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Desirable Mansions:
A
TRACT
Reprinted, with a few alterations, from “Progress, June, 1883.
By
EDWARD CARPENTER.
THIRD EDITION
PRICE
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Published by
THE MODERN PRESS, 13, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
1887.
�BY
THE
SAME
AUTHOR.
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�DESIRABLE MANSIONS
FTER all, why should we rail against the rich ? I
think if anything they should be pitied. In nine
cases out of ten it is not a man’s fault.
He is
born in the lap of luxury, he grows up surrounded
by absurd and impossible ideas about life, the innumerable
chains of habit and circumstance tighten upon him, and when
the time comes that he would escape, he finds he cannot. He
is condemned to flop up and down in his cage for the re
mainder of his days—a spectacle of boredom, and a warning
to gods and men.
I go into the houses of the rich. In the drawing-room I
see chill weary faces, peaked features of ill-health ; down
stairs and in the kitchen I meet with rosy smiles, kissable
cheeks, and hear sounds of song and laughter. What is this ?
Is it possible that the real human beings live with Jeames
below-stairs!
Often as I pass and see in suburb or country some “ desir
able mansion ” rising from the ground, I think : That man is
building a prison for himself. So it is—a prison. I would
rather spend a calendar month in Clerkenwell or Holloway
than I would in that desirable mansion. A young lady that
I knew, and who lived in such a mansion, used with her sisters
to teach a class of factory girls. Every now and again one
of the girls would say, “ Eh, Miss, how I would like to be a
grand lady like you ! ” Then she would answer, “ Yes, but
you know you wouldn’t be able to do everthing you liked ; for
instance, you wouldn’t be allowed to go out walking when
�4
you liked.” “ Eh, dear I ” they would say to one another,
“ she is not allowed to go out walking when she likes—she is
not allowed to go out walking when she likes ! ”
Certainly you are not allowed to go out walking when you
like. Reader, did you ever spend a day within those desirable
walls ? I have, many. I wake up in the morning. It is fine
and bright. I think to myself: I will have a pleasant stroll
before breakfast. Yes—man proposes. It is all very well to
meditate a morning walk, but where O where are my clothes ?
I cannot very well go out without them. What can have be
come of them ? Suddenly it occurs to me: James, honest
soul, has taken them away to brush. Good. I wait. Nothing
happens. I ring the bell. James appears. “ My clothes,
James.” “Yes, sir.” Again I wait—an intolerable time.
At last the familiar jacket and trousers appear. Good. Now
*
I can go out. Not so fast—where are your boots ? Boots,
good gracious, I had forgotten them. Heaven knows where
they are—I don’t. Probably fifty yards away. I creep
downstairs. All is quiet. The servants are evidently at
breakfast. It would be madness to hope to get boots brushed
at such a moment. I would like to clean them myself. In
fact I am fond of cleaning my own boots: the exercise is
pleasant, and besides it is just such a little bit of menial
work as I would rather do for myself than have others
do for me; but, as I said before, one cannot do what
one likes. In the first place, in this house where one is
fifty yards away from everything one wants I have not
the faintest idea where my boots are, or the means and instru
ments of blacking them ; in the second place an even more
fatal objection is that if I did succeed in committing this deed
of darkness the consequent uproar in the house would be per
fectly indescribable. The outrage on propriety would not
only shock the feelings of the world below-stairs, but it would
put to confusion the master of the house, upset the whole
domestic machinery, create unpleasant qualms in the minds
* A friend tells me that once, to revenge himself for this sort of trifling,
he concealed his nether garment under the mattrass and then, in the
morning, slyly watched the footman as he vainly sought round the room
for it. The consequence however was that he fell very much in the esti
mation of the latter, who doubtless thought that, like Matthew, Mark,
Luke, and John, his master’s visitor •' had gone to bed with his breeches
on.”
�5
of the other guests, and possibly make me feel that I had
better not have lived. Accordingly, I abandon the idea of my
pleasant stroll. It is not worth such a sacrifice. The birds
are singing outside, the flowers are gay in the morning sun —
but it must not be. Within, in the sitting-rooms, chaos reigns.
Chairs and tables are piled in cheerful confusion upon one
another, carpets are partially strewn with tea-leaves. To
read a book or write an aimless letter to some one (the usual
resource of people in desirable mansions) is clearly impossible;
to do anything in the way of house-work is forbidden—it
being well understood in such places that one may do any
thing except what is useful.
There remains nothing but to
beat a retreat to my chamber again—put my hands in my
pockets and whistle at the open window.
“ Who was that I heard whistling so early this morning ? ”
says my kindly old host at breakfast. “ O, it was you, was
it ? I expect now you’re an early riser ; get up at seven, take
a walk before breakfast; that sort of thing—eh ? ” “Yes, when
I can,” I reply with ambiguous intent. “ Well, I call that
wonderful,” says an elderly matron—not likely, as far as ap
pearances go, to be accused of a similar practice—“ such
energy, you know.” “ What a strong constitution you must
have to be able to stand it! ” remarks a charming young lady
on whom it has not yet dawned that the vast majority of
human kind have their breakfast before half-past nine.
This is not a good beginning to the day ; but the rest is like
unto it. I find that there are certain things to be done—a
certain code of things that you may do, a certain way of doing
them, a certain way of putting your knife and fork on your
plate. When you come down to dinner in the evening you
must put on what the Yankees call a claw-hammer coat. It
is not certain, (and that is just the grisly part of it) what
would happen if you did not do this. In some societies
evidently such a casualty has never been contemplated. I
have heard people seriously discussing—in cases where the
required article was missing—what could be done, where one
might be borrowed, &c.—but clearly it did not occur to them
that anyone could dine in his natural clothes. Sometimes,
when in a fashionable church, I have wondered whether
it would be possible to worship God in a flannel shirt—
but I suppose that to go out to a dinner party in such a
�6
costume would be even more unthinkable. As I said
before, you are in prison. Submit to the prison rules,
and it is all right—attempt to go beyond them, and you
are visited with condign punishment. The rules have
no sense, but that does not matter (possibly some ot
them had sense once, but it must have been a very long time
ago); the people are good people, no better nor worse in
themselves than the real workers, the real hands and hearts
of the world; but they are condemned to banishment from
the world, condemned into the prison houses of futility. The
stream of human life goes past them as they gaze wearily
upon it through their plate-glass windows; the great Mother’s
breasts of our common Humanity, with all its toils and suf
ferings and mighty joys, are withheld from them. Dimly al
last I think I understand why it is their faces are so chill and
sad, their unnourished lives so unhealthy and over-sensitive.
Truly, if I could pity anyone, I would them.
By the side of the road there stands a little girl, crying ;
she has lost her way. It is very cold, and she looks pinched
and starved. “ Come in, my little girl, and sit by my cottage
fire, and you’ll soon get warm; and I’ll see if I can't find you
a bit of something to eat before you go on . . . Eh 1 dear !
how stupid I am—I quite forgot. I am sorry 1 can’t ask
you in, but I am living in a desirable mansion now—and
though we are very sorry for you, yet you see we could hardly
have you into our house, for your dirty little boots would
make a dreadful mess of our carpets, and we should have to
dust the chairs after you had sat upon them, and you see Mrs.
Vavasour might happen to come in, and she would think it
so very odd ; and I know cook can’t bear beggars, and, O
dear ! I’m so sorry for you—and here’s a penny, and I hope
you’ll get home safely.”
The stream of human life goes past. When a rich man
builds himself a prison, he puts up all these fences to shut
the world out—to shut himself in. If he can he builds far back
from the high road. In the front of his house he has a bound
less polite lawn, with polite flower beds, afar from vulgarpeople
and animals. Rows of polite servants attend upon him; and there
within of inanity and politeness he dies. Of what human
life really consists in he has little idea. He has not the
faintest notion of what is necessary for human life or happi
�7
ness. Sometimes with an indistinct vision of accumulated
evil, he says: “ Poor So-and-so, he has only ^200 a year to
keep his wife and family on ! ” No wonder his own daughters
dedicate themselves to “ good works.” They go out with the
curate and visit at neighbouring cottages. Their visits have
little appreciable effect on the people, but are a great benefit
to themselves and the curate. They observe, for the first
time, how life is carried on ; they see the operations of scrub
bing and cooking (removed in their own houses afar from
mortal polite eye) ; perhaps they behold a mother actually
suckling her own babe, and learn that such things are pos
sible ; finally, they “ wonder ” how “ those .people ” live, and
to them their wonder (like the fear of God) is the beginning of
wisdom. The lord of the mansion sits on the magisterial
bench or strides about his fields, and lumps together all who
are not in a similar position to himself as the “ lower
classes.” After dinner in the evening, if the conversation
turns on politics, he and his compeers discuss the importance
of keeping the said lower classes in order, or the best method
of “ raising ” them out of the ignorance and disorder in which
they are supposed to wallow. And during the conversation
it will be noticed that it is by everyone tacitly allowed and
understood, and is, in fact, the very foundation of the whole
argument, that the speakers themselves belong to an educated
class, while the mass of the people are uneducated. Yet this
is exactly the reverse of the truth—for they themselves
belong to an ill-educated class, and the mass of the people
are, by the very nature of the case, the better educated of
the two.
In fact, the education of the one set of people (and it is a
great pity that it should be so) consists almost entirely in the
study of books. That is very useful in its way, and if pro
perly balanced with other things; but it is hardly necessary
to point out that books only deal with phantoms and shadows
of reality. The education of the world at large, and the real
education, lies, and must always lie, in dealing with the
things themselves. To put it shortly (as it has been put
before), one man learns to spell a “ spade,” to write it, to
rhyme it, to translate it into French and Latin—possibly,
like Wordsworth, to address a sonnet to it—the other man
learns to use it. Is there any comparison between the two ?
�8
Now is it not curious that those good people sitting round
their dinner table in the desirable mansion, or listening to a
little music in the drawing-room, should actually be so
ignorant of the world, and what goes on in it, as to think, and
honestly believe, that they are, par excellence, the educated
people in it ? * Does it ever occur to them, I often think, to
inquire who made all the elegant and costly objects with
which they are surrounded ? Does it ever occur to them, as
they tacitly assume the inferiority of the working classes, to
think of the table itself across which they speak—how beauti
fully fitted, veneered, polished ; the cloth which lies upon it,
and the weaving of it; the chairs and other furniture, so light
and yet so strong, each requiring the skill of years to make ;
the silver, the glass, the steel, the tempering, hardening,
grinding, fitting, riveting ; the lace and damask curtains, the
wonderful machinery, the care, the delicate touch, adroit
manipulation ? the piano 1 the very house itself in which they
spend their days ! Is there one, I say, who we will not say
could make even the smallest part, but who even has the
faintest idea how one of these things is.made, where it is
made, who makes it ? Not one. All the care, the loving
thought, the artistic design, the conscientious workmanship
that have been expended, and are daily expended, on these
things and the like of them—go past them unrecognised,
unacknowledged. The great hymn of human labour over the
earth is to them an idle song. There, in the midst of all
these beautiful products of toil and ingenuity, possessing but
not enjoying, futile they sit, and fancy themselves educated—
fit to rule. I have heard of a fly that sat stinging upon the
hindquarters of a horse, and fancied that without it the cart
would not go. Fancied so, I say, until the great beast
whisked its tail, and after that it fancied nothing more.
Doi put these things in a strong light? May be, I do; but I put
them faithfully as I have seen them, and as I see them daily.
* “ . . . . People who roll about in their fine equipages scarcely
knowing what to do with themselves or what ails them, and some of whom
occasionally run to such places as ours to have their carriage linings or
cushions altered, or to know if they *can be altered as they don't feel quite
1
comfortable.' I often think ‘ God help them,’ for no one else can. . .
I insert this extract just to show how these things are regarded from
the side which does not usually find expression. It is from a letter written
by an elderly and gentle-hearted man, employed in a carriage factory.
�9
I do not suppose that riches are an evil in themselves. I do
not suppose that anything is an evil in itself. I know that
even in the midst of all these shackles and impediments,
that wonderfulest of things, the human soul, may work out
its own salvation ; and well I know that there are no condi
tions or circumstances of human life, nor any profession from
a king to a prostitute, that may not become to it the gateway of
freedom and immortality. But I daily see people setting this
standard of well-to-do respectability before them, daily more
and more hastening forth in quest of desirable mansions to
dwell in ; and I cannot but wonder whether they realise what
it is they seek ; I cannot lend my voice to swell the chorus
of encouragement. Here are the clean facts. Choose for
yourselves. That is all.
Respectability ! Heavy-browed and hunch-backed word '
Once innocent and light-hearted as any other word, why now
in thy middle age art thou become so gloomy and saturnine ?
Is it that thou art responsible for the murder of the innocents ?
Respectability! Vision of clean hands and blameless dress—
why dost thou now appear in the form of a ghoul before me ?
I confess that the sight of a dirty hand is dear to me. It
warms my heart with all manner of good hopes and promises.
Often and long have I thought about this matter, and in all
good faith I must say that I fail to see how hands always
clean are compatible with honesty. This is no play upon
words. I fail to see how in the long run, any man that
takes his share in the work of the world can keep his hands
in this desirable state.
How ? The answer is obvious enough—leave others to do
the dirty work. Good ! Let it be so ; let it be granted that
others shall do the scrubbing and baking, the digging, the
fishing, the breaking of horses, the carpentering, build
ing, smithing, and the myriad other jobs that have to be
done, and you at the pinnacle of all this pyramid of work,
above all, keep your hands clean. We shouting to you from
below, exhort you—At all costs, keep your hands cle‘an !
Think how important it is, while the great ships have to be
got into harbour, that your nails should be blameless ! Think
if by any accident you were to do a real good piece of work,
and get your hands thoroughly grimed over it, unwashable
for a week, what confusion would ensue to yourself and
�IO
friends ! Think O think of your clients, or of the next
dinner party, and earnestly and prayerfully resolve that
such a fall may never be yours. Seek, we pray you, some
secure work—some legal, clerical, official, capitalist, or land
owning business, safe from the dread stain of dirty hands,
whatever other dirt it may bring with it—some thoroughly
gentlemanly profession, marking you clearly off from the
vulgar and general masses, and the blessing of heaven
go with you !
Shut yourself off from the great stream of human life,
from the great sources of physical and moral health ; ignore
the common labour by which you live, show clearly your
contempt for it, your dislike of it, and then ask others to do
it for you ; turn aside from nature, divorce yourself from the
living breathing heart of the nation; and then you will have
done, what the governing classes of England to-day have
done, have given full directions to your own heart and brain
how to shrivel and starve and die.
Man is made to work with his hands. This is a fact which
cannot be got over. From this central fact he cannot travel
far. I don’t care whether it is an individual or a class, the
life which is far removed from this becomes corrupt, shrivelled,
and diseased. You may explain it how you like, but it is so.
Administrative work has to be done in a nation as well as
productive work ; but it must be done by men accustomed to
manual labour, who have the healthy decision and primitive
authentic judgment which comes of that, else it cannot be
done well. In the new form of society which is slowly
advancing upon us, this will be felt more than now. The
higher the position of trust a man occupies the more will it
be thought important that, at some period of his life, he
should have been thoroughly inured to manual work ; this
not only on account of the physical and moral robustness
implied by it, but equally because it will be seen to be im
possible for any one, without this experience of what is the
very flesh and blood of national life, to promote the good
health of the nation, or to understand the conditions under
which the people live whom he has to serve.
But to return to the sorrows of the well-to-do—and care
that sits on the crupper of wealth.
This is a world-old and
well-worn subject. Yet, possibly, some of its truisms may
�II
bear repeating. A clergyman, preaching once on the trials
of life, turned first to his rich friends and bade them call to
mind, one by one, the sorrows and sufferings of the poor;
then, turning to his “ poorer brethren,” he exhorted them
also not to forget that the rich man had his afflictions—with
which they should sympathise—amongst which afflictions,
growing chiefly out of their much money, he reckoned “ last,
but not least, the difficulty of finding for it an investment
which should be profitable and also secure 1 ” It has been
generally supposed that the poorer brethren failed to sym
pathise with this form of suffering.
But it is a very real one. What cares, what anxieties,
what yellow and blue fits, what sleepless nights, dance at
tendance on the worshiper in the great Temple of Stocks !
The capricious deity that dwells there has to be appeased by
ceaseless offerings. Usury ! crookfaced idol, loathed, yet
grovelled to by half the world, whose name is an abomination
to speak openly, yet whose secret rites are practised by
thousands who revile thy name, what spell of gloom and
bilious misery dost thou cast over thy worshipers! Is it
possible that the ancient curse has not yet lost its effect:
that to acquire interest on money and to acquire interest in
life are not the same thing ; that they are positively not com
patible with each other; that to fly from one’s just share of
labour in the world, in order to live upon the hard-earned
profits of others, is not, and cannot come to good ? Is it
possible, I say, reader, that there is a moral law in the world
facing us quite calmly in every transaction of our lives by
which it must be so—by which cowardice and sham cannot
breed anything else for us but gloom and bilious misery ? In
this age which rushes to stocks—to debenture, preference,
consolidated, and ordinary stocks, to shares, bonds, coupons,
dividends—-not even refusing scrip when it can get it—does
it ever occur to us to consider what it all means ?—to con
sider that all the money so gained is taken from some one
else ; that what we have not earned cannot possibly be ours,
except by gift, or (shall I say it ?) theft ? How can it then
come with a blessing ? How can we not but think of the
railway operatives, the porters, managers, clerks, superin
tendents, drivers, stokers, platelayers, carriage - washers,
navvies, out of whose just earnings (and from no other
�12
source) our dividends are taken ? ■ Let alone honesty—what,
surely, does our pride say to this ? Is it possible that this
frantic dividend-dance of the present day is like a dance of
dancers dancing without any music—an aimless incoherent
impossible dance, weltering down at last to idiocy and
oblivion ?
Curious, is it not, that this subject (of dividends) is never
mentioned before said wage-receiving classes ? I have often
noticed that. When James enters the room, or Jeffery comes
to look at the gas-fittings, the babble of stocks dies faintly
away, as if ashamed of itself? and while a man will, without
reserve, allude to his professional salary, he is generally as
secret concerning his share-gotten gains as ladies are said to
be about their age.
But, as I said at first, these things are not generally a
man’s fault. They are the product of the circumstances in
which he is born. From his childhood he is trained osten
sibly in the fear of God, but really in the fear of money. The
*
whole tenor of the conversation which he hears round him,
and his early teaching, tend to impress upon him the awful
dangers of not having enough. Strange that it never occurs
to parents of this class to teach their children how little they
can live upon, and be happy (but perhaps they do not know).
Hence, the child of the poor man—even in these adverse
times—grows up with some independence of mind, for he
knows that if at any time he can obtain £50 or ^100
a year by the work of his hands, he will be able to bring
up a little family; while the son of a rich man in the
midst of a family income of fifty times ^50, learns to tremble
slavishly at the prospect of the future ; dark hints of the
workhouse are whispered in his ears ; father and mother,
school-teachers and friends, join in pressing him into a pro
fession which he hates—stultifying his whole life—because it
will lead to ^500, or even ^1,000 a year in course of
time. This is the great test, the sure criterion between
two paths: which will lead to more money? The youth* Or as Mr. Locker has it,
They eat and drink and scheme and plod,
And go to church on Sunday;
For many are afraid of God,
And more of Mrs. Grundy.
�i3
ful tender conscience soon comes to look upon it as a
duty, and the acquisition of large dividends as part of the
serious work of life. Then come true the words of the
preacher: he realises with painful clearness the difficulty of
finding investments which shall be profitable and also secure;
circulars, reports, newspaper-cuttings, and warning letters
flow in upon him, sleepless nights are followed by anxious
days, telegrams and railway journeys succeed each other.
But the game goes on : the income gets bigger, and the fear
of the workhouse looms closer ! Friendsand relations also,
have shares. Some get married and others die. Hence
trustee-ships and executor-ships, increasing in number year
by year, coil upon coil; solicitors hover around on all sides,
jungles of legal red tape have to be waded through, chancery
looms up with its “ obscene birds ” upon the horizon, and
the hapless boy, now an old man before his time, with
snatched meals and care-lined brow, goes to and fro like an
automaton—a walking testimony to his own words that
“ the days of his happiness are long gone past.” Before
God, I would rather with pick and shovel dig a yearlong
drain beneath the open sky, breathing freely, than I would
live in this jungle of idiotic duties and thin-lipped respect
abilities that money breeds. Why the devil should the days
of your happiness be gone past, except that you have lived a
life to stultify the whole natural man in you ? Do you think
that happiness is a little flash-in-the-pan when you are eighteen,
and that is all ? Do you not know that expanding age, like a
flower, lifts itself ever into a more and more exquisite sun
light of happiness—to which Death, serene and beautiful,
comes only at the last with the touch of perfected assurance ?
Do you not know that the whole effort of Nature in you is
towards this happiness, if you could only abandon yourself,
and for one child-like moment have faith in your own mother ?
But she knows it, and watches you, half amused, run after
your little “ securities,” knowing surely that you must at
length return to her.
But wherein the affluent classes suffer most in the present
day perhaps is the matter of health. Into that heaven it is
indeed hard for a rich man to enter. Here again the whole
tradition of his life is against him. If there is one thing
that appears to me more certain than another it is, as I have
�partly said before, that no individual or class can travel far
from the native life of the race without becoming shrivelled,
corrupt, diseased—without suffering, in fact. By the native
life I mean the life of those (always the vast majority of
human kind) who live and support themselves in direct
contact with Nature.
*
To rise early, to be mostly in the
open air, to do some amount of physical labour, to eat clean
and simple food, are necessary and aboriginal conditions of
the life of our race, and they are necessary and aboriginal
conditions of health. The doctor who does not start from
these as .the basis of his prescriptions does not know his
work. The modern money-lender, man of stocks, or what
ever you call him, and his family, live in the continual
violation of these conditions. They get up late, are mostly
indoors, do little or no physical work, and take quantities of
rich and greasy food and stimulants, such as would exhaust
the stomach of a strong man, but which to them, in their
already enervated state, are simply fatal. Hence a long
catalogue of evils, ever branching into more. Hence dys
pepsia, nerves, liver, sexual degeneracies, and general de
pression of vitality ; a gloomy train, but whose drawn
features you will recognise if you peep into almost anyone of
those desirable mansions of which I have spoken. A terrible
symptom of our well-to-do (?) modern life is this want of
health, and one which presses for serious attention. There
is only one remedy for it; but that remedy is a sure one—
the return (or advance) to a simpler mode of existence.
What is the upshot of all this? There was a time when
the rich man had duties attending his wealth. The lord or
baron was a petty king, and had kingly responsibilities as
well as power. The Sir Roger, of Addison’s time, was the
succeeding type of landlord. And even to the present day
there lingers, here and there, a country squire who fulfils that
* It must be noticed that the working masses of our great towns do not
by any means fulfil this condition. Thrust down into squalor by the very
effort of others climbing to luxury, the unnaturalness and misery of their
lives is the direct counterpart and inseparable accompaniment of the un
naturalness of the lives of the rich. That the great masses of our popula
tion to-day are in this unhealthy state does not however disprove the
statement in the text—i.e., that the vast majority of mankind must live in
direct contact with Nature—rather it would indicate that the present
conditions can only be of brief duration.
�j
M
fl! IUHM
15
now antiquated ideal of kindly condescension and patronage.
But the modern rush of steam-engines, and the creation of
an enormous class of wealthy folk, living on stocks, have
completely subverted the old order. It has let loose on
society a horde of wolves !—a horde of people who have no
duties attaching to their mode of life, no responsibility.
They roam hither and thither, seeking whom and what they
may devour. Personally I have no objection to criminals,
and think them quite as good as myself. But, Talk of
criminal classes—can there be a doubt that the criminal
classes, par excellence, in our modern society, are this horde of
stock and share-mongers ? If to be a criminal is to be an
enemy of society, then they are such. For their mode of
life is founded on the principle of taking without giving, of
claiming without earning—as much as that of any common
thief. It is in vain to try and make amends for this by
charity organisations and unpaid magistracies. The cure
must go deeper. It is no good trying to set straight the roof
and chimneys, when the whole foundation is aslant. These
good people are not boarded and lodged at Her Majesty’s
pleasure, but the Eternal Justice, unslumbering, causes them
to build prisons (as I have said) for themselves-—plagues
them with ill-health and divers unseen evils— and will and
must plague them, till such time as they shall abandon the im
possible task they have set themselves, and return to the
paths of reason.
The whole foundation is aslant—and aslip, as anyone may
see who looks. In short, it is an age of transition. No
mortal power could make durable a Society founded on
Usury—universal and boundless usury. The very words
scream at each other. The baron has passed away; and the
landlord is passing. They each had their duties, and while
they fulfilled them served their time well and faithfully.
The shareholder has no duties, and is miserable, and will
remain so till the final landslip, when the foundations having
completely given way, he will crawl forth out of the ruins of
his desirable mansion into the life and light of a new day.
Less oracular than this I dare not be!
As I have
said before there is no conceivable condition of life in
which the human soul may not find the materials of its
surpassing deliverance from evil and mortality. And I for
�one would not, if I had the power, cramp human life into
the exhibition of one universal routine. If anyone desires to
be rich, if anyone desires to gradually shut himself off from
the world, to build walls and fences, to live in a house where
it is impossible to get a breath of fresh air without going
through half a dozen doors, and to be the prisoner of his
own servants; if he desires it so that when he walks down
the street he cannot whistle or sing, or shout across the road
to a friend, or sit upon a doorstep when tired, or take off his
coat if it be hot, but must wear certain particular clothes in
a certain particular way, and be on such pins and needles as
to what he may or may not do, that he is right glad when he
gets back again to his own prison walls ; if he loves trustee
ships and Egyptian Bonds, and visits from the lawyer, and
feels glad when he finds a letter from the High Court of
Chancery on his breakfast table, and experiences in attend
ing to all these things that satisfaction which comes of all
honest work ; if he feels renovated and braced by lying in
bed of a morning, and by eating feast dinners every day, and
by carefully abstaining from any bodily labour ; if dyspepsia,
and gout, and biliousness, and distress of nerves are not
otherwise than grateful to him ; and if he can obtain all
these things without doing grievous wrong to others, by all
means let him have them.
Only for those who do not know what they desire I would
lift up the red flag of warning. Only of that vast and ever
vaster horde which to-day (chiefly, I cannot but think, in
ignorance) rushes to Stocks, would I ask a moment’s pause,
and to look at the bare facts, If these words should come
to the eye of such an one I would pray him to think for a
moment—to glance at this great enthroned Wrong in its
dungeon palace (notffhe less a wrong because the laws coun
tenance and encourage it)—to listen for the cry of the home
less many, trodden under foot, a yearly sacrifice to it—to
watch the self-inflicted sufferings of its worshipers, the
ennui, the depression, the unlovely faces of ill-health, to
observe the falsehood on which it is founded, and therefore
the falsehood, the futility, the unbelief in God or Man which
spring out of it—and to turn away, determined, as far as in
him lies, to worship in that Dagon-house no longer.
�
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Desirable mansions : a tract
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Notes: Reprinted, with a few alterations, from Progress, June 1883. List of other works by author on p. 2.
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Social change
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7 4 OS
THE TEXT-BOOK OF DEMOCRACY.
ENGLAND FOR ALL.
BY
H. M. HYNDMAN.
DEDICATED TO THE DEMOCRATIC AND WORKING MENS
CLUBS OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND.
Mention:
E. W. ALLEN,
4,
AVE
MARIA
LANE,
1881.
\_All rights reserved.^
E.C.
�8
g' nr
�PREFACE TO CHEAP EDITION.
DURING the past three months I have been fre
quently asked by working men and working women
to publish a cheap edition of this little work. This I
have now done at a price which will bring it within
reach of all. The cordial reception accorded to the
first edition by the producing classes, whose interests
it was written to serve, leads me to hope that the
plain statement of the wrongs under which they
suffer may induce them to combine for their own
cause.
H. M. H.
September 12th, 1881.
io, Devonshire Street, Portland Place,
London, W.
�PREFACE.
In this changeful period, when the minds of men are
much troubled about the future, and many seem
doubtful whither we are bound, I have attempted
to suggest for the Democratic party in this country
a clear and definite policy. The views expressed in
this little work do not, I am aware, accord with the
commonly received politics and economy of the day.
Holding, as I do, strong opinions as to the capacity
of the great English-speaking democracies to take
the lead in the social reorganization of the future,
I think it right to state them, and to show at the
same time how seriously the working people suffer
under our present landlord and capitalist system.
From the luxurious classes, as a whole, I expect
little support. They have plenty of writers ready to
champion their cause. To the people alone I appeal,
and their approval will be my reward.
It was for the Democratic Federation that I
originally wrote this book, and I present to its
members the first copies to-day.
For the ideas and much of the matter contained in
Chapters II. and III., I am indebted to the work of
a great thinker and original writer, which will, I trust,
shortly be made accessible to the majority of my
countrymen.
H. M. H.
June Zth, 1881.
io, Devonshire Street, Portland Place,
London, W.
�CONTENTS.
PAGE
Introduction .
. ’.................................................................................................................... i
CHAPTER I.
.7
..............................................................
The Land
CHAPTER II.
........... 32
Labour
CHAPTER III.
Capital
.
65
.................................................................
CHAPTER IV.
Organization...................................................................................
CHAPTER V.
Ireland............................................................................................ ....
CHAPTER VI.
Indta....................................................................... e
.
. 131
CHAPTER VII.
The Colonies.................................................................................. 132
CHAPTER VIII.
Foreign Affairs......................................................................... 169
Conclusion
• 193
�■» ”>J '•
�ENGLAND FOR ALL.
INTRODUCTION.
It is impossible to survey our modern society without
at once seeing that there is something seriously amiss
in the conditions of our every-day life. All may
indeed lament the inequalities around them, the
wasted wealth and excessive luxury of the rich, the
infinite misery and degradation of the poor. So clear
is the mischief which results from causes apparently
beyond control, that now and then a paroxysm of
self-reproach seizes upon the comfortable classes, and
they try some new-fangled scheme of charity to
remedy the ills which, for the moment, they think
must be due to them. But this temporary feeling is
very short-lived. The conditions of human existence
are said to be unchangeable by collective, far less by
individual, action, and religion is often called in to
justify the let-alone policy which is so far the most
convenient to the well-to-do.
Possibly, however, a change is at hand. In Eng
land as elsewhere, ideas in these days move fast. That
disgust with both the political parties in the State
which has long been felt by the more intelligent of
B
�2
ENGLAND FOR ALL.
the working-class—that rooted impression that men in
broadcloth, no matter how they label themselves,
are banded together, in spite of their pledges at the
polls, to keep the men in fustian from their fair share
of the enjoyments of life, is spreading now from the
abler men to the less far-sighted. More and more
clear is it becoming to our people that their interest
in politics is something which, if fully understood, lies
far deeper than that of their daily or weekly wage.
“ We working men,” said one, “ shall never know our
real interest in politics till the mother teaches the
truth about them to her childand this phrase by
itself happily shows that a very different view of the
duty of the community to all is growing up from that
indifference and sluggishness which have hitherto
checked progress. How could it be otherwise ? Is
it conceivable that the men who make the wealth of
the country will permanently be satisfied with a sys
tem which shuts them out for ever from all interest
in their own land ? that they will be content to live
from hand to mouth on the strength of mere phrases,
and that they will always consent to be deprived of
their due share of representation ? They are indeed
shortsighted who so suppose. Now therefore it be
comes necessary that people of all classes who desire
that our existing society should be peacefully modified
should be content to examine, a little more deeply
than heretofore, into the present state of things.
This, so far as the wealthy are concerned, from the
most selfish point of view ; for there is nothing here
in the eternal fitness of things. The evolution of
mankind will not stand still, in order that landowners
�INTRODUCTION.
3
and capitalists may continue their present leisurely
existence, or that the well-to-do generally may regard
the sufferings of the toilers as of small account. Such
poverty as now exists is not an inseparable accom
paniment of human society ; neither is such excessive
concentration of wealth an incentive to human pro
gress. The gospel of greed and selfishness, of cor
ruption and competition, now proclaimed as the only
means of social salvation, is seen to be false in its
principles, and baneful in its results. This furious
development of wealth, on which we sometimes con
gratulate ourselves, has done little to elevate, and
much to lower, the tone even of the classes which
have benefited by it. What has it done for the
working class ? Never at any period in our history
were the many who work and the few who live upon
their labour so wide apart, socially and politically, as
they are to-day ; ’’never—and this is becoming in
itself serious—has there been such a general sensation
of uneasiness without any immediate cause.
Yet who can wonder that uneasiness there should
be ? Political reforms have done very little for our
people. Periods of flash prosperity, speedily followed
by depression which pinches and starves even the best
artisan class ; education progressing so slowly that
still another generation will be suffered to grow up
instructed enough only to be ignorant ; overcrowded
insanitary dwellings permitted to continue, and paid
for at an exorbitant price because this is to the benefit
of the classes who trade upon the necessities of their
fellows ; vast monopolies encouraged and overwork
scarcely checked,—here we have the boasted freedom
B 2
�4
ENGLAND FOR ALL.
of the latter half of the nineteenth century. The very
champions of free trade as the universal panacea are
themselves driven to confess that, true though their
theory is, it has not produced the social effect they
predicted.1 The rich have grown richer ; but the poor
—their condition is but little bettered, and relatively
has gone back. Our civilization is in many respects
but an organized hypocrisy, filming over as ulcerous
places below as ever disgraced the worst periods of
past history. But there is something more than
hypocrisy or indifference to account for the crying
evils of our great cities, and the miserable poverty and
bad lodgment which degrade our agricultural popu
lation. More general causes than any which individuals
can right, are at work. Private enterprise has been
tried and found wanting : laissez-faire has had its day.
Slowly the nation is learning that the old hack argu
ments of “ supply and demand,” “ freedom of con
tract,” “ infringement of individual liberty/’ are but
so many bulwarks of vested interests, which inflict
misery on the present, and deterioration on the next,
generation, in the name of a pseudo-science of govern1 Two professors of the straitest sect of economic orthodoxy,
Mr. Henry Fawcett and Mr. Thorold Rogers, are of the same
opinion on this point. Free trade is undeniably true in theory,
but they agree that it has benefited the poor very little in
comparison with the enormous wealth it has given to the rich.
Free Trade lowers the price of the necessaries of life ; but it also
keeps wages lower than they otherwise would be. It would be easy
to show that the working'classes owe all the improvement that has
been made in their condition, not to free trade, but to combination
among themselves, and to legislation carried directly in the
teeth of the most violent opposition from the leaders of the
free trade party.
�introduction.
5
merit. Bad as is the education of the majority of
Englishmen compared with what it ought to be, they
have learnt enough to be dissatisfied with arrange
ments which, when more ignorant, they might have
accepted as inevitable. Of the sufferings which the
real producers of this great industrial community
undergo, the comfortable classes hear but little. They
barely talk of their troubles to their most intimate
friends. The natural inclination of Englishmen is to
bear in silence. Hitherto many have found consola
tion in religion, which held out to them the prospect
of happiness hereafter in return for sorrow and misery
here. That resource is now failing, and the bolder
spirits—it is useless to blink plain truths—openly
deride those “ drafts on eternity ” which they say are
issued solely in the interest of employers and rich
men. Their own ills nevertheless they may bear:
that they will consent to hand on the same lot to their
children is very unlikely. The day for private charity
and galling patronage is at an end ; the time for com
bination and political action in redress of social wrongs
is at hand.
Such changes as are needed may be gradual, but
they must be rapid. In England, fortunately, we have
a long political history to lead up to our natural
development, the growth of a great nation such as
ours has its effect on all portions of the people.
Patriotism is part of our heritage ; self-restraint neces
sarily comes from the exercise of political power.
Even the poorest are ready to accept the assurance of
real reform, rather than listen to those who would
urge them to resort in desperation to violent change.
�6
ENGLAND FOR ALL.
Yet these reforms must in the end be far more
thorough than the enthusiasts of compromise, and the
fanatics of moderation are ready to admit. Hitherto
there has been patience, because all have hoped for
the best. But longer delay is not only harmful but
dangerous. We are ready enough to talk about
justice to others. Greeks, Slavs, Bulgars, Boers,
Negroes, are ever appealing to our sense of what is
due to the oppressed. Let the people of these islands,
without despising others, now be just to themselves.
If the theories now gaining ground all over the
Continent, as well as here with us, are to be met peace
fully, and turned to the advantage of all, the necessary
change of front can no longer be delayed. The State,
as the organized common-sense of public opinion,
must step in, regardless of greed or prejudice, to regu
late that nominal individual freedom which simply
strengthens the domination of the few. Thus only
shall the England of whose past we all are proud, and
of whose future all are confident, clear herself from
that shortsighted system which now stunts the physi
cal and intellectual growth of the great majority, knit
together the great democracies near and far under our
flag, and deal out to our dependencies a full measure
of that justice which alone can secure for us and for
ours the leadership in the social reorganization
which will be our greatest claim to respect and
remembrance from countless generations of the human
race.
�THE LAND.
7
CHAPTER I.
THE LAND.
POSSESSION of the land is a matter of such supreme
importance to the liberty and well-being of Englishmen,
that the only marvel is not that there should be a
growing agitation on the subject to-day, but that the
nation should ever have been content to bear patiently
the monopoly which has been created during the
past 300 years. It affords indeed a strange commen
tary upon the history of human progress, that we
have to look back more than 400 years to the period
when the mass of the people of these islands were
in their most prosperous and wholesome condition.
In those middle ages which our school-books still
speak of as days of darkness and ignorance, the
great body of Englishmen were far better off in every
way than they are now. The men who fought in the
French wars, and held their own against every Conti
nental army, were sober, hardworking yeomen and
life-holders, who were ready to pay for their victories
out of their own pockets, instead of saddling their
descendants with a perpetual mortgage in the shape
of a huge national debt. They owned the soil and
lived out of it, and having secured for themselves
�8
ENGLAND FOR ALL.
power at home and freedom by their own firesides,
they kept them.
The fifteenth century was the golden age of agri
cultural England. Villenage had disappeared ; the
country—far more populous at that time than is
commonly supposed—was occupied and cultivated by
free men, who tilled their own lands, subject only to
light dues payable to feudal superiors. Such daylabourers as there were, lived in perfect freedom,
owned plots of land themselves, and shared in the
enormous common land which then lay free and open
to all. Landless, houseless families were almost
unknown, permanent pauperism was undreamt of.
The feudal lords who maintained around them crowds
of retainers were at this time merely the heads of a
free, prosperous society, which recognized them as their
natural leaders alike in war and peace. Notwith
standing, or rather by reason of the great subdivision
of land, the wealth of the bulk of the people was
extraordinary. They were their own masters, and
could speak their own minds freely to all ; the
degrading servility of the agricultural labourer of to
day had not appeared to take the place of the
thraldom of the old serfs. No description ever given
of any people shows a more prosperous set of men
than the Englishmen of that time. Their sturdy
freedom was based upon property and good living.
“ The King of England cannot alter the laws or
make new ones without the express consent of the
whole kingdom in Parliament assembled. Every
inhabitant is at his liberty fully to use and enjoy
whatever his farm produceth, the fruits of the earth,
�THE LAND.
9
the increase of his flock, and the like ; all the improve
ment he makes, whether by his own proper industry
or of those he retains in his service, are his own to
use and to enjoy without the let, interruption, or denial
of any. If he be in any wise injured or oppressed,
he shall have amends and satisfactions against the
party offending. Hence it is that the inhabitants
are rich in gold, silver, and in all the necessaries and
conveniences of life. They drink no water, unless at
certain times, and by the way of doing penance.
They are fed in great abundance with all sorts of
flesh and fish, of which they have plenty everywhere;
they are clothed throughout in good woollens ; their
bedding and other furniture in their houses are of
wool, and that in great store. They are also pro
vided with all other sorts of household goods, and
necessary implements for husbandry.
Every one
according to his rank hath all things which conduce to
make life easy and happy.” This was merrie England,
in short—merrie, that is, for Englishmen as a whole,
not merely for the landlords and capitalists at the
top, who live in ease on the fruits of their labour.
For a day-labourer, a plain, unskilled hand—with his
geese, and sheep, and cow on the common—could then
get something for his day’s work. That of course is
the real test of the comfort and well-being of the
mass of the people, at all periods and under all
governments —what food and what clothing a man
can get for so many days’ work.
A common day-labourer, then, in the fifteenth century
could earn a fat sheep by four days’ work, a fat ox
by twenty days’ work, and a fat hog two years old by
�IO
ENGLAND FOR ALL.
twelve days’ work. Clothing he could obtain on at
least equally good terms. His own labour for others
and on his own plot supplied him and his family well
with all “ the necessaries and conveniences of life?’
Those even of the poorer sort lived upon beef, pork,
veal, and mutton every day. There is no dispute
about this. There are the recorded lists of prices for
food, drink, and raiment, the rates paid in parish after
parish for unskilled labour. Men so different as
Cobbett and Fawcett, Thornton and Rogers, are all
agreed on these points. They are of one mind, that
the working agriculturist of the fifteenth century was
a well-to-do free man.
How do our present agricultural labourers figure in
comparison ? How much of such fare as that given
above are hired labourers on ten and twelve shillings
a week likely to get, and what sort of houses do they
too often inhabit ? We all can judge of that, even if
the reports of Agricultural Commissions were not at
hand to tell us. The agricultural labourer of to-day is
a mere pauper beside his ancestor of 400 years ago, who
probably owned the land out of which the landowner
and the farmer now permit his descendant to work
a scanty subsistence which barely enables him to taste
meat once a month. His wages are shameful and his
cottage a disgrace. What is the reason then of all
this increasing penury, accompanied in rural districts
by an astounding decrease of population ? Unques
tionably the entire removal of the people from the land
is the chief cause of the mischief. Those yeomen and
free farmers, and fat well-fed labourers, who secured
for us those liberties which of late years have been
�THE LAND.
11
made such surprisingly little use ofwere turned out, and
the history of how it was done, and how our present
hand-to-mouth population was formed, is not a plea
sant tale. The mass of men have now no real freedom
either in country or town, because the land has been
taken by the great landholders and never yet restored
to the nation at large. Thus the sense of property,
of ownership, individual or collective, is done away.
From our own land still comes the bulk of the
wealth of the country, the food, the ores, the coal, which
enable us to hold our own, and get a return from other
parts of the world. But the workers who do this for
England have no part nor lot in their country of to
day. They own nothing but their bare right to compete
with their fellows in the labour-market. Who can
fail in such circumstances to recall these stirring
words ? “ Freedom is not an empty sound ; it is not
an abstract idea ; it is not a thing that nobody can
feel. It means, and it means nothing else, the full
and quiet enjoyment of your own property. If you
have not this—if this be not well secured to you, you
may call yourself what you will, but you are a slave.
Now our forefathers took special care upon this car
dinal point.
They suffered neither- kings nor
parliaments to touch their property without cause
clearly shown. They did not read newspapers, they
did not talk about debates, they had no taste for
‘ mental enjoyments but they thought hunger and
thirst great evils, and they never suffered anybody to
put them on cold potatoes and water. They looked
upon bare bones and rags as indubitable marks of
slavery; and they never failed to resist any attempt
�12
ENGLAND FOR ALL.
to affix these marks upon them.” And we too hold
much the same opinions, we too regard pauperism
and destitution as disgraces to a free country. But
unfortunately this generation, and others before it,
have grown up to think such “ indubitable marks of
slavery ” unavoidable, and hold that land should
rightfully belong in perpetuity to the handful of men
who drove the mass of the population from the soil,
or who bought from the descendants of those who
did. But the life of a nation like ours outlasts all
such temporary troubles ; its rights, though long in
abeyance, are never done away. The truth that the
land of England belongs to the people of England is
coming home to men of all classes ; and the best proof
that our existing system will no longer be borne
with contentment is that the historical wrong which
has been done is daily more and more considered.
That revolution which supplied England with a
bountiful succession of paupers, and laid the founda
tion of landlordism in the country, and of capitalism
in the towns commenced in the last quarter of the
fifteenth century and the beginning of the sixteenth.
After the wars of the Roses had impoverished the
nobility, the dismissalof numerous baronial households
launched upon the country a whole horde of landless
people, without house or home. These unfortunates
had no place whatever in society as it then existed,
and became at once mere vagrants and competitors for
all sorts of chance employments. But for the
monasteries and other religious establishments their
condition would have been far worse than it was.
Even these outcasts, however, might have been
�THE LAND.
13
gradually absorbed; but about the same time the great
nobles, who were at variance with the crown and the
parliament, set to work to restore their fortunes by
turning out the peasant owners, who under the feudal
law had at least as good a title as their own to their
holdings. Such raids were followed up by encroach
ments on the common lands, which the labourers
depended upon for depasturing their animals. Ac
companying these robberies also was a steady conver
sion of arable land into pasture, on the ground that
more was to be gained by feeding sheep than men
—a contention which has of late been put forward
also in Scotland, Ireland, and in newly-settled coun
tries. To compete profitably in the wool-markets of
Flanders was more important than to maintain a race
of independent peasant farmers.
These changes worked a deplorable deterioration in
the condition of the mass of the people. The number
of the agricultural population who could find employ
ment in the old way rapidly lessened. Even now,
with our improved methods of cultivation, and laboursaving machinery, arable land will employ more than
twice as many men as pasture—and raise more beasts,
for that matter, as well. But in those days the pro
portion was probably far larger. At any rate, numbers
were thrown out of employment in that way. So
serious did all this become that Henry VII. and his
Parliament made constant efforts to check the
rapacious and harmful action of the barons ; but un
fortunately to little purpose. The people were more
and more interfered with, and depopulating enclosures
were going on regularly. Laws were even framed of
�14
ENGLAND FOR ALL.
the most stringent character to prevent ejection of
the peasants and the destruction of their houses. All
without effect. The landless class still increased, and
more and more people became dependent on others
for support. Henry VII., a great though penurious
monarch, saw clearly that the welfare of the mass of
his subjects, not the inordinate wealth and aggran
dizement of the few, constituted the real strength
of his kingdom, however much he might attempt to
fleece them by monopolies out of part of their sub
stance. He was anxious therefore to keep the land
in the hands of the small owners, who were really the
bone and sinew of the country. Even the daylabourer received consideration, and was secured by
the laws four acres of land to his cottage. But the
process of expropriation went relentlessly on not
withstanding, and had already produced a serious
effect.
But the confiscation of the lands of the monasteries,
and priories, and nunneries, at the time of the
Reformation, was a far graver blow to the welfare of
the people. Carried out with a shameless disregard
for the rights and privileges of the people, by the most
violent and despotic monarch who ever sat on the
English throne, this was the greatest injury inflicted
on the poor which our history records. The property
of the Catholic Church, though not always well
administered, was in reality at the service of the poor
and needy. Whatever might be urged against abbots
and friars, pauperism was then unknown. The celibate
parish priests had small expenses, and the land they
held was held, it may almost be said, in trust for the
�THE LAND.
15
people. The yeomen and labourers on their estates,
never disturbed or interfered with from generation to
generation, were a prosperous, vigorous folk. Besides,
the service of the Church was almost the only career,
except successful murder, by which a poor lad might
in those days rise to the highest dignities of the State.
Prelates and monks were founders of our noblest
schools of learning. They were, however, swept away,
their goods seized, and the lands taken from the people,
to be held by the king or given to his favourites. Parlia
ment then, as later, was bribed to sanction illegal and
improper action, by which many of its members largely
profited. King and barons were once more knit together
in that happy participation in plunder which has been
the surest bond of union between monarchs and
aristocrats all over the world. Thus the poor who
had ever obtained ready relief from the Church, the
wayfarers who could always find food and shelter in
the religious houses, the children of the people who
repaired to the convent for guidance and teaching,
were deprived at one fell swoop of alms, shelter, and
schools.
When, however, the monasteries were thus
destroyed, and their lands confiscated for the benefit
of the King and the aristocracy, not only was almost
the last hold of the English people on their own soil
torn off, but the monks and nuns, priests and friars,
were turned loose upon the world to swell the ranks
of the have-nots. The shiftless hand-to-mouth class
thus grew with fearful rapidity. The whole country was
overrun with loafers and vagrants, deprived of the
means of living by no fault of their own. Not even
�ENGLAND FOR ALL.
the most atrocious laws could keep them within limits,
though they drove them into the towns, and into the
power of the shopkeeping class, now gaining strength.
Paupers being thus numerous, in the 43rd year of
Elizabeth—who had resumed all the confiscated lands
—a Poor Law was passed ; and from that time to this
pauperism has formed as integral a portion of our
social constitution as the aristocracy who created the
necessity for the law. How could it be otherwise?
The landed rights of the many had been sacrificed to
the greed of the few; and confiscation, really put in
force to bolster up luxury and selfishness, was carried
on in the name of religion.
Between the fifteenth and the beginning of the
seventeenth century the whole face of England had
been changed. In place of well-being, contentmenf,
and general prosperity, as described by Fortescue?
depression and misery had become the common lot of
the people who owned no land. The mere wage-earner
took the place of the labouring, petty farmer—a man
at the mercy of his employer. For the fine old
yeoman class fell more and more into decrepitude,
and the downfall of the ecclesiastical property pre
ceded their own final ruin by but a short interval.
Yet even so late as the end of the seventeenth cen
tury eighty per cent, of the population of England
was still purely agricultural. By the middle of the
eighteenth century there was scarcely a yeoman of the
old type left in a county.
The Stuarts were bad enough, but William III. was
worse than any of his immediate predecessors. This
great Whig hero treated England as if he had con?
�The
land.
17
quered it in respect to all he could lay hands upon,
and gave away lands he had no right whatever to
dispose of to his thick-headed and greedy Dutch
followers. Their descendants prey upon us to this
hour, though, with the exception of Lord William
Bentinck, not a single one of them has been of the
slightest genuine service to the State whose land they
have seized, or has illustrated our history even by a
crime. All this long series of robberies from the
people, helped on by economical causes, ended in an
aggregation of property and influence in a few hands
to an extent never before equalled.
It was followed by an enclosure of the common
lands of a character even more nefarious. Parliament,
made up almost exclusively of landowners, and in no
sense whatever representative of the mass of the
people, framed bill after bill for the enclosure of the
commons, which alone were left to show that the soil
of England had formerly been looked upon as the
property of the great majority. No man, not a land
lord, can read through the records of this disgraceful
pillage even now without a feeling of furious bitter
ness. Nothing more shameful is told in the long tale
of class greed than this of the seizure of the common
lands by the upper and middle classes of Great
Britain. To deprive the people of their last vestige of
independent holding, and thus to force all to become
mere hand-to-mouth wage-earners at the mercy of the
growing capitalist class, such was the practical effect
of these private enactments, conceived in iniquity, and
executed in injustice. For up to so recent a date as
1845 these enclosures were done by private bill, and
c
�ENGLAND FOR ALL.
of course exclusively in private interest. There was
no public discussion whatever ; rich men who coveted
a few thousand acres of common which belonged
to their poorer neighbours, simply laid hands upon
them and added them to their estate. Fierce pro
tests were often made in the neighbourhood, but they
were invariably unavailing. In the course of 150
years, between 1700 and 1845, no fewer than 7,000,000
acres of public land, and probably a great deal more,
were enclosed by the landowners of England in
Parliament assembled, without one halfpenny of real
compensation ever having been made to the public
whose rights were thus ridden over. At that time, be
it remarked, the people of England—but shabbily
represented now—had practically no voice in public
affairs at all, and such a man as Sir Robert Walpole
just “ ran the machine ” in the sole interest of his class,
for all the world like a Pennsylvanian log-roller or
wire-puller of our own day. Not even scraps of those
great and valuable common lands remain in some
districts to remind the English people of the robberies
that have been committed upon them.
Even since the introduction of public bills to regu
late these enclosures matters were, until quite lately,
very little better. A wealthy landgrabber would
purchase land all round a common, and then stealthily
get it enclosed on some shallow pretext. This
occurred over and over again. The hard fight which
such a body as the Corporation of the City of London
had to wage in order to keep for the people of
London what remnant there is of Epping Forest,
shows the pertinacity with which individual selfishness
�THE LAND.
19
works on. Conservatives and Liberals who stand up
for the ancient and indefeasible rights of property at
the expense of others should look into these things.
The very people who ate up the whole country away
from their countrymen and make land a monopoly,
cry out fiercely that they are being ill-used and
robbed when an attempt is made to reassert some
small portion of the rights of the nation over that
which is, and always has been, the property of the
nation—the land of England. What sort of title have
many of them to their lands ? Let them answer who
made the laws which gave the eternal right to harm
the people. Why, they themselves and their fathers
before them. None other. The owners of the land
had no voice ; violence, wrong, and fraud weigh still
upon the country. But there need be no fear for
those who profited by these encroachments. The
people are never unjust, even in their own interest:
they pay to get back their simplest rights.
The effect of this seizure of the commons upon the
rural population has been most sad. Their condition,
never very flourishing since they were deprived of
individual ownership, became yet worse. But I will
quote a calm writer, who is fully convinced of the
beneficial effects of supply and demand, and freedom
of contract:—“ Many of the descendants of those who
once possessed valuable rights of common are agricul
tural labourers, to whose miserable condition allusion
has already been made. Our rural population has
been deprived of that which once gave a most impor
tant addition to their income. The common often
enabled them to keep some poultry, a pig, and a cow.
C 2
�20
ENGLAND FOR ALE
Many villages may now be traversed, and not a single
labourer can be found possessing a head of poultry;
few even keep a pig, and not one in 10,000 has a cow.
What is the result of this ? The labourer does not
live as he did 100 years since; he and his family
seldom taste meat, and his children suffer cruelly from
the difficulty he has in obtaining milk for them.”
This, indeed, is a matter of common consent. The
agricultural labourer is far worse off than his fore
fathers. But if the people have, been deprived of
their commons, so also have their plots of ground to
their ill-drained, overcrowded cottages disappeared.
They make them too “independent.” No property,
low diet, a pretence of education, and enforced servility
to their “ betters ”—that was the way to bring down
the “ proud peasantry ” from their high looks of the
fifteenth century to the abasement of a ten-shilling-aweek agricultural labourer, ever begging for some
dole out of the fruits of his own labour to be given
back to him, from the Hall, the Rectory, or the poor
house. This kept him “ in that state of life ” which
the Church Catechism enjoins upon the lowly. No
agricultural labourer, it needs hardly be said, has ever
yet sat in the House of Commons to represent the
wrongs of his class.
These unfortunate families, deprived of their own
land and ousted from their common lands, became, as
we have seen, fair game for the most abominable
legislation. The laws against vagrants and men out
of work were ferocious and brutal, to a degree scarcely
to be credited until they were actually revived in
America the othei' day. By these means they came
�THE LAND.
21
into the towns, where, refused the right to combine,
and wholly destitute of means, they were delivered
over to a form of tyranny the more trying from its
being carried on under the name of freedom. The
very idea that the unfortunate had a definite interest
in the country was done away. The poor were only
not criminal. And this feeling grew among the
dominant class with the growth of that shopkeeper
spirit which has been paramount with English parties,
to the almost entire exclusion of any sense of justice
to the bulk of the community. The few landowners
of genuine old family who still remain, and who, one
would have thought, would look back with pride to
the times when their ancestors were the leaders of
well-to-do free men, have been as bad as the rest.
They have thought that their duties, such as they
were, began and ended with their tenantry. If the
labourers received a small pittance in charity after
having worked their lives through on starvation
wages, that was as much as they could expect. The
eternal law of supply and demand justified meat once
a fortnight, and short commons all the year round.
There stood the workhouse: what more could the
people want ?
But now what has been the outcome to us of to-day
of all these uncompensated expropriations in Eng
land—of the ducal razzias like those of the Dukes
of Sutherland and Argyll in Scotland (the latter
worthy peer naturally standing out with his fellow
Liberal of Lansdowne in favour of the perpetuation
of serfdom in Ireland)—what do we of the present
generation derive from all this long succession of
�22
ENGLAND FOR ALL.
past iniquities ? Nothing is easier than to sum it all
up. We have then a great body of landowners, 2000
of whom alone hold actually 38,000,000 acres of our
land in estates of over 5000 acres each, the total
agricultural rental of this vast domain being not less
than 25,000,000/. annually. The whole of the agricul
tural land in the kingdom is practically owned by
less than 30,000 persons ; and not all the systematic
fudging resorted to in the Landlord’s Return, known
as the <l New Doomsday Book,” has been able to
shake that fact out of the minds of the people of
England. In that book Lord Overstone—formerly
Mr. Jones, a banker of enormous wealth, who turned
landgrabber after the manner of his kind—the Duke
of Buccleuch, and the Duke of Devonshire are put
forward as thirty-three different owners. This is only
a specimen of how the truth is blinked and covered
up by those who are interested in hiding it away from
their countrymen. And this monstrous monopoly the
landowners, and the big capitalists who hope to be
landowners, and their friends and relations the lawyers,
who live upon the complications of the laws they
themselves have formulated, are now striving to per
petuate.
Not to speak of the injurious consequences politi
cally of such a concentration of excessive wealth and
power in a few hands, the economical drawbacks stare
us in the face. Men who own half-a-dozen large pro
perties in several different counties must be permanent
absentees from some of them. They take the rents
and spend them elsewhere, being themselves the
heaviest of all the burdens on the land. The majority
�THE LAND.
23
of landowners cannot do justice to the land they have
taken even in their own narrowest sense. Cumbered
up with mortgages, settlements, rent-charges, heaven
knows what, they are in no case to face a great fall
in rents, to encounter competition from without, or to
bring to bear that skill, labour and personal attention
now essential to success in agriculture. The sacred
trinity of landlord, capitalist-farmer, and agricultural
labourer has broken up. The labourer can be screwed
no lower, the farmer has had enough of giving his
capital to the landlord as rent. American “ wheat
centres” have proved clearly that landlords are not an
essential element in English agricultural production.
A great change is therefore at hand. Agricultural ex
perts aver with confidence that if the land of England
were properly handled, if sufficient labour and manure
were applied, we could profitably produce twice the
quantity of food we do from the existing cultivated
acreage. What stops us ? Unquestionably that de
termination of landowners to bold on to their false
idea of greatness, and to those miserable customs of
settlement and entail which will necessarily be put an
end to as a wider and more useful method of dealing
with our soil opens up before us. Happily the land
lords are themselves beginning to feel the pinch, and
may lead the way in the reforms which have now
become essential. If they don’t it is no great matter ;
for sooner or later the people of England mean to
have back the land, and the sooner the better for the
interest of the landlords themselves.
For let it be remembered that the dominant classes
have done more than take the land ; by their Parlia
�24
ENGLAND FOR ALL.
ments they have actually shuffled on to the shoulders
of the mass of the people nearly all the taxes and
obligations which formerly came out of their rents as
a portion for the State and the poor. Laws enacted
by men for their own benefit in direct contravention
of the tenure on which the lands were originally taken
have no binding force whatsoever on posterity. Yet
the landowners of Great Britain were formerly subject
to a land-tax of four shillings in the pound on their
assessment. This they have whittled away almost to
nothing, and now the land-tax under their skilful
manipulation, produces but 1,074,919/., instead of
18,802,337/. as it ought. That is to say, the landowners
of Great Britain put into their pockets a sum of little
less than 18,000,000/., which, but for their own self
gratifying ordinances would, according to the old laws
of this kingdom, have gone into the treasury of the
country at large. No wonder that our privileged
classes and their hangers-on howl “confiscation/
“ communism,” “ socialism,” and words more English
and less nice, when any fearless man begins to rake
up the history of their “ sacrifices ” to patriotism.
True patriots they ; for be it understood
They robb’d their country for their country’s good 1
But this is not all either. Agricultural property is
well enough in its way, but the mines, all that under
lies the soil has fallen also into the grip of the small
minority, and it is impossible to get a bill through
Parliament which will even compel the owners to
protect the lives of the men who work in them. The
miners should know their place, and have power to
�THE LAND.
“ contract out of the Act.” What matters the risk of
loss of life ? Then the urban properties, again, with
their vast unearned increment of rent, and the power
given to individuals to obstruct improvements whilst
they benefit by the expenditure of the public money
or railroads carried through by the decision of Parlia
ment. What, in the name of all that is reasonable,
have Grosvenors or Bentincks done for England
that they and theirs should interfere for ever with
the management of London, and pocket increasing
rents which, if exacted at all, should go to the munici
pality which must shortly be created for this great
metropolis, and benefit the whole community ? Is it
well that millions should be spent on the Thames
embankment, for instance, and that landowners should
pocket thousands a year by the improvement of their
property ? These are points which come home to all,
and must, ere long, force on a change. Such enormous
revenues as those which were squandered in digging
catacombs in Welbeck Park, or laid out in providing
Westminster with a dukedom, ought not to be at the
unrestrained disposal of any single family. For no
idea whatever of duty is attached to these great pos
sessions ; and artisans’ dwellings, or a market, in a
fashionable locality might “damage the property,”
and so are warned off.
How is it that the landowners themselves, or such
at least as come fairly by their property, do not see
that their political future depends upon recognizing
the vast changes going on beneath them, and
endeavour to associate themselves with the future of
their country ? Their object, one would think, would
�26
ENGLAND FOR ALL.
necessarily be to meet and guide that flow of demo
cratic opinion which manifestly precedes a new social
evolution. To stand on the brink and wring their
hands in dismay is both cowardly and foolish. For
in a small, densely-peopled country like ours the
whole hangs together—land in country and land in
towns, mines, communications, all go to make up the
complicated system under which we live.
But agricultural land of necessity stands first. Mr.
Clare Read, the farmer, says that all will come right,
and that twenty-five years or so hence the territorial
grandee will rise again to the enjoyment of his unearned
increment, the farmer shall be a man of wealth and
substance, and the agricultural labourer—well, what
tenant-farmer ever thinks about him ? Landlord-made
laws must undergo revision in the interests of the
landlords themselves, but far more for the sake of the
mass of their countrymen now dissociated altogether
from the land. It is humiliating to look back fifty
years, and note how little has been done since the
able band of democratic writers, headed by Cobbett,
first forcibly pointed out the historical injuries from
which Englishmen are still suffering. As it was
yesterday, so it is to-day; but so shall it not be
to-morrow. The importance of the Land Question
in England is now fully understood by the inhabitants
of the counties as well as of the towns, and up to a
certain point a vast majority will combine to over
throw the existing system, which lies like a dead
weight upon it.
When we come to the direction in which changes
should be made, however, the widest differences arise.
�THE LAND.
Some seem to imagine that mere free trade in land,
even without the plan of compulsory subdivision,
would bring about the planting of the people on the
land ; others look upon the removal of settlement and
entail as only preliminary to nationalisation, in the
sense that by limitation of the right of inheritance
and compulsory purchase at a valuation, the State,
the county, or the municipality should come into the
possession of all land within a calculable period. All
depends upon what we desire to bring about. Many
ardent reformers look forward to the day when English
farmers shall hold their ten, twenty, fifty-acre farms,
interspersed with larger holdings, as in former times.
Is this to be done? Can we thus put back the
clock 400 years ? It would scarcely seem so ; yet on
the whole it should appear that small farmers who
depend chiefly on their own labour for their return
have suffered less in all parts of the country, and have
been readier to pay rent, than the large. In America
also, the unincumbered farmer holding no large extent
of land fared on the whole better than his wealthier
neighbour, who was growing not for produce so much
as for profit.
The main object necessarily is to get as much out
of the land as possible, and at the same time to
secure the agricultural labourer, and those of the
townspeople who take to the land, a fair return for
their labour, and a prospect of obtaining possession
of land if they desire to do so. Evidently the labourer
and the townsman will gain nothing by giving the
farmers in England fixity of tenure, nor by freetrade in land. All evidence goes to show, however,
�28
ENGLAND FOL ALL.
that even under present conditions the more secure the
tenure, in an increasing ratio up to freehold, the
better on the whole the farming, until the limit of
acreage is reached where the owner thinks he can afford
to lie by and make an income by letting to others.
But the present tenants would be no better employers
as owners, or tenants on a permanent settlement, than
they are now; the agricultural labourer who really does
the work would still get his ten and twelve shillings
a week, his cottage would be equally destitute
of garden. On the other hand, if the capitalists
came in, does their behaviour in the large cities make
us very hopeful of what would take place under their
management in the country ? These are difficulties
which-at once arise in any scheme of individual im
provement. Even the virtual limitation of the amount
of land which may be held by any individual by means
of cumulative taxation—the only fair taxation by the
way—might not give the labourer on the land that
independence which would enable him to hold his
own. What the better, in short, would the mass of
the population be for any of the reforms proposed ?
Granting that twofold would be produced, would the
labourers or the urban population get a greater share
of it ? No doubt the diminution of the absurd social
influence attaching to the ownership of land would have
a great effect in lowering its value to a mere idler, espe
cially if the game laws are speedily repealed. But all
this does not help the man who does the work for ten
and twelve shillings a week to get some fair portion
of the fruits of his labour—to secure a decent home, a
plot of ground, least of all a small farm. What is
�tltE LAND.
being done for Ireland, then, ought on a larger scale
to be done here; though unfortunately want of educa
tion and knowledge cripples the present generation,
and they have been more completely uprooted from
the soil than even the Irish.
We are manifestly here, as elsewhere, in a transi
tion period. The stage of dominant landlordism is
passing away rapidly—that of State management, or
co-operation in the interest of all, has apparently
not been reached. Granting therefore that the com
pletes! reforms of the land laws, in the shape of abo
lition of settlement and entail, complete subdivision,
simplified registration, mortgage made illegal, and so
forth, have been carried, much will remain to be done.
Private enterprise cannot satisfactorily deal with the
many important changes to be made. Benevolent
investments at five per cent, are, in American parlance,
“ a fraud.” What a miserable hand-to-mouth creature
the agricultural labourer is to-day we know. Let, then,
that point be borne in mind in all reforms, that until
the labourer is placed in a position where he is really
able to contract freely, either by combination, or by
State assistance in the shape of permanent leases of
land, subject to disturbance only for bad culture
or non-payment of fair rent, no great change
will ever be made in his condition for the better.
For this too is for the interest of all. The titles
of English landlords are none so good that they can
afford any longer to run the risk of the cry, “ The
Land for the People/’ Hitherto powers of expropria
tion and interference have been used solely in the in
terest of the upper and middle classes, who hold the
�3°
ENGLAND FOR ALL.
control. Ere long a similar process will be demanded
by the great majority in their favour, though not with
equal injustice.
As stepping-stones to further development, the
following reforms may be demanded at once :—
Reform of the law of settlement and entail, putting
an end to the existing system altogether.
Compulsory registration of title, so as to make
transfer of land as easy as it is in America.
Extension of the powers of local bodies to acquire
land for all purposes and to lease it in small portions.
Compensated expropriation of property-owners in
large cities.1
No confiscation or revenge for the forced removal
of the people from the land is asked for. But the
unborn have no rights, and the nation has always
both the power and the right to take any land at a
fair valuation. By immediate limitation of the right
of inheritance, and an application of the power of
purchase, the State or the local authority would
speedily come into possession of land, which could be
used for the common interest, and some comfort and
security obtained for those who at present have neither.
No longer then should the agriculturist be per
manently kept away from possession of the soil; no
1 “ Nationalisation” of the land is, of course, the only logical
outcome of any thorough suggestions for reform; but this,
unless accompanied by nationalisation of railways and of
capital, would be of little use to the mass of the workers of the
country. Meanwhile, however, the only safe course is to work
in the direction of steadily restricting the rights of private
property in land.
�THE LAND.
3i
longer should the dweller in the city feel that, happen
what might, he could never leave the street or alley.
Hitherto the State has been regarded as an enemy :
the time is coming when all will be ready to recognize
that its friendly influence is needed to prevent serious
trouble, and to lead the way to a happier period.
That the landowners of England should join in a re
solute endeavour to remedy the mischiefs which affect
them in common with the rest of the population is
apparently too much to expect. True, their interest
lies in this direction. To stir up class hatred is easy
enough, when, in spite of all sentimental talk and
useless charity, the men who work see that nothing is
really done which will permanently benefit them. A
higher ideal than mere selfishness may indeed be held
up, but if reforms are to be peaceful those who are
rich and powerful must lead the way. Of this truer
patriotism there is at present no sign among those
who claim to be the “natural leaders” of the people.
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CHAPTER II.
LABOUR.
In every civilized society the main point to be con
sidered is the manner in which labour is applied to
production, and the share of his own labour which in
one shape or another the labourer gets in return. The
ancient historical civilizations were chiefly built upon
slavery. Here the labourer, his force of labour, and the
material on which he expended it, all belonged to the
master ; and the wealth of the latter might almost be
gauged by the number of slaves he possessed, though
only a portion of them would be actually employed in
the work of production. This employment of slave
labour renders any comparison between the state of
society then and now almost futile; but the condition of
the poor freemen in Rome and Athens, constantly ex
posed to the competition of slave-labour if they desired
to work themselves, resembled that of the mean whites
in the Southern States before the Civil War. The
peasant proprietor, or the member of a village com
munity, holds again a totally different position from
that of the slave or the labourer of modern times.
The peasant proprietor, or the craftsman owning his
own tools and able to obtain his own materials, is
master of himself, of his means of production, and of
�LABOUR.
33
his produce, even though he may have to pay a por
tion of the latter to a feudal chief or rajah. In both
cases, that of individual proprietorship and that of
ownership in common of the produce'of a community,
there may be and generally is perfect freedom, save
the restrictions which arise from the necessity of pro
ducing sufficient for the social necessaries of life.
It is quite possible that a man and his family may
live on the produce of their own farm, carry on the
simple operations of manufacture necessary to clothe
them, and rarely have the need to exchange anything
which they possess for the work of others. A good
harvest, or a favourable season with cattle, will repre
sent so much extra wealth, which will provide against
bad times, or enable the little household to devote more
labour to increase of comfort. With a village com
munity the necessity for exchange may arise less
often ; for these units of civilization comprise within
themselves the means of providing all the ordinary
needs, and some even of the luxuries of life. It is to
the interest of the whole family or village community
that all should be well nourished and strong for the
daily duty ; it is also advisable that a certain provision
should be made against the prospect of bad seasons.
Civilization, therefore, presupposes great forethought
in its earlier stages, or it would soon fall back again
to the condition of the Paraguayans, who ate the seed
given them by the missionaries. But all the wealth
thus produced by the work of individuals or com
munities is clearly due to labour; and that is not
wealth which is not recognized as an object of utility
in the social conditions of the time.
D
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The great majority of economists before and since
Adam Smith have agreed that labour is the source of
value. “The real price of everything,” says Adam
Smith himself, “what everything really costs to the
man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of
acquiring it. What everything is really worth to the
man who has acquired it, and who wants to dispose of
it or exchange it for something else, is the toil and
trouble which it can save to himself, and which it can
impose on other people. Labour was the first price
—the original purchase-money that was paid for all
things. In that early and rude state of society which
precedes both the accumulation of stock and the
appropriation of land, the proportion between the
quantities of labour necessary for acquiring different
objects seems to be the only circumstance which can
afford any rule for exchanging them for one another.
If among a nation of hunters, for example, it usually
costs twice the labour to kill a beaver which it does
to kill a deer, one beaver would naturally be worth,
or exchange for, two deer. It is natural that what is
usually the produce of two days’ or two hours’
labour should be worth double of what is usually
the produce of one day’s or one hour’s labour.”
“ That this,” adds Ricardo, “ is really the foundation
of the exchangeable value of all things, excepting those
which cannot be increased by human industry, is a
doctrine of the utmost importance in political
economy. If the quantity of labour realized in com
modities regulate their exchangeable value, every
increase of the quantity of labour must augment the
value of that commodity on which it is exercised, as
�LABOUR.
35
every diminution must lower it.” This labour, of
course, includes the work necessary to replace the
wear and tear of.tools and machinery, as well as the
labour which is actually expended on and realized in
the commodities. Every useful article produced by
labour has two values, its value in use alone, and its
value in exchange. Its value in use is developed only
by being used and consumed : its value in exchange
consists in obtaining other useful articles in its
place.
Water, air, virgin soil, &c., are useful, but by them
selves they constitute no value. A man may also
expend his labour on useful articles which never
become commodities or goods for exchange. These
may be destined simply for his own use, and never
for exchange. In all countries, however, where the
capitalist system of production prevails, wealth
appears in the shape of an accumulation of com
modities or merchandise. Those products of human
labour devoted to natural objects are exchanged
according to the average quantity of human labour
expended in producing them. If wheat and axes are
exchanged in definite proportions, they are thus
bartered with reference to the common element in
each, by virtue of which an equality between them is
established. This is the quantity of human labour
expended in bringing them forward for exchange. So
many days of average labour embodied in one article
of utility, are equal to so many days of average
labour embodied in another article of utility. Thus
then the general rule is, that labour is the basis of
value, and quantity of labour the measure of value of
D 2
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commodities, or social values for the use of others, all
the world over.1
Say that a coat is worth twice as much as ten yards
of cloth. The coat is useful and satisfies a particular
want. Two kinds or qualities of labour are embodied
in it—that of the tailor who made the coat, and that
of the weaver who wove the cloth. So far as its use
fulness is concerned also, it makes no difference
whether the tailor wears it or his customer. Now as
to its value. The coat is assumed to be worth twice
as much as the ten yards of cloth—worth that is,
twenty yards of cloth. In point of value coat and
cloth are but expressions of labour itself. Thus
the coat is worth twice as much as the cloth, because
the cloth contains only half as much human
labour; and it needs twice the quantity of labour to
produce the coat complete, cloth and all, as to pro
duce the cloth alone. Reduce the quantity of labour
needed to make a coat by one half, and two coats are
only worth what one was before. Double the quantity
of labour needed to make a coat, and one coat is
worth what two were before. In the same way, “ if a
piece of cloth be now of the value of two pieces of
linen, and if, in ten years hence, the ordinary value of
a piece of cloth should be four pieces of linen, we may
1 Professor Stanley Jevons has convinced himself that labour
has no influence on value. Utility is the sole source of value.
Labour, supply, utility—such is the progression. This is not
the place to discuss this theory, which is of course turned to ac
count at once by capitalists. The cloud of differentiations and
metaphysics which Mr. Jevons throws up as he goes along does
not, however, obscure the fact that without labour there would be
no value at all.
�LABOUR.
37
safely conclude that either more labour is required to
make the cloth, or less to make the linen, or that
both causes have operated.” Thus then, no matter
whether the productive power of average human
labour in producing any article of utility—and utility
is, of course, an essential element of exchangeable
value—is increased or diminished, the same length of
labour, or the same quantity of labour, always repre
sents the same value. But of course, if the labour is
more productive, more values in use are obtained in
a given time, and if less productive, less: only the
value for exchange remains unaltered.
But the above illustrations are easily extended.
When a coat is said to be worth twice as much as
ten yards of cloth, or worth, that is, twenty yards of
cloth, this means, as has been said, that the quantity
of human labour contained in the one is equal to, or
expressed in, the quantity of human labour contained
in the other. So with other articles of utility. A coat
may likewise be equal in value to ten pounds of tea,
or to half a ton of iron, or to a quarter of wheat, or to
two ounces of gold ; all these products of human
labour being also equal in value to twenty yards of
cloth, and varying in exchangeable value in propor
tion to the amount of labour embodied in them ;
the simple meaning of the equality being that the
tea, the iron, the wheat, the gold, and the cloth, repre
sent, each and all, the same quantity of labour in the
several amounts of commodities.
But it so happens that it has been found convenient
for ages to express this general form of value in one
particular commodity. This in nowise changes the
�3?
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fundamental proposition that labour is the basis of
value, and quantity of labour its measure. The only
further result is, that the coat, the ten pounds of tea,
the half a ton of iron, the quarter of wheat, the
twenty yards of cloth, are all equal in value, not only
to one another, but to the two ounces of gold, which
henceforward are taken as a meaure of value for
them all and become money. When commodities
now are valued, they are valued with reference to the
gold, which forms not only a real but an ideal valua
tion. It is not the money which enables the com
modities to be valued. Far otherwise. It is because
all commodities represent realized human labour
already expended on natural objects, thus producing
articles of utility, that their relative value is conse
quently measureable by one another, and that they
can all be valued together in one special commodity.
This last becomes money, and is a measure for them
all, though, like the rest, its value consists in the fact
that it represents the expenditure of human labour.
But money is not only a convenient measure of
value, but also a means of putting commodities in
circulation. A commodity is exchanged for its
equivalent in money, and then again the money is ex
changed for another commodity. In order to promote
a circulation of commodities there must be a sufficiency
of money, or the representative of money in some form
of currency, to avoid congestion. To bring about the
regular interchange of articles of utility in civilized life,
such a change of commodities for money, and again
into commodities, being the rule. This fact formed
the basis of the theory of the celebrated Law, who
�LABOUR.
39
desired to substitute for gold and silver, which cost
labour to produce, and yet are in themselves of little
utility, paper certificates of labour expended, which
would cost nothing, and yet serve the purposes of cur
rency. Without however, entering upon the pheno
mena connected with money, it is now clear that in
all exchangeable value the human labour expended is
the basis of the value of commodities, and the quantity
of human labour the measure.
There is, of course, nothing new in all this. That
natural objects are of no value unless human labour is
expended on them is a truth as old as the world.
That labour is the real basis, not only of value but of
all civilized society, needs no elaborate demonstration
at this time of day. Yet it is precisely from this
generally admitted but little regarded truth that
consequences follow of the highest importance to our
modern society. Here come in those “ differences
of value,” those strange manipulations of the worth of
commodities, which go to the root of all business.
A merchant has a sum of money, say a hundred
pounds sterling. Therewith he buys on the market
say a hundred pounds’ worth of cotton. So far
the exchange may be perfectly fair and exact. The
merchant has given his labour as expressed in a
hundred pounds sterling for another man’s labour as
embodied in a mass of cotton. But, having bought,
hs goes away and sells his purchased cotton to an
other person for 110Z., making, as it is said, 10Z. by the
transaction. . His 100Z. was turned into its equivalent
in merchandise, and then appeared again as 110Z.
Not only is the original sum replaced, but more is
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added, and the merchant’s money becomes capital.
The merchant buys not for himself, or to work up for
the use of others, but merely to sell the cotton again
at an enhanced price. This is something very
different from the use of money as the measure of
the value of commodities, or as the means of facili
tating exchange. It is commercial capital, which its
owner takes upon the market for the purpose of
increasing it. Money to start with; then, after a
longer or a shorter interval, more money—that, leaving
out the intermediate process of buying the cotton, is
the process. But the amount of value in circulation
at any given moment—that is, the quantity of human
labour on the average embodied in commodities—
cannot increase of itself. If a merchant has in his
possession a commodity whose value is expressed
in money by 10Z., this value can only be increased
absolutely, and made say nZ., by the addition of
more labour to the labour-value represented in the
first instance—as by making a coat of cloth. The
coat is worth more than the cloth, but the value of
the cloth remains the same. Thus then all conditions
remaining the same, the owner of the money to start
with must buy a piece of merchandise at its exact value,
and sell it again for what it is worth, and yet have at
the end more value than he had at the beginning.
Now the problem begins to take shape.
The increase of value by which money becomes
more money and is turned into capital, obviously
cannot arise from the money itself. It follows then
that the conversion of money into merchandise, and
then of that same merchandise into more money, is
�LABO UR.
4i
due to the merchandise. But how ? Commodities
can no more increase their own exchangeable value
than money. In order to obtain an additional ex
changeable value from a commodity a sort of mer
chandise must be found which possesses the remark
able quality of being itself the source of exchangeable
value, so that to consume it would be to obtain that
labour-force embodied in value, and consequently to
create value.
Now it so happens that the capitalist in embryo
does find on the market a purchaseable commodity
endowed with this specific virtue. This is called
labour, or force of labour. Under that name is com
prised the entire capacities, physical and intellectual,
which exist in the body of a man, and which he
must set in motion in order to produce articles of
utility. Evidently the force of labour cannot present
itself on the market for sale, unless it is offered by
its owner; he must be able to dispose of it—that is,
be the free owner of his labour, of the force of his
own body. The moneyed man and he meet on the
market; one buys, and the other sells, and both are
quits. But the owner of this labour-force must only
sell it for a definite time ; if he sells it for an indefi
nite time, from being a merchant, he himself, his force
of labour and all, becomes a mere commodity. He
is a slave or serf at the command of his master as a
chattel. The essential condition for the capitalist
to be able to buy the force of labour is, that the
owner of the labour instead of being able to keep
himself by work on his own land, or to sell goods on
which he has himself expended his labour, should be
�42
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obliged to sell the labour-force in his body pure and
simple. A man in order to sell goods of his own
making, must of course command the means of pro
duction—tools, raw material, &c. Then he is master
of his own labour, an independent man; he has the
means of exchanging his own labour as embodied in
useful articles for other men’s labour also embodied
in useful articles upon equal terms. But in order
that money should be converted into capital the
workman himself must be free in a very different
sense ; not only must he be ready to sell his labour as
a commodity, but further, he must be free—so very
free that he has nothing else in the world but his
power of labour to sell—that he should be completely
destitute of the means of realizing his own force of
labour in commodities by himself, having neither tools,
nor land, nor raw materials wherewith to do so.
How does this free labourer thus find himself on
the market, ready to enter into free contract ? That
does not concern the owner of the money, who looks
upon the labour-market as a mere branch of the rest
of the market for commodities, and governed by the
same laws. The appearance of this destitute labourer
there is nevertheless, as has been seen, the outcome
of a long series of economical evolutions and revolu
tions extending over centuries. Driven from the
land, deprived of the possibility of earning a living,
the mass of the people find themselves concentrated
in the towns. Nature most assuredly does not turn
out possessors of money or goods on the one side,
and ownersof their pure labour-force, and nothing else,
on the other; nor is such a social state common to
�LABOUR.
43
most periods of history. So long, for example, as the
produce of labour is used to supply the needs of the
labourer, it does not, as has been seen, become mer
chandise ; in the same way, the production and cir
culation of commodities may take place under many
forms of society. It is not so with capital; that only
makes its appearance when that part of the wealth
of a country which is employed in production, con
sisting of food, clothing, tools, raw materials, ma
chinery, &c., necessary to give effect to labour, is
found in the hands of an owner, who meets on the
market the destitute free labourer come thither to
sell his labour.
Capital then forms an epoch in social production.
What, however, is this force of labour, which the
free owner of it comes on to the market to sell ?
Clearly it is a human force,physical, moral, intellectual,
which requires certain material, food, and clothing and
lodging—all at the command of the moneyed man,
and not of the labourer—to keep it in order and
supplied, so that the waste of one day may be made
good, and it may return with equal vigour the next.
These necessaries vary, of course, with different
climates, and with different degrees of civilization ;
but in any given country and period the average
needs of the labourers are known. Nor is this fact
altered by the other fact that, as pointed out by Mill,
a series of circumstances may reduce the standard of
supposed necessaries. The amount of average neces
saries thus ascertained is called by Ricardo, the
“ natural price of labour,” and is “ that price which is
necessary to enable the labourers one with another to
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subsist, and to perpetuate their race without either
increase or diminution.” In this way we have that
amount of average daily necessaries which will
maintain the present race of destitute bargainers, and
provide them with equally destitute successors.
Assume then that the cost of this amount of daily
foods, the natural price of human labour comprised
in the necessaries for existence for the twenty-four
hours—representing by rights only the quantity of
human labour expended in their production—is six
hours’ work. Half a day’s average work is needed
then to reproduce the average amount of labour-force
expended. Take this at three shillings as expressed
in money. Then the owner of the labour who sells
its work for six hours at three shillings, sells it for its
exact value. “ It is when the market price of labour
exceeds its natural price that the condition of the
labourer is flourishing and happy—that he has it in
his power to command a greater proportion of the
necessaries and enjoyments of life. When the market
price of labour is below its natural price, the condition
of the labourers is most wretched; then poverty
deprives them of comforts which custom renders
absolute necessaries.” So far Ricardo again. But the
natural price of labour reaches its minimum when it
is reduced to the value of the means of subsistence
physiologically indispensable. When it falls to this
minimum, the price has reached a level below the
value of the labour-force, which then only just
maintains itself without immediate deterioration.
For example, a man who sells his labour for just
enough to keep himself and his family without
�LABOUR.
45
making any provision for old age, or future ill-health
from which he may suffer, is clearly going down hill.
The natural price of his labour has not in this case
taken a sufficiently wide range,
When also the capitalist buys the labour, it is the
owner of that labour who sells on credit. He advances
his labour to the capitalist; the capitalist advances
nothing to him without having been previously
paid for it. In every country where the capitalist
system prevails, the labourer is only paid after he
has worked for a certain period—a week, a fortnight,
a month—on credit. This enables the capitalist to
“turn round.” If the employer fails, the labourers
suffer: they are not paid; for the labour has been
sold beforehand, and duly delivered by the expenditure
of force from the labourer’s body. An illustration of
this occurred not long since in the great strike of
colliers in the north against the masters, who wished
to make their men break the law by contracting out
of the Employers’ Liability Act. Once out on strike
they insisted most strongly upon the reduction of the
length of the advance of their labour to the capitalist,
from the fortnight to the week. This point they
carried. Fortnightly or monthly wages are a hardship
to the labourer, which, like many others, can only be
removed by resolute combination ; for that value in
use which the owner of the labour advances to the
buyer, only shows itself in employment. And this
consumption of force of labour produces, not only
commodities, but surplus value besides. Everything
else needed for the purposes of production—raw
materials, machinery, &c.—have been bought by the
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capitalist at their actual value, and paid for at their
actual price. It is labour only, the labour-force of
human beings, from which he derives his surplus value.
Out of this, his last purchase, bought on credit, the
capitalist makes his capital breed. This labour, bought
in the open market, and realized in the commodity—
this it is which gives the capitalist the additional
value he hungers for.
Now we begin to see how it comes about that 10Z.
turns into i iZ., that 100Z. swells into 110Z., without
additional value. Now, too, the admirable working
of “ freedom of contract ” and “ supply and demand ”
in our modern society appears. Hear, too, William
Cobbettfora moment: “ To those who labour, we who
labour not with our hands owe all that we eat and
drink and wear, all that shades us by day and that
shelters us by night, all the means of enjoying
health and pleasure ; and therefore if we possess talent
for the task, we are ungrateful or cowardly, or both, if
we omit any effort within our power to prevent them
from being slaves. What is a slave ? For let us not
be amused by a name. A slave is in the first place
a man who has no property; and property means
something that he has, and that nobody can take
from him without his leave or consent. A slave has
no property in his labour ; and any man who is com
pelled to give up the fruit of his labour to another at
the arbitrary will of that other, has no property in his
labour, and is therefore a slave, whether the fruit of
his labour be taken from him directly or indirectly.
If it be said that he gives up the fruit of his labour
by his own will, and that it is not forced from
�LABOUR.
47
him, I answer, To be sure he may avoid eating and
drinking, and may go naked ; but then he must die ;
and on this condition, and this condition only, can he
refuse to give up the fruit of his labour. ‘ Die,
wretch, or surrender as much of your income or the
fruit of your labour as your masters choose to take.’ ”
To return. The working man who has sold his
labour works, of course, under the control of the capi
talist to whom his labour thus belongs, and whose
object it is that he should work hard and continuously.
Besides, the product in which his force of labour is
embodied is the property of the capitalist, and in no
sense that of the labourer. The capitalist merely pays
him his wages, just as he would pay for the hire of a
horse or a mule. Then the employer applies the
human merchandise he has thus bought to his raw
materials and machinery. The result is a value in
use to be passed on to others ; and not only such
value, but a surplus value for the capitalist himself,
derived from this purchased labour.
Take, for example, cotton yarns. The capitalist
buys, say, ten pounds of raw cotton for I ox In that
price there is already expressed the average labour
needed for the production, transport, and marketing
of the raw cotton. Now put the wear and tear of the
spindles, machinery, &c., in working up the raw
material into yarn at 2s. If a piece of gold of the
value of 12s. is the output of twenty-four hours’work,
it follows that there are, apart from the labour in the
factory, two full days of work (at the assumed natural
rate of 3x for six hours’ work) embodied in the yarn.
This accounts for the original labour needed to raise
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and transport the raw cotton, as well as the labour
needed to replace the wear and tear.
It has already been assumed that the workman
must give six hours’ labour in order to earn 3^., the
natural price of his labour required to supply him
socially with his absolute necessaries. Now assume
further that it takes six hours’ labour to turn ten
pounds of cotton into ten pounds of yarn ; then the
workman has added to the raw cotton a value of 3s1.,
a half-a-day’s work. So at the end the ten pounds
of yarn contain altogether two days and a half of
labour; raw cotton and wear and tear of spindles
stand for two days ; and half-a-day has been absorbed
by the cotton in the process of spinning. This quan
tity of labour is therefore reckoned in a piece of gold
of the value of 15^.; that is to say, the price of the
yarn worked up from the cotton is ix. 6d. a pound.
Here obviously is no gain to the capitalist. His raw
material, his wear and tear of machinery, his wages
paid for the labour which he has purchased, eat up
the whole of the capital advanced, and yet the ten
pounds of yarn only fetch ij-. 6d. a pound, which is
the value of the average quantity of labour contained
in it. This shows no profit whatever, much to the
horror of the capitalist if he stopped there.
But the employer has bought the labourer’s whole
day’s work upon the market. He can make him work
therefore not merely the six hours required to produce
the return of the 3^. paid, but twelve hours—a day’s
work. Now if six hours’ work produces ten pounds
of yarn from ten pounds of cotton, twelve hours’ work
will give twenty pounds of yarn from twenty pounds
�LABOUR.
49
of cotton. These twenty pounds of yarn will thus con
tain five days’ labour, of which four are contained in the
raw cotton and the wear and tear of machinery and
spindles, and one day is absorbed by the yarn during
the process of spinning. The expression in money
then of these five days’ work is 30^. That, therefore,
is the price of the twenty pounds of yarn, Thus the
yarn is sold now as it was before at ij1. 6d. a pound.
But the sum of the values of the merchandise (includ
ing labour in the factory) embodied in the yarn does
not exceed 27 s.; that is to say, 2OJ. for the raw cotton,
4j. for the wear and tear, and 3s. for the labour in
the factory. The value of the product has therefore
increased. The 27s. have become 30J. Those 27s.
advanced by the capitalist have begotten a surplus
value of 3^., and the trick is done. The capitalist
has used a certain amount of another man’s labour
for his own behoof without paying for it, and the trick
is done at that man’s expense. That free labour
which is sold in the open market enables the capital
ist to sell the twenty pounds of yarn he has made
at the regular price of Ij. 6d. a pound, and, neverthe
less, to increase his capital by 3^. on the output of
twenty pounds. Labour thus used is the origin of
surplus value, and all’s well.
Once more it is permissible to look back to the ioZ.
made into 11Z., to the 100Z. swollen into 110Z. The iZ.
like the 10Z. is obtained from that free labour which is
bound to be sold for less than its worth, in order that its
possessor may continue to keep body and soul together.
And the surplus value so produced the capitalist, the
merchant, the shopkeeper, divide among themselves.
E
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In existing conditions of agricultural production,
the agricultural labourer in the same way provides
on his part the surplus value which the landowner,
the rent-charger, the farmer, the mortgagee, divide, in
the shape of rent, settlement, profit on capital, and
interest on money lent. The labourer himself, earning
his low to I2w a week, is the man upon whom all
these worthy people live, though they do so in a more
indirect manner than the capitalists of the large
towns, and have perhaps a trifle more conscience left
to appeal to.
Capital itself, however, is divided into two parts,
that w’hich is used to buy machinery and means of
production, and that which is expended on labour.
The former portion is constant, and is simply repro
duced without increase, the latter is variable, and is
that which produces surplus value. Ordinarily the
rate of surplus value is calculated on the total amount
of capital employed, constant and variable, and is
dubbed profit on capital. But this is wholly
incorrect. The rate of surplus value produced, the
proportion of labour turned to account by the
capitalist, should be reckoned only on the amount of
capital advanced to pay the owner of that labour
the natural price of his labour. What now is the pro
portion which the necessary labour for this purpose
bears to the extra labour which is used for the benefit
of the capitalist alone ?
Nothing will illustrate this so clearly as actual
figures taken from the regular operations of a factory.
A mill with 10,000 spindles spins yarn No. 32 with
American cotton, and produces every week a pound
�LABOUR.
5i
of yarn to the spindle. The waste of the cotton
amounts to six per cent. Therefore 10,600 pounds of
cotton are each week converted into 10,000 pounds of
yarn, and 600 pounds of waste. In April, 1871, this
cotton cost 7|</. a pound, and consequently 342Z. were
paid for the 10,600 pounds, in round figures. The
10,000 spindles, including the spinning machines and
the engine, cost io,oooZ.; their wear and tear amounts
to ten per cent., or 1000Z. a year, or 20Z. a week. The
ground-rent is 300Z. a year, or 6Z. a week. Coal, gas,
oil, &c., cost 4Z. ioj. every week; the total weekly
expenses in constant value amounting to 378Z.
The wages of the hands are 52Z. a week ; the price
of the yarn at I2|</. a pound for 10,000 pounds is
510Z. The additional value produced each week is
consequently 510Z. —378Z., or 132Z. Now deduct the
variable capital, the wages of the hands, or 52Z., and
there remains a surplus value of 80Z. Here the rate of
surplus value is therefore as 80Z. to 52Z., or upwards of
153 per cent. That is to say, for an average day’s
work of ten hours the necessary labour is but four
hours, and the extra labour six hours ; or, the labourer
works four hours for himself, and six for other
people, who divide his extra work among them.
And yet how unreasonable that the “hand,” silly
fellow, should object to this division of his extra and
unpaid for labour, and fancy that somehow somebody
has got the better of him. Fool that he is, let him
listen to the voice of the preacher and the political
economist:—“ What you need, my weary, povertystricken, Christian brother, is not to get back your
own extra labour, which you have expended, in the
E 2
�52
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form of money or goods for your own use. That is—
believe us, who are your true friends—robbery of the
capitalists. You, my good man, should be thrifty,
abstinent, saving, economical, and still go on steadily
providing extra labour for others, until you in turn
cease to be a labourer, turn capitalist, and extort extra
labour yourself.”
What, however is this day’s work, necessary labour
and extra labour together, which the capitalist buys
on the market ? Obviously there must be some
limit to it. A man can’t work twenty-four hours
on end every day in the week, that is clear. But the
limits of the day’s work are very elastic. We find
ten hours, twelve hours, fourteen, sixteen, even
eighteen hours, given as the amount of a day’s work.
And this limit, however loose already, capitalists, from
the shirt-sweaters up to the railway companies, are
always striving to extend. They invoke the sacred
laws of supply and demand and freedom of contract,
to sanction an amount of daily toil which leaves a
man or a woman utterly exhausted at its close, which
weakens health, reduces vitality, and hands on a
broken constitution to the progeny. And all for what?
In order to swell that surplus value which “ society ”
depends upon for its excessive luxury and continuous
laziness. “But,” say the labourers when adjured not
to endanger society, “ that is all very well; but society
is shamefully wronging us. It is society which, having
entire command of the police and military forces of
the country, enables the capitalist class thus to violate
every law of exchange with impunity. These are
they who pay us only one-half or one-third or one-
�LABOUR.
53
quarter of the real value of our day’s work. They
then are the people who are endangering' society, of
which we form by far the most important part—not
the working men, who ask only that their labour
should not be taken for nothing.”
There is a comparison at hand which philanthro
pizing capitalists—and there are many of them—will
understand, if they do not appreciate. Under the old
system of corvee a man was obliged to give say one
day’s work in the week, or at most two, to his feudal
lord without any payment. Such a man, though he
had the remaining five or six days wholly to himself,
was thought little better than a slave. Nor was he.
English capitalists would, of all men, subscribe largely
to relieve human beings from continuing in such a
shameful and degraded position. But here at home,
we have men, women, and children, who are obliged
to give four, five, six hours a day to the capitalist for
nothing, and yet are thought free. A factory hand
who, as in the instance given above, provides six
hours a day of extra labour, makes the capitalist a
present of three days’ work in the week for nothing.
He gives, in fact, three times as much labour for no
thing in the week to his employer, as the serf who
works one day in the week under corvee is obliged to
offer in unpaid labour to his lord. . But in the one case,
under the system of daily or weekly wages, the neces
sary labour and the extra labour are lumped to
gether as so much paid-for labour ; in the other, they
are divided. Thus the forced, extra, unpaid labour
for the capitalist—the industrial corvee—escapes
notice, though it is three times greater than the other,
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and the capitalist is thrice as heavy a master as the
feudal lord.
Moreover, the capitalist class has ever been on the
look-out to increase the hours of labour beyond
measure, in order that they may obtain more extra
labour, and thus secure more surplus value. We in
England have had sad experience of the baneful
effects upon the working population of the neverceasing endeavours to increase the number of working
hours. The reports of the Factory Inspectors up to
a comparatively recent date, are positively filled to
overflowing with instances of the efforts made by the
capitalists to crowd extra labour on men, on women,
and, above all, on children. A little is filched from
the meal times ; the mill is opened a trifle earlier, closed
something later, than the prescribed hour. Always
this persistent scheming for extra labour.2 Not only
up to the passing of the Factory Acts, but ever since,
the same tendency has been relentlessly displayed.
Free Trade, by reducing the natural price of labour,
increased the profit of capitalists and the number of
hours on which they could depend for the production
of surplus value. Women and children have, of course,
suffered fearfully. They were used up as so much
2 Mr. Watherston, a jeweller, who has grown rich on other
men’s labour, wrote not long ago to the Economist to complain
of the miserably short hours of work Englishmen now have.
They must work more, or trade—his profits, he meant—would
suffer. Of course this was the very man for the capitalist party.
They got him at once as chairman of the Westminster caucus.
How long will working men be gulled by landlords and capitalists
into providing them with more unpaid labour, under the pretence
of improving trade ?
�LABOUR.
55
food for surplus value, without the slightest regard to
humanity, or to the interest of the country at large.
The average age of the working classes was fearfully
shortened by the excessive toil. The cotton industry
of Lancashire alone in ninety years, or three genera
tions of ordinary men, devoured nine generations of
work-people. What mattered that to the manu
facturers ? There were more where they came from.
The poor bargainers reproduce themselves, and sup
ply and demand goes merrily on as before. The
Factory Acts themselves, still by no means so stringent
nor so rigidly administered as they ought to be, were
carried against the bitterest opposition of the capi
talist class, because the nation had gradually roused
itself to the truth that the whole population was
rapidly deteriorating, owing to the systematic
overwork of women and children. There are even
still economists of liberal views, who hold that women
in particular ought to be allowed to work in factories
as long as they choose, and that the State has no right
to interfere to protect the coming generation. Argu
ment after argument is put forward also that longer
hours than those to which the Trade Unions have
happily reduced the working day are essential, because
otherwise capitalists cannot compete with foreign
nations.3
3 To show how impossible it is for the capitalist class to shake
themselves clear of the prejudices in which they have been
brought up, it is almost enough to say that Mr. Bright—a man
surely distinguished foi- his humanity in general concerns—
opposed the Factory Acts, which may fairly be regarded as the
most beneficent measures of this century, with all his might ;
that when President of the Board of Trade he declared that
�56
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There is, unfortunately, no need to go back to the
horrible details contained in the Health Reports of
a few years ago, as to the condition of the working
classes, whilst wealth is being piled up by their labour
all round them. In spite of a little permissive legis
lation—well-intended, but by no means effectual—
things are almost as bad to-day. Some there are of
course who, rejoicing in the fact that our population has
consumed on the average ‘ooi lb. per head more of
bacon in the last ten years, or '002 lb. per head more
adulteration was a legitimate form of competition ; and that to
this hour he cannot see that interference with freedom of con
tract as between the capitalist and the labourer may be abso
lutely essential in the interests of the community at large. Sir
Thomas Brassey, as Professor Cairnes has pointed out, could
not understand that a reduction of profits might be quite as
desirable as a reduction of wages. It is amusing, too, to see
Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, a capitalist who has taken 700,000/.
out of the working classes by extra labour, and owns a rigid
monopoly, posing as a leader of the democracy. Doubtless
they all think themselves thoroughly in earnest; but how can
hunters after surplus value, men who are every day engaged in
putting wages at a lower level than they ought to be in order
to enhance their own profits from unpaid labour, really lead or
benefit them by pretending to lead, the working class ? The
Liberal benches in the House of Commons at this very time
are closely packed with plutocrats, who have made all their
wealth, and mean to make more, out of the unpaid labour of
their own countrymen. The Conservative benches seat a grow
ing proportion of men of the like kidney. What wonder that
working men who really understand what is going on around
them, almost despair of success in carrying measures which are
absolutely essential to the welfare of their class, when the power
of capitalism is increasing in every direction, when there is not
a single daily newspaper in existence which represents their
interests or advocates their claims, and when only three of their
class sit in Parliament ?
�LABOUR.
57
cheese, decline to look to that portion of the people
who bring down the average.
Such a speech as that delivered by the Bishop of
Manchester in June, 1880, ought to awaken the nation
to the mischief which is still being done. He, worthy
man, wrings his hands in despair at the state of affairs
in his own diocese. People living in the most mise
rable poverty, from which there seems no escape.
Misery, filth, starvation, overcrowding, followed by
inevitable deterioration. Sadness and hopelessness
brood over the streets, and alleys, and cellars, he has
explored. What can education do with children
living in such conditions as those which he has so
graphically described ? The men and the women
work hard enough when they can get the chance—
work endless hours too—do enough in short to feed,
and lodge, and clothe themselves in comfort. Yet in
Manchester and Salford, in Stockport and Altrincham,
in Oldham and Macclesfield, throughout the whole of
these great- industrial districts, thousands on thou
sands of labourers exist in good times in squalor, whilst
bad times drive them at once to the wall. Dr.
Fraser himself had shown a few years before what the
condition of the agricultural labourer was in this
respect, how hard he too works, how little he gets,
how foully he is lodged in many cases. Even orthodox
economists show further how farmers and manufac
turers alike combine to keep down the rate of wages to
the bare natural price, or below it, whilst exacting the
longest possible hours of toil.
Admitting that in some respects matters have
improved, owing to the determination of the working
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classes no longer to submit to such neglect and
oppression as of old, the very last report of the
Factory Inspectors shows how much remains to be
done, and how little machinery there is to do it. The
long weary struggle which has been carried on by the
working class, without even proper representation,
against laissez-faire, political economy, and selfish
ideas of freedom, seems still far from being successful.
A mere list of the provisions of the Factory Acts to
restrict tyranny by the masters and injury resulting
to the hands, proves conclusively that, but for State
intervention a condition of slavery of the worst kind
would exist now, as it did forty years ago. Meals for
instance are not allowed nowto be taken in rooms where
the atmosphere is poisonous, and some restrictions are
even imposed upon keeping men, women, and children
employed in the poisonous atmosphere. In Bradford, a
city which has long lived in the full and rather greasy
odour of Liberal sanctity, the wool-sorting has for years
been carried on in such a manner as directly to involve
the loss of the lives of many of the hands. Not a single
improvement did the capitalists—Mr. Coercion-Act
Forster is a Bradford man—introduce, till forced to do so
bylaw, and by public opinion following upon the verdict
of coroners’ juries as to the infamous state of things
which brought about the death of the wool-sorters.
Children still go to work full time in the collieries when
they are twelve years old, though in factories they,
fortunately, may not do so until they are thirteen or
fourteen. The parents, eager to get their children’s
wages, take advantage of this, and the capitalist
colliery owner of course is always ready to employ
�LABOUR.
59
cheap child-labour for his engines or other pur
poses.
In the dangerous trades great improvements have
been made by the Factory Acts, but still it is evident
far more stringent inspection and regulation is
required. In the brickworks we read of a girl carry
ing to and fro eleven tons of clay in the day for 2s.
a day. Brickmaking, to which women are wholly
unsuited, fell into their hands, we are told, “ because
masters at one time got wages down very low”—•
wanted to work women on the cheap in fact. In the
great cotton and iron industries years must still
elapse before the people recover from the deteriorating
effects of unrestricted competition. The best factories
and ironworks are not yet controlled sufficiently in
the interest of the men, women, and children who
work in them. But those who wish to understand
what capitalism is capable of, and what is its natural
bent, should read the reports of the factory inspectors,
Messrs. Lakeman and Gould, on the sweating system
at the East End of London, and the dens in which
the unfortunate milliners and dressmakers work at
the West End. “Workshops,” says Inspector Lake
man, “are generally small, over-crowded, very dirty,
overheated, badly ventilated ; and when half a dozen
gas burners are alight for five or six hours in a
twelve-feet square room, one can imagine that the
term ‘ sweater ’ is not inappropriate. ... So gigantic
has the sweating system become, so rapid the produc
tion (for the division of labour is strictly carried out),
so varied are the wants of each occupier, that one
despairs of making any impresssion upon these people
�6o
ENGLAND FOR ALL.
except by compulsion.
They are bound to a system
which excludes freedom, and from long habit it seems
impossible to move them out of it. Now when we
see a cloth coat made, lined, braided by hand, the
silk and thread found by sweater, all for 2s. ^d., and
if the total number be not returned to the clothier
completed by the time specified, then a fine of six
pence (I have seen one shilling) levied for each gar
ment, one cannot wonder at the desire of the sweater
to keep his team late at night to complete his task.”
Coats are sometimes “(finished in this style,” however,
as low as 2s. id. “NTcien one thinks that there are
about 18,000 to 20,000 people toiling at this one trade
of making ready-made clothing, can we wonder at
beholding the palace-like premises of merchant
tailors who can advertise garments at a very low
price, which to them is the cost of material, and say
2s. id. for the making of a coat? It does not require
much depth of reasoning to judge where the profit
comes from.”4 No, worthy Mr. Inspector, it does not.
The profit of the merchant tailor, like the profit of
his noble allies the cotton lords and the wool factors,
comes out of the unpaid labour of others, whom he
throws upon the streets when they have served his turn
of providing surplus value according to the universal
law of supply and demand and freedom of contract.
But again ; hear Mr. Inspector Gould :—“ There is,
however, one branch of work, giving employment to
4 Lord Salisbury spoke at the Merchant Tailors’ Hall not long
since, of the absurdity of “ plate-hunger.” It seemed more ridicu
lous to his aristocratic mind than even the earth-hunger of the
Irish. Had he by chance a Conservative sweat er at his elbow ?
�LABOUR.
61
thousands of girls and women, which, although
entirely harmless in itself, is yet, unfortunately, solely
by reason of the conditions under which it is carried
on, a typically unhealthy business, I need hardly
say that I refer to the making of all articles of ladies’
clothing, and principally to the dressmaking section
of the trade. Of the thousands of young and delicate
girls who are engaged in trying to earn a bare sub
sistence in a deleterious atmosphere, no one can tell
how many go down in the struggle. No statistics
can be formed of the percentage of deaths, of enfeebled
constitutions, of the amount of disease engendered in
the first instance by the deadly atmosphere of the
workrooms in second and third class establishments
devoted to the dressmaking and ladies’ clothing trade
in the West End of London. I know of no class of
female workers whose vital interests are so entirely
neglected, and who labour under such disadvantageous
conditions, as the unlucky victims of the dressmaking
industry. Nothing is more surprising than to hear
the advocates of ‘ women’s rights ’ of both sexes, in
full knowledge apparently of the hardships undergone
by the very class whose battle they profess to fight,
cry out for absolute liberty of action to all females
employed in labour ! ” Evidently Mr. Gould is quite
ignorant of the real bigotry of the advocates of free
dom, and had better look to himself. In the shops
themselves things are little better. Men and women
are kept at work from thirteen to fourteen hours a
day for five days in the week, and for sixteen hours
on the sixth day.
As to the accommodation of the labouring class,
�62
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out of whose unpaid toil the capitalist makes his
profit and society waxes fat, the Reports on Artisans’
Dwellings, give deplorable facts. Two and three
families pigged together into one or two small rooms ;
streets of houses torn down for improvements, and
their occupiers forced to crowd in upon the already
overcrowded streets adjoining. This is the rule through
out all our great cities. London is no worse than Glas
gow, nor Glasgow worse than Birmingham, Bradford,
Leeds, Manchester, or Newcastle. The latter city,
indeed, is perhaps the worst of all in this respect in
comparison to its population.
Hitherto the mere
Permissive Acts to remedy this state of things have
been almost useless. Yet the homes of the poor are
not cheap; they are dear. Cubic space for cubic
space, the dens of the East and West End cost
more than the mansions of the rich, who have good
air, good light, plentiful supply of water, and all that’s
needed for healthy existence. Those who provide
them with all these benefits are left to take care of
themselves. No compulsion: that would be too
serious. What ? force the municipalities to tear down
foul, unhealthy dwellings, at the expense of the rich,
and build up proper accommodation for the poor ?
“ Never,” say the ratepayers ; “that would touch us :
it is communism, confiscation, the overturn of society.”
We are now in a brief cycle of rising prosperity for
the moneyed and manufacturing class. Now is their
opportunity to endeavour to remedy in their turn
some of the mischiefs below and around them. They
justly denounce the selfishness of landlords ; let them,
too, look at home. But the working class should rely
�LABOUR.
63
on their own power and peaceful strength—they must
trust to themselves alone.
To them, then, I say
All wealth is produced
by labour, and goods exchange in proportion to
the quantity of human labour which is embodied in
them. Between the workers of all civilized coun
tries there is no real difference: they create the
wealth and produce the food, and, under proper
conditions, all would live in moderation all would
have enough.
But landowners, capitalists, mer
chants, money-lenders, have possessed themselves
of the land, of the machinery, of the currency, of the
credit.
They therefore compel the workers to
labour long and live hardly for their benefit; they
take of the time, and the life, and the labour of their
fellows for nothing. Those who own the soil, and
those who manufacture—those who live on interest, and
those who trade on differences of value, live alike in
luxury and in idleness out of the sweat and the misery
of others. They, therefore, are the enemies of the great
mass of the people, to be overcome by voluntary
combination and peaceful endeavour. You, then,
who produce the wealth in every country, consider
where you stand ; you, men who have seen your homes
broken up, your health destroyed, have beheld your
wives and children fade away under the tyranny
of capitalism, stop and think. Let all who are made
poor and miserable for the advantage of others, take
heed to themselves. And having thus considered,
thus thought, and thus looked at home, stretch out
your hands, now powerless, to the workers of the
world as your friends, and begin a new and better
�64
ENGLAND FOR ALL.
social epoch for humanity. Working men and
working women of Great Britain and Ireland, who now
toil and suffer that others may be lazy and rich—
Unite I Working men and working women of Europe
and America, who now rejoice in the gleam of a
transient prosperity, only to be cast into deeper
despair on the next stagnation—Unite ! Unite ! In
union alone is safety and happiness for the future, as
in difference and selfishness have been danger and
misery in the past. Therefore, once more, working
men and working women, ye who live hardly to day,
to pass on sadness and poverty to your children to
morrow, Unite! Unite! Unite!
�CAPITAL.
CHAPTER HI.
CAPITAL.
Capital is the produce ofpast labour devoted to present
production. “ The wealth which has been accumu
lated with the object of assisting production, is termed
capital; and therefore the capital of the country is
the wealth which is not immediately consumed unproductively, and which may consequently be devoted
to assist the further production?’ Capital is in fact
the saving of past labour, for the special purpose of
increasing the future store. Undoubtedly capital
originally may have been acquired by saving or by
inheritance, though that is only pushing the accumu
lation a step further back; and the grain pits of Northern
India, the yam barrows and tabu cocoa-nut groves
of Polynesia, the stores of the Mexican aborigines,
represent early and useful forms of capital. “ No
thing,” says Mr. Fawcett, “ more distinctly marks the
superiority of man over the brute creation than the
prudent foresight wrhich causes an adequate provision
to be made for the future. The more civilized men
are, the more is this foresight shown. Civilized men
anticipate with keen perception the wants of the
future. To provide against the contingencies of the
�66
ENGLAND FOR ALL.
future, engrosses perhaps the too anxious care of the
nation.”
In these sentences Mr. Fawcett expresses far too
favourable a view of the foresight of the present gene
ration of civilized men. Never perhaps since civiliza
tion was first seen on the planet, have so many human
beings been passing through life at the same time
on insufficient food, as at the present moment. Nothing,
indeed, is more striking than, the want of foresight
displayed under our present capitalist system of
production. Whichever quarter of the globe we look
to, we see the future entirely disregarded. We in
England, for example, a vast industrial community,
are content to base our supplies more and more upon
countries thousands of miles from our shores. America,
which affords us our chief quantity of food, is using up
wheat centre after wheat centre in a fashion similar
to that not long since in vogue in South Australia ;
forests, which can perhaps never be replaced, are
swept away, in every direction, to the permanent injury
of the climate. In England, manure to the value
of at least 25,000,000/. a year, is sent down into the
sea, though our soil is deteriorating for want of it.
Foresight, therefore, in any extended sense, cannot cer
tainly be claimed for our existing civilization, unless the
Romans showed foresight when they worked out the
Campagna to ruin, and destroyed the future of Sicily
by their exactions. What capital has done for India
I shall show later on ; what it would do, if left unre
strained, for our own people has been seen, in part, in
the last chapter. But granting that the capital which
begins work is the result of past frugality on the part
�CAPITAL.
of some hard-working man with a keen eye to the
good of his species, as well as to his own immediate
interest, what is the next capital, and the next, and
the next, which rolls up so rapidly in this island of
ours ? Let us go back to the great cotton industry
once more, and look about us there.
A man has a capital of say io,oooZ., inherited from his
thrifty parent, who bequeathed if to him after a long
life of usefulness, with many prayers that he would
make it fructify. He does. Four-fifths he devotes
to buying machinery, raw cotton, &c., and one-fifth he
expends in wages. Every year he produces 240,000
pounds of cotton yarn of the value of I2,oooZ. His
io,oooZ. has been reproduced, and his surplus value
is in the 40,000 pounds of yarn, which are sold for
the sum of 20O0Z. This 2000Z. of surplus value forms
a new capital, which, when set to work in like manner,
will produce in its turn a surplus value of 400Z.—and
so on, and so on, as may seem convenient to the
capitalist. The original IO,OOOZ. came from the pious
parent, but the history of the new capital of the
2000Z., of the 400Z. &c., stares us in the face. It is
simply surplus value, other people’s unpaid extra
labour, capitalized. The means of production in
which this additional extra labour is embodied, as
well as the means which support it, are only portions
of the tribute levied every year from the working
class by the capitalist class. It is, of course, per
fectly in accordance with the economical laws which
govern the production of commodities, and with the
ever sacred rights of property which follow thereupon.
Nevertheless there are the following results
F 2
�68
ENGLAND FOR ALL.
1. That the product belongs to the capitalist, and
not to the producer.
2. That the value of this product includes both the
value of the capital and the surplus value, which costs
the workmen labour, but the capitalist whose lawful
property it becomes, nothing.
3. That the labourer has kept up his force of labour
• and can sell it again on the market, if he is lucky
enough to find a buyer.
Thus capital rolls up by crystallizing unpaid labour
in the hands of the capitalist.
That the general position of the modern labourer
in dealing with his master the capitalist is bad
enough, has been shown only too clearly. Whenever
the Government slackens its intervention for a
moment, even with existing Factory Acts in full
force, the employers, as a class, strive their utmost to
extend the hours of labour, and thus to get more
unpaid work out of their hands. Not the slightest
regard is paid to the health or well-being of the men,
women, and children whose lives are used up thus
lelentlessly ; the truck system, which filches wages, is
resorted to wherever possible; and adulteration has
become the rule rather than the exception in trade.
To increase the rate of surplus value produced per
head employed is of course a great gain ; the average
amount of profit on the variable capital used is at once
increased likewise. Who can wonder then that having
the control of the powers of the country, and the recog
nized political economists as their submissive fuglemen,
the capitalist class should so long have ridden rough
shod over the working class in the name of freedom ?
�CAPITAL.
69
In considering, however, the origin of the capitalist
system, it becomes clear that without a minimum
amount of variable capital wherewith to pay wages,
that mode of production cannot begin. A man
who works for himself alone, need work only the
eight hours which we may assume to be required, on
the average, to provide him with the necessaries of
subsistence. He would need then only the means of
production for his eight hours’ work; whilst the
capitalist, who makes him work an extra four hours,
needs an additional sum of money to provide the
means of production for those four hours. Moreover,
the capitalist, even if he lived no better than the
workmen he employed, would have to keep two of
them at work for twelve hours a day, in order that he
himself might have the necessaries of life in idleness.
Even so there would be no surplus wealth. So that,
according to this calculation, the lazy capitalist, in
order to be able to live without work even twice as
well as his workmen, and turn into capital half the
surplus value produced, must advance eight times the
amount of capital required for a single independent
■workman, though only four hands will be employed
in producing surplus value. This done, capital at
once becomes master of the situation. The workman
no longer turns the means of production to account,
but they turn him to account, and work up his force
of labour into surplus value to an extent which has
never been brought about under any system of forced
labour known to history.
The history of the development of capitalist pro
duction, from simple cooperation and manufacture up
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to the present preponderance of the great machine
industries, shows an enormous growth of wealth for
the capitalist class, combined with steady pressure
upon the labourer to produce more surplus value by
low wages and overwork. At first the true capitalist
method scarcely makes head; but when once labourers
are collected together in one building, to do separate
tasks at the bidding of an employer, they cease to be
separate individuals, and become an organism, bound
to exercise their collective capacity in accordance
with the rules of capital. Here comes in that minute
division of manual labour, so advantageous to pro
duction, which has been described with so much
enthusiasm by many economists. The object of the
collection of the labourers together was, of course, to
cheapen the production of merchandise. The extra
ability which the workman derives from devoting his
attention to one operation instead of to several, the
time saved by the juxta-position of the labourers, &c.,
all tell in favour of the capitalist, whose interest is
henceforth exclusively consulted. For the labourer
has already become a mere tool. He no longer pro
duces commodities himself, as he did before, but
embodies his work in bits of commodities, or in help
ing to make a complete commodity, only valuable
when put together. To carry on perpetually one petty
operation in a complicated whole, working day in and
day out to produce surplus value for the capitalist by a
series of purely mechanical operations, such is the la
bourer’s portion in this system of manufacture. He still
seems to be an independent agent working with his own
tools, but this is precisely what in reality he is not.
�CAPITAL.
71
Glass-making, watch-making, pin-making, and other
trades, are still to a great extent conducted on this
transition method, and afford illustrations of what was
not long since general. Whilst then the social division
of labour, with or without the exchange of commodi
ties, belongs to the economical forms of most various
societies, the manufacturing division of labour is the
special creation of the capitalist system of production.
The workshop is in fact a machine, of which the parts
are human beings. Dissociate the individuals from
the machine as a whole, and they become almost as
useless as a crank, a pin, or an eccentric, detached
from a steam-engine. The labourer, to start with,
sells his force of labour to capital because he is desti
tute of the means of production himself; now his
labour has become absolutely useless unless it is sold.
He can work henceforth to advantage only in the
workshop of the capitalist. It is also the tendency of
manufacture thus conducted to employ more and more
hands as capital accumulates and the minimum of
capital needed to commence, increases.
This sort of co-operation was a historical necessity,
in order to convert isolated labour into social work.
It begins about the middle of the sixteenth century,
and lasts to the latter half of the eighteenth century,
as the chief method of production in capitalist coun
tries. During the whole of this period, and far on into
the nineteenth century, the most atrocious laws were
enacted by the small minority of the population who
owned the Houses of Parliament against the increase
of wages, or any combination on the part of the
working classes to secure for themselves justice and
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consideration. Capitalists might combine at their
pleasure; employers might break their contract at
will; but, woe betide those unlucky workmen who
thought that freedom meant the right to strike to get
better wages, or to step out of a contract which im
perilled their health. For them the prison, flogging,
branding, forced labour at the filthiest tasks. But
for the capitalist ?—he went on his way rejoicing, with
more and yet more of other men’s labour at his mercy,
and in due course of time he “ founded a family/’
figured as an Abolitionist, and died in the odour of
sanctity.
Steam machinery gave a new turn to the screw
which pressed down the working class, and began
those periods of inflation and stagnation, of over-pro
duction and depression, which many have come to
regard as inevitable accompaniments of all produc
tion. The machine sprang naturally out of manu
facture, but the use of steam as a motive power gave
it a development in many directions which could
never have been obtained in any other way. At first
sight it would appear that machines must of necessity
improve the lot of the bulk of mankind—that as they
so vastly enhance the productive power of human
labour, men would be relieved from excessive drudgery,
and yet wealth would abound more than at any pre
vious period.
This was the view of the ancients. Aristotle fore
saw that slavery could be done away if machines were
invented ; and others have dreamed of a state of society
where, by their help, the history of the people should
cease to be one of perpetual poverty and degradation.
�CAPITAL,
73
As machines save labour alike in agriculture and in
working up the raw material, there is nothing neces
sarily chimerical in such ideas. But capital has
stepped in and taken order with these vain imaginings.
The riches due to machinery have gone to the
few: the many have become mere slaves to the
machine. For that is the result : human beings no
longer make use of their implements ; they themselves
are made to serve the machine.
The machine of course, though it increases the pro
ductive power of the human labour employed, adds
no more value to the commodity produced than the
wear and tear during the process of work. But
the first effect of its introdi tion is to bring into com
petition with adult male 1 our that of women and
children, who could, and do, serve machines as well as
the superior force of the men, and serve also to reduce
their wages—the main object of the capitalist. But
another advantage is afforded by the machine to the
employer. We have seen that the profit of the
capitalist depends upon the amount of unpaid labour
he can exact from the free workman. In ordinary
circumstances this can only be increased by the
lengthening of the hours of labour. But by the aid of
machines the labour can be intensified as well as pro
longed. Thus a man may produce the necessary
amount of labour-value in a shorter period, and leave
a larger portion of the working day as surplus value
to his employer, by an improvement in machinery
which renders the labour rapid and severe. Ever
since the law stepped in to shorten the hours of labour
for women and children, and men combined to shorten
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their own hours, the endeavour to intensify labour by
increasing the rapidity of machines has been unceas
ing. This has produced in the cotton and silk factories
a state of nervous excitement among the workers
which has greatly augmented the proportion of chest
complaints. Twelve hours’ work are now compressed
into ten hours. This work, too, is of the most monoto
nous, uninteresting character. In return for that ex
hausting labour the working classes as a body suffer as
the Bishop of Manchester has described.
But the effect of the introduction of new machines
of greatly improved capacity, used not for the benefit
of the whole community, but primarily for that of the
dominant class, has a far more serious influence upon
the working class than even the competition of women
and children which it admits of, or the intensity of
labour which results therefrom. A new labour-saving
machine means so much labour thrown upon the
market without the means of earning subsistence. This
effect of improved machinery is admitted by Ricardo,
who, after having previously held the contrary opinion,
satisfied himself “ that the substitution of machinery
for human labour is often very injurious to the class
of labourers.” This view is taken less clearly by
Macculloch, and Mill, and Fawcett; but they con
tend that the compensations are rapid, and in the end
beneficial. The labouring classes, according to them,
are therefore benefited, not injured, by the introduction
of improved machinery in every case. The labourers
whom the machine displaces are nevertheless thrown
upon the market, where they certainly increase the
amount of labour available for the capitalist. This is
�CAPITAL.
75
-in itself a terrible matter for them all. But the amount
of capital invested in the machine ceases also to be
available for wages ; and if the machine works up an
increased amount of raw material with far fewer hands,
the constant capital is clearly greatly augmented at
the expense of the variable, or that which is imme
diately available for the payment of wages. The
men thus thrown out of work are good for very little
in other employments, and consequently fall to a lower
grade. If they get fresh work in the same trade, that is
owing to the introduction of some new capital, not cer
tainly to that which is already locked up in the machine,
and employed in obtaining food for it in the shape of
raw materials. The machine itself has nothing to do
with the sad effect produced. The result of its em
ployment is that the product is cheaper and more
abundant than ever before ; yet the workman is thrown
aside into penury, and the capitalist pursues his
triumphant career. For this temporary inconvenience
is now of perpetual recurrence ; and the fate of the
miserable hand-loom weavers of India, starved in the
interests of Manchester manufacturers, is reproduced
in a milder form among the English labourers whose
interests these very cotton-lords were pretending to
serve. The necessary influence of the machine under
present conditions is to place the labourers at an
increasing disadvantage—a disadvantage which they
can never overcome, save by political and social com
binations and rearrangements, carried out with stead
fastness and zeal for at least a generation.
For this brings the question home to that miserable
see-saw of inflation and depression to that sad con
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ENGLAND FOR ALL.
dition of the mass of the labouring poor in the evergrowing population of our great cities, to which
reference has so often been made. “ Oh yes,” say the
followers of Malthus, by no means confined to Mr.
Bradlaugh and Mrs. Besant, " but this over-population
is ‘at the root of the whole mischief. If only the
working class would keep itself under restraint, and
not breed at such a terrible pace, they would at once
raise their wages by the .eternal law of supply and
demand. They have to thank their own early mar
riages and excessive birth-rate for much of their
present misery.”
Is this so ? The evidence is really all the other
way. There is nothing whatever to show that these
islands are overpeopled [in proportion to the wealth
that is being accumulated. Very much the contrary.
The population of Great Britain and Ireland has
doubled in the last seventy years. It is now increas
ing at the rate of about one-and-a-half per cent, in
every ten years. But the riches, the income, the accu
mulations of the country, are they increasing at a less
rate so that abstention from marriage and Malthusian
devices are so essential ? Why, it is notorious to all
that our wealth .has increased out of all calculable
proportion to our population during the present cen
tury. The whole world is laid under contribution, to
furnish additional wealth for the exported savings of
unpaid labour made by the comfortable classes here
at home. English capital brings back its return from
all quarters of the globe ; whilst in these islands, the
comparison between what was and what is, can
scarcely be expressed in sober language. Nay, even
�CAPITAL.
77
during this late period of prolonged depression, when
the hard, rough men of the iron districts, as well as
the distressed cotton-spinners and miners, were
declaring that they would not go into the workhouse,
and yet could not “ clem ” for another winter—even
in those hardest of hard times, it was calculated by
an expert that in addition to ordinary investments,
which were going on all the time, no less than
250,000,000/. were watching the opportunity to belaid
out to a profit when, to use the cant phrase, business
once more recovered. Whilst population is now
increasing at the rate of one-and-a-half per cent, in
every ten years, capital, and wealth squandered in
luxury, are rolling up at the rate of ten, twenty, thirty
per cent, per annum.
A few figures will make this quite clear. Taking
the years 1848 and 1878, the period of one generation
since last there was an agitation in favour of justice
to the multitude, we find that the total gross annual
value of property and profits assessed to Income
Tax in Great Britain and Ireland—about half the
actual gross annual value, or less—was in round
figures 275,000,000/. in 1848, against 578,000,000/., in
1878, or an increase on assessmentfor income alone of up
wards of 110 per cent, in the thirty years. A truly enor
mous increase. Yet the total population in 1848 was
28,000,000, as against nearly 34,000,000 in 1878.
Here, then in the United Kingdom, an increase of
the annual assessed income of no per cent, or of
303,000,000/., since 1848, was accompanied by an
increase in the population of only 6,000,000, or at the
rate of less than twenty per cent, in the thirty years.
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ENGLAND FOR ALL.
What fatal nonsense then is it to talk of over
population in such a case as this. If the increased
capital had been used for the benefit of all, then
these extra 6,000,000, as well as the 28,000,000, would
have been living in comfort, health, and well-being
—well-housed, well-clothed, well-fed, well-educated.
The over-population which the Malthusians think to
check by their wrong and mistaken methods, is due
to the special system of production under which we
groan, and will continue so long as, and no longer
than, it is brought under restraint for the advantage
of all. It is the deprivation of the means of selling
their labour on fair terms that does the mischief to
the mass of the population. Let the people remem
ber, that if no one were overworked in this free land
of ours, there would not at this moment be hands
enough in the country to carry on its business—that
if only one-half of the livers in luxury and idleness
on the excessive labour of others turned to some
higher ideal of patriotism, there would be plenty for
all. It is not the population that crowds on the
means of subsistence, but the concentration of the
produce of their toil in so few hands, that is obnoxious ;
though the way out to a better and fairer distribution
is not so simple as some of the easy handlers of the
complicated machinery of our modern society would
imagine.
This over-population then, which occasions such
sad scenes in times of depression, and is ever close at
hand in the flushest days of trade, is not actual but
relative, and is directly due to the employment of
machines and the growing proportion of constant to
�CAPITAL.
79
variable capital. Natural causes—great famines in the
East, serious wars in Europe, short harvests at home,
may aggravate the depression, as sloth and unthrifti
ness add to the misfortunes of the working class. But
such decennial crises as those now observable date
from the present century, and owe their development
to the circumstances stated.
The reproduction of capital necessarily carries with
it the simultaneous reproduction of the source of sur
plus value—force of labour. Accumulation of capital
involves at the same time increase of the mere wage
earning class. The payment of wages presupposes
that a certain amount of labour is given for nothing.
Wages, therefore, can only rise because there is an
increase of capital in excess of the labour offered. The
rise of wages and consequent diminution of unpaid
labour do not mean that the domain of capitalism
is restricted : small profits only necessitate bigger
capitals, and the workman sees in the wealth of his
master his only hope of safety. The ordinary expla
nation is either that the rise in the rate of wages
retards the accumulation of capital in comparison
to the labour on offer, and then wages fall to the
level which suits the views of capital; or on the
other hand, wages are low, and then the amount of
capital seeking employment in comparison to the
labour on offer is excessive, causing wages to rise.
Thus the see-saw goes on. Now an excess of
capital arising from accelerated accumulation, which
renders the labour on offer insufficient and raises its
price; again a slackened accumulation makes the
labour on offer relatively excessive and reduces its
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price. AU this has nothing to do with the increase
or decrease of population, but may occur, and does
occur, when the population is stationary.
The real law however of capitalist production is this :
—The relation between the accumulation of capital and
the rate of wages is only a relation between unpaid
labour converted into capital and the overplus of
paid labour that this additional capital needs in order
to set to work. This then is not a relation between
two matters quite independent of one another—that
is to say,"on the one side the magnitude of the capital,
on the other the number of the working population ;
but a relation only betzveen the paid and the unpaid
labour of the same working population. If the quantity
of unpaid labour which the working class supplies
and the capitalist class accumulates increases with
sufficient rapidity for its conversion into additional
capital to necessitate an extraordinary addition to
the quantity of paid labour, wages rise.
Other
things remaining the same, unpaid labour diminishes
in proportion. So soon, however, as this diminu
tion reaches the point when the extra labour which
furnishes the additional capital is no longer forth
coming in the usual quantity, a reaction ensues.
A less part of the return is converted into capital,
and the rise of wages is checked. Thus—and this is
the point of most serious import to the working
classes of this country—the price of labour can never
rise except between limits which leave quite untouched
the groundwork of the capitalist system and ensure the
reproduction of capital on a progressive scale. Never
then until the working class shake thertfcelves clear
�CAPITAL.
81
of the notion that a mere rise of wages is all they
have to strive for, will they be able to control the
capitalist class. The labourer is really the slave of his
own production in existing economical conditions.
For, as has been stated more than once, the demand
for labour is occasioned, not by the actual amount of
capital but by that of its variable portion, which alone
employs labour. But the magnitude of this portion
relatively to the whole is constantly decreasing. At
times, however, the conversion of variable into con
stant capital is less felt, machines are introduced
less frequently. Then there arises that greater demand
for labour which under ordinary conditions follows
upon the accumulation of capital. Yet at the very
moment when the number of the workmen employed
by the capital reaches its maximum, there is such a
glut of produce that at the slightest check in disposing
of the goods the whole social machinery seems to
come to a dead stop, the discharge of workmen comes
suddenly on a vast scale and in
violent manner,
and the very upset forces capitalists to excessive
efforts to economize labour. Improved machinery is
introduced again, and the wheel works round.
Thus the tendency of our system of production and
the increasing accumulation of capital, is to increase
at the same time the amount of the over-population
relatively to the means of employment. An indus
trial army of reserve is maintained of increasing
dimensions, ever at the disposal of capital, ready
to be absorbed during times of expansion, only to
be thrown back in periods of collapse. Only under
the control of the great industrial movement of our
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ENGLAND FOR ALL.
time, does the production of a superfluous population
become a definite means for the development of
wealth. During periods of stagnation -this industrial
army of reserve presses on the army in active employ
ment to reStrain its demands, when at length comes
the period of [over-production and great apparent
prosperity. Thus, then, the law according to which
an ever-increasing mass of riches can be produced
with a less and still lessening expenditure of human
force—this law which enables man as a social being
to produce more and more with less labour, is turned
by our capitalist system—where the means of pro
duction are not at the service of the labourer, but the
labourer at the mercy of his means of production—
directly to his disadvantage. As a direct consequence,
the more power and resources placed at the command
of labour, and the greater the competition of labourers
for means of employment, the more precarious be
comes the condition of the wage-earner, and his op
portunities of selling his labour. The productive
population is always increasing in a more rapid ratio
than the capital has need of it,
All recent events do but serve to exhibit the general
truth of this in more striking shape. Look at the
movement of population ; take note of the operation
of strikes ; observe the world-wide effect of crises at
the present time : how the numbers of those who live
from hand to mouth, or minister as domestic servants
to the luxuries of the comfortable classes, grow in
proportion to the rest of the population ; how the
strikes invariably fail on a falling market, and often
leave the workmen in a worse condition than they
�CAPITAL.
S3
were before they began; how, when a crisis begins
in Vienna it is felt at once through the world, to the
United States, and we see, even in that great territory
3,000,000 of tramps, without house or home, wander
ing through the country, exposed to the most furious
laws enacted by the well-to-do, and waiting till capi
tal shall be good enough to employ them again, and
again turn them adrift; how we ourselves discovered
that the capitalized unpaid labour taken from our peo
ple to lend to rotten States, like San Domingo, Hon
duras, Paraguay, and Peru, had merely brought about
here at home a fictitious industrial prosperity, to be
followed by the longest, and for the mass of the
working people the most trying, crisis known in re
cent times ; how—but it is needless to go further ; the
facts, the bare hard facts, condemn unceasingly our
unregulated system of capitalist production, which,
based solely on selfishness and gratifying greed, takes
no account of the morrow, nor any note whatever of
the mischief inflicted on the human race. Where the
State has interfered to control and change the bale
ful conditions of life for the mass of our countrymen,
there, and there alone, has some little good been done.
What then, say the let-alone school, would you
stop the operation of machinery, throw back the evo
lution of the race, and return to the natural savage
for a reorganization of modern society ? They who
ask such questions are as silly as those who think
all attempts to change our social organization must
be necessarily traced to the French Revolution, and
that those who, like myself, are determined to modify
existing political and social conditions, must wish and
G 2
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ENGLAND FOR ALL.
strive for a general overturn. It is not so. But the
working of capital is essentially immoral. It moves on
irrespective of all human considerations, save the
accumulation of wealth and the provision for ease
and luxury. For fifty years England has been under
the domination of the classes who live and trade upon
unpaid labour. Surely it is high time that those
people who provide it should be heard in their turn
as to the system which weighs them down. To
expect that the nation will at once abandon its idea
of fancied individual freedom in favour of a real col
lective freedom which shall consult and care for the
interests of all, is a chimera. But seeing, as we
cannot but see, the plain economical basis of so much
of the misery all deplore, is it not reasonable that
more rapid steps should be made in the direction of
general improvement ? So far all the sacrifices have
been made by the working class. What they in
their turn may rightfully demand at once as reason
able and practicable remedies for some portion of their
ills, are i1—
1. A curtailment of the hours of labour, eight hours
being the working day.
2. Free and compulsory education in its widest sense.
3. A compulsory construction by the municipalities
and county assemblies of fitting dwellings for the
working classes, including a good and free supply of
light, air, and water, and garden-ground where possible.
1 I need scarcely say that personally I should welcome far
more stringent reforms, but the very people who suffer most
under present economical conditions are not prepared to change
them completely.
�CAPITAL.
85
4. Really cheap transport, so that artisans may
live at a distance from their work without incurring
heavy expenditure.
Such social reforms would produce an effect more
speedily than might be supposed ; and the expenditure
would be far more than repaid to the community at
large by the increased physical strength, the superior
intelligence and morality, and the greatly enhanced
patriotism, in its best sense, of the mass of the com
munity. That these changes would check the fearful
crises consequent upon the capitalist system of pro
duction is nowise probable; but they would lead the
way gradually to a better system, when all might enter
more fully upon their duties to the whole country.
Men who are now deprived of the fruits of their
labour, who live under bad social conditions, who are
forced to resort to scamped work and adulterated
manufacture in order that their employers may make
a profit, would feel very differently if for their honest
labour embodied in sound goods they could obtain a
rightful return themselves. The magic of property
would then be felt in the general as well as the
individual improvement. That industry will always
have the better of laziness, that thrift must be more
beneficial than extravagance, are truths which no
political or social changes can shake. But as we
stand, our laws and customs are directly calculated to
foster excessive wealth on the one side and miserable
poverty on the other. What wonder that the people
should begin to ask themselves the why and the
wherefore of all this disparity between the men who
work and those who use them ? None are more
�86
ENGLAND FOR ALL.
ready to pay for mental toil than those who work
with their hands, none more ready to give up a por
tion of their labour for the benefit of their fellows.
Nov/, however, the perpetual conflict of wages, the
strife with capital, where the possibility of final
success is pushed farther and farther into the distance,
necessarily blunts that feeling of national greatness in
the best sense which does so much to sweep away,
even as it is, the meanness engendered by mere nar
rowness and greed. Those who are never certain of
continuous employment, and have little time left for
education, might well be pardoned if they thought
only of their own selfish interests. That in the mass
they do not do so, is the best hope for the future.
But in coming changes it behoves us to be careful,
lest, in getting rid of the excessive influence of one
dominant class, we do but strengthen the power of a
meaner and a worse one in its place. If possession
of land—as all reformers agree—should be regulated
in the interests of the country in time to come, so also
must capital, machinery, and the national highways.
Conservatism has come to mean the dominance of
landowners : Liberalism has been degraded to the
service of capitalists. There is little perhaps to choose ;
but for the people it is to the full as important in the
future that capital should be controlled as the land.
Mere destruction for its own sake is not in accordance
with the views of Englishmen. To pull down a system,
however bad, they must see that something is ready to
take its place. The infinite mischiefs of capitalism must
be removed as a better method of production grows up
from below. We have sad experience that our so-
�CAPITAL.
87
called individual liberty means too often only the
development of monopoly and the tyranny of wealth.
But that faculty of organization, that ingenuity in
turning science and invention to account, may as well
be used in the service of the many as to the selfish
gratification of personal desires. There is room enough
for the use of the highest powers, without the perpetual
money-getting now in the ascendant. No man can
live out of the current of his age ; but it is time that a
higher ideal were placed before the nation, and that the
common sense of the community at large should save
the next generation from the power of oppression
now accorded to a system which developes in those
who handle it neither foresight, patriotism, nor honesty.
The very tendency of capital itself renders this essen
tial. Each year sees it rolling up into larger and
larger masses. The great joint-stock enterprises, where
enormous capital is obtained from many contributors,
gradually crush out smaller houses ; large emporiums
undersell small; large factories dwarf smaller. With
this increase too, the personal relation between em
ployers and employed ceases, and powerful corpora
tions begin to assert themselves as a political influence
solely for selfish ends, and with the cold persistence
and disregard for human interests which such asso
ciations invariably display. England, the greatest
capitalist country, may well show the world how to
take order with this dangerous growth which threatens
to overshadow human progress, and regulate without
injustice those purely selfish motives which hitherto
have been looked to as the sole hope of advance in
civilization.
�88
ENGLAND FOR ALL.
CHAPTER IV.
ORGANIZATION.
Now does any one imagine that with our present
restricted suffrage we are likely to carry in town or
country the social changes absolutely essential for the
well-being of the majority, or to reorganize our
political machinery in a workable shape within a
reasonable time ? Those who think thus must be of
a very sanguine disposition. When in history did
classes who hold property and power give up any
portion of their valuable and lucrative monopolies until
they saw clearly that surrender would be less harmful
than defeat ? The natural inclination of so-called
Conservatism is to make a dead stand against all
reform ; only now and then does a man arise in any
country who can persuade the people in possession
that, if they wish to avoid an overturn, they must have
a distinct constructive policy of their own.
Yet it is true that mere extension of the suffrage by
itself does not suffice to bring about much beneficial
change. In France manhood suffrage imposed upon
the people the rule of Napoleon III., with his gang of
gamblers and political thimble-riggers for twenty years.
The master may have meant well enough in his way,
but his men and their mistresses looked upon France
�ORGANIZATION.
89
as their fair prey. In Germany, as we see, universal
suffrage has not prevented Prince Bismarck from
maintaining the dominance of military Junkerdom
over a well-educated and, in the main, peaceful people.
In America the injurious influence of great capitalists
is severely felt, though there the people have the
power to put an end to their tyranny at once by com
bination at the polls. Even here in England we may
observe the same slow action on the part of voters
to bring forward social grievances. Wonders, for
instance, were looked for from the Reform Bill of
1832. It would be quite amusing, if it were not a
little sad, to read in the writers of the first quarter of
this century what changes for the better would be made
so soon as rotten boroughs were swept away, and the
power of aristocrats shaken. Yet, all this enthusiasm
notwithstanding, fourteen years elapsed before even
the Corn Laws were repealed—and that was a capi
talist not a working-class measure, inasmuch as cheap
food kept wages lower ; and the Factory Acts were
not passed, in a shape to be of any service, for sixteen
years. Then, too, the man who did more than any
other to force them on the legislature, in the face of
the interested opposition of the capitalists, was a non
political aristocrat, the present Lord Shaftesbury.
So with the Reform Bill of 1867, which in the eyes
of such a man as Mr. Lowe involved nothing short
of revolution. What great measures for the advantage
of the community at large have yet resulted from that ?
Ireland, no doubt, has secured some attention; and
the School Boards have commenced the work of educa
tion ; but on the whole it is surprising how little has
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been achieved in fourteen years. Still, it is impossible
to doubt that pressure from without would assume a
very different shape if every man in the British Islands
not a felon were entitled to"a vote. It is fair to assume
that no further change is pressed on now with vigour,
because the mass of the present voters have got all
they want.
For though it is the fashion to say that the Reform
Bill of 1867 gave power to the democracy, there is little
evidence of that as yet. To this day the working
class is outvoted by the shopkeeping class ; and the
preposterous absurdity of three-cornered constitu
encies has been foisted on us by political theorists,
to make matters worse. The extension of the borough
franchise to the counties will, no doubt, make a
difference to theagricultural labourer, and facilitate the
dealing with the land ; but that only puts the increas
ing working class in the towns at a greater relative
disadvantage. Manhood or adult suffrage is really
the only logical outcome of any arguments in favour
of the extension of the suffrage at all. Those who
make the wealth of the country have the right, if any
body has, to vote as to how it should be governed.
Drawbacks to such an extension there are, of course;
and elsewhere, as has been already remarked, mere
universal suffrage has not secured the social advance
ment which might have been hoped for. But unless
those who suffer most under present arrangements
have at least the means of putting forward repre
sentatives definitely pledged beforehand to redress
their grievances, the very motive power for reform is
lacking alike in Parliament and in local assemblies.
�ORGANIZA TION.
9i
We are now in a vicious circle. Shut men out from
voting, and a minority unjustly controls the country:
give the vote to all, and there is the risk of whole
sale corruption, as well as that ignorance should
become the ultimate court of appeal.
What probability is there, however, that, under any
circumstances,Tree compulsory education to remedy
this ignorance—or the enactment that bribery shall be
felony, to put a stop to corruption—will be carried in
our existing Parliament with the present suffrage ?
The idea is by no means confined to the Conserva
tives that universal education must involve a very
inconvenient growth of independence, which will ren
der men and women disinclined to supply menial
positions in the old-fashioned way. Possibly, too, the
workers of the community would begin to inquire into
the reasons of the present excessive disparity of wealth,
which would be more inconvenient still. School
Boards are already too expensive for some. The con
tention that really complete free education is the duty
of the State for the protection of the common interest,
is looked upon as little short of socialism by the
w’ell-to-do, who of course wish their children to start
lightly handicapped with a good education in the race
of life. The old hierarchical notions indeed still go
on, and people who have to fill the lower stations ought
in the opinion of many of the well-to-do to be mere
animals, without too much knowledge to make them
anxious for higher things. In this matter England
is still far behind countries which in respect of
political intelligence and political training are greatly
our inferiors. We who have hitherto led the way
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in so many European improvements, need not surely
look any longer across the sea to find that Frenchmen
and Germans have more share in the government of
their country than ourselves. More than ever important
is it then, as the first step towards the organization of
democracy, that all who add to the wealth of the coun
try shall have a voice in ordering how taxation should
be levied and spent. Manhood or adult suffrage could
alone supply the power to carry out genuine reform.
But other mere mechanical changes are needed at
the same time. That a Parliament should last six
years without a dissolution, has been found to be a
matter of serious inconvenience to the State at large.
Men who know that they are irremovable for so long
a period trust to national forgetfulness to cover up
their blunders. Many instances could be given of
this calculation, and its effects upon the course of
public business. Triennial Parliaments, or, better still,
a retirement of one-third of the members each year,
would keep the House of Commons thoroughly in har
mony with the constituencies, and quicken the general
interest in political affairs. Equal electoral districts
necessarily follow upon manhood or adult suffrage.
Any other arrangement would inevitably bring about
in a new form that injustice which we wish to get rid
of. The right of all to a vote once conceded, no man
can claim a greater share in representation than
another.
In the same way payment of all election expenses,
whether parliamentary or municipal, out of the public
funds, is essential. Wealth has already far too much
influence, without making political life almost im
�ORGANIZATION. •
93
possible to the poor man, and especially to the work
ing class. Why should a man be called upon to pay
a large fine in order to fill a public office for which his
countrymen think him qualified ? The working class
can never hope to be fairly represented till this has
been carried at the least. In the same way, pay
ment of members is but justice. Unpaid work as a
whole is bad work, done as a rule for social aggran
dizement, personal advancement, or the like. A re
presentative ought to feel that he is the servant of
the State, quite open to form his own judgment, but
still as much a part of the general executive as any
Minister. Moreover, this mere money business must
act as a drawback, or almost as exclusive, to poor
men. Few can afford to throw their whole time into the
House of Commons work on Committees, &c., with
out remuneration. Those who do, have generally
contrived as a body—landlords, capitalists, railway
directors, &c.—to reimburse themselves handsomely at
the expense of the country at large.
These four points therefore are imperatively needed
as the means towards a better organization :—
Manhood or Adult Suffrage.
Triennial or Annual Parliaments.
Equal Electoral Districts.
Payment of Members and especially of all Election
Expenses, out of public funds.
They are but means to an end; yet it is humi
liating to remember that they were demanded in
1848 by a powerful organization, and now here we
are in 1881 still without them. Englishmen have
lost pluck under middle-class rule. The influence
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of the perpetual money-getting seems to have exer
cised a weakening effect’ on every portion of the
body politic. Nowadays, any sturdy demand for
plain rights is styled revolutionary ; and a sort of cant
patter-song of moderation is chanted by both parties,
who on all these matters are practically at one. It
does one good at such times to breathe the free bluff
air of downright agitation, when men call a spade a
spade, and a trimmer a useless flabby creature, to be
thrown into the political gutter as soon as may be.
For the definite issue we are now debating has been
led up to for at least three generations. The shock
of the Revolution in France enabled the upper and
middle classes here to set back reforms till our day
which were recognized as essential in a far different
state of things by such a man as Lord Chatham. Now
we see on every side nations beginning to govern
themselves wholly for the sake of the people. That
government of the people by the people of which
noble Abraham Lincoln spoke on the battle-field of
Gettysburg as the cause for which men fell there, is
the cause which we have yet to fight out peacefully
here.
For at this present moment, whilst we are discussing
the expediency of this or that step, a process of cen
tralization and decentralization is going forward,
which, unless we take means to understand and take
advantage of it, will land us all in administrative
anarchy. Universal suffrage, giving vent to direct
personal interest, but harmonized and consolidated
into a general effort for the public good, must be the
basis of that new social and political period on which we
�ORGANIZA TION.
95
are now entering. By itself it can do nothing ; but it
is surely possible, at our stage of political development,
to combine the full satisfaction of the wishes of the
people, and the improvement of their social position,
with the ideal of a great country leading European
development by virtue of true sagacity and healthy
vigour. It is such an ideal of public advantage that
can alone stimulate men to sacrifice their individual
crotchets to attain a great end.
To stand still is out of the question. Parliament,
as every one can see, no longer holds the position in
public esteem, or is able to carry on its work, as it did.
How far the House of Lords and the House of Com
mons may require remodelling is a point on which
men differ. That great changes are needed, alb are
agreed. The House of Lords stands only by reason
of its past. Many hesitate to attack it, as the City
hesitated to remove Temple Bar. It is antiquated
and cumbrous, and unquestionably blocks the way 5
but there are still historical associations which induce
men to shrink from a definite agitation for its over
throw. Besides, it is at the present time the best
debating club of its kind in Europe. There, on great
occasions, the traditions of oratory, which are begin
ning to fade from the House of Commons, may still
be found as a living force. But it is sad to see so
much ability fired into the air. Their lordships only
exchange their ordinary attitude of wrell-bred indif
ference and drowsiness for a more active interest when
some reactionary motion has to be affirmed to no
purpose.
Young men who grow up in that dull
atmosphere early acquire an apparent consciousness
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of their own uselessness. Why should they longer
suffer, poor fellows, from this hereditary boredom ? It
would be charitable to relieve them from so false a
position as that which they now hold. A closer con
tact with the moving forces of English political life
might perhaps develope in some of them a worthy
ambition to lead, instead of languidly attempting to
dam back, the current of their time. This at any
rate is certain, that the time is rapidly passing away
when a caucus of territorial magnates can play at
being superior creatures to their fellow-countrymen,
and amuse themselves by retarding legislation which
the mass of Englishmen have decided upon.
To sweep away any institution altogether is, how
ever, scarcely our English way. So long as it can be
advantageously modified we cling to the old form.
That the hereditary principle must be done away with
as an anachronism and an absurdity would be ad
mitted by thousands, who would still wish to have a
second chamber—not to interfere with or hamper the
direct representatives of democracy, but to maintain a
continuity in general policy which such a body as a
reformed House of Commons could scarcely command.
Here, of course, is the great difficulty of our party
system of Government, and it can never be lessened
save by the formation of some great consultative
assembly, in which representatives of all portions of
our great commonwealth and dependencies find a seat*
It may be that the American Senate, devised by men
who had thoroughly studied the dangers of waves of
popular excitement, is too powerful a body for us to
wish to constitute a similar check upon the Lower
�ORGANIZATION.
97
House ; for the Senate in the United States, owing to
its method of election, the personal reputation of its
members, and the authority accorded, is the powerful
House ; whilst with us, if parliamentary government is
maintained in its present shape, the House of Commons
can scarcely fail to be supreme. The danger of dead
locks here, however, would not be nearly so great as
in our colonies, where the power of the purse is divided.
What we need in place of the House of Lords is a
Great Council for the public discussion and revision of
treaties, the maintenance of a constant survey of our
foreign relations—which will be greatly facilitated
when the present system of secret diplomacy is put an
end to—and a regulation of the policy towards our
great colonies and dependencies, in conjunction with
direct representatives from them. These duties are
now not performed at all; during the last twenty
years we have had but too many occasions to lament
that lack of continuity in our policy which at times
makes us the laughing-stock of the world. Such a great
consultative and deliberative council might worthily
take the place which the House of Lords held when it
was really a power in the State. Now it is merely a
nuisance ; and the sooner a change is made which shall
bring the second chamber once more into a useful
sphere of existence, the better for the stability of the
Constitution in its best sense. Such a modification,
indeed, though radical to start with, would be highly
conservative in the best sense in the long-run. The
abler men would probably welcome a change which
whilst, as we see in France, it makes no great difference
in their social distinction—for certain classes cling to
H
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ancient lineage as something to worship—freed their
hands and enabled them to enter into the real poli
tical strife of the day without restraint.
The future of the House of Commons is a very
different matter. At the present time, partly by its
own fault, and partly by the force of circumstances,
that noble historical assembly has also lost influence
with the people, because it has grasped at more power
than it can conveniently handle, and is far too slow
to suggest any reform of itself. Did any body of men,
by the way, ever reform themselves ? That is really
the difficulty we are at present in. There is no power
outside the House of Commons to reform the House of
Commons ; to hear some members talk, one might
suppose it was still the collective wisdom of the nation.
Such scenes, however, as those which occurred with
regard to the Irish members, the voting on the Brad
laugh oath, and the hopeless block of legislation—
occasioned not so much by obstruction, though there
has been a great deal of that without the justification
which the Irish members could claim on the
Coercion Bill, as by the endless flood of conversational
small talk which men of no special knowledge or
ability seem to think they owe to their constituencies—•
have gradually convinced the country that a complete
change in the functions of Parliament can alone right
the existing state of things.
Neither manhood suffrage nor the reform of methods
of election will put an end to obstruction, check
silly garrulity, or remove the excessive business with
which the House of Commons is cumbered. And here
we come to a point at which much difference of opinion
�ORGANIZA TION.
99
must necessarily arise. That greater powers should be
given to local assemblies to deal with many matters
which now come before the House of Commons, may
be admitted without dispute ; but howfar the authority
of these local assemblies should extend is a matter of
difference. Irishmen demand home rule, or even
separation ; Scotchmen and Welshmen have as yet no
such anxiety to obtain parliaments to themselves. But
with manhood suffrage in full force, it is clear that the
rights of the people will be far more completely pro
tected than they are at present, and that power could
be more safely handed over to local authorities.
National and Federal parliaments, desirable as they
are, can scarcely be organized till there is a more
active demand for them. The Irish do make the
demand, and the possibility of fairly meeting it
without actual disruption of the Empire is a pressing
question at this moment.
In England, Scotland, and Wales, however, the
county, the municipality, the township, are old wellunderstood divisions, and to them, under one or other
of the numerous schemes which have been before
the public, might be handed over jurisdiction in
respect of many matters on which the House of
Commons has at present to be consulted. Local
representative assemblies, properly elected to transact
the rapidly growing business of the whole population,
would take an amount of petty work off Parliament,
with which it ought never to have been saddled. All
this, of course, will shortly be attempted ; and with
the power of the democracy brought to bear for the
collective adyantage, the old local bodies will be
H 2
�TOO
ENGLAND FOR ALL.
invigorated with fresh life. County assemblies and
municipal boards will then perhaps cease to be, as
they so often are now, mere inefficient and corrupt
vestries. It is unreasonable that the House of
Commons should undertake to settle what these
local bodies could equally well arrange for themselves.
A wide scheme of decentralization, carried out with a
view to interesting the whole population in their local
business, would but serve to strengthen the House of
Commons for dealing with affairs now pushed aside by
less important matters to the injury of the whole com
munity, and raise again the character of its debates.
It is remarkable, indeed, that as wealth, power, and
political influence have been concentrated in the
hands of the upper and middle classes local vigour has
to a certain extent died down. In the future the
municipalities, as we can already see, will have far wider
duties to undertake than those which they perform at
present. Lighting, water, artisans’ dwellings—these,
instead of being left to individual companies will be
undertaken by the local bodies, as also the providing
of public parks and recreation-grounds. When full
power is vested in such corporations and county
boards to take what land is needed at a valuation for
the purpose either of building or of granting per
manent leases for agricultural purposes, a far greater
amount of interest will attach to the improvement of
the management, and men of a superior character will
be anxious to take part in the business. All such
decentralization, in the sense that these bodies are
given great powers without applying to Parliament, will
also act in the direction of peaceful development, and
�ORGANIZA T10N.
IOI
give the working classes that impetus towards social
improvement by their own energy which is so mani
festly necessary.
At the same time, though municipal and local
business may form a good training for local adminis
tration, it by no means follows that a good vestryman
or aiderman makes a good member of Parliament
when obligations beyond the range of a three months’
bill are under discussion. It is remarkable indeed
that in such matters working men, who literally do
not know whether their present week’s wage will be
continued the next, have a far wider idea of their
duties, and take a much higher view of the position
which a great country like ours ought to assume
in its dealings with its dependencies and foreign
powers, than mere mercantile men. The latter are
far too apt to consider everything from the pounds,
shillings, and pence point of view. Will such a
policy increase immediately the national turn over ?
then it is excellent. Will it involve doubtful expen
diture for a great moral principle, or serious political
agitation for a great future national benefit? such a
proposal must of necessity be unsound. This sort of
reasoning is well enough up to a certain point, and the
kind of intelligence which developes it—Lord Derby
probably has that sort of capacity to the highest
degree of any man living—is most careful to secure
economy in local affairs; but where business of
national or imperial importance is involved, such
counsellors are feeble and dangerous.
Now as in the management of general municipal
improvements and county affairs of all kinds, local
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energy, and even, in the wide sense, personal objects
ought to be allowed free play, so in these more general
concerns, where the necessity for a greater centraliza
tion is manifestly increasing, a reformed House of
Commons should exercise far more direct control,
delegating its authority, as at the present time, to a
great officer of State and his department.
All can see quite plainly that in certain matters
management by the State is essential to efficiency. It
is perhaps a question whether the post and telegraphs
ought to be worked at a profit; but no one doubts
nowadays that the business is on the whole better and
more cheaply done than if it were in private hands.
Blunders are made, no doubt; but mistakes are
easily complained of and remedied. Obviously the
railways must sooner or later follow the same course.
This is one of the reasons why local business should
be removed from Parliament. It destroys the sense
of perspective for members to have constantly to
adjudicate on petty private bills, when matters of
really great national concern ought to be continually
before them. Nothing more shortsighted was ever
done by an English Parliament—middle-class busi
ness men, too, let us remember—than the turning
over of the great new highways of the country to
monopolists for ever. This is what has been—nay,
what is being, done to the permanent and growing
disadvantage of the whole community. No idea
seems to have entered the minds of our worthy rulers
that this handing over in perpetuity was as mischievous
a piece of folly as ever was perpetrated.
We Englishmen often jeer at Frenchmen for their
�ORGANIZATION.
fondness for paternal rule ; and we certainly should
not submit for a week to many of the restrictions on
individual liberty which Republican France bears
without a murmur. Their tariff also we regard as
injurious, and many of their arrangements as mistaken.
Yet they were shrewd enough to see that to saddle
coming generations with payments to private investors
was a grave injury to the nation and a sacrifice of
public property. As a result, within fifty or sixty
years France will be relieved entirely of her national
debt by the falling in of the railways, or transport at
cost will be secured to the community. Now that is
business; that is foresight for a people. Such an
advantage we cannot secure, save by some great
change in the right of inheritance or by purchase.
The present system cannot be allowed to go on for
ever. That the labour of succeeding generations should
be eternally handicapped by payments to the labour
of the dead, is too preposterous. If turnpikes have
been found to be an intolerable nuisance, and fees for
bridges have been done away, it is scarcely probable
that we shall much longer put up with a system of
railway management so entirely opposed to the
interests of the mass of the people, as well as of the
trading class, as that which now we suffer from. We
are a long-suffering people, but we shall never stand
that.
This question of monopolies is rapidly coming to
the front. The old notion that competition would
always come in to serve the community, has proved
wholly fallacious. Combination has in many instances
perhaps in most, defeated the calculations of the legis
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lature ; and the power of the great companies to fight
off those whom they consider intruders, has been
exercised without any scruple whatever. All the
recent evidence tends in the same direction. The
railway companies treat their customers as if the
public had been specially created by some beneficent
providence for these monopolists to prey upon and
get interest for shareholders. This view is natural
enough ; and we see in America that the system is
carried yet further. Monopolies granted by the State
are made the means of fleecing the community.
Thus once more we have the illusory freedom of con
tract. The House of Commons, as representative of the
people, allows a monopoly to be created, and then this
monopoly is used to the public detriment. Unfortu
nately, the remedy is not so easy as might appear.
The total price of the railways at present quo
tations would exceed i ,000,000,oooZ., and he would
be a bold financier who should propose to increase the
national debt by that sum at the present time. But pri
vate interests cannot be allowed to stand permanently
in the way of the community at large. The right
of interference has never been disputed. If the House
of Commons had not been full of representatives of
the Railway interest, steps would long since have been
taken by the Government to secure for Englishmen at
large far greater advantage in return for the monopoly
granted. It is plain, for example, that the State
could construct a railroad from London say to Liver
pool or Manchester, at a very much less cost than
the capitalized value of either of the existing lines.
If the stockholders have not taken this fact into account,
�ORGANIZATION.
io5
that is their own look-out. No Parliament nor any
succession of Parliaments, could guarantee a mono
poly against another company that showed good cause
for the construction of a line ; still less could it be
assured against the State. Consequently when it
becomes necessary, as it shortly must, to acquire the
railways, no such absurd estimate of value need be
made as in the case of the London water com
panies. Our tendency has been as the nation to show
ourselves too considerate of so-called vested interests,
simply because the classes which hold those vested
interests have had the entire control in every way—
to assume, indeed, when the State has to deal with
them that some exceptional price must be paid. This
is quite incorrect. When the decision is come to that
for the national interest the railways should be ac
quired, it would be perfectly fair to purchase at a
valuation, without any reference whatever to a future
monopoly-value, which does not and could not exist
against the country at large. A special issue of ter
minable annuities might be made to cover the whole
matter. But without entering on details, it is clear
that the recent arbitrary action of Railway Companies,
especially towards the working classes, will, ere long,
bring this whole question to a climax.1
That State management would pay, there is very
little doubt. Improved organization would produce
1 The infamous overwork of their servants by the Railway
Companies as recently exposed, is alone enough to call for im
mediate State interference. The brutal greed of corporations
was never exhibited in a more shameless form at the expense of
both the men and the public.
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ENGLAND FOR ALL.
a profit by the reduction of working expenses. But
far more important than any idea of profit, is the
prospect, under proper direction,”of cheapening trans
port, and securing for the working-classes really cheap
travel in the neighbourhood of large cities. It is
scarcely too much to say that sixpenny weekly
tickets, available for any distance within ten miles,
coupled with a well-regulated system of artisans’
dwellings, erected by the muncipality and let at
rents to cover cost of construction, would completely
change the whole life of our great cities, reducing rents
for unwholesome tenements, and gradually leading to
a better condition in every respect. It is also by no
means certain that the suggestion made by a Civil En
gineer that a one shilling fare should apply to the whole
United Kingdom, would not, in some modified form,
prove as great a success as the penny post. In any
case it is manifest that the Railways are the national
highways, that in regard to the transfer of both goods
and passengers they work for the shareholders and
not for the community, and that consequently the busiof the country is carried on at a growing disadvantage.
Besides, the land and the railways are inseparably
bound up together, and those who talk about
“nationalising” the one without touching the other,
overlook a most important feature in thewholebusiness.
The chief objection to the acquirement of the railways
even on terms which might seem highly advantageous
from a financial point of view, would doubtless be
the danger of increasing the power of the Government
by the formation of so vast a bureaucracy. But this
ought to involve no political danger, with full pub-
�ORGANIZA TION.
107
licity and a distinct removal of the railways from the
sphere of State patronage. Certainly the fear of what
might happen in this way ought not to keep back the
country from laying hands upon a set of corporations
whose directors work their influence with the most
perfect selfishness, using their railroads to help their
politics, and their politics to help their railroads.
That sort of see-saw is quite as objectionable as any
bureaucratic taint. With the advance of democracy,
and the reference of all questions to the people, it has
become more and more clear that the Civil Service,
as a profession, should be kept clear of politics
and party. Where this is not done all sorts of mis
chief creep in ; where it is, and full publicity is main
tained—an essential point too—there the organization
is a great gain to all. The right of representation
of grievances by State officials must of course be fully
secured.
Railways, then, like the control of mines, factories,
and workshops, must be placed under the State—the
former for management, the latter for supervision.
These are matters which affect the entire national
welfare, and can only be adequately dealt with by
national ordinance. Manifestly rivers, canals, and
drainage, fall under the same head. The neglect of
these as a matter of national importance is really
most astonishing. At present our rivers—dhe water
shed and drinking source of the whole country—are
treated as municipalities, or even as individuals, think
fit. This too, though the urban population, as the
late census clearly shows, is increasing in density
almost to the danger-point. Decentralization in this
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ENGLAND FOR ALL.
matter is really ruinous to the public interest. Drain
age works are carried out, sewage and refuse of the
most unpleasant nature are disposed of, without much
reference to the effect which the action of one town
or one owner may produce in other directions. No
doubt there are bye-laws and statutes, but they have
never been properly put in force. The injury already
done by this separatist system is enormous. For the
future, therefore, all arrangements affecting rivers or
canals should be under the management of a public
department, specially constituted to take in the bear
ings of the whole subject, whilst leaving to the county
assemblies, local boards, municipalities, and even
township vestries, the fullest powers of carrying out
their own projects within the limits that concern only
themselves.
As the powers of these local bodies to acquire land
and other property can scarcely fail to be largely in
creased in the near future and their rights to make
improvements extended, it is the more essential that
to start with the due position of the central authority
should be clearly defined, secured, and strengthened.
Of the existing departments, or the proposal to create
a Minister of Agriculture and Commerce, it is need
less to speak here; that is a mere matter of conveni
ence in separating functions now combined. But in
all such matters the tendency towards the simul
taneous operation of causes which tend to centraliza
tion, as well as those which invite the strengthening of
local forces, ought not to be neglected. To create
social or political machinery is beyond the power of
assemblies or autocrats ; to take care that the natural
growth of a nation should be fostered instead of
�ORGANIZATION.
109
hindered is the true function of a statesman. Surely
it is reasonable to foresee that the existing fierce
competition will in many directions besides that of
railroads develope into combination, and thus gradually
be turned to the advantage of all.
There is no need to fear the crushing of individuality
in all this. Rather will there gradually rise up a higher
individuality, when each can look to his own develop
ment as contributing to the advancement of all.
But the success of any movement depends upon the
mass of the people, and the readiness of those who
ought already to have voting power to press forward
earnestly the interests of themselves and their chil
dren. Nothing can be done unless the people are
prepared to organize their forces. Here, however, are
what seem the natural reforms demanded for the
organization of the great democracy on which the
future of England depends :—Manhood or adult suffrage, with the other electoral
reforms already specified.
The reform of the House of Lords into a Great
Council, in which our colonies and dependencies
should be fully represented.
The restriction of the House of Commons as a
whole to dealing with national questions ; the arrange
ment of great committees, &c., being adjusted to the
changed conditions.
A great increase of power to be given to county
boards and municipal councils, to purchase land for
public use, &c.,so that even without federal parliaments
all matters affecting separate districts could be dealt
with locally, subject to the general law.
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ENGLAND FOR ALL.
The entire system of national railways to be pur
chased ■ at a valuation, by annuities secured on the
railways, and managed by a State department in the
interest of the mass of the community.
A department to be formed dealing more directly
with the main watercourses, canals, and forestry than
any now in existence.
An extension of the Factory and Mines Acts, and
inspection of shipping, so as to constitute the State
more completely the protector of men and women
who under freedom of contract are, bound unfairly
to risk their lives and their health to get a bare
subsistence.
To these may be added the social reforms previously
advocated:—
Free compulsory education for all.
Eight hours to be the working day.
Compulsory erection of artisans’ dwellings by muni
cipalities and county assemblies in place of unhealthy
houses or dwellings removed for improvements.
Cheap trains, at the rate of sixpence for a weekly
ticket, on all lines within ten or fifteen miles of a
great city.
By these means centralization and decentralization
would have free play to work themselves out ; a great
pressure would be removed from our historical assem
blies—both of which would be strengthened by a
reduction of numbers and a more direct representa
tion of the mass of the people and the interests of the
whole empire.
Those who suppose that democracy tends to dis
organization and anarchy quite misread the signs of
�ORGANIZATION.
hi
the times. Wherever educated democracy has the
freest play, precisely there will be found the most
complete organization, both in public and in private
affairs. The danger arises, if at all, from the opposite
quarter. But Englishmen have clearly begun to see
that in this direction only can their further develop
ment go on. The aristocracy had their day; in
1832 their power was shaken, to be gradually sapped
up to the present time. They have chosen to throw in
their lot with the bourgeoisie, and to trade on the
necessities of the labourer with them. For fifty years
we have experienced middle-class rule: that is
tottering to its fall, with no record but selfishness in
home affairs. Now comes the turn of England at large
as represented by the men who are really the England
of to-day. It is for them to see that their future is
worthy of the greatness of their country, ensuring the
physical and moral welfare of all by organization and
self-sacrifice.
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ENGLAND FOR ALL.
CHAPTER V.
IRELAND.
It is perhaps the most telling commentary upon our
government of Ireland, that in dealing with the affairs
of that island English statesmen are still obliged to
proceed in every respect upon the separate system.
Ireland has been an integral portion of the United
Kingdom for eighty years, and yet we have at this
time more than 30,000 troops and 12,000 constabulary
occupied in keeping down a serious rebellion. This, at
any rate, is the contention of the people immediately
responsible for that law and order to secure which
a Liberal Ministry has been content to override the
first guarantee of all liberty, and to proclaim the
capital of the country in a state of siege. There is,
perhaps, no need for the mass of Englishmen to take
special blame to themselves for the harm which has
been done. They are scarcely responsible for a
policy over which [as a mass they have exercised
no real control. Yet it is impossible to compare
what has happened with Ireland to that which has
taken place in regard to Alsace and Lorraine, or
Savoy and Nice, without being compelled to acknow
ledge that in all that relates to a subject people they
manage these matters better in France. Reforms in
�IRELAND.
ii3
Ireland—political, religious, economical, social—have
in every case been delayed, until they have ceased
to be boons to the people ; pressure from without has
been waited for in every instance, until it took an
explosive shape; and men who to start with were
ready to welcome moderate measures, have been
driven to combine on an almost revolutionary pro
gramme, from sheer hopelessness of obtaining justice
in any other way.
There is no need to go back to the history of cen
turies of misgovernment to account for what we see
to-day. Doubtless the wrongs of the past have done
much to embitter the relations between two coun
tries which ought to be at one; but enough has
occurred within the lifetime of the present genera
tion to account for that sad state of affairs which
politicians of all parties deplore and all ought to
strive to remedy. In Ireland, as in England and
Scotland, the people have been deprived of the pos
session of their own land in favour of a small minority.
Such manufactures as existed having been destroyed
long since by English legislation, and Ireland not
producing iron and coal to a profitable extent, the
men have been unable to seek in the cities the work
which their brothers in destitution across the chan
nel were enabled to obtain. Hence arose that earth
hunger which enabled landowners to exact rackrents, and left the people to multiply on poor food,
nearer and ever nearer to the limit of starvation.
Foreign conquest and absenteeism have aggravated
the mischief politically and economically. Difference
of race and religion rendered grave social ills more
I
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ENGLAND FOR ALL.
difficult to deal with. But the great catastrophe
of 1847 ought to have opened our eyes to some por
tion of the truth—ought to have shown the people of
England that here we nad an exceptional problem to
deal with, and that such dominance as had been esta
blished was discreditable to the rulers and ruinous to
the ruled.
That fearful famine formed the starting-point of
the modern history of Ireland. It had been predicted
by men of very different views and capacities. It
came, as such cataclysms sometimes do come, in its
worst possible shape, and was followed up by revolu
tionary legislation which all can now see was most,
unfortunate. Instead of accepting the wise recom
mendations of the Devon Commission-—made, be it
remembered, three years before the famine—or the
still wiser advice of Lord Beaconsfield, given about
the same time, but latei* so unfortunately withdrawn
—full rights were given to landlords, new and old,. to
uproot the population, tear down their miserable
dwellings, and hurry them across the Atlantic, famine
fever wearing out their bodies, and fury at such in
justice and tyranny rankling in their minds. Who
that has read through the details of that miserable
time, when men, women, and children were turned
out of their holdings,—as they are now being turned
out, though happily in far fewer numbers—to wander
in starvation and misery along the highways, can
wonder that a generation has grown up in Ireland and
in the United States which regards with inextinguish
able hatred England and all that belongs to her ?
The very Encumbered Estates Act, a most valu-
�IRELAND.
ii5
able measure in itself if carefully carried out,
forced the lands of ancient proprietors who under
stood the people, not into the control of the State,
which would have acted with some consideration, but
into the hands of foreign speculators, who bought at
a low price with the express purpose of raising the
rents upon the tenants. An absenteeism was thus
created worse than that which had existed before. In
the end, doubtless, good came out of evil for those
who were left; but twenty-four years elapsed before
any effort was made on the part of the Imperial
Parliament to secure to the mass of the people of
Ireland some portion of the benefits which even the
Devon Commission had urged.
All this while, over the greater part of Ireland a
purely agricultural community had no security of
tenure of any sort or kind, and the church of the
small minority was kept up at the expense of those
who were of a different creed. Irishmen, who in the
United States did an amount of hard work which
almost reconciled the not very sympathetic Americans
to their gregarious habits in the cities, and their
religious belief, so hostile to the Puritanism which
even sceptics in that great country still consider it
prudent to affect—Irishmen, who in our colonies,
notwithstanding many defects, have brought them
selves to the front by their industry, were accused in
their own country of idleness and indifference, because,
after centuries of misrule, they could see no object
in giving their masters their labour for nothing.
That was really the fact. All accounts agree that
wherever in Ireland a man has a permanent tenure of
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ENGLAND FOR ALL.
a fair piece of land, in the great majority of cases he
works as hard as an Indian ryot or French peasant
proprietor. It is absurd, of course, to deny the in
fluence of race and climate; none would contend
that a Saxon and an Irishman have the same quali
ties. But the remarkable feature in the whole matter
is, that the descendants of Saxons have been just as
much opposed, and more violent in showing their
opposition to the landlord-made legislation, as the
Irish themselves. Nor have they been one whit
more industrious than their Celtic neighbours. The
descendants of Cromwell’s soldiery, though more
turbulent under injustice, have not been any more
inclined to give the fruits of their labour to
their landlords than the Catholics around them.
But wherever tenant-right has been introduced-and
fairly held to, there, notwithstanding the fact that
economical disturbances — American competition,
slackened demand for store beasts in England and
Scotland, no requirement for casual Irish labour
in the summer—have affected the whole island,
there peace and quiet have in the main pre
vailed.
As a mere matter of national business it would have
been cheap to have given the tenants a permanent
hold upon the soil, even if the landlords had been
compensated beyond the value of what they parted
with. The cost of the maintenance of a large army
and a great constabulary in Ireland cannot well be
estimated in actual money. Many considerations are
involved. But in any case, have we the right to pre
vent 5,500,000 people from settling their own local
�IRELAND.
117
business in their own way ? Surely there is not
an Englishman of either party who does not feel
that our present attitude is somewhat hypocritical.
It may be that Irishmen if left to themselves would
not make the best possible settlement of their own
affairs ; but are English landlords qualified to judge
of the matter for them any better ? They have
hitherto constituted the ultimate court of appeal.
When we speak of the unfairness of Irish juries in
agrarian cases, let us at least remember the persistent
unfairness of the great English jury of legislators on
this question of life or death to the people of Ireland.
Even when the House of Commons has been willing
to give in, the House of Lords has stood by their own
class; and here, in the last quarter of the nineteenth
century, we have as honest and patriotic a man as
ever lived, hotheaded and furious though he be, taken
and put in gaol, though also a member of Parliament,
for having denounced, and urged his countrymen to
resist, a most tyrannous system of evictions. And let
us bear this in mind, that unfortunately the immense
majority of the Liberal party were highly delighted
at the arrest of Mr. Dillon, and cheered like madmen
at the arrest of Mr. Davitt.
The history of the last few months of panic and
misgovernment in Ireland is worth consideration by
all who hold that justice and freedom are worth some
thing in themselves, aside from the question whether
a party chooses to throw them over or not. What
has occurred since July of last year is alone enough
to prove conclusively that no country could be peace
able under such a rule as we have inflicted upon the
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ENGLAND FOR ALL.
people of Ireland. Steady despotism would be far
preferable to such miserable incapacity and vacillation
as have been exhibited.
For here is what has taken place. Last year, after
Ireland had suffered from a period of severe privation,
which fell upon the small tenant-farmers and the
labourers with redoubled severity owing to their
being unable to obtain work in England, the landlords
—or rather a few of the baser sort—began to evict their
tenantry. Hunger and sense of injustice combined
made men desperate. The Land Bill of 1870, though
by no means a satisfactory measure, had given a
tenant a certain claim to compensation for disturb
ance in all cases save non-payment of rent. If evicted
for not paying his rent, however, this right to com
pensation was gone, and he went out upon the high
roads a pauper, with the workhouse as his only
refuge. This eviction, therefore, was felt to be a
greater hardship than any previous eviction, because
it was not only harsh, but in the view of the tenant
unjust. Good landlords, of course, were considerate
in Ireland as elsewhere : people like Lord Lansdowne,
whose idea of landed property necessarily involved
serfdom and servility (as he was good enough to
inform the Americans, of all people in the world,
through the Chicago TriJmne), were naturally eager
not to lose the advantage of any misfortune among
their tenantry. That few should have acted in this
contemptible fashion gives no conception of the alarm
produced. Not a very large proportion of tenants
in the year are rack-rented ; but that proportion acts
as a damper upon thousands of others in improving
�IRELAND.
119
their farms, and prevents them from making the
best of their labour.
These evictions, then, having begun, and going on
in an increasing ratio, the Government boldly and
rightly introduced a Bill of the most carefully-guarded
character, to prevent downright oppression and
tyranny from being brought to bear. That Bill, after
some of the most bitter discussions in the House of
Commons and in the press ever known, wras passed
by a considerable majority, the Prime Minister
making himself prominent of course in its champion
ship, and saying, what recent events have proved only
too clearly to be the truth, that if it were not passed
we should be within a measureable distance of civil
war. This, be it remembered also, took place after
the Government had declined to renew the Peace
Preservation Act, on the express ground that it was
.contrary to the principles of liberty and Liberalism.
Very well. What followed was not only probable but
certain. The House of Lords, seeing the whole right
of eviction when contrary to common interest jeopar
dized by the measure, threw out the Bill. The
Government—that is the opinion of all parties in
Ireland—winked at the agitation which followed.
That agitation was, in view of what had passed,
justifiable and righteous, and was carried on, when
once the Land League had obiained a hold upon the
people, with surprisingly little bloodshed or bad action.
A vast agrarian strike was organized—not against all
rent, but against rent above a certain valuation.
There were also rattenings and boycottings, where
men took land from which tenants had been evicted.
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ENGLAND FOR ALL.
Many things, no doubt, were done, and are being done
now, most obnoxious to Englishmen : the injuries to
cattle in particular are dastardly in the extreme.
Gradually, as evictions went on, and help was received
from sympathizers in America, temper rose, and the
feeling—mingled with that race and religious hatred
which is the worst feature of all, because the least
capable of yielding to reason—became very bitter.
But what has it been after all ? A trifle beside the
agitations of 1848 and 1833, and to be met—that was
the just contention of the Government and the Liberal
party—not by repression, but by reform. “ Force is
no remedy,” said Mr. Bright, strong as he always has
been on this Irish question ; and there was not a
genuine liberal Englishman in the country who would
not have stood behind those words. And force has
been no remedy—has only aggravated the whole
mischief. But what comes now ? The Cabinet
having been summoned in hot haste in December,
decided that in these days we must deal with popular
grievances, even when exaggerated, by reason and
argument, and not by bullets and buckshot—and
separated without calling Parliament together. A
little while and Mr. Forster again comes over, with
woe-begone visage, and Parliament is summoned. A
Coercion Act and Arms Act become law, at what a
strain to our whole system of parliamentary govern
ment we perhaps yet scarcely know. Members of
the House of Commons, acting no doubt very provokingly, but still entirely within their rights, are
silenced and ejected; and Ireland is put under a
suspensive state of siege.
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121
Thus the very Government which had declared that
evictions of a certain kind were most unjust, and must
be restrained, put in the hands of the landlords as
complete a machinery of eviction as they had ever
possessed, and backed it up by pouring troops into the
country. And evictions soon multiplied. Men,
women, and children were turned out under circum
stances which reproduced here in England would
have brought about an insurrection.
What ? Let us for once use plain language about
these things. Has a Government, have any number
of landlords, sitting in Parliament to represent a
dominant caste, the right to turn a man, his wife, and
children, out into the bitter air of January, because,
poor devil, there had been a famine, and he could not
pay his rent ? I say No. Last year the vast majority
of the House of Commons said No ; and if the ques
tion were fairly put to them I believe the vast
majority of Englishmen to-day would say No. Ire
land, it is true, cannot hope to resist successfully such
shameful oppression, but why should English work
ing men sanction and support action which, if applied
to themselves, they would rise against ? The truth
is, and this will shortly become apparent to all, the
tenant-farmers and labourers of Ireland are fighting
the battle of the working-classes of England in
relation to the land, and get far less support than
they ought to get on grounds where they are both
agreed. This, at least, is certain, that unless the
Land League had been formed, and the Irish had
stood together in a great economical movement, no
such Land Bill as that of 1881 would have been
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ENGLAND FOR ALL.
brought before the English House of Commons at
■all. The Land League, whether it be called com
munistic, nationalistic, or what not, brought the first
genuine attempt yet made at reform within the range
of practical politics, and must be maintained to give
it effect.
The facts in relation to Irish land have been made
known to all by means of the propaganda which they
carried on. There are but 12,000 landowners in all
Ireland, and 1000 of them own two-thirds of the island.
One fourth of these landowners are permanent absen
tees, who take their rents to the amount of millions
sterling out of the country, and spend them elsewhere.
And yet six-sevenths of the population have to derive
their subsistence from the land, and naturally enough
compete against one another to such an extent as to
raise rents to a high figure. Say the theorists, Irishmen
are too fond of land, are too much given to agricul
ture. .This is quite absurd. In the. United/States
the Americans make precisely the opposite complaint.
They say that the Irish are too much addicted to
crowding into the cities; and ‘so they undoubtedly
are,. But iruJreland they stick to the land, for the
best of all possible reasons, that there is nothing else
for them to get a living out of; and as arable land is
being continually turned into pasture by the large
landowners and large farmers, there is less and less
employment for them as labourers, and less and less
land which they can take up to feed themselves and
their, families upon. Noone disputes the sad condi
tion of a vast proportion of the tenant farmers who
hold under fifteen acres, which amount to more than
�IRELAND.
123
half the whole 500,000. Those who drag out a
miserable existence in Mayo and Connemara, would
be no better off if they held their patches in fee.
Migration and emigration are the only possible
remedies for these people.
But here, as in England, the first step is to get the
land out of the hands of the large proprietors, and
enable the people of Ireland to work out their own
social difficulties. The great main drainage works
which some reformers clamour for, cannot possibly
be carried out for the benefit of the landowners, whose
properties would be improved; neither can reclama
tion go on without some regard to economical and
physical conditions. The tendency of bog to revert
to bog is as well-known in Scotland as in Ireland.
That Ireland is in itself a poor country has lately
been disputed, and with good reason. It is not a
poor country, but a poor people, that we have to deal
with. In Ireland, to take the same comparison as
was made in the case of England, the population has
decreased nearly 3,000,000 in thirty years, and the
assessment to income-tax has grown by 15,000,000/.
annually. Moreover, the deposits in the banks point
in the same direction. Ireland itself, therefore, has
become far richer in the last generation, but the dis
tribution of that wealth is so faulty that a year of bad
crops means little short of famine to a large population.
Happily, the Act of 1881 accepts principles which
have hitherto been scouted as communistic. The
distinct object which underlies the economical
clauses is to secure to a portion at least of the
population that right to the fruits of their labour,
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ENGLAND FOR ALL.
of which they have hitherto been deprived by land
lords under the name of freedom of contract. Why
is it that peasant proprietorship has, on the whole,
been beneficial where people have been settled on the
soil ? Surely because in this way alone could a man
and his family, in our existing system of society, be
secure of the fruits of his own labour. In every other
case, where the poor man wishes to obtain employment
he is deprived of a portion of his produce for the benefit
of others. Unquestionably the Liberal Government
has made a great step forward when it recognizes in
a definite measure that freedom of contract, where the
force is all on one side, may, and in many cases must
mean, injustice and tyranny.
But to suppose that any Land Act, however care
fully drawn—that any courts, however impartial—will
settle the Irish question, is to assume far more than
the facts warrant. Nothing was more noteworthy than
the disposition of the tenant-farmers all over the
country to sink their differences in view of the agita
tion for a mitigated form of the three F’s, which will
probably break down—or a peasant proprietorship,
which will involve the pressure of the gombeen man.
This latter point is worth a moment’s consideration.
India is, it is true, different in many ways from
Ireland ; but there the right of eviction by the money
lender has been found more dangerous and objec
tionable than eviction by any other method. Should
not restriction be placed on mortgage and bill of sale
here, too, if we desire to prevent similar expropria
tions from taking place, and giving rise to a dis
tinctly socialist agitation, whicly could not be dealt
�IRELAND.
125
with under present conditions ? But the Land Act
as it has passed constitutes such an enormous advance
upon what seemed possible even a few months ago,
that Irishmen would be foolish indeed not to make
as much of it as they can. To secure the tenants in
their holdings, to obtain assistance in settling a
peasant proprietory on the land, and help for emigra
tion and migration, are steps towards that pacification
which full patience alone can bring about. But for
the shameful and silly Coercion Act a hope might
have arisen, not of a settlement of all Irish difficulties
—such impatience to get rid of the natural troubles
of administration argues weakness and incapacity—
but of a better understanding between the English
and the Irish peoples.
That, little as it may seem to be so at this moment,
has really been the outcome of the agitation. For
the first time in recent Irish history, a vast number
of Englishmen of all classes have felt that wrong was
being done in their name when the common rights of
the United Kingdom were suspended in deference to
the clamour of an interested and panic-stricken
minority. Even the race hatred and the jealousy of
keen competitors in the labour-market have been to a
certain extent laid aside in view of the fact that
injustice was being done. Had the Irish managed
their own case better, and kept religious differences
altogether out of sight when a political end was in
view, this understanding between the democracy of
the two countries might have already progressed even
farther than it has. There need be no real differ
ence. There is room enough and to spare for the
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ENGLAND FOR ALL.
workers of both races under a better system than that
which has hitherto found favour. We are, let us
hope, approaching the time when we shall endeavour
to rule in all cases with the consent of the majority—
when the highest aim of every statesman will be to
reconcile all to a beneficial union, in which every
member is contented and free.
That many grievances still remain unredressed
even now that the Land Act has been passed,
is unfortunately but too certain. That absurd
playing at Viceroyalty in Dublin, with an English
Chief Secretary, and a worn-out bureaucracy at
the Castle, would aggravate a less touchy people
than the Irish. What do they want with a Viceroy
and underlings, any more than the Scotch ? Why
should Irishmen more than Scotchmen be shut out
from the management of their own affairs ? “ They
hate you, it is said, and long to drive you out.” Has
any reason for love been given ? At least let us
wait to see whether a definite alliance between the
English and Irish democracies be not possible, before
continuing to support such methods as have hitherto
been favoured. Local administration there must be.
The management of local business in Ireland as a
whole must henceforth be carried on by Irishmen, if
there is to be any success at all. That process of
decentralization which must go on in Scotland, Wales,
and England, is applicable to Ireland too. There,
more than here even, the railway, and drainage, and
road systems need to be under one great administra
tion. Let them in Heaven's name try their hand
with manhood suffrage, at the improvement of their
�IRELAND.
127
own country ; leave them the task of carrying out the
detail of the reforms they have rightly forced us to
adopt.
This at least we must all admit; that we cannot
continue parliamentary government if we are per
sistently to run counter to the opinions of the
majority of 5,000,000 of people represented in our
own House of Commons. It is because separation
would be injurious to both countries, as mutual under
standing would be beneficial, that Irishmen should at
length be granted fair play and self-government. Take
the absentees, for instance. They are not dealt with ;
and yet no man can hold that absenteeism is not a<
serious drawback to Irish prosperity. Such a question
concerns the whole country most seriously ; but their
compulsory expropriation or a heavy exceptional tax
ation—which commended itself even to Lord George.
Bentinck—has not been suggested by the Govern
ment. The labourers also have to be considered. It
is true that the fullest justice to .the. farmers does not
directly benefit them, though the well-being of one
class might slowly re-act upon the other. Here again
is encountered, in a less complicated shape, the same
problem that is met with in England—how to benefit
the real workers on the soil at the same time that
the most is made of the land. The 500,000 tenant
farmers of Ireland form, however, a very different pro
portion of the entire population, as well as of the agri
cultural population, from that which a similar class
does here with us. To improve their condition with
out injustice to others, if this can be done, is already
much gained.
................
...\ 1 .
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ENGLAND FOR ALL.
There is no reason however, why we should stop
there. Men who know that they are secure of posses
sion are always ready to reclaim land, and might well
be given the option of taking part in such reclamation,
or in being assisted to obtain farms in English colonies.
Let us not, however, lose sight of the principles in
volved in all such proposals. We recognize thereby
that the State is responsible for the removal of the
causes which can be proved to lead to the wretched
poverty of the mass of the people. We are entering
plainly upon the path of restriction of selfish compe
tition, because, under certain conditions it has failed
in agriculture as it has in other directions. Hitherto in
Ireland brute force—the brute force of the people of
England—has stood behind the dominant class, ready
to maintain their views of a political economy which
mighthave been invented in the interest of monopolists.
A peaceful revolution has to be brought about, and the
first step has been taken.- Those, however, who con
tend that the modification of the land laws of Ireland
must extend to England have right on their side.
It is impossible any longer to use two sets of argu
ments on the two sides of the Irish Channel. Now,
therefore, that fixity of tenure, purchase of property,
reclamation of land, assisted emigration, and main
drainage, have been accepted for Ireland, we are not
far__we could not be far—from the consideration of
similar proposals for England and Scotland.
But even supposing the land question in a fair way of
settlement, an Irish Parliament with local administra
tion set on foot, there remain the race and religious
hatreds to consider. These of course are difficulties
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IRELAND.
of a very different character from any which Acts of
Parliament can touch. How can Celts and Saxons,
Catholics and Protestants, live together in unity ? Yet
such things have been ; at this moment the leader of
the irreconcileable Irish party is neither an Irishman
nor a Catholic. Leave the Irish liberty to arrange their
own business, and they will find out some way
of getting on with one another, when the injustice
complained of for centuries has been remedied.
Ireland has been conquered by arms from generation
to generation ; it remains for us to conquer finally
by justice, magnanimity and consideration.
Many of the noblest names in English history and
literature are those of Irishmen ; the Irish party in the
House of Commons to-day contains men of ability
out of all proportion to its numbers ; the two most
distinguished of our younger generals are Irishmen
by birth. Would it not be well, then, for all to con
sider whether, everr. at the cost of some sacrifice of
consistency, and some forgetfulness of past domina
tion, the loyalty of such a people could be secured,
by a freedom which is yet reconcilable with common
action ? The national feeling now running so high in
Ireland could find as full an outlet in the British
Empire as that of Scotland, when once it is under
stood that supremacy is no longer claimed in the
interests of a small minority, but to give satisfaction
to the high ideals of empire and greatness which a
petty island like Ireland, overshadowed perpetually
by English power, could never attain. A complete
agreement between England and Ireland will be
possible only when the people of both countries can
K
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ENGLAND FOE ALL.
control their own policy, and secure at home and
abroad that the benefit of the many, not the gain
of the few, should be the end.
The refusal of the Government to release the
“ suspects ” imprisoned without evidence of guilt or
trial for assumed offences, and the maintenance of
the infamous Coercion Act and Arms Act, have
shown that Liberals cannot govern Ireland without
resort to despotic methods. When men like Mr.
Gladstone, Mr. Forster, Mr. Bright, and Mr. Cham
berlain compel Radicals to support such a disgraceful
rule of informers and sub-inspectors of police as that
now in force in Ireland, the end cannot be far off.
I for one have no feeling but contempt for those
sham Liberals and pseudo-Radicals who prate of
freedom and practise despotism. Legislative inde
pendence for Ireland is a necessity if we Englishmen
are to continue Parliamentary Government.
�INDIA.
CHAPTER VI.
INDIA.
If Ireland, a little island close to our own shores, its
people speaking our language, sharing our civilization
and religion, with all its problems lying, as it were, in
the hollow of our hand and open to inspection with
the naked eye—if, after centuries of absolute rule over
the inhabitants, we are beginning to confess that the
matter is well-nigh too hard for us, and look to enlist
ing Irishmen in the government of their own country
as our only hope of success in the future—if, I say, this
little business has plagued us so sore, what are we to
think of the task of ruling 200,000,000 of people, of
totally different race, language, civilization, and creeds,
thousands of miles away from England, by means of
900 young gentlemen who do not set foot in
the country till they are over twenty years of age,
and work without the slightest help from the natives
in the higher branches of administration ? Yet this is
what we, the English people, are now trying to do in
India; and with such unfortunate results to the inhabi
tants, that it is absolutely essential that the great mass
of the community, on whose shoulders now. rests the
weight of this vast empire, should take the matter into
their own hands. This, indeed, is now the only hope__
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ENGLAND FOR ALL.
that the English people will see the mischief that is
being done, and insist that neither vested interests nor
regard for individual reputations shall longer stand in
the way of absolutely essential reforms.
No man can read the history of our early conquests
in India without a strange admixture of feeling.
Deeds of the noblest heroism and determination are
found side by side with the records of such meanness,
cruelty, and greed, that at times we doubt whether it
is possible that qualities so different should have
belonged to the same race. A mere merchant com
pany, humbly suing for permission to trade, grew into
power and influence in spite of themselves, till they
became of necessity the heirs of the Great Mogul, and
the conquerors of the rising Mahratta confederation ;
their clerks and supercargoes, their shopmen and
peddlers, figured forth before the world as warriors,
statesmen, and administrators. Whilst the king and
the aristocracy were losing, by sheer ignorance and
incompetence, the noblest inheritance across the
Atlantic that ever fell to the lot of any nation, ordi
nary Englishmen were conquering an empire just in
the way of everyday business, which, had it been
properly managed, would in some degree have com
pensated for that monstrous blunder. A great and
ancient civilization had fallen under their control, and
it needed but a right comprehension of its tendencies
to lead the people on, with little of change, to a wider
and a higher development, which should have been to
the advantage of all. This was the idea of some of
the nobler spirits, who saw clearly that a growth of
thousands of years equid not suddenly be twisted in
�INDIA.
133
accordance with foreign notions without grave danger
of injury to rulers and ruled. To raise the tone of the
native Governments to the best native standard, slowly
introducing the leaven of Western ideas into the
administration without altering the form of society or
pursuing the fatal policy of complete annexation —this was the view of men who had, unfortunately,
too little weight as against more vehement coun
sellors.
The East India Company itself, however, protested
constantly against the violent methods of its own
servants; but the inexorable necessity of paying
interest had, very early in its history, a most
baneful influence upon the system pursued by us
in India. Annexation became the rule; and even
forty or fifty years ago the natives of India had begun
to discuss the effect of the drain of produce to England
consequent upon the multitudes of fortunes made by
Englishmen and withdrawn on their leaving. The
nabobs who returned after shaking the pagoda-tree,
represented so much wealth taken out of India, which
was never returned. Nevertheless, the rule of the
East India Company was on the whole economical.
It was soon found out that countries governed by
foreigners, in which the old native system had been
broken down, seemed somehow not to have the
elasticity and power of recovery for which India had
been celebrated for centuries. India, the administra
tors in Leadenhall Street discovered was a poor
country, not to be treated as if untold wealth could
be taken for the asking without harming the people.
To enter upon the beneficial changes made in native
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ENGLAND FOR ALL.
usages, the noble work of Sleeman in uprooting the
Thugs, of Outram in settling the Bheels, of Edwardes
on the Indus border, or, on a wider field, the reforms
adopted by Lord William Bentinck, would be to extend
this chapter far beyond the limits of this little work.
Natives of India know well that had Englishmen
confined their efforts to such objects as these nothing
but good would have come of their rule. To this
day the government of the old East India Company,
in those countries where good native customs were
respected and the people not worried, is looked back
to with regard and even affection. Men who went
out to India as mere boys got to know the people, and
loved them ; they made their homes in the country,
and returning but rarely to England, held a very
different position from that of their successors of
to-day.
Asia is the land of long memories, and those who
treat its people with justice, firmness, and consideration
pass on their legacy of good feeling to the next gene
ration. All who read the writings of Metcalfe, Shore,
Malcolm, Mountstuart Elphinstone, Henry Lawrence,
Meadows Taylor, or Sleeman, will find that below
the surface there is a constant undercurrent of regret
at the needless Europeanization which they see going
on. And the natives of India have ever been most
easily led by men who, whilst combatting their faults,
were not above appreciating their good qualities,
even when they have shown themselves rigorous and
exacting. Thus it happened that, notwithstanding
many great errors, and a gradual impoverishment,
which was then scarcely perceived, the agricultural
�INDIA.
135
population of British India—fully three-fourths of
that vast population—was loyal to the rule of the
great Company when Lord Dalhousie was appointed
Governor-General. It was the mission of this arbi
trary bigot to overthrow all the best traditions of
our rule in India, to shock every native idea of jus
tice or good faith, to commence that course of un
scrupulous annexation and wholesale Europeanization
from which our Empire is now suffering, and to lead
up by his policy to one of the most serious rebel
lions that ever shook the power of any Government.
The great Mutiny of 1857 was the direct outcome of
Lord Dalhousie’s headlong career of violence and
chicanery. How the rebellion was put down, and
what marvellous vigour and tenacity our countrymen
showed in resisting the attack of their own trained
soldiery, assisted in the more recently annexed terri
tory by the people themselves, are matters of history.
It was again a story of marvellous capacity chequered
by grave mistakes.
Peace was at length restored ; the rule of the East
India Company came to an end ; and with the as
sumption of the government by the Crown the
English people became directly responsible for the
beneficent management of their own great dependency.
Throughout the fierce conflict which was waged the
sympathy of the mass of the people was with us
rather than with the mutineers. If it had not been,
we could not possibly have overcome the rebellion.
Here, then, if ever in history, was an opportunity for
the governing race. It lay with Englishmen to ac•cept the better portion of the system which had been
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ENGLAND FOR ALL.
superseded, and to retain the goodwill of the people
by light taxation and consideration of their ancient
customs.
Unfortunately a different course was adopted. At
first all went well. Lord Canning, to his eternal
honour, kept his head in panic-stricken Calcutta, and
refused to allow millions to be treated with cruelty
and injustice because a few infamous ruffians had
been guilty of horrible, never-to-be-forgotten outrages.
The Queen’s Proclamation of 1858 was an admir
able document, rightly called the Great Charter of
India. Princes and people looked forward to a
period when all the advantages which had been
secured to them by the Company—peace, order,
freedom from exaction—should be combined with
a gradual preparation for self-government and a
careful reorganization of native rule under English
guidance. But it was not to be. The word went
forth from high quarters that India had been neg
lected, that what she stood in need of was English
capital, at five per cent, guaranteed interest paid
half-yearly—and English energy, at very high sala
ries paid quarterly. India, in fact, became the out
let for the savings of the upper and middle classes
■and an opening for their sons. Now began the
reign of capital in good earnest and with it a pres
sure of taxation, an increase of famines, a deteriora
tion of the soil, and an impoverishment of the mass
of the people unprecedented in the long history of
India.
But the administration comes first. In this, one
fatal principle has been followed out for the last three-
�INDIA.
137
and-twenty years. Wherever room could be found
for a European, he has been chosen in place of a
native. Even in the judicial department, where the
natives have greatly distinguished themselves, none
of the highly-paid posts are open to them—although
at a lower salary, and with less important positions,
they try cases involving quite as grave issues as those
tried by the Europeans. The extent to which this
employment of Europeans has been carried in every
department, surpasses belief. Young natives are
educated in the colleges for the highest class of ad
ministrative work, but no prizes are ever open to
them. They receive the compliments of the Chan
cellor of the University, who is perhaps also the
Governor of the Presidency, on their ability—and
then they find themselves ousted by a number of
Englishmen from posts in which they might fairly
hope to serve their country.
Now this has been very far worse under the Crown
than it ever was in the Company’s time. In the
Public Works Department alone, the European esta
blishment actually cost 2,300,000/., a year or two ago ;
this too, though the natives of India are specially apt
at engineering, and all the great irrigation works in the
country of any real value have been built by natives,
or constructed by Europeans on native principles.
Where these have been abandoned the grossest
blunders have been made, and millions of acres of land
ruined. Time after time requests have been put forward
by the people of India, through the only channel open to
them, that the total amount paid in salaries to Euro
peans in India should be published, but this has never
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ENGLAND FOR ALL.
been done. The effect of this excessive employment
of Englishmen is most serious in everyway. Millions
sterling every year which might go to the people of
the country are taken by foreigners, who, though
honest enough, and in some respects more capable
than natives, yet really devour the substance of the
people whose country they no doubt wish to benefit.
More than this, in addition to the salaries they re
ceive in the country, and spend on luxuries which a
native would rarely dream of, or the savings which
they bear away to England when they depart, every
European who leaves Government employment re
ceives a pension, which likewise is so much paid by
India to Englishmen out of the country. But there,
is a further objection still. By this enormous mass of
snperincumbent Europeans, who fill every office of
importance in a country inhabited by 200,000,000
people, those who might be in training for self-govern
ment, and who in time might be able to carry on our
best methods without their drawbacks, are turned
into a disaffected class. These men see their country,
as they think, ruined in the interest of foreigners who
have less and less sympathy with the people they
rule.
Europeanization is stunting all natural growth in
India, and this with less and less excuse every day ;
for civilians and others no longer live in India as they
used to do, rarely make real friends of the people,
and are perpetually moved about from post to post or
come home on furlough. But they equally prevent
any change of system ; and on their return to England
they form, with some few noble exceptions, a com
�INDIA.
139
pact body, opposed both by interest and tradition
to any real justice to India.
Now if this administration were on the whole succesful, it would not even then outweigh the enormous
economical drawbacks involved. As, however, it is
a failure in almost every branch, and we are now
obliged to go back in sheer desperation to some modi
fied form of the old native laws, surely no longer ought
we to hesitate to make a definite change. For take
even our civil courts ; these we were confident could not
fail to be successful. What has occurred ? They are
a complete curse to the people, bringing about endless
litigation, and involving gross injustice to the poor,
owing to their expense. Our land laws : these are
found to be utterly ruinous, not in one part of India
alone but in many, driving the cultivators first into
the hands of the money-lenders and then into gaol.
Our educational system : of that it is needless to
speak. So far, it is practically non-existent, save for
the well-to-do. Our public works—but these come
under another head more conveniently. Now all these
objections to our existing methods are made, not by
outsiders, but by tried and trained official Englishmen,
who having been appointed to account for the mis
chiefs which have arisen, speak plainly of the baneful
effects of our blunders, and themselves suggest a re
version to native plans, which we had discarded before
as unsuited to the people. It is painful to read their
confession that somehow our system does not work,
and yet to find that the very men who honestly admit
this are averse from the only possible remedy.
For now comes the most serious part of the matter.
�140
England fol all.
India is a poor country. We have been trying to
enrich her, and this is how we have done it. In 1856,
a year before the mutiny, the sum of 23,000,000/. was
taken from the people of India for the purposes of
government; in 1880, twenty-four years after, no less
a sum than 68,000,000/. was taken from them for the
same purpose. Has India, then, become so much
richer in the quarter of a century ? There is no evi
dence to that effect; much the other way. We know
from official reports and official protests that, light as
the taxation may seem to us, it is heavier than the
people of India can bear. Any increase would be—I
know no authority to the contrary of that—politically
dangerous. The salt tax—levied, bear in mind, to
the tune of 700 per cent, ad valorem—interferes with
the consumption of that necessary of life most
seriously; whilst no less a man than the late Lord
Lawrence thought the murrains among the cattle
which have been so frequent of late years were, in
part at least, due to the want of salt owing to its ex
cessive price.
But there is graver evidence than the death of cattle,
the ever-increasing spread of famines, and consequent
death of men. Famines are far more frequent than
they were. In the last twenty-three years there have
been not fewer than six serious famines, which have
swept away millions of the people, and millions of
cattle too. The last great famines—those of Bombay
and Madras, and the North-West Provinces—were
something terrible ; not fewer certainly than 7,000,000
of people died of starvation and famine-fever between
1876 and 1879 in those provinces. This is the worst
�INDIA.
141
famine of which there is any record whatever ; and it
occurred, not in the India of old time, with difficult
communications, tottering Governments, indifferent
and careless administrations, but in the India of to
day, with a powerful Central Government, with rail
roads and highways, canals and irrigation works—to
say nothing of money freely poured forth to save
these people from their dreadful fate. But this was
an exceptional affair, it may be said ; there was some
phenomenal drought all over the country ; the rains
ceased, the whole land was barren. Drought no doubt
there was, but by no means of inordinate severity, and
this alone would not have accounted for the fearful
mortality. Nowadays, sad to say, our people—the
greater part of the 200,000,000 we are responsible for
—are living nearer, and ever nearer, to the limit of
starvation ; thus what in happier periods would
have been a scarcity, now deepens into a serious
famine. The main causes for this miserable state
of things are not far to seek.
The total net revenue of the Government of India
raised from the many and various races under our rule
does not exceed 38,000,000/. a year, after making de
ductions for the cost of collection. This revenue so
raised cannot safely be increased : the mass of the
people are, as has been said, taxed up to the hilt.
But year after year we take out of the country agricul
tural produce to the amount of 20,000,000/ at the very
lowest estimate, to bring to us here in England, in
order to pay interest, pensions, and home charges, for
which there is no commercial return.
Now just think for a moment what this means. It
�142
ENGLAND FOR ALL.
means that this very year we Englishmen are taking
from the people of India, for European rule and the
use of European capital, more than we have ever taken:
it means that this amounts to more than the total
land revenue of all British India—to more than half
the net income from all sources as calculated above.
Yet India is a poor country—a very poor country, as
Indian officials tell us. And this is how we “ develope ”
it. We drain away from the country that produce
which might be so beneficially employed by our fel
low-subjects ; and then we beat our breasts when famine
comes, and call out to Providence to wipe off those
spots on the sun which somehow or other do all the
mischief.
What cowardly pretence is this. The truth lies open
to all. We are ruining India because our upper and
middle classes will persist in exacting from its people
agricultural produce to pay interest, home charges,
and pensions. No country in the world, not blessed
with virgin soil of exceptional fertility, could possibly
stand such a drain without exhaustion. The real
effect of this drain once fully grasped, all talk even
about the uncertain opium revenue, about the grinding
salt tax, about the mischievous licence and stamp tax,
becomes idle; for by this constant demand we are
draining away the very life-blood of our people.
What would Englishmen say if the whole agricultural
rent of the country went over to France every year,
because we had French prefects in every county, and
French money had built our railroads and excavated
our canals? Yet the agricultural rent of England is
a mere fleabite in comparison with the drain from
�INDIA.
143
India, the relative wealth of the two countries being
taken into account.
“ But then,” say investors, “ the railroads, the canals,
have increased the wealth of India; we must have
interest from our money, no matter how many are
starved every now and then to pay us. To argue
otherwise would be communism, confiscation again. It
is absurd to forego interest to keep people alive.”
Well, have the railroads increased the wealth of India ?
are the numberless foreigners employed a burden or
the reverse? The matter really requires little con
sideration. Railroads do but transport wealth from
one point to another more conveniently than common
roads. They themselves, make no wealth, neither do
they add to that already in existence. Those who
find the capital deduct a certain proportion of the
produce transferred for the payment of working
expenses and interest. Now if this proportion of
produce remains in the country, and is paid to
natives, it is still at hand to feed the people; but if it
is loaded on board ships, as jute, cotton, or indigo,
and sent to a foreign country to pay interest on capital
[which as we have seen, means the wages of past
(unpaid) labour, now owned by those who neither toil
nor spin], then so much wealth is taken clean out of
that country, never to reappear Jor to return to fer
tilize the soil. There are new colonies, no doubt,
which can afford to pay this toll to foreigners, because
the application of labour to virgin soil is exceedingly
profitable, though even in that case the drain is often
more injurious than it seems at the time. But in the
case of India the result is disastrous from the first.
�144
ENGLAND FOR ALL.
Interest is taken away, and Europeans are paid high
salaries, alike in famine and in plenty, in drought
and in flood. - Moreover, much more than 20,000,000/.
have been thus paid away under the guarantee which
have never been earned at all. Losing railways
have consequently been made profitable investments
to home capitalists by the truly beneficent interven
tion of their own Government. Railways therefore in
India, worked by Europeans at a high salary, and
paying interest on the money borrowed by sending
agricultural produce out of the country, are very
different from railways here with us in England.
This has now been acknowledged. Borrowing out of
India is seen to be most injurious ; and yet the country
is getting deeper and ever deeper into debt for public
works, and the exhausting drain is being increased
by the employment of more Europeans.
The truth is that, built with the best possible in
tentions, the public works of India are a burden on
the people. Eager to enrich the country and yet to
derive advantage from it, our proceedings for the last
three-and-twenty years have been harmful and ruin
ous in the highest degree. This is no secret. The
most important officials at the India Office know it
well. The fearful effect of the drain from India has
been the subject of more than one grave confidential
memorandum, as well as of protests from Indian
Finance Ministers, who, however, could not see them
selves that the construction of unremunerative public
works out of borrowed money was ruinous. But such
is capitalism—selfishness so ingrained that five per
cent, per annum cannot possibly be wrong, though
�INDIA.
U5
millions may starve because it must be punctually
paid. We have lent nearly 25.0,000,000/. to India,
and must have our return, though the people had no
voice whatever in the borrowing, and now begin to feel
only too sadly that their substance is being taken
from them, they scarcely know how.
But this drain must be stanched; the taxation must
be lowered ; more natives must be employed. Eng
land, in short, must rise to the level of her great respon
sibilities, and take order with the ex-officials who
pour forth optimist harangues in praise of their own
administrative capacity.
For hear what all agricultual experts say. With one accord Mr. Buck, Mr.
Harman, and Mr. Robertson declare that the soil of
India is undergoing steady and permanent deteriora
tion—that it will support fewer men and fewer bullocks
as years pass by. Mr. Robertson puts the deteriora
tion at not less than thirty per cent, in thirty years.
Thirty per cent, less produce per acre in thirty years !
Who can wonder? The produce of the earth is
taken away to be brought over here, to an increasing
extent, and there is now less manure than ever to put
into the soil. At the same time the destruction of
the forests for railway sleepers and fuel has, as in the
United States and Australia, most seriously affected
the climate for the worse. Drought and floods alter
nate in districts where formerly the rainfall was
beneficial and equable. Such is the foresight of
capital in India—the care of our civilization of to-day
for the civilization of the human beings of to-morrow.
From all provinces comes the same sad cry. From
the North-West and from Oude, from Bombay as well
L
�146
ENGLAND FOR ALL.
as from Madras, from large tracts of Bengal, and
even from the Punjab, one mournful story is heard ;
the land does not, as of old bring forth of its abun
dance ; there is no blessing on the crops in our day.
A deteriorated race of men, an inferior description of
bullocks, bear witness to the truth of what they say.
So serious did all this seem, so fearful was the
famine period of 1876-79, that Mr. James Caird was
sent out to India as a Special Famine Commissioner,
with the ready consent of both parties in the State, to
examine, as the ablest English agricultural expert, into
the condition of our noble dependency. He returned
to tell us that unless we change our system a great
catastrophe is inevitable.
Catastrophe is easily
written, but Mr. Caird evidently used the word in no
light sense. After an elaborate investigation of the
state of things, he too came to the conclusion that
the soil of India is deteriorating, whilst the popula
tion is increasing in certain districts, so that the
people live in perpetual semi-starvation. The very
next famine period may therefore bring with it an
economical cataclysm beside which even the great
Irish destruction will sink into insignificance. Mr.
Irwin prepares us in Oude for similar fearful
trouble ; Mr. Connell from the North-West Provinces
takes up the tale. But Mr. Caird’s earnest protest
has, so far, produced no effect; so what should they
avail ? Even Mr. W. W. Hunter, the DirectorGeneral of Indian Statistics, and a year ago advo
cate of the interests of the Indian bureaucracy
and capitalists at home, even he, alarmed at last
by his own very inaccurate figures, tells us that at
�INDIA.
J47
least 40,000,000 of the people for whose welfare we
are responsible—100,000,000 would be nearer the
mark—are going through life on insufficient food.
Nay, more ; he shows that the Mogul Emperors raised
far more than twice the revenue we now get out of
India, for six generations, without exhausting the
country, whilst we who drain away the produce can
not take our present revenue without a great risk of
collapse. By the side of this drain, and the conse
quent deterioration of the soil, helped on by denuda
tion, all the rest of our blunders, great as they are, are
mere child’s-play. Another famine period is even now
approaching, no preparations have been made to meet
it, and how far the inordinate cost of the Afghan wars
has crippled our Indian exchequer is not even yet
fully known.
Thus on every side the prospect is gloomy and
overcast, and in' the opinion of the ablest observers
we are drawing nearer and nearer to an almost
overwhelming disaster. Year after year we take
from India agricultural produce which she cannot
spare, because we are masters of the country, and,
paying ourselves handsomely all round, leave those
who depend upon us for safety to perish from want;
Whilst we are disputing about the defence of the
empire we ourselves are preparing its ruin, only to
learn the truth too late: the knocking will come
through the darkness from without—the murder
within will be done. Let then the sun of English
justice arise and shine—outshine all the glories of the
East; let a message of mercy, whose wings are as
silver wings and her feathers as gold, go forth from
L 2
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ENGLAND FOR ALL
the people of England to the many races and nations
under their rule, saying to all that, though they have
ills of their own to suffer from and endless sorrows to
bear, they would not that others should be made
poorer or more miserable for them. So"] as death
shall close our eyelids in never-ending slumber, we
may feel that countless millions have some share of
happiness which but for us they would have lacked,
some joy and contentment which but for us they
never would have known.
For the alternative course lies open before us once
more. There are in India, as in Ireland and at home,
two policies, the one of mock freedom and real op
pression, the other of beneficent government and steady
progress. Strange that having tried both methods in
India, we should as a nation stick to the failure and
discard the success. Wherever native administration
has had free play under gentle European guidance,
there we have seen prosperity and contentment
spring up and endure. In Travancore and Baroda,
in Mysore and Hyderabad, wherever English influence
has been confined to supporting upright native rule,
the change has been marvellous for the better, though
the tendency even then is to interfere too much by
the introduction of Western ideas. Still it is not Euro
pean administration that is necessarily ruinous : that
we have seen in numerous instances. It is not that
public works are not highly beneficial. But when
European agency and public works are alike over
done ; when foreign soldiers and foreign systems are
imposed upon the population to an extent which
savours of the very fanaticism of so-called improve
�INDIA.
14
ment, then, as we see, the result is starvation, ruin,
and death, a famine-stricken people, and an exhausted
soil.
The recent return of Mysore to native administra
tion after fifty years of European rule is, we may
hope, of good omen for the future. Our task now is
to cut down the European establishments in every
possible way—to curtail the home charges, even if we
have to reduce the rate of interest arbitrarily by one
half and take some portion of the pensions on to our
own shoulders. This money that is now taken is not
ours, and no native has ever voted a single rupee of it
to us. The enormous expense of the European army
must likewise be curtailed, and a very different policy
from that of suspicion and hauteur adopted towards
the native princes. We have, in fact, to prepare the
many peoples of India for self-government, by a pro
cess of decentralization, by building up the old States
again wherever possible, and by removing the crowd
of Europeans who now eat out the prosperity of the
country. Let any man consider. No such system as
that which we now foster could by any possibility
succeed. The old Mogul rulers were wrong-headed
enough in many ways, but they were not such fools
as to think they could govern India from Samarcand
and in accordance with Mussulman prejudice, or that
they could dispense with the assistance of the able
Hindoo administrators in the management of their
provinces. Akber was perhaps the greatest monarch
that the East ever produced, yet he relied—and as the
event showed, wisely relied—upon the noble rajah
Toder Mull to reorganise his finances, With us
�ENGLAND FOR ALL.
Toder Mull, the most masterly financier beyond all
comparison that has ever had control of the Indian
exchequer, would have been “ a damned, nigger
accountant, who would keep writing to the papers.”
Such incapacity to appreciate the abilities of our own
subjects, let us remember—such eagerness to crush
down rather than to raise up—such sad indifference to
the ruin being wrought in our own territory, when
close at hand countries equally under our control, but
managed by natives, are flourishing and prosperous—
such strange determination not to understand, I say,
will gain us but a doubtful reputation for foresight
with those who come after, even if it do not involve
ourselves in ruin.
But if, on the other hand, we resolve to make the
necessary changes at once, and to restore to the
natives, in some degree at least, the control of their
own Governments and their own property, then India
may more than repay us for our sympathy and good
will. There, directly or indirectly under our rule, are
250,000,000 of the human race, who, weary as they are
of waiting for fair treatment, would recognize with
joyous loyalty a determined effort to relieve them
from the excessive pressure of foreign government,
and the ruinous drain for foreign payments, which
now impoverish them more and more. This assuredly
is no party question ; but those who profit by India’s
ruin will scarcely of their own motion make the sacri
fices needful to restore her prosperity. It is to
the mass of Englishmen, then, to the great democracy
of this country, that the peoples of India must now
appeal for justice. Represented fairly here at home,
�INDIA.
151
they might hope to secure their long-delayed heading,
and with that hearing consideration for their wrongs.
Here too, I say once more, the right course is that
which is best also for our own people. Let the people
of India but grow in wealth, as they would under any
fair conditions of existence,'with but slight supervision
from us, and the exchange of their products for ours
would be far more advantageous than the continuous
impoverishment which disenables them from making
purchases. On every ground, therefore, of humanity,
morality, self-interest, future credit, and ordinary
common sense, we ought not longer to postpone the
necessary reorganization. But our present parlia
mentary system has proved quite inadequate to cope
with this great crisis. If India is to be retained at all,
she must have a direct voice in her own administra
tion, as well in England as in India.
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ENGLAND FOR ALL.
CHAPTER VII.
THE COLONIES.
There is happily one portion of our empire which is
almost entirely free from the political difficulties we
encounter elsewhere. The drawbacks to our great self
governed colonies are common to our age and civiliza
tion ; their advantages are peculiar to themselves.
Notwithstanding the mistakes of both political parties
in dealing with South Africa—mistakes which have,
to a great extent, overclouded the prospect in that par
ticular region—the colonies are, and will remain, the
chief mainstay of Anglo-Saxon dominion outside these
islands, when India has returned to native rule, and
our other dependencies are held rather as a duty than
as contributing to our power. With them, indeed,
and the United States, lies 'the future expansion of
our race. For although the Americans were driven
into hostility more than a century ago, we may still
hope that in time to come the great English-speaking
democracies of England, Australia, and North
America, may find ground for a common under
standing, which will enable them to secure peace
and justice throughout the civilized world, by the
overwhelming force they could array against any
�THE COLONIES.
153
aggressor- This, however, is for the moment no
more than a pleasant vision.
The possibility of a closer connexion with our
colonies is an immediate practical business. On this
point too, fortunately, men who differ most widely on
other questions are often agreed. Taught by the
disastrous result of the attempt to tyrannize over the
North American colonists, we have carried the doc
trine of self-government almost further than the
colonists themselves wished.
Not content with
granting them the most complete home rule, we have
at times repulsed their advances towards a closer
union, and, on the other hand, wronged our poorer
classes by handing over the entire administration of
an almost limitless unoccupied territory to the handful
of people who first settled there. But even so the
result is surely in marked contrast to our relations with
Ireland. No portion of our dominions are so loyal to
the British connexion at this very time, none so
anxious that England should rightfully maintain her
position in the world, as the colonists. Left to solve
their own social and political problems, they turn
naturally to the mother country to keep alive the
1 “ Blood is thicker than water,’’ said Admiral Farragut when
he stood by our sailors in the China seas. Years later, after
the grand old man had been the soul of the Northern navy
during the Civil War, he was in port in the Mediterranean with
his wooden flagship. A fleet of British ironclads was there at
the same time. As he weighed anchor and sailed out to sea,
the English ships also left their moorings and made two lines
for him to pass through. The compliment was wholly unlookedfor, but it thoroughly expressed the feelings of the nation to
wards that noble seanian.
�ENGLAND FOR ALL.
ideal of a greater political action than any which can
be hoped for from mere separation and local ambition.
And this feeling grows even at the time when absen
tees are being denounced, and the power of demo
cracy gains ground each day. There, as at home,
centralization and decentralization are working them
selves out; though, by the mistake of not maintaining
a federal union, great difficulties are now encountered
in bringing together colonies which ought never to
have lost the common tie, even on matters which
could manifestly be handled best by all collectively.
There can be no greater contrast between the
relation which Canada now bears to the United
Kingdom than that of the North American colonies,
when they fought for independence. In that case we
insisted upon the right to tax without permitting the
colonists the right of representation. Now we have
given Canada not only self-government, but the right
to impose almost prohibitive duties on our own goods.
That this need not have occurred had a better under
standing been kept up with the colonists, and freetrade, when commenced, enacted as the law for all
self-governed portions of the empire, we can scarcely
doubt. The history of Canada, however, since the
separation of the American colonies, is creditable to
her and to the home country. At first sight it would
have seemed impossible that the French colonies of
Lower Canada, conquered by a people with whom
their nation was at perpetual war, should ever have
come to be loyal to the English Crown. But the
consideration shown for their language, creed, and
customs, the steady determination not to interfere
�THE COLONIES.
155
with their local rule, gradually won over the French
settlers, until at the present time they are as devoted
to the British connexion as any portion of the popu
lation of English descent. Troubles at times there
have been with the English colonists, and rather more
than forty years ago a rebellion was threatened.
Yet all settled down ; and now it seems that the
Dominion of Canada has before her as fine a career
in the future as the more energetic democracy on the
other side of the border. That the withdrawal of
our troops was brought about in a most unmannerly
fashion, and in such wise as to offend the best in
stincts of the Canadians—that also Lord Carnarvon’s
plan of federation was premature, and carried by
doubtful means, have not changed the sentiments of
the colonists towards the mother country.
Incorporation with the United States would leave
less of freedom for natural expansion than there is at
present under England’s light rule. A race of sturdy
sober-going men and women have grown up in that
rude Canadian climate, who will carry on the best
traditions of English Government side by side with
the great Republic. There, in the great expanse of
the Far West, lies an opening for those who, in the
coming changes here at home, may think they see
their way to a wider field, still under the name and
in connexion with the old country. In Canada, even
more than in the United States, the natural inclina
tion of our race for the sea manifests itself. The
4,000,000 who make up the Dominion of Canada own
the fourth largest mercantile marine in the world.
As, also, the new continental railroad is pushed forward
�ENGLAND FOR ALL.
to the Pacific slope, the splendid region of British
Columbia will be opened up to colonization, and yet
another connexion made with the English colonies in
the South Pacific.
Nor, when the distance by sea is spoken of, and
the impossibility of a permanent connexion insisted
upon, should we forget that Canada and the other
colonies of the Atlantic slope are nearer to us to-day
than Aberdeen or Cork were a century ago. Canada
is now wholly self-supporting, costs the people of
England not one farthing of expenditure, whilst the
increasing power of democracy would find a help and
offer valuable assistance to a similar growth with us
at home. The Dominion will, we may hope, as
time passes on, bind together closer the various set
tlements. Already the Parliament at Ottawa—sitting
in the finest block of buildings on the American con
tinent—worthily represents the Federal Union of a
magnificent group of peoples. Let them also find
representation here in England, and thus'bring to bear
upon all international arrangements the ever-increas
ing force of a united democracy of English-speaking
peoples. At the crisis of the Eastern question when
it seemed as if England might be involved in conti
nental warfare, the Canadians were not slow to offer
their assistance in a cause where their own interests
were in no way involved. Surely it is for the great
mass of the people of England to hold out their hands
in fellowship to those who wish nothing better than
to work together on the same lines for the strengthen
ing and improvement of all. There is something in
great ideas which vivifies and enlarges the national
�THE COLONIES.
*57
imagination. We here at home have indeed much to
carry out ere we can achieve our own full government
of ourselves, or place ourselves on the same level
which the Canadians have already happily attained
to in many respects. Reason the more that we should
endeavour to make common cause in the direction of
further progress.
But if this applies to Canada, still more true is it of
the Australian colonies and New Zealand. These
colonies are the growth of the present generation.
In the last thirty years they have sprung up from
mere settlements to be great and prosperous commu
nities. In Australia—Victoria and New South Wales,
South Australia, Queensland, and West Australia,
form a group of states unsurpassed in any part of
the world for energy, enterprise, and growing con
sideration for the education and well-being of the
rising generation. That the distribution of wealth is
here also sadly faulty is indeed too certain. In Mel
bourne and Sydney, cities large out of all proportion
to the population engaged in agriculture or mining,
the contrast between the wealth of the few and the
poverty of the many, is at times very serious. Here,
too, is felt the alternation of inflation and stagnation
consequent upon our capitalist system, and the large
capitalists, either English or native, are gradually
acquiring excessive preponderance. But the possi
bility of a man taking himself out of the wage-earning
class is, of course, as in Canada and the United States,
far greater than in England. The abundance of
virgin soil, the rapid increase of wealth in proportion
to the population, keep wages at a higher level than
�I58
ENGLAND FOR ALL.
in old countries. Both politically and socially, how
ever, the Australian colonies are passing through a
phase in their history which is of the highest impor
tance, and corresponds to similar changes here at home.
In purely political matters the democracy is increas
ing in strength day by day ; but unfortunately these
colonies have not, until of late years, had anything
to compare to the admirable school system of America
which should bring the whole population within
reach of education. This, however, is being remedied ;
and in Victoria, the most democratic colony of all, the
people are beginning to learn that a sober combina
tion to deal with existing difficulties—which may well
perplex the ablest statesman—is in the long-run better
for the interests of all than a hasty agitation which
overthrows confidence in present arrangements with
out substituting anything in their place. Those who
fasten their attention on Victoria, and declaim against
the folly of a democracy because it favours protection,
conveniently forgot that New South Wales, where
the people are equally masters, is in favour of free
trade, and South Australia shows a growing tendency
in the same direction. Nothing, indeed, is more
absurd than to gauge the political intelligence of a
country by such a test. If protection can keep up
the relative wages of the mass of the working people
above the level which they will obtain under free
trade, then beyond all question protection is, on the
whole, the policy best suited to the welfare of the
mass of that community. Theorists who reason as if
the only object of all human society were to make the
�THE COLONIES.
159
rich richer and the poor poorer would, of course, not
admit even that.
But it may be reasonably allowed as absurd that
colonies founded by men of the same nation, and
living under the same government, in the same terri
tory, should deliberately set up tariffs against one
another, and against the mother country. This is
what we see in Australia, and it shows clearly how
important a better understanding is between the
various colonies on matters which concern the in
terests of all. The difficulty of bringing about a
federation in Australia, even on this simple matter of
customs, seems insuperable. Time after time have re
presentatives met, but on each occasion have separated
without coming to any definite arrangement. Local
interests and local ambitions shut out the view of the
general advantage which would be gained by a closer
understanding. But the completion of a railroad
between Sydney and Melbourne, and the rapid ex
tension of the other Australian railways, must bring
this question again to the front. It may be that the
solution will be found in that wider federation which,
without in any way sacrificing the local administration,
may bring about the full representation of Australia
in a general council where the interests of all will be
fully considered. There are, in these days, many
matters which can be better settled when dealt with
as a whole than when regarded piecemeal, and few
can doubt that such enterprises as the railways and
public works of Australia could be better and more
cheaply handled together than separately.
�i6d
ENGLAND FOR ALL.
In these Australian colonies also, and particularly
in New Zealand, may be seen the system of State
management carried out under the most democratic
form of government.
Railways, posts, telegraphs,
public works, schools, public lands, are all entirely
under the control of the bureaux appointed by the
State, and managed by a responsible Minister.
Where the appointments also are kept clear of poli
tical influence, the system works well. There are
temptations to grave jobbery, doubtless, but they are
kept under restraint by universal publicity; and the
mass of the population have abundant opportunities
of making themselves felt. A graver danger than
any arising from over-officialism is that of over
borrowing from the mother country. In New Zealand
especially this danger is very great. Not only is the
Government largely pledged to pay the produce of
the 400,000. colonists to home lenders, but the settlers
themselves have pledged their resources to an enor
mous extent to English capitalists. These vast pay
ments out of the country for money borrowed can
scarcely go on for ever. Labour expended on virgin
soil will no doubt produce enormously; but slack times
come even there, and the difficulties which we have
seen in India will be reproduced on a smaller scale. This
vast tribute, in the shape of interest on money lent,
which the English colonists have to transmit out of
their labour to the mother country, is one of the
least pleasant features of the colonial connexion.
It may be that under a better arrangement the
colonists in all our great free-governed dependencies
will be able to combine with the mother country for
�THE COLONIES.
the more adequate development of their magnificent
territories, in the interest of the whole of the federated
portions of our empire. In their temperate climate,
and with their unrivalled soil—in Canada, Australia,
Tasmania, and New Zealand—millions on millions
of our race might find happiness and comfort, which
would re-act upon the welfare of our people at home.
As our home arrangements undergo modification, we
ought to carry with us the people of the colonies in
aiding to bring about, without disturbance or blood
shed, a more equitable distribution of wealth than
that which now we see. Those who desire to leave
our shores to try a fresh life in another country,
might then feel sure, not of the coddling of a maternal
government, but of assistance, encouragement, and
capital, where now all these are lacking. The great
disparity between the sexes in England in one direc
tion, and in the colonies in the other, alone shows
how faultily the present arrangements have worked.
It is with a view to bringing about a more com
plete understanding on all such questions, a regulation
of the mere laissez-faire system which up till now has
found favour, that a nearer connexion is so essen
tial. Friendly democracies can always help each
other. They have no real ground of mutual distrust.
But when we see in the United States such misery as
that produced by the late stagnation ; when we know
that in New South Wales, Victoria, and New Zealand,
men were thrown out of work and clamouring for
employment, though millions of unoccupied fertile
land lay at their disposal all round them, then it
becomes more clearly apparent than ever how misM
�162
ENGLAND FOR ALL.
chievous is the system which refuses to make the
most of such enormous advantages, and supposes that
stagnation and depression are really inevitable
because those who hold the capital choose to make
it so.
It tis because social matters are kept so carefully
in the background, and the real producers of wealth,
whether in England, Ireland, or abroad, are shut out
from comparing notes on matters which so nearly
concern them, that these serious errors are made.
Even as it is the colonies, with their marvellous power
of recovery, have been our best customers, and have
enabled the English working class at home to pass
through the long period of crisis with less of pressure
than would otherwise have been felt. Here, even in
business, where sentiment is said to have no play,
we find the trade follows the flag—that men prefer to
deal with their own people. Surely those who are
in favour of a unity of all peoples, who hold that in
the near future the men who have hitherto worked
for others will see that in common action lies the hope
for humanity, cannot fail ere long to understand that
the first step towards this great end must be a closer
and yet closer union of peoples of the same race, lan
guage, and political traditions, working together for
the good of all portions of that noble federation.
Leaving freedom to all, and enforcing none—holding
up before us a high ideal in which all may share and
all may find full development—thus, and thus only,
shall we gather them in.
But it is not merely in relation to their own indi
vidual interests that it would be of the highest impor
�THE COLONIES.
163
tance that our great democratic communities beyond
the sea should be represented. Difficulties affecting
all "portions of the empire have to be considered,
which can never obtain proper attention save by the
personal discussion of those who have a direct interest
in their wise settlement. The questions of tariff and
trade have already been spoken of. No complete
arrangements on these heads can possibly be arrived
at so long as the hide-bound bureaucrats of the
Colonial Office, with their encrusted traditions of
meddling and muddling, have full swing. Only when
men see for themselves that local selfishness can
fitly be merged in a greater and more enlightened
common interest, will they abandon ideas which they
have adopted almost as an evidence of free judgment.
A Customs Union of the British Empire will be the
outcome of the representation of our colonies in the
Great Council which will take the place of our present
worn-out second chamber. Or it may be even that
we shall follow the French system, and invite colonies
to send representatives to the popular House, when
local business has been properly handed over to local
authorities. Whichever course may be adopted,
there is a growing opinion, both in the colonies and
in England, that in such representation lies the true
solution of many problems which now seem most
thorny. A complete Union thus brought about could
scarcely fail to have a peaceful influence on the whole
civilized world. Such an overwhelming combination
of naval strength as could then be relied upon,
could be made by no conceivable alliance of despotic
powers.
M 2
�164
ENGLAND FOR ALL.
This, however, brings us at once to the question of
general defence, which is now being discussed by a
Royal Commission. On that Commission the colonies
are inadequately represented, yet it is of the last
importance that they should enter completely into
any plans that may be suggested. For on the due
ordering of our Imperial defences, and the security of
our lines of communication, can we alone depend for
maintaining in time of trouble that connexion with
our countrymen across the sea, and for the certainty
of obtaining our food supplies, which are essential not
only to our influence but to our safety. These
matters have been sadly neglected under the happygo-lucky regime of the past twenty or thirty years.
Men who are always looking to throw off what they
call the “ burden of empire,” regardless of the help
and encouragement we can obtain in coming political
changes from the democracies of our own race, natu
rally looked askance at any measures which should
tend to unite and not to separate, to bring together
and not to drive away. It is well that at this par
ticular time another view should be taken. By a
careful organization of our resources, and a judicious
strengthening of the many ports we possess, it would
be made quite impossible for any enemy or enemies
to interfere seriously with our affairs even in time of
war, whilst the denunciation of the Declaration of
Paris would make us more powerful than we ever
were before. In these days coal and coaling-stations,
the opportunity to go into port and refit at all times,
are essential. And these advantages we possess to
such an extent, that it may almost be said that all
�THE COLONIES.
165
the rest of the world together could not rival us. In
the Atlantic and Pacific, in European waters and
the China seas, from the Cape of Good Hope to Cape
Horn, and from the British islands to Australia and
India, we hold a chain of posts which will enable us
to exercise at the fitting moment an almost over
whelming pressure, if in time of peace we take
the means to prepare for any difficulty.
Halifax
and Vancouver’s Island, Bermuda and the Falkland
Islands, Gibraltar, Malta, and Aden, Sydney, Mel
bourne, King George’s Sound, and Auckland, to say
nothing of the Indian ports, and scarcely less valu
able possessions elsewhere, such as Hong-Kong, Fiji,
and the Mauritius, constitute an array of maritime
citadels which, maintained in proper defence by our
ourselves and our colonies, must, in conjunction with
a fleet proportioned to our maritime interests, render
future naval war against us almost impossible. Nor
should we hold or exercise this truly enormous power
for our own selfish advantage. English ports are
open to the ships of all nations without let or hind
rance ; we throw open to the world the advantages we
possess, asking nothing in return. Here, then, when
fully represented, our colonists may fairly take their
share in arranging with us the defence of the common
interest, and organizing the national defence.
Still more necessary, however, is colonial help in
considering the bearing of treaties which we may
negotiate with foreign powers, or the action which
the colonists themselves may take in their own interest.
At present there is no special consideration given to
the effect which may be produced on our existing
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ENGLAND FOR ALL.
artificial system by any fresh arrangement so far as
it affects colonies or colonists, and our greatest de
pendency counts for still less in such matters ; whilst
as to the colonists themselves, it is sufficient to note
their action with regard to the Chinese to recognize
at once that questions may arise which can only be
dealt with from the point of view of general interest.
This Chinese question is indeed one which by itself
needs the gravest consideration, as a political, social,
and international problem of the greatest difficulty.
Here we are in fact threatened with a conflict of races
and civilization, the like of which has never yet been
seen on the face of the planet. China has awakened
from her long sleep of centuries, and is fast breaking
from her isolation, and entering into the full stream
of the political and social life of our times. What the
results of this may be no man can foretell. A people
who have been civilized for ages, who yet retain vigour,
capacity, and physical qualities whose bearing on the
future we do not yet fully understand, are now absorb
ing the newest truths of Western investigators. The
effect upon us so far has been to bring the industrious
Chinese, with their ideas of individualism only modi
fied by their secret societies, into direct competition
with our own colonists. There are thousands on
thousands of Chinamen under our rule in the East
alone, and as workmen and merchants they are most
formidable rivals. But with the emigration to the freegoverned colonies and America a new feature begins.
Our colonists positively will not put up with them, any
more than the Americans will. At this very time the
people of British Columbia, as well as the colonies of
�THE COLONIES.
167
Australia, have decided to keep out the Chinese.
They are to our modern industrial colonies what
shells are at sea—missiles to be kept out, at any cost
to theory or beauty of design. But the result is at
once seen to be serious. It is the recognition of a per
turbing element in all calculations—of an incapacity
on the part of our race to face a nation of protec
tionists who regard themselves as mere passers-by in
every country they enter. That our colonists should
have the right to tax every Chinaman who lands,
surely carries with it the right of Chinese to tax every
Englishman who lands in China. As our relations
with China grow, and these points come more promi
nently forward, the absolute necessity for some general
understanding will become apparent. Perhaps ere
another generation has passed away the question of
our relation to China will completely dwarf all others
in importance. Meantime the commercial connexion
between Australia and Asia is rapidly growing ; and
in view of the unfitness of the northern portion of that
great island-continent for colonization by men of our
race, it is even possible that immigrants from India
or China may find place in that vast unpeopled
region.
These, however, are the possibilities of the future.
What most concerns us now is, to lay the foundation
of a cordial understanding between all portions of our
great colonial empire—to bring together on the wider
field of a wide-reaching policy of the commonwealth
those who in their own several spheres, are striving to
bring about a better social and political system than
that which now presses upon all portions of the empire,
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ENGLAND FOR ALL.
though less in the colonies than elsewhere. The
natural and wholesome pride of a Canadian, an
Australian, or a New Zealander in the growing great
ness of his country, need in no way be irreconcilable
with a deep love for the old home, and a yet higher
pride in sharing in a general improvement which shall
embrace and welcome all. The Anglo-Saxon race,
which has shown the world how to reconcile freedom
and order with steady progress, can by combination
and determined effort secure for themselves and their
children the leadership in the social changes and re
forms which are close at hand. Those great demo
cracies of English-speaking peoples, who now have
complete control over their own affairs, will find that
in permanent union with the more ancient democracy
of England lies the best hope of securing the fullest
development in the future.
�FOREIGN AFFAIR'S.
CHAPTER VIII.
FOREIGN
AFFAIRS.
The relation which England should bear to the
nations of the Continent of Europe, and the action
which ought to be taken in reference to foreign policy
generally, would be very summarily settled by one
party among us. Non-intervention is their sole idea
of the management of such affairs. Let others do
what they like to or with one another, we will severely
mind our own business, look after our trade, and,
secure behind the silver streak, amass money—for the
comfortable classes of course—to our hearts’ content.
Thus the individual selfishness, upon which they are
content to rely absolutely for all management at
home, is fitly supplemented by a still more thorough
collective selfishness applied to affairs abroad.
Capital is timid, it is said, peace is our greatest interest,
intervention means, sooner or later, war or threat of war.
A soldier or a sailor therefore, in the opinion of these
gentlemen, ought to be scouted as a pariah, though,
as all save fanatics can see, our army and navy are
as natural portions of our industrial organism in the
present state of international morality and economi
cal development, as our custom-house or excise.
Only stand aside, such is the argument, and no one
�170
ENGLAND FOR ALL.
will harm you. A purely trading power will arouse
no jealousies ; and Europe will see in England a
country which, in the plenitude of its strength, steps
aside from all save commercial transactions, and is
content to figure simply as a pattern to others. Now,
few would doubt that if all were like-minded in this
matter—if the lion of greed could indeed lie down with
the lamb of wealth outside him, that here is the true in
dustrial future for the human race. But we are, alas !
far from such a happy state of things. No nation
in existing conditions can thus safely boycott itself,
without grave risk of being boycotted, or perhaps
preyed upon, by others. And we, of all countries in
the world, are the least capable of secluding ourselves,
and enriching ourselves whilst others look on. Our
flag floats on every sea ; our trade competes with every
nation ; our absolutely necessary supplies, without
which we should starve, come to us from far and near.1
A commercial country owning such extended terri
tory is more open to attack than any other; and even on
the ground of simple selfishness, some alliances should
be made, and some preparations maintained against
danger. But there are higher reasons even than
those of expediency for taking part in the politics
of the world. A great country has moral duties, as a
man has moral duties ; and these are not confined to
simple business relations and trading for gain. We
are, or might be, the leaders and protectors of free
1 We have ordinarily less than three weeks’ supply of food at
hand. A naval combination which could blockade our ports
for a fortnight, could starve us out. Two powers, acting to
gether, could even now have a stronger fleet in the Channel than
we could command.
�FOREIGN AFFA IRS.
171
dom, independence, and true liberty in Europe, as
we were in the time of the Great Protector Our
power, properly organized, and wielded with the con
sent of a united people, may suffice at no distant
date to turn the scale in that great struggle between
militarism and industrialism, between tyranny and
freedom, perhaps between barbarism and civilization,
now threatening on the continent. To stand aloof
finally when such issues as these are being debated
is not, as I venture to think, the nature of my coun
trymen. They have often fought in times gone by to
save others from foreign domination ; it maybe that
in the near future a still greater task will be theirs.
The history of the modern connexion of England
with continental affairs, may be said to begin with the
accession of William III. That long policy of secret
negotiations carried on by Elizabeth with the Pro
testant populations of Europe, had involved us in
war with Spain ; the policy of the Stuarts had, after
Cromwell’s short and glorious period of supremacy,
made England subservient to France. But these
wars and alliances had really as little to do with the
events which followed, as the old wars in France
under the Plantagenets. With William III., however,
began that bitter rivalry with France which thencefor
ward became the mainspring of English foreign policy
for at least five generations. Rivalry no doubt ex
isted between Englishmen and Frenchmen when the
Prince of Orange came to the throne, but thencefor
ward it spread from the people to the Governments,
and the fierce struggle which followed spread to all
quarters of the globe. William III., in fact, began a
settled policy of interference in European State poli
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ENGLAND FOR ALL.
tics in the interest of Holland and Germany, as
distinct from any cause which called us to take the
field on our own account. As a consequence we were
driven to fight foreign battles by means of subsidies
and mercenary troops, instead of trusting to our
power at sea, where lies our real strength.
For, strange to say, it never occurred to either the
Plantagenets, the Tudors, or the Stuarts that it would
redound to our credit and influence to carry on cam
paigns on land with German soldiers at England’s
expense. William III., however, commenced the
system, because it aided the policy of his own country
laid down by himself—that of persistent opposition
to Louis XIV. and the French. The result has been a
crushing load of debt, permanently imposed for
foreign objects on the English people.
For the
House of Brunswick, confirmed and greatly extended
the mischievous policy introduced by the Dutch king,
and henceforth England became the citadel of German
resistance to French attacks upon Germany. We no
longer had a continental policy of our own ; every
step taken had reference to the relations and intrigues
of other Powers, who came to look upon England and
English Ministers as necessary supports of a system
of international war and jealousy, with which, as a
matter of fact, the English people had nothing what
ever to do. The unquestioned facts that we fought
bravely, won battle after battle, and acquired some
magnificent colonies, are mere incidents of this State
system which blind us to the true bearing of the
policy itself.
Had not the Dutch and German elements become
paramount in the guidance of our foreign relations,
�FOREIGN AFFAIRS.
173
there was no such necessary antagonism to France
as has been pretended. Lord Chatham himself, whose
management of our external affairs was the wonder of
Europe, wras vehemently opposed to the “ German
War,” which, having once commenced, not even his
genius could clear us from. Thus England was
dragged along at the heels of Frederick II. the most
unscrupulous adventurer who ever made a kingdom out
of a province, and we of to-day have the privilege of
paying, in the shape of interest on the national debt,
for the position which Prussia holds in Europe. This
went on, notwithstanding protests from patriotic men
against this ruinous squandering of the resources of
the country, until the time of the French Revolution,
when our antagonism to France, already pronounced
enough, was still further aggravated by the calculated
panic of the governing and well-to-do classes. With
the internal affairs of France we had no concern; and
the mass of the people of England sympathized with
the men who had overturned the meanest, and at the
same time most galling tyranny that could oppress
an agricultural people. The loss of the American
Colonies, when Germans and Indians were used to
shoot down and scalp men who were fighting for their
rights, had opened the eyes of the poorer classes to
the real bearing of the vicious mercenary system. A
magnificent heritage had been lost, because the men
at the head of affairs set aside the advice of English
men like Chatham and Burke, to pander to the pre
judices of a German king and the aristocrats around
him. France had now learnt something from America ;
and there was more admiration than ill-feeling to
begin with on our side of the Channel.
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ENGLAND FOR ALL.
But in all this the rulers of that day saw—and
rightly saw—a grave danger to themselves. The
rupture with France was made unavoidable by the
counsel and support extended to her invaders. Once
involved in the anti-revolutionary fever, nothing was
easier than to inflame still further the national rivalry,
until for nearly a generation the very name of French
man became obnoxious to English ears, and children
grew up to be men believing that only by the de
struction of France could England be made secure.
The astounding career of Napoleon I., and the state
craft of his reactionary empire, gave our policy a
further push forward in the same direction. England
became the rallying-point of resistance to a military
usurper, who evidently aimed at the dominance of
Europe.
His answers to our persistent hostilities took the
shape of a threat of invasion, and a continental
blockade against English goods. The first of these
two measures became hopeless after Nelson’s crowning
victory at Trafalgar. The second was rendered futile
—though the fact is not generally known—by the
friendly policy of the Ottoman Empire. The remark
able geographical configuration of that State gave us
an advantage which Napoleon was unable to over
come. The Turks opened their numerous ports, and
Europe was flooded with smuggled English goods.
Thereupon the blockade became useless ; Power after
Power withdrew from the league, and we were relieved
from further anxiety in regard to the most dangerous
plan of campaign ever formulated against us. As a
natural sequence of our long opposition to France,
�FOREIGN AFFAIRS.
175
we were driven more and more into alliance with the
despotic powers of Europe. Those armies which
overthrew Napoleon, were as much intended for re
pression at home as to repel the foreign invader ; and
Europe was prepared by the Treaty of Vienna for the
supremacy of the Holy Alliance. The great name
associated with all this policy is that of Castlereagh,
who bound us hand and foot to Russia, and made us
little better than a hanger-on to the Holy Alliance
itself. Thus for thirty years England was linked on the
continent of Europe with powers whose very existence
depended upon the denial of freedom to the peoples.
Upon this phase followed a modification rather than
a change of policy. The extravagant pretensions of
the Holy Alliance with reference to Spain, and the
absurd claim of its members to regulate the internal
affairs of every kingdom of Europe, brought about
the policy of which Canning became the chief ex
ponent. This was the support of constitutionalism in
Europe, as equally opposed to autocracy and to
revolution. It was an attempt to trim between two
irreconcilable opposites. Canning himself called into
existence that remarkable New World to redress the
• balance of the Old which, since it first came above the
political horizon in the House of Commons, has been
wholly incapable of balancing even itself. The rest
of the policy had as little solid foundation as this
famous outburst. Constitutionalism did not thrive, in
spite of English protection; and we gradually drifted
into a defence of what appeared our most tangible,
interest—that of the overland route to India.
Canning was followed by Palmerston and Russell.
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ENGLAND FOR ALL.
The episode of Navarino, which weakened Turkey
without constituting a strong Greece, was merely a
prelude to a definite championship of the integrity
and independence of the Ottoman Empire, involving
Lord Palmerston’s Syrian policy, and eventually leading
up to the Crimean War. Jealousy of France, and
desire to maintain the balance of power, still had a
great influence. But capitalism was now beginning
to assert its sway, and plain Whig principles meant
compromise at home and selfishness abroad. There
was not even the violent old Toryism of Pitt and
Castlereagh to rouse opposition or stir enthusiasm.
The shake of 1848 brought the weakness of this
whole system into clear relief. Unpleasant people,
who thought a dungeon smelt quite as dank under
“moderate constitutionalism, ” as when kept exclu
sively at the service of autocrats, gave the constitu
tionalists many awkward misgivings. London at this
time naturally became the headquarters of the consti
tutional monarchs, and the metropolitan bankers the
custodians of their savings. We, however, in the
struggle which followed, neither gained nor deserved
the gratitude of either party. Opposed to auto
cracy, we showed a friendship for Hungary, which
the horror of our middle classes for real revolution
quickly induced us to betray. Matters were worse
with Venice, Sardinia, and Sicily, when England
deliberately abandoned people who had been in
duced by surreptitious assurances to rely upon her
for assistance. “ England wishes only for peace,”
Pasini wrote, bitterly, to Manin ; and that summed up,
not perhaps Lord Palmerston’s own policy, but the
�FOREIGN AFFAIRS.
177
policy of the capitalist class, now gaining power
rapidly, and to which all Foreign Ministers have since
been forced in some way to bow down.
But here, nevertheless, lay the true line for Eng
land. In 1848 she could have placed herself at the
head of the enfranchised peoples of Europe, and lent
her unrivalled naval power to support those who, with
her assistance, could not have been subdued. The time
however, was not ripe for so bold a policy; the
dreaded principles of revolution were once more
abroad. Chartism at home was affiliated to the
accursed thing. So, without absolutely allying our
selves with the oppressors, Great Britain saw without
regret the re-establishment of autocracy, which to
her self-seeking merchants was so far preferable to the
rule of the people. Thus the general result of our
moral support of constitutionalism and Liberal prin
ciples was the firm re-establishment of despotism in
Europe. At this period too was shown fully that
absolute agreement between Russia and Prussia
which has been the key to continental policy since
1821. Russia came forward in 1848 as the protector
of despotism in every country.
Germany and
Austria were completely under her thumb. Every
petty princeling whose throne had been pulled from
under him, stretched out his hands in prayer to the
deity of St. Petersburg to set him up straight again ;
and Nicholas, to do him justice, did his king-making
in fine old barbaric style. So long as these small fry,
from the King of Prussia downward, obeyed his
Imperial behests, and abstained from all tampering
with liberalism or revolution he was content to support
N
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.ENGLAND FOR ALL.
them for the mere gratification of the thing. The
Power which held Poland could not afford that either
freedom or the rights of nationalities should be dis
cussed in her neighbourhood. It was a revival of the
policy of the early portion of the century, in a more
pronounced shape. An armed barbarism lent its aid
to all the reactionary influences in Europe, and
Liberal England was content to stand aloof and wish
well to the oppressed nationalities, without raising a
hand to help them. Plad a more far-seeing plan
been adopted, the Crimean War, with its unfortunate
alliance with the Second Empire in France might
have been unnecessary.
Turkey was saved from Russia by that war, at the
expense of thousands of lives and a hundred millions
of money to this country. But for twenty years,
though the Liberal party was almost continuously in
office, no steps whatever were taken to reorganize the
Ottoman Empire, or to help the better elements to
organize themselves, whilst we lent the corrupt clique
of Pashas at Constantinople tens of millions, which
were squandered in corruption and debauchery. The
close of the Crimean War, however, was signalized by
a treaty, which could only have been reasonably
accepted by us if we had been defeated instead of vic
torious. Hampered by our alliance with the Govern
ment, and not with the people of France, we were con
strained to make peace practically on the terms which
suited our ally. A step also was taken, without any
reference to the people of England, by the two English
Plenipotentiaries, which sacrificed the only important
weapon that an essentially naval power like ourselves
�FOREIGN AFFAIRS.
179
has in a continental war. The history of the deplor
able surrender is even yet not fully know ; its effect
we shall only feel when we are again opposed—as we
may be at any moment opposed—by a European
coalition directed against us.
During the long wars with France under the
Republic and Napoleon we held one great advantage,
but for which we could scarcely have faced the com
bination which that great genius contrived to work up
against us. This went by the name of Maritime
Rights. Supreme on the ocean, and able to cover the
seas with a swarm of privateers, the carrying trade of
the world was at our mercy. The Right of Search was
the point on which this power hinged. This meant
that if neutral vessels were carrying our enemies’
goods, we had the right, whether contraband of war
or not, to stop those vessels and confiscate those
goods. Thus we could rely upon our real arm, that
which is given us by our geographical position and the
hereditary capacity of our men—the knowledge and
mastery of the sea. Time after time when the for
tunes of the country had seemed at the lowest ebb,
this power sufficed to turn the tide in our favour.
Its possession made us a valuable ally to the most
powerful continental state ; whilst, as we have seen,
with the friendly connivance of Turkey it enabled us
to break up the famous continental blockade against
our goods. Naturally this unequalled weapon, for a
country of such wealth as ours, had been envied us by
the continent ever since we began to use it, and con
stant efforts had been made by our rivals and enemies
to deprive us of it. Up to the date of the Congress
N 2
�i go
ENGLAND DOR all.
of Paris, however, all such pretensions had been
scouted by English statesmen as absolutely inadmis
sible, and ruinous to our country. Nothing to the
contrary of this had or has ever been shown. The
cry of “ free ships, free goods,” had been raised by
those who wished the downfall of England’s influence ;
for once admitted, it reduced our fighting power to
nothing.
All these facts notwithstanding, Lord Clarendon and
Lord Cowley, acting in that spirit of the pure trading
interest which had then become really paramount in
English foreign politics, gave up by the Declaration
of Paris, without argument, debate, or proper authority,
those maritime rights which could alone enable the
growing democracy of these islands to exercise due
weight and influence in Europe. No such sacrifice has
ever been made by any country. That we should
permanently adhere to it is incredible. The United
States was guilty of no such folly. Her statesmen
declined to give up privateering, except under pro
visions which they knew would not be accepted.
No long period can elapse before this whole question
is again brought forward. When it is, the people of
England should never cease to recall the fact that their
position in the world awakens the jealousies of other
nations, that these are the days of violent aggression
and secret combinations, and that the weapon, the
only weapon which nature has placed in our hands
wherewith with perfect freedom to face and overcome
the military despotisms of Europe, is that of being able
Jo dominate the commerce of the globe.
Soon after the Treaty of Paris, the Indian Mutiny
�FOREIGN AFFAIRS,
181
broke out. It ended in the handing over of India to
the Government of the Crown. The effect of the com
quest of India upon our foreign policy has been two
fold. First, the direct necessity of taking certain
strong places on the route to our great dependency,
and our alliance with the Porte. From England to
the East we hold a chain of posts which are essential
to the safety of our communications, but which render
us liable as time goes by to the maintenance con
stantly in the Mediterranean of a fleet at least equal to
that of France and Italy combined. Secondly, our
hold upon India has greatly increased our timidity in
championing any great cause, and has turned our
attention from the sea, where our real strength lies, to
the land, on which our national aversion from conscrip
tion must always make us fight at a disadvantage.
In India England is perforce a great military power;
and this, which is wholly at variance with our tradi
tions—for, as has been well said, we are a warlike, but
not a military people—tinges the whole current of our
foreign policy. Indian policy on more than one occa
sion has taken precedence of English ; Asiatic ideas
have had too great influence ; we have, in short, what
with fear of invasion, and dread of a rising in India
itself consequent upon misfortune in Europe, lost all
sense of proportion in considering the external rela
tion of such a country as ours. Asiatic politics must
inevitably enter largely into our calculations merely on
the ground of our commercial interests ; but India,
with its 60,000 European troops, is, as at present
governed, a source of increasing weakness to the
people of these islands, who may find themselves
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ENGLAND FOR ALL.
seriously hampered at a great national crisis by the
necessity for protecting their countrymen in Hindostan. This will become more clear now that
our frontier all but marches with that of a great and
troublous military power. India, consequently, will
prove a more disturbing element in our foreign policy
of the future than it has been in the past.
With the Treaty of Paris, however, England may be
said to have entered practically on the stage of per
manent non-intervention in continental affairs. Our
efforts to preserve peace when it was once understood
that under no circumstances whatever would we go
to war, became futile and even ludicrous. This was
apparent with regard to the French campaign against
Austria. Had we proclaimed our intention of siding
with either party, war would not have been declared.
But the establishment of the independence of Italy,
by French arms first, and by Garibaldi’s expedition
afterwards, met with the cordial sympathy of the
great mass of Englishman. Though the upper classes
still clung to the Austrian alliance, the people were
more clear-sighted, whilst Cavour’s happy moderation
reassured the middle class. Thus, all rejoiced at the
rise of Italy into a great power, and the extra
ordinary reception accorded to Garibaldi by the
democracy of London, gave evidence that the real
feeling of Englishmen is with the peoples of the
continent, and needs but a proper occasion to mani
fest itself in full force. The contest between the
North and the South in America, brought this truth
into stronger relief. Once more the upper and middle
classes, as in 1848 and 1859, linked themselves with
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183
the side of reaction, and that side, unfortunately for
their credit and influence, was this time the weaker.
Nothing finer is recorded than the behaviour of the
Lancashire operatives during that awful period of con
tinuous want. The capitalists who employed them
showed no such real perception of the truth, and their
selfishness appeared in protesting against any scheme
which might remove the hands, and thus perhaps
raise wages on the return of trade. That by the way.
The fact that the working class saw that the issue lay
between freedom and despotism, and clung to their
opinion under every discouragement, is evidence of
a capacity which needs but education and organiza
tion to have a deep effect in other fields of foreign
policy.
The hare-brained French expedition to Mexico
was the outcome of the American Civil War, and this
eventually brought the French Empire to destruction.
For no sooner was the shameless attack upon Denmark
by Prussia and Austria at an end—when German in
fluence again appeared in our counsels—than the two
great Powers who took part in that act of brigandage
fell out themselves. The cooler-headed brigand fell
upon his neighbour, and by the victory of Sadowa the
supremacy of Germany was gained by Prussia. Here,
of course, was an end of all international law. Thence
forward we have been living in an epoch of wrong and
robbery. France, crippled by the Mexican campaign,
could not afford to help Austria against Prussia and
Italy—merely, in fact, displaying her weakness to
a watchful enemy. England counted for nothing
in all this, and the only benefit which accrued to the
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ENGLAND FOR ALL.
peoples from the bloodshed and treachery was the
annexation of Venice by Italy. The extension of
the power of military Junker-ridden Prussia over the
pacific old Bund could only be viewed with satisfaction
by those who, whilst pretending to be Liberals, secretly
sympathize with brute force so long as it is organized
against the mass of mankind. In any case Prussia,
still closely allied with Russia, became the first Power
in Europe, and the next move was merely a matter
of time and opportunity.
By the year 1870 England had not only ceased
to have a continental policy, but she positively
had not the least idea of what was going on. It is
really alarming, especially at a time like the present,
to note the depth of ignorance in the English Foreign
Office eleven years ago. At the very moment when
the Frederick the Great of modern diplomatic Ger
many had made up his mind to strike France once
for all, and had contrived to “ localize ” the war after
his favourite fashion by arrangements with Russia
and Italy, our Foreign Office had come to the con
clusion that no elements of war so much as remained
in Western Europe at all. France was easily over
thrown ; and England, unfortunately for our credit
and our interests, refused to help the Republic which
rose upon the ruins of the Empire. Then, if the
phrase ever meant anything, was the time to show
the meaning of a real balance of power. France had
been beaten ; the Empire, with its wretched array of
stock-jobbers and intriguers, had been swept away.
So far we had no right to interfere; but the people
of France were in nowise responsible for the errors of
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185
Napoleon ; and a bold policy would have rallied Italy
and Austria at once to our side, to prevent a brave
nation from being crushed. That course was not
adopted, and any remonstrance met with insolence from
the German Government. Our position became indeed
that for which our non-interventionists had striven.
Of course further plots could be carried on inde
pendently of any consideration for the only Power
in Europe which has no real interest except in fair
play to the peoples.
It is needless to pass through the long and troubled
period which began with the Austrian imperial intrigues
in Bosnia and the Herzegovina, the Servian War, and
can scarcely be said to have ended with the Treaty
of Berlin. That a whole scheme was laid down for
the partition of the Ottoman Empire by the renewed
Holy Alliance, is clear. Russia, Germany, and
Austria had each their portions assigned, whilst the
advantages to be received by France and England
were doubtless considered ; perhaps the latter might
be content with nothing at all. The Bulgarian
atrocities helped Russia to carry out her part of the
programme, though the weakness engendered by the
war has certainly not been repaid by the advantages
she has as yet secured. England’s part in the business
has again been most unsatisfactory. A war in Europe
was avoided ; but a war in Asia was begun, which
has saddled our impoverished dependency with a
fearful expenditure. By showing, however, even a
moderately bold front in Europe, the Conservative
Government proved conclusively the influence which
England could exert, if only casting aside all lust for
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ENGLAND FOR ALL.
territory, and all underhand intrigue, she stood once
more with clean hands before the world as the reso
lute champion of justice and freedom, honesty and pub
lic faith. Then she could rally to her side the alliances
of the future, beside which the possession of Cyprus,
or even the control of Constantinople and Asia Minor
would seem mean and contemptible. But the result of
the game of brag which the last Government played
was not creditable. Instead of holding forth a plain,
intelligible policy to Englishmen, and appealing to
them to stand by even a downright Tory self-assertion,
there was a mixture of trimming and secrecy, of com
promise and timidity, which spoke of divided counsels
and irresolute minds. The people of England there
fore refused to go “ blind ” into a business which com
bined secret agreements abroad with the threat of
reaction in Ireland and at home. These, happily, are
the days of democracy, publicity, and open speech.
The statesman who is ambitious to lead England in
such times must take the people into his confidence,
and convince them that he is using their influence and
their power not ‘merely for selfish national interests,
but for the best interests of Europe and the world.
That the result of our secret diplomacy and party
foreign policy has not yet been fully seen is plain
enough. Non-intervention to start with, and secret
bargaining to end with, have landed us in a very un
enviable position. The nation refused to countersign
the policy of the Conservative Government, and the
Liberals came in with the promise of a special under
standing with France and perfect openness to the
country. France has so far dissembled her love for
�FOREIGN AFFAIRS.
187
the Liberal administration that she has kicked our
Foreign Secretary downstairs at three bounds. Greece,
the Commercial Treaty, and Tunis, are evidences of
the perfect entente cordiale which exists. The last
coup was the worst of all, for it came after assurances
of the most solemn nature that nothing whatever was
meant. Can we be surprised ? A policy of pure
selfishness has ended in our complete isolation. The
behaviour of France is shameful, and contrary to her
best interest. Granted. The treatment which we
have received in the matter would in different times
have led to a rupture of friendly relations between
the two countries. But at this moment we cannot
rely upon a single ally on the continent; and for all
we know, arrangements may be contemplated which
would occasion us very grave uneasiness.
For those who talk of non-intervention forget that
we have entered into definite guarantees, which the
least bellicose among us could not wish to shirk.
The overthrow of international law, which is pretty
complete now, would be fully accomplished indeed,
if England were to withdraw from her defence of
liberal little Belgium. We have had of late very
valuable experience as to what the concert of Europe
amounts to when booty is in the wind. It is more
than probable that the redistribution of territory
and power, which began in 1866, will not be con
fined to Eastern Europe. Should we desire, then, to
see the same sort of morality, which is good enough
for Turks, applied to Dutch, Belgians, and Swiss ?
The idea that justice influences either republics or
empires in these days had better be laid aside for the
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ENGLAND FOR ALL,
present as the figment that it is. A power which
could act as France has acted about Tunis, would
have small scruple in using similar tactics nearer
home.
But even more important to us than any bargaining
which may be going on, is the general aspect of
European affairs. We see four, not to say five, great
Powers absolutely bowed down with the weight of
their military expenditure ; whilst the great country
which in 1848 acted as the guardian of autocracy
in Europe, hovers between bankruptcy and revo
lution. Whatever else may be doubtful, this is past
all question, neither Germany nor Austria can per
manently bear the strain of the tremendous armaments
now kept up. For these armaments not only exhaust
the resources of the several countries, but prepare the
ground for internal revolution of the most serious
character. It is not Russia alone which is honey
combed with secret societies and festering disaffection.
There, indeed, the situation is graver than elsewhere.
Over-taxation, the drain of produce to Western
Europe, the influence of capitalism, and the break up
of the Mir coming at a time of serious famine, have
produced a state of affairs throughout the Empire
which would probably lead to revolution in one shape
or another, if the Nihilists had never been heard of.
That extraordinary conspiracy is but the natural out
come of a still more remarkable condition below.
Western civilization, with all its paraphernalia of
stockjobbing, corruption, and extravagance, has been
imposed on a country but just emerging from
barbarism, Almost anything may occur in such cif’
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cumstances. The murder of the late Czar shocked
Europe : but the cruelties which led up to that crime
were really even more shocking than'the revenge. More
people were swept off to Siberia without trial by the
benevolent Alexander II. than ever found their way
thither within an equal period during the worst days
of the reign of Nicholas. Now there is another Czar,
who lives in constant fear for his life; and the recent
changes seem to betoken a continuance of autocratic
rule at home, combined possibly with a renewal of
aggression abroad. Men live as in expectation of an
earthquake; and the attacks upon the Jews and other
money-lenders in Southern Russia look like the pre
monitory shocks.
If the disturbances do begin in earnest in Russia,
they are almost certain to lap over into other
countries. Already the grave social issues involved
in the existing capitalist system as applied to agri
culture and business are being debated with increasing
earnestness all over Europe. In Germany the party
of the Social Democrats has gained strength of late
years to a surprising extent, notwithstanding the
pressure of similar laws to those which we are now
applying with such great success in Ireland. Con
scription does but give the disaffected more confidence;
and as they see that peaceful agitation is considered
a crime, the propaganda might easily assume a more
dangerous shape. A military system like that of
Germany carries with it the certainty of its own
destruction at no distant date. All Prince Bismarck’s
unscrupulous energy will not suffice to stop the
current of ideas which show men how and why they
�190
ENGLAND FOR ALL.
are robbed and oppressed.' In Austria the agrarian
difficulty is assuming daily a graver aspect. Nor is it
the less serious because the people have not as yet
dissociated the agitation from religion or loyalty.
They scarcely understand themselves how it is that
capitalism and difference of value impoverish them.
In France a party holding similar views to that of the
Labour party in Germany, has been formed, and they
alone have had the courage to protest against the
attack on Tunis, as contrary to the interest and the
true sense of morality of the French people.
How far these various socialist bodies in Russia,
Germany, Austria, France, and Italy, would act
together in any general programme may be doubtful.
But these organizations—consisting almost exclu
sively of working men—alone seem to have grasped
the truth that the people of the various countries have
nothing to expect from war but loss and suffering ;
consequently they alone are prepared to consider
existing difficulties with a view to their peaceful
settlement. Men who hold that their class is under
going suffering and misery because the workers of
all nations are not sufficiently at one, will not be
likely to foment those national hatreds which are in
variably turned to the aggrandisement of individuals.
But this rising feeling of democracy, this growing dis
inclination of the men who work to be handled any
longer for the advantage of emperors, aristocrats or
even bond-buyers, is viewed with very uneasy eyes by
the military powers of Europe. It is not the
assassination of the- late Czar, or threats against the
present, which are drawing together “ saviours of
�FOREIGN AFFAIRS.
191
society on the continent. They see that, let affairs
in Russia take what turn they may, another and more
serious ’48 movement is going on below the surface,
which they wish beforehand to encounter and defeat.
Hence the attempts to bring about some understand
ing with reference to the surrender of political re
fugees, and the demands which have been made, or
will be made, upon us.
Now arises an important question for us English
men—and especially for those of the working classes
—to decide. Will they in the coming struggle
between militarism and democracy lend their aid in
any way to the former, or even stand aloof and see
the peoples of Europe repressed as they were a gene
ration since ? I judge not. Jealousy of this or that
nation there may be for a time, and French vanity
and unfortunate spread-eagleism may render all
combinations in Western Europe impossible. But
with the rising feeling of democracy here at home,
any understanding with reaction as in old days would
be ruinous to the party which attempted it, as any
effort to convert us into a military power may be
fatal to our existing system of government. As time
has passed on, it has become more and more clear
that in the direction of the national inclination of the
great majority of Englishmen lies at the same time
the most advantageous policy for England. Lying
apart from the continent of Europe, and practically
free from the risk of invasion, we can not only
shelter men who are driven from their country for
mere political offences, but we can rightfully stand
forth at the critical moment on behalf of those who at
�ENGLAND FOR ALL.
present think that England must necessarily range
herself on the side of a conservatism which has come
to be revolutionary. Each nation, doubtless, must
work out its own social troubles ; but a combination
of despotisms can only be met and overcome by a
combination of peoples. The true alliances for
England in the future are the democracies of Europe,
and her real strength is on the sea.
�CONCLUSION.
193
CONCLUSION.
THUS in every direction the policy of the demo
cracy is clear and well-defined. Freedom, social
reorganization, thorough unity at home, justice, selfgovernment, and consideration for our colonies and
dependencies, and a warm friendship and ready assis
tance for the oppressed peoples abroad,—such is the
work we are called upon to begin and carry out.
Democracy, which the so-called “ governing classes ”
jeer at as anarchy, incapacity, and self-seeking, means
a close federation, first, of our own people and next
of the workers of the civilized world. This is a policy
not of to-day or of to-morrow, now to be taken up
and again to be laid aside ; it is an undertaking in
which each can continuously bear his share, and
hand on the certainty of success to his fellow.
The current of events will help on the cause of the
people. Within the past generation greater changes
have been wrought than in centuries of human exis
tence before. For the first time in the history of
mankind the whole earth is at our feet. Railways,
telegraphs, steam communications, have but just
begun to exercise an influence. Education and in
tercourse are breaking down the barriers of ages.
The men who do the work of the world are learning
from one another how it is that the poor and the
o
�194
ENGLAND FOR ALL.
miserable, the unfortunate and the weak, suffer and
fall by the wayside. In our own country, which has
led the way to the new stage of social development,
all can see that the lot of the many is sad, whilst the
few are rich and luxurious far beyond what is bene
ficial even to them. Our action in redress of these
inequalities and better ordering of our affairs will
guide and encourage the world. We, perhaps, alone
among the peoples can carry out with peace, order,
and contentment those changes which continental
revolutionists have sought through anarchy and
bloodshed. Religion, which should have helped in
this striving for a happier period, has suffered the
rich and powerful to twist its teachings to their own
account. Now, therefore, is the time, in the face of
difficulties and dangers which threaten from many
quarters, for Englishmen of all classes,’ creeds, and
conditions to push aside the petty bickerings of
faction or the degrading influence of mere selfish
interests, to the end that by sympathy and fellowfeeling for their own and for others they may hold
up a nobler ideal to mankind. Such an ideal is not
unreal or impracticable. Not as yet of course can we
hope to realize more than a portion of that for which
we strive. But if only we are true to one another, and
stand together in the fight, the brightness of the future
is ours—the day before us and the night behind. So,
when those who come after look back to these islands
as we now look back to Athens or Palestine, they shall
say,—“ This was glory—this true domination ; these
men builded on eternal foundations their might,
majesty, dominion, and power.”
�
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England for all
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Hyndman, Henry Mayers [1842-1921]
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Place of publication: London
Collation: [4], 194 p. ; 19 cm.
Series title: Text-book of Democracy
Notes: Dedicated to the Democratic and Working Men's Clubs of Great Britain and Ireland.
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E. W. Allen
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1881
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T405
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Democracy
Socialism
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English
Democracy
Marxian Economics
Social change
Socialism
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403
MODERN SOCIALISM.
BY
ANNIE BESANT.
LONDON
FKEETHOUGHT PUBLISHING COMPANY,
63, FLEET STREET, E.C.
1 8 8 6.
�LONDON
PRINTED BY ANNIE BESANT AND CHARLES BRADLAUGH,
G3, ELEET STREET, E.C.
�*
MODERN SOCIALISM.
Great changes are long in the preparing, and every
thought that meets ultimately with wide acceptance is
lying inarticulate in many minds ere it is syllabled out by
some articulate one, and stands forth a spoken Word. The
Zeitgeist has its mouth in those of its children who have
brain to understand, voice to proclaim, courage to stand
alone. Some new Truth then peals out, sonorous and farsounding as the roll of the thunder, melodious to the ears
attuned to the deep grand harmonies of Nature, but terrible
to those accustomed only to the subdued lispings of artificial
triflers, and the murmurs which float amid the hangings of
courtly halls.
When such an event occurs a few hearken, study, and
then rejoicingly accept the new Truth; these are its
pioneers, its apostles, who go out to proclaim it to the as
yet unbelieving world. They meet with ridicule, then with
persecution; for ever the new Truth undermines some
hoary Lie, which has its band of devoted adherents living
on the spoils of its reign. Slowly,- against custom and
tradition, against selfishness and violence, even against
indifference, deadliest foe of all, this band of devoted
teachers makes its onward way. And the band grows and
grows, and each convert becomes in his turn a pioneer;
until at last the victory is won, and the minority has
become the majority; and then the time comes for some
new Truth once more, and the old struggle is gone over
afresh, and so again and again ; and thus the race makes
progress, and humanity climbs ever upward towards the
perfect life.
During the last century and a quarter the social problem
has been pressing for solution on all who have brains to
�4
MODERN SOCIALISM.
think and hearts to feel. The coexistence of wealth and
penury, of idle prodigality and laborious stint; the terrible
fact that “ progress and poverty ” seem to march hand-inhand ; the growing slums in large towns; the huge for
tunes and the starving poor; these things make content
impossible, and force into prominence the question: “Must
this state of things continue ? Is there no possible change
which will cure, not only palliate, the present evils ?
Great hopes have sprung into being from time to time,
each in turn to be blighted. Machinery was to double
production and diminish toil, to spread comfort and suffi
ciency everywhere. It made cotton-lords and merchant
princes with one hand, and with the other created a prole
tariat unlike aught the world had seen, poor in the midst
of the wealth it created, miserable in the midst of luxury,
ignorant in the midst of knowledge, savage in the midst
of civilisation. When the repeal of the Corn Laws was
striven for and accomplished, once more hope rose high.
Cheap food was to put an end to starvation. Alas! in
the streets of the wealthiest city in Christendom, men and
women perish for lack of a loaf of bread.
Nor is this persistence of misery and of squalor the only
sign which troubles the brain and the heart of the student
of the social problem. He notes the recurring crises in
industry, the inflations and depressions of trade. At one
time all is prosperous; demand is brisk, and supply can
scarce keep pace with it; wages rise, full time is worked,
production is enormously increased. Then a change creeps
over all; supply has overtaken, has surpassed demand;
the market is glutted; the warehouses are filled with
unsaleable goods; short time begins; wages fall; mills are
closed; furnaces are damped out; many workers are dis
charged. Then the unemployed in the large towns increase
in number ; the poor-rate rises ; distress spreads upwards.
After a while the depression passes ; trade improves ; and
the whole weary circle is trodden once more. Nor is this
all; although there has been “ over-production ” there is
want of the necessaries of life; there are unsaleable clothing
goods in the warehouses, and half-naked people shivering
outside; too many blankets, and children crying them
selves to sleep for cold. This monstrous absurdity, of com
modities a drug in the market, and human beings perishing
for want of those very commodities, stares us ever in the
�MODERN SOCIALISM.
5
face. Cannot human brain discover some means to put an
end to this state of things, a state which would be ludicrous
were it not for the horrible suffering involved in it ? Some
say, this must always be so; that the poor shall be for
ever with us; that commercial crises are inevitable; that
these evils' are not susceptible of complete cure. If tffis
indeed be true, then I know not that any better advice can
be given to humanity than that given to Job by his wife,
to “ curse God and die ”. But I think not so meanly of
human intelligence ; I believe not that our present indus
trial system, little more than a century old, must needs be
eternal; I believe that the present system, devised by man
and founded in greed of gain, may by man be changed;
and that man’s growing power over external nature may
be used to bring comfort and wealth to each, and not, as
now, to enrich the few at the cost of the enslavement of
the many.
Various attempts to bring about a better social state
have been made by earnest and noble-hearted men during
the last hundred years. I leave aside such systems as
those of the Moravians, because they cannot be regarded
as in any sense schemes for the reconstruction of society.
They, like the monastic communities, were merely attempts
to create oases, fenced in from the world’s evils, where
men might prepare for a future life. The efforts I allude
to are those classed as “Socialistic”; they were really
■crude forms of Communism. With these the name of
Robert Owen will be for ever associated.
Owen’s first experiment was made at New Lanark, in
connexion with the cotton-mills established there by Mr.
Dale, his father-in-law. He became the manager of these
in 1797, and set himself to work to improve the condition
•of the operatives and their families. The success which
attended his efforts, the changes wrought by education
and by fair dealings, encouraged him to plan out a wider
scheme of social amelioration. In 1817 he was asked to
report on the causes of poverty to the Committee on the
Poor Laws, and in this report he dwelt on the serious in•crease of pauperism which had followed the introduction
of machinery, and urged that employment ought to be
found for those who were in need of it. He “ recommended
that every union or county should provide a farm for the
employment of their poor; when circumstances admitted
�6
MODERN SOCIALISM.
of it, there should be a manufactory in connexion with it”
(“Robert Owen,” by A. J. Booth, p. 70). On the farm,
buildings were to be built for housing the laborers, con
sisting of “a square, divided into two parallelograms by
tl^e erection of public buildings in the centre ” ; these would
consist of “a kitchen, mess-room, school-rooms, library
and lecture-hall. The poor would enjoy every advantage
that economy could suggest: the same roof would cover
many dwellings : the same stove might warm every room :
the food would be cooked at the same time, and on the
same fire : the meals would be eaten from the same table,
in the society of friends and fellow-workers. Sympathies
now restricted to the family would be thus extended to
a community: the union would be still further cemented
by an equal participation in the profits, an equal share in
the toil............ Competition is the cause of many vices;
association will be their corrective” {Ibid, pp. 70-72).
Soon after this report, Mr. Owen published a letter, urging
the reconstitution of “the whole of society on a similar
basis”; the lowest class was to consist of paupers, to be
drafted into the proposed establishments; the second of
the “working-class”; the third of laborers, artisans, and
tradesmen, with property-of from £100 to £2,000; the
fourth of persons unable or unwilling to work, owning
from £1,000 to £20,000; these were to employ the second
class. The workman was to be supported by this class in
comfort for seven years in exchange for his labor, and then
was to be presented by it with £100, so that he might
enter class three; if he remained as a worker for five years
more he was to have £200.
A community of workers, as recommended by Owen, was
started in 1825, under the management of Abraham
Combe, at Orbiston, nine miles east of Glasgow, and it
began well; but Combe died in 1827, and with his death
the whole thing went to pieces. A few months before the
settlement at Orbiston, Robert Owen sailed for America,
and he purchased a property named Harmony, consisting
of 30,000 acres in Indiana, from the Rappites, a religious
communistic body. He advertised for inhabitants, and
gathered together a mixed crowd; “there were some
enthusiasts who had come, at great personal sacrifice, to
face a rude life and to mix among rude men, who had no
object but to work out the great problem of a New Society;
�MODERN SOCIALISM.
7
there were others who fancied they could secure abundance
with little labor, prepared to shirk their share in the toil,
but not to forego their share in the reward ” {Ibid, p. 106).
In the following year, 1826, “New Harmony ” inaugurated
a system of complete Communism, much against OwSn’s^
judgment; a number of small independent communities'^
were soon formed, eight of these having already broken
off from New Harmony early in 1827, the difficulties
attendant on widely extended common life being found
insuperable. In 1828, Robert Owen was forced to confess
that his effortshad failed, and that “families trained in
the individual system ” could not suddenly be plunged into
pure Communism with success. It boots not to dwell here
on his further efforts in England. Robert Owen’s experi
ments failed, but out of his teaching arose the co-operative
movement, and the impulse to seek some rational system
of society has, since his time, never quite died out in
England.
In America, a large number of communities have been
established, mostly religious in character. Erom the
careful account given of them by Charles Nordhoff, the
following brief details are taken (all numbers relate to
1874). The Amana community consists of 1,450 members ;
they have a property of 25,000 acres, and live in seven
small towns; they are Germans, very pious and very
prosperous ; their head is a woman, who is directly inspired
by God. The Harmony Society, Economy, near Pittsburg,
consists of followers of Rapp, who founded the society in
1805. They are all Germans and number 110, in addition
to about 100 hired laborers and some sixty children. They
live in comfort, and have clearly done well unto themunto themselves, owning now a very large amount of pro
perty. The Separatists of Zoar, Ohio, are, once more,
Germans: they started in 1817, have now about 300
members, own 7,000 acres of land, and are prosperous
exceedingly. The Shakers, established in 1792, are scat
tered over several States,-number about 2,415, own about
100.000 acres of land, are divided into fifty-eight commu
nities, and are wealthy and prosperous ; the members are
American and English. The Perfectionists of Oneida and
Wallingford are American, and the first attempt by them
at communal living took place in 1846. They number 521,
and own 894 acres of land. They also are prosperous.
�8
MODERN SOCIALISM.
The Aurora and Bethel Communes, in Oregon, are German,
or 11 Pennsylvania Dutch ”; they started in 1844, and now
number some 600 persons: their property extends to
23,000 acres, and they live in much comfort. The Icarians,
founded by Etienne Cabet in 1848, are nearly all French;
ch^have hitherto been less fortunate than the preceding
societies, in consequence of mismanagement at the start;
a heavy debt was incurred early in the movement, and
members fell off; but a few resolute men and women
settled down steadily in Iowa, with 4,000 acres of land,
and 20,000 dollars of debt; they had to give up the land
to their creditors, but managed to redeem nearly half of it,
and they are now 65 in number, own 1,936 acres,
have no debts, and have acquired a large live stock. They
still live very plainly, but are on their way to prosperity,
having conquered all the difficulties amid which they
started; their constitution is perfectly democratic and they
are without religion. A Swedish community at Bishop
Hill, Illinois, was formed by a pietist sect which emi
grated to America to escape persecution in 1846-1848.
They were terribly poor at first and lived in holes in the
ground, with a tent for a church, but gradually acquired
property; until in 1859 they owned 10,000 acres of land,
worth 300,000 dollars, and some magnificent live stock.
Unfortunately their piety led to such extreme dullness that
the younger members of the society revolted: debt was
incurred, individuality was advocated, the property was
divided, and the community ceased to exist. Lastly, there
are two small communities, founded in 1871 and 1874 ; the
former, the Progressive Community, at Cedar Vale, consists
partly of Russians; it possesses 320 acres of good land,
and has only eight members, of whom one is a child. The
second, the Social Freedom Community, consists of three
adults and three lads, Americans, and has a farm of 333
acres.
The whole of these societies can only be regarded as in
the nature of experiments, and as such they are extremely
interesting; each community has succeeded in gaining
comfort and independence, but these small bodies, living
chiefly by agriculture in a thinly-populated country on
virgin soil, while they show the advantages of associated
labor, really offer no data for the solution of the problems
which beset a complex society. They are a return to more
�MODERN SOCIALISM.
9
primitive forms of living, not an onward social evolution,
and they are only possible in a “ new country ”. Further,
while they are communistic so far as their own members
are concerned, they are individualistic and competitive in
their aspect to the outer world; each small group holds.Wrs
own property, and transacts all its business on the old lines
in its dealings with the rest of the nation. This is, of
course, inevitable, since each is encircled by competition;
but it must not be overlooked that all these organisations,
like co-operative societies at home, are nothing more than
enlarged families, and are essentially individualistic ; win
ning sufficiency for their own narrow, isolated circles, but
leaving untouched the question of national poverty. They
are arks, rescuing their inmates from the deluge, but they
do nothing to drain away the seething ocean of misery.
We turn next to Socialism, as distinct from Communism.
The distinction between these, though recognised by so
orthodox an economist as John Stuart Mill, is generally
ignored by those who oppose any radical reconstruction of
Society. Mr. Mill divides into two classes the assailants
of the present system of purely individualistic property :
“ those whose scheme implies absolute equality in the
distribution of the physical means of life and enjoyment,
and those who admit inequality, but grounded on some
principle or supposed principle, of justice or general
expediency, and not, like so many of the existing social
inequalities, dependent on accident alone. At the head of
the first class, as the earliest of those belonging to the
present generation, must be placed Mr. Owen and his fol
lowers. M. Louis Blanc and M. Cabet have more recently
become conspicuous as apostles of similar doctrines (though
the former advocates equality of distribution only as a
transition to a still higher standard of justice, that all
should work according to their capacity, and receive
according to their wants). The characteristic name for
this economical system is Communism, a word of conti
nental origin, only of late introduced into this country.
The word Socialism, which originated among the English
Communists, and was assumed by them as a name to
designate their own doctrine, is now, on the Continent,
employed in a larger sense; not necessarily implying
Communism, or the entire abolition of private property,
but applied to any system which requires that the land and
�10
MODERN SOCIALISM.
the instruments of production should be the property, not
of individuals, but of communities or associations, or of
the government” (“Principles of Political Economy”,
Book II., chap, i., sec. 2). Communism implies the complete abolition of private property, and the supply of the
wants of each individual from a common store, without
regard to the contributions to that common store which
may, or may not, have been made by the individual.
Socialism merely implies that the raw material of the soil
and the means of production shall not be the private pro
perty of individuals, but shall be under the control of the
community; it leaves intact a man’s control over himself
and over the value of his work—subj ect to such general
laws as are necessary in any community—but by socialising
land and capital it deprives each of the power of enslaving
his fellows, and of living in idleness on the results of their
labor instead of on the results of his own. It may be that at
some future time humanity shall have evolved to a point
which shall render Communism the only rational system;
when every man is eager to do his share of work ; anxious
not to make too much for his own enjoyment: holding the
scales of justice with a perfectly even hand; his one aim
the general good, and his one effort the service of his
brethren; when each individual is thus developed, law will
have become unnecessary, and Communism will be thenatural expression of social life; perfect freedom will be
the lot of each, because each will have become a law unto
himself. But to that stage of development man has not
yet attained, and for man as he is Communism would mean
the living of the idle on the toil of the laborious, the
rebirth, under a new name, of our present system.
Modern Socialism is an attempt to get at the root of the
poverty which now prevails ; to find out how fortunes are
made; why commercial crises occur; what are the real
relations of capital and labor at the present time.
In speaking of “fortunes”, I do not here include for
tunes made by gambling, as on the Stock Exchange. They
fall under another category, for in gambling, whether on
the Stock Exchange or on the card table, wealth is not
really made; it only passes from one pocket to another.
The gambler, or the burglar, may “ make a fortune ” sofar as he is himself concerned; but it is not done by the
creation of wealth, but only by transferring wealth already
�MODERN SOCIALISM.
II
existing from, the pocket of its temporary possessor into
his own ; in both businesses the profits are large because
the risks are great, and the penalty for failure heavy for
the moment.
Socialism, as an industrial system, is chiefly concerned
with fortunes in the making, with the way in which the
wealth created by associated labor passes into the handsof individuals who do little or nothing in exchange for it.
These fortunes arise from the ownership of the instrumentsof production, or of the raw material out of which wealth isto be manufactured; from the ownership, that is, of capital,
or of land.
Production.
Let us take the case of the possessor of capital employed
in manufacture. This man desires to obtain more wealth
than he can produce alone, more than he can individually
produce even with the help of machinery. He must con
sequently hire others, who, in exchange for a certain fixed
sum to be paid to them by him, shall allow him to take
over the whole results of their labor, and to pocket the
difference between those results and the fixed sum paid
by him. This fixed sum is known as wage, and is “the
market price of labor”. We have therefore here twoclasses face to face with each other: one is a class which
is the owner of capital, that is, which possesses the instru
ments of production; the other is a class which possessesthe labor-force, without which the instruments of produc
tion are useless, but which must perish if it cannot get
hold of some of those instruments. (Behind the capitalists
is a third class, the land-owning, with which the capitalist
has to come to terms ; that will be dealt with afterwards.)
This second class stands therefore at this disadvantage; that
while the capitalist can, if he pleases, utilise his own labor
force for his own subsistence, it cannot subsist at all except
with his consent and aid, being shut out from the raw
material by the landowner, and from the instruments of
production by himself. Put a naked man on fertile soil in
a decent climate and he will subsist; he will live on fruit
and berries while with his hands he fashions some rough
tool, and with the help thereof makes him a better one
out of the. raw material he will form an instrument of pro
duction with those original instruments of production given.
�12
MODERN SOCIALISM.
him bv nature, his fingers and the muscles of his body;
then with his instrument and the raw material at his feet
he will labor and win his livelihood. But in our complex
society this opening is not before him; the raw material
is enclosed and trespassers are prosecuted; if he picks fruit
for food, he is a thief; if he breaks off a bough to make
a rough tool, he is arrested ; he cannot get an instrument
of production, and if he could he would have nothing to use
it on; he has nothing but his labor-force, and he must either
sell that to someone who wants it, or he must die. And the
sale must be complete. His labor-force is bought for so
much down per week or per month ; it no longer belongs
to himself, it is owned by his master, and he has not any
right over that which it produces; he has sold it, and if he
wants to resume possession he must give notice of his wish
to the owner thereof; having resumed possession it is of no
use to him; he can only live by selling it to somebody else.
He is “free”, in so far that he is able to change his
master; he is a slave in that he must sell the labor force
in his body for food. The man whose labor-force has been
sold to another for life is regarded by all as a slave; the
man whose labor-force is sold for stated terms is regarded
by most as free; yet in comparing the conditions of the two,
it is well to bear in mind that the slave, in becoming a
chattel, becomes of value to his master, and it is the
interest of the latter to feed him well and to keep up his
physical strength as long as is possible; also in old age he
is fed and housed, and can die in peace amid his fellows.
Whereas the wage-earner has no such value, but it is his
master’s interest to get as much work out of him as is
possible, without regard for his health, there being plenty
to take his place when he is worn out; and when he is
old, he is separated from wife and child and is left to die
in the prison we call a workhouse. The slave is valuable,
as the horse and the ox are valuable, to his owner; the
wage-earner is valuable only as a garment, which is cast
into the dusthole when it is worn out.
It may be answered that the wage-earner by good for
tune, industry, and thrift, may be able so to save of his
-earnings that he may escape the workhouse, and may even
himself become independent and an “ employer of labor ”.
True. So might a lucky slave become free. But the
truth that some may rise out of their class does not render
�MODERN SOCIALISM.
13
satisfactory the state of the class, and the very fact that
such rising is held out as a reward and a stimulus is an
admission that an escape from the proletariat must be the
natural longing of every proletarian. The rising of a few
does not benefit the proletariat as a whole, and it is the
existence of this unpropertied proletariat which is the evil
thing.
To this proletariat, waiting to sell its labor-force, the
capitalist goes, for it is here that he will be able to obtain
the wealth-making strength which he requires. The next
question is: What determines the wage which he is to
pay ? That is: what fixes the market price of labor
force ? Putting on one side temporary and comparatively
trivial causes, which may slightly affect it one way or the
other, there are two constant determinants : population,
and standard of living. The market-price of labor-force
will largely depend on the quantity of labor-force in the
market; if the supply exceed the demand, the price will
be low; if the demand exceed the supply, the price will
go up. If an employer requires fifty laborers, and two
hundred laborers compete with each other for the employ
ment he offers, and if the employment stands between
them and starvation, he will be able to beat down their
price until it touches the lowest point at which they can
subsist. The more rapid the multiplication of the prole
tariat, the better for the capitalist class.
The other determinant is the “standard of living” or
“standard of comfort”. Wage can never sink beyond
the point at which a man and his family can exist thereon;
this is the extreme limit of its fall, inasmuch as a man
will not work unless he can exist on the results of his
work. As a matter of fact, it does not often sink so low;
the wage of an ordinary operative is more than barely
suffices to keep him and his family alive, but large num
bers of the laboring poor are habitually underfed, and are
liable to the diseases brought on by low living, as well as
to premature aging and death arising from the same cause.
It is a significant fact that the deathrate of the poor is
much higher than the deathrate of the rich. Wage is
lower in countries in which the standard of living is low,
than in those in which it is, by comparison, higher. Thus
in parts of Scotland, where oatmeal is much used for food,
and children run much barefoot, wage is normally lower
�14
MODERN SOCIALISM.
ih.an in. England, where wheaten flour and shoes and
-stockings are expected. Any general lowering of the
standard of living is therefore to be deprecated—as the
wide substitution of cheap vegetable food-stuffs for more
■expensive articles of diet. The standard of living also
(and chiefly, in any given country) affects wages through
its effect on population. Mill points out (“ Principles of
Political Economy,” Book II., chap, xi., sec. 2) that
“wages do adapt themselves to the price of food ”, either
(«) from children dying prematurely when food rises, and
wages were before barely sufficient to maintain them, or
(J) from voluntary restriction of the growth of population
when the laborers refuse to sink below a certain standard
of living. In each case the diminution of labor supply
■causes a rise of wage. “Mr. Ricardo”, says Mill, “con
siders these two cases to comprehend all cases. He as
sumes, that there is everywhere a minimum rate of wages:
-either the lowest with which it is physically possible to
keep up the population, or the lowest with which the
people will choose to do so. To this minimum he assumes
that the general rate of wages always tends; that they
■can never be lower, beyond the length of time required for
a diminished rate of increase to make itself felt, and can
never long continue higher.” This is the “iron law of
wages ”, and it is the recognition of its truth which, among
other reasons, sets Socialists against the wage-system of
industry. [It must not be forgotten that the phrase
“ordinary operative” does not include all the workers.
There is a large class which obtains barely subsistence
wage, and those who are not regularly employed are on
the very verge of starvation. The hard lot of these must
not be left out of sight in impeaching the present social
state.]
The capitalist, then, buys as much labor-force as he
desires, or as his means allow, at the market price, deter
mined in the way we have seen. This labor-force he pro
poses to utilise for his own advantage; with some of his
capital he buys it; some of his capital consists in machinery,
and the labor-force set at work on this machinery is to
produce wealth. The labor-force and the instruments of
production are now brought together ; they will now pro
duce wealth, and both they and the wealth they produce
are the property of the capitalist.
�MODERN SOCIALISM.
15
Our next inquiry is : Where does the capitalist look for
his profit ? He has bought machinery; he has bought
labor-force ; whence comes the gain he is seeking ? The
profit of the capitalist must arise from the difference be
tween the price he pays for labor-force and the wealth
produced by it; out of this difference must be paid his
rent, the loss incurred by wear-and-tear, and the price of
the raw material on which his machinery works; these
provided for, the remainder of the difference is his “profit”.
The analysis of the way in which this profit arises is, then,
the task that comes next.
In Karl Marx’s “Das Capital” may be found a carefully
•elaborated exposition of “ surplus-value ”. The term is a con
venient one, and the student will do well to read his 7th chap
ter, on the “production of use-value and surplus-value”;
in reading, he must remember Marx’s definitions of value
and use-value, which of course govern the whole. Value
is human labor incorporated in a commodity; use-value
is that which in a commodity satisfies some human want.
The “ use-value ” of Marx is identical with the “ intrinsic
natural worth” of Locke. Locke says: “The intrinsic,
natural worth of any thing, consists in its fitness to supply
the necessities, or serve the conveniences of human life ”
(“Considerations of the Lowering of Interest,” etc., Locke’s
Works, vol. ii., p. 28, ed. 1777). As an instance of the
production of surplus-value—that is of the difference be
tween the capital which the capitalist expends in produc
tion and that which he possesses when the production is
complete—Marx takes the case of the manufacture of ten
pounds of thread. The capitalist buys ten pounds of
cotton at 10s.; wear-and-tear of machinery in the spinning
of the cotton into thread raises his expenditure to 12s.;
further, six hours of work are necessary to turn the ten
pounds of cotton into ten pounds of thread.
Now suppose that a man in six hours is able to produce
sufficient to maintain himself for a day;—that is that he
produces as much as might be exchanged for a day’s con
sumption of the necessaries of life. Let us value this at
3s. in money. That 3s. which is the monetary equivalent
of his six hours’ labor must be added to the cost of pro
duction of the thread ; its value has therefore risen finally
to 15 s. If the capitalist now sells his ten pounds of thread
for 15s., he will only receive back as much as he has
�16
MODERN SOCIALISM.
expended ; he will have made no profit. But suppose the
working day be of twelve hours instead of six, the wages
paid will none the less be fixed at 3s. by the standard of
living; but in that second six hours the operative can
transform another ten pounds of cotton into another ten
pounds of thread; as before, cotton and wear-and-tear will
-amount to 12s.; but these ten pounds of thread have a
value of 15s. as had the previous ten pounds, although they
have only cost the capitalist 12s. Hence the final product
of the day’s labor has a value of 30s., but has cost the
capitalist only 27s. The value added by the operative in
the second six hours has brought him no equivalent; it is
“ surplus-value”, value added by him over the value whose
equivalent he receives in wage; this creation of surplus
value is the aim of the capitalist.
Now without tying ourselves down to the exact figures,
given by Marx, we may yet see by a little thought that his
position as to “ surplus-value ” is essentially correct. If a
capitalist buys £1 worth of raw material; if his machinery
is depreciated say by the value of one shilling in workingup the raw material; if he pays in wage 5s. for the labor
force expended on it; he will most certainly not be content
with selling the finished product for 26s. He demands a
“profit” on the transaction, and this profit can only be the
difference between that which is paid to labor, and the
value, in the ordinary sense of the word, which labor
creates.
It is sometimes objected that nothing is gained by
Marx’s divisions of “value”, “ surplus value ”, and “ex
change value”, but that, on the contrary, they transport
economics into a metaphysical region away from the solid
ground of facts. It is urged that it is better to represent the
conditions thus: that the worker produces a mass of com
modities ; that the capitalist sells these commodities for
what they will fetch in the market, the price being fixed,
not by the duration of the labor embodied in them, but by
the relative utilities of money and commodity to buyer and
seller; that the capitalist gives over to the producer suffi
cient of the results of the sale to enable the producer to
exist, and pockets the remainder. This presentment is a
statement of the facts as they are; Marx’s “value” is
a metaphysical abstraction, corresponding to nothing exist
ing at the present time, however true it would be under
�MODERN SOCIALISM.
17
ideal conditions. The main point to grasp, however, is
obvious, whichever of these presentments is thought pre
ferable. Capital, under our present industrial system, is
the result of unpaid labor—a matter to be further con
sidered later in this essay. But it must be remembered
that, as a matter of fact, the profit made by the capitalist
is not a fixed quantity, as is the “ surplus value ” of Marx; z
but that the capitalist not only preys on the worker, but
also on the necessities of the consumer, his profit rising
and falling with the changes of demand and supply. The
phrase “ surplus value ” is, as I have said, a convenient
one, but it might well be extended to cover the whole
difference between the price paid to labor for the com
modities it produces, and the price obtained for those com
modities by the capitalist employer of labor. It is in this
wide sense that the phrase is used in the following pages,
not in the metaphysical sense of Marx.
We are now in a position to understand how large for
tunes are made, and why Capital and Labor are ever at
war.
Before the commencement of the Industrial Period—
which may be fairly dated from the invention of the Spin
ning Jenny in 1764—it was not possible to accumulate
great wealth by the employment of hired labor. By hand
work, or by the use of the very simple machines available
prior to that date, a single operative was not able to pro
duce sufficient to at once support himself and to largely
enrich others. “Masters and men” consequently formed
a community of workers, without the sharp divisions that
now exist between capitalist and “hands”; and the em
ployer would have been as much ashamed of not working
deftly at his trade, as the son of a Lancashire cotton-lord
would be if he were suspected of throwing a shuttle in
one of his father’s looms. Under these conditions there
was very little surplus-value to be absorbed, and there
were consequently no great aggregations of purely indus
trial classes. The introduction of machinery multiplied
enormously the productive power of the operative, while it
did not increase the wage he received. A man receiving
3s. for a day of twelve hours, produced, we will say for the
sake of illustration, surplus-value to the amount of Is.;
after the introduction of machinery he received the same
wage and produced an enormously increased surplus-value.
c
�18
MODERN SOCIALISM.
Thus the fortunes of the lucky possessors of the new
machinery rose by “ leaps and bounds ”; lads who began
at the loom were owners of palaces by middle age; even
later on, after the first rush had spent itself, I have myself
met Lancashire cotton-lords who were mill-hands in their
youth; but most certainly their wealth had only been made
by the results of the toil of many becoming concentrated in
the hands of one.
Another step was taken to increase surplus-value. De
pending, as it does, on the difference between the value
produced by the worker and the amount paid to him as
wage, it is obvious that if it be possible to obtain the same
amount of produce from purchased labor-force while re
ducing the purchase-money, the surplus-value will become
larger. This step was soon taken, for it was found that
many machines could be superintended by a woman quite
as effectively as by a man, while female labor-force was
purchasable in the market at a lower rate. Hence the
large introduction of female “hands” into cotton mills, and
as married women were found more “docile” than un
married—docility increasing with the number of mouths
crying for bread at home—there came the double curse on
the producers, of male labor being pushed aside by female
labor at lower wage, and of untidy home and neglected
children, bereft of mother’s care. Yet another step. Child
labor was cheaper even than woman-labor, and by utilising
children, with their pitiful wage, surplus-value might be
swollen to yet larger proportions; and as wives had fought
with husbands for wage, so children now fought with
fathers and mothers, until verily a man’s foes in the labormarket were they of his own household.
There was, however, a way of increasing surplus-value
apart from the amount of daily wage. The lengthening of
the hours of labor has obviously the same result in this
respect as the lowering of wage. The very zenith of the
production of surplus-value, the most complete exploitation
of the producers, the perfect triumph of the capitalist ideal
of free contract and of laissez-faire, were reached when little
children, at nominal wage, were worked from fifteen to
sixteen hours a day, and princely fortunes were built up
by human sacrifice to the devil of greed, in fashion that
shall never, so help us tongue, and pen, and arm, be again
possible in this fair English land.
�19
MODERN SOCIALISM.
We have at the present time no exact figures available
which can enable us to judge of the precise amount of sur
plus value produced in the various departments of industry.
In America, the Bureaus of Labor Statistics help us, and
from these we learn some suggestive facts.
Average wage paid
to worker.
1850
1860
1870
1880
..
£49 12
58 8
62 0
69 4
Extra net value pro■ duced by worker.
..
£41 16
65 10
69 0
64 14
(Taken from Laurence Gronlund’s quotation of these re
turns in his 11 Co-operative Commonwealth”, chap. i. The
same figures, as regards total net produce and wages paid,
have appeared in a capitalist work.) I trust that we shall
soon have in England Labor Bureaus similar to those now
existing in the United States and in Canada. Charles
Bradlaugh, M.P., has succeeded in passing a resolution in
favor of the official publication of similar statistics through
the House of Commons, and among the many priceless ser
vices he has done to the workers, the obtaining of these is by
no means the least. Exact knowledge of the present state
of things is a necessary precedent of organic change, and
the figures supplied by the Labor Bureaus will give us
the very weapons that we need.
The absolutely antithetical interests of Capital and
Labor have necessitated—and must continue to necessitate
while the present system lasts—a constant and embittered
war. As Capital can only grow by surplus value, it strives
to lengthen the working day and to decrease the daily
wage. Labor struggles to shorten the hours of toil, and
to wring from Capital a larger share of its own product in
the form of higher wage. While Capital is the possession
of one class, and Labor is the only property of the other,
this strife must go on. There can never be industrial
peace until this root of war be pulled up, and until Capital,
under the control of the community, shall be used for the
fertilisation, instead of for the oppression of Labor.
Since large fortunes are made by manufacturers, and
there is no source of wealth save labor applied to natural
objects, it is clear that these fortunes are due to the fact
that the manufacturers are able to become the owners of
c2
�20
MODERN SOCIALISM.
the means of production and of labor-force; even these very
means of production, with which the present labor-force
works, are but past labor-force crystallised. The wage
earners must produce sufficient to maintain themselves
from day to day and to increase the capital of the wage
payers, else they will not be employed. Hence arises
another evil, the waste of productive force. Men are not
employed because their labor-force, embodied in the neces
saries of life, will spread sufficiency and comfort throughout
the community. They are only employed when the articles
produced can be sold at a profit by a third party; their
products, fairly exchanged for the products of their fellow
laborers—woven cloth, say, for shoes—would clothe warmly
the shivering population ; but above the cloth produced by
the one, and the shoes produced by the other, stand the
capitalists, who demand profit for themselves ere the cloth
shall be allowed to shield the naked back, or the shoes
keep off the pavement the toes blued by the frost. If the
employment fails, the wage-earner is out of food; but the
erstwhile wage-payer has the capital made by the former
to live upon, while its maker starves. The capitalist, truly,
cannot increase his capital, unless he can buy labor-force ;
but he can live on his capital. On the other hand the
labor-force must perish unless it can find a purchaser.
Lotus put the position plainly, for as the great majority
•of people think the arrangement a perfectly fair one, there
is no need to cover it over with a veil of fine phrases and
roundabout expressions. The owner of raw material and
of the means of production faces the unpropertied pro
letarian, and says to him : “I hold in my hands the means
of existence; unless you can obtain the means of existence
you will die; but I will only let you have them on one
condition. And that is that you shall labor for me as
well as for yourself. For each hour that you spend in
winning bread, you shall spend another in enriching me.
I will give you the right to win a hard existence by your
labor, if you will give me the right to take whatever you
produce beyond that bare existence. You are perfectly
free to choose ; you can either accept my terms, and let
me live on your work, or you can refuse my terms, and
starve.” Put so baldly, the proposition has a certain
brutality in it. Yet when we Socialists argue that a system
is bad which concentrates the means of existence in the
�MODERN SOCIALISM.
21
hands of a propertied class, and leaves an unpropertied
class under the hard condition of winning only the right
to exist on such terms as may be granted by the propertied ;
when we urge this, we are told that we are incendiaries,
thieves, idiots, or, at the mildest, that our hopes of freeing
these enslaved ones are dreams, mere castles in the air.
We have now reached the foundation of modern So
cialism. We say: As long as the industrial classes are
divided into capitalists and proletarians, so long must con
tinue the present strife, and the present extremes of wealth
and of poverty. It is not a mere modification, but a com
plete revolution of the industrial system which is required.
Capital must be controlled by labor, instead of controlling
it. The producers must obtain possession of their own
product, and must regulate their own labor. The present
system has been weighed in the balances and found wanting,
and on the wall of the capitalist banqueting-room is written
by the finger of modern thought, dipped in the tears and
in the bloody sweat of the over-tasked proletariat: “Man
hath numbered thy kingdom and finished it. It is divided
among the myriads thou hast wronged.”
Competition.
Strife is the normal condition of the whole industrial
world; Capital strives against Labor, and Labor against
Capital, lock-outs and strikes being the pitched battles of
the struggle; capitalists strive against capitalists for profits,
and the list of the vanquished may be read in the bank
ruptcy court; workers strive against workers for wage, and
injure their own order in the fratricidal combat. Every
where the same struggle, causing distress, waste, hatred,
in every direction ; brothers wronging brothers for a trifling
gain ; the strong trampling down the weak in the frantic
race for wealth. It is the struggle of the wild beasts of
the forest transferred to the city; the horrible struggle
for existence, only in its “civilised” form hearts are
wrenched and torn instead of limbs.
It is constantly urged that competition is advantageous
because it develops capacity, and by the struggle it causes
it brings about the survival of the fittest. The allegation
may be traversed on two grounds : granting that capacity
is developed by struggle, it is yet developed at great cost
of suffering, and it would be more worthy of reasoning
�22
MODERN SOCIALISM.
beings to seek to bring about the capacity and to avoid the
suffering; to borrow an illustration which suggests itself
by the very word “ struggle ”, we know that actual fighting
develops muscle, endurance, readiness of resource, quick
ness of the senses ; none the less do we regard war as a
disgrace to a civilised people, and we find that the useful
capacities developed by it may be equally well developed
in the gymnasium and the playing-field, without the evils
accompanying war. So may education take the place of
competition in developing useful qualities. Further we
deny that “the fittest ” for social progress survive in the
competitive struggle. The hardest, the keenest, the most
unscrupulous, survive, because such are the fittest for the
brutal strife; but the generous, the magnanimous, the
just, the tender, the thoughtful, the sympathetic, the very
types in whose survival lies the hope of the race, are
crushed out. In fact, competition is war, and the very
reasons which move us to endeavor to substitute arbitra
tion for war, should move us to endeavor to substitute
co-operation for competition.
But it is urged, competition among capitalists is advan
tageous to the public, and it is shown that where two or
three railway lines compete for custom, the public is better
served than where there is only one. Granted. There is
an old adage which says that “when thieves fall out,
honest men come by their own ” ; none the less is it better
to stop thieving, than to encourage it under the hope that
the thieves may fall out, and some of the stolen goods be
recovered. So long as capitalists are permitted to exploit
labor, so long is it well that they should compete with each
other and so have their profits lessened; but it would be
still better to stop the exploitation. Accepting the railway
instance, it may be rejoined that the German State railways
have comfortable carriages that can hold their own against
all comers, and that whereas a railway company, eager for
dividends, can only be forced into providing decent carri
ages by fear of losing customers to a rival, a State railway
is managed for the benefit of the public, and improvements
are readily introduced. Our post-office system shows how
improvements are made without any pressure of competi
tion ; it has given us cheaper postage, cheaper telegraphing,
and is giving us cheaper parcel-delivery ; so that we can
send from London a letter to Wick for a penny, a telegram
�MODERN SOCIALISM.
23
thither for sixpence, and a parcel for threepence; it is a
matter of pride to the Postmaster-General of the day, as a
public servant, to improve his department, although he is
protected by law (save in the case of parcels, only just
undertaken) from competition.
Even some economists who approve of competition see
the need of limiting its excesses. Mr. R. S. Moffat, for
instance, approves of it and thinks that “competition is
not only the best, but the only practical means of meet
ing” “the conflicting natural conditions, between the
exigencies of an unknown demand and the fluctuations of
an uncertain supply”, “that ever has been, or is ever
likely to be, discovered” (“The Economy of Consump
tion,” p. 114, ed. 1878). Yet Mr. Moffat points out that
“ the material cost of competition includes two items: first,
superfluous production, or wasted labor; and secondly, illbalanced distribution, or misdirected labor ” (p. 115); and
he declares: “Not content with promoting a healthful
industry, it enforces tyrannous laws upon labor, and exacts
from the free laborer an amount of toil which the hardest
taskmaster never succeeded in wringing from the slave.
It disturbs by its excesses the balance of industry which
its moderation had established. In times of prosperous
production it accumulates stocks till they become a nuisance
and a source of the most serious embarrassment to pro
ducers, who do not know where to turn for employment to
their productive resources ; and in adverse times it gambles
with them, and deprives consumption of their support at
the very time for which they were provided” (pp. 116, 117).
“ It is upon laborers”, he says, “ not only as individuals,
but as a class, that the great burden of over-production
falls” (p. 119).
I propose to consider, I., the evils of competition; II.,
the remedy proposed by Socialism.
I.—The Evils.—Many of these lie on the surface; others
become palpable on very slight investigation. They affect
the capitalist manufacturer; the distributor; the con
sumer ; and the producing classes.
An ingenious capitalist sees a want and devises an article
to meet it; or he devises an article and sets to work to
create the want. He places his article before the public,
and a demand for it arises. The article either supplies a
real want, or it becomes “the fashion”, and the demand
�24
MODERN SOCIALISM.
increases and outstrips the supply. Other capitalists rush
in to compete for the profit which is to be made; capital
flows rapidly into the particular industry concerned ; high
wages are offered; operatives flock to it; the supply swellsuntil it overtops the demand. But when this point is
touched, the supply is not at once lessened; so long as
there is any hope of profit, the capitalists manufacture;
wage is lessened to keep up the profit, but this expedient
fails; short hours are worked ; at last the market becomes
thoroughly overstocked. Then distress follows, and while
capital seeks new outlets, the operatives fall into the great
army of unemployed; and very often the small capitalists,
who went into the rush just when profit was at its highest,,
and who have not sufficient capital to hold out against the
fall, and to await a rise, meet the fate of earthenware
pots, carried down a torrent among iron ones. When this
happens, the result of their speculative folly is held up as
an example of the “risks run by capitalists ”. Nor is this
the only way along which a small capitalist sometimestravels to the bankruptcy court. He often borrows money
“to extend his business”, and if the business shrinks
instead of expanding, he becomes bankrupt. In the uni
versal war, the big capitalist fish devour the small fry.
And, after all, even the “successful man” of our com
petitive society is not one whose lot is to be envied by
the healthy human being. Not for him the pure joy in
natural beauty, in simple amusements, in intellectual
triumph, which is the dower of those unstained by thefight for gold. For the successful competitor in com
mercial war Nature has no laurel-crown. He has bartered
himself for a mess of pottage, and his birthright of healthy
' humanity is gone from him for evermore. Well doesMoffat write his fate : “The man who strives to make a
fortune contemplates his own ease and enjoyment, not the
good of society. He flatters himself that through his
superior skill, tact, wisdom, energy, or whatever quality it
is he thinks himself twice as strong in as his neighbors,
he will be able to do in half a lifetime what it takes them
* their whole lives to do. For this he toils and sacrifices hishealth ; for this he rushes upon reckless speculations, and
hazards his character and reputation; for this he makes
himself indifferent to the rights and callous to the feelings
of others; for this he is sordid, mean, and parsimonious.
�MODERN SOCIALISM.
25'
All these are the means by which, according to different
temperaments, the same end is pursued. And what is the
end? An illusion, nay, worse, a dishonesty. The man
who pursues a fortune is not qualifying himself for any
other course of life besides that which he at present lives.
He is merely striving to escape from duty into enjoyment.
And the fever of the strife frequently becomes his whole
existence; so that when he has obtained his object, he finds
himself unable to do without the excitement of the struggle ”
(p. 220). Surely in judging the merits of a system it is
fair to take into account the injuries it works to its most
successful products. Its masterpieces are the withered and
dehumanised; its victims are the paupers and the suicides.
Nor can we leave out of account in studying competitive
production the waste of material, and of the time spent in
working it up, which result from over-production. The
accumulation of stock while the demand is lessening means
the making and storing of unneeded wares. Some of these
are forced into the market, some lie idly in the great
warehouses. The retail dealers find themselves over
stocked, their shelves laden with unsaleable goods. These
fade, and spoil, and rust away—so much good material
wasted, so much human labor spent for nought, monu
ments of a senseless system, of the barbarous, uncalcu
lating blindness of our productive force.
More heavily yet than on the capitalist does competition
press on the distributor. A dozen traders compete for the
custom which one could satisfactorily supply. The com
petition for shops in a thickly populated neighborhood
drives up the rent, and so adds to the retailer’s burden. He
is compelled to spend large sums in advertising, striving
by brilliancy of color or eccentricity of design to impress
himself on the public mind. An army of commercial
travellers sweeps over the country, each man with his
hand against his neighbor in the same trade, pushing,
haggling, puffing his own, depreciating his rival’s wares.
These agents push their goods on the retailer, often when
no real demand for them is coming from the public, and
then the retailer puffs them, to create a demand on his
supply. Nor must we omit from notice the enormous
waste of productive energy in this army of canvassers,
advertisers, bill-posters, multiplied middlemen of every
kind. The distributive work done by these is absurdly out
�:26
MODERN SOCIALISM.
of proportion to their number. We see several carriers’
carts half-filled, instead of half the number filled; each
carrier has to deliver goods over the whole of a wide area,
so that a man may have to drive five miles to deliver a
single parcel at a house a stone’s throw from a rival office.
Yet each man must receive his full day’s wage, and must
be paid for the hours he is compelled to waste, as well
as for those he spends in useful work. It is the ■ same
thing in every business. Three or four carts of each
trade daily down each road, covering the same ground,
supplying each one house here and one there, losing time,
wearing out horses and traps, a foolish shameful waste.
And all these unnecessary distributors are consumers when
they might be producers, and are actually making unneces
sary work for others as well as for themselves.
Short-sighted people ask: Would you add all these to
the crowds of half-starving unemployed now competing
for work? No, we answer. We would not add them to
the ^employed; it is only in a system of complete com
petitive anarchy that there could be unemployed labor on
the one hand, and people clamoring for the necessaries
of life on the other. We have already seen that under
the present system men are only employed where some
profit can be made out of them by the person who hires
them. Under a saner system there would be none unem
ployed while the food and clothing supply was insufficient,
and the turning of non-productive consumers into produc
tive ones would only mean shorter hours of labor, since
the labor necessary to supply the consumption of the
population would be divided among a larger number than
before. If wealth be the result of labor applied to raw
material, poverty may come from the pressure of popula
tion on the raw material which limits the means of sub
sistence, but never from the greater part of the population
working to produce wealth on raw material sufficient for
their support.
On the consumer falls much of the needless additional
expense of advertisements, canvassers, and the rest. The
flaming advertisements we see on the walls we pay for in
the price of the puffed articles we buy. The trader feels
their burden, and tries to recoup himself by adding u
fraction of it to the price of the goods he sells. If he is
forced to lower his nominal prices in consequence of the
�MODERN SOCIADISM.
27
pressure of competition with his rivals, yet by adulteration
he can really raise, while he seems to lower, them. The
nominal width of fabrics does not correspond with the
real; woollen goods are sold of which the warp is cotton ;
tobacco is sold damped unfairly to increase its weight;
sand is mixed with sugar; lard or dripping with butter ;
chicory with coffee; sloe-leaves with tea; turnip with
orange in marmalade ; foreign meat is offered as home
grown ; damaged flesh is chopped up for sausages; until,
at last, as Moffat caustically remarks: “It is not rogues
and vagabonds alone who have recourse in trade to ex
pedients which could not be justified by a strict theoretical
morality. When this incline is entered upon, there is no
resting upon it. Morality itself becomes subject to com
petition ; and the conventional standard of trade morality
gets lower and lower, until the things done by respectable
people can hardly be distinguished from those done by
people who are not respectable, except by the respectability
of the people who do them” (p. 154). And in all this
adulteration the consumer suffers in health, comfort, and
temper. Not only does he pay more than he should for
what he buys, but he buys a good deal more than he
pays for.
Heaviest of all is the burden on the operative classes,
and they suffer in a double character, both as consumers
and producers. As consumers, they share the general in
jury ; as producers, their case is yet more serious. If they
are in work, their wages are driven down by the competi
tion for employment; they are the first to feel a lessening
demand in lengthened hours, in lower wage; as the de
pression goes on, they are thrown out of work; illness not
■only incapacitates them for the time, but their place is filled
up, while they lie helpless, by the eager waiters for hire ;
when they combine to strike for fairer treatment, the fringe
of unemployed labor around is used against them by the
employers ; the lowest depth is reached by the crowd who
at the dockyard gates at the East of London literally fight
for a place in which the foreman’s eye may fall on them,
and out of the struggling hundreds units are taken on for
the day at miserable wage for heavy exhausting work, to
be turned out at night to undergo a similar struggle next
morning.
The only classes who gain by competition are the big
�28
MODERN SOCIALISM.
capitalists and the landlords. The big capitalists engaged
in manufacture gain by the crushing out of their smaller
rivals, and by their ability to hold over stocks produced
when wages are low until prices are high. Capitalists
who only lend out money on usury, and live on the interest
thereby obtained, flourish when the demand for money is
brisk. Most of all do landlords, who live on rent, profit
by the struggle. In a growing neighborhood rents of
commercial premises rise rapidly, and the shopkeeper finds
himself heavily taxed by the landlord, who imposes on him
practically a graduated income-tax for his own advantage.
Thus the chief gainers by competition are the idlers who
are permitted to hold the nation’s soil, and who live in
luxury on the toilers, laughing to see how the fratricidal
struggles of those who labor turn to the advantage of
those who lounge. And so the strain of living constantly
increases for the one class, while the luxury and ostenta
tion of those who levy tax on toil become ever greater,
and more aggressive by the contrast.
II. The Remedy.—These evils can be radically cured
only in one way; it is by the substitution of co-operation
for competition, of organisation for anarchy in industry.
The relation of employer and employed must disappear,
and a brotherhood of workers, associated for facilitation
of production for use, must replace the band of servants
toiling for the enrichment of a master by profit. The full
details of socialised industry cannot be drawn at length ;
but it is not difficult to see that the already existent co
operative societies offer a suggestive model, and the trades
unions a sufficiently competent means for change. Pro
bably each industry in each district will organise itself,
and own, for use, all its means of production; thus the
miners of Durham, for instance, organised in their lodges,
with their central executive, would form the mining trade
society of that district; all the mines of that district
would be under their control, and they would elect their
officers of all grades. So with all mining districts through
out the land. These separate trade societies would be
federated, and a General Board elected by all. The
elements of such a self-organised industry exist at the
present time, and the more closely the miners can band
themselves into district unions, and the unions into a
national federation, the more prepared will they be to play
�.MODERN SOCIALISM.
29
their part in the great industrial revolution. It is probable
that something of the nature of the royalties now paid to
the individual mine-owners will be paid into the National
Exchequer, in exchange for the right to work the national
soil. A similar organisation would be needed for each
productive industry, and probably representatives of each
separate industry would form a central Industrial Board.
But, I repeat, these details cannot now be laid down autho
ritatively, any more than the details of the present in
dustrial competitive system could have been laid down
before the Industrial Period. On these details Socialists
would inevitably differ considerably at the present time,
and no special scheme can be fairly stamped as “ Socialist ”
to the exclusion of the rest. But on this main principle all
Socialists are agreed; that the only rightful holders of
capital are industrial groups, or one great industrial group
—the State, i.e., the organised community; that while
individuals may hold private property for use, none should
hold capital—that is wealth employed in production—for
individual profit; that while each may have property to
consume and to enjoy, none should be allowed to use
property to enslave his neighbor, to force another to work
for his advantage.
The revolution in distribution will be as great as that
in production, and here again co-operation must take the
place of competition. We already see the beginnings of a
distributive change in the establishment of huge stores for
the supply of all the necessaries of life, and the way in
which these are crushing out the smaller retail shops.
Housewives find it more convenient to go to the single
building, than to trudge wearily from shop to shop. Goods
bought in very large quantities can be sold more cheaply
than if bought in small, and economy, as well as con
venience, attract the purchaser to the store. At present
these stores are founded by capitalists and compete for
custom, but they are forerunners of a rational distributive
system. The very enmity they create in the minds of the
small traders they ruin is paving the way for the com
munity to take them over for the general advantage.
Under Socialism all goods manufactured by the producers
would be distributed to the central store of each district;
from this central store they would be distributed to the
retail stores. Anyone who thinks such distribution im-
�30
MODERN SOCIALISM.
possible had better study the postal system now existing ;
we do not have post-offices jostling each other as dobaker’s and butcher’s shops: there are sufficient of them
for the requirements of the district, and no more. The
letters for a town are delivered at the General Post Office;
they are sorted out and delivered at the subordinate offices ;
the distribution of the correspondence of millions is carried
on by a Government Department, quietly, effectively,
without waste of labor, with celerity and economy. But
then in -the Post Office co-operation has replaced com
petition, organisation has replaced anarchy. Such a system,
one hundred years ago, would have been pronounced
impossible, as the Conservative minds of to-day pronounce
impossible its extension to anything except letters and
telegrams and parcels. I look for the time when the
success of the Post Office will be repeated—and improved
—in every department of distribution.
Capital.
We have already seen that Capital is accumulated by
withholding from the producer a large part of the value he
produces, and we have now to look more closely into the
growth of Capital and the uses to which it is put. A
glance over the historical Past, as well as the study of
the Present, inform us that Capital has always been—as
indeed it always must be—obtained from unpaid labor, or,
if the phrase be preferred, by the partial confiscation of
the results of labor. In communities the economic basis of
which was slave-labor, this fact was obvious; the owner
confiscated the whole products of his slaves’ toil, and he
became a capitalist by this process of continued confiscation ;
while the slave, fed, clothed, and housed out of the fruit
of his own labor by his master, never owned anything as of
right, nor had any property in that which he created. As
civilisation advanced, serf-labor replaced slave-labor; here
also the confiscation of the results of labor was obvious.
The serf was bound to give so many days of work to his
lord without payment; this service rendered, the remainder
of his time was his own, to produce for his own subsist
ence ; but the lord’s capital increased by the confiscation
of the results of the serf’s labor during the days whereon
he worked for his lord. In modern times “free labor”
has replaced serf-labor, but in the present industrial system,
�MODERN SOCIALISM.
31
as truly as in slave and in serf communities, Capital resultsfrom unpaid labor, though now from the unpaid labor of
the wage-earner. We may search the whole world over,
and we shall find no source of wealth save labor applied
to natural agents. Wealth is never rained down from
heaven, nor is it ever a spontaneous growth; unless indeed
wild fruits taken for food be counted wealth, and even to
these must human labor be applied in the form of picking
ere they can be used. It is the result of huipan labor;
and if one man has more than he has produced, it neces
sarily follows that another man has less than he has pro
duced. The gain of one must be the loss of another. There
are but sixteen court cards in the fifty-two, and if by in
genious shuffling, packing, and dealing, all the court cards
fall to one player, only the lower cards can remain for the
others.
Separating “Capital” from “Wealth” we may conve
niently define it as “wealth devoted to purposes of profit”,
and as “wealth is the result of labor applied to raw ma
terial”, Capital becomes the result of labor devoted to
purposes of profit. John Stuart Mill says the “ accumu
lated stock of the produce of labor is termed Capital ”.
Macleod: “ Capital is any Economic Quantity used for the
purpose of Profit ”. Senior: “Economists are agreed that
whatever gives a profit is properly called Capital ”. Some
thing more, however, than the activity of labor is implied
in the existence of Capital. There must have been saving,
as well as production. Hence Marshall speaks of Capital
as “the result of labor and abstinence”; Mill of Capital
as “ the result of saving ” ; and so on. It is obvious that
if the products of labor were consumed as fast as they
were made, Capital could not exist. We have, therefore,
reached this certainty when we contemplate Capital; some
one has worked, and has not consumed all that he has
produced.
Under these circumstances, we should expect to find
Capital in the hands of industrious and abstinent pro
ducers. But as Mill very justly points out: “In a rude
and violent state of society it continually happens that the
person who has Capital is not the very person who has
saved it, but some one who, being stronger, or belonging
to a more powerful community, has possessed himself of
it by plunder. And even in a state of things in which
�32
MODERN SOCIALISM.
property was protected, the increase of Capital has usually
been, for a long time, mainly derived from privations
which, though essentially the same with saving, are not
generally called by that name, because not voluntary. The
actual producers have been slaves, compelled to produce
as much as force could extort from them, and to consume
as little as the self-interest or the usually very slender
humanity of their task-masters would permit.” How
many of our great capitalists have produced and saved
until they accumulated the fortunes they possess ? These
fortunes are greater than any human being could save
out of his makings, even if he lived most abstemiously,
instead of with the luxury and ostentation of a Rothschild
or a Vanderbilt. But if they have not made and saved,
how come they to possess ? Mill gives the answer, though
he did not mean it to be applied to modern industrialism.
“Ina rude and violent state of society ” Capital is not in
the hands of the producer and saver, but in the hands of
those who possess themselves “of it by plunder”—legal
ised plunder, in our modern days. The “saving” is not
voluntary; it is “derived from privations ” ; the “actual
producers ” are wage-earners, who are “ compelled to pro
duce as much as” pressure can extort from them, and to
“consume as little” in the form of wage as they can be
beaten down to by the competition of the labor-market.
These men “ have labored, and” others “have entered into
their labors ”.
A very brief comparison of those who produce and save,
and those who possess themselves of the results of labor
and abstinence, will suffice to show the inequality which
characterises the present system. The worker lives hardly
and dies poor, bequeathing to his children the same neces
sity of toil: I do not forget that the more fortunate workers
have shares in Building Societies, a few pounds in the
Savings Bank, and even an interest in a Burial Club, so
that the parish may not have the expense of burying them ;
but I say that these poor successes—vast indeed in the
aggregate, but paltry when the share of the individual is
looked at—bear no kind of reasonable proportion to the
wealth created by the worker during his life-time. On
the other hand the capitalist either starts with inherited
wealth, grows richer, and bequeaths the increased wealth
to his children; or he begins poor, saves a little, then
�33
MODERN SOCIALISM.
makes others work for him, grows rich, and bequeaths his
wealth. In the second generation, the capitalist can simply
invest his wealth and live on the interest; and since all in
terest must be paid out of the results of labor, the workers
not only lose a large proportion of their produce, but this
very confiscated produce is made into a future burden for
them, and while the fathers build up the capitalist, the
children must toil to maintain his children in idleness.
Capital may also be accumulated by the ownership of raw
material, since no wealth can be produced until labor can
get at this. The question of rent will be considered under
the head of Land; here we are only concerned with the
fact that wealth appropriated in this way is investible, and
on this also interest can be obtained.
Now the enormous burden placed on labor by the invest
ment of money at interest, is not appreciated as it ought
to be. The interest on the National Debt, including terminable annuities, amounted in 1884-5 to £28,883,672 12s.;
how much is paid in dividends on railway, tram-car, and
companies’ shares, it would be difficult to discover. Mr.
Giffen, in his “ Progress of the Working Classes ”, esti
mates that the capitalist classes receive from capital—ex
cluding “wages of superintendence” and salaries—some
£400,000,000 a year. In 1881, the income-tax returns
quoted by Mr. Giffen show that the income from capital
was no less than £407,000,000, and in estimating those in.
Schedules B and D (Part I.) Mr. Giffen certainly takes care
to make the gains on “idle capital” as small as he can.
Mr. Giffen takes the aggregate income of the whole nation
at about £1,200,000,000, so that according to his own
figures Capital takes more than a third part of the national
income. I should be prepared to contend that the burden
on the producers is heavier than he makes out, but even
taking his own calculations the result is bad enough. For
all this money which goes to capitalists is money not earned
by the receivers—mark that all which is in any sense
earned, as wages of superintendence, etc., is excluded—and
by . all this is lessened the share of the produce of labor
which goes to labor.
We have already dealt with the way in which the worker
suffers injustice when capital is invested in machinery
owned by private individuals; we have now to consider
the portion of it used as loans, cases in which the capitalist
D
�34
MODERN SOCIALISM.
takes no part in the management of any industrial con
cern, but merely lends his money at usury, living on the
interest he receives. There is so much confusion of thought
on this subject, so much idea that a man has “a right”
to invest money at interest, that it is necessary to try to
get at the “bed-rock” of the question. Take the case of
a man who earns 30s. in a week; suppose he spends 20s.
and saves 10s. For the 20s. he spends he receives their
equivalent in commodities, and these he consumes; he has
had his “money’s worth”, and he is content, and if he
requires more commodities he knows he must labor again
to earn their equivalent in money. The 10s. he has saved,
however, are to have a different fate; they represent, also,
so much possibility of possession of their equivalent in
commodities which he could consume; but he desires to
defer this consumption to a future day, to defer it, perhaps,
until he is too old to give labor in exchange for his needs.
One might suppose that the equivalent of commodities for
the 10s. would be as satisfactory as the equivalent of com
modities for the 20s. But it is not so. He desires to in
vest his 10s. at interest; let us suppose he invests it at 5
per cent.; at the end of twenty years he will have received
back his 10s. by instalments of 6d. a year, and will have
exchanged it for 10s. worth of commodities; yet at the end
of the twenty years he expects to receive back in addition
his full 10s.; to have spent it all, and yet to find it un
diminished ; so that for his 10s. saved he expects to receive
20s. worth of commodities in twenty years, to have his
labor paid for twice over. In the case of money only is it
possible to eat your cake and have it, and after you have
eaten it to pass it on as large as ever to your descendants,
so that they may eat it and yet find it, like the widow’s
cruse, ever miraculously renewed.
Those who defend usury do so generally on its supposed
collateral advantages, rather than on its central theory. It
is argued that “ if a man gets no interest on his savings, he
has no incitement to work ”. To this it may be answered: (a)
That there is clearly no incitement to work on the part of
those who live on interest, since their money comes tumbling
in whether they work or idle ; it is the labor of others on
which the interest-receiver lives. (J) That the incitement
to work would be greater if the reward of work were not
diminished by the imposition on it of a tax for the benefit
�MODERN SOCIALISM.
35
of the idle ; surely the abstraction of £400,000,000 annually
for interest can hardly act as an incitement to those whose
Habor returns are diminished to that extent. (<?) That the
real incitement to work is the desire to possess the result
of labor, and that the more completely that desire is satis
fied the greater will the incitement become. Would the
incitement to tramcar employees be lessened, if the necessity
of paying 10 per cent, on shareholders’ capital no longer
kept down their wages ? But, in truth, this argument as
to incitement to workers is either ignorant, or disingenuous.
'The mainspring of the worker’s toil is, as a matter of fact,
•compulsion, not the incitement of hope of reward. Had
he control over the product of his own labor, then thp
desire to obtain more might incite him to work harder, as,
indeed, has been found to be the case with piece-work, and
in co-operative undertakings: with his fixed wage it is to
him a matter of indifference how much or how little he
produces. The desire for interest is an incitement to the
capitalist to press his wage-toilers to work harder, so that
■after he has satisfied his own power of consumption he
may lay by all the surplus value he can squeeze out of
them, and increase the capital he has out at interest. The
higher the interest obtainable, the greater the compulsion
to work put upon the producers. But this compulsion is
■clearly an evil, not a good, and in the case of the tramcar
employees just cited, it is compulsion which forces them to
accept the long hours of labor, and the compulsion is exer
cised in order to obtain interest for the shareholders.
11 The incitement to thrift will disappear.” But (a) the
interest obtainable by “thrift” is too small to serve as an
incitement, for the savings of the industrious poor are not
sufficient to give interest enough to subsiston. The Savings
Banks are resorted to as a convenient place wherein to put
money saved for future use; it is the safe keeping of the
money “for a rainy day ”, not the trifling interest, which is
the attraction to the anxious poor. The small amount per
mitted to an individual and the low interest are sufficient
proofs of this assertion; no one must put in more than £30
in a year, the interest is only 2-| per cent., and this is not
paid yearly, but is added to the principal. And this future
necessity is the real incitement to thrift. A man earns, say,
sufficient this week to support himself for a fortnight;
having satisfied his needs, he does not want to satisfy them
d 2
�36
MODERN SOCIALISM.
twice over ; he knows that some years hence his power of
work will have disappeared, while his necessity of consump
tion will remain, and he defers his consumption of half theresults of his labor till that time. Why should he look
for added power of consumption as a reward for deferring
his consumption for his own convenience? Without in
terest, thoughtful people would save, for the sake of com
fort in their old age. It may however be conceded that
the incitement to annex the results of the thrift of others—the only way in which big fortunes can be made—will
disappear with the disappearance of interest, and the pos
sibility of living idly by taxing the labor of others.
• “ It will not be possible to get money for railroads, tramcars,
etc., if interest on share capital disappearsi But the indes
tructible reason for making railroads, tramways, etc., is theneed for the conveniences they afford. And Socialism
would place the making and carrying on of all means of
transit in the hands of local bodies, municipalities, and soforth, who would raise the requisite funds from the com
munity which is to enjoy the increased facilities. Thesefunds would be used in remuneration of the labor expended
on them, and none would have a right to levy a perpetual
tax on the public on the pretence of having lent the
money originally employed in the construction. Now a
man claims the right to tax all future labors and all future
consumers for the benefit of his posterity, as a reward
for having worked and saved, or mostly as a reward for
having transferred into his own pockets the results of his
neighbor’s toil. It is time that the immorality of this claim
should be pointed out, and that people should be told that
while they may rightly save and live on their savings,
they ought not to use their savings for the enslavement
and the taxing of other people. An effective step towards
the abolition of interest might be taken by the closing of
the sources of idle investment, the taking over by local
bodies of the local means of transit, the gas and water
supply, etc., while the central authority takes over the
railways. The question of compensation would be solved
with the least amount of injustice to exploiters and ex
ploited by paying over a yearly dividend to shareholders
until the dividends amounted to a sum equal to the nominal
value of the shares held; thus a £100 share would be
extinguished by the payment of a sum of £ 10 annually for
�MODERN SOCIALISM.
37
ten years, leaving the shareholder richer than he was
originally by all the interest received during the past, but
terminating his right to tax within a brief period.
There is, however, one argument in favor of interest
which brings conviction to many minds; an individual
wants to perform a piece of productive work, but has no
•capital and is unable to do it; he borrows the capital and
performs the work; since the man who lent the capital has
facilitated the doing of the work, ought he not to share
in the product, which would have had no existence but for
his capital ? Now it might be answered to this that if his
capital is returned to him in full he has lost nothing by
the transaction, but has, on the contrary, gained the ad
vantage of having his money taken care of without trouble
to himself, and returned to him uninjured at the time that
he requires it. But the real answer is that interest is in
evitable so long as Capital remains in private hands, so
long as individuals are permitted to annex the results of
the unpaid labor of others, and so manufacture a lien on
all future industry. Interest will only be abolished when
the results of the past unpaid labor of many are held by
the many to facilitate the future labor of many. Now,
industry can only be carried on with the permission and
the assistance of those whose stores of wealth have been
piled up for them by thousands of patient toilers; and that
permission and assistance can only be gained by taxing
labor for the enrichment of the lender. In the future those
vast stores will be used to carry on production, and while
labor will constantly replace the capital it uses in produc
tion, it will not also be taxed for the benefit of individuals.
Interest and private property in the means of production
must stand and fall together. At the present time no law
against usury could be passed, and even were the passing
of such a law possible it would be a dead letter, so
thoroughly is the present system built on the paying of
interest. All Socialists can do for the moment is to expose
the fundamental dishonesty and injustice of usury, and so
pave the way for a better state of things.
Apart from the abuse of Capital here indicated Capital
has a function which, of course, no Socialist ignores. Capital
is necessary for all forms of industry, and its function is:
to save labor, as by machinery; to facilitate it, by the in
troduction of improvements therein ; to support it while it
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MODERN SOCIALISM.
is employed in production, and until its products are ex
changed. The true use of the savings of past labor is ta
lighten future labor, to fertilise production. But in order
that it may be thus used, it must be in the hands of the
community instead of in the hands of individuals. Beingas it is, and must be, the result of unpaid labor, it should
pass to the community to be used for the common good,
instead of to individuals to enrich them to the common
loss.
Land.
It is hardly necessary to argue, at this time of day, that
Land, i.e., natural agents, ought not to be the private pro
perty of individuals. No absolute property in land is in
deed recognised by the laws of this realm, but the proposi
tion that land ought not to be private property goes, of
course, much further than this legal doctrine. It declares
that the soil on whieh a nation lives ought to belong tothe nation; that those who cultivate it, or who mine in it,
and who for practical purposes must have for the time the
exclusive usufruct of portions of it, should pay into the
national exchequer a duly-assessed sum, thus rendering an
equivalent for the privilege they enjoy, and making the
whole community sharers in the benefits derived from
natural agents.
The present system of permitting private ownership of
land has led to three great and increasing evils ; the esta
blishment of an idle class, which grows richer by increas
ingly taxing the industrious; the divorce of the really
agricultural class from the soil; the exodus from the country
districts into the towns.
Private ownership of natural agents must inevitably re
sult in the first of these three evils. These natural agents
are the basis of wealth; the very subsistence of the nation
depends on their utilisation; yet a comparatively small class
is permitted to claim them as private property, and to appro
priate the rent to its private use. Hence, one of the first
charges on the results of labor is rent, and rent, be it
noted, not to the community, but to an individual who has
acquired the legal right to stand between labor and land.
Now just as wage is determined practically by the standard
of living, so is rent determined by the same thing. The
landlord exacts as rent the value of the produce minus the
�MODERN SOCIALISM.
39
subsistence of the tenant, and in many cases, if the farmer’s
receipts sink and there is no corresponding lowering of
rent, the farmer cannot even subsist, and becomes bank
rupt. Hence, if a farmer improves the land and so obtains
from it larger returns, the landlord steps in and raises his
rent, claiming ever as his, produce minus subsistence, and
confiscating for his own advantage the results of the labor
and invested capital of the farmer. Thus also with the
spread of commercial prosperity comes a rise in the tax
levied by the landlords; as towns grow larger the land
around them becomes more valuable, and thus the Stanleys
grow wealthy by the growth of Liverpool, and the Gros
venors and Russells by that of London : competition drives
up rents, and landlords may live in Italy or Turkey, and
become ever wealthier by the growth of English trade, and
the toil of English laborers. Moffat points out (“ Economy
of Consumption,” p. 142) that part of the retailer’s profit,
and possibly the larger part of it “ is purely local, and
which he could not carry away with him. It distinguishes
the site of his business, and resolves itself into rent. If
the retailer owns his own premises, he may be content with
this part of his profits, and handing the business to another
become a landlord. If they are owned by another, the owner,
unless the retailer is able to find other suitable premises
within a moderate distance, will be able to levy all the
extra profit from him in the shape of rent. Hence the
rapid rise of rents in the central localities of large towns.”
Socialists are accused of desiring to confiscate property but
the regular and uncensured confiscation of the property of
busy people by idlers, the bloodsucking of the landlord
leeches, pass unnoticed year by year, and Society honors
the confiscators. The expropriation of small cultivators
has been going on for the last 400 years, partly by big
landlords buying up small ones, and partly by their thefts
of common land. The story of Naboth’s vineyard has been
repeated in hundreds of country districts. The exorbitant
rents demanded by landlords, with the pressure of Ameri
can competition aided by capitalists on this side, have
ruined the farming class, while the absorption of small
holdings has turned into day-laborers at miserable wage
the class that formerly were independent tillers of the soil.
Attracted by the higher wage ruling in manufacturing
towns this dislanded class has flocked into them, has
�40
MODERN SOCIALISM.
crowded into unsuitable houses, increased the slums of our
great cities, and, under most unwholesome conditions has
multiplied with terrible rapidity. This exodus has been
further quickened by the letting of formerly arable land
for sheep-pasture, and the consequent forced migration of
the no longer needed tillers. And thus have come about
the under-population of the agricultural districts, and the
over-crowding of cities : too few engaged in agricultural,
and too many competing for industrial, employment; until
we find our own land undercultivated, and even in some
districts going out of cultivation, while food is being im
ported to an alarming extent, and the unemployed are
becoming a menace to public tranquillity. The effect on
England of revolution abroad is apt to be overlooked in
studying our own labor difficulties. A considerable portion
of our imports represents rent and interest from estates
abroad and foreign investments. This portion would sud
denly stop as regards any country in which a revolution
occurred, and foreign workmen were, in consequence, no
longer subjected to exploitation for the benefit of English
capitalists. Now this likelihood of foreign revolution is
yearly increasing, and Europe is becoming more and more
like a boiler with armed forces sitting on the safety valve.
The first attempt to move in the right direction is the
Land Cultivation Bill introduced into the House of Com
mons by Charles Bradlaugh. This proposes to expropriate
landlords who hold cultivable land waste; to give them,
as compensation, payment for twenty-five years equal in
amount to the annual value of the produce obtained from
the confiscated land—so that if there is no produce there
will be no payment; to vest the land in the State, and to
let it, not sell it, to cultivators. Thus, if the Bill passed,
a large area of land would be nationalised early in next
year. Such an Act, followed up by others taking over all
land let on building leases as they run out—probably pay
ing to the present landlords, for life, the original ground
rents ; making the Land Tax an adequate rent paid to the
State; taking back without compensation all common lands
that have been stolen; breaking up the big estates by crush
ing taxation; steps like these, if taken with sufficient
rapidity, may effect a complete Land Revolution without
violence, and establish Socialism so far as the ownership of
natural agents is concerned.
�MODERN SOCIALISM.
41
It is of vital importance to progress in a Socialist direc
tion that an uncompromising resistance should be offered
to all schemes for the creation of new proprietors of the
soil. Peasant cultivators, paying rent to the State, are
good. Peasant proprietors are a mere bulwark, raised by
landlords to guard their own big estates, and will delay the
realisation of the true theory that the State should be the
only landowner. It is also important that Socialists should
popularise the idea of communal, or co-operative, farming.
There can be no doubt that cereal crops can be raised most
economically on large holdings, and such holdings should
be rented from the body or bodies representing the com
munity by groups of cultivators, so that both large and
small farms should be found in agricultural districts. But
it must be distinctly stated that the Socialisation of Land
without the Socialisation of Capital will not solve the social
problem. No replanting of the people in the soil, no im
proved balance of agricultural and industrial production,
will by themselves free the wage-slaves of our towns.
Means of production, as well as natural agents, must come
under the control of the community, before the triumph of
Socialism can be complete. The tendency of Radicals to
aim only at the nationalisation of land has an effect, how
ever, which will ultimately prove of service. It irritates
the landlord class, and the landlords devote themselves to
proving that there is no essential difference between pro
perty in Land and property in Capital. Just as they helped
to pass the Factory Acts to restrain capitalists as a retort
for the capitalist agitation against the Corn Laws, so they
will be likely to help in nationalising Capital in revenge
for the nationalisation of Land.
Education.
For the successful maintenance of a Socialist State a wide
and thorough system of national education is an absolute
necessity. A governed people may afford to be ignorant;
a self-ruling community must be instructed, or it must
perish. And the education contemplated by Socialism is
a very different thing from the paltry modicum of know
ledge deemed sufficient for the “masses” to-day. Under
our present system education is a matter of class, and it
is a misnomer to call it “national” ; it is partly supported
by the parents of the children who attend the Board
�42
MODERN SOCIALISM.
Schools, and partly by the rates and taxes; it is limited to
the mere elements of learning; the one object of the
teachers is to cram the children so that they may pass
stated examinations, and thus obtain a Government grant
per head. Under Socialism the whole system will be
revolutionised, as the one aim then will be to educate in
such a way as will ensure the greatest possible healthy
development of the young, with a view to their future
position as members of a free community.
The foundations of complete social equality will be laid
in the school. All the children will be educated in the
communal schools, the only distinction being that of age.
Boys and girls will not be separated as they are now,
but a common education will prepare for common work.
Every child will be led through a course, which will em
brace a thorough training in the elements of the various
sciences, so that in after life he may feel an intelligent
interest in each, and if his taste so lead him acquire later
a fuller knowledge of any special branches. He—and
“ he ” here includes “ she ”—will be instructed also in the
elements of art, so that the sense of beauty may be
developed and educated, and the refining influence of
instructed taste may enrich both mind and. manners. .A
knowledge of history, of literature, and of languages will
widen sympathy and destroy narrowness and national
prejudices. Nor will physical training be forgotten;
gymnastics, dancing, riding, athletic games, will educate
the senses and the limbs, and give vigor, quickness,
dexterity, and robustness to the frame. To this will be
superadded technical training, for these educated, cultured,
graceful lads and lasses are to be workers, every one of
them. The foundations of this technical training will be
the same for all; all will learn to cook and scrub, to dig
and sew, and to render quick assistance in accidents; it
is probable also that the light portions of household
duties will form part of the training of every child. But
as the child grows into the youth, natural capacities will
suggest the special training which should be given, so. as
to secure for the community the full advantages which
might accrue from the varied abilities of its members. No
genius then will be dwarfed by early neglect, no rare
ability then perish for lack of culture. Individuality will
then at last find full expression, and none will need to
�MODERN SOCIALISM.
43-
trample on his brother in order to secure full scope for
his own development. It is probable that each will learn
more than a single trade—an easy task when brain acute
ness and manual dexterity have been cultured—so as topromote adaptability in the future industrial life.
Now to many, I fear to most, of my readers, this sketch
of what education will be in a Socialist community will
appear a mere Utopian dream. Yet is it not worth while
for such to ask themselves: Why should not such an
education be the natural lot of every child in a wellordered community ? Is there anything in it superfluous
for the thorough development of the faculties of a human
being? And if it be admitted that boys and girls thuseducated would form nobler, completer, more many-sided
human beings than are the men and women of to-day,
is it not a rational thing to set up as an object to beworked for the realisation of an idea which would proveof incalculable benefit to the community ?
It is hardly necessary to add that education, in a Socialist
State, would be “free ”—i.e., supported at the public cost,
and compulsory. Free, because the education of the young
is of vital importance to the community; because classdistinctions can only be effaced by the training of children
in common schools; because education is too important a
matter to be left to the whims of individuals, and if it be
removed from the parent’s direction and supervision it is
not just to compel him to pay for it. Compulsory, because
the State cannot afford to leave its future citizens ignorant
and helpless, and it is bound to protect its weak members
against injustice and neglect.
Two objections are likely to be raised: the question of
cost, and the question of unfitting persons for “the dirty
work of the world, which someone must do ”.
As to cost. It must not be forgotten that this education
is proposed for a Socialist community. In such a Statethere would be no idle adult class to be supported, but
all would be workers, so that the wealth, produced would
be much greater than at the present time. Now according
to the figures of anti-Socialist Mr. Giffen, the aggregate
income of the people is at present about £1,200,000,000 ;
of this the workers are assigned by him £620,000,000;
deduct another £100,000,000 for return from investments
abroad; this leaves £480,000,000 absorbed by the non
�44
MODERN SOCIALISM.
producing class. (It must be remembered, further, that a
large number of the “workers” are unnecessary distribu
tors, whose powers could be utilised to much better purpose
than is done to-day.) The wealth producers have to bear
the Church on their shoulders, and provide it with an
income variously stated at from £6,000,000 to £10,000,000
a year. They have to bear the “landed interest”, with
its appropriation in rents, royalties, etc., of something like
£200,000,000. They have to bear the ultimate weight of im
perial and local taxation, estimated at about £120,000,000
for the present year. All these charges, by whomsoever
nominally paid, have to come out of the wealth produced
by the workers. Is it then to be pretended that when the
idle class has disappeared there will not be wealth enough
produced for the education of the children, or that their
■education will be as heavy a burden as the drones are to
day ? Nor must it be forgotten that there are millions of
acres of land that would produce wealth if labor were sent
to them, and that plenty of our idlers will there find produc
tive work which will enormously increase the national wealth.
Nor also that the waste which results from luxurious idle
living will be of the past, and that a simpler, manlier rate
of expenditure will have replaced the gluttony and intem
perance now prevalent in the “ higher circles of society ”.
But it will indeed be of vital importance that the propor
tion of workers to non-workers shall be considered, and
that there shall not be in a Socialist community the over
large families which are a characteristic of the present
system. Families of ten or a dozen children belong to
the capitalist system, which requires for its success a
numerous and struggling proletariat, propagating with
extreme rapidity, so as to keep up a plentiful supply of
men, women, and children for the labor-market, as well
as a supply of men for the army to be food for cannon,
and women for the streets to be food for lust. Under a
Socialist regime, the community will have something to
■say as to the numbers of the new members that are to
be introduced into it, and for many years supported by it;
and it will prefer a reasonable number of healthy, welleducated children, to a yearly huge increase which would
overburden its industry.
As to unfitting persons for work. So long as manual work
is regarded as degrading, education, by increasing sensi
�MODERN SOCIALISM.
45
tiveness to public opinion, tends to make people shrink
from it, at least if their sensitiveness is greater than their
intelligence. But even now an educated person of strong
will and clear judgment, who knows that all useful work
is worthy of respect, finds that his education fits him to
perform work more quickly and more intelligently than is
possible to an ignorant person ; and respecting himself in
its thorough accomplishment he is conscious of no degra
dation. Weak persons, compelled to labor for their bread,
and aware that manual work is considered to place the
worker in a subordinate social class, feel ashamed of the
inferior position assigned to them by public opinion; and
knowing by experience that they will be snubbed if they
treat their “ superiors” as equals, they live down to their
social rank, and long to raise their children into a class
above their own. One consequence of the absurd artificial
disadvantage attached to manual work, is that the children
of the more successful workers crowd the inferior profes
sional occupations, and a man prefers to be a clerk or a
curate on £90 a year to being an artisan on £150. But in
the Socialist State only idleness will be despised, and all
useful work will be honored. There is nothing more
intrinsically degrading in driving a plough than in driving
a pen, although the ploughman is now relegated to the
kitchen while the clerk is received in the drawing-room.
The distinction is primarily a purely artificial one, but it is
made real by educating the one tvpe while the other is left
ignorant, and by teaching the one to look on his work as
work “fit for a gentleman”, while the other is taught that
his work is held in low social esteem. Each reflects the
surrounding public opinion, and accepts the position
assigned by it. In Socialism, both will be educated
together as children; both will be taught to look on. all
work as equally honorable, if useful to the community;
both will be cultured “ gentlemen ”, following each his
natural bent; the ploughman will be as used to his pen
as the clerk; the clerk as ready to do heavy work as the
ploughman; and as public opinion will regard them as
equals and will hold them in equal honor, neither will feel
any sense of superiority or inferiority, but they will meet
on common ground as men, as members of a social unity.
As to the physically unpleasant work—such as dealing
with sewers, dung-heaps, etc.—much of that will probably
�46
MODERN SOCIALISM.
be done by machinery, when there is no helpless class on
whose shoulders it may be bound. Such as cannot be
■done by machinery, will probably be divided among a
large number, each taking a small share thereof, and the
amount done by each will thus become so insignificant,
that it will be but slightly felt. In any case the profound
■selfishness, which would put all burden on a helot class,
and rather see it brutalised by the crushing weight than
bear a portion of the load on one of its fingers, must be
taught that Socialism means equality, and that the divine
right of idlers, to live at ease on the labor of others and
to be shielded by the bodies of the poor from all the un
pleasantnesses of the world, is one of the notions against
which Socialism wars, and which must follow the corre
lative superstition of the divine right of kings.
Justice.
The pretence that under the present system there is one
law for rich and poor is so barefaced a piece of impudence,
that it is hardly worth while to refute it. Everyone knows
that a rich man is fined for an offence for which a poor
man is sent to gaol; that no wise man goes to law unless
he has plenty of money ; that in a litigation between a rich
and a poor man, the poor man practically stands no chance,
for even if he at first succeeds the rich man can appeal,
and secure in the power of his money-bags wear out his
poor antagonist by costly delays and by going from court
to court. The poor man cannot fee first-class counsel, seek
out and bring up his witnesses from various parts of the
•country, and keep a stream of money continually running
through his solicitor’s hands. There might be the same
law for him as for the rich man, if he could get it;
but it is far away behind a golden gate, and he lacks the
key which alone will fit the wards of the lock. Yet surely
one of the primary duties of a State is to do justice among
its members, and to prevent the oppression of the weak
by the strong. In a civilised State justice should be dealt
out without fee or reward; if a man gives up his inherent
right to defend himself and to judge in his own quarrel,
he ought not to be placed in a worse position than he would
be in if society did not exist. Lawyers, like judges,
should be officials paid by the State, and should have no
�MODERN SOCIALISM.
47
pecuniary interest in winning the case in which they are
engaged.
The administration of justice in a Socialist State will be
a very much simpler matter than it is now. Most crimes
arise from the desire to become rich, from poverty, and
from ignorance. Under Socialism poverty and ignorance
will have disappeared, and the desire to grow rich will
have no raison d'etre when everyone has sufficient for com
fort, is free from anxiety as to his future, and sees above
him no wealthy idlers whose luxury he desires to ape, and
whose idleness is held up to him as a matter of envy, as
the ideal state for man.
Amusement.
There is a curious inconsistency in the way in which
people deal with the question of amusement at the present
time. We should have an outcry about “pauperisation”
and “ interference with private enterprise ”, if anyone pro
posed that the theatres should be open to the public without
•charge. Yet Hyde Park is kept gorgeous with flowers,
Eotten Eow is carefully attended to, a whole staff of
workers is employed, in order that the wealthy may have
a fashionable and pleasant lounge ; and all this is done at
the national expense, without any expression of fear Jest
the wealthy should be pauperised by this expenditure on
their behalf. Nor is complaint made of the public money
spent on the other parks in London; the most that is
suggested is that the money wanted ought to be taken
from the London rates and not from the national taxes.
No one proposes that the parks should be sold to the
highest bidder, and that private enterprise should be
encouraged by permitting some capitalist to buy them, and
to make a charge at the gate for admission. It is signi
ficant that once anything gets under State control, the
advantages are found to be so great that no one would
■dream of bringing it back under private exploitation. In
some parks a band plays, and people are actually de
moralised by listening to music for which they do not pay
directly. Nay more ; the British Museum, the National
Gallery, the South Kensington Museum, are all open free,
and no one’s dignity is injured. But if the National
Gallery be open free, why not the Eoyal Academy ? If
a band may be listened to in the open air without pay
�48
MODERN SOCIALISM.
ment, why not in a concert room ? And if a concert may
be free, why not a theatre ? Under the present system,
the Royal Academy, the concert, the theatre, are all private
speculations, and the public is exploited for the profit of
the speculators. The National Gallery and the Museums
are national property, and the nation enjoys the use of its
own possessions. In a nation which has gone so far in
the direction of providing intellectual amusement, it cannot
be pretended that any principle is involved in the question
whether or not it shall go further along the same road.
A nation which collects the works of dead painters can
hardly, on principle, refuse to show the works of living
ones; and we Socialists may fairly urge the success of
what has already been done in the way of catering for the
public amusement as a reason for doing more.
As it is, with the exception of a few places, the poor,
whose lives most need the light of amusement and of
beauty, are relegated to the very lowest and coarsest
forms of recreation. Unreal and intensely vulgar pictures
of life are offered them at the theatres which specially
cater for them; they never have the delight of seeing
really graceful dancing, or noble acting, or of hearing
exquisite music. Verily, the amusements of the wealthier
leave much to be desired, and theatre and music-hall alike
pander to a low and vulgar taste instead of educating and
refining it; but still these are better than their analogues
at the East End. Under Socialism, the theatre will be
come a great teacher instead of a catch-penny spectacle ;
and dramatists and actors alike will work for the honor
of a noble art, instead of degrading their talents to catch
the applause of the most numerous class of an uneducated
people. Then an educated public will demand a higher
art, and artists will find it worth while to study when
patient endeavor meets with public recognition, and crude
impertinence suffers its due reproof. Theatres, concerts,
parks, all places of public resort, will be communal pro
perty, open alike to all, and controlled by elected officers.
Conclusion.
It remains, in conclusion, to note the chief objections
raised to Socialism by its opponents. Of these the .most
generally urged are three: that it will check individual
�MODERN SOCIALISM.
49
initiative and energy; that it will destroy individuality;
that it will unduly restrict personal liberty.
That it will check individual initiative and energy. This
objection is founded on the idea that the impulse to initia
tive must always be desire for personal money gain. But
this idea flies directly in the face of facts. Even under the
individualistic system, no great discovery has ever been
made and proclaimed merely from desire for personal
money profit. The genius that invents is moved by an
imperial necessity of its own nature, and wealth usually
falls to the lot of the commonplace man who exploits the
genius, and not to the genius itself. Even talent is moved
more by joy in its own exercise, and in the public approval
it wins, than by mere hope of money gain. Who would
not rather be an Isaac Newton, a Shelley, or a Shakspere,
than a mere Vanderbilt ? And most of all are those of
strong individual initiative moved by desire to serve their
“larger self”, which is Man. The majority of such
choose the unpopular path, and by sheer strength and
service gradually win over the majority. We see men and
women who might have won wealth, position, power, by
using their talents for personal gain in pursuits deemed
honorable, cheerfully throw all aside to proclaim an un
popular truth, and to serve a cause they believe to be
good and useful. And these motives will become far more
powerful under Socialism than they are now. For the
possession of money looms unduly large to-day in conse
quence of the horrible results of the want of it. The
dread of hunger and of charity is the microscope which
magnifies the value of wealth. But once let all men be
secure of the necessaries and comforts of life, and all the
finer motives of action will take their proper place.
Energy will have its full scope under Socialism, and in
deed when the value of a man’s work is secured to him
instead of the half being appropriated by someone else, it
will receive a new impulse. How great will be the in
centive to exertion when the discovery of some new force,
or new"application of a known force, means greater com
fort for the discoverer and for all; none thrown out of
work by it, none injured by it, but so much solid gain
for each. And for the discoverer, as well as the material
gain common to him and his comrades, the thanks and
praise of the community in which he lives. And let not
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MODERN SOCIALISM.
the power of public opinion be undervalued as a stimulus
to exertion. What Greek athlete would have sold his
wreath of bay for its weight in gold ? Only one kind of
energy will be annihilated by Socialism—the energy that
enslaves others for its own gain, and exploits its weaker
brethren for its own profit. For this kind of energy
there will be no room. The coarse purse-proud mediocrity,
who by sheer force of pushing brutality has trampled
his way to the front, will have vanished. The man who
grows rich by underpaying his employees, by being a
“hard business man”, will have passed away. Energy
will have to find for itself paths of service instead of
paths of oppression, and will be honored or reprobated
according to the way in which it is used.
That it will destroy individuality. If this were true, the
loss to progress would indeed be incalculable. But So
cialism, instead of destroying individuality will cultivate
and accentuate it, and indeed will make it possible for
the first time in civilisation for the vast majority. For
it needs, in order that individuality shall be developed,
that the individual shall have his characteristics drawn out
and trained by education; it needs that he shall work,
in maturity, at the work for which his natural abilities fit
him ; it needs that he shall not be exhausted by excessive
toil, but shall go fresh and vigorous to his labor; it
needs that he shall have leisure to continuously improve
himself, to train his intellect and his taste. But such
education, such choice of work, such short hours of labor,
such leisure for self-culture, where are all these to-day for
our laboring population ? A tremendous individuality,
joined to robust health, may make its way upward out
of the ranks of the handworkers to- day; but all normal
individuality is crushed out between the grinding-stones
of the industrial mill. See the faces of the lads and
lasses as they troop out of the factory, out of the great
mercantile establishments; how alike they all are ! They
might almost have been turned out by the dozen. We
Socialists demand that individuality shall be possible for
all, and not only for the few who are too strong to crush.
That it will unduly restrict personal liberty. Socialism,
as conceived by the non-student of it, is an iron system,
in which the “ State ”—which is apparently separate from
the citizens—shall rigidly assign to each his task, and
�MODERN SOCIALISM.
51
deal out to each his subsistence. Even if this caricature
were accurate, Socialism would give the great majority
far more freedom than they enjoy to-day ; for they would
only be under the yoke for their brief hours of toil, and
would have unfettered freedom for the greater portion of
their time. Contrast this compulsion with the compulsion
exercised on the workers to-day by the sweater, the
manager of the works or business, and above all the
compulsion of hunger, that makes them bend to the yoke
for the long hours of the working day, and often far into
the night: and then say whether the “freedom ” of Indus
trialism is not a heavier chain than the “tyranny ” of the
most bureaucratic Socialism imagined by our opponents.
But the “tyranny of Socialism”, however, would consist
only in ordering-—and enforcing the order if necessary—
that every healthy adult should labor for his own subsist
ence. That is, it would protect the liberty of each by not
allowing anyone to compel another person to work for him,
and by opening to all equal opportunities of working for
themselves. The worker would choose his own work
certainly as freely as he does now : at the present time, if
one class of work has enough operatives employed at it,
a man must take some other, and I do not see that
Socialism could prevent this limitation of choice. At any
rate, the limitation is not an argument against Socialism,
since it exists at the present time.
Imagine the glorious freedom which would be the lot of
each when, the task of social work complete, and done
under healthy and pleasant conditions, the worker turned
to science, literature, art, gymnastics, to what he would,
for the joyous hours of leisure. For him all the treasures
of knowledge and of beauty; for him all the delights of
scenery and of art; for him all that only the wealthy
enjoy to-day; all that comes from work flowing back to
enrich the worker’s life.
I know that our hope is said to be the dream of the
enthusiast; I know that our message is derided, and that
the gospel of man’s redemption which we preach is scorned.
Be it so. Our work shall answer the gibes of our oppo
nents, and our faith in the future shall outlast their
mockery. We know that however much man’s ignorance
may hinder our advance ; however much his selfishness
may block our path; that we shall yet win our way to the
�52
MODERN SOCIALISM.
land we have seen but in our visions, and rear the temple
of human happiness on the solid foundation stones of
science and of truth. Above all sneer and taunt, above all
laughter and bitter cries of hatred, rings out steadily our
prophecy of the coming time :
‘ ‘ O nations undivided,
O single People, and free,
We dreamers, we derided,
We mad blind men that see,
We bear you witness ere ye come that ye shall be.”
�
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Modern socialism
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Besant, Annie Wood [1847-1933]
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 52 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Printed by Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh.
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Freethought Publishing Company
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1886
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T403
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Socialism
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Social change
Social conditions
Socialism
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Text
PRICE ONE PENNY^
AND
EDWARD CARPENTER.
(Reprinted from TO-DAY, February, 1885.^
UonHon :
THE MODERN PRESS,
13, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.
1886.
��HE Progress of Society is a subject which occupies much
attention now-a-days. We hear the shouts and cries of
reformers, and are inclined sometimes to be vexed at their
noisy insistance and brandishing of panaceas ; but when we come to
look into the evils to which they draw our attention-—under our very
noses as it were—and see how serious they are : when we see the
misery, the suffering all around us, and see too how directly in some
cases this appears to be traceable to certain institutions, we can
hardly be human if we do not make some effort to alter these insti
tutions, and the state of society which goes with them; indeed at
times we feel that it is our highest duty to agitate with the noisiest,
and insist at all costs that justice should be done, the iniquity swept
away.
And yet, on the other hand, when retiring from the heat and noise
of conflict, we mount a little in thought and look out over the world,
when we realise what indeed every day is becoming more abundantly
clear—that Society is the gigantic growth of centuries, moving on in
an irresistible and ordered march of its own, with the precision and
atality of an astronomic orb—how absurd seem all our demonstra
tions ! what an idle beating of the air! The huge beast comes on
with elephantine tread. The Liberal sits on his head, and the Con
servative sits on his tail; but both are borne along whether they
will or no, and both are shaken off before long, inevitably, into the
dust. One reformer shouts, “ This way,” and another shouts
“That,” but the great foot comes down and crushes them both,
indifferent, crushes the one who thought he was right and the one
who found he was wrong, crushes him who would facilitate its pro
gress and him who would stop it, alike.
, I confess that I am continually borne about between these two
Opposing views. On the one hand is Justice, here and now, which
must and shall be done. On the other hand is Destiny indifferent,
coming down from eternity, which cannot be altered.
Where does the truth lie ? Is there any attainable truth in the
matter ? Perhaps not. The more I think of it, the more am I
�4
persuaded that the true explanations, theories, of the social changes
which we see around us, that the forces which produce them, that
the purposes which they fulfil, lie deep, deep down unsuspected ; that
the profoundest hitherto Science (Buckle, Comte, Marx, Spencer,
Morgan, and the rest) has hardly done more than touch the skirt of
this great subject. The surface indications, currents, are elusive;
the apparent purposes very different from the real ones; individuals,
institutions, nations, more or less like puppets or pieces in a game ;
—the hand that moves them altogether unseen, screening itself
effectually from observation.
Let me take an illustration. You see a young plant springing
out of the ground. You are struck by the eager vital growth of it.
What elasticity, energy! how it snatches contributions from the
winds and sunlight, and the earth beneath, and rays itself out with
hourly fresh adornment! You become interested to know what is
the meaning of all this activity. You watch the plant. It unfolds.
The leaf-bud breaks and discloses leaves. These, then, are what
it has been aiming at.
But in the axils of the leaves are other leaf-buds, and from these
more leaves! The young shoot branches and becomes a little tree
or bush. The branching and budding go on, a repetition apparently
of one formula. Presently, however, a flower-bud appears. Now
we see the real object!
Have you then ever carefully examined a flower-bud ? Take a
rosebud for instance, or better still perhaps, a dahlia. When quite
young the buds of these latter are mere green knobs. Cut one
across with your pen-knife : you will see a green or whitish mass,
apparently without organisation. Cut another open which is more
advanced, and you will see traces of structural arrangement, even
markings and lines faintly pencilled on its surface, like the markings
that shoot thro’ freezing water—sketches and outlines of what is
to follow. Later, and your bud will disclose a distinct formation ;
beneath an outer husk or film—transparent in the case of the dahlia
—the petals can already be distinguished, marked, though not
actually separated from each other. Here they lie in block as it
were, conceived yet not shapen, like the statue in the stone, or the
thought in the brain of the sculptor. But they are growing mo
mently and expanding. The outermost, or sepals, cohering form a
husk, which for a time protects the young bud. But it also confines
it. A struggle ensues, a strangulation, and then the husk gives way,
falls off or passes into a secondary place, and the bud opens.
And now the petals uncurl and free themselves like living things
to the light. But the process is not finished. Each petal expanding
shows another beneath, and these younger ones as they open push
the older ones outwards, and while these latter are fading there are
still new ones appearing in the centre. Envelope after envelope
exfoliated—such is the law of life.
�5
At last however within the most intimate petals appears the central
galaxy—the group of the sexual organs ! And now the flower (the
petal-flower) which just before in all its glory of form, colour and
fragrance seemed to be the culminating expression and purpose of
the plant’s life, appears only as a means, an introduction, a secondary
thing—a mere advertisement and lure to wandering insects. With
in it lies the golden circle of the stamens, the magic staff of the pistil,
and the precious ark or seed-vessel.
Now then we know what it has all been for! But the appearance
of the seed-vessel is not the end, it is only a beginning. The flower,
the petals, now drop off withered and useless; their work is done.
But the seed-vessel begins to swell, to take on structure and form
just as the formless bud did before—there is something at work
within. And now it bursts, opens, and falls away. It too is a husk,
and no longer of any importance—for within it appear the seeds, the
objects of all this long toil!
Is the investigation finished ? is the process at an end ?—No.
Here within this tiny seed lies the promise, the purpose, the vital
principle, the law, the inspiration—whatever you like to call it—of
this plant’s life. Can you find it ?
The seed falls to the ground. It swells and takes on form and
structure—just as the seed-vessel which enclosed it took on form
and structure before—and as the flower-bud (which enclosed the
seed-vessel) did before that—-and as the leaf-bud (which enclosed
the flower-bud) did before that. The seed falls to the ground ; it
throws off a husk (always husks thrown off!)—and discloses an
embryo plant—radicle, plumule and cotyledons—root-shoot, stem
shoot and seed leaves—complete. And the circle begins again.
*
We are baffled after all! We have followed this extraordinary
process, we have seen each stage of the plant-growth appearing
first as final, and then only as the envelope of a later stage. We
have stripped off, so to speak, husk afLer husk, in our search for the
inner secret of the plant-life—we have got down to the tiny seed.
But the seed we have found turns out (like every other stage) to be
itself only an envelope—to be thrown away in its turn—what we
want lies still deeper down. The plant-life begins again—or rather
it never ends—but it does not repeat itself. The young plant is not
the same as the parent, and the next generation varies again from
this. When the envelopes have been thrown off a thousand and a
hundred thousand times more, a new form will appear; will this be
a nearer and more perfect expression than before of that withinlying secret—or otherwise ?
To return to Society : I began by noting the contrast, often drawn,
between the stern inexorable march of this as a whole, and the
* Though not really a circle any more than the paths of the planets
are really ellipses.
�equally imperious determination of the individual to interfere with
its march—a determination excited by the contemplation of what is
called evil, and shapen by an ideal of something better arising with
in him. Think what a commotion there must be within the bud
when the petals of a rose are forming! Think what arguments,
what divisions, what recriminations, even among the atoms. An
organization has to be constructed and completed. It is finished at
last, and a petal is formed. It rays itself out in the sun, is beautiful
and unimpeachable for a day; then it fades, is pushed off, its work
is done—another from within takes its place.
One social movement succeeds another, the completion of one is
the signal for the commencement of the next. Hence there can be
no stereotyping: not to change is to die—this is the rule of Life ;
because (and the reason is simple enough) one form is not enough to
express the secret of life. To express that require an infinite series
of forms.
Even a crab cannot get on without changing its shell. It outgrows
it. It feels very uncomfortable—pent, sullen and irritable (much as
the bud did before the bursting of the husk, or as society does when
dead forms and institutions—generally represented by a class in
power—confine its growth)—anxious, too, and oppressed with fears,
the crab—retires under a rock, out of harm’s way, and presently,
crack! the shell scales off, and with quietude and patience from
within another more suited to it forms. Yet this latter is not final.
It is merely the prelude to another.
The Conservative may be wron& but the Liberal is just as wrong
who considers his reform as ultimate, both are right in so far as
they look upon measures as transitory. Beware above all things of
utopianism in measures ! Beware, that is, of regarding any system
or scheme of society whatever as final or permanent, whether it be
the present, or one to come. The feudal arrangement of society
succeeded the clannish and patriarchal, the commercial or competi
tive system succeeds the feudal, the socialistic succeeds the
commercial, and the socialistic is succeeded in its turn by other
stages ; and each of these includes numerous minor developments.
The politician or reformer who regards any of these stages or steps
as containing the whole secret and redemption of society commits
just the same mistake as the theologian who looks upon any one
doctrine as necessary to salvation. He is betrayed into the most
frightful harshness, narrow-mindedness, and intolerance—and if he
has power will become a tyrant. Just the same danger has to be
guarded against by every one of us in daily life. Who is there who.
(though his reason may contend against it) does not drop into the
habit of regarding some one change in his life and surroundings as
containing finally the secret of his happiness, and excited by this
immense prospect does not do things which he afterwards regrets,
and which end in disappointment ? There is a millennium, but it-
�7
does not belong to any system of society that can be named, nor to
any doctrine, belief, circumstance or surrounding of individual life.
The secret of the plant-life does not tarry in any one phase of its
growth; it eludes from one phase to another, still lying within
and within the latest. It is within the grain of mustard seed ; it is
so small. Yet it rules and is the purpose of every stage, and is like
the little leaven which, invisible in three measures of meal, yet
leavened the whole lump.
Of the tendency, of which I have spoken, of social forms to stereo
type themselves, Law is the most important and in some sense the
most pernicious instance. Social progress is a continual fight
against it. Popular customs get hardened into laws. Even thus
they soon constitute evils. But in the more complex stages of society,
when classes arise, the law-making is generally in the hands of a
class, and the laws are hardened (often very hardened) class
practices. These shells have to be thrown off and got rid of at all
costs—or rather they will inevitably be thrown off when the growing
life of the people underneath forces this liberation. It is a bad
sign when a patient ‘ law-abiding ’ people submit like sheep to old
forms which are really long out-worn. “ Where the men and women
think lightly of the laws. . . . there the great city stands,” says
Walt Whitman.
I remember once meeting with a pamphlet written by an Italian,
whose name I have forgotten, member of a Secularist society, to
prove that the Devil was the author of all human progress. Of
course that, in his sense, is true. The spirit of opposition to
established order, the war against the continuance (as a finality) of
any institution or order, however good it may be for the time, is a
necessary element of social progress, is a condition of the very life
of Society. Without this it would die.
Law is a strangulation. Yet while it figures constantly as an
evil in social life, it must not therefore be imagined to be bad or
without use. On the contrary, its very appearance as an evil is
part of its use. It is the husk which protects and strengthens the
bud while it confines it. Possibly the very confinement and forcible
repression which it exercises is one element in the more rapid
organization of the bud within. It is the crab’s shell which gives
form and stability to the body of the creature, but which has to give
way when a more extended form is wanted.
In the present day in modern society the strangulation of the
growth of the people is effected by the capitalist class. This class
together with its laws and institutions constitutes the husk which
has to be thrown off just as itself threw off the husk of the feudal
aristocracy in its time. The commercial and capitalist envelope
has undoubtedly served to protect and give form to (and even
nourish) the growing life of the people. But now its function in that
respect is virtually at an end. It appears merely as an obstacle
�8
and an evil—and will inevitably be removed, either by a violent
disruption or possibly by a gradual absorption into the socialised
proletariat beneath.
At all times, and from whatever points of view, it should be borne
in mind that laws are made by the people, not the people by the
laws. Modern European Society is cumbered by such a huge and
complicated overgrowth of law, that the notion actually gets abroad
that such machinery is necessary to keep the people in order —that
without it the mass of the people would not live an orderly life ;
whereas all observation of the habits of primitive and savage tribes,
destitute of laws and almost destitute of any authoritative institutions
—and all observation of the habits of civilised people when freed
from law (as in gold-mining and other backwood communities)—
show just the reverse. The instinct ofamanis to an orderly life,
the law is but the result and expression of this. As well attribute
the organization of a crab to the influence of its shell, as attribute
the orderly life of a nation to the action of its laws. Law has a
purpose and an influence—but the idea that it is to preserve order
is elusive. All its machinery of police and prisons do not, cannot
do this. At best in this sense it only preserves an order advan
tageous to a certain class ; it is the weapon of a slow and deliberate
warfare. It springs from hatred and rouses opposition, and so has
a healthy influence.
Fichte said : “ The. object of all government is to render govern
ment superfluous.” And certainly if external authority of any kind
has a final purpose it must be to establish and consolidate an internal
authority. Whitman adds to his description of “ the great city,”
that it stands “ Where outside authority enters always after the
precedence of inside authority.” When this process is complete
government in the ordinary sense is already “rendered superfluous.’
Anyhow this external governmental power is obviously self-destruc
tive. It has no permanence or finality about it, but in every period
of history appears as a husk or shell preparing the force within
which is to reject it.
Thus I have in a very fragmentary and imperfect way called
attention to some general conditions of social progress, conditions
by which the growth of Society is probably comparable with the
growth of a plant or an animal or an astronomic organism, subject
to laws and an order of its own, in face of which the individual
would at first sight appear to count as nothing. But there is, as
usual, a counter-truth which must not be overlooked. If Society
moves by an ordered and irresistible march of its own, so also—as
a part of Society, and beyond that as a part of Nature—does the
individual. In his right place the individual is also irresistible.
Now then, when you have seized your life-inspiration, your
absolute determination, you also are irresistible, the whole weight
of this vast force is behind you. Huge as the institutions of Society
�are, vast as is the sweep of its traditions and customs, yet in face of
it all, the word “I will ” is not out of place.
Let us take the law of the competitive struggle for existence—
which has been looked upon by political economists (perhaps with
some justice) as the base of social life. It is often pointed out that
this law of competition rules throughout the animal and vegetable
kingdoms as well as through the region of human society, and there
fore, it is said, being evidently a universal law of Nature, it is useless
and hopeless to expect that society can ever be founded on any
r other basis. Yet I say that granting this assumption—and in
reality the same illusion underlies the application of the word
1
“ law ” here, as we saw before in its social application—granting
I say that competition has hitherto been the universal law, the last
word, of Nature, still if only one man should stand up and say, “ It
shall be so no more,” if he should say, “ It is not the last word of
my nature, and my acts and life declare that it is not,”—then that
so-called law would be at an end. He being a part of Nature has
I
as much right to speak as any other part, and as in the elementarylaw of hydrostatics a slender column of water can balance (being at
l
the same height) against an ocean—so his Will (if he understand it
aright) can balance all that can be arrayed against him. If only
one man — with regard to social matters — speaking from the
very depth of his heart says “This shall not be: behold
something better; ” his word is likely stronger than all insti
tutions, all traditions. And why ?—because in the deeps of his
P individual heart he touches also that of Society, of Man. Within
ft himself, in quiet, he has beheld the secret, he has seen a fresh crown
of petals, a golden circle of stamens, folded and slumbering in the
L
bud. Man forms society, its laws and institutions, and Man can
!
reform them. Somewhere within yourself be assured, the secret of
that authority lies.
The fatal words spoken by individuals—the words of progress—
are provoked by what is called evil. Every human institution is
good in its time, and then becomes evil—yet it may be doubted
whether it is really evil in itself, but rather because if it remained
it would hinder the next step. Each petal is pushed out by the
next one, A new growth of the moral sense takes place first withinthe individual—and this gives birth to a new ideal, something to
love better than anything seen before. Then in the light of this
new love, this more perfect desire, what has gone and the actually
existing things appear wizened and false (i.e., ready to fall like the
petals). They become something to hate, they are evil; and the
perception of evil is already the promise of something better.
Do not be misled so as to suppose that science and the intellect
• are or can be the sources of social progress or change. It is the
moral births and outgrowths that originate, science and the intellect
only give form to these. It is a common notion and one apparently
�gaining ground that science may as it were take Society by the hand
and become its high priest and guide to a glorious kingdom. And
this to a certain extent is true. Science may become high-priest,
but the result of its priestly offices will entirely depend on what
kind of deity it represents—what kind of god Society worships.
Science will doubtless become its guide, but whither it leads Society
will entirely depend on whither Society desires to be led. If
Society worships a god of selfish curiosity the holy rites and priest
hood of science will consist in vivisection and the torture of the
loving animals ; if Society believes above all things in material
results, science will before long provide these things—it will surround
men with machinery and machine-made products, it will whirl
them about (behind steam-kettles as Mr. Ruskin says) from one end
of the world to the other, it will lap them in every luxury and
debility, and give them fifty thousand toys to play with where
before they had only one—but through all the whistling of the
kettles and the rattling of the toys it will not make the still small
voice of God sound nearer. If Society, in short, worships the
devil, science will lead it to the devil; aud if Society worships God
science will open up, and clear away much that encumbered the
path to God. (And here I use these terms as lawyers say “ without
prejudice.”) No mere scientific adjustments will bring about the
millenium. Granted that the problem is Happiness, there must be
certain moral elements in the mass of mankind before they will
even desire, that kind of happiness which is attainable, let alone
their capacity of reaching it—when these moral elements are
present the intellectual or scientific solution of the problem will be
soon found, without them there will not really be any serious attempt
made to find it. That is—as I said at the head of this paragraph
—science and the intellect are not, and never can be, the sources of
social progress and change. It is the moral births and outgrowths
that originate; the intellect stands in a secondary place as the tool
and instrument of the moral faculty.
The commercial and competitive state of society indicates to my
mind an upheaval from the feudal of a new (and perhaps grander)
sentiment of human right and dignity. Arising simultaneously
with Protestantism it meant—they both meant—individualism, the
assertion of man’s worth and dignity as man, and as against any
feudal lordship or priestly hierarchy. It was an outburst of feeling
first. It was the sense of equality spreading. It took the form of
individualism—the equality of rights—Protestantism in religion,
competition in commerce. It resulted in the social emancipation
of a large class, the bourgeoisie. Feudalism, now dwindled to a
husk, was thrown off; and for a time the glory, the life of society
was in the new order.
But to-day a wider morality, or at least a fresh impulse, asserts
itself. Competition in setting itself up as the symbol of human
�II
equality, was (like all earthly representations of what is divine)
only an imperfect symbol. It had the elements of mortality and
dissolution in it. For while it destroyed the privilege of rank and
emancipated a huge class, it ended after all by enslaving another
class and creating the privilege of wealth. Competition in fact
represented a portion of human equality but not the whole: in
sisting on individual rights all round, it overlooked the law of charity,
turned sour with the acid of selfishness, and became as to-day the
gospel of “ the devil take the hindmost.” Arising glorious as the
representative of human equality and the opponent of iniquity in
high places, it has ended by denying the very source from whence
it sprung. It passes by, and like Moses on the rock we now behold
the back parts of our divinity !
Competition is doomed. Once a good, it has now become an
evil. But simultaneously (and probably as part of the same pro
cess) springs up, as I say, a new morality. Everywhere to-day
signs of this may be seen, felt. It is felt that the relation which
systematically allows the weaker to go to the wall is not human.
Individualism, the mere separate pursuit, each of his own good, on
the basis of equality, does not satisfy the heart. The right (un
doubted though it may be) to take advantage of another’s weakness
or inferiority, does not please us any longer. Science and the intel
lect have nothing to say to this, for or against,—they can merely
stand and look on—arguments may be brought on both sides. What
I say is that as a fact a change is taking place in the general senti
ment in this matter; some deeper feeling of human solidarity,
brotherliness, charity, some more genuine and substantial apprehen
sion of the meaning of the word equality, is arising—some broader
and more determined sense of justice, Though making itself felt as
yet only here and there, still there are indications that this new
sentiment is spreading ; and if it becomes anything like general,
then inevitably (I say) it will bring a new state of society with it—
will be in fact such new state of society.
Some years ago at Brighton I met with William Smith, the
author of “Thorndale ” and other works—a man who had thought
much about society and human life. He was then quite an invalid,
and indeed died only a week or two later. Talking one day about
the current Political Economy he said : “ They assume self-interest
as the one guiding principle of human nature and so make it the
basis of their science—but,” he added, “ even if it is so now it
may not always be so, and that would entirely re-model their
science.” I do not know whether he was aware that even then a
new school of political economy was in existence, the school of Marx,
Engels, Lassalle, and others—founded really on just this new basis,
taking as its point of departure a stricter sense of justice and a new
conception of human right and equality. At any rate, whether
aware or not, I contend that this dying man—even if he had been
�12
alone in the world in his aspiration—-feeling within himself a deeper,
more intimate, principle of action than that expressed in the existing
state of society, might have been confident that at some time or
other—if not immediately—it would come to the surface and find its
due interpretation and translation m a new order of things. And
I contend that whoever to-day feels in himself that there is a better
standard of life than the higgling of the market, and a juster scale
of wages than “what A. or B. will take," and a more important
question in an undertaking than “ how much per cent, it will
pay ”—contains or conceals in himself the germs of a new social
order.
Socialism, if that is to be the name of the next wave of social life,
springs from and demands as its basis a new sentiment of humanity,
a higher morality. That is the essential part of it. A science it is,
but only secondarily ; for we must remember that as the bourgeois
political economy sprang from certain moral data, so the socialist
political economy implies other moral data. Both are irrefragable
on their own axioms. And when these axioms in course of time
change again (as they infallibly will) another science of political
economy, again irrefragable, will spring up, and socialist political
economy will be false.
The morality being the essential part of the movement, it is im
portant to keep that in view. If Socialism, as Mr. Matthew Arnold
has pointed out, means merely a change of society without a change
of its heart—if it merely means that those who grabbed all the good
things before shall be displaced, and that those who were grabbed
from shall now grab in their turn—it amounts to nothing, and is not
in effect a change at all, except quite upon the surface. If it is to
be a substantial movement, it must mean a changed ideal, a changed
conception of daily life ; it must mean some better conception of
human dignity—such as shall scorn to claim anything for its own
which has not been duly earned, and such as shall not find itself
degraded by the doing of any work, however menial, which is useful
to society; it must mean simplicity of life, defence of the weak,
courage of one’s own convictions, charity of the faults and failings
of others. These things first, and a larger slice of pudding all
round afterwards!
How can such morality be spread ?—How does a plant grow ?—
It grows. There , is some contagion of influence in these matters.
Knowledge can be taught directly ; but a new ideal, a new sentiment
of life, can only pass by some indirect influence from one to another.
Yet it does pass. There is no need to talk—-perhaps the less said
in any case about these matters the better—but if you have such
new ideal within you, it is I believe your clearest duty, as well as
your best interest, to act it out in your own life at all apparent costs.
Then we must not forget that a wise order of society once estab
lished (by the strenuous action of a few) reacts on its members. To
�T3
a certain extent it is true, perhaps, that men and women can be
grown—like cabbages. And this is a case of the indirect influence
of the strenuous few upon the many.
Thus—in this matter of society’s change and progress—(though
I feel that the subject as a whole is far too deep for me)—-I do
think that the birth of new moral conceptions in the individual is
at least a very important factor. It may be in one individual or in
a hundred thousand. As a rule probably when one man feels any
such impulse strongly, the hundred thousand are nearer to him than
he suspects. (When one leaf, or petal, or stamen begins to form on
a tree, or one plant begins to push its way above the ground in
spring, there are hundreds of thousands all round just ready to
form.) Anyhow, whether he is alone or not, the new moral birth is
sacred—as sacred as the child within the mother’s womb—it is a
kind of blasphemy against the Holy Ghost to conceal it. And when
I use the word “ moral ” here—or anywhere above—I do not, I hope,
mean that dull pinch-lipped conventionality of negations which
often goes under that name. The deep-lying ineradicable desires,
fountains of human action, the life-long aspirations, the lightninglike revelations of right and justice, the treasured hidden ideals,
born in flame and in darkness, in joy and sorrow, in tears and in
triumph, within the heart—are as a rule anything but conventional.
They may be, and often are, thought immoral. I don’t care, they
are sacred just the same. If they underlie a man’s life, and are
nearest to himself—they will underlie humanity. “To your own
self be true . . .
Anyhow courage is better than conventionality : take your stand
and let the world come round to you. Do not think you are right
and everybody else wrong. If you think you are wrong then you
may be right; but if you think you are right then you are certainly
. wrong. Your deepest highest moral conceptions are only for a
time. They have to give place. They are the envelopes of Free
dom—that eternal Freedom which cannot be represented—that
peace which passes understanding. Somewhere here is the invisible
vital principle, the seed within the seed. It may be held but not
thought, felt but not represented—except by Life and History.
Every individual so far as he touches this stands at the source of
social progress—behind the screen on which the phantasmagoria
play.
�THE INTERNATIONAL LIBRARY OF SOCIAL SCIENCE.
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and Future. By August Bebel, Deputy in
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Translated from the German by H. B.
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“The grandest and highest minded statement of Socialism I have ever
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Socialism made Plain.
The social and
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'
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Social progress and individual effort
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Place of publication: London
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Social change
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’T4/0£a
THE
COMING REVOLUTION
IN ENGLAND.
BY
H. M. HYNDMAN,
Author of “ The Social Reconstruction of England,” “ TextBook
of
Democracy,” &c.
LENDING
LIBRARY
LONDON:
WILLIAM BEEVES, 185, ELEET STBEET, E.C.
Office of “ The Christian Socialist."
�Reprinted from the “North American Review.
�THE COMING REVOLUTION IN ENGLAND.
England at the present moment affords beyond doubt the
best field for the study of the social development of our times.
*
To a superficial observer we are still the Chinese of Europe,
clinging to old forms and old reverences, which have long since
been discarded elsewhere; though a closer examination shows
clearly that we have entered on a period of change which will
probably carry us far in advance of anything yet seen, either in
Europe or America. Few educated Englishmen, if pressed for
a deliberate opinion, would deny that there is every likelihood
that a complete social and political reorganization will be
attempted in these islands before the end of this century. Even
among the useless men and women who dub themselves “society,”
an undercurrent of uneasiness may be detected. The dread
word “ Revolution ” is sometimes spoken aloud in jest; more
often quietly whispered in all seriousness. The luxurious classes
feel that there is something going on below which they do not
understand, while now and then the truth that they are after
all but a handful of drones amid a dense swarm of ill-housed
and underfed workers forces itself in dimly upon their minds.
“Of course,” said one lady, “we know the working classes can
overwhelm us if they are only organized, but what is to come
then?” The deluge was to her but a swollen brooklet compared
to this loosing of the waters of democracy.
* See “The Social Reconstruction of England,” (W. Reeves, 185,
Fleet Street, London, price 6d.)
�4
THE COMING REVOLUTION
Now this growing consciousness of weakness if, if, if—this
or that takes place, which sooner or later is allowed to be
certain to come, acts itself as a force on the side of the people.
The “ it will last our time ” sort of men soon go to the wall in
days of real popular excitement. Those who refuse to look
thoroughly into the problems of their own age and country,
cannot fail to make grave mistakes when brought face to face
with the relentless necessities of social evolution, or even with
a body of enthusiasts who know their own minds. Ignorance
and cowardice invariably engender spasmodic injustice and
hap-hazard cruelty. And the worst sort of ignorance is that
which neglects to take account of natural laws, the most hope
less cowardice that which leads men to shut their eyes to
approaching danger.
Among the upper and middle classes in England to-day
there is absolutely no ideal for the future of their country.
There is not a single idea stirring among them which can give
hope to the old or can fire the young. Materially it is the
same. Neither of the present organized Parliamentary parties
offers to the mass of Englishmen any real change for the
better in their own condition, or proposes measures which hold
out the prospect of a brighter lot for their children. The bills
before the House of Commons at this hour exclusively concern
the welfare of the middle class, consequently there is an utter
apathy in relation to them among the workers. What does a
man who has to keep his wife and children on a pound or less
a week care about the provisions of a bankruptcy act, or the
assimilation of borough and county franchise ? All he knows
is, that somehow or other he has to work day in and day out
to keep body and soul together; that to-morrow he may be
unable to earn even the scanty pittance he at present gets;
and that then, from causes quite beyond his own control, he
may have to exchange the squalid misery of his home for the
�IN ENGLAND.
5
yet more squalid misery of the workhouse. No doubt such a
hand-to-mouth workman rarely reflects on his social wrongs;
but, when he does, from thought to action will be a very short
step.
Events just now move fast. Landlords, for instance, can
scarcely help observing that in Ireland, despite coercion acts,
a revolution is being wrought which can be but the beginning
of a complete change of system. At first the movement was
only a middle-class agitation, yet see what has been done in
two years. The farmers are still discontented, but already, ere
they are pacified, the day-laborers make themselves heard.
Those who imagine that the working classes in England will
not be influenced, in the long run, by what is going on in
Ireland, take a very short-sighted view of the situation and
its surroundings. However favorable the conditions may be,
this kind of political yeast ferments slowly through the great
unleavened mass of the people; but it does its work all the
same. The undefined fear that this may be so accounts for
the uneasiness referred to. What if similar steps should be
taken on this side of St. George’s Channel ? What if English
men and Scotchmen should call to mind that though the lap'’,
of Ireland is held by 12,000 people against 5,000,000, the land
of Great Britain is owned by only 30,000 against 30,000,000 ?
What if those who live on the starvation wages graciously
accorded them by the hypocritical fanatics of supply and
demand, with never the hope of rising above the wage-slave
-class—what if they, ground down under the economical pres
sure into a depth of degradation inconceivable to those who
have not witnessed it, should demand the fruits of their labor
from the classes who live in luxury on the produce of their
toil. What indeed ? At the very thought of it a chill shud
der creeps down the back of the land monopolists and the
capital monopolists alike, and they cry aloud in chorus for
�6
THE COMING REVOLUTION
more and yet more tyranny in Ireland, and huddle together
into a “ Liberty (!) and Property Protection League ” here.
For they know, if “society” and the workers don’t, that the
interests of the producing classes on both sides of the Irish
Channel are the same, and that should a struggle commence,
it will be a furious class war between the capitalists and middle
class aided by the landlords, on the one side, against the
*
working class aided by a few thinkers, enthusiasts, and ambi
tious men, on the other—a struggle beside which the old fight
of the burgesses and men of the “new learning ” against nobles
and clergy would seem child’s play.
He who writes the history of class wars writes the history
of civilized peoples. A new, and—unless far more wisdom
and foresight is displayed by the well-to-do than now seems
likely—a bloody page of that history may ere long be turned
over with us here in the “ Old Home.” In such circum
stances what course should be taken by any man who wishes
well to his country ? Surely to try to read aright the signs of
the times, and to endeavor to convince others near and far that
in such a battle surrender is both nobler and safer for the
weaker party than inevitable defeat. As an Englishman who
has had special opportunities of watching our social growth
from many points of view, I venture to think that the following
pages may be of some interest to the great English-speaking
* Among the wiser leaders of the Conservative Party in the past
there has always existed some sort of vague hope that an alliance might
be formed between the landowners and the people against the capi
talists. Mr. Disraeli certainly had this idea. But to carry it into effect
called, and calls, for sacrifices of which our English nobles and squires
are quite incapable. They talk boldly of patriotism, but they always
keep their hands tight clenched in their breeches pockets. Of late this
whole policy has been thrown aside with contempt, and Lord Salisbury
and Sir Stafford Northcote make no secret of their anxiety to make
common cause with the plutocracy in favor of the “ rights of property”
against the rights of the people. A Conservative programme truly.
�IN ENGLAND.
7
■democracy on. the western side of the Atlantic Ocean as well as
to our own people here.
It is a commonplace to say that a hundred years is a short
period in the life of a nation, yet few perhaps reflect how short
it really is. A man of seventy in this year, 1883—and nowa-days our English statesmen are, so to say, in their “ teens ”
at fifty—might have conversed as a youth of eighteen with his
father, who, if he had then attained likewise threescore and
ten years, could retain a clear personal remembrance of the
events of the American War of Independence, and must have
passed through the era of the French Revolution in the prime
of manhood. Thus considerably less than two ordinary lives
carry us back to a date which, in certain respects, social and
economical, seems as remote as ancient history. It needs an
effort of the imagination to recall what England was in 1783..
, Nevertheless, those who have studied the years immediately
preceding the great war with France know well that at that
time the opinions of educated men were to a great extent in
advance socially and politically of what they are to-day. The
writings of Thomas Paine, Priestley, Horne Tooke, Thomas
Spence, of Newcastle; the speeches of the elder Pitt, Burke,
Fox, Sheridan, and Colonel Barre, to say nothing of the crowd
•of pamphleteers who in one way or another reflected the ideas
of Rousseau and Voltaire and the general tone of the working
■classes in their ordinary talk, all shadowed forth a political
movement in England not very widely different in its objects
from that which wrought so great a change in France. A
hundred years ago the Duke of Richmond fathered a bill in
fiavor of universal suffrage and annual parliaments, and Thomas
Hardy the shoemaker was tried for high treason because he
agitated for a National Convention. It is certain that the
mass of Englishmen, so far as they could give expression to
their opinion, fully sympathized with the early phases of the
�8
THE COMING REVOLUTION
attack upon the ancien regime in France,, and would gladly
have followed up the policy so successfully begun in America
and carried on by the French in the direction of a complete
enfranchisement of the people.
Yet here we are to-day without reforms admitted to be
necessary by Lord Chatham, and considered with a view to
bringing them forward from a Tory point of view by his reac
tionary son. The present House of Commons, though sup
posed to represent thirty-five millions of people, is really elected
by a little over three millions; the House of Lords still has
the power, as it so disastrously showed in numberless instances,
of thwarting, for a time at least, any genuine liberal measure
carried by the so-called popular chamber. The House of
Commons itself also, elected as stated, consists of a compact
phalanx of landlords and capitalists, whose interests are directly
opposed to those of the great body of the people. What
Thomas Paine called the game of ride and tie still goes mer
rily on. Tories and Whigs, Conservatives and Liberals, take
turn and turn about in cajoling their constituents, and enjoy
the sweets of office as the reward for their dexterity. The
cost of elections and the nonpayment of members shut out all
but men of the well-to-do classes, or the two or three specimens
of the working class who are ready to do their bidding. Now
it is clear that there must be some great causes to account for
this remarkable set-back, since the revolt of our American
colonies, and the teaching of vigorous minds, both in England
and abroad, led the English democracy to look to a thorough
reform of the constitution, or even to the establishment of a
Republic as not only advantageous, but necessary.
Mere political reaction will not fully explain such a strange
collapse. Doubtless the war against France, into which the
nation was dragged by the aristocratic class, had a great effect.
The horror, more than half manufactured, which was felt at
�IN ENGLAND.
9
the fate of Louis XVI. and. Marie Antoinette, helped the reac
tionists and the war party. Burke and others did their utmost
to fan the flame. The Reign of Terror in Paris, exaggerated,
by the calculated panic of the upper classes intensified the
popular feeling. And of course when once we were fairly at
war the old dogged spirit of the victors of Crecy and Poitiers
was roused, the fatal mirage of glory tempted the suffering
people on, and internal reorganization was practically thrust
aside in favor of naval triumphs and glorious battles. If we
lost, it would never do to be beaten like that; if we won, why,
•all was going well. Hurrah for old England I To this day,
also, the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror are quoted
in almost every middle-class household as standing warnings
against any attempt of the people to organize themselves in
•earnest.
Who shall say, moreover, what an influence the common
school-books have had in this direction ? Till within the last
few years all history for the young has been compiled in the
direct interest of reaction. Not the least noteworthy, there
fore, among the smaller signs of coming change is the fact that
at the present moment efforts are being made to correct the
ideas which have been current with regard to the leaders of
the French Revolution among the working class. Lectures
are constantly delivered and pamphlets distributed in the
growing radical and democratic clubs, which run quite counter
to the middle class idea of that great upheaval. Robespierre,
St. Just, Couthon, and even Marat are rehabilitated com
pletely, and held up to admiration as men who sacrificed them
selves to the good of the human race. This, too, though they
themselves all belonged to the very class which the extreme
-advocates of the rights of labor commonly denounce.
But deeper causes have been at work than the shock of the
Reign of Terror or the satisfaction of martial ardor. At the
�10
THE COMING REVOLUTION
end of the eighteenth century the long and bitterly cruel
process of driving the English people from the soil was pretty
well completed. The idler landlord and the capitalist farmer
had quite displaced the sturdy yeoman of old time. Commonswere being daily stolen by individuals, and an increasing por
tion of the agricultural population now reduced to mere wage
earners to the farmers, were driven into the towns, where they
became mere wage-earners to the factory lords and shop
keepers. The increasing power of steam, together with the
terrible laws favoring long hours and prohibiting combination
among workpeople, handed over the population of the cities
bound hand and foot to their masters—the sole owners of the
means of production. The furious destruction of machinery,
which frequently took place; the long, violent struggle against
the masters for shorter hours, for restriction of child and woman
labor; the persistent endeavors of the workers, as a class, tn
obtain some little freedom,—all show how fearful the pressure
must have been. Readers of Robert Owen and William
Cobbett can form some idea of the horrors wreaked on helplesswomen and children, of the infamous tyranny practised upon
almost equally helpless men by the factory owners and their
managers. The reports of the various commissions give a still
more fearful picture of what, went on. So grave was the dete
rioration of the physique of the poorer classes in the rapidly
growing manufacturing districts, that positively a social col
lapse threatened from this cause alone.
Meanwhile, the whole system of which this was a develop
ment grew apace. Education there was little or none ; justice
as between employed and employer was not to be had. The
workers were trampled under foot to a degree which the slave
class even in ancient Rome never suffered from. In 1825came the first of the great industrial crises which can be
directly traced to our present system of production, and the-
�IN ENGLAND.
11
misery among the poor in town and country alike was deplor
able. Fifty years ago affairs seemed really hopeless. Men
who still remember the situation in the years immediately
preceding the Reform Bill of 1832, say that there seemed
little prospect of the slightest modification. The aristocracy—
though their power had been shaken by the middle class—still
held, to all appearance, effective control. What with rotten
boroughs, sinecures, and bribery, they could still do pretty
much as they pleased. That very manufacturing prosperity
which had enabled the capitalist class to amass wealth directly,
also enriched the landlords in the shape of enhanced rents
indirectly, and thus increased their political strength. England
was already established as the manufacturing power of the
world, and the one idea of the classes which controlled its
development was that the labourers who made for them all
this wealth had really no rights at all. But for the activity of
Robert Owen, Richard Sadler, Lord Shaftesbury, and a few
other self-sacrificing men, even the first factory acts, which in
some degree checked the hideous crushing down of the people,
might have been delayed for years.
Thus, from the very time when some hope of real reform
had dawned on the minds of Englishmen up to the miserably
ineffective measure of 1832—a period of fifty years—a relent
less social pressure was going on in the cities and in the
country, which helped the partisans of reaction to an extent
that can hardly be estimated.
England, too, we must never forget, lies outside the great
European currents of popular excitement. The days of July
in Paris (1830) which produced so great an effect elsewhere,
were barely felt here at all. Still the economical conditions of
.the workers were such, and the political disfranchisement of
the masses was so galling, that it was clear even then that
■some attempt would be made to remedy their position. Men
�12
THE COMING REVOLUTION
of our day have grown up into liberty, and forget how hard
their fathers had to fight to maintain freedom of the press,
right of public meeting, and the like. The Chartist move
ment, which began a few years after 1832, renewed in politics
the Duke of Richmond’s electoral plan of more than sixty
years before1—see how slow it goes 1—the basis of the pro
gramme being manhood suffrage, annual parliaments, equal
electoral districts, and the ballot. But below this the leaders
had hope of real social reforms. Fine fellows, indeed, those
leaders were. Some of them are living now, and known to
me, and I do think nobler men with higher ideals have rarely
come to the front in English politics. The spirit of the people
was once again rising. That wave of revolutionary movement
which at times seems to spread, no man knows how, from
country to country, had begun to swell. The anti-corn law
agitation, which went on at the same time, though kept up
chiefly in the interest of the capitalist class, served to bring
the miseries of their social condition clearly before the mass of
the workers. Such men as Bronterre O’Brien, FeargusO’Connor, Ernest Jones, or Thomas Cooper—to speak only of
the dead—hoped for a sudden and beneficial change for the
mass of their countrymen. Foreign revolutionists who were
driven here just prior to ’48, fully believed that in this country,
at least, with its great factories and impoverished workpeople,
its great landlords and miserable agricultural laborers, its
political freedom and general disfranchisement,—that here,
here in England, the social revolution would now surely begin,
and the proletariat would at length come by their own. Alas 1
prison, disillusion and death awaited the English leaders; and
their foreign coadjutors, worn out with waiting, still watch
sadly but almost hopelessly for the dawning of the day.
That nationalization of the land, which is now so eagerly
debated alike in the East and in the West, was a portion of
�IN ENGLAND.
13
their creed, and though the true economical explanation of the
industrial phenomena by which they were surrounded was not
clear to them, most of the English leaders certainly wished to
carry out a far more thorough programme than they could
induce their middle-class supporters to adopt. But the move
ment of 1848 failed, partly because the leaders did not know
their own minds at the critical moment, but chiefly because
the people were not ready for the change, and the social evolu
tion had not—has it yet ?—worked itself up to the needful
point. Yet the men who wished for an immediate recognition
might be pardoned for thinking, in the years just preceding
the shake of ’48, that a complete change could not long be
postponed. Ireland was on the eve of that fearful famine
which ended in the death or expatriation of more than a third
of her population; England was approaching a period of
serious depression, which could not, to all appeartince, lead to
any improvement for the mass of the people; all over Europe,
as well as in the British Isles, men had begun to say that
anarchy could not be worse than the existing social oppression.
No wonder that, in England in particular, the well-to-do
classes drew together in anticipation of grave trouble, and
wild schemes of taking hostages of the daughters of the
wealthy were discussed on the other side. But suddenly the
sky cleared. Emigration to America and- Australia offered an
outlet to the more ardent spirits, of which they were not slow
to avail themselves. The Cronrwells and Hampdens of the
movement gladly took refuge beyond sea, and expended their
*
energy in new countries. At the same time, the gold dis
coveries and improved communication gave a marvellous
impulse to trade in every direction. Those who left became
comfortable and wealthy; those who remained had at least
enough to live upon. And so the revolutionary wave of ’48,
like that of ’89, passed by our shores, causing but the slightest
�14
THE COMING REVOLUTION
disturbance, and the mass of the people were left still in “ that
state of life ” in which it pleased their “ betters ” to keep
them.
From that time forward, though political agitation has
been almost at a standstill—for what, after all, was the reform
movement of 1866, or, for that matter, the household suffrage
it led up to ?—our development in other directions has pro
ceeded with a rapidity altogether unprecedented in human
history. Railways, telegraphs, ocean steamers, submarine
cables, have brought the peoples of the world together, and
have enhanced the wealth-producing capacity of our species to
an extent the wisest could not have foreseen as being possible
within so short a period. Those sciolists who attribute the
vast enrichment of England to free trade overlook the fact that
the mastery of man over nature has increased in an almost
immeasurable ratio during the last five and thirty years. We
English, very lightly handicapped in the race, with our cheap
coal, with our densely crowded cities and socialized workshops,
with the first-fruits of mechanical invention, with accumulated
capital at our command, had the heels of the rest of the world
from the start. Luring the whole of this period, from 1848
to 1878, we had almost undisputed control of the markets of
the globe. Our commercial and industrial centres, London,
Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow, Sheffield, Leeds, Birming
ham, Bradford, Newcastle, not to mention such places as
Middlesboro’ or Barrow, have increased in population to an
extent scarcely to be surpassed even in America. Our agri
cultural population has meantime decreased most seriously,
and mere lounger towns such as Brighton, Cheltenham, Scar
borough, Eastbourne, etc., have sprung up to afford restingplaces for the growing number of the indolent wealthy.
Nevertheless it is clear to all that the leaps and bounds of
commerce, on which our middle-class financiers are never
�IN ENGLAND.
15
weary of congratulating us, have given far more wealth to the
upper classes than comfort or well-being to the lower; that
riches are rolling into the lap of the few, while the many suffer
hideously from recurrent depressions, which sweep away every
vestige of their prosperity; that unrestricted competition
simply degenerates into combination and rigid monopoly, and
that the beautiful theory of supply and demand, as applied to
the working-classes of Great Britain, produces a state of things
so deplorable that philanthropists wring their hands in despair,
and even the economist hacks, whose business it is to chant
the praises of my Lord Capital and all his works, are sometimes
startled into denouncing the very system they champion.
For here in brief is our present position :
First. In no civilized country in the world is there such a
monopoly of the land as in Great Britain.
Second. In no country are capital, machinery, and credit
so concentrated in the hands of a class.
Third. In no country is there such a complete social sepa
ration between classes.
*
* This is apparent to the most superficial observer. But it is
amusing to note that Englishmen of the upper classes are often
ignorant that so it is. Thus a well-known Anglo-Indian official of a
radical turn said not long ago, speaking of Indian legislation: “Legisla
tion in India is, of course, so much more difficult than in England. In
England, you know, if you want to learn exactly what a body of men
want, you just ask some of theii" principal people to dinner and discuss
the business quietly. But in India that sort of social gathering is
almost impossible, or quite useless.” Now, I’ll be bound to say, that
worthy gentleman does not number among his intimate acquaintace a
single individual who works daily at his trade, let alone asking him to
dinner. Yet our modern jurist would legislate for him and his, with
the profound conviction that the right thing had been done. Probably
the idea of what the men wanted would be filtered through an employer;
and he, doubtless, would dine.
Not long ago a great capitalist—a member of the present Liberal
Government—gave an entertainment to the representatives of the
working-men’s clubs of London at the South Kensington Museum. It
was all very nice, I’m told, but the tone of the fete was pretty much
�16
THE COMING REVOLUTION
Fourth. In no country is the contrast between the excessive
wealth of the few and the grinding poverty of the many so
striking.
Fifth. In no country is the machinery of government so
entirely in the hands of the non-producing classes, or are the
people so cajoled out of voting power and due representation.
Sixth. In no country are the people so dependent for their
necessary food on sources of supply thousands of miles away.
Seventh. In no country is it so difficult for a man to rise
out of the wage-earning class.
Eighth. In no country in the world is justice so dear, or
its administration so completely in the hands of the governing
classes who make the laws.
A few figures will bring out some of these points into high
relief.
Thus, with regard to the land: according even to the
statistics in the so-called “ New Domesday Book,”a compila
tion published expressly in the interests of the landlords, 2,192
persons hold 38,726,849 acres of the total small area of Great
Britain and Ireland, the people having been completely driven
from the soil. Mr. Bright’s statement that 30,000 people hold
the agricultural land of Great Britain is positively very near
the truth. Reckoning rents, royalties and ground-rents, it is
calculated that landowners take not less than £100,000,000
out of their countrymen owing to the monopoly they enjoy.
Much of this vast revenue is, no doubt, heavily encumbered
by debts to the capitalists. This, however, makes it no better,
but rather worse, seeing that the mortgages cripple the possesthe same as it must have been at a gathering called by a feudal lord of
old time, when he condescended to regale his retainers with a roasted
ox and “ fixings.” Not a single middle class or upper class man was
asked. Of course I am not saying that the working-classes are not as
much to blame for this state of things as those who patronise them. I
think they are. No one will give them the social equality they have
a right to unless they claim it,—of that we may all be very sure.
�IN ENGLAND.
17
sor and prevent him from making improvements; while there
is no personal relation whatever between the mortgagee and
the tenants or laborers on the mortgaged estate. Bad seasons
and American competition have, it is reckoned, reduced the
value of land in England in many districts not less than
twenty-five per cent. The percentage of bankruptcies and the
registration of bills of sale among farmers have of late years
been something distressing, and as it is impossible to grind the
agricultural laborer down any lower—his average wages are
but three dollars a week, and farmers charge him at the rate
of eight pounds to twenty pounds an acre if he wants a plot of
the land, which is let by the landlord to the farmer at £1 or
£1 10s.—and the farmers can’t continue to pay rent out of
capital, a great change must be close at hand. Agriculture is
still by far our most important industry, involving the employ
ment of more capital and labour than any other. The value
of agricultural produce alone is taken at three hundred million
pounds a year on the average. A few years ago Mr. Caird
put the landlords’ agricultural rents at sixty-seven million
pounds. A system like the present, which has no elasticity
whatever, and acts as a positive injury to the community,
cannot possibly last much longer. When reforms begin they
will not stop short of the point which takes in the agricultural
laborers.
Who can wonder that, as it is, we are so dependent on
foreign countries for an ever-increasing amount of food.
Leaving Ireland aside, the population of England, Wales and
Scotland in 1840 was, in round figures, 18,000,000, or rather
over. In 1882 it was 12,000,000 more, or 30,000,000.
During that period agricultural science has greatly advanced,
and machinery, improved communications and the like have
increased the area of profitable cultivation. In 1840, however,
we imported a total amount of £27,000,000 worth of food;
�18
THE COMING REVOLUTION
in 1882 we imported no less than £160,000,000, and this
amount is steadily increasing. Yet it is the opinion of such
experts as Mr. Lawes, Mr. Caird, Lord Leicester, and others
that, under proper arrangements, at least twice the amount of
food might he profitably grown in Great Britain than
is now raised, and our enormous importation reduced to that
extent. The grave danger of the dependence upon sea-borne
food, which might be cut off during war with any naval power,
it is needless to insist upon. Enough that from this point of
view also the land question demands immediate consideration.
But again, to show the operation of capital and its absorp
tion of the general wealth. In 1841 the wealth produced in
Great Britain has been taken at £514,000,000 ; at- present
the annual wealth produced can scarcely be less £1,800,000,000.
The working-classes, however, who produce this, take a very
small share of it in return for their labor. The actual
number of workers cannot be put at more than eight millions—though this is a difficult figure to get at—and the power they
exert has been estimated at not less than that of one thousand
millions of men. Yet the average wages of the working
classes certainly do not exceed fifteen shillings a week, and the
total amount paid to them would not be more than three
hundred million pounds, as against more than nine hundred
million pounds absorbed by the upper, professional, and
middle classes, in one shape or another. The last census shows,
too, that while the producing class is not increasing so rapidly
in proportion as the non-producing classes, including domestic
servants, the actual pauper class is not decreasing. Mr. Russel
Wallace even estimates those who are more or less dependent
on charity in England and Wales alone at 4,500,000, out of
our total population of 28,000,000.
Nor is there any possibility that under existing conditions
this state of things will be altered. The tendency of improved
�IN ENGLAND.
19
machinery, used, not in the interest of the people at large, or
under their control, but simply to enable manufacturers to
undersell their neighbors and produce cheaply, is to create a
“fringe of labor ” always hanging on the skirts of the market
ready to be absorbed in periods of “ good trade,” only to be
thrown out again when the inevitable glut and stagnation
follow. As to getting out of the wage-earning class, that, as
a rule, is hopeless, and even if one fortunate artisan does
raise himself, he but shoves a more needy man into his place.
Since the beginning of this century there have been also seven
industrial crises, and the crushing effect of those upon the
rank and file of laborers, as well as upon the small shop
keepers who live upon selling them necessities and trifling
luxuries in small quantities, can only be known by those who
have seen the houses of the poor sold up and whole families
driven on to the “ parish ” from no fault whatever of their
own. Yet here in England, drawing wealth from all parts of
the earth, no effort whatever is made to distribute this wealth
more fairly among the people. The luxurious classes are
quite content to see their taxable profits alone rated at nearly
six hundred million pounds, while below men are glad to work
for seventy-five cents a day, and cases of sheer starvation are
common.
Once more as regards politics. That the House of Lords
is a house of landlords is a trite saying ; • but it is worse, for
many of their “ lordships ” are landlords and capitalists at
the same time; and they, consequently, no longer, as in
former times, exercise any control over the capitalist class.
Look, however, at the composition of the House of Commons,
elected, as I have already said, by a minority of the adult
male population, and so arranged that no poor man can
possibly sit in it without help from others. The interests of
the aristocracy are represented there by 165 members; there
�20
THE COMING REVOLUTION
are no fewer than 191 land-owners; bankers, traders, lawyers,
manufacturers, brewers, etc., sum up to 285. Out of a house
of 658 members in all, but two members belong to the work
ing-class—a halfpenny-worth of bread, indeed, to this intoler
able deal of sack.
Now here, surely, is the making altogether of a very
pretty overturn if once the working-classes understand their
position. There can be no mistake whatever about that.
Nevertheless, the external aspect of affairs for the moment is
tranquil in the extreme. Never were the people, to all
appearance, so dull. Our agitators say that men have not
half the spirit of the workers of twenty years ago, to say
nothing of the Chartists of ’48. This is, to a great extent,,
true, and the reasons for it are not far to seek.
In the first place, the capitalists are more than ever masters
of the situation. Almost the whole press and literature of
the country are devoted to their cause. The workers fancy
they are free, and for the most part are quite ignorant of the
fact that the wealth they see around them grows out of their
poorly paid labor. Though they can, as a body, feel the iron
law of wages, though they feel the effects of this law in over
work and short food, they still take it all for granted, and
think—those that do think—that chance, or good times, or
perhaps strikes, may improve their condition.
*
Of the abso
* It is from this iron law of wages that Marx has formulated his
famous demonstration of surplus value. A man accepts from sheer
necessity the competition wages of his time, and sells his force of
labor to the capitalist for the week or the day. But in two or three
hours’ work—Mr. W. Hoyle says, on the average, one and one-quarter
hours’ work—he will produce quite enough social labor-value to keep
him or to refund the wages the capitalist pays him at the end of the
week or day out of the results of his toil. The laborer, however,
does not work these two or three hours a day only, he works ten,
twelve, fourteen, even sixteen, hours a day ; for he has sold his labor
force to the capitalist, who can “ exploit ” it to any extent. Those
extra hours of toil, therefore, over and above the time needed to
�IN ENGLAND.
21:
lute necessity for general social and political combination tobring about genuine reforms, they know at present almost
nothing. Moreover, above this rank and file of laborers therestands the aristocracy of labor—the trade-unions, who, though,
they have done admirable work in the past, now block the
path of radical reform. As an old trade-unionist said of them
the other day, they are a standing protest against the tyranny
of capital, without the slightest idea of progress. Their leaders,
too, are almost without exception, more or less in the pay
of the capitalists—mostly Liberals who, in effect, use them to
*
keep back their fellows. This game has been played for years.
If a working-man shows himself capable, he is flattered; and,,
so far as anything in the shape of real revolutionary work goes,
“ squared.” * It is amusing to see members of the TradeUnion Parliamentary Committee button-holing members in.
that least democratic of all gathering-places, the lobby of the
House of Commons, bowing and scraping, indeed, when, if
create the amount of value represented by the wages paid simply
constitute so much unpaid labor which the capitalist takes in the shape
of the surplus value created by the laborer—the articles of utility,
namely, on which he has been employed. That surplus value the actual
capitalist divides up with landlords, bankers, profit-mongers, and other
gentlemen at large. When a workman first thoroughly grasps this
nice little jugglery which is going on at his expense he is apt to get atrifle warm in the expression of his love for the capitalist and “ society ”
in general. How odd !
* The trade-unionists are a small fraction of the workpeople of
England, yet they constantly pose as if they represented the whole
body, there could be no greater absurdity. They are not even
agreed among themselves on any matter of moment; and are, in truth,
to-day a convention or rather a reactionary body full of the “fads”about limitation of apprentices and the like, though meanwhile
machinery is practically abolishing the skilful handicraftsman. The
plan pursued by the capitalists has been very astute. They have
*
found money for working-class movements just enough to carry them
to the point where danger might begin. Then the support has been
withdrawn. This system of pauper politics has debauched many as
promising working-class leader.
�22
THE COMING REVOLUTION
the workers knew their real position, they would talk as
masters. But this sort of thing will not go on for ever.
Economical pressure is becoming too strong. We are no
longer absolute masters of the markets of the world; the
depression in agriculture seriously affects the home trade;
business is dull, even in the height of summer weather, and
the next industrial crisis may absolutely force the workingclasses to sink their petty jealousies, and the trade-unions
their fancied superiority, in a more thorough movement than
.any yet contemplated. Meanwhile there are not wanting
signs that another serious revolutionary agitation has begun.
All through London political clubs are being formed, at which
social changes of the most complete character are warmly
■discussed. The same in the provinces. Everywhere the
-claims of labor to control production are being debated by
.knots of workmen ; and invariably, so far as my experience
lias gone, from the socialist point of view. I do not say that
there are many who are yet prepared to take action—there
.are not; but the number of workers who are taking the
trouble to consider is increasing with surprising rapidity. For
instance, little more than two years ago a few Englishmen
and women, mostly of the working-class, started the organiza
tion known as the Democratic Federation. The programme
includes the fullest possible representation of the people, and
claims for them full power over every department of the
State. Among its other aims are to obtain free justice,
nationalization of the land, and eventually the control of the
machinery of production by the working-class. Already we
have held some of the largest open-air meetings ever held in
London, and have been almost equally successful in the indus
trial centres of the country. This shows in itself that the
political and social stagnation is rather apparent than real;
�IN ENGLAND.
23-
that much is going on of which no account is taken by thosewho wish not to see.
*
More obvious tokens of coming change, however, are not
wanting. The House of Commons, which has for three cen
turies exercised such preponderant influence in the State, is
falling into universal discredit. This is by no means wholly
due to the strain which has been put upon all its traditions of'
free speech by the determination of a Liberal government to
introduce undisguised despotism in Ireland against the protests
of the representatives of the overwhelming majority of Irish
men. The deterioration had begun before.! First of all, theHouse, which should represent the nation, became merely the
scene of party fights and faction squabbles, and then it hasdegenerated into little better than a machine for registering
the decrees of the cabinet—a body, be it remembered, quiteunknown to our constitution. Even worse than this are thelong, almost interminable utterances of wearisome members
on matters of no moment. Let a local question be once
started, and all the bores in the House are immediately in
full cry. They arc sure to know all about it—it is so unim
* The following is the programme of the Democratic Federation,
as revised and sanctioned at the last conference : (1) Adult Suffrage
(2) Annual Parliaments ; (3) Proportional Representation ; (4) Pay
ment of Members, and of all election expenses out of rates; (5) Bribery,,
treating, and corrupt practices at elections to be made acts of felony ;
(6) Abolition of the House of Lords and of all hereditary authorities ;
(7) Legislative Independence for Ireland; (8) National and Federal
Parliaments, including Representation of Colonies and Dependencies
(9) Nationalization of the land; (10) Disestablishment and disendowment of all State Churches; (11) Free Justice; (12) The Right of'
Making Treaties, of Declaring War, or Concluding Peace to be vested
in the direct representatives of the people.
This point was admirably put the other day in the “ Newcastle
Chronicle.” This journal belongs to Mr. Joseph Cowen, member for
Newcastle-on-Tyne, and is almost the only newspaper in the kingdom
which treats politics and social questions from an independent demo
cratic point of view.
�•24
THE COMING REVOLUTION
portant. But still more depressing is the dead level of
mediocrity among the younger men on both sides of the
House of Commons. The traditions of oratory seem to have
faded out from among them, and men look blankly around to
see which of the industrious and painstaking gentlemen now
posing as budding statesmen may artfully conceal under his
apparent dullness the qualities requisite for leadership in
these stirring times. * Formerly it was not so. Gladstone,
Cornwall Lewis, Bright, Hartington, even Forster, Disraeli,
Lord Robert Cecil, Gathorne Hardy, had early given evidence
■of powers which could fire a democracy or influence a senate.
What man is there among the English members under forty
•or five-and-forty—which is it of the landlordlings or conserva
tive money-bags on the one side, or the plutocrats, prigs, and
professors on the other, of whom the like could with truth be
•said ? The fact is, landlords and capitalists are alike played
■out. Their very finance is stuck in a blind-alley. They
neither of them have a policy they can affect to believe in for
themselves or with which they can hope to stir the pulses of
■the people. In a word, the House of Commons, as at present
constituted, is little more than a middle-class debating club,
•with a party wire-puller in the speaker’s chair. To revive the
memory of its ancient glories it must far more directly repre
sent the hopes and fears, aspirations and grievances of the
great body of Englishmen, must gain strength and vigour in
the free, bluff air of democratic agitation, and trust in the
future to the mass of the people for support.
* I but repeat here what is common talk among political people. It
is not that clever young men in other respects are wanting among the
members. Some can write and lecture very well. What is lacking is
'that indescribable energy, independence, imagination, eloquence—that
-genuine political capacity, in short, which pushes a man to the front
-almost in spite of himself. How is it the Irish members stand out
•from the ruck? Surely because they have a cause which they believe
in, and have a people at their back.
\
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41
IN ENGLAND.
2&
Meanwhile the very discredit of the pseudo-popular
chamber prepares the way for root-and-branch reform. Glad
stone, who is denounced as a revolutionary agitator, is really the
last of the great middle-class transitionists, and with his disap
pearance a new era will begin. An agitation for the abolition,
of the House of Commons would even now find adherents. A
little more, and the idea of a hundred years ago will spring;
again, and a National Convention may force its way to the
front. We have outgrown our political swaddling- clothes,
and in any case constitutional forms are but the outcome of
the social and economical structure beneath them. As that
changes, so must they.
This decadence of Parliament is of course only a symptom..
But outside, also, straws show which way the current is setting.
Apparent stagnation, general mediocrity, almost universal
listlessness in grave concerns, indifference to anything but the
superficial aspects of events—these precede almost every great
upheaval which the world has seen. To take an example of
indifference. Among the ugliest growths of modern society
are the numerous gangs of organized roughs—answering tothe hoodlums of America or the larrikins of Australia—who
parade our great cities, and too often, not content with mauling:
one another, maltreat the peaceful wayfarer. Yet in all the
criticisms of the anonymous press on their action, not one
writer has taken the trouble to analyze the manner in which
these people were fostered into their present brutality. Again,,
of late there has been a surprising increase of vagrants and.
loafers—many of them, by the way, are trained militiamen or
discharged short-service regulars, who would be ugly fellowsin a street fight with their discipline and desperation—men
who already render the highways by no means pleasant travel
ing for foot-passengers. In some districts tramps of this kind
have increased ten-fold in number during the last few years.
�.26
THE COMING REVOLUTION
Here, one would think, was a social phenomenon calling for
•careful attention. Why are able-bodied men and women
thus roaming the country ? What are the causes which
render them homeless, forlorn, and therefore dangerous ? A
bill for their repression was lately brought in by Mr. Pell, a
Conservative, and Professor Bryce, member for the Tower
Hamlets, and a “Philosophical ” Radical. Neither professor,
nor scholar, nor any other human being in the House of
Commons, considered the question from the point of view that
society might be to blame. In the House of Lords, when the
bill went there, my Lord Salisbury and my Lord Fortescue
said matters were getting serious, and such ruffians ought all
to be put under prison regimen. First drive men to want
and misery by social injustice, and then punish them because,
poor devils, they roam the country in search of food. Bravo,
my Lords and gentlemen, the bloody legislation of Queen
Elizabeth against “ the sturdy beggars ” will soon be revived
at this rate.
Once more. Here in London the number of the unemployed
has swollen to almost an alarming extent, even during the
summer months. Idle, good-for-nothing, drunken fellows, said
the capitalist press; let them starve or go to the workhouse. A
friend of mine, a journalist of ability, was shocked at what
he saw, and took up the question. He soon found that the
great majority of these thousands of workless people were
neither idle, good-for-nothing, nor drunken. But the case of
most of them seemed to him desperate. Ready to do almost
anything, there was literally no work for them to do.
My friend sent a note of his inquiries to a well-known
journal. “It was better,” so wrote the manager in reply, “not
to call attention to such matters. It could do no good.” Thus
the easy classes are shut out from even knowing what misery
�IN ENGLAND.
27
there is below them—which any overturn can only improve—
while what may be the result of such neglect in a troubled
time no one stops to consider for a moment. A few other
instances, and I have done. What is called the “ sweating ”
system is increasing in every direction, with the result that
young women actually work fourteen hours a day, for six daysin the week, for four shillings a week, out of which they have
to find house-rent and food! Several cases of this awful
slavery have lately figured in the police courts. On the
railways and elsewhere the tendency is to increase both length
of the hours and intensity of labour to a point which means
continuous exhaustion and early death—the death-rate of the
working-classes is in itself a lesson when placed by the side of'
that of the well-to-do. Lastly, the increase of prostitution,
especially of very young women and children, of late years, isalone enough to show the utter rottenness of our society. And
yet, I repeat, all this passes almost without notice. Our
statesmen and economists, our journalists and philanthropists,
our politicians and jurists cannot but know these things in a
sort of way; but, as to attempting to correct them, that is
quite another affair.
*
Now, let any intelligent man—he can find similar things,,
or not very different probably, within a stone’s throw of him
at home—come with me into some of the dwellings of the poor.
Here, for instance, is a hard-working family living in a single
room: they can afford no more. Father and mother, two
daughters, almost grown up, two boys and a little girl, pig
together in it as best they may. The court is crowded, the
* The increase of luxury among the upper and middle classes is
positively amazing. Only the other day I went straight from a work
ing-man’s work-room to the Harrow and Eton match. Is it within the
bounds of possibility, I said to myself, that, with the schoolmasterfairly abroad, this awful contrast between the waste of the few and thepinching of the many can long continue ?
�-28
THE COMING REVOLUTION
-•dwelling insanitary, the air unwholesome. Yet the two boys
and the girl go to the board school for “ education,” and return
■with just enough knowledge to enable them to appreciate their
social surroundings. They will, at least, be able to read and
write, and know what is going on. Are they likely to increase
the ranks of “ conservative working-men ” or to rest content,
•unless bemused with beer and tobacco, with arrangements
which thus brutify them ? I judge not. In the agricultural
-districts, where there is plenty of room, I have seen arrange
ments quite as bad. Educate children, and then send them
back to such conditions as these : is not this to prepare revolu
tion with both hands ? Still we hear the old fateful answer,
It will last our time. I say it will not.
For, apart from the lectures of which I have spoken, books,
pamphlets and fly-leaves are finding their way into work-shop
;and attic, which deal with the whole social question from the
very bottom. Theories drawn from Dr. Karl Marx’s great
work on Capital, or from the programme of the Social Demo
Scrats of Germany and the Collectivists of France, are put
.forward in a cheap and readable form. Mr. Henry George’s
work on “ Progress and Poverty,” also, has already found tens
of thousands of working-class readers. Professor Wallace’s book
-on “ Land Nationalization” has also been widely read, though
neither of these writers at all meets the views of the advanced
.school on the subject of capital. But pamphlets and leaflets—
.some of which are written by men actually working at their
trade—produce a still greater effect. Our workers have but
little time, and too often little taste, for reading. With them,
therefore, short, pithy tracts are the ones that tell.
*
* Those who have read Paul Louis Courier’s brilliant “ Pamphlet
-des Pamphlets ” will require no further evidence of the influence which
,the pamphlet has had on civilized men. Those who have not will
thank me for calling their attention to that famous little brochure.
�IN ENGLAND.
29
In support of the views I hold as to the approach of a
troublous time, it is scarcely necessary that I should refer to
the growth of the Salvation Army, though this strange combi
nation of the Convulsionists of the pre-revolutionary epoch in
France and the women’s whisky war in America is, thought
fully considered, significant enough. Moreover, in the really
serious conflicts which have taken place between processions of
these enthusiasts and the roughs, neither the police nor the
magistrates have shown much more capacity than they have
displayed in dealing with the gangs in London. While the
elements of disorder thus gather apace, the controlling power
seems smitten with a sort of paralysis. Outbreaks of brutal
savagery are thought worthy of far more leniency than a paltry
theft by a starving woman. At the opposite pole to the
Salvationists stand the Secularists, who are in their way quite
as bigoted, while the most improper exclusion of their leader—
I had nearly said their pope, for Mr. Bradlaugh brooks no
•contradiction in his atheistic church, and has long since regis
tered his right to infallibility—from the House of Commons
has given them a legitimate grievance to agitate about.
As to the Church of England, she has stood so many shocks
and schisms without a topple, that even the growing feeling
against all state churches may take some time to upset her.
Nevertheless, many of the rising young parsons themselves
•denounce the alliance which the ecclesiastical hierarchy has
made with the mammon of unrighteousness, and proclaim
aloud that whatever modern Christianity may find it con
venient to allow, the religion of Christ means more or less
■complete communism. How many of these audacious young
men will sink their principles in fat livings and preach general
.subservience to snoring laborers, I should be sorry to estimate.
Enough that the ideas are abroad quite apart from individual
•backslidings. If religionists of any “stripe” wish to gain a
�30
THE COMING REVOLUTION
permanent hold on the workers nowadays, they must com
bine the prospect of material improvement in this world with
the promise of eternal happiness in the next. Otherwise the
indifference of the mass will be too much for them, the singular
success of the Salvationists notwithstanding.
But some may say, This gloomy picture you paint for us is
too much of one colour: is there no ray of light to irradiate
the landscape ? For the great mass of the working-people of
England, under present social conditions, I say deliberately—
None. On the contrary, the future seems for them darker than
ever. For nowadays we are not as in 1848 : the outlets are
blocked; industrial crises when they come are universal;
capitalism dominates the planet. Electricity, which is already
clearly seen to be the great force of the future, and which
bears the same relation to steam that steam did to the old
horse-power—this illimitable engine of production is also going
without heed or protest into the hands of the capitalist class.
The anarchy consequent upon the existing system of produc
tion and exchange will be only intensified thereby; the “fringe
of labor,” the vagrants, the paupers, the residuum, in short,
will be increased ; the rich will become yet richer; the poor,
poorer still. Even as I write the process is going on so plainly
that he who runs may read the result written on the faces of
the people. As capital rolls up into larger and yet larger
masses, the small shop-keeper is crushed out by the cooperative
associations and the great magazine stores ; huge corporations
carry on business without the slightest regard for the human
machines they employ. So the wheel revolves, grinding ever
smaller the mass of mankind beneath.
Revolution ! What have the workers to fear from revolu
tion I Their life is one perpetual Revolution. They are
never sure of their home or livelihood from one week to
another. It is reckoned that the working-classes of London
�IN ENGLAND.
31
all change their homes once in every two and a half years.
And these homes, bear in mind, become dearer and worse as
times go on. The very improvements in our great cities mean
closer crowding and worse accommodation for those who really
make the nation’s wealth. What have they to fear from a
general overturn ? Nothing. And ere long they’ll know this.
“We lived in garrets forty years ago, we live in garrets now,”
said one of the most active of the old Chartists, who has lived and
agitated to the present time. Nor must the fact be overlooked
that the great machine industries, so farmore developed here than
in any other country, though they have been the means of keep
ing the people down, have also taught them how to combine.
Thus, then, discontent is growing with existing grievances;
the same economical pressure which produces the discontent
and grievances leads to combination; the present lot of the
workers is so bad as a whole that they are beginning to think
no change could be for the worse ; ideas are gradually spreading
among them which would lead them to strive for a complete
overthrow ; there is no authority above which commands their
respect or seriously strives to improve their condition, and the
very increase of man’s power over nature serves but to render
their case worse. The working-classes of England must, in
the near future, be either rulers or slaves; and they are slowly,
very slowly, learning that the choice rests with them. A
serious foreign war would very soon bring the whole to a
head; for assuredly the mass of Englishmen would never
again submit to heavy sacrifices, which would only benefit the
governing classes. Democracies fight, no doubt, but they fight
for an idea or for their own hand. That revolutionary current
also which is moving below the surface in all European
countries can scarcely fail this time to affect us. The impulse
will probably come from without; but, unless we were already
prepared, it would have little effect. When such ideas are
spreading, it needs but a spark to fire the train.
�32
THE COMING REVOLUTION.
If, however, the country is at present in a bad condition
for the many, which all must admit, there is still not wanting
evidence that the English people, under better arrangements,
would soon rise to the level of the most glorious periods of our
past history. Those very lads who now fall into the dangerous
classes from sheer ignorance and bad management—there are,
according to the police, at least three hundred thousand such
people in London alone—form, if taken early and thoroughly
fed and trained, the flower of our navy. The race is really as
capable as ever. In America, in Australia, all the world over,
the Anglo-Saxon blood is still second to none. It is high
time, then, that the great body of Englishmen should take up
their heritage, that they should make common cause with their
Irish brethren, as well in England as in Ireland, in one con
tinuous effort to free the workers of both peoples from class
domination and class greed. There is enough and to spare
for all. Let, then, the men and women who make the wealth
of these islands bid those bunglers who trade upon their welfare
stand back; let them trust to themselves alone to hand on a
nobler industrial England to their children, sinking all petty
jealousies, race hatreds, and personal selfishness in the endeav
our to secure health, home comfort, and true freedom for the
millions who now have neither happiness nor hope. Then,
indeed, that very concentration of population which, under our
present system of unrestricted competition results in squalor,
degradation, and misery, will be our strength, our safety, and
our greatest resource. Then, indeed, England may hold out
to all nations an example of social reorganization, which may
yet give her an ungrudged supremacy among the peoples of
the world. Such an England I for one see before us in the
future: to bring about such a reorganization, I, for one, will
never cease to strive.
�
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The coming revolution in England
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Hyndman, Henry Mayers [1842-1921]
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Place of publication: London
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Notes: Date of publication from KVK. Includes bibliographical references. Reprinted from the "North American Review". Stamp on title page: 'South Place Chapel Finsbury, Lending Library'.
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William Reeves
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[1884?]
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Socialism
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Social change
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NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
THE
EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY
BY
ANNIE BESANT.
[Reprinted from Our Corner.]
LONDON:
EREETHOUGHT
PUBLISHING
63, FLEET STREET, E.C.
COMPANY,
�LONDON:
TRINTED BY ANNIE BESANT AND CHARLES BRADLAUGH,
63, ELEET STREET, E.C.
�THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY.
---------- ---------- —
The recognition of Evolution in the physical world, of
gradual progress from the simple to the complex, of reiter
ated integration as the steps of that progress, has led to the
application of the same unifying principle to the psychical
world, and to the suggestion of its application to the socio
logical. As the lowest forms of life consist of simple
independent cells, as these cells become grouped, differen
tiated, integrated into tissues, as these tissues become more
complex in arrangement, more co-ordinated, in the highest
organisms, so, it is argued, do the individual human units
become grouped into families and tribes, integrated into a
social organism, of which the multiplicity of the composing
elements is the measure of its adaptability, the unity and
the correlation thereof the measure of its strength. If
Society be thus regarded as an organism instead of as a
bag of marbles, if it be conceded that the health of the
whole depends upon the healthy functioning of every part,
in correlation not in independence, then all that tends to
wards integration will be recognised as of life, all that
tends towards disintegration as of death. Judging the
future by the past we shall be prepared to look forward to
the realisation of a fuller social unity than has yet been
reached, and to recognise that by an inexorable necessity
Society must either integrate yet further, or must begin a
movement which will result in its resolution into its ele
ments. The further integration may be regarded as an
ideal to be embraced, or as a doom to be striven against, as a
brotherhood to be rejoiced in or as a slavery to be abhorred;
�4
THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY.
but the believer in Evolution must acknowledge that if
Society is to endure, this further integration is inevitable.
The object of this and of the following papers is to
roughly outline this Evolution of Society, and to consider
the type towards which it is working ; and they will deal
with: I. The Barbaric Period and its Survivals; II. The
Industrial Period and its products; III. The Conflict be
tween Social and Anti-Social Tendencies; IV. The Becoacilement of Diverging Interests.
I.—The Barbaric Period and its Survivals.
Association for the common weal is, as is well knows* by
no means confined to man. Many herbivorous animals live
in herds, and in the pastures the females and the young’
graze in the centre, while the males form a protective ring,
and sentinels, carefully posted, give warning cries of alarm
if danger approaches. Wolves hunt in packs, and together
pull down prey with which singly they could not cope.
Bees and ants live in thickly populated communities, with
their builders, food-gatherers, nurses, and in many cases,
soldiers, all working for the Society as a whole. Man’s
nearest congeners, the apes, are social animals and differ
little in their qualities and morality from the lowest savages.
And in all these one phsenomenon is noteworthy: the sub
mission of the individual to restraints for the general good^
When a tribe of monkeys goes out on a predatory expedi
tion—as to rob an orchard—the young ones are slapped if
they are not silent and obedient. When a goat is dis
charging a sentinel’s duty, he may not feed at ease on th#
tempting grass on which his comrades are luxuriating, con
fident in his vigilant loyalty. The working-bee must not
keep the honey it gathers, but must carry it home for stor
ing. Each member of the community yields up something
of individual freedom, receiving in exchange the benefits
of association, and it is among those who—like the bees
and ants—have carried very far the subordination of the
unit to the social organism that the most successful com
munities are found.
In the Barbaric Period of human society the virtues
evolved are much the same as those which characterise the
brute communities—courage, discipline of a rudimentary
kind, loyalty to the head of the tribe. These are evolved
�THE EVOLUTION OE SOCIETY.
5
because they are necessary to the success of the tribe, and
those who are weak in them perish in the struggle for
existence. They are evolved by the pressure of necessity,
by the exigencies of the common life. As disputes can only
be settled by war, the military chief is indispensable, and
the strong and cunning man is made the head of the com
munity. As social conditions become a little more settled,
and the conventions which grew up from necessity become
gradually crystallised into law, the hereditary principle
ereeps in, and the most capable adult member of a family
—now recognised as royal—is selected to fill the throne ;
as law increases yet more in authority, the personal capacity
of the sovereign becames a matter of less vital necessity,
and the eldest son succeeds to his father’s crown, whether
he is major or minor; at last the time is reached, as with
ourselves, in which a monarch is simply a survival, in
teresting—as are all rudimentary organs, because marks
of an ancestral condition—but perfectly useless: a mere
excrescence like the dew-claw of a St. Bernard dog. Es-sentially barbaric, it is an anachronism in a civilised
society, and only endures by virtue of its inoffensiveness
and of the public inertia.
Still keeping within the Barbaric Period, but passing
out of the stage in which every man was a warrior, we
come to the time in which Society was constituted of two
olasses: the fighting class, which consisted of king and
nobles; the working class, which consisted of those who
toiled on the land and of all engaged in commerce of any
kind, whether by producing goods for sale or by selling
them when produced. The fighting class had then its real
utility; if the king and the nobles claimed the privilege of
governing, they discharged the duty of protecting, and
while they tyrannised and robbed at home to a consider
able extent, they defended against foreign oppression the
realm to which they belonged. Fighting animals they
were, like the big-jawed soldiers of the Termites, but they
were necessary while the nations had not emerged from
barbarism. But these were not in the line of evolution;
the evolving life of the nation was apart from them ; they
were the wall that protected, that encircled the life that
was developing, and their descendants are but the
crumbling ruins which mark where once the bastions and
the ramparts frowned.
�£
THE EVOLUTION OE SOCIETY.
The life of the nation was in its workers, among whom
the agriculturists claim our first attention. The villeins
who tilled the soil under the feudal system were, in a very
real sense, the chattels of their lord. They were bound
to the soil, might be recovered by a legal suit if they left
their lord’s estate, were liable to seizure of all their pro
perty by their lord at his mere will, might be imprisoned er
assaulted by him, and in many cases the lord held over them
a power of life and death. These feudal privileges of the
lord gradually disappeared in England during the Middle
Ages; many villeins fled their native soil, hired themselvesout in other parts of the country, and were never recovered
by their lords ; residence for a year and a day in a walled
town made a villein free: relaxations of servitude madeby an indulgent lord became customary: villeins became
transformed into copyholders in many cases, and in one
way or another the peasantry emerged from nominal slavery.
In trying to realise the lot of the villein and to compare
it with that of his modern descendant, the agricultural
laborer, it is not sufficient to study only the conditions of
his servitude, the extreme roughness and poorness of his
house, his ignorance, the frequent scarcity and general
coarseness of his food. It must be remembered that if his
lord was his owner he was also his protector, and that the
landowner’s feeling of duty to his tenants and the tenants’
feeling of dependence and claim for assistance on the land
owner which still exist in some old-world parts of Eng
land, are survivals of the old feudal tie which implied
subjection without consciousness of degradation. Further,
while the hut of the villein was of the poorest kind, the
castle of the lord by no means realised our modern idea of
a comfortable house: the villein had straw on his floor,
but the lord had only rushes; and the general roughness
of the time effected all alike. If the villein was ignorant,
so was the lord, and if the lord tilted gaily with the lance,
the villein broke heads as gaily with his staff. If the
villein was sometimes sorely put to it to find bread, at
other times he revelled in rough abundance, and the dolesat the monastery gates often eked out his scanty supply
when Nature was unkind. Speaking broadly, there was
far less difference then in fashion of living between lord
and villein than now between lord and laborer: less
difference of taste, of amusements, of education, and
�THE EVOLUTION OE SOCIETY.
7
therefore more comradeship: the baron’s retainers then
dined at the table of the lord without shocking any
fastidious taste, while my lord marquis now would find his
dinner much interfered with if his servants sat at it as of
old. And since happiness is very much a matter of com
parison, it may be doubted whether the villein was not
happier than the agricultural laborer is now, and whether
the lop-sided progress of Society, which has given so little
to the toiler in comparison with what it has given to the
idler, has been much of a blessing to the laboring agri
cultural class.
The growth of industries other than agricultural marked
with unmistakable distinctness the evolution of society
from barbarism. Handworkers in these tended to produce
in groups, and soon associated themselves in towns, partly
for convenience in production and distribution, partly for
self-defence; divorced from the land, they were naturally
less directly dependent on the landowners than were the
agriculturists, and as the king’s wish to plunder them was
checked by the nobles, and the nobles’ wish to plunder
by the king, they gradually secured charters which pro
tected them from both, and waxed free and prosperous.
Each craft had its guild, and the apprentice entering to
learn his trade worked his way step by step up to the
position of a master craftsman. There were then no large
aggregations of workers, as in our modern factories, but
the lad placed in a workshop was one of a small group,
and was trained as a member of a family rather than as a
“ hand ”. Entrance into the workshop of a famous master
was eagerly sought for, and in consequence of the slight
division of labor there was a pride in capable workman
ship which is now almost impossible. Individual ability,
under this system, was at once apparent and had scope for
development, so that art and industry were more closely
united than they have ever been since. The artist was
largely a handicraftsman in the industrial sense, and the
handicraftsman was largely an artist; and side by side with
this mental development existed physical vigor, in conse
quence of the small size of the towns and the accessibility
of the open country. In industrial pursuits, as in those of
the countryside, the great division between classes which
is now so grievous did not exist; the “master” worked
with his men, eat with them, lived with them, and the
�THE EVOLUTION OE SOCIETY.
4‘industrious apprentice” who “married his master’s
daughter’’ was not a poetic fiction, but an inspiring and
realisable ideal. Certainly the amount of products turned
out could not rival the vast quantities now produced, but
the lives of the producers were healthier and more human
than those of too many of the handicraftsmen of to-day.
Among the survivals from the Barbaric Period present
in modern society, the monarch has already been men
tioned. Perhaps no form of monarchy exposes its anachro
nistic character more completely than the “ limited
monarchy ” of modern England. There is an exquisite
absurdity in the man who can being changed into the man
who can not.1 The hereditary aristocracy is another sur
vival from barbarism, and is a curious travesty of the
scientific truth as to race. The analogy of a high-bred
horse and a high-bred man is misleading, for the bum an
breeding is a matter of name, not of qualities. There can
be no doubt that a human aristocracy might be bred, by
matching men and women who showed in marked degree
the qualities which might be selected as admirable, but
the aristocracy which proceeds from male idlers, profligate
in their undisciplined youth and luxurious in their pam
pered maturity, matched with female idlers, whose useless
ness, vanity, and extravagance are their chief recom
mendations, is not one which should bear rule in a strong
and intellectual nation. To the barbaric Past it belongs,
not to the semi-civilised Present, and the lease of its
power will be determined when the workers realise the
power which has now passed into their hands.
II-—The Industrial Period and its Products.
The Industrial Period may fairly be taken as beginning
for all practical purposes with the invention of the Spinning
Jenny by Hargreaves, a weaver, in 1764 ; of the Spinning
Machine by Arkwright, a barber, in 1768 ; of the Mule,
by Crompton, a weaver, 1776. If to these we add the
virtual invention of the Steam Engine by Watt in 1765, we
have within these twelve years, from 1764 to 1776, the
vastest revolution in industry the world has known, the
birth of a new Period in the Evolution of Society. As
1 King-, German Ivo/iiy, has the same root as Konnen, to be able.
�TOE EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY.
9
Green points out in his “ History of the English People ”,
the “handloom used in the Manchester cotton trade had
until that time retained the primitive shape which is still
found in the handlooms of India” (p. 768), and the con
ditions of labor were feudal, patriarchic, domestic, not
industrial, in the modern sense of the word. The intro
duction of machinery (other than the simple kinds used in
earlier times) revolutionised social life as well as industry,
and the vast increase of man’s power over nature not only
affected the production of manufactured goods, but affected
also the condition of the worker, the climate and aspect of
the country, as also, with the most far-reaching results, the
framework and tendencies of society. These all are the
products of the Industrial Period, and these all must be
taken into consideration if we would estimate fairly and
fully the net result of good or of evil which remains.
It is obvious that the great value of machinery lies in
the fact that it produces much with little labor; in the
words of a Report: “One man in a cotton-mill superin
tends as much work as could have been done by two
hundred, seventy years ago.” The result of this should
have been widespread comfort, general sufficiency of the
necessaries of life, a great diminution of the hours of labor :
the result of it has been the accumulation of vast fortunes
by a comparatively few, the deadening and the brutalising
of crowds of the handwoi’kers. Wliether we regard the
immediate or the general results, we shall find them very
different from the rosy hopes of those who gave to the
world the outcome of their inventive genius.
lhe immediate result of the introduction of machinery
was, as everyone knows, terrible suffering among handi
craftsmen. Let us hear Green, an impartial witness.
“Manufactures profited by the great discoveries of Watt
and Arkwright; and the consumption of raw cotton in
the mills of Lancashire rose during the same period
from fifty to a hundred millions of pounds. The
vast accumulation of capital, as well as the constant
recurrence of bad seasons at this time, told upon the
land, and forced agriculture into a feverish and un
healthy prosperity. Wheat rose to famine prices, and the
value of land rose in proportion with the price of wheat.
Inclosures went on with prodigious rapidity; the income
of every landowner was doubled, while the farmers were
�10
THE EVOLUTION OE SOCIETY.
able to introduce improvements into the processes of agri
culture which changed the whole face of the country. But
if the increase of wealth was enormous, its distribution
was partial. During the fifteen years which preceded
Waterloo, the number of the population rose from ten to
thirteen millions, and this rapid increase kept down the
rate of wages, which would naturally have advanced in
a corresponding degree with the increase of the national
wealth. Even manufactures, though destined in the long
run to benefit the laboring classes, seemed at first
rather to depress them. One of the earliest results of
the introduction of machinery was the ruin of a number
of small trades which were carried on at home, and the
pauperisation of families who relied on them for support.
In the winter of 1811 the terrible pressure of this transi
tion from handicraft to machinery was seen in the Luddite,
or machine-breaking, riots which broke out over the
northern and midland counties, and which were only sup
pressed by military force. While labor was thus thrown
out of its older grooves, and the rate of wages kept down
at an artificially low figure by the rapid increase of popu
lation, the rise in the price of wheat, which brought
wealth to the landowner and the farmer, brought famine
and death to the poor, for England was cut off by the
war from the vast cornfields of the Continent or of America,
which nowadays redress from their abundance the results of
a bad harvest. Scarcity was followed by a terrible pauperi
sation of the laboring classes. The amount of the poorrate rose fifty per cent., and with the increase of poverty
followed its inevitable result, the increase of crime ”
(“Hist, of the English People”, pp. 805, 806).
It is noteworthy that where handworkers are concerned,
no claim for compensation is ever put forward when they
are deprived of their means of livelihood. If it is pro
posed to nationalise the land, it is at once alleged that the
present owners must be bought out, on the ground that
it would be unjust to deprive them of their incomes from
land and to reduce them to poverty for the benefit of the
community. But no one is so scrupulous, or so tender
hearted, when only laborers are ruined; no one ever pro
posed to compensate the handicraftsmen who were robbed
of their means of existence by the introduction of machinery.
Great stress is laid on the general benefit of the community,
�THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY.
11
for which, it appears it is right to sacrifice the worker, but
wrong to sacrifice the idler. And further, if a starving
laborer fall back on the poor-rate he is at once
“pauperised”, and everyone knows it is a disgrace to be
a pauper—on the parish : but if a Dake of Marlborough,
with huge estates, pockets a sum of £107,000 out of the
taxes he is not “pauperised”, and everyone knows it is
no disgrace to be a pauper—on the nation.
The general result of the introduction of machinery has
clearly been a great increase of comfort and wealth to the
upper and middle classes, and to the upper stratum of the
artisans; but great masses of the people are worse off
absolutely, as well as relatively, in consequence of its in
troduction. They are more crowded together, the air they
breathe is fouler, the food they eat is more unwholesome,
the trades they live by are more ruinous to health, than
they were in the time when towns were smaller, the open
country more accessible, the air unpoisoned by factory
chimneys and chemical works; the times when “master
and man ” slept in the same house, dined at the same
table, worked in the same room.
Machinery has enormously increased the amount of
goods produced, but it has not lightened the toil of the
workers; it has sent down prices, but the laborer must
work as long to gain his bare subsistence. The introduc
tion of sewing-machines may serve as a typical instance.
It was said that they would lighten the toil of the needle
woman, and enable her to earn a livelihood more easily.
Nothing of the sort has happened; the needlewoman
works for quite as many hours, and earns quite as meagre
a subsistence ; she makes three or four coats where before
she made one, but her wages are not trebled or quadrupled;
the profits of her employer are increased, and coats are
sold at a lower price. The real value of machinery, again,
may be seen when a sewing machine is introduced into a
house where the needlework is done at home; there the
toil is lightened; the necessary work is done in a fifth
part of the time, and the workers have leisure instead of
long hours of labor. The inference is irresistible ; machinery
is of enormous value in lessening human toil when it is
owned by those who produce, and who produce for use,
not for profit; it is not of value to those who work it for
wages, for the wages depend, not on the worth of the goods
�12
THE EVOLUTION OE SOCIETY.
produced, but on the competition in the labor-market and
the cost of subsistence.
In dealing with the products of the Industrial Period,
the human products are of the most extreme importance.
How have the conditions of labor, the environment, and
therefore the life of the laborer, been affected by the intro
duction of machinery ? I say, without fear of contradic
tion, that the environment of the manufacturing laborers
has altered for the worse, and that the result of that
worsening may be seen in the physical deterioration of
the great masses of the workers in factory towns. Com
pare the tall, upright, brown laborer of Lincolnshire with
the short, bowed, pallid knife-grinder of Sheffield;
compare the robust, stalwart Northumberland miner
with the slender, pasty-cheeked lads who come troop
ing out of a Manchester cotton-mill; and you will
soon see the physical difference caused by difference of
labor-conditions. Sheffield workers die young, their lungs
choked with the metal dust they inhale; cotton-factory
“ hands ” die of the fibre-laden air they breathe. I grant
that Sheffield goods are cheap, if by cheapness is meant
that fewer coins are paid for them than would have been
required ere they were made by machinery; but to me
those things are not cheap which are rendered less in
money-cost by destruction of human life. Hood once
wrote of cheap shirts :
“ O men with sisters dear,
O men with mothers and wives,
It is not linen you’re wearing out,
But human creatures’ lives I ”
And to me there is many a “ cheap ” article which is dear
by the price that has been paid for its cheapness, price of
human health, price of human happiness, price of human
life, making it costly beyond all reckoning, for it incarnates
the misery of the poor.
I grant readily that things were worse before the Factory
Acts were passed; but this truth only makes me desire
their extension, and also a far greater insistence on sanita
tion than at present prevails. It is necessary that a large
number of workers should co-operate in production by
machinery; it is not necessary that they should be poisoned
or wearied out with toil. The working-day should be
�THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY.
13
short, because mechanical toil tends to stupefy; and
every factory should have a recreation-ground, prettily
laid out, with facilities for games, to which the workers
might resort for the intervals between the hours of labor.
Thorough ventilation should ensure the wholesomeness of
the air within the factory, a task which would be greatly
facilitated by each factory standing alone and being treesurrounded.
«
The law should also promptly concern itself with the
scandalous pollution of the atmosphere and of rivers by
the smoke and refuse of factories. There is no reason
why every factory should not consume its own smoke, and
the law already existing on this matter should be sternly
enforced, by imprisonment, not by fine. A man who
poisons ope person is punished; a man who poisons a
whole neighborhood goes free. The thick cloud of black
smoke. hanging over a town like Sheffield or Manchester
is a sickening sight; it blights the trees, destroys the
flowers, soils every house, dirties every article of clothing.
Who that has lived in Manchester can forget “Manchester
blacks ” ? It is pitiable to go through the country and
see exquisite landscapes destroyed by smoke and refuse ;
huge chimneys belching out black torrents; streams that
should be dancing in the sunlight gleaming with phos
phorescent scum, and rolling along thick and black with
tilth. What sort of England is the Industrial Period
going to leave to its successors ?
If there be any truth in the scientific doctrine that the
environment modifies the organism, what can be the
tendency of the modifications wrought by such an environ
ment as the Black Country ? AVhat is there of refining,
of elevating, of humanising influence in those endless
piles of cinders, that ruined vegetation, that pall of smoke,
lighted at night by the lurid glare of the furnaces ? What
kind of race will that be whose mothers work in the chain
fields till the children come to the birth, and who return
thither sometimes on the very day on which they have
given new lives to the world ?
Many people, true products of the Industrial Period, are
indifferent to natural beauty, and only see in a waterfall
a source of power, in a woody glen a waste of productive
soil. But if, again, the environment modifies the organism,
beauty is useful in the highest degree. A high human
�14
THE EVOLTTIO^ OF SOCIETY.
type cannot be bred in a back slum, trained amid filth and
ugliness and clangor, sent to labor ere maturity ; it must
be bred in pure air, trained amidst sights and sounds that
are harmonious and beautiful, educated until mature ; then
let it turn to labor, and give back to the community the
wealth of love and comfort which shielded its eaTlier
years. On the faces of the lads and lasses who come
tumbling out of factories and great warehouses at the
dose of every day, filling the streets with tumult and
rough horseplay, is set the seal of the sordid conditions
under which they live. The lack of beauty around them
has made them unbeautiful, and their strident voices are
fitted to pierce the din amid which they live.
In truth, in its effect on Society, the wealthy manufac
turing class is far worse than the feudal nobility it is
gradually pushing aside. The feudal lords lived among
their tenantry, and there were ties of human sympathy
between them which do not exist between the manufac
turer and those whom he significantly calls his “ hands
The manufacturers live away from the place in which their
wealth is made, dwelling luxuriously in beautiful suburbs,
and leaving the “hands ” to stew in closely-packed dwel
lings under the shadow of the huge and unsightly factories.
The division of classes becomes more and more marked;
between the rich and the poor yawns an ever-widening gulf.
The tendency of Industrialism to produce castes should
not be overlooked. Practical men have noted that when
people have for generations lived by weaving, their chil
dren learn weaving far more easily than children who come
from a mining district. If a trade becomes hereditary, the
aptitude for the trade becomes marked in members of the
family. And this is not well. It is a tendency to produce
fixed castes of workers, instead of fully-developed various
human beings. It means, if present forces go on working
unrestrained, the dividing of society into castes, the forma
tion of rigid lines of demarcation, the petrifaction which
has befallen some older civilisations.
Over against those who laud the present state of Society
with its unjustly rich and unjustly poor, with its palaces
and its slums, its millionaires and its paupers, be it ours
to proclaim that there is a higher ideal in life than that of
being first in the race for wealth, most successful in the
scramble for gold. Be it ours to declare steadfastly that
�THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY.
15
health, comfort, leisure, culture, plenty for every individual,
are far more desirable than breathless struggle for exist
ence, furious trampling down of the weak by the strong,
huge fortunes accumulated out of the toil of others, to be
handed down to those who have done nothing to earn
them. Be it ours to maintain that the greatness of a
nation depends not on the number of its great proprietors,
on the wealth of its great capitalists, on the splendor of
its great nobles; but on the absence of poverty among its
people, on the education of its masses, on the uni
versality of enjoyment in lifeill.—The Conflict between Social and Anti-Social
Tendencies.
The conflict between social and anti-social tendencies has
existed as long as Society itself. It is the contest between
the integrating and disintegrating forces, between the
brute survival and the human evolution. The individual
struggle for existence which had gone on through countless
centuries over the whole world had become to some extent
modified among the social animals, and savage man, as
the highest of these, had also modified it within the limits
of each community. As Society progressed slowly in civi
lisation, the contest went on between the surviving brutal,
or savage, desire for personal accumulation and personal
aggrandisement without regard for others, and the social
desire for general prosperity and happiness with the readi
ness to subordinate the individual to the general good. It
is the still-enduring conflict between these tendencies
which now claims our attention. The openings for per
sonal accumulation offered during the Industrial Period
gave a great impetus to the anti-social tendencies; the
codification of the laws of wealth-getting in Political
Economy was seized upon for defence, as though Political
Economy offered any law for the general guidance of
human conduct, or held up any object as the aim of human
life. In their eagerness to represent as right and useful
their own greed of gain, members of the laissez-faire school
sheltered themselves under philosophic names, and used
Political Economy as though instead of laying down the
conditions of wealth-getting, it had declared it to be the
one duty of human beings to get wealth.
The anti-social tendencies seized on three sources of
�16
THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY.
wealth as especially promising: mines, factories, landed
estates. So ruinous in each department proved their unre
stricted play, that in each case law had to be called in to
check their operation.
Mines.—In these the anti-social tendency of unrestricted
accumulation, by competition with others, led to the em
ployment of women and children in labor for which they
were unfitted, at wages lower than those obtained by men.
Women worked half-naked, with band round forehead
dragging laden trucks up steep inclines. Children were
born in the darkness, and grew up underground, never
seeing the brightness of the sun. The most frightful
demoralisation existed, and infants, sleeping at their trap
doors, were crushed beneath the hurrying truck. Manly
decency, womanly modesty, childly weakness, all went
down before the Juggernaut car of unrestricted competi
tion, until the social tendency, in the guise of law, stepped
in to curb the brutality of anti-social greed.
Factories. — Here, again, the labor of women and
children has been utilised in antagonism to the better-paid
labor of men. And both women and children were
scandalously overworked until law intervened to protect
them. In Our Corner for March, 1885 (vol. v., pp. 158,
159), I gave some details of the labor imposed on children
before the legislature interposed, and when we find such
Acts as the Factory and Workshops Acts attacked by those
who pretend to defend Liberty (see report of the 3rd annual
meeting of the Liberty and Property Defence League, p.
10), we know that the liberty they defend is the liberty to
plunder others unchecked, the liberty which the burglar
might claim in annexing his neighbors’ goods. At the
present time the chain-works in Warwickshire and Worces
tershire show us examples of overmuch liberty in dealing
with other people’s lives. Women there work semi-nude,
dragging heavy chains. A young girl will be absent from
her work one day, and reappearing on the morrow will
excuse her languid work to the inspector on the ground:
“I had a baby yesterday”. Child-bearing girls, to the
anti-social school, are only “hands” worth so much less
in the labor market. These facts have to be faced. No
vague talk of “general improvement” will avail us here.
These people are suffering while we are discussing, and
dilettante sympathy is of small use.
�THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY.
17
Landed Estates. Here, again, the anti-social tendencies
have had full swing. Taxation, levied on land as the
rent to the State for the privilege of holding it, has been
shifted off the land on to the people, and the land has
been claimed as private property instead of as public
trust. Improvements made by the tenant have been con
fiscated, and then the improved condition of the land has
been utilised as a reason- for raising the rent of the tenant
who improved it. Bents have been raised to an extent
the tenant could not meet, until he has become hopelessly
indebted to his landlord, and so bound to him, hand and
foot. Game has been preserved until the crops of farmers
have been ruined by it, and until wild animals luxuriated
while human beings starved. When the anti-social
tendency has had full play and when it has spread abroad
sufficient misery for purblind eyes to recognise, then the
social tendency has asserted itself, and has established
Land Courts in Ireland to fix fair rents; has secured to
the tenant the results of his own labor; has permitted the
farmer to kill the ground game preying on his crops.
In towns the landlord has been even a greater curse
than he has been in the country. Undrained, filthy, rotten
hovels have been rented by him to the poor. The slums
of all great cities testify to the results of the anti-social
tendency, and warn us that the deepest and widest degra
dation will never touch men’s hearts sufficiently to over
bear the desire for personal gain.
Law, and law alone, can curb these anti-social tendencies.
Granted that a time will come when men shall be too
noble to profit by the misery of their fellows, that time is
not yet. The anti-social tendencies ruin and degrade,
and the few who recognise the evil while not personally
experiencing it, aided by the many who suffer from it
without fully understanding it, must carry legislation
which shall fetter the savage inclination to prey on human
beings.
So far we have considered the play of anti-social tenden
cies in modern society. Let us turn now to the social
tendencies, to those which make for integration.
The first of these which we will note is the tendency to
■co-operation. Handicapped as it is by being compelled to
make its way in a society based on competition, co-opera
tion has yet done much to better the lot of the poor. How
�18
THE EVOLUTION OE SOCIETY.
much, it might do if everywhere it replaced competition,
may be guessed at from what it has done despite the evil
atmosphere which has surrounded it. Anyone who goes
over the stores of the Rochdale Pioneers, who sees the
great library it has gathered there, who knows the educa
tional agencies centred there, must recognise the enormous
good done by even partial co-operation under uncongenial
circumstances. That productive co-operation has not suc
ceeded as well as distributive is due partly to the fact that
the co-operative workers have sought too eagerly and paid
too highly for “influential names” to “float” their com
panies ; and partly to the fact that production, under the
present system, needs a larger capital to withstand trade
crises than workers are able to command. Many promi
sing enterprises have been ruined by straining after large
profits, while working with an undue proportion of borrowed
money, money which, in times of panic, has been suddenly
withdrawn.
The social tendency is shown in the assignment of public
money for educational purposes, the passing of the Educa
tion Acts, the pressure of public feeling in favor of ratesupported schools, of higher education for all at the public
expense. It is shown in the demand for shorter hours of
labor; the insistence that all should work; the attempts
—at present only by agitation—to enact limits to the
accumulation by individuals of land and capital.
And above all the social tendency is shown in the incli
nation to resort to law for the effecting of the desired
changes; ih the recognition that social, not individual
effort is necessary for the reform of the social system; in
the feeling that the continuance of vice and misery side by
side with civilisation is intolerable, and that some means
must be found to put an end to them.
The problem now set before us is how to eradicate the
anti-social, and to cultivate the social, instincts in men and
women. Much would be gained if once it were generally
recognised that the desire for huge personal accumulation
is essentially anti-social, is a survival from the brute. At
the present time this desire is veiled under less offensive
names, such as “ business ability ”, “sharpness”, “energy”,
etc., etc., but when the veil is stripped away it standsforth in its repulsive nudity. To desire sufficiency, suffi
ciency for health and pleasure now, and for the time when
�THE EVOLUTION OE SOCIETY.
19’
work-power has failed, that is natural and reasonable; todesire superfluity, superfluity for ostentation and waste,
that is barbaric.
Enough for each of work, of leisure, of joy; too littlefor none; too much for none; such is the Social Ideal.
Better to strive after it worthily, and fail, than to die with
out striving for it at all.
IV.—The Reconcilement oe Diverging Interests.
Wherever a school of thought has succeeded in gaining
many adherents, and in holding its ground for a consider
able period, it is probable that it possesses some truth, or
part of some truth, valuable to humanity. Very often it
may see only one side of the truth, and so may present a
half as though it were the whole ; and the bitterest combats
are generally waged between those who hold separately
the two halves which, united, would form the perfect whole.
Truths which are complementary to each other are held as
though they were mutually destructive, and those whoshould be brothers in a common strife turn their weapons
against each other’s breasts. Such has been the conflict
between the “Individualistic” and the “Socialistic”
schools; each holds a truth and does well to cling to it, for
neither truth could be lost without injury to Society; the
whole truth is to be found by joining the twain, for there
is needed for the highest humanity the perfecting of the
Individual within a highly organised Society.
Looking back for a moment at our Industrial Period,,
which may be taken as incarnated in the “Manchester
School ”, we shall find that it has given to the world some
important information touching production. It has proved
that the productiveness of labor can be enormously increased
by co-operation and the division of labor ; that individual
production of the ordinary necessaries of life is a mistake ;
that it is cheaper to weave cotton goods by machinery than
to loavo each housekeeper to do her own spinning and
weaving. The Manchester School has for ever rendered
it impossible that we shall return to genoral production by
“cottage industries”: it has proved that largo numbers
should co-operate in production; that labor should be
economised by much division; that machine-made goods
should supersede hand-made in large departments of in
�20
THE EVOLUTION OE SOCIETY.
dustry; these are the contributions of the Manchester
School to progress. With these truths which it taught
were bound up errors which raised against it a widespread
revolt. Its system appeared as though it were based on
the assumption that, while labor was to be co-operative,
the profits arising from the associated labor were to go to
the enrichment of an individual. It deified competition,
and consecrated as its patterns those who could best outwit
their rivals and outstrip them in the race for wealth. Its
maxim, “buy in the cheapest market and sell in the
dearest”, while admirable as counsel for money-making,
did not always conduce in practice to perfect honesty, and
is scarcely sufficient as the end of life. “Get money; by
fair means if thou canst, but by all means get money ”,
was a somewhat brutally frank way of putting “ business ”
morality. It tended to regard men too much as mechanical
instruments of production, significantly calling men, women,
and children “hands”, instead of human beings. This
school it was of which I spoke on p. 15 as having misused
Political Economy, and as having taught as though the
laws of Political Economy said “Get rich”, instead of
stating the conditions of getting rich; they have used it
as the science of Mechanics might be used, if instead of
teaching by it how a weight may be lifted with least exer
tion of muscular strength, it were appealed to as declaring
that everyone should lift weights.
Turning to the Socialistic School, we find that it enshrines
the truth that man is a social animal, and that his progress
must lie in the direction of closer social union. Within
this school again we find three camps, the Collectivist, the
’Communistic, and the Anarchist, the latter of which is
really tenanted by extreme Individualists, who are separated
from the ordinary Individualistic School by their desire to
•overturn the present social system, and to destroy the
“rights of property ”.
The Socialists have learned from the Manchester School
the conditions of wealth-production on a large scale, and
seeing that industry as now conducted leads to the en
riching of a few and the hopeless poverty of the many, it
lays hands on the raw material and the means of production
and claims these as collective property. There is, perhaps,
among many of us who belong to this school too great an in
clination to think that the environment is everything, and to
�THE EVOLUTION OE SOCIETY.
21
ignore the reaction of the organism on the environment.
There is too much forgetfulness of the worse types of men
and women, results of the Industrial Period, who would
not be suddenly changed even if their environment could
be suddenly transformed; there is too reckless a desire to
overturn, without asking what curb would be kept, in the
general overturning, on the degraded and criminal products
of our present civilisation.
The Individualistic School, whether it is carried to the
extreme Anarchist position, or maintains the sufficiency of
reform along the broad lines of the present social state,
brings into prominence the right of individual liberty, and
the value of individual initiative. One outside, and one
inside, nominal Socialism, each is the result of a dread of,
a recoil against, over-much State regulation and State
interference. Each lays down the vital truth that free
play for human faculties, encouragement not discourage
ment of variations, are necessary to human progress.
Each points out that a perfect State is only possible by the
perfecting of individual citizens, and each is apt to lay so
much stress on the organism as to overlook the immense
importance of the environment. There is, of course, as I
have said above, the fundamental difference between the
Anarchists and those generally recognised as Individualists,
that the former appear to negate, while the latter maintain,
the right of private property. I have only put them to
gether as alike in one thing, that they assert the right of
the Individual against the State, while the Collectivist
Socialist asserts the right of the State as against the In
dividual.
Pressed on the matter, however, both Individualist and
Socialist are found to hold a common object; the Indi
vidualist admits that the claims of the unit must yield if
they come into conflict with those of Society : the Socialist
admits that he is working for a higher social state in order
that each individual may have room and opportunity to
develop to the highest point of which he is capable. Is
there not here a possible reconcilement ? Is not the ideal
of all good and earnest reformers practically the same,
although seen by them from different sides ? True, the
Individualist is not generally in favor of nationalising the
means of production, and herein differs in his method from
the Socialist; but is this difference any reason for their
�-22
THE EVOLUTION OE SOCIETY.
posing as antagonists ? The difference is not greater than
that between the Socialist who secures to the worker the
private property he has himself earned, and the Communist
who would have all property common; or between the
Collectivist and the Anarchist schools. Yet these can work
together for common objects, while differing in much ; and
so should work the Socialist and the Iladical Individualist
against the common foe, the idle class that lives as parasite
•on Society.
The first matter on which all agree is that the environ
ment must be largely modified by law. The Socialist will
•carry this modifying process further than will the Indi
vidualist, but here again it is a question between them of
degree. Speaking as a Socialist, I desire to see laws passed
which will render education tax-supported, compulsory,
and secular, so that all the children of the community may
receive a common education; which will fix a normal
working day; which will render factory inspection more
•efficient, and extend inspection to shops and rooms of every
kind in which employees work; which will enforce sanitary
inspection and prevent it from being the farce it now is ;
which will enable the building of healthy houses, and
provide plenty of recreation ground in every town. All
these measures are imperatively necessary now, and imme
diately necessary, in order that the environment may be
•changed sufficiently for the development of healthier or
ganisms. After a while most of them will not be needed;
when all have felt the benefit of education, compulsion to
educate will become a dead letter; when labor is better
•organised, when the words employer and employee shall
no longer have any facts answering to them, when all
production is for use, not for profit, there will be no need
•of a law limiting the working day, for none will be driven
to over-long labor by the awful pressure of starvation and
of fear of future distress. Factory inspection will be a
very easy task when there are no longer over-greedy owners
trying to wring every possible penny out of their “hands ” ;
and the need for sanitary inspection will pass when there
are no slums, and when every householder understands the
•conditions of health.
The organism, bom into and growing up in a healthier
environment, will be more vigorous and therefore more
capable of evolving a higher individuality, a more marked
�TIIE EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY.
23
personality. The evolution of individuality is now checked,
in some by poverty and over-hard and prolonged toil, in
some by the strict conventions .of fashion, in some by the
unsuitability of their work to their capacities, in some
by a narrow and superstitious education, in all by the
unhealthy social atmosphere they are compelled to breathe.
The loss to the community by waste of power, due to the
"Crushing out of all individuality among hundreds upon
hundreds of thousands, is a loss simply incalculable.
When all are fully educated through childhood and youth,
■the faculties of each developed and trained, then each indi
vidual will be able to evolve along his own line, and the
full value of each personality will enrich Society. It is
often argued that a wide and thorough education will unfit
people for the drudgery necessary for supporting the exis
tence of Society, and that 11 some one ”-—-never the speaker,
of course!—must do the 11 dirty work”. There are two
lines of answer to the objection. First, education does not
unfit people for doing any necessary work; it is the
ignorant, superficial, “genteel” person who fears that the
veneer of polish may rub off in use. The educated brain,
brought to bear on manual work, economises labor and
minimises drudgery. General education will certainly
bring about the substitution of machinery for men and
women wherever possible, for doing really unpleasant
labor; and ingenuity will be exerted in the invention of
labor-saving machinery when educated people find them
selves face to face with repulsive kinds of toil. At pre
sent they shove off all the unpleasant work on to others:
then, all being educated and there being no helot class,
means will be found to avoid most of the really disagree
able work. If any such remains, which cannot be done by
machinery, those who by doing it serve Society will be
honored, not looked down on as they are now; or possibly
some minute fraction of it will fall to the lot of each.
Secondly, if it were as true as it is false that education
unfitted people for “menial” work, no class has the right
to keep another class in ignorance and degradation, in
order that its own fingers may not be soiled. The answer
to the querulous argument: “Who is to light our fires
and cook our dinners, when the servants are as good as
their masters? ” is the very plain one : “You yourself, if
you want the things done, and cannot find anyone willing
�24
THE EVOLUTION OE SOCIETY.
to do those services for you, in exchange for services you
are able to do for them.” In the coming times everyonewill have to do something, and to do some one thing well.
We shall not all have to light fires, for the principle of
division of labor will come in, but the one who lights the
fire will be a free and independent human being, not a
drudge. There is no doubt that domestic labor will be
very much lessened, when those who enjoy the results can
no longer put off all the toil which produces them on some
one else. Even now, the work of a house can be wonder
fully diminished if a little intelligence be brought to bear
upon it, although domestic labor-saving machines are still
in their infancy. The great “servant problem” will besolved by the disappearance of servants, the wide intro
duction of machinery, and the division among the mem
bers of each domestic commonwealth of the variousnecessary duties. The prospect is really not so very terri
ble when quietly surveyed.
Whither is Society evolving ? It is evolving towards a
more highly developed individuality of its units, and
towards their closer co-ordination. It is evolving towards
a more generous brotherhood, a more real equality, a
fuller liberty. It is evolving towards that Grolden Age
which poets have chanted, which dreamers have visioned,
which martyrs have died for : towards that new Republic
of Man, which exists now in our hope and our faith, and
shall exist in reality on earth.
�
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The evolution of society
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Besant, Annie Wood [1847-1933]
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Collation: 24 p. ; 19 cm.
Series title: Socialism
Notes: Reprinted from Our Corner. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Printed by Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh.
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1886
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Socialism
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Social change
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Socialism
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THE
SOCIAL EECONSTRUCTION
I
OF ENGLAND.
BY
H.
M.
HYNDMAN,
Author of “ The Coming Revolution
Book
of
in
Democracy,”
England,” “ The Text
etc.
LONDON:
WILLIAM REEVES, 185, FLEET STREET, E.C..
Office of “ The Christian Socialist."
�Reprinted from the “ International Review.”
i1
�THE
SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION OF ENGLAND.
On a former occasion * I gave a sketch of the social and
political position in England at the present time, and briefly
showed how the movement now going on below the surface
has been led up to for the past hundred years. Such a sketch
was necessarily rough and superficial. Nevertheless, it made
plain that in England, the richest European country, the mass
of the workers are in a miserable condition of poverty, and
uncertainty, with no security for continuous employment, even
at the low rate of wages they receive—badly fed, badly clothed,
badly housed. As matters stand, indeed, the great body of
the people are shut out from controlling their own political
business, without even the satisfaction of knowing that the
classes which monopolize the whole power in the State will be
at the pains to care for the wellbeing of the wage slaves, to
whose labor they are indebted for the luxury and indolence
they enjoy. The wealthy lower orders are really quite indif
ferent to the problems of the society they control, so long as,
at the expense of a little cheap philanthropy, they can bribe
the workers not to change the system. What can you expect
of men who have no wider range than the discounting of three
months’ bills, the balancing of yearly accounts, or the acquisi
tion of gain by legalized fraud ? The only hope of general
and permanent improvement for the many is in a thorough
• “ The Coming Revolution in England.”—(Wm. Reeves, 185, Fleet
street, London, price 6d.)
�4
THE SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION
social reorganization, conducted, with vigor and intelligence by
the producing class themselves. The vast wealth which is
now piled up by their ceaseless exertions, the powerful ma
chinery which increases the productiveness of labor and cheap
ens commodities, become, under existing economical conditions,
the direct means for insuring the subjugation of the workers
to those who own that wealth and control that machinery.
The majority of Englishmen are literally enslaved for life to a
class of their countrymen by their own production itself. This
is true of all nations where the laborers work under the
control of capital; but here in England there is a greater con
centration of land, capital, and machinery in the hands of the
few than elsewhere, consequently, the natural bent of the
capitalist system is less checked or diverted by other causes.
Until this carapace of monopolies, which crushes down our
people, is owned by the State—which will then simply be the
organized capacity of the workers, for the benefit of all—no
great change for the better can be brought about in the lot of
those who labor.
Now this, I dare say, will sound to many abstract, utopian,
all in the air. I don’t think it will when I have done. In
America even, where there is much virgin soil still unoccupied,
and rich lands to be purchased at what seem to us preposte
rously low prices, I can observe that every day the class
struggle between the wage-earners and the capitalists is coming
closer and threatens to be most bitter. With Americans, as
with us, new questions are being forced forward, and people
feel that there is something below more serious than the wellworn shibboleths of Republican and Democrat. What we
English have to deal with is, at any rate, far more a social
than a political problem. Who is “ in” or who “ out” matters
not a straw to those who have learned to labor but cannot
afford much longer to wait. Politics are, after all, merely the
�OF ENGLAND.
5
outcome of the method of production below, and he who stops
to consider them alone gets a superficial view of modern society
indeed. For the worst of it is that while we are talking events
are moving. Yet another generation is growing up under the
deplorable oppression which every man who feels for the
misery of his fellows must hate and strive to remedy. Another
succession of destitute workers—men, women, children of
tender years—are even now stepping into the places of that
food for capital which has just been shot into the pauper
graveyard.
I need scarcely insist upon the difficulties we have to face.
That our social arrangements and our political constitution
are altogether behind the extraordinary development of our
industry and commerce none can fail to understand. But
assuredly there is no patent plaster for all economical diseases
—there is no sovereign remedy for the people’s evil which can
be administered with confidence as an infallible cure. No.
Society is the growth of endless ages of evolution and revolu
tion, in the same way as man himself. We ourselves are, of
course, the creatures of our surroundings and our education
from infancy to manhood.
*
The individual can to a small
extent, as most think, modify his own character. Society can,
to a much greater extent, change the surroundings of the
present and coming generations by fostering those elements
which tend to bring about a rapid change. First, therefore,
we must apprehend thoroughly the ills we suffer from and
their causes in order that, as the existing mischiefs are swept
away, we may offer no impediment to the growth of a new and
better state of things from below.
By education we are most misled.
We so believe, because we so were bred :
The priest continues what the nurse began;
And thus the child imposes on the man.
—Dryden.
�6
THE SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION
What we have to-day, I repeat, is a class which owns all
the means of production, including the land on the one side..
Those who belong to this class escape, as a body, without any
sort of manual labor, and live in luxury far in excess of what
is beneficial even to them. On the other side is a class utterly
destitute of the means of production. Those who belong to’
this class are, therefore, obliged to compete with one another,
in order to gain the scantiest livelihood, and sell their force of
labor for miserable wages to the capitalists, who “ exploit ” it.
Hence increasing wealth and deepening poverty, production for'
profit and not for use, recurring industrial crises consequent
upon the socialized system of production and the command by
the individual of the whole process of exchange. Authority
carried to its extreme limit in the factory, in the workshop, in
the mine or the farm: laissez-faire allowed full swing in almost
every other department' of civilized life. Thus the wealthy,
who take care to maintain the strictest discipline where their
own immediate gains are concerned, howl loudly, in concert
with their hangers-on, that freedom of contract is being out
raged when they in turn are called upon to submit to some
sort of regulation in the interests of the mass of mankind.
Between the two classes, the capitalists and the proletariat—
the workers, that is, who are absolutely without means of sub
sistence, and dependent on their weekly wages for bread—
there are several gradations; but the antagonism between
those who employ and those who provide the force of labor
which renders surplus value is becoming more pronounced
every day. Events are manifestly tending toward the forma
tion of a party of the people which shall be in opposition to
Tory and Whig, Conservative, Liberal, and Radical alike.
*
* Those who desire to comprehend thoroughly the problems of our
existing civilization should study the late Dr. Karl Marx s masterly
work on “Capital.” It is no easy reading; but no man competent to
form a judgment will, I venture to say, rise from its second or third
�OF ENGLAND.
7
Within the past few months there has been increasing
evidence of this, and a few instances will not be out of place.
The Trades-Union Congress, which met in 1882 at Manchester,
fully bore out my views with respect to the uselessness of
trades-unionism to the rank and file of labor, so far as the
original programme or the main discussions at the meeting are
considered. Such political proposals as were formulated might
very well have been laid down, and I dare say were laid down,
by the middle-class Liberal caucus which has its headquarters
at Birmingham. From all sides the capitalist press poured
forth its congratulations to the managers upon their “ modera
tion.” The secretary was accorded an unanimous vote of
confidence, because he had given place to young Lord Lymington on a bill before the House of Commons dealing with a
matter which was supposed specially to concern the workers.
A delegate who had gone to Manchester with the express
purpose of proposing a vote in favor of manhood suffrage found
so little encouragement among his fellow delegates that he
absolutely thought it better not to bring his motion forward
this year. Altogether anything but a democratic assembly
one must say. Yet here, in this atmosphere of doubt, feeble
ness and trimming, a great step in advance was made. When
it was suggested by a delegate that an examination should be
made into the titles of the handful of gentlemen who have
taken possession of the soil of England, Mr. H. W. Rowland,
secretary to the London Cabmen’s Society, a well known tradeunionist, but also a member of the Democratic Federation,
boldly brought forward a resolution to the effect that no
perusal without the conviction that he has been in contact with one of
the greatest thinkers of our own or of any other age. The name of
Karl Marx is so well known as that of an agitator and revolutionist
that his position as a philosopher is sometimes overlooked. Future
generations will do fuller justice to his extraordinary capacity, industry
and fearlessness than we of to-day.
�8
THE SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION
measure short of nationalization of the land could be accepted
as a settlement by the working classes of England. This
measure is naturally opposed, both by landlords who see in it
the utter destruction of their wealth and territorial influence,
and by capitalists who, secretly aspiring to be land owners,
*
support what they call “ free trade in land.” Nevertheless,
and in spite of the efforts of some of the principal organizers
of the congress, the motion was carried by forty-nine votes to*
twenty-nine.
Now, of course, I am well aware that nationalization of
the land by itself and without a complete reorganization of
production in all departments would benefit the workers little,
if at all. Still, it is no small thing that the idea of the pos
session of the land of England—land in country and land in
towns, mines, parks, mountains, moors—should be held by the
people, for the people collectively, to be used and developed
as they see fit to ordain—it is no small matter, I say, that
such a reform as this should find acceptance at a wavering
congress of “the aristocracy of labor” in place of the middle
class tinkering for individual advantage which has hitherto
been forced upon them. For such a vote means that at last
the people of England are awaking to the truth that landlords
and capitalists together have robbed them of their heritage of
freedom and well-being; means, too, that no mere vestry
plans for bolstering up the old cut-throat individualism will
much longer blind the workers to their true interests as a class.
“Each for himself, and the devil take the hindermost,” is a
* In 1879, when Mr. Adam Weiler, the London joiner, brought
forward a similar resolution, he could not even find a seconder. So
that democratic ideas do move in these days, the ridicule and sarcasm
of the capitalist press notwithstanding. I may add that the collectivist
view, as opposed to peasant-proprietorship, is spreading through the
Highlands of Scotland as the only thorough remedy for the existing
land system. It was in the Highlands that the Sutherland clearances
and other similar infamous evictions were perpetrated.
�OF ENGLAND.
9
splendid motto for the employing class. For the wage-earners
it means a never-ending and hopeless struggle to keep out of
the slough of pauperism and crime.
If, however, the trade-unionists have adopted nationaliza
tion of the land, the colliers are again claiming to limit pro
duction and to curtail the hours of labour to eight a day.
The determination to lessen the output of coal in the York
shire coal-field, which is really the chief point in dispute
between men and masters to-day, is in every way more
important than any struggle about wages ; for it involves not
merely the right to obtain increased pay, but the right to
control production itself. Here at once, the whole economical
difficulty is placed before us, if we choose to work it out.
Grant the miners the right to say how much coal shall or
shall not be brought to the pit’s mouth within a given period,
and clearly the puddlers have an equal right to determine
how much ore shall go into the smelting-furnace, the iron
workers the right to fix how many bars or plates shall leave
the forge, the cotton-spinners, as they have also contended,
how much yarn shall be delivered per week, and so on through
the whole long series of manufacturing operations. Well, it
may be asked, why should not those who make all the wealth
decide as to the amount of any special form of it they choose
to expend their labor upon ? I say nothing to the contrary.
Far from it, I desire to see the laborers acting in concert and
producing for the general good. But that any particular knot
of producers should be allowed the power to limit their own
production without agreement or concert with their fellows in
other branches of trade would manifestly but confound still
further the present economical confusion. In this case again,
therefore, the workers will be slowly driven to look upon the
interests of their class—skilled and unskilled laborers alike—
as a whole, seeing that the action of one portion by themselves
�10
THE SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION
may disorganize the entire fabric as completely as the strike
of one section of workers may compel a whole factory to stand
idle. A few years ago, the strike of the unskilled dock-laborers
at Liverpool caused a complete congestion of the trade of that
great port for three weeks, and a withdrawal of engine-drivers
and stokers would practically suspend, for a time at least, all
rapid communication. In this complicated society of ours thewhole is, as it were, at the mercy of its parts; but let those
parts once be thoroughly combined on an intelligent compre
hension of their own joint business, and we have opened
up a new industrial era to mankind.
While such ideas are abroad, and such partial combinationsare going on among the workers in active employment, a little
cloud has arisen in another quarter. How to deal with
paupers has always been a great difficulty. Clearly, it is hard
that men or women who have fallen into poverty from no
fault of their own should be treated as criminals, set to pick
oakum, forced to do disgusting or useless tasks, merely, to keep
a few from coming for the scanty workhouse food out of sheer
idleness. This has been the system hitherto. Now anotheris growing up under the control of well-intentioned men, who •
evidently do not see, or do not care for, either the immediate
or ultimate result of their policy. In several workhouses the ■
paupers are now being employed on the production of useful
articles, not merely for themselves or their fellow-inmates, but
for sale in the open market, the paupers who do the work
receiving a certain proportion of the money obtained, in
addition to their keep. Now this is, of course, a great boon
to the poor people who have been driven to accept ’charity,
but are glad to find that they are not wholly useless
to mankind. The change in the appearance of the men and
women thus employed, as compared to what they were with
nothing but hopelessness and a pauper’s grave before them, is-
�OF ENGLAND.
11
•described as surprising.
Excellent every way, no doubt.
But now look at this admirable experiment from the outside.
The goods which these State-supported workers produce have to
be sold in the open market. Whatever they fetch over and
; above the mere cost of the raw material and carriage is so
much clear gain to the rate-payers, who have to pay for the
maintenance of the paupers in any case. Consequently, the
workhouse goods can always be sold cheap. How, then, does
it fare with men or women engaged in the same business who
have to pay rent, get food, and provide themselves with
■ clothing, out of the profits of their own hand-made wares ?
Very badly, as I can testify. More than one trade has been
• completely ruined by this workhouse competition, and many of
those engaged in it driven into the ranks of the neediest class
themselves. Such is the irony of our present social system.
Not a bit worse, however, than when the introduction of a new
machine, which should result in increased wealth for all, fills a
■ capitalist’s pockets, and sends hundreds, perhaps thousands, of
skilled workmen out workless on the labor market as unskilled
hands. The very people who rightly contend that this organi. zation of labor in the workhouse is far better than the shame
ful criminal treatment hitherto in vogue, shriek Socialism,
• Communism, and begin to call names when it is suggested
that labor and production need organization even more outside
the workhouse, and that were such organization carried out
• on a thoroughly sound basis, not only able-bodied pauperism
but able-bodied sybaritism might be done away. But this
< competition now set on foot, if, as is quite possible, it is carried
into the domain of machine industry, will compel the working• classes to insist upon some general understanding with regard
to rate-supported laborers, and thus, perhaps, lead by anothei’
route to the same great end of social cooperation. Mean
while, the field of State employment is extending every day,
�12
THE SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION
though, as in the post office, the lowest possible wages are
paid, and a profit is secured wherever attainable.
What, however, are the transition-remedies, as we may
call them, which may serve to help on our society to a wider
and nobler development ? Extension of the suffrage to the
whole adult population—the direct control by the electors of
the entire political system—the abolition of the monarchy
and the House of Lords—the prevention of bribery and log
rolling—these and similar reforms, no matter how thorough,
do but give the machinery whereby the people of England
may at length become masters in their own house. Mere
forms of government, nevertheless, afford no guarantee for
social progress. France has universal suffrage, and theancient nobility has long been overthrown. Yet the plebisciteestablished the stock-jobbing Second Empire, and now the
French enjoy a republicanised empire, where the right of the
workers to combine is put down with a high hand, as in the
case of the strike of the miners at Grand’ Combe, and else
where. In Germany universal suffrage gives the people a,
sultan, a grand vizier, and an army of janissaries—what else
are the Emperor, Prince Bismark, and the Junkerdom at
their command?—while the chief cities of the empire are in a
state of siege. In free Switzerland, also, the middle-class^
dominate completely under republican forms. In America
itself the pressure of capitalists “ rings,” the undue power
exercised by plutocrats who but yesterday were unknown men,
and the insidious corruption which creeps through the whole
body politic, threatens grave danger to the great Republic of
the West. There is no security, then, for the social improve
*
ment of the people at large in any political forms, unless those
who use them are imbued beforehand with just ideas, and aredetermined to exercise their influence for the general benefit.
Necessary as it is to sweep away the monopoly of Parliament,
�OF ENGLAND.
13
which, now keeps the working-classes from having any control,
it is even more necessary that this should be done with a
definite idea of policy for the future.
Here, then, are some of the measures which would at least
tend to secure for the rising generation better conditions of
existence and a clearer view of their own future course under
our present capitalist domination:
First—Free education, compulsory upon all, together with
the provision of at least one good meal a day for the children
attending the public free schools.
*
Second—The compulsory erection by municipalities and
county boards of healthy, well-built dwellings, in proportion
to the numbers of the working population, with gardens or
playgrounds in the immediate neighbourhood—such dwellings
to be let at a price to cover the cost of construction alone.
Third—Eight hours or less to be established as the regular
working-day in all factories, mines and workshops, the labor
of women and children being strictly controlled. The same
regulation to apply to all other employes where continuous
labor is exacted.
Fourth—All squares or private grounds in the neighbour
hood of great cities to be held at the disposal of the com
munity, and thrown open for their benefit.
Fifth,—That the railway monopoly should be at once put
* There are few stories more disgraceful in the long infamous record
of class greed apd class robbery than the seizure by the upper and
middle classes of endowments given by wealthy men in the past to
insure free education for the poor. The children of these classes have
quite ousted the poor from the endowed schools, and there seems little
hope of any redress whatever by peaceable and legal means. The
classes which stand out against free education do not hesitate for
a moment to grasp free education for themselves whenever and whereever they can do so at the expense of others. Even the universities,
which should belong to the country at large, have been turned into
middle-class establishments. Here again, who is going to look out
for the rights of the people—save the people themselves ?
�14
THE SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION
an end to, either with or without compensation, as may seem
advisable, the railways thus acquired being used to give the
greatest possible advantages in cheap transport to all classes of
the community.
Such proposals would seem to need little advocacy. Yet
not a single one of them is now before our parliamentary
wiseacres, nor do the working-classes appear inclined to force
them upon their representatives, so hopeless do they seem.
Yet who can doubt that compulsory education, now en
forced by many, if not most, of the school boards, should be
free? It is to the advantage of all that none should
grow up ignorant. Though education by itself does not pro
vide better “ hands ” for the capitalist, and, as we see in
China, may not change social conditions, such education as
can now be given, coupled with the general advance in all
branches of social science around, could scarcely fail to increase
the knowledge of the workers, and at the same time to
strengthen their power of combination. Noble Robert Owen,
who, early in this century, showed us the right path towards
education and industrial organization for the young, never
dissociated his educational system from good food, constant
pleasure, or, later, from physical industry.
*
The authority
* Robert Owen was the father of the factory acts, the most benefi
cent measures ever carried in England. Yet he wras himself one of
the largest and most successful manufacturers. He was also the
leader of modern utopian socialism. Needless to say that, when he
tried to develop his theories on a large scale, he was ridiculed and
boycotted. A philanthropist, he might be : a socialist—oh, horror !
Here is a passage from one of the writings of this truly great man:
“ Since the discovery of the enormous, the incalculable, power to
supersede manual labor, to enable the human race to create wealth by
the aid of the sciences, it has been a gross mistake of the political
economists to make humanity into slaves to science instead of making,
as nature intends, sciences to be the slaves and servants of humanity.
And this sacrificing of human beings with such exquisite physical, in
tellectual, moral, spiritual and practical organs, faculties and powers,
so wondrously combined in each individual, to pins, needles, thread,
�OF ENGLAND.
15
which he exercised over both parents and children at New
Lanark, though at first met by opposition, was in a few years
recognized by the people themselves as the greatest boon.
Similar authority must be now used on an extended scale for
the benefit of the children of the people whose parents too
often, from poverty or other causes, neglect the welfare of
their offspring in their most important years of growth.
Good food in childhood is even more necessary than good
education. Nothing is more certain, also, than that children
brought up to work under favorable conditions do not revert
to idleness if they can possibly help it. Unfortunately, here
comes in the miserable jobbery of our middle-class system
often entailing downright cruelty and robbery of food. If,
however, the workers once understand that the schools are
their schools, that they really pay by their labor for the food
and education provided, they will soon find the means to have
their children properly taken care of and those who neglect
them punished. Already the board schools have produced a
great effect, and the new generation of workers, imperfect as
their education still is, will be able to take quite a different
view of life from their predecessors. Health and education
together will give a power of resistance which can scarcely
fail to be fatal to the class injustice they suffer from.
But, secondly, what is the use of giving education unless
the home conditions of the people are changed ? Here is a
point of the gravest moment. According to evidence collected
by the trade-unions, the working-classes pay from one-fourth
tape, etc., and to all such inanimate materials, exhibits at once the most
gross ignorance of the nature and true value of humanity, and of the
principles and practices required to form a prosperous, rational and
happy state of society, or the true existence of man upon earth.”
In another place he asks where the increased wealth produced by
his two thousand five hundred work-people—equal to the amount
which could have been produced by six hundred thousand a century
before—went to. They did not get it; that he saw clearly.
�16
THE SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION
to one-third of their small wages in the shape of rent. , They
are liable to be sold out of all they possess and evicted into the
street if behindhand with payment, and they absolutely have
not, as in the United States, any lien on their tools to enable
them to work, or on the results of their own labors for what
may be due to them in wages. The lodging of the poor in our
great cities is, as I have observed before, horribly bad, and
very dear. True, artisans’ dwellings acts have been passed
and philanthropists have tried to do something. But the acts
are under the management of town councillors, aidermen and
the rest of the middle-class functionaries, who, elected as they
are, never for a moment consider that the health and well
being of the people constitute the real strength of the nation;
and the philanthropists in this direction, as in others, are really
of very small account in comparison with the work that has to
be done. As a general result, therefore, the overcrowding is
increasing in all our great centres of industry, while the
working-classes who must live close to their work have to pay
exorbitant rents to the very vestrymen and employers who
own the tumble-down dwellings and manage the parish. What
likelihood is there that those who make large profits out of
bad, unsanitary house-property will set to work in earnest to
bring sound, wholesome dwellings into competition at low rents
with their high-priced ramshackle hovels? What factory
capitalist will forego the advantage of being able to evict his
work-people from the cottages he owns, should they dare to
strike, unless some more powerful body undertakes to do the
business for the good of all ? So things drag on. Improve
ment for the upper and middle class: yet more overcrowding,
degradation and misery for the producers of wealth. Compul
sion, nothing but compulsion, can induce our monopolists to
act. And yet the so-called working-class leaders advise their
misguided followers to dissociate the trade interests of their
�OF ENGLAND.
17
dass from any political action. We all know that a well-built,
wholesome dwelling is absolutely essential to health and decency.
How can a woman bring forth healthy children surrounded
by such sights and sounds and smells as are to be found in the
courts and alleys of our great industrial centres ? How can
the children themselves become valuable citizens under such
conditions ? In the country similar compulsion is needed from
the same causes. There is more air and perhaps more water,
but the sanitary arrangements are utterly abominable in many
cases, and the overcrowding goes on there too. Nevertheless,
I repeat, the idea of compulsion revolts the middle-class mind,
and the vested-interest-mongers so far have had it all their
own way.
*
But if free education and the provision of food for children,
the compulsory construction of sound dwellings which shall be
rented at cost, savors of socialism, what is to be said of an
eight-hours-act ? Sir Stafford Northcote, the leader of the
Conservative party, and Mr. Henry Fawcett, the principal
middle-class economist and Postmaster-General as well as a
Badical, have both recently declared that “ freedom of con
tract ” is too sacred to be tampered with. Fancy freedom of
contract between a pauper and a plutocrat; between starving
women and children and factory lords and “ sweaters ”! The
thing is absurd. Our system of contract actually excludes
freedom, and well our capitalists know it. Yet we have made
* It is nothing short of exasperating to read through the answers of
witnesses and the report of the recent committee on artisans’ dwellings.
All the evidence goes to show that a thorough change of system is
needed, but no suggestion do we find to the effect that such a change
should at once be made. Marvellous indeed is the patience of our
people, when crowded together in attics and cellars; they can see the
west end of London almost deserted for at least three months in the
year, and could learn easily that, cubic space for cubic space, their dens
are more highly rented than the most fashionably-placed houses of the
well-to-do. Supply and demand, how good is it.
�18
THE SOCIAL EECONSTRUCTION
some progress in the restriction of this illusory freedom, and
neither Conservative statesman nor Liberal economist dare
bring in a bill to repeal those factory acts which happily
interfered with the excessive overwork of women and children
for the profit of the capitalist. Limit the hours still further
to eight hours a day, would not the women and children be
the better for it ? Yet if women and children are to work but
eight hours a day the work of the men stops too, so completely
is the whole of the great machine-industry dovetailed together.
Who will contend that eight hours’ work a day in the factory,,
in the mine, in the workshop, in the sweater’s den, is not
enough for any man or woman ? A horse can barely work
eight hours a day on the average of his strength. But the
difficulty is to prevent even the existing acts from being over
ridden. There are not nearly enough factory inspectors to
keep the capitalist class within the limits of the law. But
when Sir William Harcourt, the Home Secretary, was asked
not long since to appoint some more, he replied that any
addition to the number would be too expensive. Once more
the money interests of the few outweigh, with both the existing
parties, the life-and-death interests of the many.
To assume that railways and railway directors will ever be
controlled by the existing Parliament would seem to all who
know the strength of the railway interest in the House of
Commons a foolish assumption indeed. Our railway magnates
are almost as powerful as American Jay Goulds and Vander
bilts. They work their men such long hours in the signal
boxes, on the engines and at the points, that accidents fre
quently occur from this cause alone. The injurious monopolies
they have been granted by landlords and capitalists are sup
posed by them to be permanently valid against the whole
country. So long as debenture-holders and stockholders are
satisfied, what have the public to do with their business ?
�OF ENGLAND.
19
Such is the tone of the railway directors ; and Parliament, as
at present constituted, is merely a huge board for the protec
tion of vested interests.
The opening of squares and private parks to the inhabitants
of large cities is a much smaller matter than the others. But
here again the antagonism of class interests, the sharp social
separation, make themselves felt. Though the children of the
poor have nowhere but the crowded, airless thoroughfares to
play in, what right have they to intrude on the premises of the
wealthy ? A few running-over cases weekly cannot possibly
be pleaded as an excuse for bringing these unwashed youngsters
between the wind and our gentility. Well may nationalization
of the land, whether with or without compensation, seem
downright robbery to people who resolutely oppose a simple
reform like this.
Thus, even with regard to such measures as those mentioned
above, which only tend to improve the health, morals, educa
tion and general welfare of the nation as a whole, we are met
at once with a dead, dogged, brutal resistance by the classes
which live on the labors of others—a resistance, as I believe,
only to be overcome by force, or the threat of force, on the
part of the wage-earning class. Justice has too long been
appealed for in vain. Yet not one of these measures goes to
the root of the social difficulty of the time. They are all, as I
have called them, mere transition-remedies for some portion of
the misery which now we see. Can we wonder, then, that
daily, in England, the numbers of those are increasing who
hold that what we need is a thorough, organized movement
for the overthrow of a social system which enables the rich to
obstruct every reform that can really improve the lot of the
poor ? Is it any matter for astonishment that when admittedly
“ practical ” measures are postponed sine die, those who suffer
begin to consider what effect a thorough theoretical reconstruc
�20
THE SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION
tion might have on their condition ? Perhaps, after all, this
is one of the cases in which the whole is more easy to get than
the half.
Some there are, however, who contend that the workers
have themselves to thank for the hopeless state in which too
many of them are sunk. Their theory is that the poverty of
the great majority, in comparison with the vast wealth around
them is due to drunkenness, extravagance, want of thrift.
Who can deny that drunkenness exists ? But to what is it
due ? When I look around me at the social conditions in
which the workers live, when I take account of the fact that
there are so few opportunities afforded them for healthful
pleasure, when I note that the public-houses—there are far
too many of them, no doubt—are the only places where work
men can conveniently meet their fellows, I wonder that, as a
whole, the very poor should be as temperate, as saving, as
quiet, as contented, as they are. Misery drives to gin, as well
as gin to misery. And what are the figures? What is there
to show that the upper, the middle, the shop-keeping class, do
not drink quite as freely, and more expensive drinks in propor
tion to their means, than those who are directly laboring with
their hands ? There is no trustworthy evidence on this point
at all. But the temperance cry—good enough in itself, to a
certain length, at any rate, for all classes—serves the purpose
of the capitalist class to divert attention from the real causes
of the whole social depression which engenders the drunken
ness, the misery, the pauperism that they so hypocritically
deplore.
Take a hundred children at random from the middle class,
belonging to staunch members of the Blue Ribbon or Salvation
Army, and plant them from infancy in the miserable dwellings
which are inhabited by the very poor ; let them imbibe a little
gin with their earliest pap, hear oaths from their childhood,
�OF ENGLAND.
2X
and witness scenes of vice, or even crime, as they enter on
mature years. Will not a large percentage of them turn out
drunken, dissolute and worthless, be their parentage ever so
respectable, the sobriety of their whole kith and kin beyond
dispute ? Of course we know it would be so, and education
*
might do but little to mitigate the effect of this early training.Reverse the process, and take a hundred babes of the poor'
into such households as might be readily found for them, take *
care that they were surrounded by kindness, purity and plenty
of food for the asking, is it not certain that but a small per
centage would have a tendency toward what is bad, until
driven, perhaps, to desperation at a later period by the long,,
hopeless resistance to economical pressure which forces them
into the ranks of the needy and desperate ? To lecture and
denounce the drunken and extravagant, while maintaining as
beneficent, the system which is opposed to the best interests of
mankind at large, is to mistake the effect for the cause, is to
try to perpetuate the very mischiefs which we are endeavouring
to uproot. Much of the very drunkenness we witness is due
to the vile, adulterated drinks which are sold. But the brewers
and gin-distillers are the pillars of the State. Philanthropists
and members of Parliament, how shall they be effectively
assailed ? The publicans whom they employ but follow humbly
in their wake. The truth is, that though it may be advisable
to restrain the sale of intoxicating liquors (and the fanatics of
temperance are in their * ay doing some good), the social
w
arrangements themselves are really in fault, and drunkenness,like vagrancy, is due to social blundering.
Thrift, again, though good in itself, does but strengthen the
domination of the capitalists under our present system ; for the
savings of the workmen go into the general banking business,
and the workers, for the sake of a trifling pecuniary interest,
lose sight of the far more important interests of their class as a
�52
THE SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION
whole. The ^same objection applies to cooperation among
knots of workers. Those who take shares earn a profit which
they divide, thus becoming at once not mere benefactors of
^themselves and their families, but copartners with the men
who live upon the unpaid labor of their class. None can regret
the defects of the workers more than those who are striving
for a complete reorganization of society. If they were all
/temperate, thrifty, ready to combine, democrats would stand a
:far better chance of organizing side by side with them the great
■class struggle of the near future to certain and rapid victory
ffor the laborers. The hungry and the drunken, the dissipated
-and the brutal, may make riots and rebellions, but a class
^revolution, with a definite constructive programme, is far
beyond their grasp. For this reason, if for no other, any
attempt which may be made to reduce the standard of comfort
-should be vigorously resisted.
Before, however, the people as a whole can thorougly
'Organize their national production, or make common cause
with their class in other countries, they must clearly under
stand, in some degree at least, the history of the economical
-development which has brought about their present condition.
This is, unluckily, no easy matter even for the educated.
.Middle-class economists have succeeded in so thoroughly con
fusing men’s minds that it needs some effort to throw aside
their jargon, and to look upon events as they really have
happened and do now take place. According to them our
present form of production and exchange has been practically
the same throughout the ages, and society at all times may be
measured by the same standard. The difference, according to
them, is in size only, not in kind or degree. This is the exact
sreverse of the truth, though doubtless our whole civilization is
the result • of one long, continuous development, and portions of
■ our present growth may be traced into remote antiquity, side
�OF ENGLAND.
23
by side with very different social conditions—just as our great
machine-industries are contemporaneous with the miserableAustralian nomad, the American Red Indian, with village
communities in Asia, or feudalism in Japan. Historically
viewed, nevertheless, our existing system differs fundamentally
from any which has gone before.
England, for instance, during the Middle Ages presented a
very different appearance from the England which now we see..
That age of chivalry about which Burke grew so eloquent,.,
when it served his turn to denounce the principles he had
previously championed, formed a strange contrast to oursociety of to-day. But in no respect was the contrast greater
than in the manner in which what was needed for the purposes
of every-day life was produced and exchanged. The relationsbetween the various grades in that feudal society and theindividuals who composed them were purely personal. Pay
ments were made in kind, service was rendered on one side or
the other in accordance with personal obligation ; production
was carried on, in the first instance, at any rate, for individual,
use. A certain proportion of the crops was surrendered by the
agriculturists, not as rent, but as dues; not as a rate, but as a
tithe to be applied to purposes and arrangements which were
well understood by both parties. The nobles owed the same
allegiance to their superior, or monarch, that their own peopleowed to them. There were plenty of grievances, and we had
risings in England similar to those of the Jacquerie in France,,
though hitherto our historians have been at little pains to
work out the true character and details of these movements.
In the fifteenth century villenage and serfdom had come toan end, and the soil of England was in the hands of the
people themselves, subject only to the recognized dues orregular service in the field. The nobles were no more owners
of the land than the people or the monarch. Each class had).
�^4
THE SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION
its rights, subject to the performance of certain duties, which
were, as already said, purely of a personal character. At this
time the instruments of agricultural labor or of manufacture
were poor and rude, suited to the wants of the isolated
workers. The yeomen and life-holders produced for the needs
of their wives, children, families, and hinds. Those hinds
were themselves possessed of plots of ground. Day-laborers
formed a small, an unimportant, part of the population. The
cattle, sheep, pigs, geese, etc., all that made up the agricul
turist’s wealth, represented to him not goods which we should
sell and make a profit from, but actual substance which enabled
him and his to live in comfort or in rude luxury. The women,
the wife, the daughters, the hand-maidens, spun the wool of
the farm, or attempted rude embroidery in the same way for
.use or personal adornment; exchange was not thought of
until the wants of those around were satisfied, and only the
superfluity was actually brought to market. Everybody, or
almost everybody, in the poorer class owned his own means
of production, and the spinning-wheel of the matron, the
potter’s wheel, the rough smithy, the still rougher cobbler’s
shop, formed the manufacturing portion of this rural com
munity. Production for general exchange was almost un. known, each neighbourhood supplying most of its own wants.
In the towns exchange had already become more common,
but it was in no sense an exclusive business here as it had
. already become in Venice or Genoa, where also the first
. modern manufacture in its more extended sense found a footing.
This happy state of things for the many—happy it was
. according to old chroniclers—could not be of long duration.
. Already business for profit had obtained a footing, and goods
were being produced with a view to their exchange. The
middle-class had begun to gain ground, and soon became
- strong enough to obtain those laws against laborers some of
�OF ENGLAND.
25'
which have lasted to our own day. Meanwhile, the Wars of
the Roses impoverished the nobility, leading them not only to
discharge their retainers, but also to uproot from the soil those
who had a better right to it than they, in order that wool
might be grown for the increasing Flanders market. Through
out the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the process of
tearing off the hold of Englishmen from their own land went
on, while the needy peasants who were thus turned loose on
to the highways were forced by law into the control of themiddle-class, now possessed of the means of production and'
developing the system of small workshop manufacture. From
this to the preponderance of the capitalist farmer, growing
crops and cattle for profit on the land, and of the capitalist
over the whole domain of production and exchange, was an
inevitable transition. The landlord lost all sense of personal
connection with his people or their lands. He became merely
a sleeping partner with the farmer, the coal capitalist, the'
factory-owner in the exploitation of the agricultural laborer,
the miner, the factory-hand. Thenceforward the capitalist
has been the master of our modern society, production has
been carried on solely with a view to profit by exchange, the
workers have been regarded simply as ‘‘hands,” to be used to
the greatest possible extent for the enrichment of the capita
list. He, therefore, who, in England at any rate, strikes
merely at the landlords or the land monopolists tilts at wind
*
mills.
The private ownership of land was as inevitable a.
* In Ireland, of course, circumstances are different. There the
landlord has in most cases rack-rented the cotters direct. But peasant
proprietary under present conditions would only strengthen the gom
been men and small money-lenders. All over Europe and in India the
money-lender, in the shape of the Jew, the Soucar or the mortgage
bank is pressing upon the agriculturist. Even where the land is
“nationalized,” as over the greater part of India, the same blood
sucking capitalism goes on. The crops are mortgaged instead of the-
�26
THE SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION
portion of the evolution as the private ownership of the other
means of production up to a^d including the most complete
improved machinery, whether for agriculture or manufacture.
Control capital, and landlordism falls of itself; break down
landlordism, capital may be yet more powerful.
The effect of this development has necessarily been to
render the workers more and more the slaves of their own
production. First came the cooperative workshop where the
individual workman did his bit in forming a complete article,
only useful according to the social conditions of the times
when put together. This is the system which Adam Smith
has so glorified, though its result manifestly is to make the
worker “ a portion of a machine of which the parts are men.”
The employer sat by and took the product of the labor, for
which he paid only a small proportion of its real social value.
Here, at once, was a complete change of method. In place
-of the isolated worker owning his own means of production,
and owning also the product when complete, we have the
socialized worker who owns nothing but his bare force of labor
which is used in concert with others ; the entire product
belonging to the employer. As the cooperation extended
machines came in. These, too, naturally passed into the
possession of the capitalist. Steam motive-power followed
the same direction
*
The workers now no longer serve or
help one another as individuals; they themselves simply serve
land. Thus, as I say, nationalization of the land can only bs useful
to the people as a portion of a complete collective system of pro
duction which will include capital, communication, credit, and
machinery.
• The history of the extraordinary industrial development of Eng
land, from Hargreaves’ invention of the spinning jenny in 1764 on
wards, has to be yet fully written. Its effect upon the physical con
dition of the working classes may be studied in the terrible evidence
and reports of the various commissions as well as in those of the health
officers and factory inspectors.
�OF ENGLAND.
27
the machine through which they embody their force of labor’
in the commodity produced.
Now suppose a new machine invented which lessens theamount of labor, and therefore cheapens the goods. How'
does it work under our present system. The capitalist com
petes by reducing prices. His object is to undersell his fellows
as quickly as possible, but always at a profit to himself. Tcp
do this he must get a wider market and sell cheap too. Con
sequently goods are produced at high pressure until there
comes a glut, and the industrial army of reserve is increased
by the forced idleness of men who cannot sell their labor, owingto the introduction of new machines and the refusal of capital
to produce except at a profit. But there can be no profit
where there is a glut. Thence an industrial crisis, owing tothe fact that the socialized method of production revolts against
the individual system of exchange, to the injury of all.
“ Then follows a partial recognition of the social character
of production by the capitalists themselves; the great engines
of production, and the great highways of the country are taken
possession of, first by companies with many shareholders, then
by the State.” *
Thus, as the feudal nobility lost power by the very methodsthey used to strengthen and enrich themselves, so the middle
class is being in turn displaced by salaried officials, and in the
next stage of the organization of production will themselves be
useless.
What a waste of strength, then, it is for the workers tn
expend their funds in maintaining men on strike for higher
wages. Why, it is the wages system itself that crushes them,
and never will they, as a class, know what true freedom and
real independence are until they break it down. Let the
workers spend what money they can afford in obtaining control
* F. Engels.
�'28
THE SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION
•of political power for their class, and use this power, when
obtained, to take possession of the entire means of production.
This would benefit, not themselves alone, but even the idlers
and the vicious who now live upon their labor.
Can anything possibly be worse than the existing system ?
We have seen its effects upon the workers in the country
'where capital has most power. For them any change must be
beneficial. Necessary as this stage may be in the process of
human development, capital contrives to exact more labor,
..and to brutify the lowest grades of the population more com
pletely than any method of forced work known. But what is
the result to the soil, to our cities, to our general surroundings ?
England is now supplied with food and raw material from
•other countries; draws from them interest on capital lent. In
America wheat centre after wheat centre is worked to sterility
while we sweep the phosphates down into the sea which might
■fertilize our impoverished lands. In Australia the like process
is going on, to the permanent injury of the Continent. In
India—but the ruin of India by our capitalist system is an
.awful lesson by itself. Meanwhile, everywhere forests which
perhaps can never be replaced are cut down for fuel, for
sleepers, for timbering mines, regardless of the mischief
wrought to the climate and the next generation. Everywhere
the same rampant individualism, utterly indifferent to the
general good; everywhere the same furious greed for gain,
reckless of what may befall. And what of our cities ? Men
of artistic training see no hope of great art under our present
.social arrangements. Such a man as William Morris, the poet,
is driven to look below for some remedy for the hideousness
thrust upon him, as democrats are driven to look below for the
means of overthrowing the social miseries due to our system of
production. Monstrous factories and squalid hovels, blank, fea
tureless houses, and ghastly advertisements, elevated railroads
�OF ENGLAND.
29
and a net-work of telegraph, poles, such are the decorations of
our cities; one long vista of almost irredeemable ugliness, in
which each can vie with his neighbor in parading his indivi
duality in order that he may sell at a profit. Scamped build
ings, adulteration in every form, cheapness and nastiness and
ugliness in every direction.
*
And all for what ? All in order
that the few may live in luxury and the many exist as we
know. The loss to society by the mere cramping of human
intelligence cannot be estimated. What sense of beauty,
what exquisite artistic faculties, what power of invention may
not lie dormant in millions who may now have not a moment
left free from grinding and degrading toil ? The greatest dis
coveries and the noblest inventions have never been made for
gain. A Faraday, a Simpson, a Newton scorns to trade upon
the welfare of the mass of mankind. How many a great idea,
turned to account in hard cash by the capitalist, has been, as
it is, stolen from the poor enthusiast who worked for some
thing higher than mere greed.
* “ Why are cotton, potatoes, and gin the pivots of bourgeois so
ciety ? Because they need least labor to provide them, and they are
consequently at the lowest price.
“ Why does the minimum price decide the maximum consumption ?
Is it because of the absolute utility of these articles, of their intrinsic
utility, of their utility so far as they answer in the most useful manner
to the needs of the workman as man, and not of the man as workman ?
No, it is because, in a society founded on misery, the most miserable
products have the fatal prerogative of serving for the use of the greatest
number.
“ To say now that because things the least costly are most used
therefore they must be of greatest utility, is to state that the wide
spread use of gin, in consequence of the small cost of production, is the
-conclusive proof of its usefulness; it is to declare the potato to be as
nourishing to the working classes as meat; it is to accept the existing
state of things.
“ In the society of the future, when the antagonism of classes has
ceased, when there are no more classes, use will no longer be deter
mined by the minimum time of production ; but the time of production
devoted to an article will be determined by its utility.”—Karl Marx,
-Misere de la Philosopliie, p. 41.
�30
THE SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION OF ENGLAND.
But whether we like it or not, whether we try to help it on
or not, whether we shall live to see its victory or not, the
movement of the people goes steadily on all the same.
*
The
antagonism of classes is becoming too serious to be concealed
any longer. In England, where the causes of hostility are
deepest, the attempt at reorganization must first be made.
This is the revolution which, sooner or later, we have all of us
to face. That it may be brought about in a peaceful and
orderly manner every Englishman must hope ; that the domi
nant classes will be wise in time is the best that can be desired
for them. But the time is fast approaching when every man
must take his side, and strive for slavery with the landlord and
the capitalist, or for freedom with the people.
* Vous triompherez des tempetes
Ou notre courage expira ;
C’est en eclatant sur nos tetes
Que la foudre vous eclaira.
Si le Dieu qui vous aime
Crut devoir nous punir
Pour vous sa main resseme
Les champs de l’avenir.
It was this idea of Beranger’s I tried to express at one of our
great anti-coercion meetings in Hyde Park : “ And so, when we, the
small men of our time, pass unregarded to the rest of the tomb, this
holy consolation shall close our eyelids in their never-ending sleep—
that though our names be forgotten our memories will be ever green
in the work that we have done, and the eternal justice we have striven
for.”
��
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
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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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 social reconstruction of England
Creator
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Hyndman, Henry Mayers [1842-1921]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 30 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Reprinted from the "International Review". Includes bibliographical references. Date of publication from KVK.
Publisher
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William Reeves
Date
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[1884?]
Identifier
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T407
Subject
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Socialism
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (The social reconstruction of England), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
politics
Social change
Socialism