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Price One Penny.
THE
NATIONALISATION
OF OUR
RAILWAY SYSTEM,
ITS JUSTICE AND ADVANTAGES.
By F. KEDDELL.
(Reprinted from JUSTICE.)
LONDON:
THE MODERN PRESS, 13, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.
AND
W. L. ROSENBERG, 36, EAST FOURTH STREET, NEW YORK CITY.
�All who are interested, in
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THE MODERN PRESS, 13, Paternoster Row, London, E.C.
(The Publications of the Modern Press can be obtained from W. L.
Rosenberg, 261, East Tenth Street, New York City.)
�NATIONALISATION of oar RAILWAY SYSTEM.
ERY few of those who considered the future of railways when they
V were first introduced foresaw the important part they would play
in the economy of the nation. To the Railway Companies the Legisla
ture granted a virtual monopoly over the means of communication
between town and town, and the towns and the country. The mono
poly was fenced about with certain restrictions, some of which were in
favour of the owners of land : these have been stringently adhered to ;
others were designed to protect the interests of the community: these
have gradually lost the little vitality they ever had. The monopoly was
granted under the middle-class sophism that it would always be to the
interests of the Railway Companies to serve the community well inas
much as their profits would increase if they did their work well, and
would decrease if they did it badly. But, being companies started with
the main object of making profit, they have steadily kept that aim in
view, and have constantly neglected the interests of the community as
much as they dared. Manufacture for profit has brought us adultera
tion and shoddy; distribution for profit, of which the transport is an
important part, has brought us evils equally great.
From time to time members of the middle class have approached this
subject with a full appreciation of the evils of the present system of
railway management, aud they have invariably ended with proposing
the transfer of the railways to the State. But, being middle-class men
with all the prejudices of that class, they have also invariably advocated
a system of compensation that would render the whole business a
failure. The Irish Land Purchase Bill broke the back of the Home
Rule Bill, and compensation breaks the back of all schemes put forward
up to the present day for the Nationalisation of Railways.
Mr. Charles Waring in a recent number of the Fortnightly Review
stated with precision the evils of the present system. He is somewhat
in advance of most of those who have written on the subject as yet. He
summed up the situation fairly enough in these words: “ The facts
which confront Society are exigent. Labour is unemployed, trade is
stagnant, enterprise is suspended, and the people in large numbers are
hungry and disaffected.” All this we say, and we say something more
that Mr. Waring does not, for he gives no idea of tracing these evils
back to their source, that of production and distribution being carried
on for profit and not for use. Mr. Waring further states that “ Her
(England’s) welfare can then be maintained in spite of the increased
competition of other countries if her instruments of industry, of which
railways are the greatest of all, be made properly available.” With Mr.
Waring’s plan for making the railways properly available we will deal
�^\^:\x.ck\x^x\XVXxvvx>s-?-? ;
;v;.‘
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4
later on. With his contention that under the present system they are
not “ properly available ” we heartily agree, and we will proceed to con
sider the facts on which this conclusion is based.
In the first place we will consider the magnitude of the problem. The
Capital value, that is the nominal amount spent in building up the pre
sent network of railways, is in round figures eight hundred million
pounds.sterling. The number of miles of railway are 20,000, the pas
sengers carried per annum are nearly 700,000,000, the goods carried
(exclusive, of live stock) are 260,000,000 tons. The receipts amount to
^671,000,000, of which ^33,300,000 are paid away as dividends. The
shareholders are estimated to be 400,000, the debenture holders 100,000;
the persons employed are nearly 400,000. These figures, however, give
us no idea of the power and influence the present railway system
has over the prosperity of the country. We can only appreciate
this, though but faintly, when we consider that there is not a single
exchange of commodities in which distance is involved that is not mate
rially affected by the grasp the Railway Companies have over the means
of communication and transport. The supply of food, of building mate
rials, and of clothing, is affected by the rates that the railway may
choose to levy. The managers of our railways can build up an industry
in any town by preferential rates, they can destroy it by levying maxi
mum rates. They can, and do prejudice home industries by conveying
foreign produce at a less rate than that imposed on home produce. The
only rule that they follow is that of declaring the highest dividend they
can ; all else is subsidiary ; a home industry may be destroyed, the pros
perity of the nation may be impaired for aught they care, so long as they
can maintain their dividends. The question, however, that we have to
consider is not how to preserve the interests of a few possessed of a
monopoly, but whether or no the monopoly granted by the Legislature,
when it represented not the nation but a couple of classes, should be
continued to the great detriment of the interests of the nation.
The only valid ground for maintaining the monopoly would be the
proof that the Railway Companies have made a fair and proper use of
their great powers, and have conduced to the prosperity of the people.
But the exact contrary is the case. The Railway Companies have
abused their powers, they have used them constantly to the furtherance
of their own interests, and they have grievously mismanaged their busi
ness to the great harm of the community. As is well known the indus
tries of this country are rapidly passing from the purely individualist
into the company form, whaile the business is carried on, directed, and
managed by salaried officials. In the case of the Railways, the Company
form, by the necessities of the case, was assumed at the very outset.
Now the workers know well enough how much harder are the conditions
when working for a Company than for an individual master, but this
effect on the condition of the workers, great though it is, is only a small
part of the evils that competition and production for the profit in the
Company form inflict upon the community.
In the case of the railways, however, we have ample evidence of the
great injury done to the community generally by distribution for profit
under the Company form, which may serve as some guide in estimating
the evils of production for profit under the same phase.
We stated that the capital value of the railways is estimated at about
eight hundred millions, and the amount divided yearly amongst share
holders, &c.. at ^33,300,000. The National Debt amounts tO;f740,330,000,
and the interest paid to the holders is ^28,883,670. These two items
. A:.
�5
show the burdens placed upon the workers of the present day by the
class legislation of former years. It is generally known that of the sums
borrowed which form the National Debt an enormous amount was abso
lutely wasted, but it is not so generally known that much of what is
called the capital value of the Railways is in part wealth absolutely
wasted, in part purely fictitious.
The waste consists principally of the ridiculous compensation extorted
by landowners for the ground required by the railways. The Legisla
ture when railways were first introduced consisted almost entirely of
landlords, the whole of whose power was used to extort this unjustifiable
compensation. Joseph Locke, an authority on this matter, estimated the
excess of compensation at about ^80,000,000. This amount is appa
rently arrived at after allowing a “ fair” compensation for the land, but
does not take into account the increased value given to the remainder
of the property by the mere presence of the railway. Had the landowners
made a free gift of the land required they would still have gained largely.
Some idea of the excessive compensation for land may be gathered from
the following instances quoted by William Galt. A parcel of land was
bought by one company for ^3,000 ; a further sum of ^10,000 was
claimed and paid for consequential damages. The London and Bir
mingham Railway Bill met with so much opposition in Parliament from
the interested landowners that the requisite land was ultimately pur
chased at three times its fair value, that being the only way in which
the opposition could be bought off. When the Eastern Counties Rail
way was planned, a few miles were required of the estate of a noble
lord under one plan and of that of a right honourable gentleman under
another plan. The noble lord stipulated that he should be paid
£120,000 for his five or six miles, and although the Bill was amended,
the noble lord obtained his ^120,000 and the right honourable gentleman
^35,000. The following table taken from William Gait’s Railway
Reform shows the cost per mile for land compensation only, paid by
four companies :
L. and S. W.
... ^4,000
London and Birmingham ^6,300
Great Western ... ^6,300
London and Brighton ... ^8,000
Against these amounts may be placed the case of the Peebles and Edin
burgh line, which was constructed shortly after the era of excessive
compensation at a cost of ^1,131 per mile for land and compensation,
and at a total cost of a little more than ^6.000 per mile.
The second source of waste is found in the enormous legal expenses in
curred by the companies, partly on account of the opposition offered by the
landed interest, and partly by the quarrels between the companies to
obtain control of certain districts, In the case of the four railways
above mentioned, Galt estimates the Parliamentary expenses per
mile, viz:—
L. & S. W....................... £^5° I Great Western .......... ^1,000
London & Birmingham... ^650 | London & Brighton ... ^3,000
The whole of the Parliamentary expenses of the Peebles and Edinburgh
Railway were ^1,569, say /"So per mile.
Further: the capital accounts of all the railways in the United Kingdom is
taken to be about ^800,000,000 ; but this is the nominal amount, and does
not represent the sum actually received and spent. Some of the stocks
have been issued at a discount, and even debentures at a fixed rate of
interest have been granted for an amount larger than that paid for them.
To establish anything like an approximate statement of how much of
�6
these £800,000,000 was actually received and paid away, and how much
is purely fictitious, would require an exhaustive research into the
financial history of our railway companies since they were first estab
lished. We can, however, glean from the statements issued for the
half-year ending 31st December 1885 sufficient facts to warrant the con ■
elusion that a heavy reduction on the £800,000,000 could on this score
alone be easily made.
The London, Brighton and South Coast Railway pay dividend on
£"17,696,175 shares and stock; the accounts show that only £”17,413,500
were received. In the accounts of the Great Eastern, allowance is
made for £”1,609,054, difference between nominal amount of the ordinary
stock and its price of issue, and for £”1,542,758, for a similar difference
on the guaranteed and other stocks. Dividend is paid on £"27,833,289;
ordinary and guaranteed stocks together.
The Metropolitan Railway have issued perpetual Preference stock for
£”2,502,038, of which £”400,408 is nominal, and has never been received
by the Company. On an issue of £”1,500,000 Preference stock by the
Metropolitan District, a discount was allowed of £”548,766 ; this item
alone reduces the nominal capital of the Company (£”7,860,519) by
nearly 7 per cent.
In the account issued by the Chatham and Dover of their expenditure
of capital during the half-year ending 31st December 1885, there is an
item of £”137,296, discount on issue of arbitration Preference stock; the
amount received during that half-year for this stock was £”443,159.
The London and North Western accounts show that they have
received for stocks and shares, £"66,185,705, which rank for dividend
and as capital for £"75,539,781. The difference is startling, £”9,354,076.
Leaving out of account the difference on the Chatham and Dover
accounts, as the figures given in it do not allow of any precise statement,
we find that the capital accounts of the other five companies referred to
are 12 per cent, greater than they should be, and are £"13,737,737 in
excess of the cost of the railway. If a mere cursory glance at halfyearly statements gives this result we may reckon with confidence that
an exhaustive investigation would materially reduce the swollen nominal
capital of our railways.
There is a further heavy reduction to be made on account of the mis
management, to use a mild term, of the railway companies on the score
of having paid dividends out of capital. The greatest ingenuity is shown
by railway managers in their efforts to keep up high dividends, especial,}’
in times of crisis and depression. This national concern is run for profit
and not for use, and every nerve is strained to show the most profit,
even when the means adopted are such as to prejudice future
interests.
Under the present system, where the transport of
commodities is left to companies to exploit for their own benefit, we
can hardly be surprised if dividends are objects of greater anxiety than
the national welfare; but we have a crowning proof of the incapacity of
the middle-class to manage their business in the manner in which the
managers-of railway companies have deliberately sacrificed the future
interests of the shareholders.
The way in which dividends are provided, in ordinary times partially,
and in bad times entirely, is simplicity itself. It consists of meeting
expenses that should be paid out of the yearly income by the issue of
further shares or debentures. The accounts that the companies render
show nothing of this except to skilled investigators. The ordinary
shareholder believes that the dividend has been fairly earned, and that
�the formation of further capital can be justified by principle. But the
dividend has not been earned so long as one item of legitimate current
expense is met by the creation of further liabilities. Every share thus
issued is a mortgage on the future, and is a proof of mismanagement.
Nor do the railway officials content themselves with piling up the capital
account to meet current expenses; to give a show of prosperity they will
starve the permanent way, and will keep down necessary expenses to a
dangerously low level. Further, to keep up the appearance the officials
will encourage enterprises that have but faint expectations of proving
remunerative, and embark on an extravagant outlay of capital on lines
that are open. To such a pitch was this method of doing business car
ried that Willliam Fleming, a high authority on railway figures, calculates
that in 1878 the following dividends were paid out of capital:
77 per cent, of the Great Western dividend. 57 per cent, of the Glasgow & S W. divnd
19
ditto
Gt. Northern ditto
The whole of the Manchester, Sheffield &
Lincolnshire dividend.
90
ditto
L. & N. Western ditto. Ditto
Caledonian dividend.
Lan. and York, ditto.
49
ditto
Ditto
North British ditto.
North Eastern ditto.
22
ditto
An examination of recent accounts show the same mismanagement
The sound principle that all the costs of working, including additional
accommodation and new rolling stock on all lines open for traffic, should
be met out of the receipts is completely ignored. Even such details as
huts for fogmen (N. W.), miscellaneous expenditure (L. C. & D.), lamps
(G.E.R.), are met by fresh capital. Re-signalling, interlocking signals,
continuous breaks, the cost of which at the most should be spread over
a few years, become a perpetual charge.
The rolling stock is on some lines starved as long as possible until a
big outlay of capital becomes inevitable. During the half-year ending
31st December, 1885, the Midland spent on rolling stock £80,074, the
South-Western, £93,858, the Great Eastern, £43,766, and the Great
Northern, £95,463, whilst the North-Western expended only £11,496.
and the Great Western, £11,763. Rolling stock from an engine down
to a coal truck has a limited life, and its cost should be defrayed out of
the income of the periodofits existence. To meet such charges by increase
of capital is financial jugglery, but it is almost inevitable when dividends
are made the chief object of a railway manager’s care.
T o sum up when the capital account of the railways is put at £800,000,000,
it must always be remembered that this amount is susceptible of very heavy
reductions. To arrive at anything like the real cost of the railways
serious reductions must be made: 1, on account of excessive and ridi
culous compensation paid for land ; 2, money wasted on legal expenses ;
3, the nominal character of part of the capital; 4, the payment of divi
dends out of capital by charging working expenses to capital account.
The next point to be considered is that of the rates the Railway Com
panies charge for the services they render; they have a practical
monopoly of the transport of commodities and passengers, subject only
to a control by the Legislature which has been and is still oc
the most grandmotherly description. In the various Acts of Parlia
ment establishing the different companies there is a list of maximum
rates to be levied on some fifty to sixty articles. To remedy this
absurdly inadequate schedule the Railway Clearing House has drawn up
a list of some 4,080 articles which are divided into seven classes with a
rate for each class. But this list is drawn up by the traffic managers of
the different companies, and the public has no voice in the matter. The
list bristles with anomalies, and is acknowledged to be imperfect and
�8
jl
jr
unfair by the railway officials themselves. No effort, however, is made
by the legislature to exercise any control over this classification, and
any proposition to rectify the anomalies and to subject the whole matter
to exhaustive amendment is met by the railway interest, which is second
to none in the influence it possesses in our middle-class House of
Commons, with persistent and hitherto successful opposition. As matters
are now, the maximum rates, established by the Legislature many years
ago under very different circumstances to those that now obtain, remain
in full force. The cost of locomotion, the time occupied in transit, the
character and bulk of the goods handled have all materially changed,
but the maximum rates remain the same. The reason why the railway
companies fight against any control in this matter is that these rates
afford them the means of granting preferential rates to districts and to
individuals. The maximum rates are so much above the cost of trans
port that ample opportunities are given of favouring one town or one
manufacturer by-granting him a special rate whilst other towns and
individuals are charged full rates.
The maximum rates fixed by the legislature apply only to carriage,
and the companies are further empowered to charge “ a reasonable sum
for loading, covering and unloading of goods, and for delivery and the
collection, and any other services incidental to the business or duty of a
carrier.” This extra charge is now known by the name of “ terminals,”
and to the items enumerated is now added, owing to carelessness in
drawing an Act of Parliament, a charge for the sidings and ware
houses. The amount of the charge is only limited by the word
‘ reasonable,” and the railway companies have not been slow to
avail themselves of the almost unlimited power to charge what
they like for terminals. The control exercised by the Legislature over the
charges of the railway companies for carriage of merchandise is there
fore a perfect farce. The mere transport is regulated by an antiquated
list of maximum rates which have little or no reference to the present
day, and the terminals are left to the discretion of the officials. The
result of such a “ control ” is aptly shown by the evidence of the Goods
Manager of the South Eastern Railway before the Parliamentary Select
Committee in 1881. The total charge on hops from Sevenoaks to Lon
don is 24s. a ton, from Redhill, 27s., from Staplehurst, 36s. Allowing
5d. a mile per ton for transport (the L.B: & S.C.R. charge 2d., and the
L. &S.W., 3d. per mile) the Sevenoaks rate leaves 15s. 8d. for terminals,
that from Redhill, 18s. 3d., and that from Staplehurst, 19s. 4d. The
Goods Manager admitted that ns. 6d. a ton for terminals would “ satisfy ”
the Company. A “reasonable sum” for terminals therefore means
according to the S.E.R. official a surcharge of 4s. 2d. to 7s. iod. per
ton in addition to a rate for transport that is double the average charge
of two other companies.
Under these fossil maximum rates and these elastic terminals a system
has grown up of preference to districts, to individuals, and to foreign
produce. Part of what has been done might of course be defended with
some show of reason, but it has been done by the wrong men. Such
important questions as creating new industries, and protecting old ones
by low railway rates, should be settled by the representatives of the
Nation, and not by Directors of a Company carried on for profit. The
tendency to consider first and foremost how to declare a good dividend
must warp the judgments of the railway officials, when they fix new or
revise old rates. The same cause must lead them to take advantage of
the public whenever they can; the Committee of 1882 found that the
�9
charges for conveyance were such as the managers thought “ the traffic
would bear,” or in other words as much as could be got without reference
to the cost of performing the service.
Competition is practically
absent; there is complete monopoly at 4,500 stations out of the 6,000
in the United Kingdom, and as Mr. Findlay, L. & N.W. manager,
confesses frankly the Companies agree between competing points. Mr.
Findlay as frankly states that to certain stations they charge higher rates
than to others further off “ simply because it is within our power.”
As regards preference shown to towns or districts the course adopted
by the railway companies has been in some cases apparently very judi
cious. For instance, at Westbury there is iron ore but no coal. The
Great Western Railway, therefore, grants low rates for the import of
coal and coke, and an industry that would not otherwise exist springs
into life The iron industry of South Staffordshire could not exist
were it not for the very low rates charged on the import of iron ore.
. But these are national concerns, and should not be left to the discretion
of indirectly interested railway officials. Further, who will guarantee
that the directors will never have any direct personal interest in the pro
tection of this or the other district ? A future director of the G.W.R.
might have a strong personal interest in stifling the inconvenient com
petition of W estbury with other iron producing districts. The commer
cial morality of the middle class of the present day does not stand so
high that such things are so improbable as to be practically impossible.
The preference shown to individual traders admits of no defence. Mr.
Horrocks, who takes a very moderate and middle-class view of the evils
of our railway systems, calls the inequalities “startling.” Traders find
out that they have been handicapped for years; more favourable rates
having been granted to their rivals. The defence of the managers is
refreshing in its coolness. They see no objection to individual preferences.
“ It is in accordance with commercial principle to charge one customer
10 per cent,, another 20, another 50, and another possibly 100, for doing
the same service.”
The preference shown to foreign over home produce is a kind of “ topsy
turvy ” protection. There is no doubt about the practice. Mr. Charles
Waring is emphatic on this point. He says, “ The companies not only
charge less for foreign than for home produce over equal distances, but
they charge less for foreign produce over a long distance than for home
produce over a short distance. They also grant facilities for getting early
into the market to foreign produce which they refuse to home produce.”
We would recommend this aspect of the question to the Fair Traders.
Here are companies to which the State has delegated one of the most
important functions of modern society: that of the transport of
commodities. The powers of these companies are such that they can and
do protect, by preferential rates, home industries in some cases and foreign
industries in others. This apparent contradiction is, however, solved by
the consideration that the companies use their vast powers simply and
solely for the purpose of making profits and declaring dividends. If pro
tecting home industries will increase their dividends, then preferential
rates will be granted to them, but if protecting foreign industries at the
expense of home industries will swell their dividends, why home indus
tries may and do go to the wall.
The next point to consider is the treatment and remuneration of
the workers on the railways, who are in one respect better off than those
who are employed in the production of wealth, for as yet few, if any, rail
way companies have shut their doors and discharged their hands, neither
�IO
do we find any parallel to overproduction causing a glut on the market,
and culminating in short-time and a large addition to the number of the
unemployed. This, however, does not apply to those employed in the
construction of railways who are discharged when their work is done.
The workers on the railways are, nevertheless, as much at the mercy of
the capitalists as any other workers; their wages are low, their hours are
long, and their occupation, in many cases, is one of great risk. But the
competition in this, as in other branches of industry, is so keen that men
are easily found who are willing to work under the present onerous and
dangerous conditions. It is a fact beyond dispute that in consequence
of the railway companies refusing to take proper precautions a large
number of their workers are every year killed and injured at their work.
The Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants has, year by year,
specially called the attention of the Companies to the very dangerous
conditions under which the shunters have to work. But the Directors
have taken no step to remedy the evil; apparently the only thing they
have done has been to issue a rule that no one is to go between the car
riages or trucks whilst in motion. The utility of this measure is that in
case of a fatal accident the rule is produced at the inquest, the Company
is exonerated from blame, and the Employer’s Liability Act is shut out
of operation. The Companies thus protect themselves from any claims for
damages, although they know well that the work could not be done if the
rule were acted upon.
In the ten years ending December 31st, 1884, 1,081 shunters were
killed outright, and 9,256 injured; in rough numbers, three out of every
four of those engaged in this work were at the end of ten years killed or
injured, the injuries from the nature of the work being almost always
serious. This holocaust to capital grasping for dividends continues ;
in 1885 no less than 451 workers were killed and 2,117 injured, as will be
seen from the following tabulated statement of accidents to railway
servants.
Number
1885.
employed.
Killed. Injured.
—
6,165 station masters
7
7,407 brakesmen and goods guards 5°
435
37,840 permanent way
102
134
2
1,605 gatekeepers ...
3
149
12,874 engine drivers
23
48,070 porters and shunters
82
586
12,795 firemen
20
196
22
3,518 inspectors
4
5,902 passenger guards
63
5
19,012 pointsmen and signalmen .. 14
4i
70,405 labourers
86
48
1
2,060 ticket collectors, &c....
6
55,940 mechanics
20
23
62,833 other classes ...
87
367
346,426
45i
2,117
Notice should be taken of the proportion between the killed and
injured platelayers ; if a casualty happens to a gang of these workers and
eleven are affected by it, five will be killed outright. The accidents to
brakesmen and goods guards are also very serious ; out of every 150
employed in 1885 one was killed, and out of every 17 one was injured.
It is far safer to be a soldier than a brakesman.
�II
The wages paid to railway servants are an instructive illustration of
the way in which our capitalist society forces the proletariat to run
great risks to life and limb for a mere subsistence wage. Shunters
receive from 2s. 6d. to 5s. for a day of 10 to 12 hours; goods guards and
brakesmen 3s. to.5s. for 10 to 14 hours; and platelayers 2s. 2d. for 9 to
11 hours. The lower rates are those at which they commence, the
higher are those to which they can rise. The hours are no indication
of the length of the day’s work ; overtime is generally paid for at a higher
rate, but in some instances 144 hours per fortnight; 66 and 72 hours per
week must be worked before overtime commences. A statement was
made in the Huddersfield Examiner a short time ago that “ In a full week of
seven days there are 168 hours, and hundreds of railway servants can be
brought forward and produce a time bill of 112 hours.”
The wages of signalmen vary from 3s. to 5s. per day of 8 to 14 hours.
The difference between the length of the day is however not altogether
in favour of the shorter time. The eight hours indicate far greater
strain, and can only be undergone by men of exceptional tenacity and
hardness. The number of eight hours boxes is however small, and they
are only tp be found at points where the traffic is incessant or excep
tionally heavy.
The railway servants have a society established for the purpose of
resisting unjustifiable reductions in wages or increased hours, and for
obtaining reduced hours and fairer remuneration. It is also a benefit
society, making certain allowances to those of its members who meet
with death or injury by accident. It recently granted the sum of £500
to be offered in prizes for automatic and non-automatic safety couplings
to wagons. In this, and in the other matters, the Society is doing good
work, but at the best it is only a palliative, it does not pretend to attack
the root of the evil; it does not concern itself in any way with the social
problem. As long as the railways are private property, as long as the
workers are the proletariat, so long will the companies be able to find
workers only too anxious to work at the present low wage and under
present dangerous conditions.
In 1885 the remuneration of the workers on the railways, taking into
account the large salaries paid to managers and other high officials, the
directors’ fees, the salaries of all officials, and the wages of all the men
w’as met by the payment of about ^17,400,000. The number of officials,
commencing at station-masters downwards, is 346,426, giving an average
remuneration of under 19s. 6d. per week. The actual remuneration is,
of course, something less as the total amount paid away includes the
salaries of the high officials, clerks, book-keepers, &c., who are not
included in the Government returns of the number employed on the
railways.
The remuneration of the “ non-workers,” say the shareholders, deben
ture-holders, &c., in 1885 was ^32,768,000, being at the average rate of
4*02 per cent, per annum on the total capital, loans, &c. Say that the
workers are now at work on an average 12 hours per day, their numbers
could be doubled, that is, increased by over 350,000, their hours of work
reduced to six per day, and their average rate increased from 19s. 3d. to
28s. per week, if what is now paid away to shareholders were divided
among those who do the work.
It is merely a question of calculation how the railway men would be
affected by a gradual socialisation of the railways which would guarantee
a mimimum dividend on the average of 3 per cent, terminable within 30
years, or with the life of the present stock and shareholder. If such a
�scheme were commenced to-morrow, men who are now alive would live
to see the day when the overwork of 346,000 men would be divided
among 692,000 at fair rates of wages.
Again: the reduction of the average dividend to the same rate, 3 per
cent, of interest as Consols say, would increase the payments to the
workers by ^8,200,000 per annum, and would permit the immediate em
ployment of over 200,000 men at the present rate of wages, and in a few
years, long before the railways became the property of the nation, the
number of workers on them would be 700,000, who would receive some
thing approaching a fair wage.
The scheme for the nationalisation of our railway system put forward
by Mr. Charles Waring, is mainly based on the idea that the State shall
not work.the railways with the view of earning profit, but “ utilise this
national instrument in the way most calculated to benefit trade, and by
these means to contribute to and increase national wealth and welfare,
regardless of the remuneration of the instrument itself.” This is a very
taking way of putting forward what is thoroughly unsound. It is quite
correct that the State should not “ earn ” profit out of the railways as it
does now out of the Post Office. The remuneration of the instrument
itself, which we take to be the workers on the railways, is, however, the
most important matter, and should have the most careful regard and
attention. Mr. Waring’s contention that, under his system, “ the un
earned increment of trade will go into the pockets of the people instead
of the pockets of one class of capitalists,” shows at once that his point of
view is diametrically opposed to anything like a Socialistic solution of the
problem, and that he does not see how his plan would work. It is true
that the profits would not go into the pockets of one class of capitalists,
but they would go into the pockets of other classes of capitalists, and
would never reach the people at all. Mr. Waring’s plan is that the
smaller wolves should share between them what now goes to half-a-dozen
big wolves.
As far as regards the revenues of the Railways the receipts derived
from the Passenger traffic are not so important as those derived from
goods traffic. In 1885 the income of all railways in the United Kingdom
from passenger traffic was ^25,585,335, and that from goods traffic
^36,871,945. The return per train mile on the passenger traffic was 4s.
and on the goods traffic, 5s. iod. Passengers, however, embark and
disembark themselves, whilst goodshave to be collected and delivered,
loaded and unloaded. Further the average fare per passenger was last
year eightpence and i-8th ; taking'15 passengers as equal to one ton, the
railways received per ton of passengers 10s. 2d. as against 5s. 6d. say
per ton of merchandize.
The most noteworthy feature in the passenger traffic is the increasing
importance of the third class. In 1878 the number of 3rd class passengers
was 441,202,291, and their fares amounted to ^13,957^03, whilst in 1885,
the passengers were 603,762,117, and their fares amounted to ^17,588,730.
But the number of first and second class passengers in the same period
has fallen from 110,391,363 to 93,450,914, and the amount paid by them
for fares has decreased from ^8,064,726 to ^"6,174,081. In other words
whilst the first and second class passengers paid 36.62 per cent, of the
passenger receipts in 1878, last year they only paid 25.98 per cent.;
their quota of each 20s. received by the Companies has fallen from 7s.
4d. to 5s. 2d. in seventeen years. Considering the extra expense of
carrying first and second class passengers, and the great accommodation
placed at their disposal by the companies, it is manifest that the abolition
�of both or either of these classes will be one of the first steps to be taken
in Railway reform.
The treatment of the third classs traffic by the Companies is out of all
proportion to its importance. The middle class have at the present
day the control of the Public Press, and any shortcoming either in the
number or speed of the trains or in the conveniences and accommoda
tion afforded by the Companies and its officials is promptly enlarged
upon in the papers and as promptly attended to by the managers. The
consequence is that a large number of useless and superfluous trains are
run to suit the middle class, and the cost of running a large number of
nearly empty carriages is incurred without rhyme or reason. On the
other hand the complaints of the third class passengers seldom if ever
come before the public, and invariably meet with no redress. Anyone who
travels third class on our Metropolitan and Suburban lines can testify
to the inferior and scanty accommodation afforded by the Companies.
The passengers are themselves to blame to some extent for this state of
affairs ; they rarely object to being overcrowded, and any passenger who
protests against the presence of more passengers than can be carried
without great inconvenience is promply silenced and often abused by
those wno should protest with him. A second-claSs passenger who finds
no room in the second-class carriage promptly claims and is afforded a
seat in a first-class carriage ; the third-class passenger, however, crowds
into the third-class carriage while standing room remains, and if he com
plains at all, it is of those who obiect to his intrusion.
The immediate abolition of the second-class could be effected without
detriment to the finances of the Companies. The second-class pas
sengers in 1885, were 60,985,772, and their fares amounted to /2,931,111
giving an average of 114d ; the third-class passengers were 603,762,117,
and they paid in all ^i 7,588,730, or close on 7d a head. If all the secondclass passengers were to travel third-class there would, of course, be a
heavy loss, but the experience of the Midland Railway clearly shows
that this reform could be carried out with even an advantage to the
finance of the Companies. This reform, however, can only be considered
as a step towards the establishment of one class only. Those who insist
upon the distinctions that now obtain are mainly people who live largely
on the unpaid labour of the workers, or who are still under the yoke of
middle-class ideas of respectability.
The introduction of working men s trains at low fares shows that at an
early period local trains could be run at one and the same fare for anv
distance within the locality. This plan the London Road Car Company
has followed with success on the streets of London, and there is little
doubt that its introduction on our railways would be equally successful.
The longer journeys could then soon be treated on the same plan, but
the railway companies, who work the railways with the sole view of
earning a dividend, and who never regard the monopoly they possess
other than as a profit-earning machine are most unlikely to introduce so
sweeping a reform. But just as a letter can now be sent from London
to Inverness for one penny, so when the railways are taken over by the
community and managed in the interest of the community will a
passenger travel by train from Euston Square to the Highlands at a low
average fare.
The many complicated questions of rates for goods and passenger
traffic and the evil effects on the industries of the country caused by the
transportation of commodities being under the control and power of
joint stock companies, whose main idea is that of declaring the highest
�■
possible dividend, give rise from time to time to such great dissatisfaction
that railway commissions are appointed to examine into, and Bills are
proposedin Parliament to remedy, the evils and to solve the complicated
questions. The power of the railway companies is, however, so strong
in our present middle-class House of Commons, that both Commissions
and Bills come to naught, and the railway interest retains its old power
and control.
The consequence of this autocratic control of the companies
over the transportation of commodities was foreseen by many
prominent men of the Tory party when the present railway company
system was introduced. Sir Robert Peel declared to the railway mag
nates, “ You shall not have a permanent monopoly against the public,”
and his Government brought in and passed an Act empowering the
State to purchase the railways at the expiration of 21 years. This Act
has remained a dead letter, the principle of resuming the monopoly
is still fully recognised, but in practice the Companies have used
their monopoly as all monopolies have been used, namely for
their own benefit. Let us recite one or two cases of excessive
and of preferential rates. The principle on which the rates are framed
is simplicity itself; it consists in charging as much as the traffic will
bear, and the consequence is a set of rates defensible on no other principle
whatever. The London and North-Western charged 28s. 4d per ton on
steel wire from London to Birmingham, a distance of 113 miles, whilst
from Antwerp to Birmingham, 313 miles, they charged 16s. 8d. Another
Company charged as much for carrying goods 27 miles as for 86, and
again made no difference in the rate when the difference in distance was
116 miles. The Great Western charge id per gallon on milk for 10
miles, and the same rate for ten times the distance. Cattle are carried
from Norfolk to London at 10s. a head, whilst from the Midland
counties to London, a longer distance, the charge is 5s.
Foreign cattle
are carried on one line at 4s. less per head than English. Foreign
produce constantly obtains an undue preference. American meat and
cornare carried at lower rates than English meat and corn for
a shorter distance.
Large quantities of foreign produce are
charged less than home produce over equal distances, and are even
carried longer distances at less than home products over short journeys.
What is the remedy for this state of affairs ? Another Commission ?
All that a Commission can do is to make clear what previous Commis
sions have sufficiently demonstrated, namely, constant unfair preference
and a radically unsound treatment of the great question of the transport
of commodities by those who hold the monopoly, which Sir Robert Peel
declared should not be permanent. And what about a Railway Rates
Bill ? Anyone who followed the treatment by the railway magnates of
the very mild measure brought in by Mr. Gladstone’s Government in the
Spring of 1886 will at once see that any solution by the middle-class of
this important problem may hit a blot or two, remedy one or two evils,
but will never change the present system of monopoly carried on for the
profit and advantage of shareholders. Even supposing that a minister were
thorough enough to propose, and a House of Commons honest enough
to carry such a measure as Mr. Waring proposes, how much better off
would the workers be ? The railway question, as weil as all other
economic questions of the day, can only be solved by bearing steadily
in mind the effect that any proposed solution would have on the condi
tion of the workers.
Mr. Charles Waring is against the State carrying on the railways with
�II
a view of earning profit. He urges that they should be managed so as
to conduce to the “ largest development of trade, and to the “ growth of
commerce ; ” to help forward the establishment of innumerable centres of
industry,” and to “ increase the national wealth and welfare.” All these
are the fine phrases of the capitalist school. There is no reference to the
position of the worker, save such indirect and transient improvement of his
lot as may happen through greater development of trade and commerce.
His proposals might result in the improved position of the British trader,
but would leave untouched the relations between the Capitalist and the
Proletariat. In the domain of production of commodities every invention,
every discovery, every improvement in machinery, benefits the landlord
and the capitalist, and so in the domain of distribution, every improve
ment, every step towards perfection in working, also benefits the landlord
and the capitalist, but leaves the proletariat still the proletariat; the wage
slave of to-day is no less a wage-slave because the means of communica
tion and distribution are being improved day by day; in fact, the
tendency is in the other direction, the accumulation of unpaid labour is
accelerated by every improvement of which we boast so much to-day.
What, then, is the solution of the railway question that can alone be
deemed adequate, that will be able to solve at one and the same time the
two problems, how to manage the transport of commodities so that the
workers on the railways shall receive the full produce of their labour, and
yet at the same time help forward the production of wealth ?
If an energetic minority of the workers of Great Britain were thorough
Socialists the resumption of the monopoly granted to the railway com
panies could be effected in a single day and that without any compensa
tion whatever to shareholders, debenture holders, &c., except such as
they would have in enjoying the advantages of the organised system of
production and distribution which would replace the commercial anarchy
of to-day. Such a sudden change is, however, only possible at a climax
of an overwhelming popular movement. The French Revolution effected
a greater change when the land passed from the nobles to the people,
and the Stein land law brought about a “ Revolution ” in landholding
of equal magnitude in Prussia. This resumption of accumulated “ un
paid labour ” which has built up our railways without compensation is,
of course, the aim of every Socialist, and any deviation from this prin
ciple can only be justified on grounds of immediate expediency. A
moderate compensation might be advisable as solving the problem
sooner than a rigid adherence to the principle of recovering in full the
property of individuals who have no moral claim to it.
If the railways were taken over at once and without compensation,
the number of the workers could be doubled, their hours of work reduced
to six per day, and their average wages increased from 19s. 3d. per
week to 28s. At least 350,000 of the unemployed would be in work at a
decent rate of wages. If, however, full compensation were paid to the
shareholders, &c., not a single man could be added to the workers on
the railways, the wages could not be increased nor the hours of work
reduced. On the other hand, if the very liberal terms were arranged of
an annuity at 3 per cent, per annum for the next thirty years, the number of
workers at the present rate of wages could be increased by 200,000, and
the hours of work reduced to eight per day. What particular settlement
will be arrived at on this point will, however, depend entirely upon the
attitude of the workers ; the spread of Socialism amongst the prole
tariat and their steady combination will most materially affect the solu
tion. The average percentage paid away in dividends and interest
�i6
was 4.19 in i860, it is now 4.02 ; the variation has therefore been small,
but the average return on other investments has considerably fallen
during the same period, for instance, the value of money during the
same period has fallen from 5 per cent, per annum to 3 percent. The steadj^
return on the nominal capital of railways is of course the result of monopoly,
and the abolition of monopoly cannot be expected to carry with it compen
sation at the monopoly rate of return. Neither can the market value of
the shares be taken into account, for that also rests mainly on the return
per annum which is the result of the monopoly.
In any case, whether the railways are resumed by the community after
a long peaceful agitation, or at the climax of a short sharp struggle, the
first step towards reorganisation would be the concentration of all the
Boards that now direct our numerous railway companies. The practical
men, those who are conversant with the working of the traffic, would be
retained, whilst the guinea-pigs, the men of title, and the dummies who
say ditto to the leading spirit that virtually dictates the policy of the
company, would be retired. The practical men would then form a central
executive, and through local executives would carry out the organisation
of the railway service of Great Britain. But this central executive would
be subordinate to a Board which would direct which particular steps
should be taken first. On this Board it is not likely that there would be
a single man now in the service of any railway company. Apart from
the men who do the work on the railways to-day from the porters up to
those officials who actually manage the traffic, there is perhaps not a man
who is not so imbued with the present system of working for dividends
as to be virtually incapable of taking any new views. The direction of
the reorganisation would, therefore, of necessity be entrusted to some few*
thoroughly capable men, who, though they would have much to learn,
would have little to unlearn. In all probability the only apparent change
at first -would be the increase in the number of rhe workers, the
increase in their wages, and the reduction in their hours. It is not to be
doubted that this part of the programme could be carried into effect in a
few weeks. The other and no less important questions, the revision of the
rates on goods, traffic, and the systematisation of short and long distance
passenger fares, the proper use and extension of our canals, now burked
by the railway directors, the establishment of country tramways as
feeders to our trunk lines, would take more time, but all these reforms
would be carried out in a tithe of the time that it has taken the Com
panies to adopt and use a fairly efficient break, or to move one step
towards diminishing the annual slaughter of the shunters.
The main point, however, to be borne in mind is the inadmissibility of
any compromise whatever in the formation of the future directorate, or
in the principles of the reorganisation it is to carry out. In railways, as
in all other processes of production and distribution at present, the dead
instrument, capital, is that which now lives and grows whilst the workers
are changed to mere instruments, the reward of their labours is a sub
sistence wage, just sufficient to ensure the reproduction of the instrument
for the future. The due of the worker is, however, a share of all pro
ducts of labour in proportion to the work that he has done, and one
great step towards the realisation of this aim will have been taken when
the workers on the railways receive the full produce of their work.
�
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The nationalisation of our railway system, its justice and advantages
Description
An account of the resource
Keddell writes of his opposition to the monopolisation of communication, transport and profit by railway companies and the dangerous working conditions experienced by their employees.
Place of publication: London; New York City
Collation: 16 p. ; 23 cm.
Notes: Publisher's list on unnumbered page at end. Reprinted from 'Justice'.
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Keddell, F
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[n.d.]
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The Modern Press; W.L. Rosenberg
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Socialism
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Nationalisation
Railways
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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.
Gronlund, of Philadelphia.
paper, price is.
an
By Laurence
Demy 8-vo., cheaper edition,
“ 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.”—New
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.
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.
Reprinted with additions from Justice.
price id. Fifteenth thousand.
Socialism and the Worker.
Sorge.
Price id.
Royal 8-vo.,
By F. A.
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
�
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Victorian Blogging
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Mining rents and royalties
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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.
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The Modern Press
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[1885?]
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T401
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Working conditions
Socialism
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English
Mining
Royalties
Social conditions
Socialism
Working Classes
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Text
PRICE ONE PENNY.
JL F L H .A
FOR
S O CIA LISM:
BY
J . L. MAHON.
Delivered in
the course
AMONGST
THE
of a
MINERS
Socialist Campaign
ON
STRIKE
IN
Northumberland, 1877.
“ AS LONG AS OUB CIVILIZATION IS BASED UPON PROPERTY OUR BICHES
WILL LEAVE US SICK, THEBE WILL BE BITTERNESS IN OUB LAUGHTER AND
OUB WINE WILL BURN IN OUB MOUTH.
ONLY THAT GOOD PROFITS WHICH
WE CAN TASTE WITH ALL DOORS OPEN AND WHICH SERVES ALL MEN.”—
Emerson
Published at the “ Commonweal” Office :
13, Farringdon Road, London, E.C
J. Beall, Printer, Stationer, &c., St. Andrew’s Street.
1887.
�“ I ask you to think with me that the worst which can
happen to us is to endure tamely the evils which we see, that
no trouble or turmoil is so bad as that; that the necessary
destruction which reconstruction bears with it must be taken
calmly ; that everywhere—in State, in Church, in the house
hold—we must be resolute to endure no tyranny, accept no
lie, quail before no fear, although they may come before us
disguised as piety, duty, or affection, as useful opportunity and
good nature, as prudence or kindness.”—William Morris.
“ The ivorld in a commercial society belongs to the
capitalists, the share of oiunership which each man pos
sesses being his capital.
In order that wealth may be
produced .... toorkmen and horses must till the
land; the sun must shine and the rain must fall upon the
field, when the seed will sprout and grow; bees must per
form the operation necessary to the fertilization of the
flower, when the fruit will form and swell; birds must
join in the work by destroying the noxious insects which
would otherwise destroy the harvest; and so on. When all
is done some of the agents claim a share of the product;
the men and cattle must be fed; the birds make good their
right to share the wealth which their labour, as much as
that of the men and horses, has produced; and even the
earth demands a part as seed for the next crop. After
all the deductions are made, which the harshness of nature
renders necessary, the balance belongs to the capitalist.
To him it is a matter of indifference what natural agents
are instrumental in the production of his wealth, and the
labour of men does not, in his estimation, differ generically
from that of birds or horses, and is more important only
because the men are the phenomena over xohich he has most
control........................... He groups together all the agents
(including the workmen) that have co-operated in the pro
duction of his wealth as elements of the efficiency of his
capital, and measures the result of all their energies by the
rate of profit he obtains.’'—Communal and Commercial
Economy.—JOHN CARRUTHERS.
�A PLEA FOR SOCIALISM
Fellow- Workmen,
I am sure that an appeal to you for a fair hearing is
unnecessary. Socialism no longer meets with the jeers and
abuse that assailed it, from workmen as well as others, only
a few years ago. Discontent is just now so deep and general
amongst the working-class, and the exponents of Socialism
have worked so hard and enthusiastically in their cause that
a respectful and sympathetic hearing is given them by people
of all kinds all over the country. But, having cast off your
prejudice see also that you put away all misunderstandings.
Socialists are often accused of holding opinions which they
are constantly preaching against, of wishing to bring about
things which they are even now trying to abolish. It is said
they wish to make an equal division of all wealth, bring all
men to one dull level, put every man’s affairs at the mercy of
State officials, make the sober support the drunken and the
industrious work for the thriftless, stamp out individuality,
abolish all incentive to invention, and to bring about these
things by hanging every man with a decent coat on his back.
Everything that malignity, jealousy, and sheer stupidity
could string together has been said against the Socialists.
Well, we don’t grumble. We know the way all great reform
ers since the time of Christ have been received ; kicks and
cuffs, and good chances of crucifiction or hanging in the end.
But we take it all as a compliment to the goodness and
usefulness of our principles.
Ike need for Socialism. The chief cause of the great spread
of Socialism of late is the dissatisfaction felt by all classes
with things as they are and the evident uselessness of all other
proposed remedies. England yearly grows richer, yet her
working-men and women are practically as bad off as ever
''
�A Plea
for
Socialism.
they were. Our power of making goods gets greater every
year, but we have not yet found a way of supplying the wants
of those who make them. Food, clothes, houses and all the
needs of life and happiness are here at our hand in abundance,
at our hand also is the means of making ten times more than
we have, and yet the workers who make these things are living
in wretchedness, squalor, and semi-starvation. Many boast
of the power, fame, and grandeur of the British Empire, but
few notice that in the lowest depths of social life, in the shims
and the back streets, is an ever growing mass of people with
out hope in life, for life to them means a fierce scramble ever
getting fiercer; a miserable subsistence ever getting more
miserable. These people have no respect for Society, for
Society has no respect for them. “ Law and order’' is to them
only a fancy name for the power that keeps them in the mire.
They hate the law and they hate society, and their hatred is
just. They are too many to be ignored, too strong to be
despised, too much wronged to bear good will to those in
power. Their ranks are recruited from the working-class
every year : and some prolonged depression of trade may see
them powerful enough to put Law at defiance ; as indeed they
were during the early months of 1886. Civilization ! Pro
gress ! National Greatness !—mockery and humbug while
those who make the wealth are ever in want and in fear of
want, and those who neither toil nor spin live in luxury.
People feel the evil of all this and they see nothing in the
ordinary proposals to undo it. The Socialists have, as is
generally admitted, brought forward the most consistent and
satisfactory criticism of the present system of society, and
from the same line of thought the real remedy must likewise
come.
Toryism, Liberalism, and Radicalism. Out of all our party
fighting we don’t seem to get much benefit. The working
class are gradually losing faith in the political parties of all
shades. Toryism is a dead horse—not even worth a kiok.
Tliberalism has always meant, and Liberals have always worked
for, the interests of trade and commerce, under the idea, no
doubt, that the welfare of the people could best be served in
that way. But every day makes it plainer that the whole
object of modern commerce is to enslave and cheat the
people. That trade is carried on solely for the profit of the
�Political Parties.
5
capitalists, whose chief aim is to increase profits by decreasing
wages. The Liberals have posed as the friends of the people
on questions of merely political importance. But on any
question affecting the “ rights” of property—such as the
factory acts, or adulteration acts—-some of the best Liberals
were the workmen’s worst enemies. It is now plain to most
workmen that there is nothing to choose between Liberals and
Tories, but that the bitter opposition of both may be expected.
Then what of the Radical party ? But where is it I Wander
ing about after a dozen leaders, chasing fifty fads, but having
no policy to give to the people which will excite their
enthusiasm or better their condition. A more hazy, indefinite,
muddled-up party never existed than the latter day Radicals.
Their chief function has been to blacken the boots of the
Whigs, and except that now and then we hear a little murmur
ing, their function has been well fulfilled. The days of
popularity for the Liberal party are now over. They are on
the high road to perdition ; in going there they will kick the
Tories in front of them, and drag most of the Radicals, as
usual, at their coat tails.
The Socialists spend a good
deal of energy in trying to win over the Radical workmen,
and this energy is well spent. In the Liberal agitations hither
to the Whig Dukes and cotton Lords have given the money
while the Radical workmen have furnished the enthusiasm.
The Socialist cause will gain by detaching these enthusiasts
from the false friends of the people and using their powers
for a better purpose. The reason why I attack Liberalism
and Radicalism more than Toryism is because many people
believe in them, while no one believes in Toryism at all.
The official Tories believe least of all in their own principles,
for when in office they masquerade in Liberal garments—
which shows at once their duplicity and their depraved taste.
In my opinion both political parties are humbugs, and the
only difference between the Liberals and the Tories is that
the Liberals are the most ingenious humbugs of the two.
Labour Representation. Great things were expected if we
got workmen into Parliament but very little has been realized.
There are plenty of rich men in the House of Commons who
are far more outspoken and independent than the Labour
members. We, as workmen, ought to be thoroughly ashamed
of the way we are represented. A few limpid lisping weak-
�6
A Plea
for
Socialism.
lings, who always truckle to the party chiefs, who never yet
distinguished themselves by standing out sturdily for the
interests of labour—who indeed have either forgotten or never
knew what the interests of labour mean. A poor spiritless
lot are they ! The best of them seem to have mistaken their
business. They are grubbing away at “ Employers’ Liability
Acts” as if legislation of that kind would by itself achieve
much for the workers. In the Parliament of 1886 we had
twelve Labour M.P.’s
Our twelve apostles ! At that time
the unemployed were rioting, so keen and widespread was
their distress, all over the country. But our apostles did not
like to disturb the arrangements of the Liberal Government.
Labour was in bad straits : but, for a whole session its
apostles sat sucking their thumbs and said never a word. In
Northumberland during the strike, which began in February,
1887, the suffering and distress was very keen. The men
were trying to resist an attempt to reduce wages which were
already at starvation point. Surely the Labour M.P.’s might
have used their position as members of Parliament to draw
attention to the state of their constituents : had Northumber
land been a county in Ireland, the House of Commons would
have been ringing with the tale of the miners’ wrongs. No
better illustration of the miserable incompetency of the
labour M.P.’s could be brought forward. Had they possessed
the least spark of vigour and sturdiness, the country would
not have been in darkness as to the condition of their con
stituents.
•
■
'
If Labourers are to be sent to
Parliament why make them middle-class men by paying them
from T6 to £10 per week ? A workman in Parliament ought
to get the wages of a London artisan and be enabled to live
in the same standard of comfort. He should go there to work
and not be ashamed of the object of his mission. Instead of
that his first move is to ape the costume and manners of the
cultured drones amongst whom he sits. The whole spirit and
object of mere “Labour representation” is mistaken. The no
tion that having “ labourers” in Parliament will do much good
is a very silly and artificial one. Working-men are no better
than other men, and middle-class men are no worse. It is
some definate principle or ideal that must be taken up by the
working-class before it can achieve anything. The Labour
Representation movement has nothing definate in it. It
�The root
of the difficulty.
7
simply wants to get workmen into Parliament—not to do any
thing in particular, just to loaf about, and look dignified, and
turn lick-spittles to the Liberal party when occasion demands.
This vague, hazy, scatter-brained policy will never do any
service or any credit to the working-class. Representatives
of this kind will be only half supported by workmen and de
spised by upper class politicians. Let us resolve on a definate purpose and push that forward. Use Parliament as a
platform if you will, but educate the people tp a clear under
standing of what your aim and their aim should be. When
you have cleared away some of the ignorance of the people—
and that is the real obstacle to their progress—then a strong
fighting party can be organized and there will be every chance
of winning : at present with no particular object and no en
deavour to find one, with nothing but a muddled-up notion of
doing something, sometime, somehow; failure and ignominy
are certain.
The root of the difficulty. Now, in my opinion the error
of the various political parties I have referred to is that they
skim over the surface of these great problems. They are
afraid or unable to go to the root of the matter and point
out the cause of poverty. It is a paltry superficial kind of
reasoning which tells us that the industrious are well-to-do,
and the idle and thriftless poverty-stricken. I have no wish
to gloss over the failings of working people, or to excuse their
sins on the plea that the rich sin also and more heavily. But
I think there is something mean and hypocritical about those
who continually denounce the faults of the poor while they
leave the rich man’s crimes unassailed. Let us denounce
intemperance, idleness, thriftlessness wherever we may find
*
it; but let us be unsparingly impartial: let neither fame nor
rank save the wrong-doer from the reprobation of his fellows.
The faults of the rich do not excuse the faults of the poor,
but they are often the cause of them. It is luxury that makes
penury necessary. It is waste on one hand that entails
scrimping and starving on the other. It is the legalised lazi
ness amongst the rich that sets the example of loafing and
* It is strange to see how this term, thrift, is misused. Thrift means
making the best use of what you have. It does not mean selfish grabbing of
all you can get, nor a crazy hoarding of things you can never use. Still less
does it mean (as some sentimental moralists would have us believe) cowardly
contentment with less than you are entitled to.
�8
A Plea
for
Socialism.
flunkeyism to the poor. It is because the rich man shirks his
share of the world’s work that the poor man is overworked.
And what is the cause of nine-tenths of the vice and callous
ness of the working-men ? The long, dreary, and depressing
toil they have to endure when in employment; the feverish
anxiety about to-morrow’s food, and the future of their child
ren when in the ranks of the unemployed. To most workmen
life is an uninteresting past, a joyless present, and a hopeless
future. The root of the great social question is that modern
society treats the workmen as machines and the capitalists as
lords of civilization. In a civilized society the capitalist
is master of the land and minerals which no man made ;
of the machinery which includes within it the toil and
skill of countless generations; of the vast stores of wealth
which all (except the capitalists) have helped to accumu
late ; in short all the resources of civilization—which,
without exception, are the produce of work—belong to
one class. The only thing the capitalist, as such, does
is to keep a firm grip of these things and never spend
five shillings without a reasonable certainty of getting
ten, fifteen, or twenty in return. Civilization is a huge
arrangement for heaping up profit, and whatsoever will not
bring profit to the holder of capital is prohibited by the laws
of trade and commerce ; it is stigmatized as a thing that
“won’t pay” (no matter how much good it may do) and
banished from the business of life, and the world is thought
lucky if some philanthropist or faddiBt take it up instead.
Are we Slaves ? The pet delusion of the British working
man is that he is free. How he came by this delusion, and
why he sticks to it, I don’t know. It is interesting to notice
that the British workman’s “patriotism” and fondness for
proclaiming his independence varies with the rate of his
wages and the security of his employment. At £2 per week
he is sure that he is not a slave, and “never, never” will
be ; at £1 he is doubtful about the reality of his freedom ; at
12s. he curses the British Empire and says, wisely, though
not elegantly, that his freedom is a fraud. Now, what is a
slave ? One who is compelled to work for somebody
else.
In this, the real sense, the working-class of every
civilised country are slaves. They work and all the result
goes to the capitalist and upper class ; they get back a few
�The old slavery
and the new.
9
shillings to keep them alive, for that is all their wages
amount to. They are forced to work for the upper class,
while the upper class does nothing for them, and therefore
they are slaves. If the miner produces coal for the money
lord, and the money-lord does nothing for the miner, then
surely the miner is a slave. Every man who lives without
doing useful work is enslaving some other people. It is
work that keeps society going. Every man who eats bread,
lives in a house, or burns coal is using the fruits of labour.
Unless he renders some useful service to the baker, the
builder, or the miner he is stealing from them and making
them his slaves. A civilised society includes two main
classes:—Workers and idlers, producers and thieves, slaves
and slave-owners. The workers do everything for themselves,
and support the other class besides. The upper class do
nothing for themselves, and nothing for any-body else, so they
are thieves and slave drivers. Not that they are individually
conscious of stealing or oppressing, or should be individually
punished for it. But the harm done is the same whether
they are conscious or not. Besides, every sensible man
ought to think of where his dinner comes from, and to reflect
that somebody must have earned it; and that if he did not
earn it he must have stolen it.
The old slavery and the new. It is true that one man
cannot call another his property as he would a horse or a
dog, but does this make any essential difference ? The
reason why men were once owned like cattle was simply
that their labour might be used for their master’s benefit.
Well, if their labour is still taken from them, even without
the institution of private property in human flesh and blood,
the result is the same. The capitalist does not to-day own
the workman, but he owns the means by which only the
workman can live ; and he says to him, “ You cannot labour
without using the land and the capital; these things are
under my control, and I shall only allow you to use them on
condition that you take a bare living out of the produce of
your own labour, and that you hand over to me all the
balance over and above that.” The capitalist manages to
■enforce these terms. Nine-tenths of the modern workmen
are mere slaves, getting enough each pay-day to keep them
in bread till the next. In one respect they are worse off
�10
A Plea
for
Socialism.
than the olden slaves. When the employer has no further
need for their services, he turns them adrift in the streets
to find a crust as best they can; in olden times the slave
owner, out of self-interest, always took care to feed and
clothe his human property. In spite of all our boasting
of freedom the position of the civilised workman may be
summed up thus : He is allowed to earn his own living
only when his labour will also yield a profit to supply the
middle and upper classes with a living for nothing ; he gets
only a small part of what he earns ; he is dependent upon
others for the chance of working at all; and when he cannot
be made an instrument of profit-grinding he is cast amongst
the unemployed, and from thence too often he drifts to the
gaol, the workhouse, or the lunatic asylum.
The Slave Market and the Labour Market.
A closer
examination of the old and the new slavery will show still
stronger points of resemblance. In olden times there was a
slave market, to which men were driven in gangs, goaded on
by the lash of the slave driver. When they got there, they
were sold at auction, like cattle, to the highest bidder. Now
there is a labour market, at which human labour is bought
and sold like other goods. The people have no alternative
but to go and sell their labour, and they go obediently and
docilely, and as long as the system lasts they must do so.
Brute force is discarded, but the force of circumstances work
to the capitalists’ interests instead. The slave driver’s whip
is only to be found in the museum, but the whip of hunger
does the same work, and it bites as cruelly. But what is the
difference when they get to the market ? In olden times
they were put up to auction and knocked down to the highest
bidder ; now they are compelled to compete against each
other and are knocked down to the lowest bidder. From
this competition for employment a strange and horrid light
is thrown on the working of the capitalist system. The
master takes advantage of the men’s misfortunes, and uses
the unemployed to force down the wages of those in work.
In short, slavery is still the basis of our social organisation.
Our chains ud to be ugly black iron ; we saw them and
e
*
abhorred them. Now they are finely polished and painted,
and we think them ornaments and hug them ; but they are
as strong as ever, and when the times of distress come we
�Conquer
the cupboard.
11
feel them gnawing and chafing us. We cannot be free
while able, useful, and willing workmen starve in a land
made wealthy by their own labour. Our freedom is an
elaborate and ingenious hypocrisy while thousands are
denied the chance to earn their bread in their own country;
and while the whole working-class is only allowed to labour
on condition that it will hand over the largest part of the
result to the idle, useless, and vicious upper class.
Conquer the Cupboard. The powei’ lies in the hands of
the moneyed class, because they have the land and the
capital completely in their control. The workers dare not
till the soil of their own country, although thousands of acres
of it are lying waste, unless they can produce a heavy rent
for the landlord as well as a living for themselves. The
factories also are closed and the machinery stopped in many
districts. Here comes the narrow selfishness of the present
system. The men who own the land and capital do not wish
to use it themselves, and indeed could not. They simply
have the power to prevent others from using these things,
and they use that power to extort enormous profits from the
workers. Let us compare society to an ordinary household.
Imagine a family in which the father and several sons were
the bread-winners, and the mother and several daughters
housekeepers. Suppose they have a cupboard in which the
food and other means of life are stored. This cupboard
should be under the care of the housewife. But let us
imagine that a stranger, who has done nothing to help in the
work of the household, forces his way in, fixes a patent
lock to the cupboard, and says to the household, “ In future
this part of the house shall be under my charge. I shall
always be ready to open it when you have anything to
put in, but when you want any supplies I shall dole out
just as much as I think is good for you. While you are
filling the cupboard you shall get enough to keep you, and
enable you to go on working, but no more. When the cup
board is full you must stop working, and eating too, and you
will be known as ‘ tramps ’ and the ‘ unemployed.’ ” Now,
this family might fancy itself free ; it might meet in the
back-parlour and sing paeans in praise of the grand system it
lived under; it might also pass Bills and give each of its
members a vote, or a dozen votes ; but as long as the
�12
A Plea
fok
Socialism.
stranger held the key of that cupboard he would be master
of the situation, and the inmates one and all would be mere
slaves of his. This is a fair simile of what England and
every other civilised land is to-day. The workmen are filling
the cupboard of the country, but the key is held by men who
do none of the labour. While filling it they get a subsistence
wage—seldom more—and when it is filled to overflowing
there is a glut (a trade depression), and the men who filled
the cupboard must go hungry and homeless because it is too
full. Yes, this is why we starve in the midst of abundance,
and the first duty of the working-class is to make good its
claim to the fruits of its labour : it must conquer the cup
board.
The Socialist proposal is to take the land and capital
from the private individuals who now unrighteously own
them, and put them under the control of the community,
and use them for the benefit of the workers. Capital must
be the handmaid of labour, not its master. The resources
of civilization must be used to benefit the people, not to
grind profit out of them, as now. The aim of society must
be to so dispose of the labour and resources of the com
munity as to secure a fair living to all who labour for it.
Socialism is based on the principle that as all society is
maintained by labour, all should do a fair share of it. The
bread we eat, the houses we live in, and the coals we burn
are all produced by labour. If we use these things, we
ought to produce them, or do some useful service to those
who do. If we use these things, and live in idleness, we
are stealing them. All we eat and drink and wear is made
by labour, and if we eat without labouring we are stealing
from some one else who has laboured. We should all do
our fair share of the world’s work ! No man is too good
to toil for his living; no man is so bad that he should be
cheated out of his living when he has toiled for it.
The Defence of Property.
Whenever this doctrine of
Socialism is stated a certain class of people cry out “ Confis
cation !” “ You want to take men’s savings from them !”
“You want the drunken and thrtftless kept at the expense of
the industrious and careful I” All these parrot cries totally
ignore the fact that to-day the thriftless are living on the
�Property
and
Co-operation.
18
industrious, and that the whole string of evils they charge us
with trying to bring about are here already, and we are
trying to abolish them. When we attack the capitalists our
opponents never defend the proper culprit: they bring up
the workman with £100 saved, and try to turn prejudice
against us by alledging that this would be confiscated. But
the difference between a large capitalist and a workman with
a savings bank account is very great and quite clear. The
workman has earned his small capital; the other has not.
Of course the taking of interest is wrong, no matter to what
extent it may be carried. It must, also, be borne in mind
that in dispossessing the landlord and capitalist we are not
taking from them anything that they wish to use. We simply
deprive them of the power of making others work for them.
It is curious to notice how strong the blind greed for property
is in the minds of those who have only a little. It is not the
Baring or the Rothschild who is most bitter against Socialism.
The kind of man who is fiercest in defence of the rights of
property is the small shopkeeper who, perhaps, is £100 in
debt. The silly scramble of modern days has frightfully
narrowed mens’ notions of the real aim and pleasures of life.
If the rich were to-morrow deprived of all the property they
wrongfully hold, and set to work under decent circumstances
for their living, it would be the best thing that ever happened
to them. The true nobility a man can attain is by making
himself useful to his fellows, and this distinction would be
placed within reach of everybody by Socialism.
The Co-operative Movement. 'The easiest line of thought
towards Socialism is by considering what the Co-operative
movement has done. Had anyone suggested thirty years
ago that this movement would accomplish the revolution that
it has in such a space of time, and by such humble agents,
he would have been laughed at as a fool, or jeered at as an
Utopian—just as Socialists are laughed and jeered at now.
But by steady patient work a great change has been brought
about, the petty shopkeeping class has been greatly lessened,
an enormous amount of labour saved, and the process of
distribution greatly simplified. But still the biggest part of
the work has been left untouched. Distributive co-operation
shows the workman the best and wisest way to spend his
wages—once he has got them. Important as this is, the
�14
A Plea
for
Socialism.
question of how to get a just wage, or any wage at all, is still
more important ; but co-operation at present cannot touch
this question. Here Socialism steps in to finish what Co
operation began. Indeed Socialism is but the full and
genuine development of co-operation. We have introdoced
Co-operation to the shop and the store ; now we must extend
it to the mine, the factory, and the farm.
Is it practicable ? Great difficulties lie in the way of
Socialism, and much hard earnest work will be needed to
bring it about. These difficulties are not due to Socialism
being very Utopian, or very incomprehensible. Socialism is
merely the application of common sense and justice to social
order, but justice and common sense are strange and un
known in these days, when veiled fraud and oppression reign
supreme. Socialism would be simpler and easier to work, so
far as the mere industrial arrangements are concerned, than
the present system. Indeed we should try to make
society as simple in its mechanism and our own lives as
unpretentious as may be. The greatest curse of the present
system is its unnecessary complexity of organisation, and the
conflicting interests which Economists pretend are in har
mony. The first step towards Socialism is to make
Socialists ; to get together a great organisation of all who
accept the principle. Different schools of Socialists may
suggest different ways of realising the new society, but
their differing in that respect is a hopeful sign, as it
shows diversity and even some originality of thought. All
Socialists agree that the principles of competition and
monopoly now holding sway should be done away with, and
superseded by a general and thorough-going co-operation.
In fact we want a nation in which there are neither
masters nor servants, but where all are fellow-workers. A
solid combination of the Socialist movement could bring
a tremendous power to bear on the politics of this country.
That power should be used, not so much in bringing to pass
petty measures, as in forcing the hand of the upper class.
The futility of compromise. There is a class of wellintentioned reformers who are puzzling themselves to find
a way of benefiting the poor without interfering with the
rich. It is self-evident that this is a fruitless endeavour.
�The
future of
Socialism.
15
The robbery of the poor by the rich is the first aim of
capitalist production.It may be wrong
for the poor to
rob the rich ; it maynearly be as wrong for the rich to
rob each other; but for the rich to rob the poor is the
most abominable of all systems. There can be no peace
between the two classes. The poor must cast off the
leeches which are draining the life’s blood from them.
The rich are really parasites on the workers. The dis
tinctions of class must be abolished, for they only mean
the right of the rich to rob and the duty of the poor to
submit. But, although no peace can be between them, a
peaceable settlement might be effected. The rich should
be told by the toilers, “ Now, you have lived a long time
at our expense, and we find that it is bad for both of
us—it wearies you with elegant and enforced idleness, and
it burdens us with overwork. We don’t want to hurt you
for your past misdeeds, because for the most part you
were unconscious of the evil you were doing, but you
must do different in future. Those of you who are
entirely useless, and most of you are, so we fear, we will
keep in moderate comfort. We will give work to those
of you who are able and willing to do it (and that is
more than you gave us') ; a training to those who are
willing and not able ; and the gaol or the lunatic asylum
to those who are able and not willing.” These are the
only terms on which this antagonism can be settled. It
is nearly 2,000 years since St. Paul said, “ He that will
not work, neither shall he eatand surely it is time we
put the principle into operation.
The future of the Socialist party. Everything points to the
rapid growth of the Socialist party in this country. It lays
definite principles before the people, and though these, as
they require some independent thought and enthusiasm, may
take some time to win acceptance, they make a deep and
lasting impression where they do take hold. As time goes on
and the difficulty and hardships which the present system im
poses on the workers are more keenly felt, they will find out
how shallow and ineffective is the hand-to-mouth policy of the
ordinary politician. Times are coming when plain honest
words and upright action will be needed to save the country
from the horrors of a revolt of miserable and desperate people.
�16
A Plea
for
Socialism.
That revolution will come upon us, there can be no doubt.
Its shadow is already cast over us. Socialists do not wish to
make or to carrse a revolution: they only wish to point out
that revolution, bred of the misery and inherent injustice of
the present system, is inevitable. If the people are left un
organised and ignorant, revolution may well seem a terror to
all men. But we look to the coming change. We are pre
paring to. meet it with a combined and intelligent people, a
people wise enough to know their rights, strong enough to
enforce them, and disciplined enough to guard them. We
are carrying a message of hope to the poor, of comfort to the
outcast, of joy to the desolate. We bid them lay aside
despair, to take courage, and gather strength, for the time is
at hand when, with enlightenment and determination, they
may end for ever the folly, and crime, and misery in which
their lives are now spent, and realise a noble, fraternal, social
life, with labour, leisure, and liberty for all; a life in which
we shall have
“ Man without a master, and earth without a strife,
And every soul rejoicing in the sweet and bitter of life.”
Single copies of this
address on receipt
sale or distribution
50 copies 3/-; one
THE
pamphlet will be sent to any
of threehalf-pence. Parcels for
at cheaper rates : ioo copies, 5/-;
dozen copies post free 1/-
“COMMONWEAL, ”
Official Journal of the Socialist League.
A thorough-going weekly labour paper : contains a re
view of the labour struggle and Socialist movement
throughout the world; criticism on current political
events; revolutionary poetry; review of books on the
labour question ; and articles on science, art, history,
and political economy in their bearing on labour
questions.
ONE PENNY WEEKLY.
�
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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A plea for socialism : delivered in the course of a socialist campaign amongst the miners on strike in Northumberland, 1877
Creator
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Mahon, J. L.
Description
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 16 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Advertisement for the "Commonweal", the Official Journal of the Socialist League, on end page. Printed by J. Beale, St. Andrew's Street, Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
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The "Commonweal"
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1887
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T467
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Socialism
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Text
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English
Addresses
Miners
Northumberland
Socialism
Speeches
-
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Text
PRICE ONE PENNY.
Oh Slaves of these laborious years,
Oh Freemen of the years to be :
Shake off your blind and foolish fears,
And hail the Truth that makes you free.
WHAT
A
COMPULSORY
8 Hour Working Day
MEANS
By
TO
THE
TOM
WORKERS.
Mi .zV TV ’2V ,
(Amalgamated Engineers).
THE MODERN PRESS, 13, Paternoster Row, E.C.
Agent
for
U.S.A., W. L. ROSENBERG, 261, EAST TENTH
STREET, NEW YORK CITY.
�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.
Reprinted with additions from Justice.
price id. Fifteenth thousand.
Socialism and the Worker.
Sorge.
Royal 8-vo.,
By F. A.
Price id.
An explanation in the simplest language of the main idea of Socialism.
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 has just suffered five years imprison
ment at the hands of the French Republic for advocating the cause of the
workers.
John Williams and the History of the
Social-Democratic Federation.
8-vo., price id.
With portrait.
Royal
The Modern Press, 13, Paternoster Row, E.C.
And W. L. ROSENBERG, 261, East Tenth Street, New
York City.
�EIGHT HOURS A DAY.
-------------- ♦--------------
HE appalling amount of distress that exists in
every town in Britain must arrest the atten
tion of all duty loving men and women. No
one who sees the effects of want and the fear
of want can passively behold the dire poverty of a large
section of the workers. Rather will he probe and probe
until he finds the cause of the disease. Socialists have
probed and they find the disease of WANT to be spread
by the profit-making system upon which all industry
and Society itself is based. They know that five or
six centuries ago, without machinery, Englishmen
obtained for their work sufficient to keep them in
vigorous health and that they were not subject to
periodical trade depressions; and when they further
reflect upon the fact that the working day then consisted
of no more than eight* hours, no wonder that Socialists
are discontented with the present state of affairs, and
that they resolve to use every means in their power to
replace the present discord, misery, and anarchy, with
harmony, happiness, and order.
The effect of our so-called labour-saving machinery
(used really by its owners to save wages and not labour)
is to cause continual distress amongst the workers by
mercilessly throwing them out of employment without
any compensation. It may then take a man often
* See “Work and Wages” by Thorold Rogers, M.P.
�months, sometimes years, to find an occupation of any
kind and when found it is at a price much below that
he was in receipt of before the machine disturbed him.
Yet the machine has increased the ease and rapidity of
wealth-production. This increase of wealth is of course
enriching some one—a class of which many perform but
little really useful work while the bulk of them serve
no function useful in any way to the community. Look,
again, at the effect of increased Scientific Knowledge.
By a better knowledge of Chemistry and Metallurgy
tons of metal are now extracted from the ore with the
labour of fewer men than must formerly have been
employed to produce one hundredweight. What I am
concerned about is, that in spite of our advanced methods
of producing wealth, the workers as a class get only a
subsistence wage, whilst an increasing number of them
cannot get the barest necessaries of life.
Optimist Politicians are unwilling to admit that this
is so. Anxious to make out a good case for the present
basis of Society, they ignore the plainest of facts, so in
confirmation of my contention I will quote from one or
two non-Socialists. Professor Thorold Rogers, the
present M.P. for Bermondsey, says on pages 185-6 of
“ Six Centuries of Work and Wages,” written in 1884.
It may be well the case, and there is every reason to fear it is the
case, that there is collected a population in our great towns which
equals in extent the whole of those who lived in England andfWales
six centuries ago; but whose condition is more destitute, whose
homes are more squalid, whose means are more uncertain, whose
prospects are more hopeless than those of the poorest serfs of the
Middle Ages and the meanest drudges of the mediaeval cities. The
arm of the law is strong enough to keep them under, and Society
has no reason to fear their despair; but I refuse to accept the
superficial answer that a man is an admirer of the good old times
because he insists that the vaunts of civilisation should be examined
along with, and not apart from its failures. It is not possible to
give the solution of one problem, the growth of opulence, and to
refuse all attention to the other problem, the growth of penury.
Joseph Cowen M.P. speaking at a Mechanics’
Institute at Newcastle, alluded to the labouring section
as “ a hybrid class doomed to eat the bread of penury
and drink the cup of misery. Precarious labour provided
them with subsistence for the day, but the slightest
�5
interruption threw them destitute. A week of broken
weather brought thousands of these industrial nomads
to the brink of starvation. An inscrutable influence
seemed to sink them as it elevated those around and
above them. Society, ashamed and despairing, swept
them, like refuse, into dismal receptacles, where
seething in their wretchedness, they constituted at once
our weakness and reproach. How to sweeten these
receptacles and help their forlorn occupants to help
themselves was the problem of the hour. If Society did
not settle it, it would in time settle Society.”
To this Socialists answer that there is no permanent
way of sweetening the lives of the class referred to
except by the complete annihilation of the profit-mongers
as a class, by forcing them all into the ranks of the
useful workers. This will be apparent when it is realised
that under the present system we are working to supply
profits to profit-mongers instead of working to supply
the legitimate requirements of the entire community,
and when it is borne in mind that Shareholders and
Employers are contented with nothing less than the
Highest possible profits, it will also be seen that on the
other hand we (the workers) can have nothing more
than the lowest possible wages. To establish Society
nn a proper basis is therefore the work of every rightminded man or woman.
Demagogues have been at work—with good inten
tions perhaps—but they have misled the workers from
the true cause of their troubles. Among the blind
leaders of the blind may be mentioned the Malthusians,
the Teetotallers, the Financial Reformers, and wellintentioned Radicals. The first mentioned have taught
that there are too many people in the country, and that
the only way of bettering our condition is by curtailing
the population, and this in face of the fact that every
year wealth in this country is increasing much faster
than population. The Temperance advocates hammer
away at the blessings of sobriety as though drunkenness
was the cause of poverty, when the fact is the other
Way about. Well nigh as fast as they surround an old
toper with influences that prevent his drinking tastes
�6
being gratified, another fills up the hole out of which
he was lifted. It is a useless expenditure of energy to
be continually preaching temperance and thrift. Let
all be blest with leisure, food, and healthy enjoyments,
as they might be if the economic basis of Society was
as it should be, and then these matters will all right
themselves. The only reason people spend time upon
these panaceas is because they fail to understand the
law of wages, which is that all above a bare subsistence
wage shall go to profit mongers as profit. The only
way out is to destroy the profit mongers.
The same argument applies to the financial reformer.
All sensible persons are of course agreed that the
country should be governed as economically as is con
sistent with efficiency, as also all are agreed that we
should live soberly. But the reformer fails to see that
if we curtail taxation to its lowest possible minimum,
reduce it if you will 90 per cent., not one farthing of it
would be saved to the workers. The Iron Law would
still be in force which says, “ So much as will keep life
in you and no more shall go to you, O ye workers, so long
as the profit making system remains.”
These economic questions cannot be understood in a
sufficiently clear manner by the mass of the workers
while they are absorbed twelve, fourteen, sixteen, and
even more hours a day while in work, and when out of
work are walking about with the pangs of hunger eating
out their vitals, and the blackness of despair staring
them in the face at every turn. Now suppose those of
us who can see these things in something like their
grim reality, decide that come what may, we at least will
do our part towards obtaining remunerative employment
for all, and at the same time sufficient leisure that all
may have a little breathing time after their work, what
course can we take ? To this I reply, there is one way
by which it can be done, viz., by at once concentrating
our efforts towards the establishing of an eight hours
working day.
Let us examine a few figures in order to see clearly
how this would affect us. We have something like
7,000,000 adult workers in the British Isles, working
�7
nominally under the nine hours system, leaving overtime
out of consideration for the moment. Let us see how
many more hands would be put in employment if we
struck off one hour per day from those in work. It is
roughly estimated that of the above mentioned workers
there are about 900,000 now out of work, representing
a total population of 3I or 4 millions of men, women,
and children who cannot get the barest necessaries of
life. Now strike off one hour per day from the 6,000,000
in work. The result would be an immediate demand
for 750,000 additional workers to keep up production
at its present rate, and remembering that these 750,000
would immediately begin to buy more food, clothing,
and general comforts, this of course would give an im
petus to trade, and so add greatly to the comfort of
the entire community for a year or two. These advan
tages, however, would soon be swallowed up by fresh
displacements of labour due to more efficient machinery
and advancing scientific knowledge; but, during the
year or two that it gave relief, see how immensely it
would add to the leisure and therefore to the general
intelligence of the workers. And increased intelligence
means more active discontent with our conditions of
life, and in due course a hastening of the overthrow of
the present capitalistic domination.
I am fully aware that there are some who claim to
have a knowledge of the workers who contend that the
very success of an Eight Hours Movement would
simply mean a perpetuation of the present wretched
system, as the people would become more contented if
the conditions of life were made more tolerable. This
I hold to be the very reverse of truth. As a workman
who has worked from early boyhood on the farm, down
the mine, and in the engineer’s shop, I repudiate such
a slanderous statement. What means the continually
increasing restlessness of late years of those workmen
who are now, relatively to their former position, in a
passable state of comfort ? I contend that it is in
large part due to the additional leisure obtained under
the nine hours system, though most of its advantages
have now been swallowed up by more rapid machinery
�and the cursed system of overtime we still tolerate.
I ask myself what has been my guide in the formation
of my opinions on social and political subjects, and,
risking being charged with egotism, I reply that I have
ever endeavoured to get correct views upon these and
other subjects by fashioning my ideas upon the best
models I could find, and the more leisure I had the
better my opportunity for finding good models. I can
understand a middle-class man holding this—to me—
absurd theory. I can also understand some workmen
reflecting the opinions of these theory-loving, poverty
accentuating blockheads merely because they are
middle-class. But I cannot understand a workman
who through youth and early manhood has been
battling against long hours in order that he might attend
the institute, listen to the lectures, and read the works
of able men, and by these means has succeeded in
having a mind worth owning—I say I cannot under
stand such an one hindering rather than helping in a
shorter hours movement. He practically says by such
conduct that the leisure he used so well as to become a
man thereby, others will use so ill that they will con
tinue fools. But men generally love what is best for
all, and are prepared to do their part towards carrying
it out so soon as they understand clearly what course
they should take. Let those of us who see (or think
we see) further than the average man, do all in our
power towards enabling him to see as clearly as we do,
and then, unless I am incapable of reading aright the
lesson of life, he too will become in his turn an earnest
and an energetic worker for the elevation of his class.
I must apologise to some readers who may think that
none of this reasoning is necessary. I emphasize it
because I know there exist philosophers who strain at
gnats and swallow camels, who talk of ameliorating
human suffering, but hang back instead of assisting a
movement the success of which must for a dead certainty
largely ameliorate the pangs of the hungry men, women,
and children who are now in the throes of despair.
Another section raise the objection that however
desirable it may be to curtail the hours of labour,
�remembering the severe competition of other countries
it is simply impossible either to raise wages or shorten
hours unless a similar movement takes place on the
Continent. I will endeavour to answer this first by
showing that the English workers produce more per man
than any of the Continental Nations, and second, by
showing that with regard to our staple industries
Foreign Competition is a bogie used by the Employer
to frighten the workers into accepting harder terms in
order that their master may make a greater profit. It
may be of some service to point out the relative wealth
per annum produced by the useful workers of this and
other countries. I am assuming that the reader is clear
concerning the source of wealth, that there is no other
source than useful Labour, so that, having sufficient
Raw Material for Workers to exercise their ingenuity
upon, it will be seen that the more workers, the more
the aggregate wealth, as in all ages men have been able
to produce by their labour more than they and their
families required for ordinary consumption. Quoting
from Mulhall’s “Statistics,” we find that Britain with a
Population of 36 millions produces wealth to the amount
of £1,247,000,000 per annum ; France with 37I millions
of people produces annually ^”965,000,000 (or with a
million and a half more people about three-quarters the
amount the English make; Germany, population
45 millions, wealth per annum, ^850,000,000 ; (or two
thirds only of our amount); Russia with 80 millions of
people, creates per annum only ^760,000,000, Austria,
38 millions population, only ^602,000,000 per annum ;
and simarlarly with the smaller nations. These figures
will serve to show that our method of producing wealth
is a more effective one than that in vogue on the Con
tinent, as although they generally work longer hours per
day than the English yet the result of their year’s work
compares unfavourably with ours. The important
lesson to be learnt here is this, that it is not the amount
paid as wages that decides whether or not one country
can compete successfully with another ; or rather, it is
not the countries where wages are low that compete
most successfully with this country. This will be seen
�IO
when it is realised that the severest competitor we have
to-day is America, a country that pays at least 25 per
cent higher wages than are paid in this country.
This of itself should be sufficient to encourage those
timorous mortals who are always attributing our ex
hausting toil to the competition of the lung hours of the
Continent. The time may arrive when, with an equally
advanced method of production, low paid labour will
produce wealth as effectively as better paid labour, but
that time has not yet come. By way of proving this
let me here instance the Iron Shipbuilding industry.
Many have been the disputes between employers and
employed in this industry during the past two or three
years, the employers continually urging that the Con
tinental shipbuilders are getting all the trade, or at any
rate will do so, unless our workmen submit to reductions
in wages and longer hours. This argument was ad
vanced repeatedly during the year 1885, so in order to
thoroughly test the matter a delegation of workers was
despatched to the Continent to bring back precise in
formation upon the subject. They found that Germany
was our chief competitor in Iron Shipbuilding, and
that during the year 1885 that country produced 22,326
tons of shipping. But in this country one firm on the
Clyde during the same period turned out 40,000 tons.
France produced 10,000 tons, and Russia 7,867 tons—
total for the two countries 17,867 tons. But the river
Tyne alone launched no less than 102,998 tons. The
Belgium output was 5,312 tons, that of Holland 2,651
tons, of Denmark 3,515 tons. To sum up, the whole
of the Continental output was a little over 50,000 tons,
while that of the English shipyards was 540,282 tons,
or nearly eleven times as great as that of all the yards
on the Continent put together. With facts like these
before us is it not high time we demanded that our
hours were curtailed so as to give a chance to those
who now walk about in enforced idleness, without
waiting for the Continent to take simultaneous action.
The Americans, who pay their mechanics better wages,
have had to concede the demands of their workmen for
the eight hour working day—not universally, it is true,
�II
because a universal demand was not made. Just astheir success stimulates us, so our success will stimulate
the Continental workers, and we shall find that they
are as well prepared as we are to deal vigorously with
the exploiting classes.
To Trade Unionists I desire to make a special appeal.
How long, how long will you be content with the present
half-hearted policy of your Unions? I readily grant
that good work has been done in the past by the
Unions, but, in Heaven’s name, what good purpose are
they serving now ? All of them have large numbers
out of employment even when their particular trade is
busy. None of the important Societies have any policy
other than that of endeavouring to keep wages from
falling. The true Unionist policy of aggression seems
entirely lost sight of; in fact the Unionist of
to-day should be of all men the last to be hope
lessly apathetic, or supporting a policy that plays
directly into the hands of the capitalist exploiter. Do
not think I am a non-Unionist myself, and therefore
denounce Unionists. T take my share of the work in
the Trade Union to which I belong, but I candidly
confess that unless it shows more vigour in the future
than it is showing at the present time (June, 1886)
I shall be compelled to take the view—against my will
—that to continue to spend time over the ordinary
squabble-investigating, do-nothing policy will be an
unjustifiable waste of one’s energies. I am quite sure
there are thousands of others in my state of mind—e.g.,
all those who concurred with T. R. Threlfall, the pre
sident of the Trades Union Congress, when, in his
Presidential Address, he told the delegates assembled
at Southport that a critical time had arrived in the
history of Trades Unions, and that in the future they
must lead or follow, and that they could not hope to re
tain advanced men with their present policy. In his
magnificent address Mr. Threlfall did all a man could
do to stir the Unionists up to take action in regard to
the Eight Hour working day, but one looks in vain at
each and all of our important Trade Societies to find
any action being taken in the matter. It is not enough
�12
to say their funds are low. Their funds are not too
low to get up an agitation upon this subject. All over
the country they have excellent organisations which
might be used in the first place as the means for instruct
ing their own members up to the required standard, and
then spreading information amongst the non-Unionists,
skilled and unskilled alike. When the bulk of these
understood the pros and cons of the case the combined
forces could make a demand for the immediate passing
of an Eight Hours Bill, the details of which could be
settled by a duly qualified committee.
While this is being done attention should also be
made to another important item alluded to by Mr.
Threlfall viz., the payment of election expenses out of
the local or Imperial rates and the support of Members
of Parliament in a similar manner. When this is done
we shall be able to command the services of those
whom we believe in because of their merits, irrespective
of what the depth of their pocket may be.
Let me now invite attention to the effects of an
Eight Hour Bill upon some of our monopolies. Let us
take the Railways as a representative concern, using
round figures such as will convey a correct idea to the
ordinary reader without confusing him. The Blue Books
bear out the following statements •>—At the present time
the Annual Income of the British Railways may be put
at ^70,000,000, of this vast sum one half goes to the
Shareholders, who do no useful work whatever; one
fourth to keep up rolling stock, permanent way &c.;
and the remaining fourth to the workers, (including
managers’ and superintendents’ salaries).
The man who has not paid attention to Railway
Income and Expenditure will denounce this as trash or
probably by a stronger term. He will probably say
that the figures must be wrong, as Railway Shareholders
get only some 5 per cent on their capital. Exactly, but
where nearly all make the mistake is in not making the
distinction between percentage on money invested and
percentage of Income. There are nominally more than
^920,000,000 invested in Railways in the British Isles,
and 5 per cent on this means about five-eighths of the
�total income, the entire income of 70 millions amounting
only to 8 per cent on the investments. Consequently a
Railway Company paying 4^ per cent to Shareholders
actually pays more than half of the total income to
these utterly useless individuals, leaving the remainder
to go in about equal proportions to rolling stock and
permanent way and as wages and salaries to Employees.
This gives about 18s. per week to the 350,000 persons
engaged on Railways in the British Isles. When we
remember that superintendents and managers get very
large salaries, we see that those who do the hard work
and have the longest hours get much less than 18s.
Now that we realise the enormous amount the idle
shareholders take, let us see how generously they behave
to those in their employ. At Nine Elms are situated the
cleaning sheds of the South Western Railway. Until
recently the “dirty cleaners” at this yard received
£i os. 6d. per week. Instructions have been issued
from Waterloo to curtail their wages from 20s. 6d. to
15s. at one stroke. On the same line, at Waterloo
terminus, the parcels porters commence work at 5.20
in the morning and keep on till 9.45 in the evening with
one Sunday off per fortnight, their wages being from
18s. to 22s. per week.
Now assuming the average day on Railways to be
12 hours, what loss would it inflict on the Shareholders
if a Bill were passed enforcing an Eight Hours’ Working
Day ? We have seen that the Employees get about
a quarter of the total income or about ^"17,000,000.
To curtail the hours by one third means of course putting
one half more men in work than are at present employed.
To pay these at a similar rate to those already working
would require £8,500,000 or less than one per cent on
the nominal value of the shares, so that a Company
paying 4^- per cent now, would, if one half more men
were employed still pay 3^ per cent to the Fleecing
Shareholders. What arrant nonsense then it is to urge
that the Company cannot afford to curtail hours.
Let us look now at the condition of our Colliers.
Here we have men devoting themselves to underground
toil from boyhood to old age, the majority never having
�14
the opportunity of paying a visit to the Capital or any
•other large town, practically kennelled in the earth, tied
down with capitalistic chains,
Spending a Sunless life in the unwholesome mines,
for the wretched pittance of about 18s. per week.
Surely an Eight Hours Bill requires no urging from
me on behalf of those who work in and about the mines ;
when we remember that of the value of coal raised
•annually in this country (about £66,000,000) one third
•only goes to the colliers who raise it.
An item worth mentioning also was pointed out by
Sir Lyon Playfair in his address before the British
Association at Aberdeen in 1885, whilst deploring the
fact that the exhaustion of the British coalfields made
the coal increasingly difficult to get. It was proved
that not only has man’s ingenuity conquered these
obstacles, but owing to the increased power of steam
•engines and hand-labour-saving appliances, two men
now produce as much as three men did twenty years
-ago. Yet coal is dearer now than it was then !
Thirty years ago eight sailors were required for the
management of every 100 tons of shipping. Now, ow
ing to improved machinery, less than half that number
suffice. In twenty years the consumption of fuel on our
ocean-going steamers has been reduced by one half,
chiefly owing to the use of compound engines in place
•of single ones as formerly. Thus on every hand a
greater result is being shown with less labour. And it
must be so or else there is no meaning in material pro
gress. But “ less labour ” means under our existing
system, and must mean so as long as industry is con
trolled by the idle classes, not “ more leisure ” or
shorter hours all round, but less wages, more unemployed,
poverty, famine, and physical and moral degradation.
What then can be more rational than to ease the
burden of those in work and the starving stomachs of
those who are out, by shortening the working day ?
See what is going on in the watch-making industry,
a fine example of the effects of machinery. Among the
exhibits at last year’s Inventions Exhibition was that
of the Waltham Watch Co. Some machines were there
�T5
at work making screws for watches, of which it took
250,000 to make up a pound in weight. These machines
were so perfectly made, that at the Company’s Factory
in Massachusetts, one boy keeps seven of them going.
The best wire to make one pound weight of screws costs
ten shillings, but after this wire has been converted into
screws by passing through this automatic machine, the
screws are worth /’350, or seven hundred times the cost
of the material. Imagine the number of men here
thrown out of employment; the watches in large part
being made by girls, and the enormous profits going to
the owners of the machinery.
Take another case, that of Bryant and May’s Match
Factory in East London. Two years ago this firm was
formed into a Limited Liability Company. Their work
girls are most miserably paid, getting only some 8s. per
week, and the Company refused to increase their pay
when they made a demand a short time since. And
yet that Company, during the first six months of its
existence, after paying all working expenses, actually
paid over ^33,000 to shareholders, who had not done a
single stroke of work towards producing it. These girls
are working ordinary factory hours, io^- per day They
cannot live in comfort on such a miserable pittance as
they are receiving. How many girls are compelled by
this sort of thing, to take to the streets ?
The above is only typical of what all our large firms
are doing. Armstrong, Mitchell and Co., the great
engineering firm at Newcastle-on-Tyne, for instance,
last year after deducting for working expenses and
depreciation of stock, paid to shareholders ^162,000.
Whatever improvement may come through more
efficient machinery etc., its effect, while owned by, and
used for the profit of, the employing class, will be to
throw men out of work and swell the already too full
pockets of the capitalists. If we do not decide to cur
tail the hours of labour, what then can we do ? Allow
things to go from bad to worse ? That is what most
assuredly will happen, unless we absorb the Unemployed
into the ranks of the employed by rigidly suppressing
overtime, and curtailing the nominal nine hours per day
to something less.
�i6
The question will be asked by some, “ What about
wages if we work an hour a day less, are we to have an
hour s less pay ? ” Most certainly not. Even when the
curtailing principle was only partially applied 15 years
ago by the Trade Unionists this did not happen. On the
contrary in many instances the workmen were soon able
to get a rise in actual wages in addition to the curtail
ing of hours. The reason we cannot command a better
wage now is because the Employer can say, “ If you
don’t like it you may go, others will be glad to take your
place,” but, as I think I have shown, if we make Eight
Hours the labour day then the Unemployed will be
absorbed and the workers will be able in their turn to
dictate terms to the Employer.
In conclusion I appeal to the workers of Great Britain
to join hands over this business and let us make it a
success. In a measure of this kind Liberal and Tory,
Christian and Freethinker, Unionist and Non-Unionist,
Mechanic and Labourer, Radical and Social-Democrat,
Teetotaller or Vegetarian, whatsoever be your creed or
sex, unite on common ground and let us fight this
battle of the workers with vigour, with energy and
determination. Be no longer apathetic. Take pleasure
in the performance of your duty as an honest citizen
and the result will be a hastening of that glorious time
when the domination of a class shall be a matter of
History, and when all shall have enough work and
none shall have too much.
For further information on all these subjects read “JUSTICE ”
every Saturday, One Penny, which is owned by working men,
edited by a working man, and independent of capitalist support.
Also, if willing to assist in attaining these objects, write to H. W.
Lee, Bridge House, Blackfriars, E.C.
�
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What a compulsory 8 hour working day means to the workers
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Mann, Tom [1856-1941]
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Place of publication: London
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[1886?]
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Working conditions
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Social conditions
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’T4/0£a
THE
COMING REVOLUTION
IN ENGLAND.
BY
H. M. HYNDMAN,
Author of “ The Social Reconstruction of England,” “ TextBook
of
Democracy,” &c.
LENDING
LIBRARY
LONDON:
WILLIAM BEEVES, 185, ELEET STBEET, E.C.
Office of “ The Christian Socialist."
�Reprinted from the “North American Review.
�THE COMING REVOLUTION IN ENGLAND.
England at the present moment affords beyond doubt the
best field for the study of the social development of our times.
*
To a superficial observer we are still the Chinese of Europe,
clinging to old forms and old reverences, which have long since
been discarded elsewhere; though a closer examination shows
clearly that we have entered on a period of change which will
probably carry us far in advance of anything yet seen, either in
Europe or America. Few educated Englishmen, if pressed for
a deliberate opinion, would deny that there is every likelihood
that a complete social and political reorganization will be
attempted in these islands before the end of this century. Even
among the useless men and women who dub themselves “society,”
an undercurrent of uneasiness may be detected. The dread
word “ Revolution ” is sometimes spoken aloud in jest; more
often quietly whispered in all seriousness. The luxurious classes
feel that there is something going on below which they do not
understand, while now and then the truth that they are after
all but a handful of drones amid a dense swarm of ill-housed
and underfed workers forces itself in dimly upon their minds.
“Of course,” said one lady, “we know the working classes can
overwhelm us if they are only organized, but what is to come
then?” The deluge was to her but a swollen brooklet compared
to this loosing of the waters of democracy.
* See “The Social Reconstruction of England,” (W. Reeves, 185,
Fleet Street, London, price 6d.)
�4
THE COMING REVOLUTION
Now this growing consciousness of weakness if, if, if—this
or that takes place, which sooner or later is allowed to be
certain to come, acts itself as a force on the side of the people.
The “ it will last our time ” sort of men soon go to the wall in
days of real popular excitement. Those who refuse to look
thoroughly into the problems of their own age and country,
cannot fail to make grave mistakes when brought face to face
with the relentless necessities of social evolution, or even with
a body of enthusiasts who know their own minds. Ignorance
and cowardice invariably engender spasmodic injustice and
hap-hazard cruelty. And the worst sort of ignorance is that
which neglects to take account of natural laws, the most hope
less cowardice that which leads men to shut their eyes to
approaching danger.
Among the upper and middle classes in England to-day
there is absolutely no ideal for the future of their country.
There is not a single idea stirring among them which can give
hope to the old or can fire the young. Materially it is the
same. Neither of the present organized Parliamentary parties
offers to the mass of Englishmen any real change for the
better in their own condition, or proposes measures which hold
out the prospect of a brighter lot for their children. The bills
before the House of Commons at this hour exclusively concern
the welfare of the middle class, consequently there is an utter
apathy in relation to them among the workers. What does a
man who has to keep his wife and children on a pound or less
a week care about the provisions of a bankruptcy act, or the
assimilation of borough and county franchise ? All he knows
is, that somehow or other he has to work day in and day out
to keep body and soul together; that to-morrow he may be
unable to earn even the scanty pittance he at present gets;
and that then, from causes quite beyond his own control, he
may have to exchange the squalid misery of his home for the
�IN ENGLAND.
5
yet more squalid misery of the workhouse. No doubt such a
hand-to-mouth workman rarely reflects on his social wrongs;
but, when he does, from thought to action will be a very short
step.
Events just now move fast. Landlords, for instance, can
scarcely help observing that in Ireland, despite coercion acts,
a revolution is being wrought which can be but the beginning
of a complete change of system. At first the movement was
only a middle-class agitation, yet see what has been done in
two years. The farmers are still discontented, but already, ere
they are pacified, the day-laborers make themselves heard.
Those who imagine that the working classes in England will
not be influenced, in the long run, by what is going on in
Ireland, take a very short-sighted view of the situation and
its surroundings. However favorable the conditions may be,
this kind of political yeast ferments slowly through the great
unleavened mass of the people; but it does its work all the
same. The undefined fear that this may be so accounts for
the uneasiness referred to. What if similar steps should be
taken on this side of St. George’s Channel ? What if English
men and Scotchmen should call to mind that though the lap'’,
of Ireland is held by 12,000 people against 5,000,000, the land
of Great Britain is owned by only 30,000 against 30,000,000 ?
What if those who live on the starvation wages graciously
accorded them by the hypocritical fanatics of supply and
demand, with never the hope of rising above the wage-slave
-class—what if they, ground down under the economical pres
sure into a depth of degradation inconceivable to those who
have not witnessed it, should demand the fruits of their labor
from the classes who live in luxury on the produce of their
toil. What indeed ? At the very thought of it a chill shud
der creeps down the back of the land monopolists and the
capital monopolists alike, and they cry aloud in chorus for
�6
THE COMING REVOLUTION
more and yet more tyranny in Ireland, and huddle together
into a “ Liberty (!) and Property Protection League ” here.
For they know, if “society” and the workers don’t, that the
interests of the producing classes on both sides of the Irish
Channel are the same, and that should a struggle commence,
it will be a furious class war between the capitalists and middle
class aided by the landlords, on the one side, against the
*
working class aided by a few thinkers, enthusiasts, and ambi
tious men, on the other—a struggle beside which the old fight
of the burgesses and men of the “new learning ” against nobles
and clergy would seem child’s play.
He who writes the history of class wars writes the history
of civilized peoples. A new, and—unless far more wisdom
and foresight is displayed by the well-to-do than now seems
likely—a bloody page of that history may ere long be turned
over with us here in the “ Old Home.” In such circum
stances what course should be taken by any man who wishes
well to his country ? Surely to try to read aright the signs of
the times, and to endeavor to convince others near and far that
in such a battle surrender is both nobler and safer for the
weaker party than inevitable defeat. As an Englishman who
has had special opportunities of watching our social growth
from many points of view, I venture to think that the following
pages may be of some interest to the great English-speaking
* Among the wiser leaders of the Conservative Party in the past
there has always existed some sort of vague hope that an alliance might
be formed between the landowners and the people against the capi
talists. Mr. Disraeli certainly had this idea. But to carry it into effect
called, and calls, for sacrifices of which our English nobles and squires
are quite incapable. They talk boldly of patriotism, but they always
keep their hands tight clenched in their breeches pockets. Of late this
whole policy has been thrown aside with contempt, and Lord Salisbury
and Sir Stafford Northcote make no secret of their anxiety to make
common cause with the plutocracy in favor of the “ rights of property”
against the rights of the people. A Conservative programme truly.
�IN ENGLAND.
7
■democracy on. the western side of the Atlantic Ocean as well as
to our own people here.
It is a commonplace to say that a hundred years is a short
period in the life of a nation, yet few perhaps reflect how short
it really is. A man of seventy in this year, 1883—and nowa-days our English statesmen are, so to say, in their “ teens ”
at fifty—might have conversed as a youth of eighteen with his
father, who, if he had then attained likewise threescore and
ten years, could retain a clear personal remembrance of the
events of the American War of Independence, and must have
passed through the era of the French Revolution in the prime
of manhood. Thus considerably less than two ordinary lives
carry us back to a date which, in certain respects, social and
economical, seems as remote as ancient history. It needs an
effort of the imagination to recall what England was in 1783..
, Nevertheless, those who have studied the years immediately
preceding the great war with France know well that at that
time the opinions of educated men were to a great extent in
advance socially and politically of what they are to-day. The
writings of Thomas Paine, Priestley, Horne Tooke, Thomas
Spence, of Newcastle; the speeches of the elder Pitt, Burke,
Fox, Sheridan, and Colonel Barre, to say nothing of the crowd
•of pamphleteers who in one way or another reflected the ideas
of Rousseau and Voltaire and the general tone of the working
■classes in their ordinary talk, all shadowed forth a political
movement in England not very widely different in its objects
from that which wrought so great a change in France. A
hundred years ago the Duke of Richmond fathered a bill in
fiavor of universal suffrage and annual parliaments, and Thomas
Hardy the shoemaker was tried for high treason because he
agitated for a National Convention. It is certain that the
mass of Englishmen, so far as they could give expression to
their opinion, fully sympathized with the early phases of the
�8
THE COMING REVOLUTION
attack upon the ancien regime in France,, and would gladly
have followed up the policy so successfully begun in America
and carried on by the French in the direction of a complete
enfranchisement of the people.
Yet here we are to-day without reforms admitted to be
necessary by Lord Chatham, and considered with a view to
bringing them forward from a Tory point of view by his reac
tionary son. The present House of Commons, though sup
posed to represent thirty-five millions of people, is really elected
by a little over three millions; the House of Lords still has
the power, as it so disastrously showed in numberless instances,
of thwarting, for a time at least, any genuine liberal measure
carried by the so-called popular chamber. The House of
Commons itself also, elected as stated, consists of a compact
phalanx of landlords and capitalists, whose interests are directly
opposed to those of the great body of the people. What
Thomas Paine called the game of ride and tie still goes mer
rily on. Tories and Whigs, Conservatives and Liberals, take
turn and turn about in cajoling their constituents, and enjoy
the sweets of office as the reward for their dexterity. The
cost of elections and the nonpayment of members shut out all
but men of the well-to-do classes, or the two or three specimens
of the working class who are ready to do their bidding. Now
it is clear that there must be some great causes to account for
this remarkable set-back, since the revolt of our American
colonies, and the teaching of vigorous minds, both in England
and abroad, led the English democracy to look to a thorough
reform of the constitution, or even to the establishment of a
Republic as not only advantageous, but necessary.
Mere political reaction will not fully explain such a strange
collapse. Doubtless the war against France, into which the
nation was dragged by the aristocratic class, had a great effect.
The horror, more than half manufactured, which was felt at
�IN ENGLAND.
9
the fate of Louis XVI. and. Marie Antoinette, helped the reac
tionists and the war party. Burke and others did their utmost
to fan the flame. The Reign of Terror in Paris, exaggerated,
by the calculated panic of the upper classes intensified the
popular feeling. And of course when once we were fairly at
war the old dogged spirit of the victors of Crecy and Poitiers
was roused, the fatal mirage of glory tempted the suffering
people on, and internal reorganization was practically thrust
aside in favor of naval triumphs and glorious battles. If we
lost, it would never do to be beaten like that; if we won, why,
•all was going well. Hurrah for old England I To this day,
also, the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror are quoted
in almost every middle-class household as standing warnings
against any attempt of the people to organize themselves in
•earnest.
Who shall say, moreover, what an influence the common
school-books have had in this direction ? Till within the last
few years all history for the young has been compiled in the
direct interest of reaction. Not the least noteworthy, there
fore, among the smaller signs of coming change is the fact that
at the present moment efforts are being made to correct the
ideas which have been current with regard to the leaders of
the French Revolution among the working class. Lectures
are constantly delivered and pamphlets distributed in the
growing radical and democratic clubs, which run quite counter
to the middle class idea of that great upheaval. Robespierre,
St. Just, Couthon, and even Marat are rehabilitated com
pletely, and held up to admiration as men who sacrificed them
selves to the good of the human race. This, too, though they
themselves all belonged to the very class which the extreme
-advocates of the rights of labor commonly denounce.
But deeper causes have been at work than the shock of the
Reign of Terror or the satisfaction of martial ardor. At the
�10
THE COMING REVOLUTION
end of the eighteenth century the long and bitterly cruel
process of driving the English people from the soil was pretty
well completed. The idler landlord and the capitalist farmer
had quite displaced the sturdy yeoman of old time. Commonswere being daily stolen by individuals, and an increasing por
tion of the agricultural population now reduced to mere wage
earners to the farmers, were driven into the towns, where they
became mere wage-earners to the factory lords and shop
keepers. The increasing power of steam, together with the
terrible laws favoring long hours and prohibiting combination
among workpeople, handed over the population of the cities
bound hand and foot to their masters—the sole owners of the
means of production. The furious destruction of machinery,
which frequently took place; the long, violent struggle against
the masters for shorter hours, for restriction of child and woman
labor; the persistent endeavors of the workers, as a class, tn
obtain some little freedom,—all show how fearful the pressure
must have been. Readers of Robert Owen and William
Cobbett can form some idea of the horrors wreaked on helplesswomen and children, of the infamous tyranny practised upon
almost equally helpless men by the factory owners and their
managers. The reports of the various commissions give a still
more fearful picture of what, went on. So grave was the dete
rioration of the physique of the poorer classes in the rapidly
growing manufacturing districts, that positively a social col
lapse threatened from this cause alone.
Meanwhile, the whole system of which this was a develop
ment grew apace. Education there was little or none ; justice
as between employed and employer was not to be had. The
workers were trampled under foot to a degree which the slave
class even in ancient Rome never suffered from. In 1825came the first of the great industrial crises which can be
directly traced to our present system of production, and the-
�IN ENGLAND.
11
misery among the poor in town and country alike was deplor
able. Fifty years ago affairs seemed really hopeless. Men
who still remember the situation in the years immediately
preceding the Reform Bill of 1832, say that there seemed
little prospect of the slightest modification. The aristocracy—
though their power had been shaken by the middle class—still
held, to all appearance, effective control. What with rotten
boroughs, sinecures, and bribery, they could still do pretty
much as they pleased. That very manufacturing prosperity
which had enabled the capitalist class to amass wealth directly,
also enriched the landlords in the shape of enhanced rents
indirectly, and thus increased their political strength. England
was already established as the manufacturing power of the
world, and the one idea of the classes which controlled its
development was that the labourers who made for them all
this wealth had really no rights at all. But for the activity of
Robert Owen, Richard Sadler, Lord Shaftesbury, and a few
other self-sacrificing men, even the first factory acts, which in
some degree checked the hideous crushing down of the people,
might have been delayed for years.
Thus, from the very time when some hope of real reform
had dawned on the minds of Englishmen up to the miserably
ineffective measure of 1832—a period of fifty years—a relent
less social pressure was going on in the cities and in the
country, which helped the partisans of reaction to an extent
that can hardly be estimated.
England, too, we must never forget, lies outside the great
European currents of popular excitement. The days of July
in Paris (1830) which produced so great an effect elsewhere,
were barely felt here at all. Still the economical conditions of
.the workers were such, and the political disfranchisement of
the masses was so galling, that it was clear even then that
■some attempt would be made to remedy their position. Men
�12
THE COMING REVOLUTION
of our day have grown up into liberty, and forget how hard
their fathers had to fight to maintain freedom of the press,
right of public meeting, and the like. The Chartist move
ment, which began a few years after 1832, renewed in politics
the Duke of Richmond’s electoral plan of more than sixty
years before1—see how slow it goes 1—the basis of the pro
gramme being manhood suffrage, annual parliaments, equal
electoral districts, and the ballot. But below this the leaders
had hope of real social reforms. Fine fellows, indeed, those
leaders were. Some of them are living now, and known to
me, and I do think nobler men with higher ideals have rarely
come to the front in English politics. The spirit of the people
was once again rising. That wave of revolutionary movement
which at times seems to spread, no man knows how, from
country to country, had begun to swell. The anti-corn law
agitation, which went on at the same time, though kept up
chiefly in the interest of the capitalist class, served to bring
the miseries of their social condition clearly before the mass of
the workers. Such men as Bronterre O’Brien, FeargusO’Connor, Ernest Jones, or Thomas Cooper—to speak only of
the dead—hoped for a sudden and beneficial change for the
mass of their countrymen. Foreign revolutionists who were
driven here just prior to ’48, fully believed that in this country,
at least, with its great factories and impoverished workpeople,
its great landlords and miserable agricultural laborers, its
political freedom and general disfranchisement,—that here,
here in England, the social revolution would now surely begin,
and the proletariat would at length come by their own. Alas 1
prison, disillusion and death awaited the English leaders; and
their foreign coadjutors, worn out with waiting, still watch
sadly but almost hopelessly for the dawning of the day.
That nationalization of the land, which is now so eagerly
debated alike in the East and in the West, was a portion of
�IN ENGLAND.
13
their creed, and though the true economical explanation of the
industrial phenomena by which they were surrounded was not
clear to them, most of the English leaders certainly wished to
carry out a far more thorough programme than they could
induce their middle-class supporters to adopt. But the move
ment of 1848 failed, partly because the leaders did not know
their own minds at the critical moment, but chiefly because
the people were not ready for the change, and the social evolu
tion had not—has it yet ?—worked itself up to the needful
point. Yet the men who wished for an immediate recognition
might be pardoned for thinking, in the years just preceding
the shake of ’48, that a complete change could not long be
postponed. Ireland was on the eve of that fearful famine
which ended in the death or expatriation of more than a third
of her population; England was approaching a period of
serious depression, which could not, to all appeartince, lead to
any improvement for the mass of the people; all over Europe,
as well as in the British Isles, men had begun to say that
anarchy could not be worse than the existing social oppression.
No wonder that, in England in particular, the well-to-do
classes drew together in anticipation of grave trouble, and
wild schemes of taking hostages of the daughters of the
wealthy were discussed on the other side. But suddenly the
sky cleared. Emigration to America and- Australia offered an
outlet to the more ardent spirits, of which they were not slow
to avail themselves. The Cronrwells and Hampdens of the
movement gladly took refuge beyond sea, and expended their
*
energy in new countries. At the same time, the gold dis
coveries and improved communication gave a marvellous
impulse to trade in every direction. Those who left became
comfortable and wealthy; those who remained had at least
enough to live upon. And so the revolutionary wave of ’48,
like that of ’89, passed by our shores, causing but the slightest
�14
THE COMING REVOLUTION
disturbance, and the mass of the people were left still in “ that
state of life ” in which it pleased their “ betters ” to keep
them.
From that time forward, though political agitation has
been almost at a standstill—for what, after all, was the reform
movement of 1866, or, for that matter, the household suffrage
it led up to ?—our development in other directions has pro
ceeded with a rapidity altogether unprecedented in human
history. Railways, telegraphs, ocean steamers, submarine
cables, have brought the peoples of the world together, and
have enhanced the wealth-producing capacity of our species to
an extent the wisest could not have foreseen as being possible
within so short a period. Those sciolists who attribute the
vast enrichment of England to free trade overlook the fact that
the mastery of man over nature has increased in an almost
immeasurable ratio during the last five and thirty years. We
English, very lightly handicapped in the race, with our cheap
coal, with our densely crowded cities and socialized workshops,
with the first-fruits of mechanical invention, with accumulated
capital at our command, had the heels of the rest of the world
from the start. Luring the whole of this period, from 1848
to 1878, we had almost undisputed control of the markets of
the globe. Our commercial and industrial centres, London,
Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow, Sheffield, Leeds, Birming
ham, Bradford, Newcastle, not to mention such places as
Middlesboro’ or Barrow, have increased in population to an
extent scarcely to be surpassed even in America. Our agri
cultural population has meantime decreased most seriously,
and mere lounger towns such as Brighton, Cheltenham, Scar
borough, Eastbourne, etc., have sprung up to afford restingplaces for the growing number of the indolent wealthy.
Nevertheless it is clear to all that the leaps and bounds of
commerce, on which our middle-class financiers are never
�IN ENGLAND.
15
weary of congratulating us, have given far more wealth to the
upper classes than comfort or well-being to the lower; that
riches are rolling into the lap of the few, while the many suffer
hideously from recurrent depressions, which sweep away every
vestige of their prosperity; that unrestricted competition
simply degenerates into combination and rigid monopoly, and
that the beautiful theory of supply and demand, as applied to
the working-classes of Great Britain, produces a state of things
so deplorable that philanthropists wring their hands in despair,
and even the economist hacks, whose business it is to chant
the praises of my Lord Capital and all his works, are sometimes
startled into denouncing the very system they champion.
For here in brief is our present position :
First. In no civilized country in the world is there such a
monopoly of the land as in Great Britain.
Second. In no country are capital, machinery, and credit
so concentrated in the hands of a class.
Third. In no country is there such a complete social sepa
ration between classes.
*
* This is apparent to the most superficial observer. But it is
amusing to note that Englishmen of the upper classes are often
ignorant that so it is. Thus a well-known Anglo-Indian official of a
radical turn said not long ago, speaking of Indian legislation: “Legisla
tion in India is, of course, so much more difficult than in England. In
England, you know, if you want to learn exactly what a body of men
want, you just ask some of theii" principal people to dinner and discuss
the business quietly. But in India that sort of social gathering is
almost impossible, or quite useless.” Now, I’ll be bound to say, that
worthy gentleman does not number among his intimate acquaintace a
single individual who works daily at his trade, let alone asking him to
dinner. Yet our modern jurist would legislate for him and his, with
the profound conviction that the right thing had been done. Probably
the idea of what the men wanted would be filtered through an employer;
and he, doubtless, would dine.
Not long ago a great capitalist—a member of the present Liberal
Government—gave an entertainment to the representatives of the
working-men’s clubs of London at the South Kensington Museum. It
was all very nice, I’m told, but the tone of the fete was pretty much
�16
THE COMING REVOLUTION
Fourth. In no country is the contrast between the excessive
wealth of the few and the grinding poverty of the many so
striking.
Fifth. In no country is the machinery of government so
entirely in the hands of the non-producing classes, or are the
people so cajoled out of voting power and due representation.
Sixth. In no country are the people so dependent for their
necessary food on sources of supply thousands of miles away.
Seventh. In no country is it so difficult for a man to rise
out of the wage-earning class.
Eighth. In no country in the world is justice so dear, or
its administration so completely in the hands of the governing
classes who make the laws.
A few figures will bring out some of these points into high
relief.
Thus, with regard to the land: according even to the
statistics in the so-called “ New Domesday Book,”a compila
tion published expressly in the interests of the landlords, 2,192
persons hold 38,726,849 acres of the total small area of Great
Britain and Ireland, the people having been completely driven
from the soil. Mr. Bright’s statement that 30,000 people hold
the agricultural land of Great Britain is positively very near
the truth. Reckoning rents, royalties and ground-rents, it is
calculated that landowners take not less than £100,000,000
out of their countrymen owing to the monopoly they enjoy.
Much of this vast revenue is, no doubt, heavily encumbered
by debts to the capitalists. This, however, makes it no better,
but rather worse, seeing that the mortgages cripple the possesthe same as it must have been at a gathering called by a feudal lord of
old time, when he condescended to regale his retainers with a roasted
ox and “ fixings.” Not a single middle class or upper class man was
asked. Of course I am not saying that the working-classes are not as
much to blame for this state of things as those who patronise them. I
think they are. No one will give them the social equality they have
a right to unless they claim it,—of that we may all be very sure.
�IN ENGLAND.
17
sor and prevent him from making improvements; while there
is no personal relation whatever between the mortgagee and
the tenants or laborers on the mortgaged estate. Bad seasons
and American competition have, it is reckoned, reduced the
value of land in England in many districts not less than
twenty-five per cent. The percentage of bankruptcies and the
registration of bills of sale among farmers have of late years
been something distressing, and as it is impossible to grind the
agricultural laborer down any lower—his average wages are
but three dollars a week, and farmers charge him at the rate
of eight pounds to twenty pounds an acre if he wants a plot of
the land, which is let by the landlord to the farmer at £1 or
£1 10s.—and the farmers can’t continue to pay rent out of
capital, a great change must be close at hand. Agriculture is
still by far our most important industry, involving the employ
ment of more capital and labour than any other. The value
of agricultural produce alone is taken at three hundred million
pounds a year on the average. A few years ago Mr. Caird
put the landlords’ agricultural rents at sixty-seven million
pounds. A system like the present, which has no elasticity
whatever, and acts as a positive injury to the community,
cannot possibly last much longer. When reforms begin they
will not stop short of the point which takes in the agricultural
laborers.
Who can wonder that, as it is, we are so dependent on
foreign countries for an ever-increasing amount of food.
Leaving Ireland aside, the population of England, Wales and
Scotland in 1840 was, in round figures, 18,000,000, or rather
over. In 1882 it was 12,000,000 more, or 30,000,000.
During that period agricultural science has greatly advanced,
and machinery, improved communications and the like have
increased the area of profitable cultivation. In 1840, however,
we imported a total amount of £27,000,000 worth of food;
�18
THE COMING REVOLUTION
in 1882 we imported no less than £160,000,000, and this
amount is steadily increasing. Yet it is the opinion of such
experts as Mr. Lawes, Mr. Caird, Lord Leicester, and others
that, under proper arrangements, at least twice the amount of
food might he profitably grown in Great Britain than
is now raised, and our enormous importation reduced to that
extent. The grave danger of the dependence upon sea-borne
food, which might be cut off during war with any naval power,
it is needless to insist upon. Enough that from this point of
view also the land question demands immediate consideration.
But again, to show the operation of capital and its absorp
tion of the general wealth. In 1841 the wealth produced in
Great Britain has been taken at £514,000,000 ; at- present
the annual wealth produced can scarcely be less £1,800,000,000.
The working-classes, however, who produce this, take a very
small share of it in return for their labor. The actual
number of workers cannot be put at more than eight millions—though this is a difficult figure to get at—and the power they
exert has been estimated at not less than that of one thousand
millions of men. Yet the average wages of the working
classes certainly do not exceed fifteen shillings a week, and the
total amount paid to them would not be more than three
hundred million pounds, as against more than nine hundred
million pounds absorbed by the upper, professional, and
middle classes, in one shape or another. The last census shows,
too, that while the producing class is not increasing so rapidly
in proportion as the non-producing classes, including domestic
servants, the actual pauper class is not decreasing. Mr. Russel
Wallace even estimates those who are more or less dependent
on charity in England and Wales alone at 4,500,000, out of
our total population of 28,000,000.
Nor is there any possibility that under existing conditions
this state of things will be altered. The tendency of improved
�IN ENGLAND.
19
machinery, used, not in the interest of the people at large, or
under their control, but simply to enable manufacturers to
undersell their neighbors and produce cheaply, is to create a
“fringe of labor ” always hanging on the skirts of the market
ready to be absorbed in periods of “ good trade,” only to be
thrown out again when the inevitable glut and stagnation
follow. As to getting out of the wage-earning class, that, as
a rule, is hopeless, and even if one fortunate artisan does
raise himself, he but shoves a more needy man into his place.
Since the beginning of this century there have been also seven
industrial crises, and the crushing effect of those upon the
rank and file of laborers, as well as upon the small shop
keepers who live upon selling them necessities and trifling
luxuries in small quantities, can only be known by those who
have seen the houses of the poor sold up and whole families
driven on to the “ parish ” from no fault whatever of their
own. Yet here in England, drawing wealth from all parts of
the earth, no effort whatever is made to distribute this wealth
more fairly among the people. The luxurious classes are
quite content to see their taxable profits alone rated at nearly
six hundred million pounds, while below men are glad to work
for seventy-five cents a day, and cases of sheer starvation are
common.
Once more as regards politics. That the House of Lords
is a house of landlords is a trite saying ; • but it is worse, for
many of their “ lordships ” are landlords and capitalists at
the same time; and they, consequently, no longer, as in
former times, exercise any control over the capitalist class.
Look, however, at the composition of the House of Commons,
elected, as I have already said, by a minority of the adult
male population, and so arranged that no poor man can
possibly sit in it without help from others. The interests of
the aristocracy are represented there by 165 members; there
�20
THE COMING REVOLUTION
are no fewer than 191 land-owners; bankers, traders, lawyers,
manufacturers, brewers, etc., sum up to 285. Out of a house
of 658 members in all, but two members belong to the work
ing-class—a halfpenny-worth of bread, indeed, to this intoler
able deal of sack.
Now here, surely, is the making altogether of a very
pretty overturn if once the working-classes understand their
position. There can be no mistake whatever about that.
Nevertheless, the external aspect of affairs for the moment is
tranquil in the extreme. Never were the people, to all
appearance, so dull. Our agitators say that men have not
half the spirit of the workers of twenty years ago, to say
nothing of the Chartists of ’48. This is, to a great extent,,
true, and the reasons for it are not far to seek.
In the first place, the capitalists are more than ever masters
of the situation. Almost the whole press and literature of
the country are devoted to their cause. The workers fancy
they are free, and for the most part are quite ignorant of the
fact that the wealth they see around them grows out of their
poorly paid labor. Though they can, as a body, feel the iron
law of wages, though they feel the effects of this law in over
work and short food, they still take it all for granted, and
think—those that do think—that chance, or good times, or
perhaps strikes, may improve their condition.
*
Of the abso
* It is from this iron law of wages that Marx has formulated his
famous demonstration of surplus value. A man accepts from sheer
necessity the competition wages of his time, and sells his force of
labor to the capitalist for the week or the day. But in two or three
hours’ work—Mr. W. Hoyle says, on the average, one and one-quarter
hours’ work—he will produce quite enough social labor-value to keep
him or to refund the wages the capitalist pays him at the end of the
week or day out of the results of his toil. The laborer, however,
does not work these two or three hours a day only, he works ten,
twelve, fourteen, even sixteen, hours a day ; for he has sold his labor
force to the capitalist, who can “ exploit ” it to any extent. Those
extra hours of toil, therefore, over and above the time needed to
�IN ENGLAND.
21:
lute necessity for general social and political combination tobring about genuine reforms, they know at present almost
nothing. Moreover, above this rank and file of laborers therestands the aristocracy of labor—the trade-unions, who, though,
they have done admirable work in the past, now block the
path of radical reform. As an old trade-unionist said of them
the other day, they are a standing protest against the tyranny
of capital, without the slightest idea of progress. Their leaders,
too, are almost without exception, more or less in the pay
of the capitalists—mostly Liberals who, in effect, use them to
*
keep back their fellows. This game has been played for years.
If a working-man shows himself capable, he is flattered; and,,
so far as anything in the shape of real revolutionary work goes,
“ squared.” * It is amusing to see members of the TradeUnion Parliamentary Committee button-holing members in.
that least democratic of all gathering-places, the lobby of the
House of Commons, bowing and scraping, indeed, when, if
create the amount of value represented by the wages paid simply
constitute so much unpaid labor which the capitalist takes in the shape
of the surplus value created by the laborer—the articles of utility,
namely, on which he has been employed. That surplus value the actual
capitalist divides up with landlords, bankers, profit-mongers, and other
gentlemen at large. When a workman first thoroughly grasps this
nice little jugglery which is going on at his expense he is apt to get atrifle warm in the expression of his love for the capitalist and “ society ”
in general. How odd !
* The trade-unionists are a small fraction of the workpeople of
England, yet they constantly pose as if they represented the whole
body, there could be no greater absurdity. They are not even
agreed among themselves on any matter of moment; and are, in truth,
to-day a convention or rather a reactionary body full of the “fads”about limitation of apprentices and the like, though meanwhile
machinery is practically abolishing the skilful handicraftsman. The
plan pursued by the capitalists has been very astute. They have
*
found money for working-class movements just enough to carry them
to the point where danger might begin. Then the support has been
withdrawn. This system of pauper politics has debauched many as
promising working-class leader.
�22
THE COMING REVOLUTION
the workers knew their real position, they would talk as
masters. But this sort of thing will not go on for ever.
Economical pressure is becoming too strong. We are no
longer absolute masters of the markets of the world; the
depression in agriculture seriously affects the home trade;
business is dull, even in the height of summer weather, and
the next industrial crisis may absolutely force the workingclasses to sink their petty jealousies, and the trade-unions
their fancied superiority, in a more thorough movement than
.any yet contemplated. Meanwhile there are not wanting
signs that another serious revolutionary agitation has begun.
All through London political clubs are being formed, at which
social changes of the most complete character are warmly
■discussed. The same in the provinces. Everywhere the
-claims of labor to control production are being debated by
.knots of workmen ; and invariably, so far as my experience
lias gone, from the socialist point of view. I do not say that
there are many who are yet prepared to take action—there
.are not; but the number of workers who are taking the
trouble to consider is increasing with surprising rapidity. For
instance, little more than two years ago a few Englishmen
and women, mostly of the working-class, started the organiza
tion known as the Democratic Federation. The programme
includes the fullest possible representation of the people, and
claims for them full power over every department of the
State. Among its other aims are to obtain free justice,
nationalization of the land, and eventually the control of the
machinery of production by the working-class. Already we
have held some of the largest open-air meetings ever held in
London, and have been almost equally successful in the indus
trial centres of the country. This shows in itself that the
political and social stagnation is rather apparent than real;
�IN ENGLAND.
23-
that much is going on of which no account is taken by thosewho wish not to see.
*
More obvious tokens of coming change, however, are not
wanting. The House of Commons, which has for three cen
turies exercised such preponderant influence in the State, is
falling into universal discredit. This is by no means wholly
due to the strain which has been put upon all its traditions of'
free speech by the determination of a Liberal government to
introduce undisguised despotism in Ireland against the protests
of the representatives of the overwhelming majority of Irish
men. The deterioration had begun before.! First of all, theHouse, which should represent the nation, became merely the
scene of party fights and faction squabbles, and then it hasdegenerated into little better than a machine for registering
the decrees of the cabinet—a body, be it remembered, quiteunknown to our constitution. Even worse than this are thelong, almost interminable utterances of wearisome members
on matters of no moment. Let a local question be once
started, and all the bores in the House are immediately in
full cry. They arc sure to know all about it—it is so unim
* The following is the programme of the Democratic Federation,
as revised and sanctioned at the last conference : (1) Adult Suffrage
(2) Annual Parliaments ; (3) Proportional Representation ; (4) Pay
ment of Members, and of all election expenses out of rates; (5) Bribery,,
treating, and corrupt practices at elections to be made acts of felony ;
(6) Abolition of the House of Lords and of all hereditary authorities ;
(7) Legislative Independence for Ireland; (8) National and Federal
Parliaments, including Representation of Colonies and Dependencies
(9) Nationalization of the land; (10) Disestablishment and disendowment of all State Churches; (11) Free Justice; (12) The Right of'
Making Treaties, of Declaring War, or Concluding Peace to be vested
in the direct representatives of the people.
This point was admirably put the other day in the “ Newcastle
Chronicle.” This journal belongs to Mr. Joseph Cowen, member for
Newcastle-on-Tyne, and is almost the only newspaper in the kingdom
which treats politics and social questions from an independent demo
cratic point of view.
�•24
THE COMING REVOLUTION
portant. But still more depressing is the dead level of
mediocrity among the younger men on both sides of the
House of Commons. The traditions of oratory seem to have
faded out from among them, and men look blankly around to
see which of the industrious and painstaking gentlemen now
posing as budding statesmen may artfully conceal under his
apparent dullness the qualities requisite for leadership in
these stirring times. * Formerly it was not so. Gladstone,
Cornwall Lewis, Bright, Hartington, even Forster, Disraeli,
Lord Robert Cecil, Gathorne Hardy, had early given evidence
■of powers which could fire a democracy or influence a senate.
What man is there among the English members under forty
•or five-and-forty—which is it of the landlordlings or conserva
tive money-bags on the one side, or the plutocrats, prigs, and
professors on the other, of whom the like could with truth be
•said ? The fact is, landlords and capitalists are alike played
■out. Their very finance is stuck in a blind-alley. They
neither of them have a policy they can affect to believe in for
themselves or with which they can hope to stir the pulses of
■the people. In a word, the House of Commons, as at present
constituted, is little more than a middle-class debating club,
•with a party wire-puller in the speaker’s chair. To revive the
memory of its ancient glories it must far more directly repre
sent the hopes and fears, aspirations and grievances of the
great body of Englishmen, must gain strength and vigour in
the free, bluff air of democratic agitation, and trust in the
future to the mass of the people for support.
* I but repeat here what is common talk among political people. It
is not that clever young men in other respects are wanting among the
members. Some can write and lecture very well. What is lacking is
'that indescribable energy, independence, imagination, eloquence—that
-genuine political capacity, in short, which pushes a man to the front
-almost in spite of himself. How is it the Irish members stand out
•from the ruck? Surely because they have a cause which they believe
in, and have a people at their back.
\
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41
IN ENGLAND.
2&
Meanwhile the very discredit of the pseudo-popular
chamber prepares the way for root-and-branch reform. Glad
stone, who is denounced as a revolutionary agitator, is really the
last of the great middle-class transitionists, and with his disap
pearance a new era will begin. An agitation for the abolition,
of the House of Commons would even now find adherents. A
little more, and the idea of a hundred years ago will spring;
again, and a National Convention may force its way to the
front. We have outgrown our political swaddling- clothes,
and in any case constitutional forms are but the outcome of
the social and economical structure beneath them. As that
changes, so must they.
This decadence of Parliament is of course only a symptom..
But outside, also, straws show which way the current is setting.
Apparent stagnation, general mediocrity, almost universal
listlessness in grave concerns, indifference to anything but the
superficial aspects of events—these precede almost every great
upheaval which the world has seen. To take an example of
indifference. Among the ugliest growths of modern society
are the numerous gangs of organized roughs—answering tothe hoodlums of America or the larrikins of Australia—who
parade our great cities, and too often, not content with mauling:
one another, maltreat the peaceful wayfarer. Yet in all the
criticisms of the anonymous press on their action, not one
writer has taken the trouble to analyze the manner in which
these people were fostered into their present brutality. Again,,
of late there has been a surprising increase of vagrants and.
loafers—many of them, by the way, are trained militiamen or
discharged short-service regulars, who would be ugly fellowsin a street fight with their discipline and desperation—men
who already render the highways by no means pleasant travel
ing for foot-passengers. In some districts tramps of this kind
have increased ten-fold in number during the last few years.
�.26
THE COMING REVOLUTION
Here, one would think, was a social phenomenon calling for
•careful attention. Why are able-bodied men and women
thus roaming the country ? What are the causes which
render them homeless, forlorn, and therefore dangerous ? A
bill for their repression was lately brought in by Mr. Pell, a
Conservative, and Professor Bryce, member for the Tower
Hamlets, and a “Philosophical ” Radical. Neither professor,
nor scholar, nor any other human being in the House of
Commons, considered the question from the point of view that
society might be to blame. In the House of Lords, when the
bill went there, my Lord Salisbury and my Lord Fortescue
said matters were getting serious, and such ruffians ought all
to be put under prison regimen. First drive men to want
and misery by social injustice, and then punish them because,
poor devils, they roam the country in search of food. Bravo,
my Lords and gentlemen, the bloody legislation of Queen
Elizabeth against “ the sturdy beggars ” will soon be revived
at this rate.
Once more. Here in London the number of the unemployed
has swollen to almost an alarming extent, even during the
summer months. Idle, good-for-nothing, drunken fellows, said
the capitalist press; let them starve or go to the workhouse. A
friend of mine, a journalist of ability, was shocked at what
he saw, and took up the question. He soon found that the
great majority of these thousands of workless people were
neither idle, good-for-nothing, nor drunken. But the case of
most of them seemed to him desperate. Ready to do almost
anything, there was literally no work for them to do.
My friend sent a note of his inquiries to a well-known
journal. “It was better,” so wrote the manager in reply, “not
to call attention to such matters. It could do no good.” Thus
the easy classes are shut out from even knowing what misery
�IN ENGLAND.
27
there is below them—which any overturn can only improve—
while what may be the result of such neglect in a troubled
time no one stops to consider for a moment. A few other
instances, and I have done. What is called the “ sweating ”
system is increasing in every direction, with the result that
young women actually work fourteen hours a day, for six daysin the week, for four shillings a week, out of which they have
to find house-rent and food! Several cases of this awful
slavery have lately figured in the police courts. On the
railways and elsewhere the tendency is to increase both length
of the hours and intensity of labour to a point which means
continuous exhaustion and early death—the death-rate of the
working-classes is in itself a lesson when placed by the side of'
that of the well-to-do. Lastly, the increase of prostitution,
especially of very young women and children, of late years, isalone enough to show the utter rottenness of our society. And
yet, I repeat, all this passes almost without notice. Our
statesmen and economists, our journalists and philanthropists,
our politicians and jurists cannot but know these things in a
sort of way; but, as to attempting to correct them, that is
quite another affair.
*
Now, let any intelligent man—he can find similar things,,
or not very different probably, within a stone’s throw of him
at home—come with me into some of the dwellings of the poor.
Here, for instance, is a hard-working family living in a single
room: they can afford no more. Father and mother, two
daughters, almost grown up, two boys and a little girl, pig
together in it as best they may. The court is crowded, the
* The increase of luxury among the upper and middle classes is
positively amazing. Only the other day I went straight from a work
ing-man’s work-room to the Harrow and Eton match. Is it within the
bounds of possibility, I said to myself, that, with the schoolmasterfairly abroad, this awful contrast between the waste of the few and thepinching of the many can long continue ?
�-28
THE COMING REVOLUTION
-•dwelling insanitary, the air unwholesome. Yet the two boys
and the girl go to the board school for “ education,” and return
■with just enough knowledge to enable them to appreciate their
social surroundings. They will, at least, be able to read and
write, and know what is going on. Are they likely to increase
the ranks of “ conservative working-men ” or to rest content,
•unless bemused with beer and tobacco, with arrangements
which thus brutify them ? I judge not. In the agricultural
-districts, where there is plenty of room, I have seen arrange
ments quite as bad. Educate children, and then send them
back to such conditions as these : is not this to prepare revolu
tion with both hands ? Still we hear the old fateful answer,
It will last our time. I say it will not.
For, apart from the lectures of which I have spoken, books,
pamphlets and fly-leaves are finding their way into work-shop
;and attic, which deal with the whole social question from the
very bottom. Theories drawn from Dr. Karl Marx’s great
work on Capital, or from the programme of the Social Demo
Scrats of Germany and the Collectivists of France, are put
.forward in a cheap and readable form. Mr. Henry George’s
work on “ Progress and Poverty,” also, has already found tens
of thousands of working-class readers. Professor Wallace’s book
-on “ Land Nationalization” has also been widely read, though
neither of these writers at all meets the views of the advanced
.school on the subject of capital. But pamphlets and leaflets—
.some of which are written by men actually working at their
trade—produce a still greater effect. Our workers have but
little time, and too often little taste, for reading. With them,
therefore, short, pithy tracts are the ones that tell.
*
* Those who have read Paul Louis Courier’s brilliant “ Pamphlet
-des Pamphlets ” will require no further evidence of the influence which
,the pamphlet has had on civilized men. Those who have not will
thank me for calling their attention to that famous little brochure.
�IN ENGLAND.
29
In support of the views I hold as to the approach of a
troublous time, it is scarcely necessary that I should refer to
the growth of the Salvation Army, though this strange combi
nation of the Convulsionists of the pre-revolutionary epoch in
France and the women’s whisky war in America is, thought
fully considered, significant enough. Moreover, in the really
serious conflicts which have taken place between processions of
these enthusiasts and the roughs, neither the police nor the
magistrates have shown much more capacity than they have
displayed in dealing with the gangs in London. While the
elements of disorder thus gather apace, the controlling power
seems smitten with a sort of paralysis. Outbreaks of brutal
savagery are thought worthy of far more leniency than a paltry
theft by a starving woman. At the opposite pole to the
Salvationists stand the Secularists, who are in their way quite
as bigoted, while the most improper exclusion of their leader—
I had nearly said their pope, for Mr. Bradlaugh brooks no
•contradiction in his atheistic church, and has long since regis
tered his right to infallibility—from the House of Commons
has given them a legitimate grievance to agitate about.
As to the Church of England, she has stood so many shocks
and schisms without a topple, that even the growing feeling
against all state churches may take some time to upset her.
Nevertheless, many of the rising young parsons themselves
•denounce the alliance which the ecclesiastical hierarchy has
made with the mammon of unrighteousness, and proclaim
aloud that whatever modern Christianity may find it con
venient to allow, the religion of Christ means more or less
■complete communism. How many of these audacious young
men will sink their principles in fat livings and preach general
.subservience to snoring laborers, I should be sorry to estimate.
Enough that the ideas are abroad quite apart from individual
•backslidings. If religionists of any “stripe” wish to gain a
�30
THE COMING REVOLUTION
permanent hold on the workers nowadays, they must com
bine the prospect of material improvement in this world with
the promise of eternal happiness in the next. Otherwise the
indifference of the mass will be too much for them, the singular
success of the Salvationists notwithstanding.
But some may say, This gloomy picture you paint for us is
too much of one colour: is there no ray of light to irradiate
the landscape ? For the great mass of the working-people of
England, under present social conditions, I say deliberately—
None. On the contrary, the future seems for them darker than
ever. For nowadays we are not as in 1848 : the outlets are
blocked; industrial crises when they come are universal;
capitalism dominates the planet. Electricity, which is already
clearly seen to be the great force of the future, and which
bears the same relation to steam that steam did to the old
horse-power—this illimitable engine of production is also going
without heed or protest into the hands of the capitalist class.
The anarchy consequent upon the existing system of produc
tion and exchange will be only intensified thereby; the “fringe
of labor,” the vagrants, the paupers, the residuum, in short,
will be increased ; the rich will become yet richer; the poor,
poorer still. Even as I write the process is going on so plainly
that he who runs may read the result written on the faces of
the people. As capital rolls up into larger and yet larger
masses, the small shop-keeper is crushed out by the cooperative
associations and the great magazine stores ; huge corporations
carry on business without the slightest regard for the human
machines they employ. So the wheel revolves, grinding ever
smaller the mass of mankind beneath.
Revolution ! What have the workers to fear from revolu
tion I Their life is one perpetual Revolution. They are
never sure of their home or livelihood from one week to
another. It is reckoned that the working-classes of London
�IN ENGLAND.
31
all change their homes once in every two and a half years.
And these homes, bear in mind, become dearer and worse as
times go on. The very improvements in our great cities mean
closer crowding and worse accommodation for those who really
make the nation’s wealth. What have they to fear from a
general overturn ? Nothing. And ere long they’ll know this.
“We lived in garrets forty years ago, we live in garrets now,”
said one of the most active of the old Chartists, who has lived and
agitated to the present time. Nor must the fact be overlooked
that the great machine industries, so farmore developed here than
in any other country, though they have been the means of keep
ing the people down, have also taught them how to combine.
Thus, then, discontent is growing with existing grievances;
the same economical pressure which produces the discontent
and grievances leads to combination; the present lot of the
workers is so bad as a whole that they are beginning to think
no change could be for the worse ; ideas are gradually spreading
among them which would lead them to strive for a complete
overthrow ; there is no authority above which commands their
respect or seriously strives to improve their condition, and the
very increase of man’s power over nature serves but to render
their case worse. The working-classes of England must, in
the near future, be either rulers or slaves; and they are slowly,
very slowly, learning that the choice rests with them. A
serious foreign war would very soon bring the whole to a
head; for assuredly the mass of Englishmen would never
again submit to heavy sacrifices, which would only benefit the
governing classes. Democracies fight, no doubt, but they fight
for an idea or for their own hand. That revolutionary current
also which is moving below the surface in all European
countries can scarcely fail this time to affect us. The impulse
will probably come from without; but, unless we were already
prepared, it would have little effect. When such ideas are
spreading, it needs but a spark to fire the train.
�32
THE COMING REVOLUTION.
If, however, the country is at present in a bad condition
for the many, which all must admit, there is still not wanting
evidence that the English people, under better arrangements,
would soon rise to the level of the most glorious periods of our
past history. Those very lads who now fall into the dangerous
classes from sheer ignorance and bad management—there are,
according to the police, at least three hundred thousand such
people in London alone—form, if taken early and thoroughly
fed and trained, the flower of our navy. The race is really as
capable as ever. In America, in Australia, all the world over,
the Anglo-Saxon blood is still second to none. It is high
time, then, that the great body of Englishmen should take up
their heritage, that they should make common cause with their
Irish brethren, as well in England as in Ireland, in one con
tinuous effort to free the workers of both peoples from class
domination and class greed. There is enough and to spare
for all. Let, then, the men and women who make the wealth
of these islands bid those bunglers who trade upon their welfare
stand back; let them trust to themselves alone to hand on a
nobler industrial England to their children, sinking all petty
jealousies, race hatreds, and personal selfishness in the endeav
our to secure health, home comfort, and true freedom for the
millions who now have neither happiness nor hope. Then,
indeed, that very concentration of population which, under our
present system of unrestricted competition results in squalor,
degradation, and misery, will be our strength, our safety, and
our greatest resource. Then, indeed, England may hold out
to all nations an example of social reorganization, which may
yet give her an ungrudged supremacy among the peoples of
the world. Such an England I for one see before us in the
future: to bring about such a reorganization, I, for one, will
never cease to strive.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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The coming revolution in England
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Hyndman, Henry Mayers [1842-1921]
Description
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 32 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Date of publication from KVK. Includes bibliographical references. Reprinted from the "North American Review". Stamp on title page: 'South Place Chapel Finsbury, Lending Library'.
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William Reeves
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[1884?]
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T406
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Socialism
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The coming revolution in England), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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Text
Language
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English
Social change
Socialism
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Price One Penny.
23rd Thousand.
II
Reprinted with additions from “JUSTICE,”
BY J. L. JOYNES.
1885.
Published at The Modern Press, 13, Paternoster Row, E.C.
I.—DIVISION OF TOIL.
Q. Why is it necessary that any work should be done in the world ? A. Because men
require food, clothing, and shelter; and these cannot be obtained without work.
Q. Is the work which must be done in order to produce these necessaries either very
hard or very long ? A. It is neither the one nor the other. After all the necessary work
has been done, there is ample opportunity for the enjoyment of leisure and the produc
tion of beautiful things.
Q. Then why do immense numbers of men spend their whole lives in doing work
which gives them no pleasure, while the enjoyment of leisure is an impossibility for
them ? A. Because there is smother large class of men who keep all the available leisure
and pleasure for themselves.
Q. How may these two sets of persons be roughly distinguished? A. As employers
and employed; idlers and workers ; privileged and plundered ; or, more simply still, asrich and poor.
Q. Cannot the poor provide the rich witn rood, clothing, and shelter, and yet have
enough time for leisure even after they have done this ? A. Certainly; but the rich are
not content with exacting simple necesswies from the poor.
Q, What more do they compel them to contribute ? A. Luxuries; and there is no
end to the amount of labour which ma« be wasted in the painful production of useless
things.
Q. Why do the poor consent to produce by their labour all these necessary and un
necessary things for persons who d» nothing for them in return ? A. Simply because
they cannot help themselves.
Q. But how does it happen that <ney are in this helpless position ? A. It is due to
the fact that society is at present organised solely in the interests of the rich.
Q. Why cannot the poor organise society on a system which will prevent their being
robbed of their own productions’ A Because the existing organisation itself keeps them
ignorant of its own causes, and «xmsequently powerless to resist its effects,
Q. What is the first step towards a better state of things ? A. The education of the
poor to understand how it is that their own excessive work enables the rich to live in
idleness upon its fruits.
Q. What is the most hopeful sign that they are ready for enlightenment on this point ?
A. Discontent with the disagreeable and degrading conditions of their own lives.
Q. What is the first principle to which they may appeal for relief from these condi
tions? A. The principle of justice, since it is manifestly unfair that those who do all
the work should obtain the smallest share of the good things which it produces.
Q. What is the alternative to the present unequal distribution of work and good
things? A. That all should be obliged to do their fair share of the work, and to content
themselves with a fair share of the good things.
Q. Are those who insist upon the practical enforcement of this principle Conservatives
or Radicals ? A. They are neither, since they are necessarily opposed to all political
parties.
Q. What then are they called ? A. From the fact that they wish to displace the pre
sent system of competition for the bare means of subsistence, where each man is for
himself, and to establish in its stead the principle of associated work and common enjoy
ment, where each is for all and all for each, they are called Socialists
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IL—THE CAPITALIST SYSTEM.
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Q, What is wealth ? A. Everything that supplies the wants of man, and ministers in
any way to his comfort and enjoyment.
Q, Whence is wealth derived? A. From labour usefully employed upon natural
objects.
Q. Give instances of labour usefully employed? A. Ploughing, sowing, spinning
weaving, etc., etc.
Q. Give instances of useless employment of labour? A. Digging a pit for the pur
pose of filling it up again, making a road that leads nowhere, supporting people in abso
lute idleness by presenting them with food and clothing for doing nothing, etc., etc.
Q. What do we mean when we say that an article has value ? A. That it is useful or
agreeable to human beings.
Q. When is an article said to have an “ exchange value” in addition to its usefulness
or “ use value ” ? A. When it embodies a certain amount of generally useful labour.
Q. Are the two sorts of value ever identical ? A. They cannot be compared at all.
Q. Explain by an instance what you mean by this? A. The hunger of a starving
man who enters a baker’s shop does not affect the exchange-value of a loaf, which is
measured by the amount of labour which has been expended in making and baking it.
Q. What is its use-value to him ? J. Its use-value is infinitely great, as it is a ques
tion of life and death with him to obtain it.
Q. What is its use-value to another man? A. Its use-value is nothing at all to a
turtle-fed aiderman, sick already with excessive eating, but its exchange-value remains
the same in all cases.
Q. Is there no exception to this rule? A. If the baker has a monopoly of baking, and
no other loaves are anywhere obtainable, he can charge a much higher price than the
amount of his expended labour entitles him to demand.
Q. Is this often done ? A. Every monopolist does it, as a matter of course.
Q. Who are the chief monopolists ? A. There are two great classes. The landlord s
monopolise the land, and the capitalists the machinery.
Q. What is capital ? A. Capital is the result of past labour devoted to present pro
duction,—machinery and factories for example.
Q. How does the landlord secure his profit ? A. By extorting from the labourer a
share of all that he produces, under threat of excluding him from the land.
Q. How does the capitalist act? A. He extorts from those labourers who are ex
cluded from the land a share of all that they produce, under threat of withholding
from them the implements of production, and thus refusing to let them work at all.
Q. On what terms does the capitalist allow the labourers to work ? A. The capitalist
agrees to return to them as wages about a quarter of what they have produced by their
work, keeping the remaining three quarters for himself and his class.
Q. What is this system called ? A. The capitalist system.
Q. What is it that regulates the amount returned to the labourer ? A. The amount
that is necessary to keep him and his family alive.
Q. Why does the capitalist care to keep him alive ? A. Because capital without
labour is helpless.
Q. How is this amount settled ? A. By competition among the labourers, and the
higgling of the labour market.
Q. Is it invariable? A. It varies with all the variations of trade and locality, and the
different degrees of skill of the different labourers, but it constantly tends to a bare
subsistence for the mass of the labourers.
Q. By what name is this law known ? A. The iron law of wages.
Q. How can it be proved ? A. By reckoning up the amount of food and clothing
consumed by those who produce them.
Q Is there any independent testimony to its truth ? A. The witness of all doctors
who have studied the subject.
Q. What evidence do they give upon it ? A. They declare that diseases arising from
insufficient nourishment are constantly present throughout the labouring classes, and
that “ the poor are permanently afflicted with one disease—starvation."
Q. What remedy for this do Socialists propose ? A. Simply that the labouring
classes should become their own employers.
Q. What effect would this have? A. The classes who live in idleness on the fruits
of the labour of other people would be improved off the face of the earth, every one
being obliged to take his share of honest work.
Q. On what compulsion ? A. The alternative of starvation would stare them in the
�face, as soon as the labourers ceased to supply them gratis with food, clothing, shelter,
and luxuries.
Q. Are not the “upper classes” useful as organisers of labour? A. Those who
organise labour are always worthy of their hire, though the hire may be fixed too high
at present; but it is only the absolutely idle, and those whose work, however hard it may
be, consists in perfecting and organising the arrangements for plundering the labourers
of their reward, who are simply the enemies of the workers.
Q. Are shareholders in companies, for instance, useful in organising labour ? A. As
a rule they employ others to organise labour, and the work done by the company would
go on just as well if the shareholders disappeared.
Ill—SURPLUS VALUE.
Q. In whose interest is present production carried on? A. In that of the employing
classes.
Q. Explain this. A. The labourers produce the machinery, which the employers
take away from them as soon as it is made. The labourers are then employed to work it,
in order to produce profit for their masters at a faster rate.
Q. What interest have the labourers in the continuance of capitalism, that is, the
capitalist system ? A. Manifestly none.
Q. Is capital, therefore, useless? A. Certainly not. The way in which it is used i»
attacked by Socialists, not the thing itself.
Q. How is it possible that it should be used in the labourer’s interest? A. Only by
means of a democratic State, acting in the interest of the producers.
Q. In what way would the State effect this? A. By taking into its own hands all the
land and capital, or “ means of production,” which are now used as monopolies for
the benefit of the possessing class.
Q. Is there any precedent for this? A. As the State has already taken over the
Post Office and the Telegraphs, so it might take over the Railways, Shipping, Mines,
Factories, and all other industries.
Q. Is the Post Office worked on Socialist principles ? A. Certainly not. There is no
pretence that the interests of its labourers, the postmen, are considered at all.
Q. What principle regulates their employment? A. That which regulates the em
ployment of all other labourers, competition, reducing their wages to the lowest
possible point, except in the case of the higher officials, who are paid much more than
would willingly be accepted by equally capable men,
Q. Cannot the workers combine together by co-operation to defeat this principle of
competition ? A. Co-operative societies cannot defeat this principle, unless the whole
body of workers are included in one society, and that is simply Socialism
Q. Why cannot different societies defeat competition? A. Because they are com
pelled to compete against each other, to exploit those labourers who are not members
of their body, and to be exploited by others in their turn.
Q. What do you mean by the word “ exploit " ? A. To exploit is to get more than
one gives in a bargain.
Q. To what extent is the exploitation of the labourers commonly carried? A. The
employers give them a bare subsistence, and take from them all the rest of the fruits of
their labour.
Q. What is the difference between the two called ? A. Surplus-value.
Q. What proportion expresses its amount ? A. The proportion between the two or
three hours of necessary labour, and the ordinary ten, twelve, or more hours’ work.
Q. W’hat do you mean by necessary labour? A. That which would feed and clothe
and keep in comfort the nation if all took their part in performing it.
Q. Is any individual employer responsible for the exploitation of the labourers?
A. No, the blame applies to the whole class. Individual employers may be ruined, but
the employing class continue to appropriate the surplus-value.
Q. How do you account for this ? A. Because competition is as keen among the
capitalists as among the labourers.
Q. How does it act with them ? A. It determines the division of the spoil, different
sets of people struggling to get a share in the surplus-value.
Q. How does this competition above affect the labourers below ? A. It does not affect
them at all. It is assumed that the plunder is to be shared among the “ upper classes,’
and the only question is in what proportion this shall be done.
Q. How do. the upper classes label this plunder? A. By many names, such as rent
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brokerage, fees, profits, wages of superintendence, reward of abstinence, insurance
against risk, but above all, interest on capital.
Q. Are all these deducted from the labourers’ earnings ? A. There is no other fund
from which they could possibly come.
Q. Is surplus-value paid for at all ? A. By no means. It is the produce of unpaid
labour, and is simply taken for nothing, just as a thief accumulates his stolen goods,
Q. Does not the progress of civilisation decrease the amount of the surplus-value ? A.
On the contrary it largely increases it.
Q. How is this? A. Improvements in agriculture, method, and machinery, which
civilisation renders possible, multiply manifold the productiveness of the labourer’s toil;
but competition among the labourers prevents them from reaping the benefit.
Q. Does not competition among capitalists in the same way lower the rate of interest ?
A. Certainly it does, but the rate of interest has nothing whatever to do with the rate
of exploitation or of surplus-value.
Q. What is interest ? A. Interest is a fine, paid by the private organiser of labour
out of the surplus-value which his labourers supply, to the idle person from whom he
borrows his capital.
Q. What is the tendency of the two rates of interest and surplus-value ? A. The rate
of interest falls, while the rate of surplus value rises.
Q. Why is this ? A. Because with the storing up of the increased surplus-value by
the capitalist, or in other words, with the accumulation of capital, the competition among
capitalists who are anxious to lend on interest becomes keener, and each individual is
obliged to be content with less.
Q. Does not this lessening of the rate of interest benefit the labourer ? A. No; since
it is only due to the multiplication of those who share in his surplus-value, the result
being the same as it would be if he were allowed to pay a penny to six people instead of
sixpence to one.
Q. How do the capitalists adjust their own conflicting claims ? A. It is a question of
division of spoil among plunderers. If the surplus-value is high, there is more to divide
among the capitalists, but if the capitalists are numerous there is so much less for each
individual among them.
Q. Explain this by an example A. Take the case of Belgium. The labourers are
there exploited to the uttermost, there being no "factory laws” to restrain the greed of
the employer, but since capital is plentiful, the surplus-value is shared among many
capitalists, and the rate of interest is low.
IV.—METHODS OF EXTORTION.
Q. What did you mean by saying that capital without labour is helpless ?. A. The
most ingenious machinery can do nothing but rust or rot unless it is kept going by
labourers.
Q. Why do not the labourers decline to work the machinery for the capitalist?
A. Because they have no other means of making their livelihood.
Q. How could this be remedied ? The State could compete with the capitalist by
providing employment for the labourers, and paying them the full value of their pro
ductions.
Q. What would be the effect of this upon the private capitalist ? A. His power would
be gone at once, since no labourers would work for him, except on such terms as would
leave him no surplus-value whatever.
Q. Is not the existence of capital in private hands an evil? A. Yes, certainly; but
capital, as such, would cease to exist.
Q. Is not wealth in private hands an evil ? A. Large accumulations of wealth by
individuals are an evil, but the evil is different in kind, for they could no longer be used
to carry out the capitalist system.
Q. Why not? A. Because the capitalist system presupposes the existence of two
factors, and is unworkable and impossible without them.
Q. What are these two factors ? A. First, private property in accumulated wealth ;
and, secondly, the presence of property-less labourers in the market who are forced to
sell their services at cost price.
Q. What do you mean by cost price? A. The wages which will give them a bare
subsistence and enable them to work on the morrow, this being the cost of the daily
reproduction of the force or power to labour which constitutes their sole property.
Q. Could not the capitalists obtain labourers by offering them the full value of their
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productions ? A. Possibly, but since the only object of the capitalist system is to
produce for profit, they would cease to wish to employ them when the source of interest
and profit was cut off.
Q. But supposing, in spite of their previous principles, they still wished to employ
them, what would be the result ? A. The labourers would have nothing to complain of
in this case; but the result would be that private capital would gradually dwindle away,
since it would not be replaced by surplus-value, and the capitalist could not compete
with the State on equal terms.
Q | What has hitherto prevented the workers from combining for the overthrow of the
capitalist system ? A. Ignorance and disorganisation.
Q. What has left them in ignorance ? A. The system itself, by compelling them to
spend all their lives upon monotonous toil, and leaving them no time for education
Q. What account have they been given of the system which oppresses them ? A. The
priest has explained that the perpetual presence of the poor is necessitated by a law of
God ; the economist has proved its necessity by a law of Nature; and between them
they have succeeded in convincing the labourers of the hopelessness of any opposition to
the capitalist system.
Q. How is it that the labourers cannot see for themselves that they are legally robbed ?
A. Because the present method of extracting their surplus value is one of fraud rather
than of force, and has grown up gradually.
Q. Has this not always been the case? A. Certainly not. Under the slave-owning
system there was no fraud involved, but only force.
Q. What similarity is there between the slave-owning and the capitalist system ? A.
The parallel is complete, with the single exception that force was used in place of fraud.
Q. Explain this. A. The slave-owner received the produce of the slave’s toil, and re
turned to him part of it in the shape of food, clothing, and shelter. The capitalist takes
the whole produce of the labourer’s toil, and returns to him such proportion of it as will
provide him with necessaries.
Q. What constitutes the chief difference between capitalism and slave-owning? A.
The fact that the capitalist goes through the form of bargaining with the labourer as ic
the amount of the portion of the produce that shall be returned to him.
Q. What is this farce called ? A. Freedom of contract.
Q. In what sense is it free? A. In this sense—that the labourer is free to take what
is offered or nothing.
Q. Has he anything to fall back upon? A. He has absolutely nothing in countries
where the tyranny of capitalism is untempered by any form of Socialism.
Q. What is the case in England? A. Humanity has revolted against the reign of
the capitalist, and provided the workhouse as a last resource for the labourer, taxing the
capitalist for its support.
Q. How has the capitalist turned this piece of Socialism to his own ends? A. By
rendering the workhouse so unpleasant to the poor that starvation is often thought pre
ferable ; and by insisting that no useful work done in the workhouse shall be brought
into his market, where its presence would disturb his calculations, and impair his profits.
Q. Why does he allow it to exist at all ? A. Because he knows that its existence may
stave off for a time the Revolution which he dreads.
Q. What do you mean by the Revolution ? A. The complete change in the conditions
of society which will abolish all unjust privileges, distinctions of rank, or difference
between wage-payers and wage-earners, and will render the workers their own employers.
Q. What other method of appropriating surplus-value has prevailed besides those of
slavery and capitalism ? A. In purely agricultural countries, as for instance in Ireland
and South-Eastern Europe, different types of landlordism have been quite as effectual.
Q. Does landlordism represent the forcible or the fraudulent method? A. Force is
its chief element, since it labels the surplus-value ‘ rents,' and uses all the resources of
civilisation in the shape of police and soldiery to enforce their payment by the people,
but the element of fraud is present, since the labourer is told that he is free to give up
his holding if he does not wish to pay rent.
Q. Mention a special type of landlordism ? A. The system called corvee.
Q. How does this work? A. The labourer is allowed to work on his own land for a
certain number of days, and to keep for himself all the produce of his toil during
that time, on the condition that he spends all his remaining time upon the land which
belongs to the landlord, who appropriates its fruits.
Q. How does this differ from the capitalist method of appropriation ? A. Chiefly in the
fact that the labourer knows exactly when he is working for his own benefit, and whe t
for that of the landlord ; while under the capitalist system there it no line of distinction
and neither he nor anyone else can tell precisely the exact length of time during whic.i
he gives away his labour gratis, although it is clear that his first two or three hours are
for himself, and the remaining seven or eight for some one else.
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Q. Can you show this to be the case ? A. As the producers only get from one-fourth
to one-third of the total produce, the remainder of their work obviously goes to benefit
the non-producers.
V—MACHINES AND THEIR USE.
Q. What is the use of machinery ? A. Labour-saving machinery is used, as its name
indicates, to reduce the cost of production.
Q. What do you mean by the cost of production ? A. The amount of human labour
necessary to produce useful things.
Q. How ought this reduction of the necessary hours of labour to affect the labouring
class ? A. It ought to benefit them in every way, by increasing their wealth as well as
their opportunities of leisure.
Q. Has it done so ? A. Certainly not.
Q. Why not ? A. Because the capitalist class has appropriated to itself nearly all the
benefit.
Q. What, then, has been the result ? A. The available surplus-value has largely
increased, and the idle classes have become more numerous and more idle.
Q. Support your opinion by that of an economist? A. “It is questionable,” says
John Stuart Mill, " if all the improvements in machinery have lightened the day’s toil
of a single man.”
Q. In what aspect of the case is this correct ? A. In respect of the whole labouring
class as a body.
Q. What is the effect upon individuals of the introduction of a labour-saving machine ?'
A. It lightens the day’s toil to a certain number of labourers most effectually, by taking
away their employment altogether, and throwing them helpless on the streets.
Q. Is such a lamentable event frequent ? A. It is a matter of every-day occurrence.
Q. What is the result to their employer ? A. He “ saves their labour ” in the senseof getting the same work done by the machine without having to pay their wages.
Q. Is this a permanent advantage to him individually ? A. As long as he has a mono
poly of the machine, it is a great advantage to him, but other capitalists soon introduce
it also, and compel him to share the spoil with them.
Q. In what way is this result obtained ? A. By comp dtion. The owners of the
machines try to undersell each other, with a view to keeizug the production in their
own hands.
Q. How far does competition beat down prices? A. Until the normal level of capitalist
profits is reached, below which they all decline to go.
Q. What inference do the economists draw from the result of competition? A. That
the whole nation shares equally in the advantage of the machine, since prices are every
where reduced.
Q. What fallacy underlies this argument ? A. The same fallacy which vitiates every
argument of the economists, and that is the assumption that the labourers have no right
to complain so long as the employers are content with taking only the normal rate of
profits as their share of the surplus-value.
Q. What other consideration is omitted by the economists ? A. The fact that society
is divided into two classes of idlers and workers. They assume again that the workers
have no right to complain, so long as they seem to obtain an equal share with the idlers
in the advantage gained by the saving of their own toil.
Q. How do they seem to share this advantage ? A. By the reduction in cost of articles
which they buy.
Q. Is not cheapness of production a benefit to the workers ? A. It is only an apparent,
not a real benefit.
Q. How could it be rendered real? A. It would be real if all who consumed were
also workers. As it is, the working-class get all the disadvantage of the low wages, and
of the adulteration, which has been described as a form of competition.
Q. What makes the reduction of cost appear advantageous to the wage-earners ?
A. The fact that their wages are paid in money.
Q. How is this ? A. The money-price of all articles has risen enormously during the
last three centuries owing to the increased abundance of gold. The money wages have
risen also, but not in anything like the same proportion.
Q. What has prevented them from rising in the same proportion ? A. The cheapening
of the labour-cost of the necessaries of life, which has thus been rendered an empty boon
to the wage-earners.
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Q. Give an instance of the misapirehension of these facts* A. The regular boast of
the Free-Traders, recently reiterated by John Bright, is that the Liberals have given
the labourers two loaves whereas the Tories wished them to be content with only one.
Q. What is this boast based upon ? A. The undeniable fact that bread is cheaper in
England under Free Trade than under Protection.
Q, Then how can you tell that the labourer does not get twice as much bread as
he would otherwise enjoy ? A. Simply because it has been proved again and again on
the highest authority that the labourers as a body at present obtain so bare a subsistence
that it does not suffice to keep them in health; therefore they could not at any time have
lived on half the amount.
Q. What would be the effect if bread became twice as dear ? A. Wages would neces
sarily rise. A Wiltshire farm labourer could not maintain his family on half their pre
sent food; and though capital cares nothing about individuals, it takes good care that
the labourers shall not starve in a body.
Q. What, then, is the general result of the cheapness which is caused by the introduc
tion of labour-saving machinery? A. The advantage of the cheapening of luxuries is
obviously reaped directly by the idlers, since the workers cannot afford to purchase
them. In the case of necessaries the advantage seems at first sight to be shared between
idlers and workers; but ultimately the idlers secure the whole advantage, because
money-wages are proportioned to what money will buy, and the iron law keeps them
down to the price of a bare subsistence.
Q. Do the labourers suffer any direct disadvantage from machinery? A. Certainly
they do. Numbers of them are thrown out of employment at each fresh invention; their
position is rendered ‘precarious in the extreme; and there is a constant tendency to
replaced skilled labour by unskilled, and men by women.
Q. If this is so, would not the workers be wise to destroy the machinery ? A. To
destroy what they have themselves produced, merely because it is at present stolen
from them, would be absurd.
Q. What course should they pursue ? A. Organise their ranks; demand restitution
of their property; keep it under their control; and work it for their own benefit.
.
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VI.—DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH.
«
Q. Is it the case that the prices of articles would be raised if the community were
organised on Socialist principles? A. Not necessarily, nor in most cases; but in some
this would certainly be the result.
Q. On what principle? A. The principle governing the price of all ordinary things
would be that the worker should receive the full value of his labour.
Q. Would not this always raise the price of his production? A. No, it would only
ensure its being paid to him instead of to an idler.
Q. Explain this? A. In many cases the full labour-value of an article is paid by the
consumer, although the producer gets only his bare subsistence, all the surplus-value
being intercepted by the numerous unnecessary middlemen.
Q. Why is this not always the case? A. Because the employer of labour, instead of
always dividing the surplus-value among middlemen, often competes with his neighbours
by offering a share of it to the consumer.
Q. How can he do this ? A. Simply by selling his goods below their full labour-value.
Q. Give an instance of this? A. A notorious example of this occurs in the match-box
trade, for although several middlemen secure their share of the surplus-value of the
match-box makers, they are still sold to the public at a lower price than their full labour
value, the buyer thus becoming a partner in the employer’s theft by receiving a share of
his stolen goods.
Q. Who are the middlemen who intercept and share the surplus-value produced by
the labourer ? A. The unnecessary agents and distributors, the holders of stocks, bonds,
and shares of every description, and all those who are supported by the wealth-producers
either in idleness or in useless labour, of which latter class of persons flunkeys are a
conspicuous example.
Q. Do not the rich support their own flunkeys, and maintain in comfort those who
produce luxuries for them ? A. Certainly not. These people are maintained entirely
by the workers, though the maintenance is passed through the hands of the rich, who
therefore imagine that they produce it.
Q. Is not expenditure for luxuries “good for trade," and so beneficial to the workers ?
A. It is only good for the trade of the producers of luxuries by exactly the amount
which it withdraws from the producers of useful things.
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Q. Would not the money employed upon luxuries otherwise be idle? A. By no
means. The rich are not in the habit of keeping their riches in a stocking, and the
bankers are compelled to keep all the money lent them in full use, or they would them
selves be ruined.
Q. What then is the result of spending money upon luxuries? A. The destruction
of a certain amount of wealth and the absolute waste of the labour spent in repro
ducing it.
Q. Does not the expenditure of a wealthy man in keeping up a large household
benefit the poor ? A. Decidedly not.
Q. What then is the result of spending money in maintaining flunkeys ? A. The
utter waste of all the food and clothing they consume.
Q. Would not they in any case consume food and clothing ? A. Certainly : but they
would repay the waste by producing useful things themselves.
Q. How does all this work affect the labourers ? A. It compels them to produce
more food and clothing than would otherwise be necessary, or else to consume less of it
themselves.
Q. How is this ? A. Because the food which the flunkeys eat cannot be also eaten
by the labourers; while the labourers are obliged to produce it, since somebody must
do this, and it is perfectly evident that the flunkeys do not.
Q. Does not this apply to all the idle classes ? A. Certainly. We have only to ask
where the food which they eat and the clothes which they wear, come from, and we see
that they are produced by somebody else without any return being made for them by
the idlers. That is to say, they represent unpaid labour, or in other words surplus
value.
Q. Then if one man is living in idleness, what is the inevitable result ? A. That
another man is producing what he consumes; or that several are each doing more than
their fair share of work to make up for his deficiency.
Q. How would Socialism deal with this question of work? A. It would compel every
one to do his share of the necessary work of the world.
Q. Under what penalty ? A. Under penalty of starvation, since those who refused to
work would get nothing to eat.
Q. What would happen to the old and infirm and the children? A. They would be,
as they are in any society, a perfectly just charge upon the able-bodied workers, in
creasing the necessary work of the world by the amount which must be devoted to their
maintenance and education.
Q. Would the workers then receive the full value of their toil ? A. Deductions from
it for such purposes as those just mentioned are, of course, inevitable, and must be
made under every form of society, as well as certain other deductions for other measures
of public utility.
Q. What deductions can be prevented by Socialism ? A. Nothing could be subtracted
from the labourers’ reward for the purpose of maintaining in idleness any persons
whatever who are capable of work, nor for the aggrandisement of private individuals,
nor for the furthering of objects of no public utility merely to satisfy individual caprice.
YII—THEORIES OF PROFIT.
Q. What is the use of money ? A. It facilitates the exchange of articles, especially
those of unequal value.
Q. How is this effected? A. If A produces wheat, and B cloth, money serves as a
convenient measure of the labour-value of each. A exchanges his wheat for money,
and buys cloth with that. B exchanges his cloth for money and buys wheat with that.
Q. Are they both enriched by the bargain ? A. Not in the matter of exchange-value,
since wheat which has cost a day’s labour exchanges for cloth which has cost the same,
but in the matter of use-value they are both enriched, since each gets what he wants,
anil gives what he does not want.
Q. Is this always the case? A. Always, in the ordinary exchange between producers
who are working for their own benefit, and exchange goods for money, and that money
for other goods.
Q. Can a profit be made out of money transactions altogether apart from the exchange
©f goods ? A. Yes, by gambling either on the race-course or on the stock-exchange,
but in this case one gambler's gain is another’s loss.
Q. Whaf other form of exchange now prevails? A. That of those who, not being
workers, produce no goods, but yet have command of money.
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Q. How do they use it ? A. They exchange their money for goods, and those goods
back again into money.
Q. Then what is the use of the process if they only get money at the end, when they
had money at the beginning ? A. Because at the second exchange they get more money
than they gave at the first.
Q. How has this fact been explained by economists? A. By the mere statement
that the money-monger either gave less money than the goods were worth at the first
exchange, or got more than they were worth at the second.
Q. What consideration did they omit in this theory ? A. The fact that these same
money-mongers are in the market both as buyers and sellers, and that without a miracle
they cannot all gain on both transactions, but must lose in selling precisely the amount
they gain in buying.
Q. What other inadequate explanation has been put forward ? A. The theory that
in buying machinery they buy something which has the power of adding an extra exchange-value to the goods upon which it is employed.
Q. What made this theory seem plausible? A. The fact that with a machine the
labourer can produce goods much faster than without it.
Q. Does not this add exchange-value to his productions? A. Not unless he has a
monopoly of the machine, and can thus fear no competition except that of hand-labour;
otherwise the ex change-value of his goods sinks in proportion to the increased rapidity
of their production.
Q. Explain this. A. If he can make two yards of cloth in the time which he formerly
devoted to one, and all other weavers can do the same, the price or exchange-value of
two yards sinks to the former price of one; though, of course, the use-value of two is
always greater than that of one.
Q. Are not monopolies frequent ? A. No individual capitalist can keep a monopoly
for any great length of time, as all inventions become common property at last, and,
although it is true that the capitalists as a body have a monopoly of machinery as against
the workers, which adds a fictitious value to machine-made goods, and will continue to
do so until the workers take control of the machinery, yet this extra value is too small
to account for a tithe of the profits of the money-mongers.
Q. What is the one thing needful, which they must be able to buy in the market, in
order to make these profits ? A. Something whichjshall itself have the power of creating
exchange-value largely in excess of its own cost, in order that at the end of the transac
tion they may have secured more money than they have expended.
Q, What is to be bought in the market having this power ? A. There is only one
thing with this power, and that is the labourer himself, who offers his labour-force on
the market.
Q. On what terms does he offer it ? A. Competition compels him to be content with
its cost price.
Q. What is this ? A. Subsistence wages, that is, enough to keep himself and his
family from starvation.
Q. What does this represent in labour? A. The value produced by his labour
expendedBsefully for two or three hours every day.
Q. Is he, then, at leisure after two or three hours’ work? A. By no means. The
bargain between him and the capitalist requires him to give ten hours or more of work
for the cost price of two or three.
Q. Why does he make such an unequal bargain ? A. Because, in spite of all so-called
freedom of contract, he has no other choice.
Q. Has the capitalist no conscience? A. Individuals cannot alter the system, even if
they would ; and the capitalist is now often represented by a company, which, if it had
a conscience, could not pay its five per cent.
Q. After the labourer has produced the price of his own wages, what does he go on to
do ? A. To produce exchange-value, for which he is not paid at all, for the benefit of
the capitalist.
Q. What is the value produced by this unpaid labour called? A. Surplus value, as
we said before.
, Q. What does the capitalist do with the surplus value? A. He keeps as much as
he can for himself under the name of profits of his business.
Q. Why does he not keep it all ? A. Because out of it he has to pay landlords, other
capitalists from whom he has borrowed capital, bankers and brokers who have effected
these loans for him, middlemen who sell his wares to the public, and finally the public,
in order to induce them to buy from him instead of from rival manufacturers.
Q. How does he justify this appropriation of surplus-value by his class ? A. He tries
to persuade himself that capital has the power of breeding and producing interest by as
natural a process as the reproduction of animals.
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Q. Can he find any dupes to believe in so absurd a theory ? A. He instils a genuine
belief into himself and others that this is really the case.
Q. What is the inference from this? A. That the labourer ought to be grateful to the
capitalist for furnishing him with employment.
Q. For what have the labourers really to thank the capitalist? A. For defrauding
them of three-quarters of the fruits of their toil, and rendering leisure, education, and
natural enjoyment almost impossible for them to attain.
H
VIII.—INADEQUATE OBJECTIONS.
Fi
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Q. What kind of objectors do Socialists mostly meet with ? A. Those who from
interested motives prefer the present anarchy to the proposed organisation of labour,
and those who consider Socialists as a set of well-meaning persons busied about an
impracticable scheme.
Q. What objection do they chiefly urge against Socialism? A. That Socialists, if
poor, are interested schemers for the overthrow of an excellent society, in order that,
being themselves idle and destitute, they may be able to seize upon the wealth accumu
lated by more industrious people.
Q. What have they to say against Socialists of wealth and industry ? A. That they must
obviously be insincere in their Socialism, or they would at once give away all their
capital, instead of denouncing what they themselves possess.
Q. How should Socialist working men meet the charge? A. With contempt. The
idea that people who are treated with injustice have no right to demand justice because
they would be gainers by its enforcement, is too absurd to require refutation.
Q. How should wealthy Socialists reply? A. They should point out that, so long as
the capitalist system remains, it is impossible to evade the responsibility of wealth by
merely transferring it to other persons.
Q. Explain this by an instance ? A. In a capitalist society the mere purchasing of an
article in the market involves the exploitation of the labourers who produced it; and
this is not in any way remedied or atoned for by giving away the article afterwards to
somebody else.
Q. How does this illustrate the case ? A. The owner of capital cannot prevent it from
exploiting the labourers by giving it away. It cannot be used as Socialism enjoins
except under an organised system of Socialism.
Q. Can the wealthy Socialist do nothing to frustrate the capitalist system? A. He
can mitigate the severity of competition in all his personal relations. Beyond that he
can do nothing except use his wealth in helping on the Socialist cause.
Q. How may Socialists reply to the taunt that their scheme is impracticable ? A. By
quoting the opinion of J. S. Mill that the difficulties of Socialism are greatly over-rated;
and they should declare that, so far from being an impracticable Utopian scheme, it is
the necessary and inevitable result of the historical evolution of society.
Q. How can they prove this ? A, They can point to the fact that production is becom
ing more and mere socialised every day.
Q. Explain this? A. Production, which was once carried on by individuals working
separately for themselves, is now organised by companies and joint-stock concerns, by
massing large numbers of producers together, and uniting their efforts for a common end.
Q. For what end? A. -For the profits of the shareholders of the company.
Q. How could the State take advantage of this? A. By taking into its own hands
the organisation which the capitalists have prepared for it, and using it for the benefit
of the producers alone.
Q. Would not the capitalists start fresh companies in opposition to those managed by
the State ? A. They could no more compete with the State than they can now with the
Post Office; and they would be equally helpless in the case of the Railways and all the
great industries.
Q. Would it not be easier for the capitalists to compete with the State in the case of
smaller concerns ? A. It would in any case be impossible for them to get labourers, since
the State would be paying the labourers the full value of their labour, and they would
therefore decline to work for the capitalists.
Q. Would the expropriated capitalists be entitled to compensation? A. As a matter
of principle it is unjust to compensate the holders of stolen goods out of the pockets of
those who have suffered the theft; but it might be expedient to grant some compensation
in the shape of annuities.
Q. What is the tendency of the evolution of society? A. It tends always towards
�11
more complex organisation, and to a greater interdependence of all men upon each other;
each individual becoming more and more helpless by himself, but more and more power
ful as part of a mightier society.
Q. Is it true that individuality would be crushed by Socialism ? J. On the contrary,
it is crushed by the present state of society, and would then alone be fairly developed.
Q. What does J. S. Mill say on this point? A “The restraints of Communism
would be freedom in comparison with the present condition of the majority of the human
race. The generality of labourers in this and most other countries have as little choice
of occupation or freedom of locomotion, are practically as dependent on fixed rules and
on the will of others, as they could be in any system short of actual slavery.”
Q. What does Mr. Fawcett say on the same subject ? A. That there is no choice of
work or possibility of change for the factory hand ; and that the boy who is brought up
to the plough must remain at the plough-tail to the end of his days.
Q. What other objection has been urged against Socialism ? A. That it will take away
all the incentives to exertion, and induce universal idleness in consequence.
Q. Is this the case? A. On the contrary, it will apply the strongest incentive to all
alike, for all must work if they wish to eat, while at present large classes are exempted
by the accident of birth from the necessity of working at all.
Q. Name another common objection. A. That Socialism will destroy culture and
refinement by compelling the leisured classes who have a monopoly of them to do some
honest work.
Q. Is this the case ? A. On the contrary, it will bring the opportunity of culture and
refinement to all by putting an end to the wearisome labour that continues all day long;
while the leisured class will learn by experience that work is a necessity for perfect
culture.
Q. What other objection is often .urged ? A. That State management would give rise
to jobbery and corruption.
Q. How may this be answered? A. By pointing to the present State organisation
either of the police or the Post Office, in neither of which are jobbery and corruption
conspicuous features.
Q. Would not the State be in a different postion as regards the people ? A. At present
it is the people's master, but under any democratic scheme of Socialism it would become
their servant, and merely be charged with carrying out their will.
Q. Name another objection to the practicability of Socialism? A. The cuckoo cry
that “if you make all men equal to-day, they will all be unequal to-morrow, because of
their different natural capabilities.”
Q. What equality do Socialists aim at ? A. Equality of opportunities, not of natural
powers.
Q. What is the Socialist view of the duties of those who are especially gifted by
nature ? A. That they owe a larger return to the community than those who are less
naturally gifted.
Q. What is the capitalist view of their rights and duties ? A. That they are indepen
dent of all duties, and have the right of taxing the community, which supports them,
for luxuries and waste to the full extent of their individual caprice.
Q, In accordance with this view, what method do capitalists take in dealing with
them ? A. Capitalists arrange that persons of extra industry and talent shall have every
opportunity of enslaving their less fortunate neighbours, thus adding an inequality of
conditions to the natural inequality of talent.
Q. What is the Socialist method ? A. Socialists insist that the talented as well as the
cunning shall be restrained by the organisation of society from appropriating the surplus
value created by their less fortunate neighbours.
IX—GLUTS AND THEIR RESULTS.
Q. To what is the periodical depression of trade, with its accompanying distress among
the labourers, due ? A. To the fact that individual capitalists are striving to enrich
themselves alone, instead of co-operating to supply the needs of the community.
Q. Explain this? A. During a period of activity, when prices are high and the markets
for goods are not over-stocked, a great competition goes on among capitalists, who wish
to take advantage of the high prices and produce more quickly the goods which can
command them.
Q. What is the effect of this competition ? A. All the available labourers are employed;
all the machinery is set going ; and no effort is spared by the manufacturers to produoe
the utmost quantity of the goods which are in demand on the market.
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Q. What is the inevitable result ? A. A glut is shortly created of these goods. Far
more than were wanted have been made. All the store-houses are full, and no more
purchasers are to be found.
Q. What is the next step in the process ? A. The capitalists soon get tired of heaping
up what they cannot sell, and wish to stop production.
Q. How can they manage this ? A. They turn off all their extra hands, and propose
such a reduction of wages that the rest agree to strike rather than accept it.
Q. With what result ? A. Production is stopped for a time, and the capitalists are not
obliged to pay wages, or else agree to pay only for half time until the glut has gradually
disappeared, as the goods are absorbed by the public.
Q. What follows? A. A fresh demand arises. The workers are all employed again,
and the glut recurs with the utmost regularity.
Q. Is there any necessity for this periodical distress ? A. Not the smallest,
Q .What is it that vitiates the whole system of production at present? A. The pre
vailing idea that goods are not to be produced for the sake of their usefulness, but for
the sake of making a profit for capitalists and giving employment to labourers.
Q. What definite evil is the result of this idea ? A. Adulteration and fraud of everv
description; cheap and nasty wares driving expensive and sound goods out of the market
Q Who are the greatest sufferers from all this ? A. The workers themselves.
Q. In what way? A. Being the least able to protect themselves against adulteration
and fraud, they are cheated to a fearful extent in all that they buy ; and are the first to
suffer from a glut in the market.
Q. How is this ? A. Because they are first compelled to produce more food and
Ciothing than can possibly be sold at a profit, and then are deprived of the means of
buying what they have themselves produced, although they are in urgent need both of
food and clothing, because the capitalists throw them out of work as soon as their work
ceases to pay its percentage.
Q. What advice is given to the labourer by well-meaning reformers who do not under
stand the labour question ? A. To be sober and thrifty.
Q. Is this advice sound? A. As addressed to the individual struggling against his
neighbours under the capitalist system, it is excellent.
Q How can it benefit the individual? A. It may enable him to “ rise ” into the capitalist
class; that is, to exchange his position in the ranks of the oppressed for one in those of
the oppressors.
Q. What is the Socialist criticism of this advice? A. That as a panacea for the
wrongs of the system, or as a cure for the sufferings of the labourers as a class, it is
inadequate , because a general improvement in intelligence, thrift, and sobriety, if
shared by the whole class of labourers, merely supplies the capitalist class with a better
instrument for the production of surplus-value.
Q. What is the result of improvement in the ability of the workers in the present
system? A. The same result as an improvement in machinery, namely, that goods are
more rapidly produced by the workers, and accumulated by the capitalists ; so that the
periodical glut, with its accompanying crisis, depression, and distress, is more quickly
achieved than before.
Q. Is there any possibility of an incidental advantage to the labourers? A. Only in
this respect: the labourer is a two-edged tool in the hands of the capitalist; and when it
becomes sharper and more efficient for his work, it becomes also more likely to cut the
hand that uses it.
Q. Explain what you mean by this ? A. A general improvement among the labourers
in intelligence and sobriety will probably be followed by improved organisation, with a
view to expropriating the classes that confiscate the fruits of their labour.
Q. Is this the end at which so-called “ social reformers ” aim ? A. By no means; but
they seem incapable of understanding either the inefficacy in one way, or the efficacy in
another, of their well-meant advice to the labourers as a class.
Q. What advice do the Malthusians give to the labourer ? A, To limit his family, as
they think that overpopulation is the cause of the distress.
Q. Is this the case I A. It has never been so in England.
Q. How can this be proved ? A. By the fact that the amount of wealth produced
which might be exchanged for food for the workers, if the capitalist system did not pre
vent it, has always increased faster than the number of producers.
Q. Why is this? A. Because the labour of those who are working in concert is far
more efficient than that of isolated workers, and machinery vastly enhances this
efficiency.
Q. What is the element of truth in the Malthusian theory? A. It is perfectly true
that a limited space of land cannot support an unlimited number of people, but as even
England, to say nothing of the world, has not reached that limit to population, it has at
present no bearing on the case.
�*3
Q. What is the element of truth as regards families? A. It is perfectly true that
in the present capitalist system the man who has no children at all is in a better
pecuniary position than the man with a large family, since, just as in actual warfare,
children in the modern competitive battle-field are an encumbrance, where every man
has to fight for his living, and maintain his family as best he may.
Q. How does the standpoint of the Malthusians differ from that of the Socialists’
A. The former accept the basis of the capitalist society, namely, the existence of two
distinct classes of wage-payers and wage-earners, and merely advise the workers to
attempt to secure a larger wage.
Q. How do Socialists regard this advice ? A. They consider that the discussion as to
whether the workers shall enjoy one-half or one-third of the wealth which they have
produced is comparatively unimportant, and they continue to urge the rightful claim of
the workers to the full value of their own productions.
Q. How soon is this claim likely to be attended to ? A. As soon as ever the majority
of the workers really understand their own position, and consequently become convinced
of the advantages of Socialism.
Q. How can the capitalists be converted to the same view? A. Appeals to justice
may make isolated conversions of individual capitalists, but nothing short of a display
of organised force will enable the idlers as a body to perceive the advantage of taking
their due share in the necessary work of society under a just system of Socialism.
X—REVOLUTION.
Q. On what ground do capitalists defend the principle of competition ? A. On the
eround that it brings into play a man’s best qualities.
Q. Does it effect this? A. This is occasionally its result; but it also brings out his
worst qualities, by stimulating him to struggle with his fellows for the relative improve
ment of his own position rather than for the absolute advancement of the interests of all.
Q. Why does this happen? A. Because in ordinary competition one man’s gain is
another’s loss.
Q. What is the theory of the Survival of the Fittest? A. That the class of persons
who are most fitted to live and propagate their race in the conditions with which it is
surrounded, is certain to survive the rest.
Q. Are the existing social conditions favourable to the survival of those persons whose
character renders them most valuable to society ? A. On the contrary, they favour the
survival of the most valueless.
Q. What is the final result of such conditions and surroundings as the filth, foul airand squalor of a town rookery ? A. The crushing out of those who are least able to
adapt themselves to these surroundings; and the consequent survival of those who are
most fit for filth, but least for decent social life.
Q. Does the law of the Survival of the Fittest affect men in the same way as it affects
the lower animals? A. No; because it is possible for men to alter their surroundings,
while other animals must simply adapt themselves to them, whatever they may be.
Q. What is the Revolution for which Socialists strive? A. A Revolution in the
methods of the distribution of wealth corresponding to that which has already taken
place in the means of its production.
Q. What change has already taken place ? A . Wealth is now almost entirely pro
duced by the associated effort of great numbers of men working in concert, instead of by
individual effort as in former times; while individuals still possess command of its
distribution, and use their power in their own interests.
Q. How are forms of government changed so as to re-adjust them to the economical
changes in the forms of production which have been silently evolving in the body of
society ? A. By means of Revolutions.
Q. Give an instance of this ? A. The French Revolution of 1789.
Q. Did that Revolution fail to attain its objects ? A. Certainly not; but its objects
were not those at which Socialists aim.
Q. What were its objects ? A. The political expression of the fact that feudalism was
demolished, and the reign of capitalism established on its ruins
Q. What do you mean by this? A. The overthrow of the political supremacy of
the landed aristocracy, and the establishment of a bourgeois plutocracy; that is, putting
the political power into the hands of the merchants and money-lords of the middle
class.
Q. What change in the forms of production had rendered this inevitable? A The
�fact that the possession of agricultural land had ceased to be the chief means to the
attainment of wealth.
Q. What, then, had taken its place ? A. The possession of capital and the use of
machinery.
Q. In what sense was that Revolution a selfish struggle? A. After the displacement
of the upper by the middle-class in political and social supremacy, the latter established
its own pow’er irrespectively of the rights of any other class.
Q. Is not the struggle which precedes and heralds the Social Revolution one of selfish
class interests in the same way ? A. By no means; Socialists do not aim at the
supremacy of a class or section of the community at the expense of other sections.
Q. Do they not wish the workers to control the State ? A. Certainly they do.
Q. Is not this the supremacy of a class? A. No, for they insist that every ablebodied person of sound mind should do a fair share of necessary wcrk. When all are
workers, the workers will be no longer a class, but a nation.
Q. What, then will become of the class-selfishnes of the workers ? A. Selfishness will
then become public spirit, when the motives which formerly led men to work for the
interests and advancement of themselves alone, operate for the benefit of the whole
human race with which their class has become identified.
THE
OBJECT.
The Establishment of a Free Condition of Society based on the prin
ciple of Political Equality, with Equal Social Rights for all and the
complete Emancipation of Labour.
PROGRAMME.
1. All Officers or Administrators to be elected by Equal Direct Adult
Suffrage, and to be paid by the Community.
2. Legislation by the People, in such wise that no project of Law
shall become legally binding till accepted by the Majority of the People.
3. The Abolition of a Standing Army, and the Establishment of a
National Citizen Force; the People to decide on Peace or War.
4. All Education, higher no less than elementary, to be Free, Com
pulsory, Secular, and Industrial for all alike.
5. The Administration of Justice to be Free and Gratuitous for all
Members of Society.
6. The Land with all the Mines, Railways and other Means of Tran
sit, to be declared and treated as Collective or Common Property.
7. Ireland and all other parts of the Empire to have Legislative
Independence.
8. The Production of Wealth to be regulated by Society in the com
mon interest of all its Members.
g. The Means of Production, Distribution and Exchange to be
declared and treated as Collective or Common Property.
As measures called for to palliate the evils of our existing society the
Social-Democratic Federation urges for immediate adoption :—
The Compulsory Construction of healthy artizan’s and agricultural
labourers’ dwellings in proportion 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 working day in all trades.
Cumulative Taxation upon all incomes above a fixed minimum not
exceeding /"300 a year.
State Appropriation of Railways, with or without compensation.
The establishment of National Banks, which shall absorb all private
institutions that derive a profit from operations in money or credit.
Rapid Extinction of the National Debt.
Nationalisation of the Land, and organisation cf agricultural and
industrial armies under State control on Co-operative principles.
As means for the peaceable attainment of these objects the SocialDemocratic Federation advocates :
Adult Suffrage. Annual Parliaments. Proportional Represen
tation.
Payment of Members ; and Official Expenses of Election
out of the Rates.
Abolition of the House of Lords and all
Hereditary Authorities. Disestablishment and Disendowment
of all State Churches.
Membership of Branches of the Federation is open to all who agree
with its objects, and subscribe One Penny per week.
Those ready to form Branches should communicate with the
Secretary, Social-Democratic Federation, Bridge House, Blackfriars. E. C.
All who are interested, in Socialism
should, read.
THE FOLLOWING PUBLICATIONS OF
THE MODERN PRESS, 13, Paternoster Row, London, E.C.
Which will be sent post free at the published prices on receipt of
an order amounting to one shilling or more.
(The Publications of the Modern Press can be obtained from W. L.
Rosenberg, 261, East Tenth Street, New York City.)
Socialism made Plain.
The social and political
manifesto of the Social-Democratic Federation issued in June 1883 ;
with “The Unemployed,” a Manifesto issued after the “ Riots in
the West End” on 8th February, 1886. Sixty-first thousand.
Crown 8-vo., paper cover, price id.
“ JUSTICE,” the Organ of the Social Democracy. Every
Saturday, one penny.
Socialist Rhymes
from Justice.
By J. L. Joynes.
Reprinted chiefly
Demy 8-vo., price id.
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.
Herbert Spencer on Socialism. By Frank Fairman.
16-pp. crown 8-vo., price id.
�'x'\x\'cw\xye^A>:
I
Socialism and Soldiering*; with some comments on the
Army Enlistment Fraud. By George Bateman (Late 23rd Regi
ment), with Portrait. With an introduction by H. H. Champion
(Late Royal Artillery). Price One Penny.
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 6d.
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.
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
Wage-Labour and Capital. From the German of
Karl Marx translated by J. L. Joynes and reprinted from Justice.
New and cheaper edition, Royal 8-vo., price id.
By Edward Carpenter —Social Progress and Indi
vidual Effort; Desirable Mansions; and Co-operative Production.
One penny each.
The Man with the Red Flag: Being John Burns’
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hand reporter.) With Portrait. Price threepence.
The Socialist Catechism. By J. L. Joynes. Reprinted
with additions from Justice.
Demy 8-vo., price id. 20th thousand.
Socialism and Slavery. By H. M. Hyndman.
(In
The Emigration Fraud Exposed.
By H.
M.
What an Eight Hours Bill Means.
By T. Mann
reply to Mr. Herbert Spencer’s article on “ The Coming Slavery.”)
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Hyndman. With a Portrait of the Author. Reprinted by per
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Socialism and the Worker.
By F.
A.
Sixth
Sorge.
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An explanation in the simplest language of tne main idea of Socialism.
The Chicago Riots and the Class War in the
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International Trade Union Congress, held at Paris,
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�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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The socialist catechism
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Joynes, J. L. (James Leigh) [-1893.]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 4, [2] p. ; 23 cm.
Notes: Reprinted with additions from: Justice. 23rd thousand edition. Publisher's list on unnumbered page at the end. Information on the Social-Democratic Federation, p. 14.
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The Modern Press
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1885
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G4976
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Socialism
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (A defence of atheism: being a lecture delivered in Mercantile Hall, Boston, April 10, 1861), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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Text
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English
Capitalism
Socialism
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■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.
�
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Socialism made plain and "The Unemployed" : being two manifestoes of the Social-Democratic Federation
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Place of publication: London
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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.
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Socialism
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Socialism
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PRIGE TWOPENCE.
SOCIALISM
anU IJrarticr
BEING
A LECTURE DELIVERED TO A WORK
ING CLASS AUDIENCE.
KARL PEARSON.
SECOKD
EDITION
LONDON:
W. REEVES, 185, FLEET STREET, LONDON, E.C,
�Note to Second Edition.
This lecture delivered early in 1884, and afterwards
printed as a pamphlet, seems somewhat out of place
in 1887. Things have been rapidly changing in the
last three years. The discontent of the hand
workers has become greater and more manifest; if
I read the times aright, we are still only at the
threshold of the social crisis. The socialist of the
market-place has accomplished many things, of
which one only seems to me of real value. The
“ Church Parade ” is a brilliant inspiration and will
do much good if it brings home to our shepherds how
completely they have been neglecting the herd in
order to pipe to the dancing of their mistresses,
Wealth and Power. On the other hand the need
for a scientific exposition of evolutionary Socialism
is as pressing and as unsupplied as ever. It is only
after repeated request from the publisher that I
have consented to a reprint in its present form of a
pamphlet which has no claim to be a scientific
treatment of a very difficult and urgent problem.
Inner Temple,
K.P.
March 6th, 1887,
�To E.
C.
This lecture has been printed just as it was delivered
You would have wished it carefully revised. Other
labour has hindered my touching it, and it now seems
better to let its simple language stand. It was addressed
to simple folk ; had it been intended for a middle-class
audience it would have adopted a more logical, but un
doubtedly harsher tone. The selfishness of the ‘ upper ’
classes arises to a great extent from ignorance, but these
are times in which such ignorance itself is criminal. The
object of this pamphlet will be fulfilled should it bring
home even to one or two that truth, which I have learnt
from you, namely—that the higher socialism of our time
does not strive for a mere political reorganization, it is
labouring for a renascence of morality.
K. P
Inner Temple, Christmas Eve, 1884.
�SOCIALISM:
IN THEORY AND PRACTICE.
-------- 0--------
During the past year there was a great deal of
discussion in the newspapers—and out of them_
concerning the dwellings of the so-called poor.
Numerous philanthropical people wrote letters and
articles describing the extreme misery and unhealthy
condition of many of our London courts and alleys.
The Prince of Wales got up in the House of Lords
and remarked that he had visited several of the most
■deplorable slums in the Holborn district, and found
them “ very deplorable indeed 1” The whole sub
ject seemed an excellent one out of which to make
political capital. The leader of the Conservatives
wrote an article in a Tory magazine on the dwellings
of the poor. He told us that things are much
better in the country than they are in the towns,
that the great landlords look after the housing of
the agricultural labourers. It is the employers of
labour, the capitalists, who are at fault. They
■ought to provide proper dwellings for their work
people. This was the opinion of Lord Salisbury, a
great owner of land. But the Conservatives having
come forward as the friends of the working-men, it
seemed impossible, with a view to future elections,
to let the matter rest there. Accordingly, Mr.
Joseph Chamberlain, a Radical leader and capital
ist, wrote another article in a Liberal magazine, to
�SOCIALISM : IN THEORY AND PRACTICE.
5
show that it is no business whatever of the employers
of labour to look after the housing of their work
people. It is the duty of the owner of the land to
see that decent houses are built upon it. In other
words, the only men, who under our present social
regime could make vast improvements, threw the
responsibility off their own shoulders. “ Very
deplorable, indeed,” said Lord Salisbury, “ but of
course not the landlord’s fault; why does not that
greedy fellow, the capitalist, look after his work
people ?” “ Nothing could be more wretched; I
am sure it will lead to a revolution,” ejaculated Mr.
Chamberlain, “ but, of course, it has nothing to do
with the capitalist; why does not that idle person,
that absolutely useless landlord, build more decent
houses ?” Then the landlord and capitalist for once
agreed and thought it would be well to appoint a
Royal Commission, which meant, that after a certain
amount of philanthropic twaddle and a vast ocean
of political froth the whole matter would end in
nothing or an absolutely fruitless Act of Parliament.
*
Any change would have to be made at the cost of
either the landlord or capitalist, or of both, and
whether we like it or not, it is these two who practcally govern this country. They are not likely to
empty their pockets for our benefit. It is generally
known how strong the interest of the land
lords is in both Houses of Parliament, but this is
comparatively small when we measure the
interests of the capitalists. You will be surprised,
if you investigate the matter, to find the large
proportion of the House of Commons which re
presents the interests of capital. The number of
members of that House who are themselves
* Three years afterwards we see it has ended in
nothing—-not even an Act
�6
SOCIALISM :
employers of labour, who are connected with grea
commercial interests, who are chairmen or directors
of large capitalistic companies, or in some other way
are representatives of capital (as well as of their
constituents) is quite astounding. It is said that
one large railway company alone can muster forty
votes on a division; while the railway interests, if
combined, might form a coalition which, in con
ceivable cases, would be of extreme danger to the
State. I have merely touched upon this matter to
remind you how thoroughly we are governed in this
country by a class. The government of this country
is not in the hands of the people. It is mere self
deception for us to suppose that all classes have a
voice in the management of our affairs. The
educative class (the class which labours with its
head) and the productive class (the class which
labours with its hands) have little or no real
influence in the House of Commons. The govern
ing class is the class of wealth, in both of its
branches—owners of land and owners of capital.
This class naturally governs in its own interests,
and the interests of wealth are what we must seek
for would we understand the motive for any
particular form of foreign or domestic policy on the
part of either great State party.
It may strike you that I have wandered very far
from the topic with which I started, namely, the
dwellings of the poor, but I wanted to point out to
you, by a practical example, how very unlikely it is
that a reform, urgently needed by one class of the
community, will be carried out efficiently by another
governing class, when that reform must be paid for
out of the latter’s pockets. Confirmation of this
view may be drawn from the fact that the govern
ing class pretend to have discovered in 1884 only
�IN THEORY AND PRACTICE,
7
that the poor are badly housed. There is
something almost laughable in all the pother lately
raised about the housing of the poor. So far as my
own experience goes—and I would ask if that is not
a fact ?—the poor are not worse housed in 1884 than
they were in 1874. The evil is one of very old
standing. It was crying out for reform ten years
ago, twenty years ago, forty years ago. More than
forty years ago—in 1842—there was a report issued
by a “Commission on the sanitary condition of
the labouring population of Great Britain.” The
descriptions given in that report are of a precisely
similar character to what was put before the public
in a little tract entitled the “ Bitter Cry of Outcast
London.” In that report we hear of 40,000 people
in Liverpool alone living in cellars underground.
We are told that the annual number of deaths from
fever, generated by uncleanliness and overcrowding
in the dwellings of the poor, was then in England
and Wales double the number of persons killed in
the battle of Waterloo. We hear of streets without
drainage, of workshops without ventilation, and of
ten to twenty people sleeping in the same room,
often five in a bed, rarely with any regard to sex.
The whole essence of this report was to show that
owing to the great capitalistic industries, the
working classes, if they had not become poorer, had
become more demoralized. They had been forced
to crowd together and occupy unhealthy and often
ruinous dwellings. The governing class and the
public authorities scarcely troubled themselves
about the matter, but treated the working classes as
machines rather than as men. We see, then, that
precisely the same evil was crying loudly for remedy
in 1842 as it cries now in 1884. We ask why has
there been no remedy applied during all these
�8
SOCIALISM :
years ? There can only be two answers to that
question; either no remedy is possible, or else thosem whose power the remedy lies refuse to apply it.
We must consider these two points.
Is no remedy possible ? Not long ago a thinking
Conservative (if such be not a contradiction in terms !)
stated that although he recognised the deplorable
misery of the poorer members of the working classes,
he still held no remedy was possible. The misery
might become so intense that an outbreak would
intervene ; still, when the outbreak was over, matters
would sink back into their old course. There must
be poor, and the poor would be miserable. No
*
violent revolution, no peaceful reform, could per
manently benefit the poorer class of toilers. It was,
so to speak, a law of nature (if not of God) that
society should have a basis of misery. History
proved this to be always the case.
It is to this latter phrase I want to call your
attention—History proved this to be always the case.
Our Conservative friend was distinctly right in his
method when he appealed to history. That is peculi
arly the method which ought to be made use of for
the solution of all social and political problems. It
is of the utmost importance to induce the working
classes to study social and political problems from
the historical standpoint. Do not listen to mere
theory, or to the mere talk of rival political agitators.
Endeavour, if possible, to see how like problems
have been treated by different peoples in different
ages, and with what measure of success. The study
of history is, I am aware, extremely difficult, because
the popular history books tell us only of wars and of
kings, and very little of the real life of the people—
* This seems to be the doctrine recently expounded
to “ Church paraders,” March, 1887.
�IN THEORY AND PRACTICE.
9
how they worked, how they were fed, and how they
were housed. But the real mission of history is to
tell us how the great mass of the people toiled and
lived; to tell us of their pleasure and of their
misery. That is the only history that can help us
in social problems. Does, then, history tell us that
there always has been, and therefore always must
be, a large amount of misery at the basis of society ?
The question is one really of statistics, and extremely
difficult to answer; but, after careful investigation, I
must state that I have come to a conclusion totally
different from that of our Conservative friend. I
admit, in the words of the man who worked for the
poor in Galilee, that at all times and places “ the poor
are always with you ” ; but the amount of poverty as
well as the degree of misery attending it has varied
immensely. I have made special investigation of
the condition of the artisan class in Germany some
three to four hundred years ago, and do not hesitate
to assert that anything like the condition of the
.courts and dwellings of poorer London was then
totally unknown. If this be true, the argument from
history is false. The artisan class has occupied a
firmer and more substantial position in times gone
by than it at present occupies. If it has sunk in the
scale of comfort, it can certainly rise. In other
words, a remedy for the present state of things does
seem to me possible. Should any of you want to
know why the working classes were better off four
hundred years ago than they are at present, I must
state it as my own opinion, that it was due to a
better social system. The social system, so far as
the workman was concerned, was based upon the
guild, and the political system of those old towns
was based as a rule upon the guilds. Thus the
union which directed the workman in his work, and
�IO
socialism.
:
brought his class together for social purposes,
was practically the same as that which directed the
municipal government of his city. If you would
exactly understand what that means, you must
suppose the trades unions of to-day to take a large
share in the government of London. If they did so,
how long do you think the dwellings of the poor
would remain what they are ? Do you believe the
evil would remain another forty years ? or that in
1920 it would be necessary to shuffle out of im
mediate action by another Royal Commission ?
As I have said, the guilds of working men had
originally a large share in municipal government.
The city guilds, as you know, are still very wealthy
bodies, and have great authority in the city. This
is all that remains in London of the old system of
working men’s guilds taking a part in the manage
ment of the city’s affairs.
In old days, then, the labouring classes were
united in guilds and these guilds had a considerable
share in local government. The social and political
system was thus, to some extent, based upon labour.
Such an organization of society, we call socialistic.
The workmen of four hundred years ago were better
off than are the workmen of to-day, because the old
institutions were more socialistic—in other words,
society was organized rather on the basis of labour
than the basis of wealth. A society based upon
wealth, since it grants power and place to the
owners of something which is in the hands of
a few individuals, may be termed individual
istic. To-day we live in an individualistic state. I
believe the workman of four hundred years ago was
better off than his brother now, because he formed
part of a socialistic rather than an individualistic
system. I believe a remedy possible for the present
�IN THEORY AND PRACTICE.
II
state of affairs, because history seems to teach us that
the artisan has a firmer and happier position under a
socialism than under an individualism. It also
teaches us that some forms of socialism have existed
in the past, and may therefore be possible in the
present or future. I hold, and I would ask you to
believe with me, that a remedy is possible. If it is, we
are thrown back on the alternative that the govern
ing class has refused or neglected to apply it. We
have seen that the evil did not arise or did not
accumulate to such an extent where society was
partly based upon labour; we are, therefore, forced
to the probable conclusion, that the evil has arisen
and continues to subsist, because our social and
political system is based upon wealth rather than
upon labour—because we live under an individualism
rather than under a socialism. It is the fault of our
present social system, and not a law of history, that
the toilers should be condemned to extreme misery
and poverty.
We have now to consider the following questions:—
What do we mean by labour and a social system based
upon labour ? By what means can we attempt to
convert a system based upon wealth to one based
upon labour; in other words, how shall we proceed
to convert our present individualism into a socialism ?
In the latter question it will be necessary to include
the consideration of the attitude which the artisan
class should itself take with regard to organizations
for socialistic change, and h@w it should endeavour
to take political action especially with regard to the
two great capitalistic parties.
Let me first endeavour to explain what I under
stand by labour. You may imagine, perhaps at
first, that I refer only to labour of the hand—such
abour as is required to make a pair of boots or turn
�12
SOCIALISM :
a lathe. But I conceive labour to be something or
far wider extent than this. I conceive it to include
all work, whether work of the head or of the hand,
which is needful or. profitable to the community at
large. The man who puts cargo into a ship is no
more or less a labourer than the captain who
directs her course across the ocean; nor is either
more of a labourer than the mathematician or astro
nomer whose calculations and observations enable the
captain to know which direction he shall take when
he is many hundred miles from land. The shoe
maker or the postman are no more labourers than
the clerk who sits in a merchant’s office or the judge
who sits on the bench. The schoolmaster, thewriter and the actor are all true labourers. Insome cases they may be overpaid; in many
they are underpaid. Men of wealth have been
known to pay the governess who teaches their
children less than they pay their cook, and treat her
with infinitely less respect. I have laid stress on
the importance of labour of the head, because I
have met working men—although few—who believed
nothing but labour of the hand could have any value’;
all but labourers with the hand were idlers. You
have doubtless heard of the victory gained last year
by English troops in Egypt. Now, how do you sup
pose that victory was gained ? Were the English
soldiers a bit braver than the Arabs ? Were they
stronger ? Not in the least. They won the victory
because they were better disciplined, because they
had better weapons—shortly, because what we may
term their organisation was better. That organiza
tion was due to labour of the head. Now, what
happened in Egypt is going on in the world at large
every day. It is not always the stronger, but the
better organized, the better educated man who goes
�IN THEORY AND PRACTICE.
I J.
ahead. What is true of individual men is true of
nations. The better organised, the better educated
nation is victorious in the battle of life. We English
have been so successful because we were well
organized, because we were better educated than
Hindoos, Zulus, and all the races we have con
quered. You must never forget how much of that
organization, that education, is due to labourers with
the head. Some of you may be indifferent to the
great empire of England, to this superiority
of Englishmen, but let me assure you that, small asin some cases is the comfort of the English working
classes, it is on the average large compared with
that of an inferior race—compared, say, with the
abject misery of the Egyptian peasant. I want, if
possible, to point out to you the need for sympathy
between labour of all kinds—that labourers with the
hand and labourers with the head are mutually
dependent. They are both true labourers as
opposed to the idlers—the drones, , who, by some
chance having a monopoly of wealth, live on thelabour of others. I would say to every man—
“ Friend, what is your calling, what are you doing
for society at large ? Are you making its shoes, are
you teaching its children, are you helping to main
tain order and forward its business ? If you are
doing none of this, are you relieving its work hours
by administering to its play ? Do you bring plea
sure to the people as an actor, a- writer, or a
painter ? If you are doing none of this, if you are
simply a possessor of wealth, struggling to amuse
yourself, and pass through life for your own pleasure,
then—why, then, you are not wanted here, and the
sooner you clear out, bag and baggage, the better
for us—and perhaps for yourself.” Do you grasp
now the significance of a society based upon labour ?
�14
SOCIALISM
The possessor of wealth, simp y because he ha
wealth, would have no place in such a society. The
workers would remove him even as the worker bees
eject the drones from their hive. ,
Society ought to be one vast guild of labourers—
workers with the head and workers with the hand—
and so organised there would be no place in it for
those who merely live on the work of others. In a
political or social system based upon labour it would
be the mere possessor of wealth who would have no
power ; how far we are at present from such a social
ism maybe best observed by noting that wealth now
has almost all political and social power—labour little
or none.
We have now reached what I conceive to be the
fundamental axiom of Socialism. Society must be
■organised on the basis of labour, and, therefore, political
power, the power of organising, must be in the
hands of labour.
That labour, as I have
endeavoured to impress upon you, is of two kinds.
There is labour of the hand, which provides
necessaries for all society: there is the labour of
the head, which produces all that we term progress,
and enables any individual society to maintain its
place in the battle of life—the labour which
educates and organises. I have come across a
tendency in some workers with the hand to suppose
all folk beside themselves to be idlers—social
drones, supported by their work. I admit that the
great mass of idlers are in what are termed the
‘upper and middle classes of society.’ But this
arises from the fact that society, being graduated
solely according to wealth, the people with the most
money, and who are most idle, of course take their
place in these viciously named ‘upper classes.’ In
a labour scale they would naturally appear at the
�IN THEORY AND PRACTICE.
15
very bottom, and form ‘ the dregs of population.’
It is true the labourer with the head is, as a rule,
better clothed, housed, and fed than the labourer
with the hand, but this often arises from the fact
that he is also a capitalist. Still, if the labourer
with the head, whose labour is.his sole source of liveli
hood, is better clothed, housed, and fed than the
artisan, it does no show that in all cases he is earn
ing more than his due; on the contrary, it may
denote that the artisan is earning far less than his
due. The difference, in fact, often represents the
work which goes to support the drones of our pre
sent social system.
At this point I reach what I conceive to be the
second great axiom of true Socialism. All forms of
labour are equally honourable. No form of labour
which is necessary for society can disgrace the
man who practises it or place him in a lower social
grade than any other form of labour. Let us look
at this point somewhat more closely, for it is of the
first importance. So long as the worker looks upon
his work as merely work for himself—considers it
only as a means to his own subsistence, and values
it only as it satisfies his own wants, so long one form
of work will be more degrading than another. To
shovel mud into a cart will be a lower form of work
than to make a pair of shoes, and to make shoes
will not be such high-class labour as to direct a
factory. But there is another way of regarding
work, in which all forms of real labour appear of
equal value—viz., when the labourer looks at
his work not with regard to himself, but with
regard to society at large. Let him con
sider his work as something necessary tor
society, as a condition of its existence, and then
all gradations vanish. It is just as necessary for
�i6
SOCIALISM :
society that its mud should be cleared from the
streets, as that it should have shoes, or again, as
that its factories should be directed. Once let the
workman recognise that his labour is needful for
society, and whatever its character, it becomes
honourable at once. In other words, from the
social standpoint all labour is equally honourable.
We might even go so far as to assert that the
lowest forms of labour are the more honourable,
because they involve the greater personal sacrifice
for the need of society. Once let this second axiom
of true Socialism be recognised—the equality of
every form of labour—and all the vicious distinc
tions of caste—the false lines which society has
drawn between one class of workers and another—
must disappear. The degradation of labour must
cease. Once admit that labour, though differing in
kind, as the shoemaker’s from the blacksmith’s, is
equal in degree, and all class barriers are broken
down. In other words, in a socialistic state, or in
a society based upon labour, there can be no
difference of class. All labourers, whether of the
hand or the head, must meet on equal terms ; they
are alike needful to society; their value will depend
only on the fashion and the energy with which they
perform their particular duties.
Before leaving this subject of labour, there is one
point, however, which must be noticed. I have
said that all forms of labour are equally honourable,
because'we may regard them as equally necessary
for society. But still the effects of various kinds of
labour on the individual will be different. The man
who spends his whole day in shovelling up mud
will hardly be as intelligent as the shoemaker or
engineer. His labour does not call for the same
exercise of intelligence, nor draw out his ingenuity to
�IN THEORY AND PRACTICE.
17
the same extent. Thus, although his labour is
equally honourable, it has not such a good influence
on the man himself. Hence the hours of labour, in
such occupations, ought to be as short as possible ;
sufficient leisure ought to be given to those engaged
in the more mechanical and disagreeable forms of
toil to elevate and improve themselves apart from
their work. When we admit that all labour is
•equally honourable, and therefore deserving of
equal wage, then to educate the labourer will not
lead him to despise his work. It will only lead him
to appreciate and enjoy more fully his leisure.
This question of leisure is a matter of the utmost
importance. We hear much of the demand for
shorter hours of labour; but how is the increased
spare time to be employed ? Many a toiler looks
with envy upon the extravagant luxury of the
wealthy, and cries, not unnaturally, “ What right
have you to enjoy all this, while I can hardly
procure the necessaries of life ? ” But there is a
matter in which I could wish the working classes
would envy the wealthy even more than they might
reasonably do their physical luxury—namely, their
education. There is to me something unanswerable
in the cry which the workman might raise against
the wealthy—“ What right have you to be educated,
while I am ignorant ? ” Far more unanswerable
than the cry—“What right have you to be rich
while I am poor ? ” I could wish a cry for educa
tion might arise from the toilers as the cry for bread
went up in the forties. It is the one thing which
would render an increase of leisure really valuable
to the workers—which would enable them to guide
themselves, and assist society through the dangerous
storms which seem surely gathering in the near
future. Leisure employed in education, in self
�18
SOCIALISM :
improvement, seems to me the only means by which
the difference in character between various forms of
labour can be equalised. This appears a point on
which the labourers with the head can practically
assist those with the hand. Let the two again
unite for that mutual assistance which is so
necessary, if between them they are to reorganise
society into one vast guild of labour.
If we pass for a moment from the possibilities of
the present to those of a distant future, we might
conceive the labourers with the hand to attain such
a degree of education that workers of both kinds
might be fused together. The same man might
labour with his pen in the morning and with his
shovel after mid-day. That, I think, would be the
ideal existence in which society, as an entire body,
would progress at the greatest possible rate. I have
endeavoured, then, to lay before you what I under
stand by labour; how all true labour is equally
honourable and deserving of an equal wage. If
many of the anomalies, much of the misery of our
present state of society would disappear, were it
organized on a socialistic or labour basis, it then
becomes necessary to consider in what manner the
labour basis differs from, and is opposed to, the
present basis of wealth.
In order to illustrate what the present basis of
wealth means, let me put to you a hypothetical case.
Let us suppose three men on an island separated
from the rest of the world. We may also suppose
there to be a sufficient supply of seed and ploughs,
and generally of agricultural necessaries. If now,
one of the three men were to assert that the
island, the seed, and the ploughs belonged to him,
and his two comrades for some reason— or want of
reason—accepted his assertion, let us trace what
�IN THEORY AND PRACTICE.
19
would follow. Obviously, he would have an entire
monopoly of all the means of sustaining life on the
island. He could part with them at whatever rate
he pleased, and could insist upon the produce ot
all the labour, which it would be possible to
extract from the two men, in return for supplying
them with the barest necessities of existence. He
would naturally do nothing; they would till the
ground with his implements, and sow his seed and
store it in his barn. After this he might employ them
in work tending to increase his luxuries, in providing
him with as fine a house and as gorgeous furniture
as they were capable of producing. He would
probably allow them to build themselves shanties as
protection from the weather, and grant them
sufficient food to sustain life. All their time, after
providing these necessaries for themselves, would
be devoted to his service. He would be landlord and
capitalist, having a complete monopoly of wealth^
He could practically treat the other two men as
slaves. Let us somewhat extend our example, and
suppose this relation to hold between the one
man and a considerable number of men on the
island. Then it might be really advantageous
for all the people on the island if the one man
directed their labour. We may suppose him to be a
practical farmer, who thoroughly understood his
business, so, by his directing the others, the greatest
amount possible would be produced from the land.
As such a director of farming operations, he would
be a labourer with the head, and worthy as any man
under him to receive his hire. He would have as great
a claim as any one he directed to the necessaries
of life produced by the labourers with the hand. In
a socialistic scheme he would still remain director ;
he would still receive his share of the produce, and
�20
SOCIALISM :
the result of the labour of the community would be
divided according to the labour of its members. On
the other hand, if our farm-director were owner ot
all things on the island, he might demand not only
the share due to him for his labour of the head, but
also that all the labour of the other inhabitants
should be directed to improving his condition rather
than their own. After providing for themselves the
bare necessities of life, the other islanders might be
called upon to spend all the rest of their time in
ministering to his luxury. He could demand this
because he would have a monopoly of all the land
and all the wealth of the island; such a state of
affairs on the island would be an individualism or a
society based upon wealth. I think this example
will show clearly the difference between a society
based upon labour and one based upon wealth.
Commonplace as the illustration may seem, it is
one which can be extended, and yet rarely is
extended to the state of affairs we find in our own
country. We have but to replace our island-land
owner and capitalist by a number of landowners and
capitalists. These will have a monopoly of land and
of wealth. They can virtually force the labouring
classes, who have neither land nor capital, to
administer to their luxury in return for the more
needful supports of life. The limit of comfort to
which they can reduce the labouring classes depends
on the following considerations, which, of course,
vary from time to time:—First, their own self
interest in keeping at least a sufficient supply of
labour in such decent health and strength that it
can satisfy their wants; secondly, their fear that too
great pinching may lead to a forcible revolution;
and, thirdly, a sort of feeling—arising partly per
haps from religion, partly perhaps from purely
�IN THEORY AND PRACTICE.
21
mechanical sympathy—of dislike at the sight of
suffering.
The greater demand there is for luxury on the part
of the wealthy, the smaller is the time that the
labouring classes can devote to the improvement of
their own condition, the increase of their own com
fort. Let us take a possible case, which may not
be the absolute truth, but which will exemplify the
law we have stated. Suppose that the labouring
classes work eight hours a day. Now, these eight
hours are not only spent in producing the absolute
necessities of existence, and the degree of comfort
in which our toilers live, but in producing also all
the luxuries enjoyed by the rich. Let us suppose,
for example, that five hours suffice to sow and to
till, and to weave and to carry and fetch—shortly,
to produce the food-supply of the country, and the
average comfort which the labourer enjoys as to
house and raiment. What, then, becomes of the
other three hours’ work ? It is consumed in making
luxuries of all kinds for the wealthy, fine houses,
rich furniture, dainty food, and so forth. These
three hours are spent, not in improving the condition
of the labourer’s own class, not in building themselves
better dwellings or weaving themselves better
clothes, nor, on the other hand, are they spent in
public works for the benefit of the whole comm unity
but solely in supplying luxuries for wealthy indi
viduals. The wealthy can demand these luxuries
because they possess a monopoly of land and of
capital, shortly, of the means of subsistence. This
monopoly of the means of subsistence makes them
in fact, if not in name, slave-owners. Such is the
result of the individualistic as opposed to the
socialistic system. We see now why the houses of
the poor . are deplorable—namely, because that
�22
SOCIALISM :
labour which should be devoted to improving them
is consumed in supplying the luxuries of the rich.
We may state it then, as a general law of a society
based upon wealth—that the misery of the labouring
classes is directly proportional to the luxury of the
wealthy. This law is a very old one indeed; the
only strange thing is, that it is every day forgotten.
Having noted, then, wherein the evil of the social
system based upon wealth lies, we have lastly to
consider how far, and by what means, it is possible
to remedy it.
The only true method of investigating a question
of this kind is, I feel sure, the historical one. Let
us ask ourselves how in past ages one state of society
has been replaced by another, and then, if possible,
apply the general law to the present time.
Now, there are a considerable number of socialistic
teachers—I will not call them false Socialists—who
are never weary of crying out that our present state
in society is extremely unjust, and that it must be
destroyed. They are perpetually telling the labour
ing classes that the rich unjustly tyrannize over
them, and that this tyranny must be thrown off.
According to these teachers, it would seem as if the
rich had absolutely entered into a conspiracy to
defraud the poor. Now, although I call myself a
Socialist, I must tell you plainly that I consider such
teaching not only very foolish, but extremely harm
ful. It can arise only from men who are ignorant,
or from men who seek to win popularity from the
working-classes by appealing to their baser passions.
So far from aiding true Socialism, it stirs up class
hatred, and instead of bringing classes together, it
raises a barrier of bitterness and hostility between
them. It is idle to talk of a conspiracy of the rich
against the poor, of one class against another. A
�IN THEORY AND PRACTICE.
23
man is born into his class, and into the traditions of
his class. He is not responsible for his birth,
whether it be to wealth or to labour. He is born to
certain luxuries, and he is never taught to consider
them as other than his natural due; he does as his
class does, and as his fathers have done before him.
His fault is not one of malice, but of ignorance.
He does not know how his luxuries directly increase
the misery of the poor, because no one has ever
brought it home to him. Although a slave-owner
he is an unconscious slave-owner. Shortly, he wants
educating ; not educating quite in the same sense as
the labouring classes want educating, he probably
has book-learning enough. He wants teaching that
there is a higher social morality than the morality
of a society based upon wealth. Namely, he must
be taught that mere ownership has no social value
at all—that the sole thing of social value is labour,
labour of head or labour of hand : and that in
dividual ownership of wealth has arisen in the
past out of a very crude and insufficient method
of representing such labour. The education of
the so-called upper or wealth-owning classes is
thus an imperative necessity.
They must be
taught a new morality. Here, again, is a point
on which we see the need of a union between
the educative and hand-working classes. The
labourers with the head must come to the assist
ance of the labourers with the hand by educating the
wealthy. Do not think this is a visionary project;
two great Englishmen at least, John Ruskin and
William Morris, are labouring at this task; they are
endeavouring to teach the capitalistic classes that
the morality of a society based upon wealth is a
mere immorality.
But you will tell me that education is a very long
�24
SOCIALISM:
process, and that meantime the poor are suffering,
and must continue to suffer. Are not the labouring
classes unjustly treated, and have they not a right
to something better ? Shortly, ought they not to
enforce that right ? Pardon me, if I tell you plainly
that I do not understand what such abstract
‘justice ’ or ‘right’ means. I understand that the
comfort of the labouring classes is far below what
it would be if society were constituted on the
basis of labour. I believe that on such a basis
there would be less misery in the world, and there
fore it is a result to be aimed at. But because this
is a result which all men should strive for, it does
not follow that we gain anything by calling it a
‘right.’ A ‘right’ suggests something which a
man may take by force, if he cannot obtain it other
wise. It suggests that the labouring classes should
revolt against the capitalistic classes and seize what
is their ‘ right.’
Let us consider for a moment what is the mean
ing of such a revolt. I shall again take history as
our teacher. History shows us that whenever the
misery of the labouring classes reaches a certain
limit they always do break into open rebellion. It
is the origin, more or less, of all revolutions
throughout the course of time. But history teaches
us just as surely that such revolutions are accom
panied by intense misery both for the labouring and
wealthy classes. If this infliction of misery had
ever resulted in the reconstruction of society we
might even hope for good from a revolution, but we
invariably find that something like the old system
springs again out of the chaos, and the same old
distinction of classes, the same old degra
dation of labour is sure to reappear. That is
precisely the teaching of the Paris Commune or
�IN THEORY AND PRACTICE.
2$
again of the Anabaptist Kingdom of God in
Munster. Apart from this the labourers with the
hand will never be permanently successful in a
revolution, unless they have the labourers with
the head with them; they will want organiza
tion, they will want discipline, and this must fail
unless education stands by them. Now, the
labourers with the head have usually deserted the
labourers with the hand when the latter rise in
revolt, because they are students of history and
they know too well from history that revolution has
rarely permanently benefited the revolting classes.
You may accept it as a primary law of history, that
no great change ever occurs with a leap, no great social
reconstruction, which will permanently benefit any
class of the community, is ever brought about by a
revolution. It is the result of a gradual growth, a
progressive change, what we term an evolution. This
is as much a law of history as of nature. Try as
you will, you cannot make a man out of a child in a
day, you must wait and let him grow, and gradually
educate him and replace his childish ideas by the
thoughts of a man. Precisely so you must treat
society; you must gradually change it, educate it,
if you want a permanent imprbvement in its nature.
Feeling, as I do, the extreme misery which is brought
about by the present state of society based upon
wealth, I should say to the working-classes, ‘ Revolt,’
if history did not teach me only too surely, that
revolution would fail of its object. All progress
towards a better state of things must be gradual.
Progress proceeds by evolution, not by revolution.
For this reason I would warn you against socialistic
teachers who talk loudly of ‘ right ’ and ‘justice
who seek to stir up class against class. Such teach
ing merely tends towards revolution ; and revolution
�26
SOCIALISM :
js not justifiable, because it is never successful. It
never achieves its object. Such teachers are not
true socialists, because they have not studied history; because their teaching really impedes our
progress towards socialism. We might even take
an example from our island with its landlord
capitalist tyrannizing over the other inhabitants.
We have supposed him to be a practical farmer
capable of directing the labours of the others. Now,
suppose the inhabitants were to rise in revolt and
throw him into the sea, what would happen ? Why,
the very next year they would not know what to sow
or how to sow it; their agricultural operations would
fail, and there would very soon be a famine on the
island, which would be far worse than the old tyranny.
Something very similar would occur in this country
if the labouring classes were to throw all our
capitalists into the sea. There would be no one
capable of directing the factories or the complex
operations of trade and commerce; these would all
collapse, and there would very soon be a famine in
this island also. You must bring your capitalist to
see that he is only a labourer, a labourer with the
head, and deserves wage accordingly. You can
only do this by two methods. The first is to educate
him to a higher morality, the second is to restrict
him by the law of the land. Now, the law of the
land is nothing more or less than the morality of
the ruling class, and so long as political power is in
the hands of the capitalists, and these are ‘ uneduc
ated,’they are unlikely to restrict their own profits
If, then, my view that we can only approach
socialism by a gradual change is correct, we have
before us two obvious lines of conduct which we
may pursue at the same time. The first, and I am
inclined to think the more important, is the educa-
�.
IN THEORY AND PRACTICE.
27
tion of the wealthy classes; they must be taught
from childhood up that the only moral form of
society is a society based upon labour, they must be
taught always to bear in mind the great law—that
the misery of the poor is ever directly proportional
to the luxury of the rich. This first object ought to
be essentially the duty of the labourers with the
head. Let the labourer with the hand ever regard
himself as working in concert with the labourer with
the head—the two are in truth but members of one
large guild, the guild of labour, upon which basis
society has to be reconstructed. The second line of
conduct, which is practically open to all true
Socialists, is the attainment of political power;
wealth must cease to be the governing power in
this country, it must be replaced by labour. The
educative classes and the handworkers must rule
the country; only so will it be possible to replace
the wealth basis by the labour basis. The first step
in this direction must necessarily be the granting
of the franchise to all hand-workers. This is a very
practical and definite aim to work for. Now, I have
already hinted that I consider both great political
parties really to represent wealth. Hence I do not
believe that any true Socialist is either Liberal or
Conservative, but at present it would be idle to think
of returning socialistic members to Parliament
*
Socialists will best forward their aims at present by
supporting that party which is likely to increase the
franchise. So that to be a true Socialist at present
means, I think, to support the ‘ Liberal ’ Govern
ment. This support is not given because we are
* This was written in 188L The extension of the
franchise, incomplete as it is, has since considerably in
creased the possibility of returning socialistic members
for at least one or two towns.
�28
SOCIALISM :
‘ Liberals,’ but because, by it, we can best aid the
cause of Socialism. But with regard to the fran
chise, there is a point which I cannot too strongly
insist upon. If the complete enfranchisement of
the hand-worker is to forward the socialistic cause
he must be educated so as to use it for that purpose,
Now, we have laid it down as a canon of Socialism
that all labour is equally honourable; in a society
based upon labour there can be no distinction of
class. Thus, the true Socialist must be superior
to class-interests. He must look beyond his own
class to the wants and habits of society at large.
Hence, if the franchise is to be really profitable, the
hand-worker must be educated to see beyond the
narrow bounds of his own class. He must be
taught to look upon society as a whole, and respect
the labour of all its varied branches. He must
endeavour to grasp the wants and habits of other
forms of labour than his own, whether it be labour of
the head or of the hand. He must recognize to the
full that all labour is equally honourable, and has
equal claims on society at large. The shoemaker
does not despise the labour of the blacksmith, but he
must be quite sure that the labour of the school
master, of the astronomer, and of the man who
works with his brains, is equally valuable to the com
munity. Here, again, we see how the labourer with
the head can come to the assistance of the labourer
with the hand. In order that the franchise may be
practically of value to the artisan, he must grasp how
to use it for broader purposes than mere class aims.
To do this he requires to educate himself. I repeat
that I should like to hear a cry go up from the
hand-workers for education and leisure for education,
even as it went up forty years ago for bread. For
the mind is of equal importance with the stomach
�IN THEORY AND PRACTICE.
29
and needs its bread also. Apart from the franchise,
there is another direction in which, I think, practi
cal steps might be taken, namely, to obtain for
trades-unions, or rather, as I should prefer to call
them, labour-guilds—a share or influence in munici
pal government. Let there be a labour-guild
influence in every parish, and on every vestry. As
I have said before, I cannot conceive that the
housing of the poor would be what it is if the trades
unions had been represented in the government of
London. Such a representation would be the first
approach to a communal organization based upon
labour, and ultimately to a society on the same basis.
You can hardly support your trades-unions too
energetically, and you have in this respect taught
the labourers with the head a lesson. These
labourers with the head are just beginning to form
their labour-guilds too—guilds of teachers and guilds
of writers—and it is to these labour guilds, and to
your trades-unions that we must look for much use
ful work in the future.
These surely are practical aims enough for the
’ present, but I may perhaps be allowed to point out
to you what direction I think legislative action
should take, supposing the franchise granted to all
hand-workers. As I have endeavoured to show,
any sudden change would be extremely dangerous ;
it would upset our old social arrangements, and
would not give us any stable new institutions. It
would embitter class against class, and not destroy
class altogether. We must endeavour to pass
gradually from the old to the new state; from the
state in which wealth is the social basis to one in
which labour is the sole element by which we judge
men. Now, in order that wealth should cease
to be mistress, her monopoly of the means of sub
�30
SOCIALISM :
sistence must be destroyed. In other words, land
and capital must cease to be in the hands of in
dividuals.
We must have nationalization of
the land and nationalization of capital. Every
Socialist is a land-nationalizer and a capital-nationalizer.
It will be sufficient now to consider the first
problem, the nationalization of the land. Mr.
George says, take the land and give no compensation.
That |is what I term a revolutionary measure; it
attempts to destroy and reconstruct in a moment.
If history teaches us anything, it tells us that all
such revolutionary measures fail; they bring more
misery than they accomplish good.
Hence,
although I am a land-nationalizer—as every Social
ist must be—I do not believe in Mr. George’s cry of
‘ No compensation.’ Then we have another set ot
land-nationalizers, who would buy the landlords
out. Let us see what this means. The landlords
would be given, in return for their lands, a large
sum of money, which would have to be borrowed by
the nation, and the interests on which would
increase for ever the taxes of the country. In other
words, we should be perpetuating the wealth of the
landlords and their claims to be permanently
supported by the classes that labour. That is not a
socialistic remedy. It would seem, at first sight as
if there were no alternative—either compensation
or no compensation. Yet I think there is a third
course, if we would only try to legislate for the
future as well as for the present. Suppose a bill were
passed to convert all freehold in land into a lease
hold, say, of 8oto ioo years, from the nation.' Here
there would be no question of compensation, and
little real injury to the present landowner, because
the difference between freehold and a hundred
�IN THEORY AND PRACTICE.
31
years’ leasehold (at least in towns) is comparatively
small. At the end of a hundred years the nation
would be in possession of all land without having
paid a penny for it, and without violently breaking
up the present social arrangements. In less than
100 years with the land slipping from their fingers
the children of our present landowners would have
learnt that, if they want to live, they must labour.
That would be a great step to true socialism. Pre
cisely as I propose to treat the land I would treat
most forms of capital. With the land, of course,
mines and factories would necessarily pass into the
hands of the nation. Railways would have to be
dealt with in the same fashion. The present com
panies would have a hundred years’ lease instead of
a perpetuity of their property.
These are merely suggestions of how it might be
possible to pass to a stable form of society based
upon labour—to a true socialism. The change
would be stable because it would be gradual; the
state would be socialistic because it would be based
upon labour; while wealth, in its two important
forms—land and capital—would belong alone to the
nation.
Some of you may cry out in astonishment, “ But
what is the use of working for such a socialism, we
shall never live to see it, we shall never enjoy its
happiness.” Quite true, I reply, but there is a
nobler calling than working for ourselves, there is a
higher happiness than self-enjoyment—namely, the
feeling that our labour will have rendered posterity,
will have rendered our children free from the misery
through which we ourselves have had to struggle;
the feeling that our work in life has left the world a
more joyous dwelling-place for mankind than we
found it. The little streak of improvement which
�32
SOCIALISM ; IN THEORY AND IN PRACTICE
each man may leave behind him—the only im
mortality ot which mankind can be sure—is a far
nobler result of labour, whether of hand or of head,
than three-score years of unlimited personal happi
ness.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Socialism in theory and practice : a lecture delivered to a working class audience
Description
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Edition: 2nd ed.
Place of publication: London
Collation: 32 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Note to Second Edition dated March 6th 1887. Lecture first delivered early 1884.
Creator
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Pearson, Karl
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W. Reeves
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[1887?]
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T468
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Socialism
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Text
Language
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English
Addresses
Socialism
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11
PROBLEM
INDUSTRIAL
SOLVED.
BY
W. B. ROBERTSON.
“ England is full of wealth, of multifarious produce, supply for human want in
every kind—yet England is dying of inanition. With unabated bounty the land
of England blooms and grows; waving with yellow harvests; thick-studded with
workshops, industrial implements, with fifteen millions of workers, understood to
be the strongest, the cunningest, and the willingest our earth ever had ; these men
are here, the work they have done, the fruit they have realised is here, abundant,
exuberant on every hand of us; and behold some baleful fiat as of Enchantment
has gone forth, saying, ‘ Touch it not, ye master-workers, ye master-idlers ; none of
you can touch it, no man of you shall be the better for it; this is enchanted fruit.’ ”—
Thomas Carlyle {Past and Present}.
----- LENDING
sb
LONDON:
THE
MODERN
PRESS,
13,
PATERNOSTER
ROW,
E.C.
�CON TEN 7 S.
Overproduction
------
Overpopulation
.......
Remedy
.........
�OVERPRODUCTION. —I.
Y over-production is meant that there are more commodities
produced than can be sold. The problem, therefore, in
connexion with over-production is, why can this surplus of
commodities not be sold?
.Many writers, among them John Stuart Mill, deny the possibility of
a general over-supply. They maintain that, while there may be over
production as regards one or more kinds of commodities, there cannot
be over-production in all kinds, so long as there is a human want un
satisfied. It is impossible, for instance, to have an over-supply of food
so long as millions of our fellow-men are in need of the barest necessities
of life. If there be any strength in an argument like this at all, it would
follow, or rather it is implied in such argument, that the mere need, the
mere human desire, for any given commodity is sufficient to set the
machinery in motion to produce it. Here is a man with an empty
stomach and in need of a meal, this of itself, is, on such grounds, sufficient
to procure such meal; or here is another man with a bare back, and in
need of a coat, this is enough to procure him the coat.
Now it must be plain to every one, that those that have nothing but
empty stomachs and bare backs cannot influence in the slightest degree
the quantity of food that may be produced, or the quantity of coats that
may be made. Is any farmer going to plough and sow a field for men
that come to him with nothing except empty stomachs; or is any tailor
going to make coats for men that have nothing to show but bare backs ?
Here, however, from one of the Cobden Club publications, are facts
that show clearly enough that the quantity of food produced has nothing
to do with the number of people that are m need of food, that in fact
the more food there is, the greater will be the number of people in want.
In this pamphlet * we have the paradoxical statement that the present
depression, which set m in 1884, “ was the natural and necessary result
of the improved and fairly good harvest with which this country was
favoured in that year.” This statement the author (Augustus Mongredien) proves by figures taken from the Boardof Trade returns. Thus,
in 1884, our imports and exports together were twenty-five million odd
pounds sterling less than the average of the four previous years. This
* Trade Depression : Recent and Present.
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diminution is accounted for by the fact that in the same year “ our
foreign supplies of cereals fell short of the previous years to the extent
of 15^ millions of pounds sterling ; and to that extent, therefore, we may
infer that the home harvests of 1884 had exceeded in yield the harvests
of the previous few years.”
The effect of this extra harvest was, according to our authority, to
lessen directly our importations of cereals ; we had the cereals at home,
and consequently did not require to buy them from foreign countries.
Indirectly our exports were also lessened. Our whole foreign trade,
exports and imports together, by this good harvest, Mr. Mongredien
computes, was reduced by 43 millions of pounds sterling ; for he
considers the effects of this good harvest as extending into 1885. After,
making allowances he concludes, that this 43 millions worth of goods,
represents from 2,500 to 3,000 cargoes; by so many cargoes, therefore,
would our shipowners’ trade be lessened ; they would have that number
of cargoes the less to carry, This sudden diminution in their business
threw idle ships upon their hands; it then affected the shipbuilders, for
the shipowners having more ships than they could find employment for,
were of course not likely to order more. “ As a natural consequence,”
Mr. Mongredien proceeds, “ the diminished construction of ships (in
which the consumption of iron enters so largely) occasioned a propor
tionate falling off in the demand for that metal, so that (other causes
assisting) the wave of depression extended to the iron trade, and then
spread to the closely connected coal-producing industries and others,
which they influence more or less directly.
Moreover, it would
necessarily follow from there being between 2,500 and 3,000 fewer
cargoes to load and unload at our chief ports, London, Liverpool, Glas
gow, &c., that there would be less demand for persons living by that
kind of labour, so that a number of dock labourers of all sorts would be
thrown out of work. . . . On examination we find that the industries
which really did most suffer from the recent and present depression are
precisely those which we have enumerated above.”
Such then is the account of trade depression given by the Cobden
Club. There can be no questioning its accuracy so far as it goes; it
leaves us helpless, however—in fact, it paralyses us. The farmer always
endeavours to make his labour as productive as possible—the better his
crops the more he rejoices, and the more does the nation rejoice with
him. How tempered must this joy be though, if its cause is also to be
the means of throwing thousands of hard working men out of work, and
depriving them of the necessaries of life ! The bounties of Nature
would thus seem to benefit no one, for the more bountiful she is, the less
wrork is there for people to do, and in consequence the less able are they
to get at these bounties.
Besides the foregoing facts, we have others showing that .people may
and do suffer want in the midst of plenty. The stocks of wheat held in
Liverpool at the end of 1885 were 3,578,938 centals, while at the end of
1884 there were only 1,869,146 centals. Now, the winter 1885-6 was
marked by great distress throughout the country; and yet we were more
abundantly supplied in food-stuffs than we had ever been, for the figures
taken at other ports besides Liverpool showed the same increase. The
argument, therefore, that a general overproduction is impossible while
there is human want can no longer be maintained.
It now remains for us to explain why overproduction comes about, and
�5
why it is, as already remarked, that the more abundant commodities are,
the greater will be the number of people in want. For this purpose it
will be necessary for us to say a word upon the system of renumerating
labour.
The remuneration of every kind of labour is fixed in the same way,
viz., by competition. This competition may be amongst the employers,
or amongst the employed. When there is a great deal of work to be
done, when everybody is in employment, and there is still a demand for
more men, these additional men must be drawn from other masters ; and
to be so drawn inducements in the shape of higher wages must be held
out to them. Under circumstances like these wages tend to rise.
In a state of society, for example, such as that presented by a newly
settled country where human labour is little aided by machinery, the
labouring classes are,, it is well known, highly paid. The reason of this
is because labourers are few compared with the amount of work that is
offered. For these few labourers employers compete amongst themselves
—each one holding out better inducements than the other. Take
America some years ago ; wages were high then because there were
more labourers wanted than could be got. Not only were wages high,
but masters were very civil to their servants, as is evidenced by the fact
that servants were euphemistically called “ helps,” allowed to sit at the
same table with their employers, and treated in every way as equals.
This courtesy, on the part of employers, is rapidly disappearing with the
cause that gave rise to it; for labourers are no longer scarce in America,
and if a servant dislikes to be called a servant, he can go about his busi
ness—there are plenty others willing to take his place. It was the
scarcity of labour that gave rise to the appearance of a system of equality
in America, which many attributed to the Republican form of Govern
ment. The form of Government had nothing whatever to do with it. So
much then for the fixing of wages when labour is scarce.
When labour is plentiful, when there are a great many seeking
work, the labourers compete with one another for such employment as
there is to be had. This of course brings wages down. It is useless for
a man to offer his services for five shillings a day, when there are plenty
others willing to do the same thing for two shillings and sixpence. Thus
one man underbids another, and the one whose necessities are the
greatest is the one that will accept the lowest terms. It is this competi
tion amongst the working-classes that has brought wages down to star
vation point in the simpler kinds of work. Starving men and women
compete with starving men and women, and are glad to get the oppor
tunity of working long hours every day for a few coppers ; because this is
better than nothing at all.
The foregoing then is the method upon which wages are fixed, and it
operates in every department of human activity. The reason that a
navvy is worse paid than a mechanic is simply because there are more
men able to do navvy’s work than mechanic’s work, and the competition
is consequently keener amongst the navvies than amongst the mechanics.
We might go through all the different kinds of labour, and we wnuld
find that wages in each kind are high or low according to the relation
between the number of men seeking employment, and the quantity of
employment to be got. The law of wages, then, may be stated in these
words: Wages vary according to the relation between the quantity of
labour offered and the quantity of labour required.
�6
If people had borne this in mind, we would not have had so many ex
pressions.of surprise at the fact that our working population has made so
little, if, indeed, any progress. We often hear our great wealth spoken
of, the wonderful strides we have made, and yet only a few seem, and we
are told this with astonishment, to have participated in our increased
power. All this is quite in accordance with what Political Economy has
predicted, as is shown by the following passage from Ricardo;—“ If the
shoes and clothing of the labourer could, by improvements in machinery,
be produced by one fourth of the labour now necessary to their production,
they would probably fall 75 per cent.; but so far is it from being true,
that the labourer would thereby be enabled permanently to consume four
coats, or lour pairs of shoes, instead of one, that his wages would in no long
time be adjusted by the effects of competition, and the stimulus to popuation, to the new value of the necessaries on which they were expended. If
these improvements extended to all the objects of the labourers’ consump
tion, we should find him, probably at the end of a very few years,
in possession of only a small, if any, adddition to his enjoyments.”
This was written at the beginning of the present century.
It
afnounts to saying, “ It makes no difference how much you improve
your methods of production, the position of the labourer will
not be one whit the better; he will not enjoy any more of
the necessaries and conveniences of life, his command over these
necessaries and conveniences will always be just enough to enable him
to subsist and to raise up more labourers.” This is perfectly true. It
was at the beginning of the century, as we have just remarked, that
Ricardo wrote the passage. Since then, we have introduced improve
ments into every kind of work, -and the result is as predicted. The
labourers are poor and ignorant; they still toil unceasingly; and they
think themselves lucky if they can get the opportunity of undergoing
this toil.
We shall now endeavour to give more pointedly, the reason of this
anomalous position, the reason why in the midst of plenty people starve,
why, in fact, the more plentiful things are the less able are we to get at
them. As Carlyle says:—“ We have more riches than any nation ever
had before ; we have less good of them than any nation ever had before.
Our successful industry is hitherto unsuccessful; a strange success if we
stop here ! In the midst of plethoric plenty, the people perish ; with gold
walls and full barns, no man feels himself safe or satisfied. Workers,
master-workers, un workers, all men come to a pause ; stand fixed, and
cannot farther. Have’we actually got enchanted then ; accursed by
some God1”
Now let us offer a simple illustration of some of the economic effects
of such a system of remunerating labour. Suppose that the only thing
we did in this country was to make cotton—a single industry is supposed
because it simplifies matters ; suppose, moreover, that we could make
enough cotton to supply our own requirements for that article, and had
enough to send to other countries for our food and whatever else we
needed. At the beginning of the centruy we will further suppose that
everybody is employed, that there is nobody out of work, and the wages
are good enough to keep them comfortably and respectably. By and by
improved methods of production and transit are introduced, and to such
an extent that one man can do as much as five formerly did. As these
improvements are applied four men out of every five would be thrown
�out of work ; wages, moreover, would be reduced, for rather than be
thrown out of work the men would offer their services at a lower rate, and
competition amongst the workers would become keener. Here, then, with
an increasing power of production, we would have a reduced number of
consumers—these too getting a smaller share of the produce of their
labour. What under such circumstances can be more natural than a
glut, than over-production ?
With such a fair start then at the beginning of the century, we should
be as bad to-day as we now actually are. The men that had been thrown
out of work with every successive improvement, and their families, would
have to live somehow ; many of them would become thieves and vagrants,
many of them paupers. All this too would come about independently of
the extraordinary tendency of population to increase. When we take
this into account we can only wonder, not that evils are so rampant in
society, but that society has continued so long upon such a basis.
The hard lot of man then would appear not to be due to the niggard
liness of nature as we have been taught; to have no connection with the
curse that doomed him to eat his bread “ by the sweat of his brow.” It
is due to a mere convention, the shadowy nature of which will appear
clearly enough later on.
The real significance of over-production is to reduce our present indus
trial system to an absurdity. It is ridiculous for people to have to starve
because they have grown too much food, to go unclad because they have
made too many clothes, and unhoused because they have built too many
houses. There would be work for all the unemployed to-morrow if the
half of London were destroyed; there is nothing like calamities for
trade.
By bringing about over-production, then, the working population has
proved our present industrial system to be false; and how very unequal
that system is we see every day. Here in a few words is one of its most ■
glaring inequalities. The governing class has said to the working class,
you go to work under this system—your share of the result of your labour
will be fixed in this wise, our share of the result of your labour will be
fixed in this other wise. So the working population said all right, took up
their hammers and went to work. They weret old to work hard and ever
harder, and overseers were put to see that they did work hard. But
what is this that has come upon us now ? The governing class exclaim,
“ Stop ! you have produced too much ; you must lay down your hammers
until we require you again ; we have quite enough here of everything to
suit us—indeed more than enough. So you can go and shake your heels
outside there while we enjoy ourselves and consume the things that you
have made.”
OVER-POPULATION.—II.
The view that attributes our social disorders to the fact that we are
overpopulated, is perhaps more widely accepted than any other. The
reason for this is because it is an easily understood view. What can be
more clear than that, if there be a greater number of people in a commu
nity than can get employment, and if the livelihood of these people depend upon
their getting employment, the privation of those that cannot get employment
�8
is due to the fact that there is no room for them in such community ? At
one time it was universally believed that the sun moved round the earth ;
for what could be more clear than that, if Rome continued to remain in the
same spot and the sun every day passed over it, the sun must so move ?
Rome, however, did not continue to remain in the same spot; hence
what was so very clear was all wrong. Similarly the livelihood of man
does not depend upon his getting employment, it depends upon his get
ting the means of livelihood ; hence what is so very clear as to our being
over-populated, may also be all wrong. This is a point, however, that
remains for us to consider.
The reader has of course heard of Malthus and his celebrated essay on
“ Population.” In that essay it was shown that in every community the
number of members is limited by the means of subsistence at their
command; increase the subsistence and an increased population will
result; diminish the subsistence, and there follows a diminished popula
tion. “ This is incontrovertibly true,” he says. “ Through the animal
and vegetable kingdoms, Nature has scattered the seeds of life abroad
with the most profuse and liberal hand; but has been comparatively
sparing in the room and the nourishment necessary to rear them. The
germs of existence contained in this earth, if they could freely develop
themselves, would fill millions of worlds in a few thousand years.
Necessity, that imperious, all pervading law of nature, restrains them
within the prescribed bounds. The race of plants, and the race of
animals shrink under this great restrictive law; and man cannot by any
efforts of reason escape from it.” Such was the truth that Malthus
laboured to enforce—a truth that one would have thought so self-evident
as not to need enforcing. His essay, however, is really nothing more
than a demonstration of the extraordinary strength of the principle of
self- con servation.
Malthusians consider themselves followers of Malthus on the ground
that they accept and seek to promulgate his views on population. Let
us consider for a moment their position.
This country, they say, is over-populated. Why I Because there
are more people in it wanting work than can get work ; many are con
sequently compelled to idleness, these not having any other way of
procuring the necessaries of life except by labour, are consequently
either thrown upon the generosity of their friends or become recipients
of public relief, or criminals. In this simple way does the Malthusian
explain all our social calamities, and, as the only remedy, he suggests
that people must be more prudent, must regulate the number of children
they bring into the world—in a word, the population of a country must
correspond to the work to be done in that country, the more work the
greater the population may be, the less work the less the population.
The reader will now see that there is a difference between the view of
Malthus and the view of the Malthusian.; the former set up subsistence as
the limit to population, the latter sets up employment or work to be
done—the more work there is to be done as already remarked, the more
room is there for an increased population.
Let us now follow the Malthusian position to its logical issue. Why
do we call one method of'production or transit an improvement upon
another ? Simply because it involves less labour, simply because it
abridges labour, and that is the reason that we adopt the improved
method. Now, with every abridgment in the labour of making and
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transferring things there becomes relatively, less and less labour to do,
and consequently, the ideal population of the Malthusian becomes less
and less. In this way, if the Malthusian position had free play, the most
ingenious race, the race that is most apt to discover quicker and quicker
methods of doing things, would thereby be always narrowing the limits
of its populatiou. It would consequently be the first to disappear from
the face of the earth, the fittest to survive would be the most stupid, the
unkindest countries would be the most densely populated; in a word,
nature and man would be at daggers drawn.
We do not say that such is not the case to-day—in fact it is the case.
Nature and man are at war, and all through one little fallacy in our
economic system. Meanwhile as to our statement that it is the case that
nature and man are at daggers drawn, that the stupidest, or least
adaptive, are fittest to survive, we have practical proof of this in recent
legislative action in America and Australia. Chinese labour was forbid
den the markets of these countries, because the Chinaman can underbid
the Anglo-Saxon. Laws are made to protect the weak against the
strong; the strong man m the case just noticed, is the Chinaman, the
weak, the Anglo-Saxon, who requires special protection. The fittest
will always survive—that statement points to a law that we cannot alter.
What we can alter, however, and what we must alter if we would
continue our race—if, indeed, we wish to make any further progress at
all—are the conditions that make the Chinaman and those that approach
him in character the superior.
Suppose again, that the Malthusian doctrines were practically adopted
and most rigidly carried out. Suppose that to-day our population was
so regulated, that there was not an idle man in the kingdom, not a
pauper, not even a criminal. Every one is fed, and clad, and legitimately
employed. There remains, however, in this happy state of affairs just
one thing that we have got to-day, and that is our present industrial
system.
Let us now take a step forward from this ideal point to a time when
improved methods of production and transit have been introduced. Com
modities can be manufactured with less labour, goods can be conveyed
to their destinations with less labour—in a word, we shall suppose, as
is really what happens, that in nearly every department of human effort,
improvements have been introduced. They are called improvements,
because they lessen labour. What then would be the economic effect
of a year’s progress upon the ideal state of affairs that we have just
been imagining ? The first effect would be that to make the same
quantity of manufactures, less workmen would be required ; masters
would consequently have to discharge some of their men. Now, what
becomes of these men? Well, they do not want to be discharged, so
they offer their services at a lower wage, competition amongst the work
men for such employment as there is to be had becomes keener, wages
consequently become lower, for masters are obliged to follow the market
rate of wages. No matter, however, whether wages be high or low, the
masters cannot employ as many men as they did before the introduction
of the supposed improvements. What, then, becomes of the surplus ?
Why, enforced idleness, and with it loss of independence : then as wc
go on improving, we recruit the ranks of the enforced idlers—they are
enforced idlers at first—and out of them springs the necessity for those
vigorous institutions police courts, prisons, and workhouses.
�IO
The Malthusian would thus have to resort periodically to some drastic
measures to restore the balance between employment and population.
One word more in connexion with improvements. We have seen
their effect to be the lessening the nurhber of those employed and the
lowering of wages. Now here comes the economic effect par excellence.
Fewer men in employment at reduced wages means a diminution in the
power of the community to consume. Improved methods of production,
&c., are ever increasing our power over nature, our power to produce ;
they are at the same time, by rendering competition amongst labourers
keener and keener, diminishing our power to consume. This is going
on all over the world, is operating upon the industrial classes in every
civilised community, is the noose with which we are stranglingourselves,
is in the words of Carlyle, “ the accursed invisible night-mare that is
crushing out the life of us and ours.”
Can anyone wonder that the markets of the world are glutted ? The
supply pipes are ever widening, the waste pipes ever contracting: of
course, there is a running over ; of course, as Carlyle says, our wealth
“i s an enchanted wealth.”
THE REMEDY.—III.
The 'main evils that result from our present economic svrstem have
appeared from our observations on over-production and over-population.
Over-production and over-population are themselves under existing
arrangements sources of great suffering. Both, curiously enough, too,
exist together. This in itself shews that there must be some contradic
tory forces in operation in the industrial world ; for is it not ridiculous
that we should have too large a population while we are complaining of
having too great an abundance of useful things? How are we to tell
when a population is great or small ? By a reference to the limit of
population. Now the limit to population is professed to be the means
of subsistence. But our population is so far from pressing upon this
limit that we are complaining of a too abundant supply of the means of
subsistence. Here then is an absurdity; and we are landed in this
absurdity because the limit to population is not as supposed, the means
of subsistence, but the employment offered in a community. By referring
to this limit, the employment offered in a community, we find that our
population is too great; for there are many more than can get employ
ment, and by so many is our population excessive. Now, it remains for
us to ask ourselves whether we are to maintain this limiting principle,
or whether it would not be better for us to adopt another.
We have already shewn that it is impossible to have population regu
lated by the employment to be had in a community because such em
ployment is always varying, is by the introduction of improved methods
of production always becoming less and less. Now, here is a fertile source
of evil; for with every contraction of the field of employment some are
thrust out of that field, these keep on recruiting the everlasting army of
paupers and criminals, and form the dregs of society. They are forced
into these positions, and no subsequent action on the part of society is
of any avail in recalling them. There is the field of labour, it is full;
�11
place another man in it, it is more than full; the consequence is that
either that man or some one else must go out.
Besides paupers and criminals, and what are called the dregs of
society, such a limiting principle to population leads in its working out
to deterioration in workmanship, and indeed in human character. As
already shown, improvements by lessening the demand for labour lead
to a keener competition amongst labourers, and thereby lead to a con
traction of the labourers’ pockets ; to meet this diminished consuming
power commodities have to be made as cheaply as possible ; there is no
effective demand for good materials, consequently jerrymaundering is in
the ascendant. As to the deterioration in human character that is con
tinually going on, we have already shown what class is best fitted to
survive. It is the class that can live on least, whose manner of living
approaches more and more closely to the beasts. Thus is our civilisa
tion being undermined, and thus are all our attempts at social progress
frustrated. It is apparent, then, that some other limit to population
must be substituted for the one that prevails to-day, and it is. such
other limit that we now proceed to unfold.
This other limit is the means of subsistence—the very limit that is
supposed to be in operation, but which we have shown to be not the
case. Now, in the first place, with such a limit as the means of subsist
ence over-population would be impossible; for no community could ever
consist of more members than it could support. This, of course, is evi
dent, and requires no further elucidation.
In speaking of the limiting principle that is in operation now, viz.,
employment, we objected to it that it was always varying. Might not
the means of subsistence vary too ? If, moreover, at any time, writh the
means of subsistence as the limit to population there should become less
subsistence than will suffice to maintain the whole population, who is to
have such subsistence and who is to go without ? Of course the means
of subsistence might vary; the difficulties that might arise from such a
possibility will, however, disappear after we have shown how this limit
is to be practically adopted, and this brings us to enquire into the nature
of property.
What is property ? Why does society have such a thing as property
at all ? Why should it put itself about to ensure any man in the pos
session of whatever goods he may have got hold of? The only reason
that can be given for this, and a very gocd one it is, is to encourage
industry. For instance, I make chairs ; suppose that as soon as I have
done so a stronger man than myself comes along and takes them from me;
I should most certainly come to the conclusion to make no more chairs,
because I would derive no benefit from pursuing such a course, and
would at once betake myself to procuring whatever I wanted by stealing
also. Of course, there would very soon be nothing to steal, and society
would at once collapse. To prevent this collapse, however, and to
preserve its own life, society steps forward and says that these chairs are
mine, that they are mine because I made them ; the reason that such a
course of conduct on the part of society preserves its life is because I am
.thereby encouraged to go on making more chairs, and every other
maker of everything else is encouraged in the same way. Thus are the
members of the community kept supplied with such commodities as are
required.
The institution of private property, then, is maintained by society
�T2
for the sake of encouraging industry, and for the sake of nothing
else, except what is implied in the encouragement of industry
— viz., the continuance of society.
Such, then, is the reason why
we have such a thing as property.
How far does society
practically adhere to this, the. recognised theory of property ?
It has departed from it as far as it can. To see that this is so, the
merest glance round is sufficient; for those that have made everything
have got nothing. As soon as an article has been made it is by some
magical operation—an operation so subtle that it is scarce perceptible
—snatched from the maker, and becomes the property of some one else.
Speaking in this connection John Stuart Mill says that he would prefer
Communism itself to such an unholy state of affairs. “ If,” he says,
“ the institution of private property necessarily carried with it as a con
sequence that the produce of labour should be apportioned as we now
see it, almost in an inverse ratio to the labour—the largest portions to
those who have never worked at all, the next largest to those whose work
is almost nominal, and so, in a descending scale, the remuneration dwind
ling as the work grows harder aud more disagreeable, until the most
fatiguing and exhausting bodily labour cannot count with certainty on
being able to earn even the necessaries of life: if this, or communism
were the alternative, ail the difficulties, great or small, of communism
would be but as dust in the balance.” Surely it cannot be impossible for
society to carry out so simple a theory—a theory that it recognises and
accepts as true—as to see that people have the produce of their own
labour, that industry is rewarded and encouraged.
The grossest inconsistency on the part of society as regards property
is the maintenance of property in. land. How can that encourage in
dustry ? It is only the produce of the land, the result of labour, that can
be called property. By insuring to this individual or to that individual
this or that tract of land, what industry does society encourage ? It en
courages the industry of the idle—a terrible industry, a scourge: it
reduces thousands of its members to the position of flunkeys, ministers
to idleness.
As we have already said, the view that property is maintained in a
community for the purpose of encouraging industry and for no other pur
pose, is not new neither is it denied. All that it implies is that men are
to be rewarded according to their industry—this, no one can for a mo
ment deny, is far from being practically carried out; in fact, we
practically carry out the very opposite doctrine.
Here then are two principles, viz.: that population is limited by
subsistence and that property is instituted to encourage industry ; that
are universally accepted and argued upon, as if they were carried into
practice ; we have shown that the one not carried into practice, how
ever, seeks to deny them. Why should they not be adopted by society ?
It is the adoption of these two principles, and of these two principles
alone that is recommended here. Indeed by seeing that the theory of
property alone is applied, the limiting principle to population will be
implicitly applied too.
Such, and such alone, is the work that lies before reformers now.
'AXVV
•
wy""........... •''WXxxxax"
�OBJECT.
The Establishment of a Free Condition of Society based on the prin
ciple of Political Equality, with Equal Social Rights for all and the
complete Emancipation of Labour.
PROGRAMME.
1. All Officers or Administrators to be elected by Equal Direct Adult
Suffrage, and to be paid by the Community.
2. Legislation by the People, in such wise that no project of Law
shall become legally binding till accepted by the Majority of the People.
3. The Abolition of a Standing Army, and the Establishment of a
National Citizen Force ; the People to decide on Peace or War.
4. All Education, higher no less than elementary, to be Free, Com
pulsory, Secular, and Industrial for all alike.
5. The Administration of Justice to be Free and Gratuitous for all
Members of Society.
6. The Land with all the Mines, Railways and other Means of Tran
sit, to be declared and treated as Collective or Common Property.
7. Ireland and all other parts of the Empire to have Legislative
Independence.
8. The Production of Wealth to be regulated by Society in the com
mon interest of all its Members.
9. The Means of Production, Distribution and Exchange to be
declared and treated as Collective or Common Property.
As measures called for to palliate the evils of our existing society the
Social-Democratic Federation urges for immediate adoption :—
The Compulsory Construction of healthy artizan’s and agricultural
labourers’ dwellings in proportion 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 working day in all trades.
Cumulative Taxation upon all incomes above a fixed minimum not
exceeding /300 a year.
State Appropriation of Railways, with or without compensation.
The establishment of National Banks, which shall absorb all private
institutions that derive a profit from operations in money or credit.
Rapid Extinction of the National Debt.
Nationalisation of the Land, and organisation of agricultural and
industrial armies under State control on Co-operative principles.
As means for the peaceable attainment of these objects the SocialDemocratic Federation advocates :
Adult Suffrage. Annual Parliaments. Proportional Represen
tation.
Payment of Members ; and Official Expenses of Election
out of the Rates.
Abolition of the House of Lords and all
Hereditary Authorities. Disestablishment and Disendowment
of all State Churches.
Secretary, Social-Democratic Federation, Bridge House, Blackfriars, E.G.
�4t J
■
All who are interested in Socialism
should read
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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The industrial problem solved
Creator
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Robertson, W.B.
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 12, [4] p. ; 23 cm.
Notes: Stamp on title page: South Place Chapel Finsbury, Lending Library. Publisher's list and Information on the Social-Democratic Federation on unnumbered pages at the end.
Publisher
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The Modern Press
Date
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1887
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G4973
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Industry
Socialism
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Text
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English
Economics
Industrial Democracy
Industrialization
Population Increase
Production
Socialism
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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
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
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Original Format
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Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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An appeal to the young
Creator
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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
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The Modern Press
Date
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1885
Identifier
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G4969
Subject
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Socialism
Contributor
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Hyndman, H. M. (Henry Mayers) (tr)
Rights
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (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
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Peter Kropotkin
Socialism
Young people