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Smithism.
Socialism
AN OPEN
LETTER
FROM
H. M. HYNDMAN,
TO
SAMUEL SMITH,
PRICE
M.P.
TWOPENCE.
{Sold for the Benefit of the Democratic Federation}.
Printed
THE
and
Published
MODERN
at
PRESS,
13 & 14, Paternoster Row, London, E.C.
��SOCIALISM u. SMITHISM.
AN OPEN LETTER
From H. M. HYNDMAN
To SAMUEL
SMITH,
M.P.
Sir,
Pressure of more important matters has prevented
me from answering the two letters which you wrote to
me last summer criticising the manifesto of the Demo
cratic Federation, entitled “ Socialism Made Plain.”
Now that you have published them, however, and they
have been noticed a little in the press, it may be well
that I should point out to you the misstatements and
errors they contain.
You begin, for instance, by directing my attention to
the Eighth clause of the Jewish Decalogue. “ Thou shalt.
not steal” is, you say, one of God’s commandments,
and upon this you base your “ Christian morality.” I
have no objection to that. Only permit me to point out
to you, in turn, that you commence the application of
the commandment a good deal too high up. My view
is that to steal labour is to steal the most valuable of all
property, that which indeed is the basis of all property,
and without which there would be no property at
all for anybody to steal. Sir, I beg you to think
of that when next you are paying the wage-slaves
in your cotton-mill a fraction of the value of the labour
they have expended for the benefit of you and your class.
�4
Possibly it may occur to you at the same time that the
Founder of your faith denounced the landlords and
capitalists of his day far more furiously than I should
think quite polite speaking of them as “ hypocrites who
lay waste widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long
prayers, the same,” Christ said, “shall receive the
greater damnation.” So you see that there are some
“ neighbours ” whom your God does not “ love.” Nor
do I.
I feel, however, that it is a little out of place to bandy
biblical quotations with a Liverpool lawyer. So I will
not touch upon your prophetical account of what would
be the result if our suggestions were put in practice.
Such apocalyptic sketches read a little silly when signed
•“ Samuel Smith.” Rather let us deal with political
economy and figures. I will say in passing^that I am
treating of my own country and its inhabitants. I am
•quite content to know something about, them without
•setting to work to unravel the intricacies of remote and
.ancient Asiatic civilisations altogether beside the ques
tion at issue between us.
We contend then that labour applied {to natural
objects is the source of all wealth. You reply that the
organising brain is quite as necessary as labour, and that
Watt’s great invention of the steam engine “ added more
than a million pair of hands could do to the wealth of
the country.” At this rate Watt and his immediate
descendants should have received all [the] additional
wealth due to the steam engine. But to start with I
deny that Watt individually invented the~steam-engine.
It would equally have been invented at the end of the
eighteenth century if he had never lived, though his
�5
improvements made it available a little more rapidly..
Moreover, he could not even have made those improve
ments but for the existence of skilled workers immedi
ately around him; and these certainly he did not
“ invent ” for they were the result of thousands or
millions of years of human progress. But even admitting
for the sake of argument the truth of your contention—
what then? Who gets the chief benefit of Watt’s in
vention ? Assuredly not the labourers. It is a matter
of fact, which you can verify or not as you choose, that
the mass of the working people of this country were
better off—that is could buy more food and better
raiment in proportion to their wages—during the period
just prior to the application of steam on a large scale
(1720-1775) than they have ever been since. The pro
fits due to the steam-engine have therefore been taken
not by Watt, who, according to you, invented it, nor by
his descendants, who, I presume, should have inherited
it, nor by the workers who helped to perfect it and have
ever since served it, but by the capitalists who have used
it as a machine to grind such profits out of the labour of
their fellow-creatures.
So much for the contention
that steam has so greatly benefited your working country
men.
But you still claim payment for “the organising
brain.” Here again I might fairly urge that if all were
living in comfort and health the organiser, as such,
would have no right to complain if he were paid no
more than his fellow. The Roman organiser, th&villicus,
received a less ration than the slaves whose labour he
organised, precisely because his duty was less exhaust
ing than theirs. Even to-day it is not the direct
�6
organiser, manager, or superintendent who draws such a
vast salary, but the idle capitalists who sit at home
drawing interest and profits. I read with amusement
your pathetic description of “ the anxious careworn ”
capitalists who “have become bankrupt.” Doubtless
you had your noble Liverpool cotton cornerer, Mr.
Morris Ranger, in your mind. Probably he is quite
sound on “ Christian morality ” too ?
Seriously, we know something of what the profits of
the Lancashire cotton trade have been since the beginning
of the present century, and how they have been ground
out of the very life-blood of women and little children. It
is rather late in the day, Sir, for you to put forward such
men as the Lancashire cotton-lords and Liverpool
cotton-brokers as self-sacrificing lovers of the human
race, as “anxious careworn” philanthropists nobly
taking a trifling percentage in order to provide three
millions of their country-people with bread. No, no, my
dear Sir ; good, worthy Christian man as you are, law
yer, Member of Parliament, philanthropist, cotton
spinner, social reformer, and the rest of it, your own
original business shoud have taught you the danger of
proving just a trifle too much.
Turn to the Report of the Inspector of Factories for
the year 1875, and there read how the wage-slaves of
Lancashire still fare under the system of production for
the profit of capitalists.
I note that you are a Malthusian—a truly Christian
doctrine that by the way. I have dealt fully with the
familiar fallacy of Malthus in my book on “ The
Historical Basis of Socialism in England,” just published
by Messrs. Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., so I will not
�expose it further here. I will only observe that in.
England the’power of man over nature increases at a
far greater rate than any possible increase of population.
There are too many idlers—including, saving your pre
sence, “ lawyers, parsons, shopkeepers, landlords,
capitalists, innkeepers, publicans, Members of Parlia
ment, members of the army and navy, &c.”—not too
many workers in this England of ours. Ireland—but I
am really amazed. Are you not the Samuel Smith,
Liberal M.P. for the city of Liverpool ? Are you
not a firm supporter of this “ Liberal ” Government ?
And yet you can see nothing but over-population in
Ireland.' How odd 1 Famine in Ireland, Sir, is due to
landlord robbery taking the food from the people in the
shape of rack-rent; as misery and starvation in England
are due to capitalist and landlord robbery taking the
labour, which means the food, from the people in the
shape of rent and profits. Why, Sir, your party founded
their Irish Land Bill on this very contention. And you
don’t know it !
Let me make our general position a little plainer.
Owing to the fact that the means of production, the
land, the capital, the machinery and the credit are in
the hands of the upper and middle classes, the workers
who have no property whatever beyond their mere
labour-force, are obliged to sell that labour-force as a
simple commodity, and therefore to sell themselves as
wage-slaves in return for a bare subsistence. They give
back however the value of their wages to the employing
class in the first quarter of their day’s work. Thus, by
means of monopoly and economical oppression enforced
by the State, which the upper and middle classes own
�8
and control, the workers are legally robbed of threefourths of the labour-value they produce. This threefourths, called economically surplus value, feeds fat
those who chant aloud every Sunday “ Thou shalt not
not steal,” after having done a good six days’ thieving
in the week. They hold on tight to the labour-value
they have robbed, and denounce as scoundrels the
meddlesome moralists who will cry “ Stop thief! ”
I would remark, in reference to the last clause in your
letter, that we do not propose to “ divide ” the land.
This, if you had known anything of modern social and
political economy, you would have seen beforehand.
Our proposal is to put in the first place heavy cumulative
taxation on all rents as on all other incomes, and having
thus gradually expropriated the landlords and capitalists,
to work the railways, the shipping, the factories, and
the land in the most skilful fashion on a large scale with
the most improved machinery under a Democratic State
or Communal management. In this way only will the
infamous confiscation of labour which goes on under our
present competitive system be put a stop to. Produc
tion being now a social business exchange must be a
social business too.
So much for Letter I. Now for Letter II. and its
figures. Your jaunt to Whitehall Gardens seems to me
to have been bootless. Mr. Robert Giffen has “ let
you in,” as he has let in many an unwary Member of
Parliament before you. Statistics don’t always mean
exactly the same to our dexterous manipulator of the
Statistical Department of the Board of Trade, as anyone
who has watched his career is very well aware. I fancy
Mr. Giffen had a little private chuckle as you went
�9
jubilantly down the staircase and set to work there and
then to make ready his Anti-Socialist address for the
Statistical Society. That address to the Statistical
Society you have, I daresay, read and rejoiced over.
Five years ago, however, Mr. Robert Giffen, who was
then deeply concerned to show how enormously capital
was growing in this country—there is a sort of fascina
tion for some minds in the contemplation of gigantic and
successful robbery—Mr. Robert Giffen, I say, then
showed that the working classes (that is to say, the
producing classes and those engaged in distribution as
wage-earners apart from profit) received only
^338,700,000 a year out of a total income of
^1,200,000,000. Mr. Giffen still puts the income at
£1,200,000,000 a year. I put it at ^1,300,000,000
but I am content to take the smaller figure without any
detriment to my argument. Out of either income I say
that the workers get now only ^300,000,000. My
reasons for giving these figures as the share which the
producers receive are, (1) that of late years the average
wages of the working classes have certainly decreased ;
(2) that in 1868 the late Mr. Dudley Baxter—quite as
competent a statist as Mr. Giffen—put them at
^257,000,000 ; (3) that five or six years ago Mr. Giffen
himself put them at ^338,700,000 as already stated ;
(4) that a most careful survey which I myself have
made of the different trades and the average wages of
the workers in them brings me to the conclusion that
/"3oo,ooo,ooo is not an understatement at the present
time. The total you give would include not merely the
wages of producers but of domestic servants, of the
army and navy, and of a whole army of hangers-on of
�IO
the profit-making classes. Even the Economist considers
Mr. Robert Giffen’s recent estimate of ^620,000,000 a
flagrant example of statistical fudging. Besides, if
we were to assume that the working classes earn
what you say they do, viz.: £500,000,000 a year,
or ^200,000,000 a year more than they actually
take, you have still omitted a most important
element in the problem. That is, how much do the
workers refund out of their scanty wages to the
capitalist class in the shape of rent for houses
whose entire value has already been paid for two or
three or in some cases twenty times over ? How much
do they refund in the shape of profit on retail articles
and adulterated wares ? The average amount paid by
the workers as rent for bad and insufficient lodging
alone amounts to from one-fifth to one-third of their
weekly wages. Sir, our figures are quite correct, and
even Mr. Giffen’s recent paper, stripped of its^optimistic
veneer and boiled down to bare-facts, proves that they
are so. You will observe that in spite of what he wrote
or said to you he puts the incomes over ^150 a year at
just ^"600,000,000 a year, as I did, or ^575,000,000. But
in the face of this Mr. Giffen states that there is
no spare capital to divide with the workers nor
has there ever been; in fact the capitalist class
could not possibly carry on at all with less than
they .receive. Statists, like another imaginative set
of people, should cultivate a good memory.
In
1878 this very man, Mr. Robert Giffen, the Head
of the Statistical Department of the Board of Trade,
the owner and principal writer for the Statist
newspaper, a frequent contributor to the Times, &c., &c.,
�II
proved conclusively that the capital of this country,
apart from ordinary profits, interest, rents, &c., was
actually increasing at the rate of ^250,000,000 each year—
more than three-fourths of the total amount received by
the producers in wages.
*
The total increase of capital
in England between 1865 and 1875 was, he averred,
certainly not less than ^2,500,000,000 ; do read the
amount, Sir—two thousand five hundred millions ster
ling in ten years. On this point also compare Mr.
Mulhall whom you quote as an authority.
Poor “ anxious, careworn ” capitalists, humane 2 per
cent, philanthropists, how heavy those ill-gotten gains
must have lain in their breeches pockets ! Made out of
the labour of others, Mr. Samuel Smith, every penny of
it, many of whom are now rotting in the pauper grave
* After the publication of Mr. Giffen’s address in the Times, I
wrote a letter to the Editor of that journal pointing out that Mr.
Giffen had greatly changed his views as to the share taken by
capital since 1878, and that according to the figures which he then
gave, and those which he now put forward, the amount of wages
received by the working-class had increased nearly ^300,000,000—
from 7^338,700,000 to ^620,000,000—during five years of general
depression of trade. This letter was printed, and drew from Mr.
Giffen the reply that my statement was utterly untrue ; that he had
never made any estimate of the income of the working-classes, or of
any other class, until the date of that address to the Statistical
Society ; and that he could not imagine where I got my figures
from. Mr. Giffen added that he only “ assumed ” the total income
in 1878 at ^1,200,000,000.
This, although he had stated to
Mr. Samuel Smith, M.P. a few months since that he had arrived
at the very figures “by adding together the incomes of every
person in the country.”
I could only rejoin that the simple
processes of addition and subtraction applied to the figures set
forth by Mr. Giffen five or six years ago, gives the result of which
he complained. And I asked how a Statist of his studies and
reputation could declare authoritatively that capital was increasing
at the rate of ^250,000,000 a year, unless he had made some such
computation ? Up to the moment of writing the Times has not
printed my letter. I am obliged therefore to give this explanation
here, and to ask doubters to turn to Mr. Giffen’s own calculations
.as the best possible refutation of himself.
�12
yard before their time by reason of this robbery. Where
do God and Christ and the eighth commandment come
in ? Pray give us a few texts. Better still, perhaps,,
reprint for us the list of millionaires from the middle
class Spectator, and spread broadcast a copy of Lord'
Overstone’s will.
You argue in places as if we Socialists wished to main
tain the present form of society subject to taking the
property of the upper and middle classes—as if compet
ition would still go on, and wages being high the
population of the whole earth would flock hither. When
we see them coming we shall make preparations for
their reception, take my word for that. But we know
well that they will follow our example and deal with,
their own oppressors on the spot.
In the meantime,
we are striving to overthrow our present society, not out
of sheer malignity and eternal “ cussedness,” as you.
suppose, but in order to substitute State co-operation
and organisation of labour in all departments for that
competition for gain above, and competition for bare
subsistence wages below which bring about such terrible
results. We hold also that all class distinctions must
inevitably be abolished. Even as it is, though but one
fourth of the people are engaged in useful production,,
and they not to the best advantage, there is enough and
to spare for all to live in comfort if the wealth created
were equitably shared. At present the introduction of
improved machinery is absolutely kept back by cheap
labour and overwork of men, women, and children. A
man, a woman, or a child costs less food, that is lessfodder or fuel, than a horse, a mule, or an engine. Such
a state of things for the mass of the people as now exists-
�13
we call anarchy—you call it order. You say gin drives
to misery: we say nine times out of ten misery drives
to gin. All the wretchedness and grinding competition
you speak of at pp, io and n of your pamphlet are
due to the system which you champion—the system,
namely, of monopoly and luxury for the few, of bare
subsistence wages, overwork, and drudgery for the
many.
They will be changed when that system is
■changed, and not till then. Production for profit means
moral degradation not for one class alone but for all. I
hope for a revolution, I strive for a revolution—peaceful
if possible, forcible if need be. Re-organisation in some
shape is essential, for nothing can be worse for the workers
than the existing state of things. Under a system where
all should work none would be deprived of wholesome
leisure, and healthy enjoyment of natural beauty. There
is no lack of room for workers, but drones and robbers
have had their day.
You say that I am guilty of misstatement about the
number of landowners, and you refer me to that monsstrous fraud, the so-called “ New Doomsday Book ” of
1872. Surely you must be aware that the “ Financial
' Reform Almanack” long since showed that the
number of landowners in that bogus return is deliberately
multiplied over and over again. Walk down from your
office to 50, Lord Street, oh statistical member for the
city of Liverpool, and purchase for yourself, by the aid
of one shilling, a copy of that most valuable compilation.
By the way, 8,000 landowners pocket ^35,000,000 a year
in rents. I have no special animosity against landowners
myself for they are, economically speaking, mere
hangers-on of the capitalists; but you are a Social
�14
Reformer—not a Socialist, I’ll never accuse you of that
again, believe me—so I should like to know whether you
approve of that “ division ” of property?
The point,
however, we are at is the number of landowners.
I
don’t think, after your visit to Lord Street, you will
quote that Blue Book of 1872 again where I am likely
to hear of your doing so. 30,000 landowners over against
30,000,000 of people is still quite near enough to the
facts for me.
Those who hold building plots, though
far fewer than you state, would gain infinitely more by
securing the full fruits of their labour than they would
lose under a socialist system by what they themselves
might see fit to vote for the service of the state, As to
the present condition of the land owing to bad seasons,
American competition, and above all bad land-laws, I
am perfectly advised.
I am also aware that Lord
Leicester, Sir John Lawes, Sir James Caird, and my
friend, Mr. J. Boyd Kinnear, all estimate that under a
proper system of cultivation the land of Great Britain
would produce profitably more than twice what it pro
duces at present.
In conclusion I would recommend you to clear your
mind of cant—Christian, capitalistic, or other cant—and
to view these matters without bigotry and without pre
judice. You evidently take the Bible in one hand and
bourgeois economy in the other, and mix them carefully
ip the interest of the possessing classes. “ He that hath
let him grab more.” That is the sum and substance of
your philosophy—social, economical, political, and
religious. The class which provides the “ more ” begins
to understand where wealth comes from, and in spite of
all your rhetoric about Nihilism, Communism, and so
�I5
forth, they protest against the confiscation, the neverceasing confiscation of labour which goes on at their
expense. Ere long you will hear from them, in no gentle
tones, the repetition of that commandment with which
you began your letter, and I end mine :—“ Thou shalt
NOT STEAL !”
I am, Sir,
Your most obedient, humble servant,
London, November 2^th, 1883.
H. M. HYNDMAN.
To Samuel Smith, Esq., M.P., &c., &c.,
Liverpool.
�Printed and Published at the Modern Press
13 & 14, Paternoster Row, London, E.C.
�
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Socialism versus Smithism : an open letter from H. M. Hyndman to Samuel Smith, M. P.
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Hyndman, Henry Mayers [1842-1921]
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 15, [1] p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Sold for the benefit of the Democratic Foundation. End of text dated, London, November 24th, 1883.
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T464
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Socialism
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Politics-Britain
Samuel Smith
Socialism