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WHAT OF THE FUTURE.
BY D.
G.
CBOLY.
INTRODUCTORY.
N the chapters which follow this preface I shall try to forecast
something of the future. That the attempt is a presumptous
one, I am well aware; but l am certain it is quite time that some
one should lead the way in showing the advantages of studying
or at least speculating about our earthly hereafter. We are too apt to
animadvert upon the Chinese for their elaborate worship of ancestors;
but while we do not pay homage to our progenitors in a religious sense,
surely too much of the attention of our best and wisest scholars and
writers is given to the annals of the past. I insist that the only value
of history, apart from a natural curiosity as to what has taken place on
the earth before we came into conscious existence, is to give us data by
which we may forecast the future. So long as the race believed that
infinite Caprice in the form of supernatural and irresponsible wills gov
erned the universe, there could be no hope of a science of history.
This was impossible until the conception of universal law accounting
for all phenomena, the course of human events included, became cur
rent among the advanced thinkers of the race. We have had a good
deal, especially in modern times, of what is known as the philosophy
of history. Indeed all recent annalists have generalized more or less;
but' their theories of events are confined exclusively to the past, and
explain with greater or less accuracy what has already taken place, and
why it has come about. But the age demands something in advance
of this; the time has- come when the attempt at least should be made
to lay the foundations of what may be termed the science of human af
fairs. It is idle to speculate upon history and attempt to explain the
laws which govern the movements of human society, without endeavor
ing to apply the knowledge of the laws thus obtained in trying to realize
in thought what may occur hereafter. In the progress of this induction
I shall, of course, make many, very many, serious mistakes, but some
one must make the attempt; and it is inevitable that whoever does so
will help other inquirers in the same field by his very failures.
There is a very natural curiosity felt by every intelligent person
touching what will take place after he has passed from this earthly
sphere—what our children and our children’s children will do—what
T
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they will probably believe—what form or forms of government will
control them—what will be the material condition of the masses of
mankind—what changes in the maps of the world—what inventions
to aid man’s control over the forces of nature, and what effect all Wiese
changes will have upon human conditions. The belief is becoming
general that man himself can very largely control his own future;
that the race can be, and in many respects even now is, a “ ruling prov-'
idence” to itself, and that the natural laws which govern human society
can be modified in their complex relations by the interposition of
human will—not arbitrary will, but intelligent human volition, having
definite objects in view, and itself controlled by necessary material con
ditions.
In the articles which are to follow I beg of my readers to give me
their indulgence. They must understand that the field is almost
wholly untrodden, and it is inevitable that some very wild guesses will
be made. This much, however, I can confidently predict, that the
most incredible statements I shall venture will really be the most trust
worthy, and that I shall be more apt to make mistakes in that depart
ment of inquiry in which I shall be least questioned ; that is to say, in
speculating upon the future of religion, of the movements of popula
tion, of the course of opinion, and of the social changes which will
take place, I shall very likely be most at fault, because the data for
these speculations have not as yet been formulated. The most aston
ishing results in the future will be brought about by the command to
be yet obtained by man over nature, by the discovery of mechanical
and chemical appliances which will add marvelously to the happiness
and comfort of the race. To illustrate: If at the beginning of this
century some theorizer should have set out upon the same inquiry upon
which I have dared to enter and should have speculated upon the
course of opinions, the fluctuations of religion, the social changes to
take place, he would probably have been heard with attention, and if
his reasoning was apparently sound, would have secured many assent
ing listeners; but if he had attempted to foretell the future of tele
graphy or the application of steam to transportation, he would have been
set down as a lunatic, a dreamer of fantastic dreams. Now, the most
marvelous changes in human conditions, in the future as in the past, will
be brought about by the discoveries of science as applied to the arts.
What some of these discoveries may be, I shall try to state in the'
papers which are to follow in this series; and just here, where I really
stand upon the most solid ground, I shall seem most wild in my vati
cinations. A simple invention may do more to alleviate certain forms
of human misery than the preachings of thousands of clergymen and
the wailings of as many poets. The “ Song of the Shirt ” stirred our
sympathies, but the sewing machine—what pen or tongue can tell the good it has accomplished for myriads of working women ? Could the
press and pulpit combined have had a tithe of the effect of this one
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beneficent invention ? But speculations as to the religious future, or
the social future, will necessarily be incomplete by reason of the com
plexity of the phenomena which will accompany them, and the as yet
unformalized science of society. In the present state of knowledge—
especially that which relates to the conditions of human society—the
ripest and most cultivated intellect would be at fault, not only by rea
son of the want of information, but because of his preconceived theories
and notions. It is very evident that in speculating upon the future,
men will be controlled very largely by their settled convictions and per
haps by the religious faith in which they have been nurtured. Suppose,
for instance, an intelligent Christian, a sceptic, and a scientist, were
each to give his views upon the future ; it is very clear, that although
each might mean to tell the truth, still each would give a different solu
tion of the problem before him—none of them could help being influ
enced by their preconceived impressions. From this cause of distrac
tion the writer is not of course free. Indeed any scheme of the future
—any hope of what is to come hereafter—must be based in great part
upon a religious theory; that is, a theory which embraces a conception
of the social and religious future as well as of man’s history.
The science of history was not possible so long as merely super
natural wills were understood to be the controlling powers in the uni
verse; but with the conception of invariable law, then a science of
human affairs becomes possible ; but that very conception is in itself
essentially a religious one.
There is still another element of uncertainty in endeavoring to fore
cast the hereafter, and that is the surprising results which sometimes
are brought about by accidental discoveries in science. The share
played by accident is as discreditable to man’s invention as it is morti
fying to his vanity. Bacon points this out in the 59th Aphorism of
his Novum Organum, in which, besides giving examples, he says:—
“ We may also derive some reason for hope from the circumstance of several
actual inventions being of such a nature, that scarcely any one could have formed a
conjecture about them previously to their discovery, but would rather have ridi
culed them as impossible. ********
We may therefore well hope that many excellent and useful matters are yet
treasured up in the bosom of nature, bearing no relation or analogy to our actual
discoveries, but out of the common track of the imagination, and still undiscovered,
and which will doubtless be brought to light in the course and lapse of years, as
others have been before them.”
*******
Conscious of his own deficiencies, the present writer cannot but
think that however poor his execution may be, such a work as this can
not but be suggestive, and may lead to the discovery of data by which
we may in a measure forecast the future. It is the first serious attempt
ever made to estimate accurately the forces at work in society, and to
point out what may result unless new agencies are brought into play.
Every existing human institution has a history which changes with
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the course of time. Now, in what direction do these changes tend?
This is the inquiry to which the papers that follow will be a partial
answer.
Those who are disposed to criticise the shortcomings of what is to
follow, would do well to bear in mind the acute remark of Herbert
Spencer, who says:
“ Not directly, but by successive approximations, do mankind reach correct con
clusions ; and those who first think in'the right direction—loose as may be their
reasonings, and wide of the mark as their inferences may be—yield indispensable
aid by framing provisional conceptions, and giving a bent to inquiry.”
CHAPTER I.
THE FUTURE OF MARRIAGE.
The relations of the sexes ; what will they be thirty, fifty, one hun
dred years hence ? Is it possible to estimate the force of the agencies
at work modifying the old ideal of the institution of marriage, and to
point out what will be the probable issue ? Any one who has observed
the course of modem history, cannot but have been impressed with
certain tendencies concerning which there can be no chance of mistake.
During the middle ages and down to the reformation, marriage was
a sacrament of the church. It was God, according to this view, who
brought people together, and his command was that whom he had
joined no man should put asunder. Children, also, under this general
theory, were a gift of God ; it was by his will and not by man’s agency
that they were brought into existence.
This, however, is not the modern theory of the relation of the sexes.
Protestant Christendom regards marriage as a purely human institu
tion, and each State now claims the authority to separate those whom
it has joined together in the event of certain infractions of the law
regulating the institution. Roman Catholicism still sternly adhères
to its historical traditions of the sacramental character and to the
indissolubility of marriage, but the modern theory has beaten the
old church on its own ground, and in communities composed almost
exclusively of its own members. Indeed, this “free love” movement
was a potent force in the original outbreak against the church of
Rome ; as witness Luther’s marriage with a nun, his subsequent
acknowledgment of the validity of the union of a German prince to a
second wife, the first being still alive ; and also the tremendous conse
quences of Pope Clement’s refusal to divorce Henry VIII from Queen
Catherine. In every modern nation the first victory over the sacerdotal
power of mother church is signalized by the substitution of the civil
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for the sacramental marriage, and the passage of laws admitting of
divorce under certain contingencies. The recent enactment of a civil
marriage law in Austria was made the occasion of a national holiday ;
the Spanish revolution was signalized by the recognition of the legiti
macy of such unions ; and the highest courts in Italy, in spite of the
protests of the. church, have solemnly affirmed the legal validity of the
marriage of priests.
But the substitution of the civil for the sacerdotal marriage was
only one step in this social revolution. The personal theory or the
relation of the sexes is what now obtains the widest sanction. In this
view marriage is a mere contract between two persons ; living together
is a sufficient proof that the couple are man and wife. This is the
American idea of marriage, which needs the sanction of neither church
nor state—only the consent of the two persons directly interested to
insure the respectability of the connection and legitimatize the off
spring.
Nor is this all ; this theory of mere consent giving validity to the
relation involves the further consequence that a separation may ensue
when either party becomes dissatisfied. If .marriage is a mere matter
of human convenience or pleasure, then it can be dissolved at will ; the
same persons who made the contract for their mutual happiness should
have the power to dissolve it when their comfort is not enhanced by
complying with its conditions. And this is the exact view taken by
John Stuart Mill, who represents, probably more than any other living
writer, the most advanced view of the times on all topics of social
concern.
And as a consequence of this growing conception of marriage as a
mere personal matter between individuals, what do we see in society at
large ? Why a constant tendency to loosen the ties which bind the
sexes together ? The statement may be broadly made that since the
reformation all legislation in modern Christendom has been in thé
direction of the entire freedom of the affections. Not a single instance
can be furnished of legal enactment to bind still firmer the marriage
bonds, or to go back to a stricter law of divorce. On the contrary,
every change or amendment of the ordinances which society imposes
on the sexes for its protection and their happiness tends to make the
bonds lighter and separation more easy. In our own country, which
Booner than any other adopts all the so-called improvements in legisla
tion, divorce laws are notoriously lax and the number of separations
extraordinarily large. Even in so conservative, and in one sense reli
gious a State as Vermont, there is an average of one separation to every
eleven marriages, and in Connecticut (among Americans), one to nine.
Of course, in other States, especially those settled by emigrants from
New England, the proportion is still greater.
Nor do I see in any quarter a desire to go back to a more stringent
rule. There is occasionally a feeble protest from some old-fashioned
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divine, but the church as a body has taken no action, and seems quite
willing that the marriage laws should be practically abrogated in time.
And here it may be remarked that our present monogamic mar
riage is not a Christian institution.- The Bible was written by and for
a nation of polygamists. There is not a text of Scripture, from Genesis
to Revelation, which prescribes that the man shall have but one wife,
and the woman but one husband. It is true there was such a limita
tion so far as bishops were concerned in the early church, but this Very
exception proved the rule to have been otherwise. Luther recognized
this in an instance I have already mentioned. And here again it must
be borne in mind that the relation of the sexes is purely conventional;
there is no absolute rule governing all the nations. We must dis
criminate between a permanent and a transient morality. In all ages,
and among all people, it has been considered wrong to murder, lie, or
steal; but there has been no general rule recognized among men gov
erning the relation of the sexes. It has varied widely in every age and
clime. There was a time when men married their sisters, and the
priests blessed the union. The law,“ Thou shalt not commit adultery,”
was given to a polygamous people, and was understood very differently
from the way we regard it.
The brothel is deemed infamous in New York, but is a govern
ment institution in Paris; while the tea-gardens as they are called in
Japan are as respectable as the school-house or tfie temples, and are
supposed to be quite as useful in their way. Hence in discussing this
subject of marriage, we must bear in mind that our conventional
standards are not common to the entire race, but only to a small part
of it, and have not therefore the same sanction as those rules of con
duct which are recognized universally.
So far there have been the following variations of the sexual rela
tions recognized openly or tacitly by mankind:
1. Polyandry, or several men the husbands of one wife. This was
probably the prevalent institution when the race was in its infancy
and still in a very savage state—when man was the hunted rather than
the hunters of beasts of prey; and hence what was needed to fight the
wild beasts of the forest was the strong male rather than the child-bear
ing female. This accounts for the custom which still obtains in the
East of killing female infants at birth. Polyandry is still a custom in
Thibet, and in other parts of Asia.
2. Polygamy was the next form of marriage, and the one which has
always been held in the highest favor by the great mass of mankind
within the historic period. Probably three-fourths of the race to-day
practice or tolerate polygamy.
3. Monogamy. This is undoubtedly the very highest form of the
relation of the sexes so far instituted among men, and has given us the
noblest types of women, as wife and mother, of the race. Some form
of the monogamic marriage is always associated with an advanced
civilization.
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4. Concubinage. This is a real institution of monogamic commu
nities, though in disrepute, and not recognized legally. Statistics
would show, if it were possible to collect them accurately, that in all
nations where the one-wife rule obtains legally, there are a certain defi
nite number of women who act as the temporary or permanent second
wives of married or unmarried men. Among the Jews the concubine
was but an inferior kind of wife, which is just what the kept mistress
is with us—only the position of the latter is disreputable, which was
not the case with the Jewish concubine.
5. Prostitution. This is also an institution almost exclusively pecu
liar to monogamic communities. Wherever the one-wife system pre
vails, whoredom is an inevitable accompaniment. In modern Europe
and America it is estimated that one woman in every sixty practically
ignores the conventional law 'of marriage either as a prostitute or as a
kept mistress, or by indulging in occasional liaisons. From the nature
of the case it is difficult to get at exact figures, but it is known that
each of these three classes bear a certain fixed proportion to the popu
*
lation in all single-wife communities.
6. Celibacy. It is perhaps a misnomer to class this state under the
head of the relation of the sexes, when in fact it signifies'an absence
of relation; but old maids form so large and growing a proportion of
'our population, that they must be considered in any discussion of the
general subject of marriage, especially the future of marriage. Celibacv
is probably the most cruel of all the institutions which control women;
it entails vastly more physical and mental suffering than prostitution,
apart, of course, from the contagion engendered by the latter, because
it affects such numbers of the sex. There are probably two hundred
* Since writing the above, further thought on the subject has led me to the
conclusion that prostitution is simply polyandry under another name. Both insti
tutions spring from the same real or fancied necessities of the race. In both a few
women are set apart for the satisfaction of the sexual passions of many men. Poly
andry, however, involves offspring, and is hence an honorable estate among the
savages who practice it: while prostitution has no aim beyond satisfying a sexual
appetite on the part of the male. The one is a permanent relation, and was and is
sanctified by habit and affection; the other is a transient flirtation, in nine cases out
of ten wholly animal. Concubinage also is simply the polygamy of monogamic
communities. It has been said that there was more polygamy in London than in
Constantinople, and this is probably true, only in the one case it is an honored in> stitution, and in the other a disreputable gratification, yet both satisfying pressing
social needs.
Hugh Miller, in combating the theories of progress rife in his time, attempted
to prove from geology that a process of degradation or retrogression was going on
as well as progression. What he did show was that upon the advent of a new race
of superior beings, the one which had before held the vantage ground fell back in
the scale of creation. Thus all living animal types were better represented on this
planet than they have been since the advent of man.
The same law seems to hold good with human institutions. Polyandry and
polygamy, which were once legal and honored institutions, have become degraded
in the presence of the highest form of the relation of the sexes as yet known to
large masses of men, viz., monogamy; yet it must not be forgotten that prostitu
tion and concubinage are real, permanent institutions in our present civilization,
which zoill exert themselves as social forces, and which cannot be ignored by the
sociologist.
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unmated women for every one prostitute, and in some respects the
latter has an advantage over the former. Her instinct of sex is grati
fied to the uttermost, while every purely womanly passion in the old
maid, widow, or young maid unmated, is a matter of secret shame and
perpetual disappointment. To make matters worse, the whole past
education of women has been to train them for marriage, as their sole
business in life. That so large a proportion of women are permanently
unmated in our modern civilization is proof positive that the theories
which have heretofore obtained touching theii’ exclusive devotion to
domestic life do not meet all the wants of society. And then the num
ber of involuntary celibates tends constantly to increase. For this
there are many causes, among which are the higher standard of com
fort and luxury, the greater industrial activity of women, and especially
the emigrating tendencies of men caused by the cheapness and rapidity
of modern travel. In England it is estimated that of every one hun
dred grown women only fifty-five are married; the rest are unmated.
So much for the past and the present.
But now what of the future ? What changes or variations may we
expect in marriage before the year 2000 ? Let us apply Comte’s concep
tion of historical filiation or Herbert Spencer’s law of evolution to
this subject, and see whither we are tending.
Historically, then, it is evident that we are passing from a super
natural to a purely human conception of marriage. It is no longer a
mystic rite or sacrament; it is an institution designed to perpetuate
the race and add to human happiness. All existing criticisms on mar
riage are from a purely human standpoint. Hence the tendency is to
greater individual freedom of action. All legislation, without any ex
ception in modern Christendom, is in this direction. Individual con
sent is now the bond between the sexes, not sacerdotal authority. The
metaphysical and anarchical doctrine of human rights, now urged with
so much vehemence all over the Christian world, is disintegrating mar
riage.
So much for the historical tendency, as any one can see who keeps
his eyes open. And now what does the law of evolution lead us to
expect ? This law is that in human institutions as well as in the or
ganic world about us, the tendency is from the homogeneous to the
heterogeneous, from the simple to the complex ; that what are at first
apparently accidental variations, become at length permanent character
istics ; in short, that a process of differentiation is constantly going on.
Now, if this is true, it will lead to some consequences, in considering
marriage, which will startle conservative people. Yet it is very evident
that in comparing a savage with a civilized people, one of the marked
distinctions will be the simplicity of the marriage institution in the
one, and the complex character of the relation of the sexes in the other.
A rude, simple community will tolerate but one rule or practice, but a
score of variations from the conventional requirement is winked at in
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Rome, London, and Paris. As I have shown, monogamic communities
are forced to tolerate Polyandry and Pologamy in the form of Pfostitution and Concubinage, but there are many variations of the sexual re
lation that do not come under those heads which need not be par
ticularized here, and which are practised in all civilized communities.
This differentiation will, I think, go on until the scientific law or
laws governing the relation of the sexes has been discovered. What
these variations may be, it is now our business to try and point out.
One variation of marriage is that of the present Protestant theory
of the relation of the sexes carried to its logical conclusion. This in
volves marriage and divorce at will, without recognizing the authority
of any one or any organization outside of the couple most interested.
Practically we have almost reached that stage now. There is nothing
to hinder people separating and forming new unions, provided both
parties interested are willing. The embarrassment in the way is the
dependence of the woman, especially if she has children; but the equal
rights agitation is teaching her self-help, and the necessity of women
working and being pecuniarily independent of men. This general
form of marriage may be defined as the Protestant or individual sov
ereignty marriage, and has in itself many variations. So far it involves
an idea of faithfulness to each other while living together, but if there
is to be no check to individual freedom—if the man or woman is not
responsible to any one but him or herself, it is no one’s business but
their own with whom they consort, or how often they change partners.
Thus we come to absolute free love, and there is no logical stopping
place short of that on the prevalent individual rights theory. In a
greater or less degree this is the outcome of the marriage relation in
Protestant Christendom. The prevalent free-trade, no-government,
and every-man-for-himself notions which are generated by our political,
woman’s rights and social discussions, intensifies this tendency. Were
there no children to be considered, and were women as self-helpful as
men, there is no doubt that this form of the relation of the sexes
would soon be very common in Protestant and sceptical communities.
But the great bulk of women are not independent of men pecunia
rily, and children will be born, however undesirable they may be deemed
by those who wish to realize the theory of marriage which Protestant
communities are consciously or unconsciously working out.
The class of women workers, however, are constantly increasing,
and in a short time tens of thousands of the sex as artists, writers,
physicians, professors, teachers, and heads of establishments, will have
employment which they will not give up to fill the station of life in
volved in the old theory of marriage. Hence will come partial unions
which may be for a time or for life, which may involve absolute faith
fulness to each other or entire freedom of change. All this is certain
to come about whether we like it or not, and very probably in the next
generation. It is very likelv that for the next two generations the
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monogamic form of marriage will obtain with the great mass of people,
but th«Tirregular unions I have pointed out will be not only tolerated—
they will not be under any social ban, for many worthy people will, in
all likelihood, deliberately rid themselves of the marriage fetters which
society now imposes. I expect very soon that among the large class of
professional women who will earn their own livelihood and whose oc
cupation do not admit of household cares, it will not be deemed dis
reputable to have children without any marriage formality. At first, of
course, this will create scandal, but if it is countenanced by a few women
of real character, standing, and professional reputation, it will soon be
tolerated, especially if it is done deliberately and in accordance with
some social and religious theory then prevailing, or which may be
promulgated to sanction such practices. An assumed noble motive or
religious conviction will give respectability to the wildest social aber
rations. A man or woman of recognized professional ability, who is
known to be honest, public-spirited and self-denying, could easily set a
fashion of this kind, which would be generally tolerated, though not
often imitated. A marriage contract for a limited time has been
seriously discussed in several of the Woman’s Rights and Spiritualist
journals. It is noticeable that it is the women who propose those
schemes. Here is a specimen and one very likely to be tried during
the coming years:
Ellen Storge sends a communication to the Woman’s Advocate, of Dayton, 0., •
in which she proposes the following social platform :
“ 1. Let the marriage contract be limited to from one to three years, at the coi
tion of the contracting parties.
“2. Discard the erroneous idea that this contract is divine; admit that this is
but a human transaction, intended to perpetuate the species and produce human
happiness.
“ 3. Make both parties equal; do not exact, special promises or terms from one
sex to its disadvantage and the advantage of the other. Exact pledges of mutual
fidelity and co-operation during continuance of the marital contract; but let love
alone. Love is a sensitive, spontaneous outgrowth of the heart, subject to the con
trol of treatment and circumstances rather than formal promises ; it is too tender,
too sacred, for the public gaze.
“ 4. Let the marriage contract embrace the contingency of issue, with full and
unequivocal provision therefor. If one child, let its custody devolve by written and
recorded agreement, void during coverture ; if two or more children, the same, or
division by such agreement, provided that the party refusing to renew the expired
contract, at the instance of the other party, or the offender in case of premature an
nulment, shall be compelled to maintain the offspring and be the custodian thereof,
at the option of the opposite party.
“ 5. Enact just laws for the determination of all such contingencies as might
arise under this new order of things : make them applicable only to those now un
married ; let there be no ex post facto taint about the matter. During coverture,
us also in the event of non-renewal of the contract., let each party control its own
finances ; of that they shall have together amassed, let there be an equal division.”
The complex marriage: ‘ this is what obtains at. present, in the
Oneida Community, and is simply organized free love. Wives and
w
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husbands are alike common. To make this relation practicable, as
may be well understood, the very strongest social and religious influ
ence must be brought to bear, as the tendency would naturally be toward
pure- license, and a riot of the passions, with no care or even thought
of offspring. It could never be even tried except in a community
dominated by a strong will, or a stringent public opinion based upon a
definite social and religious creed. The complex marriage involves : A
non-recognition of preference between two persons of opposite sex, ex
cept for the time being. As a consequence, “ sweet love is slain,”—that
is to say, the romantic and sentimental side of that passion, which
invariably involves a conception of absolute possession as well as con
tinuance and perpetuity, is sternly reprohibited and stamped out. Love
in any of its so-called higher phases, involves exclusive possession of
the loved object, and this brings in jealousy, a feeling which'cannot be
tolerated in a community where all the men and women are common.
This necessary crucifixion of the sentimental side of love leaves merely
the animal passion to be gratified, and replaces the sense of personal
attachment by a conception of womanhood very different from that
which now obtains.
The Oneida Communists have practiced this complex marriage for
some twenty years. It is the most novel experiment in the relations of
the sexes ever tried, and deserves the most serious study from the
sociologist. This community is also testing some of the problems of
stirpiculture, or the scientific propagation of human beings. It is
needless to point out the very great value of the data they are collect
ing upon this most important of all the mysteries connected with the
life of the race upon this planet.
Nor is it unreasonable to suppose that the current theories with
regard to scientific breeding will have their effect in giving us several
new variations of the sexual relation. One well known writer has
seriously proposed that married men who are conscious of their own
unfitness for paternity, should introduce men of superior strains of
blood to their marriage bed. “Why,” he asks, “should not a man
desire splendid children in his home as well as carefully cultivated
flowers in his garden, or superior animals on his farm ?” So far this
has been urged privately ; but I have no doubt the writer will, in a
short time, make his views public. It will seem a monstrous proposi
tion to ninety-nine persons in a hundred, but here and there a few
crotchety people may make the experiment. If public opinion would
permit, there are to-day hundreds of well-to-do women who would have
children by men they admire, but whom they cannot or would not marry.
There is still another form of the sexual relation suggested by
Madame Clémence Royer, whicfy has been described as follows :
“ Her mode of mobilizing the family is to abolish the family. Woman, she
says, needs and must always have a permanent abode. She cannot rove, as man can
and must do ; therefore let her be no longer tied to any man in particular, or any
�»4
THE FUTURE
OF MARRIAGE.
man to her. ‘We must then/ she says, ‘ mobilize the family, destroy its indissolu
bility. This is the only way of saving it from shipwreck ; it is only in reforming
courageously that we can prevent its falling into complete desuetude.’ So she pro
poses that the marriage-contract should be dissolved on the simple request of either
of the parties, and that there should be instituted a kind of marriage correspond
ing to the confa/rreatio of the Romans, sufficient to legitimize the woman’s position
and the birth of her children, but not binding on her or her husband longer than
he or she pleases. The woman being the more permanent person, Madame Royer
proposes that she, and not the father, should give her name to the children and be
the legal head of the family, the father being relegated to a secondary position, and
constituting in domestic life a kind of shadowy auxiliary, of no moral influence or
weight, and not necessarily known to his children ; and the mother taking as many
husbands in succession as her fancy or circumstances suggested; the result being
perfect happiness, purity, and freedom for all concerned, and an end, total and com
plete, to the quarrelings, falsehood, and oppression of the present system. The
scheme is worked out with much ability, and its bearings on property and other
social arrangements are fairly considered.”
This may seem very chimerical now, yet it but needs a place in
some religious or social scheme to have it tried almost any day.
There will be other variations of the marriage relation which it is
impossible to forecast now, but we may be sure that great diversity will
result from the individualistic theories which now obtain. The future
is in this respect anything but reassuring to the social philosopher and
philanthropist; it is easy enough to write calmly and in cold blood of
these possible experiments on the social relations, but they will all in
volve much human misery and some terrible heart tragedies.
For myself I have no faith in the permanence of the Individual Sov
ereignty conceptions of the relation of the sexes. It may endure for a
generation or two, but because it is individual it is necessarily anti-social,
and therefore unscientific. Whatever is purely egoistic and selfish is an
archical and self-destructive. Hence, while all these theories of marriage
will be worked out,—indeed it is indispensable to the real progress of the
race that they should all be tested by actual experiment,—they cannot
endure after their unsoundness as solutions of the great problem have
been demonstrated. For there is really a most notable problem to
solve. Our present marriage relation is not what it should be; it is a
makeshift, and must be scientifically reconstructed. The woes, disease,
miseries, divorces and murders which are incidental to the present sys
tem, or rather want of system, must give place to something which
will work out better results, especially in the way of offspring. What
that future relation may be it would be premature to point out now;
it is, however, certain it will not take the form of free love, but will be
an institution purer, more chaste, more self-denying, more altruistic
than any form of marriage which has yet been established among men.
Until the problem is solved all true reformers will watch and wait,
and conform in their own lives to the noble ideal of the monogamic mar
riage propounded by Auguste Comte—a marriage which admits of no
divorce for anyjsause, and which decrees eternal widowhood to the sur
viving partner.'
�1» T E AM
AS
A
FA CTOR.
86
CHAPTER II.
STEAM AS A FACTOR IN SOCIOLOGY.
The use of steam and its application to transportation are so mod
em, that we as yet scarcely realize what wonders it has accomplished,
much less the marvels it has in store for us. We know in a general
way of the conveniences of railway and steam travel; but thus far no
one has apprehended all the consequences which will result from this
rapid method of intercommunication. We know that one of the first
effects of railway traffic was to develop and enrich the centers of popu
lation. Cities grew at the expense of the rural districts. This has
been true of all parts of the world into which railroads have been intro
duced. Another effect has been the rapid equalization of prices. The
inability of agriculturists to market their crops economically at the
centers of population, led in the past to great differences in prices.
During the last century, and up to the first third of the present, it was
a matter of frequent occurrence for all but bankrupt families in En
gland, to retire to some rural district on the continent to recruit their
fortunes, being able in that way to live on one-quarter or one-fifth of
their expense at home. In theory it was supposed that the building
of railroads would reduce prices at the centers of population ; but such
does not seem to have been the case. The converse fact, however, is
true, that it has largely enhanced prices in the rural districts.
Wherever railroads have run, the prices of agricultural products have
increased and have been equalized with the prices which formerly ob
tained in the large centers and controlling markets of the world. In
this country it is not so long since the cost of living away from the
large cities was very small. It is within the experience of us all that
as means of communication were established, country living became
more and more costly. This equalization of prices is having a most
important effect upon accumulation of wealth, and the relation of the
city to the country. Our farming class are becoming enriched. The
comparative poverty which characterized the agricultural community in
the past, has given way in these more recent years to comfort and in
some cases to affluence. The labor of the agriculturist is better paid
and the enjoyments of civilized life have been extended to an enlarged
and constantly enlarging class of people. What effect this will have
upon the education, the intelligence and the refinement of the farming
community, it is needless here to dwell upon.
Curiously enough, while the first effect of railroads has been to
build up great centers of population, it has had and is having a dispersing
effect upon these same centers. For instance, New York and London
have grown enormously since the general use of railroads, but, as an
�V
86
STEAM
AS
A
I
..
FACTOR.
offset to this packing of population, the railroad is coming in as a dis
persive agency also. It has added hundreds of square miles to the
available area of very large cities. The street railways, the dummies,
and the swarm of local steam railroads, which spring up to accommo
date the traffic between large cities and their suburbs, are having the
effect of scattering dense populations. Travelers in Europe may have
noticed that all the old cities, such as Edinburgh, Paris, Berlin, Vienna
and others, are notable for the extreme height of the houses, many of
them having from ten to fourteen stories. The reason for this packing
of population upon a small area of ground, was manifestly the impos
sibility of living at any great distance from the actual place of busi
ness. There was a limit to the spread of population with the growth
of business, and hence the people who could not be accommodated by
a lateral extension, remedied the difficulty by piling story upon story
of their houses. This is the secret of the “ Paris Flats,” so called,
which some of our unthinking architects have been trying to intro
duce into our American cities. The plea of necessity for either tene
ment houses or flats no longer exists ; all that is needed is the proper
extension of railroad facilities, the complete systematizing of trans
portation of local passengers; and the ground to be occupied is practi
cably illimitable. This is a matter of supreme importance to the resi
dents of large citiqs, and it is one which has as yet been almost entirely
overlooked. The remedy for the overcrowding of cities, is not the
erection of model lodging-houses or improved tenement-houses, or
“ Paris flats,” or any contrivance for packing people together in dense
masses. It is to be found in the extension of our railroad system, so
that every city business or working man may have his own home—his
own vine and apple-tree.
There is a larger view to take of the application of steam to rail
way and ocean navigation, which also has been hardly thought out,
and that is its effect upon the distribution of population. We have
seen that one of the most palpable effects of railway extension is the
equalization of the prices of produce ; and that further along in their
history, the equalizing of the wages of labor between city and country.
It will also be noticed that there is a dispersing as well as concentrating
action in the development of railroad traffic. Applying this conception
to the whole civilized world, we can readily see what changes may yet be
made in the distribution of population. History shows us how unequal
the distribution of population has been in all countries, in some deiise,
in others very sparse, the cause always being the dearness and difficulty
of transportation between the densely populated parts of the earth’s sur
face and. the portions not populated at all. But steam navigation is just
beginning to change all this. Its cheapness and rapidity is bringing it
year by year more and more within the means of the poorer classes.
One of the most extraordinary phenomena of modern times is the
equalizing of populations by the emigration of vast numbers of people.
�STEAM
AS
A
FA CTOR.
87
Such voluntary-quovement of masses of men and women as have been
witnessed since the introduction of steam power for the purposes of
transportation, were never known or even dreamed of before. Travel
has increased a hundred, aye, a thousand fold. We are still in only the
beginning of these enormous movements of population from one part
of the earth’s surface to another. Indeed this mighty flux of nations is
to be one of the most conspicuous features of the travel of the future.
When the post-horse system had reached its perfection in England
at the beginning of the present century, it ia estimated that there were
never more than eighty thousand persons per day traveling at any one
time. It is now estimated that in England alone, the railroads are
patronized by nearly one million persons per day. We have no figures
touching the rapid interchange of population by means of railroads in
this country, but from the general wealth of the community, and the
mental and bodily activity of the people, we know that the change
must have been far greater here, and it is not too much to say that five
hundred persons now travel by railway for every one person who trav
eled by stage-coach in the first years of the history of the Republic.
This easily generalized fact will show us that some of the problems of
modern society are to be solved by this ease of transit, in a way quite
unexpected to past writers upon political economy. Free travel will b$
found to be a mightier agency for elevating pauperized populations
than free trade. The common people of Ireland, of Germany, and of
England have begun to find out that there is an opening on other por
tions of the earth’s surface, and that there is no real necessity for them
to remain in their old homes, and starve, when they can go elsewhere
and live in abundance; and hence the armies, mightier than those com
manded by Timour, Genghis Khan or Attila, or led by Peter the Her
mit—armies not with weapons of war in their hands, but with instru
ments of labor, and willing and able to work, which are on the march
to attack the wild portions of the globe with the view of making them
the homes of civilized peoples. Hence the rush of population to our
Western Territories and the Pacific coast, the overflowing of New Zea
land, Australia, and the Islands of the Indian Ocean, and the rapid
extension of population even in South Africa. The streams, of emigra
tion from Southern Europe which have set in toward Brazil and other
parts of South America are indices of a mightier influx of population
in the future. The most portentous of these changes has already com
menced upon our Pacific coast. The Mongolians have discovered the
enormous riches of California, and are only waiting for proper facilities,
such as steam will yet afford, to overrun the whole of the Western
coast of the United States; and if not interrupted, millions of that
race will yet find their way into the Mississippi Valley, and even to the
North Atlantic coast.
*
This article was written in 1867.—Author.
�88
STEAM
AS
A
FACTOR.
It is not so difficult, though the magnitude of the result may be
surprising, to forecast the effect of these changes of population upon
human conditions. All can be predicted with tolerable accuracy. The
agricultural poor of England are to-day the most debased of any class
in Europe—are the worst fed, worst used, and worst paid. This cheap
agricultural labor lies at the very basis of the aristocratic features of
English landed property, and of their whole tenant system Let the emi
gration fever once reach this lowest strata of English-Society—and it is
reaching it—and a heavy blow will have been dealt at the great tenant
farming interest of that country, and at the wealth of the large aristo
cratic landed establishments. A very small advance in the wages of
English agricultural laborers, will make the raising of wheat and of all
the cereals an unprofitable business in that country. It has already to
a great extent done so, and hence the attention which has been paid in
the last fifteen or twenty years to the growth and development of supe
rior cattle. But here again the equalizing tendencies of steam naviga
tion comes into play. While meat is extremely dear in England and
the west of Europe, owing to the density of the population and the
small amount of ground available for pasture, there are portions of the
earth’s surface where meat is worth scarcely anything. The problem is
¿o transport the meat from the place where it is very plenty to the
place where it is very scarce. Science is now at work upon the proper
method of preserving the meat; and it is believed that if this be not
as yet accomplished, it is on the very point of accomplishment. Steam
navigation will most certainly supply the necessary facilities for bring
ing the cheap meat and the dear meat countries into intimate relation;
and then another heavy blow will be dealt at the farming and aristo
cratic interests of Great Britain. Wages will be raised in that country
and food cheapened.
But the most important problem for us to solve in connection with
this coming flux of nations is, what shall we do with the millions of hea
thens willing to work for little more than a bare livelihood, who will be
swarming upon us from Eastern and Southern Asia ? What will become
of our working classes if this practically inexhaustible supply of laborers
be available for our industrial wants ? It is idle to talk of restrictive laws,
though they will undoubtedly be tried; indeed they have been tried.
The spirit of the age is all against this stoppage of emigration. We
may pile act of Congress upon act of Congress, and station war-ships
before every port in the Pacific, yet it would be impossible practically
to prevent this influx of Chinese and Hindoos upon our western coast.
Nothing will do it but the equalization of the prices of labor in Asia
and America. Undoubtedly there is trouble, a great deal of it, in the
future working of this question. We have already experienced some
of the effects of the influx of cheap labor from Europe ; but so far, our
mechanics have had such ready access to cheap lands, that the price of
labor has been upheld in the fact of a very large emigration. As the
�STEAM AS A
FACTOR.
89
foreigners arrived and embarked in the various trades, the American
mechanics started for the West and secured homes of their own. But
this change of employment will soon reach its limit. It will not/ be
many years before all the public lands will be taken up, and then will
commence the enhancement of the price of all the lands of this coun
try. The solution of this labor problem, it will be found, is not a local
matter; it is not confined to any one country, and no one nation will
be able to pass laws or create any conditions by which its own poor
will be well used, well fed and properly educated, without also taking into
consideration the feeding and educating of all peoples upon the globe.
The trades-unions in England, despite of all that has been said against
them, have really had the effect of raising the rate of wages in that
country, but in all those occupations in which the unionists succeeded
in banding together, they found that the chief obstacle in the way of
the success of their strikes and demands for higher wages, was the
ability of the English manufacturers to import laborers from France
and Belgium. This has, in a measure, been prevented by the English
workmen through the forming of labor-unions in Belgium and France,
and by having an understanding that there should be no competition
between the workmen of either of the three nations. This furnishes a
hint as to the solution of this labor problem. Steam is bringing about
that dream of the French socialists, the solidarity of the nations. The
working classes will find out that to permanently better their condi
tion, they must take into consideration, not only the workmen in their
own locality, but the laboring class of every other population under the
sun, and in time they will realize that, with the extremely rapid and
cheap system of transportation which is about to obtain all over the
world, there can be no very great differences of condition between the
laboring population of different countries; and this fact may yet bring
about that dream of the past:
“ Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping something new ;
That which they have done but earnest of the things that they shall do.”
This rapid interchange of populations will also have other and far
wider effects. What becomes of local patriotism in the face of a chang
ing fluctuating population ? The farmers in the country and the
bouseholders in the city may have sentiments of local attachment, but
the great trading community, the traveling and working population
who have no stake in the soil—what will they care for one country
more than another ? What attachment will then exist to bind them
to any particular spot of earth ? Is it not reasonable to suppose that
the extension of this agent of modern civilization, steam, may tend to
increase the number of cosmopolitans, people who care more for the
whole earth than for any particular part of it, for the race at large
rather than any of its natural divisions ?
Then again as to government, do we not already see that the ex
�90
STEAM AS A
FACTOR.
tension of the railroad has had most important effects in changing the
map of the world. The “ shrieks of locality ” are no longer heeded;
state lines have no longer the sacredness formerly attributed to them.
The history of modern governments is the history of the growth of
centralization. All efforts of late years towards rebellion or secession
have miserably failed. The South could not escape from the grasp of
the North. Hungary was beaten in her attempt to separate from
Austria. Ireland failed, entirely in her moral agitation to effect a repeal
of the act of union with Great Britain. Not so with efforts to consoli
date nations. Prussia to-day represents some forty smaller nationalities
that existed but a few short years ago. Italy is one nation where but
yesterday were six or seven. The United States Government keeps
adding steadily to its possessions; Russia encroaches upon Central Asia;
England extends her dominions in Southern Asia; and so as the means
of intercommunication multiply, the smaller become merged in the
larger nations. Contemporaneously with this enlargement of the
boundaries of great states, we find another curious and hitherto unsus
pected effect of the influence of modern steam travel, which is the
extension of suffrage to larger and still larger classes of the community.
There is no doubt whatever that this rapid flux of population is really
at the bottom of this equalizing of men’s position as regards the gov
ernment. In England, in America, in France, in Germany, in Italy,
in Spain—in every civilized nation, we see that greater and still greater
concessions are being made to the laboring population in the way of
political power. But strangely enough, and yet naturally enough, if
we regard it in the right light, with the extension of the voting privi
lege to the laboring classes we see a greater concentration of power in
the central authority. This follows naturally from the obliteration of
localities. All can see that New York State at large, through its legis
lature at Albany, takes the power away from New York City; that
Washington absorbs much of the power formerly centering in Albany.
Berlin to-day represents twenty small capitals of ten years ago. Paris,
in the van of civilization, has.long been the virtual head of all France.
The reason for this change is obvious. When the doctrine of States
rights in this country was preached in its early vigor, Washington was
in point of fact at a greater distance from the city of New York than it
is to-day from the city of Delhi. In point of actual time, it took
over two weeks to reach Maine from the capital, and a still greater
length of time to reach New Orleans. There could be no wise govern
ment of provinces which were so distant in point of time, where infor
mation to head-quarters took so long to go, and commands therefrom
so long to come. And this has been the real force of the argument in
favor of the exclusive government of localities by the people thereof;
but human conditions have changed marvelously within the last few
years, and distance in relation to time is practically annihilated by the
use of the telegraph, while space has been greatly abridged by the
�STEAM AS
A
FACTOR.
91
application of steam to transportation. The telegraphic wires have
become the real nerves of the human race. They communicate sensa
tion from all parts of the body politic, and in the fullness of time there
must be, as in the human organism, one great brain to which this sen
sation will be transmitted, and which must act intelligently for all
parts of the corporate body. I do not see how statesmen, political
economists, and philosophers generally can avoid realizing that the
mighty change in human conditions created by the use of steam will
change radically (indeed is changing radically) the relations of locali
ties to the central authority; and that while the equality of human
conditions brought about by steam and electricity has had the effect to
extend the right of the choice of rulers to wider circles of population,
and may yet include even women, it has taken more and more power
from localities, and concentrated it in the central governments. In no
part of the world to-day do we see any powers taken away from the
central governments; in every part of the world, with the extension of
suffrage we see more and more power added to the central authority.
In fact, when the active intelligent and effective part of the population
are rapidly moving from place to place, locality to locality, they are no
longer any better judges of the interests of that locality than are people
who permanently live at a distance. If in the future, therefore, an agi
tation in favor of local rights and State authority should prove feebler
than in past times in the history of our government, it can be readily
understood that this change is made by the agency of steam in effect
ing rapid intercommunication between all parts of the country.
To sum up, then, the effects of the application of steam to transpor
tation—
1. It has built up the centers of population at the expense of the
rural districts, thus stimulating the growth of large cities.
2. In its fullest development it will have a dispersive effect upon
large cities, and prevent overcrowding by rendering available larger
areas of country for business purposes. Cheap steam travel is the real
and certain cure for the tenement-house horror, and most of the evils
of overcrowding. One cheap, swift road, reaching out into the country
from the heart of a great city, is a greater beneficence to the poor than
could be conferred upon them by a generation of Peabodys.
3. Steam travel is equalizing the price of all commodities as well as
the wages of labor. So far the effect has been to enhance prices when
they were low; the reverse effect has rarely taken place; the leveling
has been up, not down. This is a fact upon which depends conse
quences most momentous to the future of the working classes the
world over.
4. Steam is giving an immense impetus to emigration, and is solv
ing the problem of over-population, or perhaps it would be more pre
cise to say, is making that problem one upon which the whole race
must sit in judgment rather than any one people. Like water, wages.
�92
STEAM AS
A
FACTOR.
prices, and population will find their level. The most momentous fact
of the immediate future will be the “flux of nations,” the emigration
of the laboring poor from places where land is dear to where it is
cheap, and from crowded communities to sparsely inhabited settle
ments.
5. This vast emigration will make the social future of the working
class a cosmopolitan question, and will in effect bring about that dream
of the continental socialists, the “ solidarity of the peoples.”
6. The railroad and telegraph, in helping to conquer time and
space, is bringing about the reign of a centralized democracy all over
the world. They tend on the one hand to extend the privilege of the
ballot to every grown human being, and on the other to center more
power in the general government. Localities are constantly getting to
be of less account.
Note.—The three chapters above given will form part of a book upon “ The
Future,” should I ever find time to write it. One other chapter, “ By 1900, What ? ”
was published in Appleton's Journal. In addition I have the rough drafts of about
a dozen other chapters, the contents of which may be judged by their titles, as
follows:
1. The Future of Language.
2. Synthetic Chemistry, and what it will Accomplish.
3. The Future of Money and Prices.
4. Will the Coming Man Sleep ?
5. Can Human Life be Prolonged, and How ?
6. The Food of the Future, and its probable effect upon the Structure of the
Human Body.
7. On the Equalization of the Temperature of the Globe.
8. The Probable Governments of the Future.
9. The Tendency of Educational Changes.
Of course the range of topics is endless, and none of them in the present state of
Sociological Science can be discussed with the intelligence they demand to be made
profitable as objects of serious study. The test of science, as Comte pointed out, is
prevision, and the foundations of a science of human affairs canndt be said to have
been begun until we are able speculatively to anticipate the future. Now all I can
do is to try and point out the tendency or drift of things. I may be mistaken on
every point, but of one thing I am sure—that those who follow me will succeed
where I have failed. All the value I claim for my speculations is the attempt to
deliberately foreeast the future. Now I firmly believe this not only can be done,
but some time or other it will be done.
D. G. C.
�THE SEXUAL QUESTION.
*
T is to the conspicuous disgrace of the medical profession, that so
far it has not supplied the public with any standard work upon
the intimate relations of the sexes. Of all the subjects relating to
the7 life of man upon this planet, there is no one of such prime
importance as the generative act between the sexes. So far it has prac
tically been regarded as a brute instinct, and an indecent shame has
prevented the wise, pure and good of both sexes from fully under
standing all about the act, as well as all the consequences it entails.
The curiosity with regard’to the sexual organs and their uses, not
withstanding this conventional, indelicate reticence, in every one con
scious of sex is necessarily very great, but it has to be gratified illegiti
mately. Mothers do not instruct their daughters, nor fathers their
sons touching this most important of all the relations of their life, not
only because of the sinful shame they feel in conversing upon such
topics with their children, but because of their own amazing ignorance
of the antecedents to and consequences of the act by which the race is
continued.
It may be broadly stated that there as yet has never been written
or published in any language one comprehensive and exhaustive work
upon the generative organs, their uses and abuses. Science has not
yet occupied that field: it has been left to quackery and empiricism.
The works appended are useful as an indication that some few
physicians at least, are becoming aware that these matters must be
discussed from a scientific standpoint, and that the knowledge in the
possession of the medical profession must be given to the public. The
real difficulty in the way, however, is the singular unacquaintance of
the profession with all that relates to the sociological side of this dis
cussion. Comte complained that in his day physicians were little
better than horse doctors when they came to regard man sexually.
They looked upon the male as an animal, and paid no attention to the
enormous modifications brought about by society, and the course of his
tory upon the human family. And this fruitful field is even yet left
unoccupied. Now that women are getting into the medical profession
there is reason to hope for some intelligent discussion of the sexual
question; for it is remarkable to note that the women are far less
squeamish than the men when this topic is broached in the press or on
I
* The Preventive Obstacle.—Dr. Bergeyet.
den&r. Common Sense.—Dr. Foote.
Conjugal Sin A—Dr. Garr-
�94
THE
SEXUAL
QUESTION.
the platform. All pure women feel what all artists and poets have ever
felt, that there is no sin or shame in any of the legitimate gratifications
of the sense of sex. And in considering this subject women seem to
realize more truly than men the social aspects of the case. These are
now up for comment and settlement, especially so far as they relate to
the means to be used in limiting the size of families.
The different methods in use to keep down population or prevent
an undesirable increase in families in times past, may be summed up as
follows:
1. The killing of infants after they are horn.—This is the most
ancient practice, and obtains to this day in the East and in exceptional
cases among the very poor in so-called civilized communities. The
Spartans made a wise use of this practice to rid themselves of mal
formed children, as well as those who should not have been generated.
2. Abortion—the killing of the foetus in the womb.—This is done to
a fearful extent in all " civilized ” communities. It is a worse practice
than infanticide, as it entails far more physical and moral evil. It
generally injures the physical system of the mother and prevents the
birth of desirable as well as undesirable offspring. Then, in spite of
all efforts, a number of half-killed children are born, and live to add to
the sum of human misery. Our laws tacitly recognize the right of
mothers to kill their unborn offspring. Throughout Christendom
there is not a law on any statute-book forbidding or punishing a
woman for killing the unborn fruit of her womb. It is only those who
make a business of committing abortion upon women who are dis
countenanced by law; but all enactments on this subject are practically
null. In New York city abortion is an open and lucrative profession,
as witness the advertisements in the papers and Mad. Restell’s splendid
mansion on Fifth Avenue.
3. Preventative measures.—George Sand is reputed to have said,
apropos of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, that the great
concern in the life of a Parisian woman was not “ how to conceive
without sin, but how to sin without conceiving.” Omitting all notion
of sin in the matter, this is the problem nearly all married couples in
modern civilization are compelled to try and solve. How is it possible to
nave sexual intercourse without resulting offspring ? That this is done
in myriads of cases every one is aware, but can these various practices be
kept up without peril to health ? As yet medical science has given no
decisive or satisfactory answer; but what little the profession does say
is against all attempts to interfere with the propagative act. Bergeret,
Gardener, Mayer, as well as nearly all who have written on the subject,
assert that all preventative measures are hurtful, and that the increase
of uterine diseases among women is due to them. But it is evident
from the loose popular way in which these books are written, that as
yet this problem is without a scientific solution which is likely to be
generally accepted. By commo’h consent it is considered desirable that
�THE
SEXUAL
QUESTION.
95
men and women should marry in order to satisfy the most intense and
exacting of all human passions; but at the same time the foremost
minds of the age insist upon the necessity of married people control
ling the number of their offspring. John Stuart Mill, who represents
the most advanced wing of the political economists, never tires of bear
ing testimony to the criminality of bringing more children into the
world than the family can well take care of, and the common sense of
the community supports this view.
We are agreed as to the'what, but how ? asks the married men and
women most interested.
Science has as yet no answer; the medical profession so far as it
has spoken says, “ absolute continence except when you are willing to
assume the responsibilities of paternity.” Here, then, is the dilemma.
All the best social influences conspire to induce people to marry; when
married, every consideration of prudence -and common sense prompt
them to try and control propagation; but the physicians say this cannot
be done without peril to health, except by complete abstention, some
times extending over years; for, according to Bergeret and his medical
confreres, no intercourse is allowable during pregnancy and lactation,
nor after the woman’s “turn of life.” Yet, every one knows that these
canons of conduct in the sexual relation are universally disregarded.
The Oneida communists profess to have solved this problem by
what they call “ male continence.” The sexes have intercourse, but the
male stops short of the emission of semen. But this is one of the
practices which Bergeret declares is destructive of health. Per contra,
the communists insist that they are not injured but benefited in health
by this peculiar custom, which has been in vogue among them for over
a score of years, and they point to their exemption from disease and
longevity as compared with their neighbors, as a proof of the truth of
their claim.
The simple truth is, the relations of the' sexes have not yet been
put under scientific co-ordination. Marriage and propagation are not
subject to the “ higher law.” Hence prostitution, celibacy, polygamy,
free love, disease, the gratification of mere brute instincts in marriage
and out of it, and, as a consequence, the social disturbance, the propa
gation of faulty human beings as well as the generation of hideous
diseases. The work to be done is to collect all the verified facts rela
ting to the intercourse of the sexes, and generalize the laws which con
trol them. When we have discovered those laws, all there is to do is to
obey them. In the preliminary discussions, what is needed is pure
thinking and plain speaking. The tawdry sentimentalizing which dis
tinguishes Dr. Gardener’s book, for instance, is extremely offensive.
Things must be called by their right names; but it must never be for
gotten that, as the sexual act involves the highest interests of society,
it must be lifted out of the slough of mere animality and discussed
from a religious point of view.
�96
UNIVERSOL OGY.
TEPHEN PEARL ANDREWS’S «Primary Synopsis of Universology,” embraces his scheme of a scientific universal lan
guage. • It is a condensation of another work, covering the
whole field of philosophy, as yet unpublished. I do not
propose to pass any verdict upon this preliminary work. Its author
makes a most tremendous claim. He alleges that he has discovered
the Science of Sciences—that he has supplied the connecting link
between the body of all human knowledges. In other words, he has
not only discovered a new Method, but the Method of Methods. If
this claim can be established, America has at length produced a philos
opher of the very highest type—a greater than Aristotle, Bacon, Des
cartes, Spinoza, or Comte. The audacity of Mr. Andrews’s claim can
not but challenge attention from the scientific world. It is quite safe
to predict that, whether his work has any value or not, it will be re
ceived with a storm of derision from all the old schools of thought.
The Modern Thinker, however, declines to pass a verdict until all the
testimony is in. Mr. Andrews is undoubtedly a man of unusual powers
of mind—he is an acute thinker, and has rare powers of persuasion
and exposition. We say this much because ordinary readers who take
up his book will be repelled by its terminology. Comte points out the
great value it would be to mankind if all phenomena could be referred
to some one law, such, for instance, as that of gravitation, but in the
same chaptei’ he denies that it is possible to formulate such a law.
Man is finite, and the universe is infinite, and therefore it is chimerical
to expect ever to discover the secret of the grand Unity, if indeed there
is a Unity. Now Mr. Andrews declares that what Comte pronounced
an eternally impossible feat he has accomplished. The very splendoi’
of the claim ought to command respect, at least; but I judge it will
not, and that for a long time to come he will have to submit to a good
deal of abuse and ridicule.
I am inclined to believe that Mr. Andrews has made a real discovery
in his universal language; at least, if he has not solved the problem
himself, he has pointed out how it may be done by some one else.
There are about sixty-four primary sounds in all languages. Every
one of these, Mr. Andrews alleges, is charged by nature with certain
meanings, which he prints in his new vocabulary. The instances Mr.
Andrews gives to prove his claim will carry a great deal of weight with
philologists who have made a study of phonetics. As there is a science
of harmony, which was not invented, but discovered, so, says our
author, there is a science of sound, expressing sense, which we must
find out by careful induction. When discovered, we will have the
Language of Man, which must, in time, be common to the whole planet.
It is possible that Mr. Andrews has been bedeviled by analogies; indeed
his universology is confessedly a science of analogies; but I believe he
has in this conception of a universal language hit upon something of
supreme importance to the race.—D. G.
S
�
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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>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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What of the future
Creator
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Croly, David Goodman [1829-1889]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [New York]
Collation: [73]-96 p. ; 26 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Croly was an American journalist. From 1870 to 1873, he published the journal Modern Thinker which served as a vehicle for the positivist and Spencerian positions of himself and a small circle of colleagues. Chapter headings: The Future of Marriage; Steam as a Factor of Sociology; The Sexual Question. From Modern Thinker, no. 1, 1870.||(BND) Some uncut pages. Includes bibliographical references. Printed in red ink on cream paper.
Publisher
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[American News Company]
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[1870]
Identifier
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G5416
Subject
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Society
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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 (What of the future), 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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English
Conway Tracts
Future Life
Industrialization
Marriage
Sexual Behavior
-
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b9c34375ff2eb8f7bfe75c9ee952c53d
PDF Text
Text
KING WEALTH COMING.
BY D.
GOODMAN.
HE following article was published by the writer in the Gal
axy for November, 1869. It sets forth briefly what he believes
to be the solution of the political problem in this country.
We live in an industrial age, of which the natural leaders are
the bankers, manufacturers, and merchants. We all complain of the
demoralization and corruption of our political life; what we mean is
that wealth is becoming as powerful in politics as it is in industry.
The great corporations, or rather the wealthy men who control them,
are the real rulers, and not the characterless lawyers and politicians
whom universal suffrage sends to our legislative halls. There is not a
State in the Union through which runs a great railroad, but what is
practically in the power of the corporation which controls it. The
manufacturers could do what they please with any Congress that has
sat for the last eight years, and it is quite safe to predict that for the
next fifteen years the owners of the Pacific Railroad and the giant con
solidated roads which feed it, will be the real masters of the American
people. That is to say, no Congress can by any possibility be elected
which they will not be able to control.
To this state of affairs no complete Positivist objects. We submit
to the inevitable, and can only hope to modify it by a sound philoso
phy, and the wise, practical activity it enforces. What is needed is the
moralization of wealth, and to effect this it must become personal and
responsible.
But here is the article:
T
Nearly all the evils connected with our system of government ean oe traced to
one primary cause, to wit: the influence of wealthy corporations and individuals in
controlling legislation and executive action for purely selfish ends. In other words,
in modern civilization, wealth has become an enormous power, while in this coun
try at least, it has no recognized political responsibility or well-defined public
duties. The lobby notoriously controls legislation—wealth controls the lobby, but
what controls wealth ? Nothing but the purely selfish aims of its possessor.
How is this difficulty to be met ? Shall we organize against wealth ; bind it in
fetters, legislate it out of existence, or exile its influence to some sphere outside of
political action ? We are entering upon an era when all this will be attempted;
'but, however well meant, every scheme to limit the power of wealth will inevitably
fail, and, in the opinion of the writer, ought to fail.
For we must remember that the capitalist is the true king of the industrial era
�46
KING
WEALTH COMING
When war was the normal condition of the race, the great warrior was the ruler,
and all the honors in the State were based upon military merit ; but among the
advanced natives of Christendom, industry, and not war, is now the absorbing
business of the mass of the population, and hence the banker and the manufacturer
are destined to be—nay, are the real rulers of the people. This may seem to be a
preposterous statement, in this age of equal rights and the sovereignty of the
people ; but it is nevertheless true. Who to-day is supreme in the financial, com
mercial, and manufacturing world ? Who owns the telegraph, the railway, the
manufactory, the newspaper, the land ? The capitalist, of course. He is our boss
in the shop, our employer in the field, our landlord, out care-taker on the railroad
and steamship ; he keeps our money in his bank, and looks after our souls in his
churches ; for the church of to-day, of all denominations, is the church of the capi
talist. People are under the curious hallucination that the only power which con
trols them is that exercised by the State or the nation, whereas they touch us
scarcely at all in the most intimate relations of life.
But the capitalists, the owners of the wealth, are not content with all this recog
nized authority ; they desire to control also the political power of the State and
the nation. Well, they are right. They ought to have it. There will be a
struggle against it, and the most impassioned protests will be made when their
right to rule is formally recognized ; but recognized it will be in time. While the
struggle is going on, the capitalist will rule all the same. Our legislators are
nearly all lawyers ; now, the lawyer is a creature of the capitalist. He is trained
by him, and his wit and tongue are at the service of his employer in the court, and
his vote is at his command in the législative body. Wealth, as a power unrecog
nized, without responsibility or moral accountability, is simply another name for
hideous corruption. Hence the lobby, and the sickening legislative history of our
City, State and National Government for the last fifteen years.
Now wealth, and the enormous social and political power it wields by its very
existence, is one of those facts which cannot be ignored. We must accept it, and
see what can be done about it. To destroy wealth, or take away the power it
naturally gives its possessor, is impossible. If it could be done, civilization would
perish.
What, then, are we to do ?
Accept the inevitable. Capital has the power. Make it personal, responsible.
Put the capitalist in authority instead of his creatures, the lawyers and politicians,
and then—
What then ?
Hold him responsible. The next greatest power in modern civilization, after
wealth, is public opinion. As yet it is unmoralized, unorganized ; but its influence,
even now, is mighty. When this spiritual power has its. proper recognized organs,
which it will have under Positivism—then will we be able to control wealth.
Public opinion cannot be brought to bear upon corporate bodies ; “ They have
neither bodies to be kicked nor souls to be damned.” What does the ring or the
lobby care for public opinion ? Once install the individual who is the soul of the
lobby into some recognized public position, and he is sensitive enough. Abuse the
Erie Railroad Company, and who cares ? Attack Jim Fiske, Jr., and he is after you
with a sheriff’s posse or a libel suit.
Here, then, is the Positivist’s solution of our political and industrial problems.
Wealth, under the foul shapes of the ring or lobby, controls our legislation. We
say, Put the holders of this wealth in authority. Make this irresponsible power
responsible. You cannot get rid of the power ; it is one of the most enormous facts
of modern times. It exists, and will control, whether we like it or not, and hence
we must make the best of it.
The capitalist has his excuse for using the ring and the lobby. He says, “ What
else can I do? There are certain great industrial enterprises to be undertaken,
�KING
WEALTH COMING.
47
which cannot even be begun without legislative authority. The lawyers and small
politicians, who form the great bulk of the assemblies and senates, cannot rise to
the height of the great schemes which I have on foot; they oppose me ; but the
work must be done—the times demand it; and so I hire the lobby, who buy those
fellows up. I am in the habit of employing lawyers to do my business, and when
you can hire a man’s brains with money, his vote follows, as a matter of course.
Take the case of the great railway consolidations, which are so necessary: why, I
am compelled to buy the legislators outright, or these essential changes could not
be made.”
So there are two sides to the story. The capitalist has his excuse for making
our legislators scoundrels.
But how is this change to be brought about ?
The writer gives that conundrum up at once. He really does not see how it is
possible to change our republican representative system without a political con
vulsion. Hence he looks for years of grievous misrule ; of future legislative con
duct worse than any in the past. A possible solution of the trouble is a bold seizure
of the government by some representative of the capitalist class. The very men
who have made our legislative bodies dens of thieves, are just the ones to make
that corruption an excuse for seizing the government themselves ; for be it remem
bered, it is not the kings of the lobby who will be held responsible, but the politi
cians—the legislators whom they have debauched.
Our government, from natural and inevitable causes, has got to be one of exces
sive powers. The maladministration of the federal power under Adams or Jackson
was not of much account, so little were the people at large affected by its action;
but now it is very different. The authority of the central government has grown
so enormously large, that its action upon the business of the country has become
vital. Hence the necessity of a more scientific government than that we had before
the rebellion.
Let it be distinctly understood, then, that there is a class of thinkers in this
country who are profound disbelievers in the whole republican or democratic theory
of government. But we are not, therefore, either Imperialists or Monarchists. We
do not advocate going back to any obsolete political institutions. Progress is our
motto. There is something in the future as much better than republicanism as
republicanism is better than monarchy, and that is the rule of wealth controlled by
moral considerations; in other words, the capitalist in responsible authority, and he
under the dominion of a wise, all-powerful public opinion.
Our King has come. He rules already, but it is in such hideous shapes as the
Lobby—the Ring. Let us recognize, tame, ennoble him, so that he may serve the
highest interests of humanity.
�48
THE
SOCIAL
EVIL.
SERIES of articles on Prostitution in the Westminster Re
view have deservedly attracted a good deal of attention.
Without containing anything very new, they sum up the
results of past inquiries, and seemingly set at rest several
vexed social questions. Among the most important of the points
brought out by Dr. Chapman, the writer, are the following:
1. Each new crop of prostitutes does not die out in from four to
seven years, as is generally supposed. While it is true that the personnel
of that class is replaced in that time, the women do not, as a rule, die
of their riotous living, but are absorbed back into the community.
2. The amount of disease engendered by the illicit relation of the
sexes is appalling. This is one of the most serious perils of modern
civilization. While the danger to the women themselves in the matter
of longevity has been absurdly overrated, the damage done to the
health of the community by the prevalence of prostitution has scarcely
been suspected.
3. Governments from time to time have attempted to suppress and
limit prostitution, but have invariably failed. Every possible expedient
has been resorted to, but the history of legislation and government
action, though it extends over centuries, is a record not only of disap
pointment but disaster. Nor have they fared any better when recog
nizing and regulating prostitution. Notwithstanding the encomiums
which have been passed upon the French and continental systems, it
seems now to be tolerably well settled that recognition has led to wide
spread immorality, while as a check to the spread of disease, it has
bad less than no effect at all.
The remedy proposed by Dr. Chapman will hardly be deemed
satisfactory. He says the public should get rid of the notion of sin
or disgrace in connection with the illicit relations of the sexes or
the diseases they entail, and that those sick of syphilis should have the
same care and consideration as if the disease was typhus fever or dysen
tery. The best hospitals are now closed to persons afflicted with sexual
disorders, and the woman who would readily seek medical advice for
an ordinary illness, such as diarrhoea or rheumatism, is deterred from
doing so when the disorder is venereal. So she punishes society for its
non-recognition of the legitimacy of her business and its inhumanity
to her in her affliction by plying her wretched trade when diseased,
thus propagating to the innocent as well as to the guilty the most cruel
contagion known to our civilization.
It is all very well to say that society ought to recognize prostitu
tion as a legitimate because necessary business, and should treat the
strumpet with the same consideration it does the decent women, but
the difficulty is that society won’t do anything of the kind. The truth
is, prostitution is a part of the great sexual problem which science
must yet solve ; all we can do at present is to furnish the data for the
final settlement.—D. G.
A
�
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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>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
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Pamphlet
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Title
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King wealth coming
Creator
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Goodman, D.
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [New York]
Collation: [45]-47 p. ; 26 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. The article was first published in Galaxy, November, 1869 and later published in Modern Thinker, no. 1, 1870.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
[American News Company]
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1870]
Identifier
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G5427
Subject
The topic of the resource
Industrialisation
USA
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (King wealth coming), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Conway Tracts
Industrialization
United States of America
Wealth
-
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PDF Text
Text
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.
�4
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
�9
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
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�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
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.
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The Historical Basis of Socialism in England.
By H. M. Hyndman.
Paul, Trench, & Co.
Crown 8-vo., price 8s. 6d
London: Kegan
This is the only Book in the English Language which gives the Historical and
Economical Theories of Organised Socialism. It should be carefully studied by all who
desire to understand why Socialists are enthusiastic for their cause, and confident of
ucces s in the near future.
Woman in the Past, Present and Future.
By
August Bebel, Deputy in the Reichstag. Translated from the
German by H. B. Adams Walther. Demy 8-vo., cloth, price 5s.
ft.
F
This work by the best known of the German Socialists aims at showing that the
social condition of women can be permanently improved only by the solution of the
whole social problem,
The Co-operative Commonwealth:
an Exposition
of Modern Socialism. By Laurence Gronlund, of Philadelphia.
Demy 8-vo., paper cover, is.
This book supplies the want, frequently complained of, of definite proposals for the
administration of a Socialistic State. Mr. Gronlund has reconciled the teaching of
Marx with the influence of Carlyle in the constructive part of his work, which is
specially recommended to English Socialists.
Socialism versus Smithism:
I
An open letter from
H. M. Hyndman to Samuel Smith, M.P. for Liverpool.
8-vo. Cheaper edition, price id.
Crown
John E. Williams, and the Early History of
THE SOCIAL-DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION.
trait. Price one penny.
1
With Por
Opening Address to the Trade Union Congress
at Southport, September, 1885. Delivered by T. R. Threlfall. Royal
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An able address from a representative working man on political and social topics.
i| L- ■
Ek.
I
I
Social ism made Plain.
The social and political
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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,”
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I!
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Army Enlistment Fraud. By George Bateman (Late 23rd Regi
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scientific man. Its author has just suffered five years’ imprisonment at t.he hands of the
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From the German of
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New and cheaper edition, Royal 8-vo., price id.
By Edward Carpenter.—Social
Progress and Indi
The Man with the Red Flag :
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Speech at the Old Bailey, when tried for Seditious Conspiracy, on
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International Trade Union Congress, held at
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The Australian Labour Market:
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The Industrial Problem Solved.
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Disclosures. By John Norton, New South Wales
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Robertson.
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�
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>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
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Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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The industrial problem solved
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
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
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1887
Identifier
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G4973
Subject
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Industry
Socialism
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 (The industrial problem solved), 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
Economics
Industrial Democracy
Industrialization
Population Increase
Production
Socialism