or, the Meaning of Divi­ dends. A Pamphlet. Price 2d. Second edition. England’s Ideal. Price 2d. To be had of the Publisher, John Heywood, Deansgate and Ridgefield, Manchester; 11, Paternoster Buildings, London. and � 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 &amp; 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 An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available 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 The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 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 Social progress and individual effort Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Carpenter, Edward Description An account of the resource Place of publication: London Collation: 13, [3] p. ; 19 cm. Notes: Reprinted from To-day, February, 1885. Publisher's list on two unnumbered pages at the end. List of other works by author on unnumbered page at the end. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Modern Press 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 T394 Subject The topic of the resource Socialism Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (Social progress and individual effort), 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 The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Social change Social Reform Socialism 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 &amp; 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 An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available 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 The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 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 Socialism and slavery, being an answer to Mr. Herbert Spencer's attack on the Social-Democratic Federation in the Contemporary Review, April 1884, under the title "The Coming Slavery" Description An account of the resource Edition: 2nd ed. Place of publication: London Collation: 12, [2] p. : ill. (front. port.) ; 23 cm. Notes: Publisher's list of books on socialism and handbills on unnumbered pages at the end. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hyndman, H. M. (Henry Mayers) [1842-1921.] Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Modern Press Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1884 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context G4977 Subject The topic of the resource Socialism Slavery 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 (Socialism and slavery, being an answer to Mr. Herbert Spencer's attack on the Social-Democratic Federation in the Contemporary Review, April 1884, under the title "The Coming Slavery"), 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> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Slavery Socialism Spencer Herbert https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/28a01b9a8c58a74a237258bbe9d3e3a8.pdf?Expires=1782345600&Signature=aOlbHCGRlhVpz2MqLuZNXE2SIoF2WccEyPXbT9WOyKkn3QZJhqUcykRJJPtf3BKMsayoPcBqbb8cCdCzz0-OUb7b1AJxj08xmwUkElfV9YkUQvdhUNdPuI9ClXYOujuJ6p05k%7E1n4ngwEAeReusfxruZKoRX-6mWYxocFTyB445ah7zPy4N30vjLabq9EQNWD0sodeH4ISCZvwC0smE3i6MlOKEr5o0wgyN-tB0ppYlzarWPLhieoHen360hkshEr1fxykhqmvyg8fgJ6NF8zBBdr5iJMec4avVVuzAnfReoIqMDYJemyEBrrylLnBB8On7buarQuvK9fxTJd59kGA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 8d87645b9f7c154eeb20194318a338d2 PDF Text Text WITH SOME COMMENTS ON THE ARMY ENLISTMENT FRAUD. By GEORGE BATEMAN, Late 2nd. 23rd. (Royal Welsh Fusiliers,) With an Introduction by H. H. CHAMPION, Late Royal Artillery. LONDON: THE MODERN PRESS, 13, Paternoster Row, E.C Anp W. L. ROSENBERG, 261, East Tenth Street, NEW YORK CITY. 1887. �YMflA 3HT ? X XX x.VJL JL A X -w • <r!//.H) .11 .h HDHOMO yS -v 5\ srtnl • .oil jfjboijfil H£ fUi/f ’tsW\VsK \n\jofl siv)A / t f 1 �PREFACE The account, which appears in the following pages, of the circum­ stances which go so far to make the life of a private soldier unbearable agrees with my experience gained during four years as a commissioned officer in the army. The fault, to my mind, rests chiefly with the system of appointing the superior officers. Choosing the profession of arms because it confers a certain amount of social distinction and necessitates very little work, as a rule they know little or nothing of the men they command, and confer promotion or inflict punishment on the advice of the non-commissioned officers who save them trouble. “ Discipline must be maintained,” impartial enquiry is tedious and difficult, and it is so much easier to take the word of the sergeant or corporal than to sift the matter to the bottom. Consequently much gross injustice goes on. I know of one instance when in India some hundreds of high caste natives were enlisted, as they sincerely believed, to become cavalry soldiers. They found to their dismay that instead of this they were to act as mule drivers. They protested and finally mutinied when unable to obtain redress, and as many as half-a-dozen a day for days together were flogged for disobeying orders in consequence. When the mule battery, with which they were compelled to serve, on its way to the front reached the district from which these men had been recruited, they deserted in shoals. A similar result is sure to follow whenever men who know they are treated unfairly see an opportunity of revenging themselves on their oppressors. It is one of the “ facts not generally known ” that the Reform Bill of 1832 would not have been passed, had not a confidential circular sent to all commanding officers in England been answered to the effect that, if the Bill were refused, and the people then rose as they threatened to do, in that case it would be impossible to count on the soldiers to obey orders in repressing disturbances. The certainty that they would put their duty as citizens before their duty as soldiers saved our country at that time from all the horrors of civil war. Is it not at least as likely that on a definite social, and not merely political issue, the sympathies -of the troops with the people may do England as great a service in the future ? It is not possible to reform our military system so as to ensure the comfort and content of the private soldier. Of this I am glad for I feel certain that it can only be rendered useful for honest purposes and impo­ tent for evil, by converting it from a mercenary to a real volunteer system. When we have no standing army, and every citizen who votes for war knows that he will have to take his share of danger and hardship we shall have no more of these piratical expeditions against weaker.nations, while England will be infinitely more able to speak to her enemies in the gate, should they ever pick an unjust quarrel with her. Till that day it is better for all that our army which, small though it be, is a standing menace to the liberties of those who exercise no power in the State, should be inefficient, disorganised, and discontented—as it certainly is. H. H. Champion. �SOCIALISM AND SOLDIERING. N a panic born of cowardice, and consciousness of wrong done to the mass of the people, Sir Charles Warren and those who employ him to protect the property they and their forefathers have wrung from the present and past generations of workers, applied to the military authorities on two recent occasions for troops to “assist in maintaining order” at the Lord Mayor’s Show, and the pro­ posed counter demonstration of the unemployed and suffering; and at another meeting called in Trafalgar Square by the Social-Democratic Federation, on November 21st, 1886, for the purpose of demanding from the Tory Government relief works and reduction of the hours of labour, to enable the starving workers to earn sufficient to feed them­ selves and their families. Although the troops were brought from Windsor and elsewhere on the first occasion, in consequence of a letter sent by the Socialist party exposing the authorities to the jeers of the whole world, it was thought better at the last moment to countermand the order for the attendance of troops on the 21st inst., and although our comrades in red and blue were deprived of their holiday in many instances and strictly forbidden to attend our meeting, they were not exposed a second time to the sneers of the assembled multitude, many of whom, on Lord Mayor’s Show day, very foolishly exhibited considerable ill-will towards the men who were but acting under compulsion, and much against their own inclination. But sufficient has been : aid and done by the robbing classes and their Christian (?) servant, Sii Charles Warren, to show that, if conflict between the workers of Great Britain, and their comrades in the Army and Police, is avoided in the near future, it will not be because the “ respectable classes” are loth to use physical force to suppress any attempt on the part of the wealth-producers to come by their own ; but because of other influences which are at work, causing both constables and redcoats to ask themselves whether, after all, they have anything to gain by the continuance in power of the useless classes. That these influences are. at work, and that they are beginning to be felt by our soldiers, is a fact known to many of our comrades, and we propose in the following narrative of the everyday life of a man in the army, to show that from the moment when he joins the Depot of his regiment, he is a more or less discontented man, and a fit subject for revolutionary propaganda to take bold of. “ One Volunteer is worth twenty Pressed Men,’ Is a motto that holds good in the case of an army as well as in many other instances, and it is often boasted that ours is a volunteer system of enlistment, and, so far, superior to that of Germany and other neighbour­ ing countries. Like the “ freedom of contract” theory, this statement �5 has one grain of truth to a whole bushel of (to put it mildly) sheer nonsense. How far it is truth may be judged from the fact, that of seven men spoken to when met accidentally in the street, everyone had entered the service because “ he was hard up.” And so far from men entering the army from any foolish notion of loyalty or patriotism, a great pro­ portion of them would gladly leave the “ honourable profession ” of a soldier, and take their place among the “ degraded ” toilers of our civil­ isation, could they but get discharged by any other means than purchase or “discharge with ignominy,” with its accompanyment of 2 years impri­ sonment. To talk of men as volunteer soldiers when they have been compelled to enlist by the semi-starvation and suffering of civilian life, is as incorrect as speaking of the “gift” made by the traveller in the olden days when met by some half dozen highwaymen armed with pistols, who, with more determination than divine right, insisted on the surrender of his “ money or his life.” Our soldiers then commence their service not as men who have chosen their professions, but as men forced into an irksome position by their bad circumstances of life—as men who have already been wronged by Society, and thus have a debt to pay. Having made up his mind to try and get a living as a soldier, our recruit attends before a doctor, after passing through the disgusting pre­ liminary of a bath in the same tank in which some twenty or thirty more have “ washed ” before him. After being weighed, hopping about on one leg, and going through a very disagreeable examination (which is of such a character as to try a sensitive man exceedingly) he is either passed or rejected. If the former is the case he is sent off in due course to the head recruiting station of the regiment to which he is posted. And now commences the making of a discontented fighting machine. From the moment he arrives at his Depot he finds that he has been Enlisted by Fraud and Wilful Misrepresentation, and that henceforth he is a mere machine, expected to obey any orders which may be given him without questioning, to submit to any amount of degradation and insult, and in fact to sell his manhood with his civilian clothes, and become part of the great army of “ Christian England,” to assassinate men with whom he has no quarrel, to protect those who are crushing his father and brother, and, should occasion arise, to shoot at a mass of people, among whom is mother, sweetheart, sister or friend. For such self-sacrifice as this, in return for such complete self-abne­ gation, there must surely be corresponding rewards or benefits. So thinks the intending soldier, and for the purpose of discovering what these are he commences to study a very attractive looking bill, issued by Her Majesty’s ministers, and headed, “ Advantages of the Army.” Pro­ minent among these advantages is seen the statement that the soldier receives “ Free Kit,” “ Free Rations,” and pay to commence with at is. id. per day, and comparing this regular supply of the necessaries of life with his miserable condition as an unemployed workman, the balance seems in favour of the red coat and the necesaries of life, as against his present light pockets and liberty. But the Will-o-th’-Wisp is no harder to catch than these advantages are to obtain. Arrived at the Depot the recruit receives orders to parade at the Quartermaster’s Stores, where he has given to him His “Free Kit,” consisting of two shirts, three pairs of socks, one pair of serge trousers, �6 0 I n i one pair of cloth trousers, one cap or shako, or whatever may be the headgear in use in his regiment, one serge frock, two pairs of boots, a hold-all complete containing small necessaries. Fitting on his new cloth­ ing our embryo Commander in Chief finds that all his clothing requires alterations, and he is told to parade at the tailor’s shop, where the alterations necessary are noted—and made if the recruit is enough a man of the world to understand the use of “palm oil.” This issue of clothing with a further supply of trousers, serges, and boots, at very long inter­ vals, completes the “ Free Kit ” promised by the “Fly-papers” (so-called because they are spread to catch the unwary by their promises of good things to come) issued by the government. The future, as Charles Bradlaugh used to say when he was an atheist, is left to take care of itself. Thus we find a very considerable outlay necessary before the “ Free Kit ” is completed. From, his own pocket the deluded recruit finds he has got to provide a duplicate hold-all with necessaries, as the one issued to him must be kept clean and spotless for “ Kit inspection,” as woe betide the unlucky wight whose spoon is not polished like bur­ nished silver, or whose knife and fork show signs of having been used, although the inspection takes place at the meal time when the things are wanted in use. Meals over he starts to work to clean his accoutrements, but finds to his dismay that he wants polishing paste, oxalic acid, pouch blacking, pipeclay, sponge, soap, white and coloured rags, “ Cleaning­ trap bag,” and a thousand other articles of kit which are not included in the “ Free ” issue. To complete his dismay he learns in the course of conversation that any shirts he may require to replace those worn out will have to be purchased out of his own pocket. The same rule applies with regard to socks, towels, braces, caps, small articles, such as razors, knives, etc., etc., so that, as a matter of fact, our young soldier finds that so far from getting his kit free he has continually to apply to the colour­ sergeant of his company for “ necessaries ” for which he has the pleasure of paying. Another evil from which he finds constant inconvenience and expense is the exceedingly slovenly and careless work put into the clothing by those who make them up. . The work, thanks partly to the strain in every stitch while the man is doing “ extension motions ” and “ setting-up drill ” generally, is continually giving way, and it is not at all unusual to see the men coming from drill of that description (which includes throwing the arms back violently, swinging them round and round, and bending over until the fingers touch the toes, keeping the legs quite straight) with jackets open under the arms, and trousers hardly capable of covering the man’s nakedness. Doubtless the new order to the police, which is to the effect that they are to go through these drills, is as embarrassing to them as to their red-coated brothers, and it certainly borders on the ridiculous to see a constable who has not been able to see below the fourth button of his tunic for some years trying his best to “ get right down ” in order to touch his toes. Another reason, doubtless, for the tendency to give way observed in the sewing of government clothing, is that much of it is done on the sweating system, in which the hands employed get such wretched wages that they cannot possibly put in decent work if they are to live honestly, and are to be able to remain outside the ranks of the 80,000 or 100,000 victims of capitalism who infest our streets and minister to the lusts of our spiritual pastors and masters. In this, as in very many other cases, our present wretched system of society brings its own Nemesis. But turning from this, our soldier at once comes in contact with i �7 another evidence of the fraud and misrepresentation which have been used to induce him to join the service. One of the first bugle calls which the new recruit learns is the “ Grand Charge,” or meal bugle, and hearing the call which announces the meal hour, he takes his place with his comrades, and for the first time comes face to face with His “ Free Rations.” Sitting down to breakfast, he finds provided for him by government nothing whatever but a pound of dry bread (not always of the best) and water ad lib. This will hardly be credited by the civilian, but can easily be verified by a few enquiries addressed to any soldier casually met in the street. But says our reader, “ I myself have seen the soldier with tea, coffee, or cocoa for his breakfast, and also with some little relish such as fish, corned beef, or at any rate a little butter.” Quite true, friend; and had you been by his side a minute after his dismissal from the early parade, you would also have seen him at the canteen buying those little delicacies, or at the barrack room door cheapening fish or some other relish with a native from the town. And had you been present with the orderly man or the cook of the company the day before you would have seen them drawing the material with which to give taste to the warm water which alone is supplied by government for its soldiers to drink. But making the best of the job, he sets to work and very soon demolishes what is set before him, in blissful ignorance of the fact that the bread he has found insufficient to satisfy an appetite of the finest possible quality, even for the time being is supposed by the Government who have been mean enough to trick him, to serve him for breakfast, dinner, tea, and supper. Dinner time having arrived, he is introduced to the second portion of the “ Free Ration ” fraud, inasmuch as govern­ ment sets before him for his meal nothing whatever but a very meagre portion of some substance, which in life probably had more acquaintance with London cabs than country cowsheds, but which is popularly supposed to be three-quarters of a pound of meat, the bone of which is limited to two ounces. Again appearances (to the looker-on) are in favour of the authorities, as a fair portion of potatoes is placed on top of the meat, and sometimes even a basin of soup placed by the side. But these favourable evidences are somewhat discounted when he learns in answer to his enquiries that not only the potatoes but the soup and even the salt, pepper, and any other seasoning in use are all provided out of a common fund called the “ Grocery Book,” and are paid for in equal proportions by the whole company. Tea time arriving, our young hero finds that Her Majesty’s Government have thought two meals (save the mark) per day sufficient for a healthy growing lad, and have made no provision for satisfying his hunger from i p.m. until 7.45 the next day, thus giving the stomach nearly 19 hours in which to digest the abundant feast which has been provided. Thus we find the powers that be, with unexampled meanness taking advantage of the wretched and semi­ starving condition of the victims of society to entice them by lying promises and statements which are known full well to be untrue, to enter into an engagement • to serve “ Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, her heirs, and successors.” The “ Free Ration ” statement is a gross fraud, inasmuch as the total allowance made by the official regulations is one pound of bread and three-quarters of a pound of meat per man per day, not more than enough for the morning meal when it is re­ membered that the man has been up two hours or more and has done a good sharp hour’s exercise in the shape of drill. That the food is �8 miserably insufficient is proved by the one fact that nearly every “ duty man (that is men who have no employment as servant, groom, or otherwise) buys at least one pound of bread per day, besides cheese or other food, so long as he has money to do so. For some short period of his service the writer was engaged as kitchen man at the officer’s mess, and it may relieve the consciences of those gentlemen whose luxurious dinners he was allowed to assist in preparing to know that during the time m which he was so engaged he found many opportunities of ministering to the temporal wants of his comrades by the assistance of their superfluities. They may be surprised to hear, too, that even the coarse palates and vitiated tastes of their humble companions in arms could appreciate the beauties of codfish and oyster sauce, and that even the raw oysters did just as good a service when consumed by “ yours truly as when put into their sauce. It may also open their eyes and the eyes of civilian readers not a little when we tell them that so insuf­ ficient and poor is the food supplied to the “ defenders of the country ” that when sent on “ fatigue ” to assist in cleaning at the officers’ mess their first duty was invariably to search for any scraps of cold meat or sh, or in fact anything eatable, which might have been rejected by their more dainty officers at dinner overnight. The coffee-pot was always a first object of interest, and there was generally a sharp competition for the honour of cleaning the “ ante-room ” in which it was possible they might find some half-consumed cigar or forgotten tobacco pouch. ShocKing! says my middle-class reader. Yes, dear friends, very shocking ; and these are the men whose hearts are so full of love and gratitude to you and your class that they are going, at your bidding, to use their cold steel and leaden bullets against the men from whose ranks they are drawn, to whose ranks they must return, and among whom are all those towards whom they feel the love of the son for the mother, the lover for the sweetheart, the man for his mate with whom he went to school, by whose side he toiled, with whom he fought side by side in their common quarrels, and who is to him as a dear brother. Are you sure, my wealthy, idle friend, that these men will act as your blind unthinking tools in crushing out the aspirations of their comrades, their brothers, their class ? Do you feel quite satisfied that they will never think, and that, if they think, they will not act on their convictions ? Sufficient has been already said to show that the soldier's life is not so bright as it might be, but the greater part has yet to be told. The tale of the petty tyranny, the crushing degrading insults, and the heart­ breaking impossibility of doing right, and giving satisfaction. And besides all this we have yet to examine the next count in the indictment, the deceiving promise of One Shilling and a penny per day as his pay. Reading the announcement of the rate of pay, coupled as it is with the statement that he shall have “Free Rations” and “Free Kit,” it is impossible to come to any other conclusion than that the pay becomes pocket money to be expended in the purchase of any little •comfort or luxury which may conduce to the happiness of our friend Tommy Atkins. Looking at the announcement as it stands one naturally supposes that the man can go to the pay table at the end of the week, and draw seven shillings and sevenpence as his pay. Any such notion is soon knocked out of his head, and he finds that in point number three those who are responsible for the issue of the “ Fly papers ” have made filse statements to him, and have deceived him, and he is made Stillmore morose, discontented, and unlikely to make a good soldier. The first two �9 deductions made are 3d. per day for “ messing” and a halfpenny per day for washing. Now what is this messing ? Simply a compulsory payment by the soldier which goes to buy potatoes, coffee, flour, pepper, salt, etc., in fact to provide him with a large portion of what should be provided free in fulfilment of the promise that he should have free rations. Another deduction is for “ barrack damages,” which varies from 4d. to 6d. per month per man, and which goes (in whole or in part) to repair damages and replace losses (real and imaginary) which may have taken place during the month. Again we have a stoppage of the subscription to the Library and another for haircutting; add to this the replacing of worn out clothing, the repairing of the same, and repairing of boots ; the purchase of various materials for cleaning accoutrements, etc. ; the repairing of any accidental injury to arms, and a hundred and one other matters, and it will readily be seen that the statement that a soldier gets one shilling and a penny a day is a deliberate misstatement made in order to get the men to join. In closing this part of my subject I may say that referring to my account book I find three months in which I “ signed accounts” in debt, instead of having money to come. But now I come to matters which, as affecting the general contentment and happiness of our soldiers, are of still greater importance. And first among these I shall place the system of Petty Tyranny on the part of Non-Commissioned Officers. What this means to the men will be seen in the number of habitual bad characters, the number of men “ discharged with ignominy,” and the extraordinary number of desertions in a year. The promotion of men from the ranks seems to be arranged on the principle most likely to cause discontent, and least likely to ensure the good conduct, efficiency, and soldier-like behaviour of the men. And the bad effects of the present injudicious promotions of extremely young and unqualified men, to the rank of Non-Commissioned Officer, will readily be seen by my readers, when they hear that a man who has only joined the service three months, and has received his first step in promotion—being appointed lance-cor­ poral—is absolutely and completely the master of every man who is still a private, and has it in his power to make a man’s life most miserable, or, on the contrary, very happy, in proportion as he himself may be in a good or bad temper. By “ Queen’s Regulations ” it takes a man two years of absolutely irreproachable service to get his good conduct stripes, for which he gets one penny per day extra ; it takes him four years more (or six years altogether) to get his second stripe, for which he gets another penny per day; twelve years to get three stripes ; eighteen years to get four stripes ; and twenty-one years of absolutely perfect soldiering to get five stripes—the highest possible. Now suppose a man to have served without a single regimental entry for eighteen years, and by so doing to have won the four good conduct stripes. On a certain occasion a young jack-in-office, who has just got his lance stripe, comes into the barrack room, and full of his new authority warns our old soldier for a certain “ fatigue ” duty. Knowing that he is not first on the duty “roster” for fatigue our friend with the good conduct stripes ventures to expos­ tulate with him, and to refer him to the “roster.” The pride of our eighteen-year-old three-month’s-service youngster is in arms directly, and without taking the trouble to ascertain whether the man is right or not, he puts him between a file of men, and confines him to the guard room, with the charge against him of refusing to obey the orders of the Acting Orderly Sergeant. On going to the orderly-room in the morning the veteran’s explanation is met with the parrot-cry “ no-excuse,” and �IO probably finds himself with enough punishment against him to take off his arm the whole of the stripes it has cost him eighteen years good soldiering to obtain. And thus a good soldier is turned into a discontented, disheartened men, who will sit and brood over the hardship of his case until fresh provocation being offered, he strikes the man who has degraded him, and finds himself sentenced to two years imprisonment and to be discharged with ignominy. In this case the Government would save a pension (and thus help to show a good budget), and would turn loose to prey upon society a man whose every particle of self-respect has been crushed out of him merely by the tyranny of some boyish non­ commissioned officer, who had been promoted before he knew his duty. But this is an extreme case ! ’ says the reader. Granted ; but it may be the case of every man who enters the service—it is a possibility which may occur to each. And although this may be an infrequent case, it is not so with the continual bullying, the degrading and insulting language and the monotonous punishment drill which is the lot of nearly every man in the service. I am under the difficulty in explaining this that I cannot put on paper the filthy expressions which are not uncommonly used by the drill instructors to the men in their squads. But anyone who may desire to know the truth of these statements has only to go to a place like the Citadel barracks at Plymouth, and there from the ram­ parts watch the recruits at drill between the hours of two and three in the afternoon. On one occasion in those very barracks, I was one of a squad under a man named Harvey. The drill was between seven and eight one morning, and because the squad could not please this man, (whose principal qualifications were his power to yell, and his unlimited capacity for swearing and bullying) he gave the word to fix bayonets, charge bayonets, and then to double, and he kept the men so long at this very distressing drill, that several of the squad dropped their rifles from sheer inability to hold them any longer, while others fell out unable to keep it up. “ But why not appeal ? ” Simply because it would be no good, and would only bring down the wrath of every Non-Commissioned officer in the regiment on the head of “ the fellow who lagged.” The non-commissioned officer’s best chance of getiing on is to show his smartness, and regimentallism, which is best done by “ wheeling ” men before the officers for frivolous crimes, and not allowing those under him a moment’s rest, or time for recreation. It is an old saying that if a man goes in for promotion “ he must be ready to ‘shop’ (or make prisoner) his own brother.” But the curse of authority, unfortunately, is not confined to the NonCommissioned Officers. It is often said that our army is not what it used to be, and that were we to be engaged in an European war, we should not find the same dogged never-know-when-thev’re-beaten sort of pluck which characterised our men in the past. If that be so, the blame for such a lamentable state of affairs would be found to lie very much with Bad Commissioned Officers. As I write my mind goes back to the year 1881, and I see again a regiment which has been complimented by General Napier at Gibraltar on its smart soldier-like behaviour. Stationed at Plymouth the “ Goats ” were mounting the main guard. The smartest and best men had been picked for this guard by the Orderly Sergeants (as was the invariable rule) because it was one on which they came under the notice of the General commanding the whole of the Western Division (at that time Major General Pakenham). Formed up for inspection by the Adjutant, “ clean, smart, and fit for anything,” instead of being sent off to their �II duty with a cheering word of advice, that worthy spent some twenty minutes in fault-finding, then told the men they were “beastly dirty,” and finished up by declaring that if they did^not turn out smarter he would “ make their lives a burden to them ! ” On another occasion (I think in August 1881) the regiment was on Commanding Officer’s parade in full marching order, which means something like 60 pounds weight to be carried. So extremely hot had been the season that all parades were ordered to be stopped at Aidershot between io a.m. and 4 p.m. Not­ withstanding this intense heat the men were kept in marching order, and drilled from 10-30 a.m. until 1-15 p.m., the morning’s drill including skirmishing, and doubling. Although this drill was not finished until after 1 p.m. some of the men who had made mistakes had to parade again at 2, thus allowing only three quarters of an hour to clean their accoutre­ ments and have dinner. So bad did the treatment become at this time that the discontent of the men found vent in a long letter by the author of this pamphlet, and another by a Corporal who afterwards deserted, both of which the Editor of the Western Morning News, an influential Plymouth daily, inserted in his columns, although by so doing he ran considerable risk. It may be objected that these cases concern only one regiment, but I reply that the broad facts contained in this pamphlet are in a greater or less degree (according to the officers) descriptions of the soldier’s every-day life all through the service. True it is that all officers, or all non-commissioned officers are not bad; and I would here bear testimony to the exceedingly good character borne by one officer especially, Mr. C. A. Boughton Knight, among the men of his company. But in his particular regiment he was an exception. When he ex­ changed into the Scots Guards, there was hardly a dry eye in the com­ pany as they said good-bye to the man who had treated them as fellow men and thus won their respect and (laugh if you will) their heartfelt love. Such men as he are the salt of the service who keep the men just below the point of insubordination. But bad as is the treatment of soldiers at home it is sometimes even worse when on foreign or active service, and if a soldier is treated in such a way at home as to make him disgusted and discontented, he sees such sights and receives such examples of neglect while abroad that at times it is hard to keep his indignation within bounds. Not only does he find that he is ordered to risk his life in such brutal struggles and butchery as those of Ashantee, Zululand, Afghanistan, Egypt, and Burmah, but he soon understands that even while doing his duty there are some around him whose sole employment consists of Robbing the sick and wounded. One instance, vouched for by one who saw the exposure, will suffice to show to what an abominable extent this sort of thing is carried. Charitable ladies and gentlemen in England, who interested themselves in our soldiers in Egypt, sent out for the use of the sick and wTounded several cases of oranges and other “ medical comforts.” Oranges were a very great luxury in that hot climate, and the civilian storekeepers who supplied such things from tents to those who could afford to purchase, used to retail them at about fourpence each. One old Maltese especially did a very good business, and on one occasion some of our navvies who were engaged in building the railway determined to see if they could not steal some of the old gentleman’s stock. The oranges were kept in boxes which were stacked at the back of the tent, and for their purpose the navvies attacked the back, and having loosened the tent they began to raise the canvas for the purpose of extracting some of �12 the coveted fruit. What was their surprise and disgust on discovering marked on every one of the boxes the following words: “ For the sick and wounded in Egypt ” ! Whose was the fault I know not, but there is the fact. The oranges sent for the sick had been disposed of to the Maltese who was selling them at fourpence each, while our brave fellows were in hospital with parched tongues and throats. We also know, though in very small part, of the sufferings of our men who are away fighting the Burmese in order to open fresh markets for the shoddy goods of the manufacturing community of which John Bright is a member. News has just come to hand that In Burmah men are dying like rotten sheep, the totals so far ascertained showing fatalities 372, only 23 of which are from wounds in action, the remaining 349 being from disease. Besides this we have invalided home 575 of all ranks, a very large proportion of whom are probably cases which will always leave the seeds of disease behind, which will sooner or later carry off other victims to the mad effort to obtain new markets. If ever the real history of our wars of conquest and aggrandizement is written by a competent pen, it will form a record of crime and suffering which will have no equal in modern times. Another section of our forces is engaged in a still more disgraceful work. The men who enlisted to protect this country against her foes are to-day found Executing “ sentences of death ” in Ireland ; English workmen fighting their Irish brothers, and thus assisting in collecting the rents of men who rob the English and Irish democracies, and who use the money thus stolen to debauch the wives and prostitute the daughters of their victims. But in the fraternising of the Marines at Skye with the Crofters whom they were sent to coerce, and in the rumbling of discontent which was recently heard among the troops engaged in Ireland, the watchful ear recognises the commencement of the strike of our troops against the degrading work to which they are being put; and one begins again to hope that our men will shortly realise that though they may wear red coats, the battle of the Irish peasants is their battle, and that they will refuse to prostitute their strength in the effort to crush a people “ rightly struggling to be free.” The men who are now fighting under the same flags which cheered on those who fought for the relief of the oppressed, will, looking on those flags, remember that their duty is to be ever found on the side of right. “ Obedience is the first duty of a soldier,” is the motto in the soldier’s book : yes, obedience to the call of right, obedience to the call of justice; obedience when appealed to on behalf of the suffering and oppressed ; but not obedience to the call of peers who evict women in the pangs of labour, and who spend the money wrung from the suffering Irish in debauchery in the brothels of Chelsea and Pimlico. Soldiers, do your duty ; but first be sure what your duty is. The above are but a few of the incidents which make a soldier’s life unhappy, and make the men discontented, miserable, and fit subjects for the truths of Socialism to make an impression upon. But the tale of petty spite and tyranny, of injustice and fraud, of drill never-ending and punishment undeserved might be prolonged until it would fill a book of several hundred pages. But why go on ? Enough has been said to answer my purpose,—to show to those who oppress the soldiers as they oppress the workers how weak is the force they threaten to use to �B prevent the class to which our soldiers belong from making an attempt to free themselves from their slavery. Think a moment, my middle-class readers, do you not think the men whom you call your army will some day refuse to prostitute their strength to fight against father or brother, mother or sister. Do you imagine that at your bidding these men will fire into the ranks of men and women with whom they have eaten and drunk ? Will they not remember that among those men, are their brothers; that the people on whom they are told to charge are the people among whom they will take their place when they leave the army, only a few years or may be months hence ? Are you not a little rash in supposing that these men whom your government has defrauded, whom the officers drawn from your class have embittered against themselves and you, will never remember that if they refuse to fight for you (and instead of doing so go and join their brothers who are struggling for freedom for soldiers as well as civilians, police as well as citizens, sailors as well as all others drawn from the working classes) you are absolutely powerless and at the mercy of those against whom you fight. Your short service system is filling the ranks of the army with thinking men, men who have already heard the truths of Socialism, and by discharging the men at the end of three or seven years you are giving us trained and discontented men, and are hastening the time when Socialists and Soldiers will shake hands and unite in bringing about by their unity in peace or war (as you of the middle and upper classes shall decide) the happier and better time when all shall labour usefully, and not too long, and when each shall have the full value of his toil. Soldiers and policemen, sailors and marines, all classes are beginning to understand that Social-Democrats are fighting a just battle. That our cause is a strong one because based upon the eternal foundation of truth and justice. That our cause is their cause because we are struggling on behalf of their dear ones, and are doing our honest best to make it possible for al! men to live decent happy lives as the return for their useful labour. You of the class who live without labour, on the labour of others, you are the only people who will not shortly be convinced of the justice of our cause. Your army, your police have but to announce their determination not to use their strength against us, and you cannot by any possibility force them to do so. Why should they ? They soon will be found in the ranks of the unemployed—we are to-day fighting the battle on behalf of those who have no work. Every man in army or police has suffered from the system which makes one man to live in luxury at the expense of the misery of the many,—against that system we alone are battling. Pause while there is time; think is it not the cause of humanity, justice and right which we are struggling for? Is there any other hope of ridding society of the jails full of what might have been the brightest manhood of our country ? Is there any other means by which you can bring back to their place as honest citizens the 80,000 women of this great London, who have found it impossible to live by honest toil ? Is there any other way by which you can give comfort to the children of the unemployed workmen of to-day? If this be the only way—whether you be wealthy or poor, soldiers, police, or what not —if you be men, take your place, and accept your share of the necessary burden, in the struggle for that cause which will bring in peace, happiness, and comfort, and which will build up a new society which shall be based upon the universal brotherhood of man, and whose motto shall be “ Each for all, and all for each.” �i4 And, after all, what is this great mass of evil against which we are told the forces of the army and police are to be used ? What is this terrible thing Social-Democracy? How many know, bow many have sought to know the truth as between Socialism and Capitalism ? It is so easy to condemn a thing—a man—a system as criminal, but it is so wearisome to argue out fairly and honestly a somewhat difficult problem, especially when it is quite possible the real solution when found may tell against oneself, one’s own pet theories, one’s own comfort, one’s own idle luxurious life. Who are the men whom we see branded as mischievous agitators, stirrers up of class hatred, and disturbers of the “harmonious relations between labour and capital?” Simply, in the majority of cases, men who have lived and suffered among the “ masses,” who have felt the terrible grinding of the heel of capitalism as it crushes out of their lives all that makes life bright, and happy, and worth living. Simply men who have stood, without the power to shed the tears which would have given relief, by the side of the little plain coffin containing all that is left of the little one who used to make home happy, even when stomachs were empty and the body shivered for want of the clothes which had been parted with for food, and who have cursed with bitterest curses the cruel selfishness of the system which has slowly and surely murdered the darling of their life. Who are they ? Men who have seen the infant sucking the empty breast while the mother’s eyes have appealed to them for the food they could not give. Who have seen their, sisters damned in this world, and—if we are to believe those who call themselves our spiritual pastors and masters—damned in the world to come. Who are they ? The brothers of the men forced into the criminal classes, the fathers of sons compelled to thieve to live ! These are the men against whom you who are not with us are fighting. Are they dangerous ? It is you—whether workman or idler—who are propping up the system which causes suffering and degradation, it is you who make them so. Are they madmen ? It is you, middle-class man, aristocrat,, it is you who have made them mad by the hellish cruelty of your oppression, by the degradation of their womanhood, and it is against you—if they be mad, their madness will turn and avenge itself. But they are not mad. They are those who, taught by men from your class but not of it, have determined that come what may, whether by peace or war, through weal or through woe, they are going on with the struggle for liberty, for life, for happiness. These are the men against whom you must fight, or with whom you must unite in the struggle. Fanatics if you will; violent if you like ; but fanatics in their confidence in the justice of their cause, and violent only in their hatred of seeing what they believe to be truth crushed down by your blind folly. What are they striving for ? Do they seek fame? No, or they would sell their voice or pen to a party as the Broadhursts, the Howells, and the Cremers ha.ve done in the past I Do they seek riches ? No, for every one of them in a greater or lesser degree is giving of his small earnings to help in his cause ! .For what then are they spending their lives ? For the hope of better things in the future ; for the hope of gaining for themselves and those who suffer with them some of the glorious possibilities of life ; for the hope of lighting up with joy the thousands of lives which to-day are full of dark dangerous despair. For this hope they strive ; for this hope they �15 fight on ; for this hope they will be found struggling though all the powers of earth are fighting against them ; for this hope they will sacrifice all that makes life happy; and by their striving, their fighting, their struggling, and their sacrifice they will assuredly conquer. IS THE BATTLE WORTH FlGHTING ? To you of the classes who never labour, but who are living upon the labour of others, what will a victory mean? Think just a moment! You can but gain a continuance of your present aimless existence, your life of hypocrisy, hollowness, rottenness, of which, even now, when you are honest enough to think seriously, you are sometimes.ashamed; especially when you remember how mean, how contemptible, is your life if you are living—not on your own labour, for you do none—but on the labour of your fellow men and women. And what does a continuance of this throat-cutting system mean to the great mass of the men and women of the world. It means continuous toil, continuous misery and suffering, continuous degradation, for you cannot point to a remedy, or even to anything like a sufficient palliative, outside of that proposed by the Socialists whom you despise. It means to the “people” lives of dull grinding poverty, without education, without pleasure, and, worst of all, without hope ! Do you who read- this belong to the middle class, the wealthy class ? I ask you are you prepared to use your energies, your strength, your skill to gain a victory, to support a system, which will condemn your fellow men and women to such a life as this. Men of your class in other countries have sacrificed everything for this cause, and men like Peter Krapotkine, men like Stepniak, appeal to you to give up your mean despicable existence and take your share in the fight, success in which means happiness for so many. Nor is your own country without noble examples for you ; think then whether you can resist the appeal of thousands of blighted lives, thousands of weak voiced children, who cry to you to help them to live as decent men and women a life of happiness and peace. Is it such a crime to ask that men should enjoy the fruits of their own toil ? Is it so great a wrong to forbid a man, a class, to take that which belongs to another without returning him a full equivalent. If a member of a family will not work, what is the result ? That family turns the lazy one into the streets to starve—until he works. And if labour applied to nature is alone the source of wealth how comes it that the idle classes, who do no useful work, are found in possession of the wealth produced by industrious toilers ? How comes it that those who produce so much enjoy so little ? Answer truly, and the confession must come, that it is because labour is robbed of that which it produces ; because those who toil not steal from those who labour. Call it profit, call it interest, call it rent, and.it remains, notwithstanding all your arguments, robbery, because no equivalent is returned to those from whom it is taken and to whom it belongs. We seek but Justice and Fair Play. We ask not for that which is another’s, but simply the right to labour usefully, and to enjoy the fruits of our labour. How can this be secured ? A man wishes to apply his labour to nature—in order to be able to live he must do so, but he finds himself prevented because the implements of production, and even the gifts of nature, are controlled by someone else, who refuses him access to them unless he will allow him a large share of the produce of his labour. What then ? Since it is absolutely necessary that labour and nature should come together, the barrier between them �i6 —private ownership—must be removed, and the people—the Statemust assume the position of its own trustee. Surely our position is reasonable. If the welfare of the great mass of the people demands self-sacrifice on the part of the few, the sacrifice must be made. If the life of ease, and luxury, and idleness of the wealthy classes can only be maintained at the expense of the unhappiness and robbery of the poor, then they must give up their luxury and ease, and raise themselves to the position of honest useful toilers, taking their part in the battle of life, and cheered by the knowledge that they are helping to give better,’ brighter, and happier lives, to those who have suffered so much in the past. Do any want an ideal for which to strive ? we put before you the highest possible ideal—the greatest possible happiness and culture of the human race. Does anyone want to spend his life in practical efforts to raise up his down-trodden fellows ? We show you a certain path to success. Search it, try it, examine it honestlyj; forget that it is called Socialism, and see only if it be right, if it be just, if it be good. And if so, if you see no other way out of the difficulty, take your place—whether you be workman or middle-class, aristocrat or beggar, in the forefront of the battle ; and with perfect freedom as your motto, with hearts filled with hope, with hand clasped in hand and shoulder to shoulder, fight with all your strength—not the battle of the bondholders, not the fight of the usurers—but the battle of the workers of all nations, the battle of SocialDemocracy, and you will thus be hastening the time when the peoples of the world will stand side by side, without strife, without quarrelling, happy, contented, free. Note to Second Edition.—Since the first edition was issued, an appeal has been made to various sections of the community for funds with which to erect the “ Imperial Institute,” in commemoration of Her Majesty’s fifty years’ reign. Among others, the men of the Army and Navy, and even the inmates of Chelsea Hospital have had issued to them what is tantamount to an order to contribute of their small means to this object. Refuse they dare not, and thus they are to be robbed still further. Why not appeal to the widows and children of men killed in action, and to the young women who have been forced on the streets because their fathers have “ died for their country? ” It is to be hoped that men in all the services will resolutely refuse to contribute to such an object as this, while their fellows, their women­ folk, and their children perish for want of bread. Many letters from Non-Commissioned Officers and privates have been received, corroborating the statements contained in this pamphlet, and the author will be glad to correspond (in confidence) with any who can further expose the frauds, deceptions, and tyranny practised upon the rank and file either of the Army or Navy. All communications should be addressed to George Bateman, care of the Publishers. [Those who wish to know move about Socialism should send to the\ Modern Press for a list of pamphlets on the subject. On receipt of One Shilling a dozen different pamphlets will be sent post-free.] � 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 &amp; 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 An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available 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 The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 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 Socialism and soldiering; with some comments on the army enlistment fraud Description An account of the resource Edition: 2nd. ed. Place of publication: London Collation: 16 p. : ill. (front. port.) ; 23 cm. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bateman, George Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Modern Press Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1887 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context G4978 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Champion, H.H. Subject The topic of the resource Socialism Military 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 (Socialism and soldiering; with some comments on the army enlistment fraud), 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> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Armed forces Armed forces;Enlistment Socialism https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/2afb5229c51b2363f903dc1d87643e5d.pdf?Expires=1782345600&Signature=Rx-L9odiQGdV3A1GWrcmQcU75WKuEuBkAossRVJwhTQIXcQtIPa7FapRBKo5XEmx9sM-kk25a6VFTYdlLU9fiUYjNNmWO9CLpklfb8ergBl6kLRmtmgCod0-qKBIL0uWRCl0oTHl7VtlQ46VoK84lZpCjG0ECqukbTgda0Zm8KcgGQWi3LRhZqeBaePorE3%7EdL6oLai7hRcsEpkENVcVoVAGCC7up%7E9Zu6pneOOo2oXNGNHgqs%7E2p0aqOvSaZ9NMPKzlnjnk2yX92Ssh7BUqzMOQtDyInwhQ-EaU10uZEfmBw%7E-D48BMUhqifFlNy%7EXtMYor4ka47xbzKedwxPSc%7Ew__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 1e6cbbb6beadbd8db9d4b4dd7f10f1e4 PDF Text Text ■nit S PRICE ONE PENNY. SEVENTY-FIRST THOUSAND I SOCIALISM MADE PLAIN AND “THE UNEMPLOYED” BEING TWO MANIFESTOES OF THE SOG/A L-DEMOGRA TIG FEDERA TION. Address Secretary, Social-Democratic Federation, Bridge House, Blackfriars. E.C. EDUCATE. AGITATE. ORGANISE. THE MODERN PRESS, 13, Paternoster Row, E.C. 1886. Agent for U.S.A., W. L. ROSENBERG, 56, EAST STREET, NEW YORK CITY. FOURTH �Summary of the Principles of Socialism. By H. M. Hyndman and William Morris. Second edition, 64-pp. crown 8-vo., in wrapper designed by Wm. Morris, price 4d. This gives an account of the growth of capitalist production, and con­ cludes with a statement of the demands of English Socialists for the imme­ diate future. The Emigration Fraud Exposed. By H. M. Hyndman. With a portrait of the Author. Reprinted by permission from the Nineteenth Century for February, 1885. Crown 8-vo., price id. The Socialist Catechism. By J. L. Joynes. Royal 8-vo., Reprinted with additions from Justice. price id. Fifteenth thousand. Socialist Rhymes. J. By Reprinted chiefly from Justice. L. Joynes. Royal 8-vo., price id. Wage-Labour and Capital. By Karl Marx. Translated by J. L. Joynes and reprinted from Justice. Price 2d. This is the only work of the great Socialist thinker which has been translated into English. Socialism and the Worker. Sorge. By F. A. Price id. An explanation in the simplest language of the main idea of Socialism. John Williams and the History of the Social-Democratic Federation. 8-vo., price id. Socialism and With portrait. Slavery. By H. Royal M. Hyndman. (In reply Mr. Herbert Spencer’s article on the “ Coming Slavery ”). New Edition. Price id. The Modern Press, 13, Paternoster Row, E.G. And W. L. ROSENBERG, 56, East Fourth Street, New York City. �SOCIALISM MADE PLAIN, BEING THE Social and Political Manifesto of the Democratic Federation EDUCATE. AGITATE ORGANISE. Fellow Citizens, qpHE time has come when it is absolutely necessary that the mass of the people should seriously take in hand their own business unless they are content to find themselves in the near future worse off than they have ever yet been. At present, social and political power is monopolised by xhose who live upon the labour of their fellows; and Tories or Conservatives, Whigs, Liberals or Radicals strive only to keep the workers ignorant of the truths which most nearly con­ cern them. After the Reform Bill of 1832 the capi­ talists entered into alliance with the landlords except on one question, and from the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 to this day the lords of the money-bag and the lords of the soil have together been absolute masterc of the millions who labour throughout the United Kingdom. So complete has been their control that since the year 1848 no vigorous attempt has even been made to overthrow it. But what has been the re­ sult to the workers of this supremacy of the luxurious classes ? During fifty years our labourers have com­ peted against one another for wages which barely suffice to keep them aUve. Whilst the realised �weaith and the annual income of the country have more than trebled, those who create these riches re­ main a wage-slave class, overworked and underfed, at the mercy of every crisis and the victims of each suc­ ceeding depression. The improved machinery, the extension of railways, the great steam and electric communications—that vast increase of the power of man over nature which has been the main feature of our epoch, has brought luxury for the few, misery and degradation for the many. Even in the past ten years what have we seen ? The interests of Great Britain utterly neglected, Ireland shamefully misgoverned, India ruined and South Africa estranged. In 1874 the Liberals were dismissed for incapacity and Conser­ vatives ruled in their stead for six years. Not a single measure did they introduce during that long tenure of office which could in any way lighten the lot of the millions who toil. The Conservatives having been turned out in disgust the Liberals again try their h|and, and once more not a single measure is before Parliament, not a single measure is proposed for future legislation, which can benefit the working men and women who are really the source of all our wealth. Fellow-Citizens the further success of this pitiful trickery depends upon your ignorance and will last as long as your apathy. Landlords and capitalists, who o ahi the House of Lords and fill the House of Commons, wish nothing better than to protect their interests under the pretence of looking after yours. Take up then your own heritage, push aside these wealthy huck­ sters of both factions who trade upon your labour, and trust for the future in your own strength alone. �Consider the figures below. Total Production of the United Kingdom................................. £1,300,000,000 Taken by Landlords, Capitalists and Profitmongers .......... 1,000,000,000 Left for the Producers.................. 300,000,000 Study these figures all who toil and suffer that others may be lazy and rich ; look upon the poverty, the star­ vation, the prostitution around you ye who labour and return the value of your entire day’s wages to the employ­ ing classes in the first two or three hours of your day’s work. Ponder on these facts, reflect upon these figures, men and women of England, and then ask yourselves, whether it is worth while for such a result as this to bow down in slavish subjection before your “ governing classes,” whether you will not rather demand and obtain the full fruits of your labour and become your own governing class yourselves. Submit then no longer to a system of Parliamentary Government which is maintained in the interests of those who rob and oppress you—which has proved itself for generations to be alike a failure and a fraud. EDUCATE ! AGITATE ! ORGANISE ! Fellow Citizens, we of the Democratic Federation demand complete adult suffrage for every man and woman in these islands, because in this way alone dan the whole people give free expression to their will; we are in favor of paid delegates and annual Conventions because by this means alone can the people control their representatives; we stand up for the direct r& ference of all grave issues to the country at larg<&, and for the punishment as felony of every species ol �corruption, because thus only can tyranny be checked and bribery uprooted ; we call for the abolition of all hereditary authority, because such authority is neces­ sarily independent of the mass of the people. But all these reforms when secured mean only that the men and women of these islands will at length be masters in their own house. Mere political machinery is worth­ less unless used, to produce good social conditions. All wealth is due to labour ; therefore to the labourers all wealth is due. But we are strangers in our own country. Thirty thousand persons own the land of Great Britain against the 30,000,000 who are suffered to exist therein. A long series of robberies and confiscations has deprived us of the soil which should be ours. The organised brute force of the few has for generations robbed and tyrannised over the unorganised brute force of the many. We now call for Nationalisation of the Land. We claim that land in country and land in towns, mines, parks, mountains, moors should be owned by the people for the people, to be held, used, built over and culti­ vated upon such terms as the people themselves see fit to ordain. The handful ot marauders who now hold possession have and can have no right save brute force against the tens of millions whom they wrong. But private ownership of land in our present society is only one and not the worst form of monopoly which enables the wealthy classes to use the means of pro­ duction against the labourers whom they enslave. Of the £1,000,000,000 taken by the classes who live without labour out of a total yearly production of ^1,300,000,000, the landlords who have seized Our soil, and shut us out �from its enjoyment, absorb little more than £60,000,000 as their direct share. The few thousand persons who own the National Debt, saddled upon the community by a landlord Parliament, exact ^28,000,000 yearly from the labour of their countrymen for nothing ; the share­ holders who have been allowed to lay hands upon our great railway communications take a still larger sum. Above all, the active capitalist class, the loan-mongers, the farmers, the mine-exploiters, the contractors, the middle-men, the factory-lords—these, the modern slave-drivers, these are they who, through their money, machinery, capital, and credit turn every advance in human knowledge, every further improve­ ment in human dexterity, into an engine for accumu­ lating wealth out of other men’s labour, and for exacting more and yet more surplus value out of the wage-slaves whom they employ. So long as the means of production, either of raw materials or of manufactured goods are the monopoly of a class, so long must the labourers on the farm, in the mine or in the factory sell themselves for a bare subsistence wage. As land must in future be a national possession, so must the other means of producing and distributing wealth. The creation of wealth is already a social business, where each is forced to co-operate with his neighbour; it is high time that exchange of the produce should be social too, and removed from the control of individual greed and individual profit. As stepping-stones to a happier period, we urge for immediate adoption :— The COMPULSORY CONSTRUCTION of healthy artisans’ and agricultural labburers’ dwellings in pro­ �8 portion to the population, such dwellings to be let at rents to cover the cost of construction and maintenance alone. FREE COMPULSORY EDUCATION for all classes, together with the provision of at least one wholesome meal a day in each school. EIGHT HOURS or less to be the normal WORK­ ING DAY in all trades. CUMULATIVE TAXATION upon all incomes above a fixed minimum not exceeding ^300 a year. STATE APPROPRIATION with or without compensation. OF RAILWAYS, The establishment of NATIONAL BANKS, which shall absorb all private institutions that derive a profit from operations in money or credit. RAPID DEBT. EXTINCTION of the NATIONAL NATIONALISATION OF THE LAND, and organisation of agricultural and industrial armies under State control on co-operative principles. By these measures a healthy, independent, and thoroughly educated people will steadily grow up around us, ready to abandon that baneful competition for starvation wages which ruins our present workers, ready to organise the labour of each for the benefiit of all, determined, too, to take control finally of the entire social and political machinery of a State in which class distinctions and class privileges shall cease to be. Do any say we attack private property ? We deny 'Vp attack only that private property for a few �thousand loiterers and siave-drivers, which renders all property in the fruits of their own labour impossible for millions. We challenge that private property which renders poverty at once a necessity and a crime. Fellow-Citizens, we appeal to every man and woman among you who is weary of this miserable huckster’s society, where poverty and prostitution, fraud and adulteration, swindling and jobbery, luxury and debau­ chery reign supreme, we appeal to you to work with us in a never-ceasing effort to secure a happier lot for our people and their children, and to hold up a high ideal of national greatness for those who come after. Such an ideal of true greatness and glory, needs but intelligence, enthusiasm, and combination, to make it a reality even in our own day. We, at least, will never falter. We stretch out our hands for help, co-operation, and encouragement, to all creeds and all nationalities, ready ourselves to render assistance in every struggle against class injustice and individual greed. The land of England is no mean heritage; there is enough and to spare for all; with the powers mankind now possess wealth may easily be made as plentiful as water at the expense of trifling toil. But to-day the worn-out wage­ slaves of our boasted civilisation look hopelessly at the wealth which they have created to be devoured only by the rich and their hangers-on. To the abject poor patriotism is but a mockery, all talk of happiness, of beauty, of morality, is a sneer. We call, then, upon every lover of freedom to support us in our endeavour to form a real party of the people, which shall secure a noble future for our own and other lands. The aims and objects of the Democratic Federation �are before you. organised effort. Success can only be achieved by Educate ! We shall need all our intelligence. Agitate ! We shall need all our enthusiasm. Organise ! We shall need all our force. EDUCATE ! (Signed) June, 1883. A GITA TE ! ORGA NISE ! The Executive Committee, Democratic Federation. The Federation consists of branches in various towns, membership of which is open to all who hold the prin­ ciples set forth in the manifesto of the body, and who subscribe to its programme. Subscription id. per week. Further information can be obtained by reading EVERY SATURDAY. “JUSTICE” w 1 ONE PENNY. A paper managed by working men, and edited by a working man. It can be obtained from any newsagent, or will be forwarded for 13 weeks to any address if is. 8d. is sent to The Modern Press, 13, Paternoster Row, London, E.C. Full particulars can be obtained by writing to the Secretary, Social-Democratic Federation, Bridge House, Blackfriars, E.C. �MANIFESTO OF THE Social-Democratic Federation. Issued after the West End Riots, Feb. 8, 1886. 15^ February. Fellow Citizens, We invite you to attend a mass meeting of employed and unemployed workers in Hyde Park, at 3.30 p.m. punctually, on Sunday next, February 21st, to demand that the Government should organise the labour of those who are now starving, owing to no fault of their own, and should, as at other periods of distress, com­ mence useful public works, paying to those engaged rates of wages sufficient to ensure a healthy subsistence. In calling this meeting we earnestly appeal to all who attend it, whether in or out of work, to help us to keep order. Those who understand the vital importance of the Social-Democratic movement to workers of every grade will be the first to put down any attempts of their enemies to discredit the cause of the people, or to endanger that right of public meeting which can alone enable the producing class to gain any real advantage without bitter civil strife. The objects of the Social-Democrats when attained will benefit not the workers only but even those who to-day live in luxury, at the expense of the misery and �12 degradation of the labourers. The present hopeless breakdown shows clearly enough that the upper and middle classes are unable to handle the industrial machinery even to their own profit. Hundreds of thousands of our fellows eager to do' useful work, in order to maintain themselves and their families in reasonable comfort, find that they cannot earn sufficient wages to give them the bare necessaries of life. At the same time the very goods which they themselves most want are unsaleable because the producers are thus denied the possibility of purchasing them. Even the employed must know that the lot of their workless fellows to-day may be theirs to-morrow. The uncer­ tainty of employment is yearly increasing in every trade, while in many branches men over forty years of age are systematically refused work. Hard times now come much oftener than formerly and each crisis lasts longer than the one before. The reason of this is that the workers themselves, having no property, are forced to compete with one another for subsistence wages, and have nothing to do with the dis­ posal of the wealth which they produce for the profit of others. When capitalists cannot mike that profit, they cut their men adrift. What is to be done? The landlords and capitalists practically confess that they, at least do not know. When forced to recognize that people will no longer starve in silence, they condemn skilled artizans as well as famine-stricken labourers to prove that poverty is their only crime by breaking stones or picking oakum at tenpence a day; or they endeavour to salve their consciences, shocked by the misery which clamours at �*3 their doors, by the pitiful expedient of an unasked-for charity. Social-Democrats alone dare deal directly with the difficulty. More than two years ago as palliatives for the serious distress which even then prevailed, we issued the following proposals :— “ i.—That no Government servant be employed at his or her present wages for a longer period than eight hours in each day. This alone would give room for many now out of work, seeing that the ordinary hours of work in the Post Office and other State establish­ ments are from ten to twelve hours, or more, in the day. 2. —That all uncultivated Crown, or other lands, or lands now in pasture, which in the opinion of skilled agriculturists, would best pay to cultivate, be at once worked with improved machinery by such of the unem­ ployed as are accustomed to or would prefer agricultural occupation. These labourers to be paid the rate of wages which, in the judgment of a board of assessors, shall be sufficient to keep them and their families in health and comfort, or that such necessary food be sup­ plied at cost at a general meal, lodging being provided on the spot. An equitable portion of the profits, if any, derived 'from such farming operations to be divided from time to time among the people employed. 3. —That any public works oi importance in or near any industrial centre—such as artisans’ dwellings, em­ bankment of rivers, construction of canals or aqueducts —should be begun at once instead of their commence­ ment being deferred ; and that the same rate of wages be paid, in proportion to cost of living, to the workers employed that is paid to the agricultural labourers, or �*4 that their feeding be conducted on wholesale principles as above. That if, on valuation of works completed any profit should be shown above what such works would have cost, at rates of wages for similar work averaged for the last five years, an equitable proportion of such profit be divided among the labourers. 4. —That, where possible, light relief works on similar principles should be commenced for those women or men, who are incapable of heavy labour; or that they be engaged on clothing or other work which they could exchange through the State with the products of those who are at work upon the land. 5. —That the cost of the initial proceedings and the payment of wages be met by the ratepayers and the State in equal portions, or in such proportions as may be determined. The advantage to the ratepavers is that able-bodied persons would be engaged upon beneficial remunerative labour, instead of upon useless workhouse tasks ; the advantage to the State would be that no permanent pauperism would result from the prevailing depression. Therefore the Municipalities and the State should at once organise the unemployed labour and thereby save expense later.” To these we would now add free dinners for the children in all Board Schools, as nothing is more terrible for the workers at times like these than to see the health of their offspring ruined for life by sheer lack of nourishment. Is this incendiarism ? Are these proposals anarch­ ical ? That they can be but temporary expedients we readily admit. But every man must acknowledge that a society in which the statement of such elemen­ �tary truths as that men should be allowed to work and children to eat is accounted revolutionary cannot long be propped up even by the adoption of the continental methods of police repression or the arbitrary despotism of a military governor. All the facts around us confirm us in the conviction that the class supremacy due to historical development is even now being sapped by the growth of new economical foims. The scientific truths on which this belief isfounded, can be studied in the authorised publications of the Social-Democratic Federation. We call then upon the workers of London and of these islands to stand side by side with us in orderly union, to the end that they may organise for themselves and for their children a sound system of national and international co-operation which shall happily replace the anarchy and misery of to-day. The work that we have taken up is no light one, but the object is noble and the reward is sure. Let the governing classes face the inevitable downfall of a decaying civilisation without hypocrisy and without panic. On them rests the responsibility of a peaceful or a forcible issue to the last great class struggle of our times. Here in the centre of capitalist domination and commercial greed we at least are resolved to continue our efforts, confident that they must lead to the final emancipation of labour and to the conquest of the future by the workers of the world. (Signed) The General Council of the Social-Democratic Federation. �The Working Man’s Programme (Arbeiter Programm). By Ferdinand Lassalle. Translated from the German by Edward Peters. Crown 8-vo., paper cover, price 6d. Social Progress and Individual Effort. Desirable Mansions Co-operative Production. By Edward Carpenter. Price id. each. The Appeal to the Young. By Prince Peter Kropotkin. Translated from the French by H. M. Hyndman and reprinted from Justice. Royal 8-vo., 16-pp. Price one penny. Tenth thousand. The most eloquent and noble appeal to the generous emotions ever pen­ ned by a scientific man. Its author is now suffering five years imprison­ ment at the hands of the French Republic for advocating the cause of the workers. Herbert Spencer on Socialism. By Frank Fairman. 16-pp. crown 8-vo., price id. The Robbery of the Poor. By w. H. P. Campbell. New Edition. Paper wrapper, price 6d. The Man with the Red Flag: Being John Burns’ Speech at the Old Bailey, when tried for Seditious Conspiracy, on April gth, 1886. (From the Verbatim Notes of the official shorthand reporter). With Portrait. Price 3d. What an Eight Hour Bill Means. By T. Mann, (Amalgamated Engineers). Price id. Socialism and Slavery. By H. M. Hyndman. (In reply to Mr. Herbert Spencer’s Article on “The Coming Slavery ”). New Edition. 16-pp., Royal'8-vo. Price id. The Modern Press, 13, Paternoster Row, E.C. And W. L. ROSENBERG, 56, East Fourth Street, New York City. � 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 &amp; 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 An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available 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 The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 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 Socialism made plain and "The Unemployed" : being two manifestoes of the Social-Democratic Federation Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Social-Democratic Federation Description An account of the resource Place of publication: London Collation: 15, [1] p. ; 19 cm. Notes: First manifesto (p. 1 to 10) titled, 'Socialism Made Plain, being the Social and Political Manifesto of the Democratic Federation'. Second manifesto (p. 11 to 15) titled, 'Manifesto of the Social-Democratic Federation. Issued after the West End Riots, Feb. 8 1886'. End of text of first manifesto dated June, 1883. Second manifesto dated, 15th February [1886]. Publisher's advertisements on page [2] and on unnumbered page at end. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Modern Press 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 T465 Subject The topic of the resource Socialism 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 (Socialism made plain and "The Unemployed" : being two manifestoes of the Social-Democratic Federation), 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> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Political Manifesto Socialism Unemployment