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is SOCIALISM SOUND?
VERBATIM REPORT
OF
A FOUR NIGHTS’ DEBATE
BETWEEN
ANNIE BESANT and 6. I. FOOTE,
AT THE
HALL OF SCIENCE, OLD ST., LONDON, E.C.
On February ‘ nd, 9th, 16th, and 23rd, 1887.
I
REVISED BY BOTH DISPUTANTS.
LONDON:
FREETHOUGHT
PUBLISHING COMPANY,
63, FLEET STREET, E.C.
1 8 8 7.
�LONDON :
PRINTED BY ANNIE 3ESANT AND CHARLES ERADLAUGH,
63, FLEET STREET, E.C.
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
FIRST NIGHT.
William Morris in the Chair.
The Chairman : Ladies and gentlemen, we are met here
to-night to open an extremely interesting discussion on
what, I think, you will probably all agree with me is in
point of fact the question of the day—(cheers)—the question
which practically includes all questions, whether you call
them politics or whether you do not. And it is, further,
made more interesting by the fact that both the debaters
are skilled and practised debaters with very great talent;
and I think I may be perfectly certain that the subject
will be treated in a thoroughly serious and satisfactory
manner. As chairman, before such a debate it is clearly
my business to say as little as I possibly can; and I will
only add that the subject is so very interesting that it may
jperhaps make some rather excited at what goes on. I
hope therefore that we shall all remember that we came
here to hear the two debaters; and if we have to give
voice to our feelings on any occasion we shall do so at the
end of sentences, so as to interfere as little as possible with
the debaters’ arguments. (Hear, hear.) I have only now
to tell you the conditions under which the debate is to take
place. Annie Besant will open the debate and speak for
half an hour. Mr. Foote will then speak for half an hour.And after that Annie Besant will speak for a quarter of an
hour and Mr. Foote for a quarter of an hour, and so each
debater will have two quarters of an hour, and that will,
conclude the debate of this evening. I will now call upon
Annie Besant to open the debate on “Is Socialism Sound?”.'
.(Cheers.)
B2
�4
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
Annie Besant : Friends; in taking the affirmative of'
the question, 4‘Is Socialism Sound?”, I propose to divide
into two parts that portion of the debate which falls under
my conduct. I propose to-night to deal with the economic
basis of Socialism, and to try to show that that is sound.
I propose on this night fortnight to deal with the historical
evolution of Socialism, and to try to show that it is a ne
cessary result of the evolution of the past. In the othertwo nights of the debate it will be my duty to follow Mr.
Foote—the duty of leading it falling upon him. And I
must at the very outset ask you to bear with me duringmy first speech, in that it will be necessary to put with
extreme terseness the arguments which I must lay beforeyou. Any argument stating the economic case for Socialism,
compressed into half an hour must necessarily be very
inadequate, and I can only give you a rough outline,,
leaving you to elaborate the details for yourselves. (Hear,
hear.) And I will commence by asking you to distinguish,
in thought between that form of Socialism which has been
described as Utopian, which is thought out by the student
in seclusion, and which gives a complete scheme full of'
elaborate details on every possible point—a scheme which,
it is proposed to impose from without upon society. That
is not the form of Socialism that I defend here to-night.
Over against that is the more modern form of Socialism
which has been described as scientific Socialism, and that
form of Socialism, in common with every system that can
fairly be called scientific, is an attempt to go to the root of'
the matter; to try to understand thoroughly the causes of
the effects that we see around us; to trace back—just as a
geographer may trace a river to its source—to their real
source certain facts that we find in the society around
Us. The chief fact it deals with is the fact of poverty. It
strives to trace back poverty to its source, and having, as
ft believes, done that—having found out the cause of
poverty in modern society—scientific Socialism lays down
a fresh economic basis for society; and then, assertingthat new principle as basis, it believes that from it there
will gradually be developed a healthy social organism, not
produced from without, but growing from within, by the
action of the natural social and economic forces which are
at work in society itself. (Cheers.) And this distinction is
not invented by myself for the purposes of this debate. I will
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
5
•take Emile de Laveleye, a writer who is not a Socialist,
.although I might refer to a Socialist like Engels, who was,
I believe, the first to state this distinction clearly. ■■Writingon Socialism in the Contemporary Review, April, 1883,
Emile de Laveleye pointed out the extreme difference be
tween modern Socialism and the earlier forms in which
Socialism presented itself. He said: “Ricardo, Mill, in
fact all the representatives of orthodox science, show that
with free competition, in a country where both the popu
lation and the wealth are on the increase, the revenues of
proprietors will also steadily increase, while wages will
fall to what is strictly necessary............ Political economy
has thus furnished Socialism with a scientific basis, and
has been the means of its quitting the region of Com
munistic aspirations and Utopian schemes.” And
M. de Laveleye warns these who are against Socialism
that they must beware of “ mixing up this system
with Communistic Utopias ”. I submit that Socialism
is no longer a dream. It is a reasoned scheme
based on political economy. It proposes to change
our economic basis. It proposes to do this by rational
-and thoughtful argument, convincing the brain of man.
And those who do not appreciate this change of
position—those who merely go round the outside of the
•question, who take the old schemes and deal only with
matters of detail on every point—such have not grasped
the real centre of the question; they are simply beating
the air, and never touch the chief point with which we are
-concerned. (Cheers.) Now, many definitions of Socialism
have been given, and they cover a large amount of ground.
You may start from the wide definition of Proudhon,
“ Every aspiration for the amelioration of society is
Socialism”, but that is somewhat too general to serve as
a practical definition. It is very possible that various
definitions may be advanced by Mr. Eoote, and it will then
be my duty to deal with them as he puts them forward ;
but so far as I am concerned to-night, I lay down one
principle as the differentia of Socialism, as that on which
•every Socialist is agreed—that which I maintain is the
economic basis of Socialism; and I allege that Socialism
. is the theory which declares that there shall be no private
property in the materials which are necessary for the provduction of wealth. "Whatever your Socialistic school—let
�6
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
it be Anarchist or Communist, let it be Collectivist, Evolu
tionary or E evolutionary, or both, you will nowhere find a
Socialism which will disagree with that fundamental
statement, or which will not proclaim, as the basis of all
proposed changes, the destruction of private property in
the materials which are necessary for the production of
wealth. (Cheers.) The next question arises as to what
we mean by these “materials ”. And I propose to divide
them under two heads, practically following the usual
divisions of political economy, although using phrases to
describe them which are not those of the ordinary economic
books. I describe as raw material everything which the
political economist describes as land—that which Mill said
“no man made”, including, of course, in that raw material,
ah ore and minerals, and other natural material for the
production of wealth, so long as it has been untouched by
man. The whole of that will come under my definition of
raw material. And I put over against that the material
upon which human labor has been employed, and I class
the whole of that together as wrought material. That will
include of course what is generally known as “capital” ;
as “ means of production ”; or as “ instruments of produc
tion ”. And I take every case in which raw material has
been transformed by human labor into wrought material as
the second division of the materials for the production of
wealth with which we have to deal to-night. Now every
Socialist claims all this as common property. He declares
of raw material plus wrought material—that the claim to
make that common property differentiates the Socialist
from every non-Socialist school. He alleges that the
essential difference—which is what we want to get at hereto-night—the essential difference between Socialism and
Individualism is that the Socialist says that these materials
ought to be public property, whereas Individualism declares
that they ought to be private property; and between these
two logical and opposite schools you will find a number of
schools under different names which tend more or less in
one direction or in the other. Some only claim raw material
as common property, and would leave the wrought as
individual property. But I assert to you that everyone
who claims these, or part of these, as common property has
begun with Socialism, and is bound by logic to go on step
by step until the whole becomes public property. I allege
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
7
that land nationalisation is essentially a Socialistic plan;
and here again, instead of putting it on my own authority,
I fall back once more on M. de Laveleye, quoting from his
article on “The European Terror” in the Fortnightly
Review of April, 1883, I find him, without apparently the
smallest notion that anyone would challenge him, stating:
“ Collectivism may be conceived as more or less completely
applied, according as the State hold only the soil, and this
is the system which is being now so much discussed in
England, under the name of nationalisation of land, or as the
State hold all fixed capital, and in this latter case, all that
is reserved to individuals is the enjoyment of what they
can purchase with the immediate produce of their labor ”.
I take it then that this is the absolute differentia between
the Socialist and the non-Socialist, and it is with respect to
this raw and this wrought material that every Socialist is
a Communist. And I use that word deliberately, because
of the misconception with which it is often regarded in a
country like this. If we take the “ Manifesto of the Com
munists ” put forward by Karl Marx and his friend Fried
rich Engels in 1847, in which he proclaims himself to be a
Communist, and where according to the common view he
would destroy all property and take away all individual
claims, what are Karl Marx’s own words ? They are: “It
has been said of Communists that we wish to destroy
property which is the product of a man’s labor—earned by
his own work; that property which forms the basis of all
personal liberty, activity, and independence—personally
earned, personally acquired property”. But, he goes on
to point out that as capital is a collective product, “ Capi
tal is therefore not a personal factor; it is a social factor.
Therefore when capital is converted into common property
belonging to all members of society, personal property is
not thereby changed into social property.” And he adds :
“ Communism deprives no one of the power to appropriate
social products for his own use; it only deprives him of
the power to subject others’ labor by such appropriation”
(pp. 13, 14, 15, ed. 1886). (Cheers.) Whether or not
you agree with that definition of Marx’s, whether or not
you may carry Communism, as some writers do, very much
farther than Marx has carried it, and may use the word as
negating private property completely, still I submit that if
you are going to argue against Socialism, instead of cari
�8
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
caturing it, you must take the words you attack with the
limitations put upon them by the writers who used the
words, and must distinguish Marx’s Communism from that
of some others. And if you fail to do this, and merely use
it to rouse prejudices in the minds of the ordinary citizen
against the system, and thus mislead the understanding,
you may gain a temporary triumph on the platform, but
you do nothing towards bringing the argument to a satis
factory conclusion. (Cheers.) I pass from that, and the
next point I put for your consideration is this. It is im
possible to separate in practice raw material from wrought
material, so that you can nationalise the one and leave the
other as private property. I have sometimes thought that
the opposition between land and capital which has been so
much dwelt upon by a certain school is really nothing
more than a survival from the mercantile system, in which
capital was regarded merely as money, and the distinction
between land and money being apparently very clear these
two things were taken as fundamentally distinct. I believe
that the view taken of land and capital to-day is very much
colored in the minds of many by that old and discredited
mercantile theory. (Hear, hear.) If raw material is to
be land which “no man made”—which is, as we say,
given by Nature—where are you going to get that in an
old country ? How are you going to find out the so-called
prairie value which persons talk about so readily but under
stand so little? How, in a country like ours, are you
going to find out the economic rent, if you are going to
use the old Ricardian definition and call rent that portion
of the produce which is paid for the use of the original
and indestructible powers of the soil? Take a marsh.
That is raw material which is useless for agricultural
purposes, having, of course, no economic rent. But if
you drain the marsh, it is no longer raw material, for
Turman labor has changed the raw material into wrought
material for the use of man. And I am going to try
to show you presently that you cannot draw any dis
tinction economically between your marsh made into
fertile land by human labor, and your iron which was as
much raw material as the marsh, until by human labor it
was moulded into the machine for the sake of the greater
productive power it would not otherwise have possessed.
(Hear, hear.) What is it that the State is to have if you
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
9
are going to nationalise the land ? Is it to have the rent
of the undrained marsh ? That is nothing. Is it to have
some economic rent ? Then you must extend your Ricar
dian definition to include not only the original and inde
structible powers of the soil, but also the acquired powers
which the soil has gained by the labor of man. If you
only claim for the State the rent of your raw material,
then your whole scheme of land nationalisation becomes
absurd and hopelessly impracticable. (Hear, hear J But
if you are going to claim for the State rents which are
based upon the present differences of the value of the
land—of land which has been made fertile by generations
of laborers—land on which human power has been ex
pended and which in its present condition is the result of
the employment of human energy—then I submit to you
that you are nationalising the rent of wrought material
and not only the rent of raw. And when you have once
done that you have started from the Socialist basis and
you will find yourself unable to distinguish between the
wrought material of the land and the wrought material of
the machine. And now instead of taking this improved—
this wrought—material in the shape of land, I will take it
in the shape of a machine. A man invests money in a
machine and he demands that payment shall be made to
him for the use of that machine. Payment made for the
use of capital is generally termed interest, but I prefer to
term it rent. Using different words for the same thing
tends to confusion of thought, and I want to try to make
our views here to-night clear and not confused. What is
rent ? Payment made for differences of productive power.
What is interest paid for capital but payment made for
•differences of productive power ? It is essentially a form
of rent. There is no difference in principle between the
extended doctrine of the Ricardian rent which makes it
The part of the produce paid to the landlord for the original
plus the acquired powers of the soil—that is for advan
tages of productivity—and the interest which is paid to the
^capitalist also for advantages of productivity, only the ad
vantages are in the form of a machine which produces
more, instead of in the form of the more fertile land
which produces more than the less fertile. I submit
then that such payment—payment of rent for advantages
of fertility, payment of rent for advantages of productive
�10
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
power, that these payments are just and rational payments,
equalising to the laborer the results of his labor, because
by paying rent for an advantage you stand on the same
ground as your brother who does not share that particular
advantage, and the rent is merely the payment you make
for the advantage you have that he does not share, so that
both of you are practically on the same level, receiving for
equal amounts of labor equal results of your toil. (Hear,
hear.) Now, under the Individualistic system these rentsgo to the individual, and they keep up an idle class which
need never work at all, because other persons work for it.
Under Socialism these rents would go to the community,
and the only persons they would support would be the ser
vants of the community who were told off to perform dif
ferent non-productive functions for the benefit of those
whom they serve. (Cheers.) And that is our essential
difference—that is the point on which Mr. Foote must
meet me to-night. (Hear, hear.) I pass to my next point
—that all rent for the material of production should be
paid to the State. Private property in these being de
stroyed, common property, or—if you prefer the word—Communism takes its place. Thus we reach Collectivist
Socialism, the Socialism I am defending to-night. At this
point the question—a perfectly fair one—is asked very
often by our opponents : “ How far will private property
in anything survive the destruction of private property in
the materials for wealth production?”. Now on that
point the Collectivist is completely within his right if ho
says boldly and plainly that no other private property
need be destroyed at all save private property in these
materials for wealth production. Emile de Laveleye puts
fin's very strongly, and shows how Collectivism could
be worked leaving untouched private property in every
thing, saving in that which I have called raw and wrought
materials. There would be nothing against the Socialist
theory in such private property. But it is perhaps as well
to speak perfectly frankly and with absolute straight
forwardness on this point. And I, for one, confess that
realising the enormous change which the acceptance of the
principle of common property in the materials for wealth
production will inevitably work—a change not merely in
society as a whole, but a change which will touch
men’s minds and morals quite as much as it will touch
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
II
their views on economics—I admit freely and frankly that
it is perfectly possible that men who are educated in the
Collectivist system will after a while grudge the enormous
waste of labor which is implied in constantly dividing off'
to each man his exact share; and that private property
will survive just as far as convenience, as desire, as expe
rience keep it alive, and no farther. (Hear, hear.) That
is to say, that it is perfectly possible that—after being
trained in the Collectivist system—that, after realising
some better ideal than the mere scramble which is the con
dition of society at the present time, you will very largely
weaken the desire for what is called private property. That
exaggerated love of private property which has grown
into a disease, a morbid extreme, in many civilised
countries—what does it grow from ? It grows out of the
struggle for existence. It grows out of the fear that you
will not have enough, unless you are always grabbing as
much as you possibly can, to keep you in the time when
you are unable to work. Once let men feel that there is
enough foi' all; once let men feel that there is no neces
sity laid upon them to seize by strength from their brother
lest they, or those nearest to them, should suffer in the
strife; once let the idea spread that co-operation in.
brotherly fashion is a nobler ideal than that of cut-throat
competition, and I believe that you will enormously
weaken the sense of private property. (Cheers.) And,
after all, would it be so much the worse for society if such
a weakening took place ? Is our highest ideal to be that
of a number of pigs at a trough, struggling with each
other, pushing each other aside, for fear the trough should
be too small for every pig’s dinner, and that unless the
strong can push aside the weaker he himself may gohungry ? I cannot help thinking that it is not a very im
possible ideal of society that, instead of that strugglinground the pig-trough, you may rather have human beings
sitting around a board where there is enough for all;
where every man knows that he will have his share;
where he is willing to await his turn, ready to pass what
is wanted by his neighbor; and where the appetite of thediner, rather than the weighing-machine, shall measurethe ration that is given to him. (Great cheering.)
The Chairman: I will now call upon Mr. Foote to
answer.
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
Mr. Gr. W. Foote : One thing to-night gives me exceeding
pleasure, and that is, for the first time in my life, to meet
■a, lady in debate. It shows that whether we are driving
towards Socialism or not, even our individualistic state of
society, rotten as it is said to be, is somehow consistent
with a growing recognition of the natural rights of a sex
which has through history been down-trodden. (Cheers.)
'Therefore I think that, on the whole, the system, in that
very fact, shows that it is not incompatible with progress.
Mrs. Besant is here to-night to advocate another system,
that of Socialism, which she undertakes to show to us is
sound. And to-night she has given us what she calls the
economical basis of Socialism. But I frankly confess,
without in the least intending to be ironical, that I have
heard of nothing in this economical basis which is not a
part of the economical basis of every other system. I
have listened and I have heard nothing—I use the words
without meaning anything invidious—but commonplaces
•of political economy, most of which I am prepared to
admit, although I do not admit with Mrs. Besant the
policy of calling things which, according to present usage,
pass under one name, by some other name in order to suit
an argument or a purpose. It may be convenient to Mrs.
Besant, but it seems to me inconvenient to other people.
Now, bas Mrs. Besant told us what the system of Socialism
she thinks to be sound really is ? (“ Yes ”.) Well, every
one is entitled to his opinion. I think not. Mrs. Besant
has given us one definition of Socialism, which I admit is
perfectly intelligible, and which I am glad to receive ; but
it appears to me that a system like Socialism which claims
to supplant the present system altogether, root and branch
•—which proposes to deal with millions of people and
thousands of millions of capital and land upon an entirely
new foundation—ought to give something more in the
way of explanation than a bald definition covering not
more than two lines of print. Mrs. Besant says that her
system of Socialism is not a Utopian scheme. I have not
the slightest doubt that she thinks so; but I certainly
differ from her. Whenever mankind is fitted for any
particular social system, it will inevitably live in the
midst of that social system. Outward institutions are
merely the expressions of inward thoughts and feelings.
It is quite true that the environment in which a man
�IS SOCIALISE! SOUND ?
1&
lives largely moulds his character; but it is also truethat man’s internal nature acting with and against his
environment — in accordance with the well-known laws
of Biology and civilisation, with which Mrs. Besant is
acquainted—produces that progress which. is recorded on
the pages of universal history. And Individualism has
been the very essence of that progress. Competition algo’
has been the essence of that progress. It is not such an
alarming thing as Mrs. Besant dreams. She has quoted
from Emile de Laveleye—who is not a Socialist, but who,
in my opinion, dreads it too much, because I believe it is
a great deal farther off than he imagines. She quotes from
him to the effect that Socialism will put an end—or. at
least proposes to put an end—to this system of competition
by means of which some are pressed down and others are
elevated. Gronlund—whose book on Socialism is justly
one of the favorites of Socialists, and in some sense
may be called their New Testament, as Karl Marx’s
book may be called their Old Testament — Gronlund,
seeing that competition is essentially indestructible, seeks
to restore it under the new name of emulation. We are
not to compete with each other, but we are to emulate each
other. (Cheers.) In what is the radical distinction ? It
is simply the difference between the concrete object of
desire and the abstract object of desire. If I compete
with my fellows it is for success in business, say.; but if I
emulate, for what is it ? Eor success in procuring public
opinion on my side ; an opinion which we all value more
or less, which some persons value above all things, and
which the foremost in the race of emulation must get, and
all the others to some extent greater or less, exactly as in the
competition for material objects, must lose. (Hear, hear.)
Mrs. Besant was candid enough—and I think it is greatly
to her honor—to admit towards the conclusion of her
speech that it was highly probable that a Collective state of
society would somehow or other result in Communism. I
was glad to hear that, because it saves me a great deal of
trouble. I should otherwise have had to show from the
works of Mr. Bax, Mr. Morris, and others distinguished
in present-day Socialism, what the system would ulti
mately lead to. Now, if you admit that it will ultimately
lead to something, you are bound to consider whether
what it leads to will be agreeable, and for the advance-
�14
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
Dient of man’s moral or intellectual character. Mrs,
Besant thinks Communism would ultimately be a good
thing. But I fancy I have seen somewhere in her
writings—and, if not, she will correct me—that a system
of Communism would mean that the unfit would live at
the expense of the fit. I admit, with Mrs. Besant,
that there are many hard things in Nature. But I did not
make Nature. No Individualist made it, any more than any
Socialist. If I were at the top of a fifty-foot ladder, it would
Be extremely absurd for me to declaim against the laws of
gravitation and then descend in a somersault. (Laughter.)
I should admit that the law of gravitation was a very hard
fact, and come down rung by rung. And so I see in
human nature that the Darwinian law of the struggle for
life in some form or another cannot be abolished. It is
the wisdom of men and women to recognise the fact as
unalterable, as a thing which cannot be changed “by all
the blended powers of earth and heaven ”.
Mrs. Besant says Socialism is intended as a redress for
poverty. What does she mean ? Does she mean that
poverty can, by the adoption of a certain system, be imme
diately changed or removed ? Certainly, if you passed a
law to-morrow that everybody should be entitled to go to
a national workshop and there get what is called productive
work, you would, for a time, be able to feed everybody; but
unless you took into account, unless you carefully con
sidered, unless you carefully provided for, something which
Mrs. Besant has not mentioned to-night, but something
she has been very eloquent about on other occasions,
viz., the law of population, which I think she will
admit with me is inevitable and is a natural fact which
cannot be blinked, then in the course of time you would
not be able to find employment, and this system would
bring on in an exaggerated form the very same poverty
which you wish to remove. (“ Oh!”, and cries of cfissent.)
Mrs. Besant speaks of people being like pigs round a big
trough, some of whom cannot even get their feet in.
(Laughter.) Well, that is the attitude in which pigs
always eat. Now, supposing there be only enough food
for ninety-nine pigs out of a hundred—I merely suppose
it hypothetically—which is preferable in the long run, that
the weak, unfit pig should perish and leave no offspring,
or that a strong one should suffer that fate ? I put the
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
15
case as one of hard fact, whether we like it or not. If
people to-day were content to come under some sensible
adjustment with regard to the population question, neither
Socialism nor Communism would in this economical respect
—although it might in other respects which I shall speak
of next Wednesday night—be fraught with much evil.
.But if a man who is unfit—Mrs. Besant used the word—
and a man who is fit were put on exactly the same level,
and if society insured them the same amount of subsist
ence, what would be the result ? The problem affects
posterity as well as yourselves. We are stewards for
posterity. (Cheers.) We know that the law of heredity
is a scientific truth which cannot be gainsaid. We know
that the unfit, will transmit their characteristic quali
ties of unfitness to their offspring. It is better for the
race that the unfit should not so transmit these qualities,
and if Mrs. Besant removes the law of natural selection,
which provides for the gradual improvement of the race,
.she is bound to provide in her new scheme something
which is adequate to replace it. Why, as a matter of fact,
under the present law—which in some respects is too
Socialistic—boys of fourteen and girls of twelve years of
age can go and get married. Mrs. Besant thinks perhaps
they do not. Mr. Arnold White, who knows as much
about London poverty as any man, gives an analysis of a
hundred and seventy-six cases which were investigated in
Clerkenwell. In eleven cases the wife was fourteen years
■old. In two cases the husband, and in twelve the wife,
were fifteen. In twelve cases the husband, in forty-six the
wife, and in three cases both, were sixteen. Twenty-seven
husbands and forty-eight wives were seventeen when they
began housekeeping, and in thirteen cases both of the
happy pair boasted of that age. Let me give another
statistical fact. In 1884—not so very long ago—14,818 men
married under age in England, and 74,004 married at the
age of twenty-one. And the practice of marriage by men
under age has increased since 1841 from 4’38 per 100 to
7’25 in 1884. Now, is it any wonder if this causes a
frightful deterioration ? If boys and girls rush into mar
riage at a time when they are utterly unfit economically to
support their offspring ; and if those who marry at a later
age are—as Mrs. Besant knows full well—grossly impru
dent in the number of their offspring, is it any wonder
�16
IS SOCIALISM SOUXD ?
that the trough should be over-swarmed ? And is it any
wonder that some should be turned away through the
operation of a natural law which can no more be defeated
than the Alps can be removed. (Cheers.)
Mrs. Besant says that she would not only nationalise land,
but also wrought material. And then she subsequently told
us there was no distinction in a country like ours between
land and wrought material. Is it a fact that the nationali
sation of the land is Socialistic ? Does it in any way
involve that wide regulation of human affairs which the
confiscation and seizure of all capital would entail ? It
does not. Suppose the land were nationalised to-morrow,
rent would necessarily be paid still. Rent cannot be
abolished. It is the difference between rich and poor land
and good and bad convenience of site. No man could
claim a plot of rich land for the same value as another man
paid for a similar plot of poor land. That rent would
have to be paid; but instead of going into the pocket of
a few private individuals who did not assist or co-operate
in making the land, this rent would go into the national
exchequer, and every man would as a citizen become a
part owner of the land which is the gift of Nature to all,
(Cheers.) It is a curious fact that before the present
phase of English Socialism was heard of, and long before
its chief advocates appeared in the field, the nationalisation
of the land was advocated by Mr. Herbert Spencer, the
protagonist of Individualism. In his “ Social Statics”,
published so far back, I think, as 1850, he argued that
the equal right of all to access to nature, and to the
exercise of their faculties in the gratification of their
wants, logically led to the State-ownership of the soil.
“ Equity,” he wrote, “ does not permit property in land.
Eor if one portion of the earth’s surface may justly become
the possession of an individual, and may be held by him
for his sole use and benefit as a thing to which he has an
exclusive right, then other portions of the earth’s surface
may be so held, and eventually the whole of the earth’s
surface may be so held; and our planet may thus lapse
altogether into private hands”. He further argued that
the doctrine of collective ownership of land may be car
ried out “without involving a community of goods”, or
causing “ any serious revolution in existing arrange
ments ”, and he concludes the chapter by saying, “ that
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
17
the theory of the co-heirship of all men to the soil is con
sistent with the highest civilisation; and that, however
difficult it may he to embody the theory in fact, equity
sternly commands it to be done ”. Surely, then, if the
greatest living opponent of State Socialism writes in this
way, it is idle to assert that the nationalisation of the land
is a Socialistic measure. (Cheers.) Sir Henry Maine tells
us that the idea of land being a chattel in the market is
very recent. It is probably not more than two centuries
old. People will probably recur to the collective owner
ship of the soil, which will stand in a different position to
capital. Mrs. Besant says that capital is a social product.
The watch in my pocket is a social product. Mrs. Besant’s
dress is a social product. Everything conceivable is a
social product under a system like ours where the division
of labor obtains. Well, if no social product could come
under private ownership, Mrs. Besant is landed in sheer
Communism—not in the far future—but to-night, accord
ing to the principles which she lays down. What is a
social product ? I want to eliminate the personal element
from the illustration as far as possible. One man with
capital might engage fifty men without capital to work
upon certain raw material, which his capital has provided.
What do they work for ? They produce a manufactured
article, but the essence of the contract on the workman’s
part was not any specific amount of produce, but a cer
tain proportion of his time given for a certain monetary
consideration. At the end of it the workman gets his
stipulated sum, and the capitalist holds the product.
But suppose the product turns out to be a drug in the
market—suppose the product has to be sold without a
profit. The workman will not lose. It was not part
of his contract that he should bear any risk or re
sponsibility. In other words, his fate was not bound up
with the product. He contracted to do certain work at
a certain price, and was paid for it. The product rightly
remained with the person who undertook the responsibility
and risk. Now, if the workman is prepared to undertake
the responsibility and risk, he also can become, in the
fullest sense of the word, a capitalist as well as his employer.
(Cheers and “No”'.) I believe in co-operation as much
as Mrs. Besant. Civilisation is co-operation. We could
not have been in this hall to-night unless we had co-
�'is
is SOCIALISM SOUND ?
operated to produce common results. Division of labor
means co-operation. But Mrs. Besant’s co-operation is
co-operation by law. My co-operation is voluntary co
operation. I distrust law. Mrs. Besant seems to place
implicit reHance on it. She thinks probably in the future,
if the law is made by the many, it will be absolutely just
and wise. I do not think so. The many can be mistaken
as well as the few. The many can go wild for a time as
well as the few. I say that no man ought to be handed
over bound hand and foot to that maj'ority which calls
itself society, but which can never be more than a majority,
large or small. The majority has no right to do every
thing and anything. It has no just power to rule the
minority arbitrarily, leaving them with no power to settle
their fate for themselves. (Cheers.) Mr. John Stuart
Mill thought—and everybody who agrees with Mrs. Besant
must honor him—that the individualistic system would
survive and gradually develop into voluntary co-operation.
Now, supposing Mrs. Besant’s system were established,
one of two things must happen. Either she would have to
seize the whole of the present capital, or she would have
to pay for it. (A voice : “ Seize it! ”.) I should like to
know how this is to be done. Suppose the property of the
country were obtained by either of these means, what
would the Collectivists gain in either case ? They would,
possibly, have the capital. But capital is a very tender
plant, reared with difficulty, and easily killed. It is not,
like the land, indestructible. It has to be continually
renewed. What is at present the value of capital ? Mrs.
Besant speaks as if all the profits of manufacturing
and commercial enterprises were really a return on
capital. That is a fallacy. Capital is worth what it
will fetch in the open market in good security—no more
and no less. The railway companies in England are
getting on the average four per cent. First-rate security
will give you, I think, about three per cent., and that
security is considered practically firm. Now if, in addition
to the capital, a capitalist has to provide himself the
trained capacity, the result consists of three things. First,
the interest on the capital which would be paid by any
other man -who used it; secondly, insurance against risk;
and, thirdly, the cost of direction which, if he did not direct
the concern himself, he would necessarily incur in the
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
19
payment of other persons who did. Under yonr Socialist
system, this cost of direction would still remain. If you
■elect directors, how would you pay them? If you paid
them at the same rate as a day laborer, the probability
is they would do just about as much labor, and just as
valuable labor, as that of day laborers.
(Cries of
dissent.) I say that, of course, without any disrespect
to day laborers. But a man who cannot draw a distinction
between laying bricks and writing “Hamlet”, for instance,
has something yet to learn. (Hear, hear, and applause.)
Now, this direction would have to be paid for; men with
directing capacity would make you pay their price. You
could not help it. Generalship is indispensable. Caesar’s
legions locked up in Gaul were worth nothing until Caesar
came. And so it is with any great commercial enterprise.
Unless you have the directing capacity, the ordinary run
of workers could not possibly work with a profit. You
may see two mills standing side by side in a town like
Oldham. The one will be bankrupt in two years ; and the
other, in the same period, will be paying ten per cent.
What is the cause of the difference ? One is in the hands
of a skilled management, carefully watching the markets and
generally exhibiting sagacity in the conduct of the business;
the other is deficient in this controlling wisdom. If you were
a capitalist, and did not head the enterprise yourself,
choosing the managers and watching personally over every
thing, all you would be entitled to, and all you would obtain,
would be three or four per cent, at the outside which is
the market interest on capital. Then, is this big revolution
worth working for three per cent. ? (Cries of “No, no”,
and “ Yes ”.) I think not.
As a redress for poverty, Socialism would, in my opinion,
wholly fail. All the Socialists, I believe, with one or two
trifling exceptions, consider that the Malthusian theory of
population is a delusion and a snare, a middle-class or upperclass invention. (Hear.) Well, Charles Darwin — the
greatest naturalist of our age—did not think so. One of his
greatest successors, Professor Huxley, does not think so.
And, what is more to the purpose to-night, Mrs. Besant does
not think so. You could not, as human nature is, provide
restraints. H so, I should like it proved. I deny the possi
bility of it. But Individualism is gradually lessening the
pressure of poverty. (“ OhI oh! ”) Nothing is so easy as to
�20
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
confine attention to what has occurred within a few months,
rather than to extend observation over a number of years.
Speak to an old man in any great manufacturing centreand ask him the difference between fifty years ago and
now. Nay, do not go to any old man; go to absolute
statistics which cannot be refuted. I shall show you if Mrs.
Besant questions it, because I have the figures under my
hand, that during the last fifty years the wages of skilled
artisans have nearly doubled; I shall show you that the
wages of unskilled laborers have increased nearly forty or
fifty pei’ cent. I shall show you that the prices of nearly
all commodities have diminished instead of rising. (Cheers,
and “No, no”.) I shall show you that the only twothings that have risen are the prices of meat and rent.
Now, if the profits of the capitalist have increased, they
have increased in the mass, and not in proportion. (A
laugh.) It is very easy to laugh at statistics and BlueBooks. But, if you look at the last Blue Book, with
respect to the Royal Commission on Trade—(laughter)—I
suppose, then, that we are to take not only Socialist argu
ments but Socialist facts—you will find that during the last
fifty years, in the various changes that have taken place,
the condition of the worker has improved, and pauperism
has diminished. When you hear of men being out of
work, it is only a small proportion of them who are out of
work. And as I understand the state of things, I contend
that it is the Individualistic system which is working
such improvements. The fate of the workers lies in their
own hands. (Cheers.) Why wait until you convince
everybody that the millennium is at hand ? Why not begin
with co-operative experiments to-morrow, and gradually
bring society to the truth by experiments which will con
vince, and cease indulging in extravagant schemes and
excited declamation which will do no good whatever?
(Loud applause.)
Annie Besant : Friends, I must ask Socialists who are
present to be good enough for my sake even more than
for their own not to interrupt in the way some are inclined
to do. Your flag to-night is in my hands, and I cannot
keep it unsoiled if you interrupt my opponent. (Hear,
hear.) Mr. Foote has said, and said truly, that Individu
alism has not been incompatible with progress. That istrue; it is a historical fact; and it would be idle to deny
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
21
that in evolving from the more savage and. brutal forms of
society the Individualism through which we have passed, is
tk necessary stage. But I hope to be able to show you
later on that real Individualism that makes for progress
can only be secured by the Socialist. That I am prepared,
to defend this day fortnight. (Cheers.) Then Mr. Foote
said that I was dealing only with the commonplaces of
political economy, and that he had but little trouble in
admitting most of them. But surely he was acute enough
to see that my claim for the whole of the raw and wrought
material included the claim for the whole of the capital of
this country ? So that while at the beginning of his speech
he said that my claim was a mere commonplace, at the
end of his speech he urged you not to take the step I am
striving to induce you to take. (Hear, hear.) Mr. Foote
complains that my definition was not full enough. It
included the whole of the land and all the capital; and
that ought to be full enough. (Laughter, and hear, hear.)
In dealing with the economic basis, and seeing that I care
fully confined myself to the economic aspect of Socialism,
I fail to see what further definition Mr. Foote can require.
He made another statement, however, with which I agree,
when he said that when mankind was fitted for a system
then it is that they will live in that system. That is
exactly why I believe that Socialism is now approaching.
I learn from Emile de Laveleye that the majority of French
workmen in every town are Socialists; that the professors
of nearly every university in Germany and Italy are up
holding Socialism. Even in this country the conception as
to property hitherto held will have to be completely given
up, according to Professor Graham: and I believe Social
ism to be absolutely inevitable, although I try to hasten
its coming by pointing out the advantages that will accrue
from the acceptance of it. (Hear, hear.) Mr. Foote says,
is competition so evil a thing ? And I do not propose to
waste time over the difference between competition and
emulation. Competition is an evil thing under present
■conditions. (Hear, hear.) Competition under Socialism
might possibly not have many evil results. And I will tell
you why. So long as you have your raw and wrought
materials in the hands of a class, then that class can practi
cally fix the remuneration of labor. (Hear, hear.) Upon
that, too, I will not be content with my owa opinion, but
�22
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
will take the authority of Emile de Laveleye, who pointsout that “in every contract he who advances the where
withal to labor, i.e., land and capital, will fix the terms
he chooses; and will, of course, so fix them that
the profits will be at a maximum and the wages at a
minimum”. (Cheers.) Take, too, the declaration of
Cairnes—that there is no possibility of the laboring class,
as a whole, rising out of the position of suffering and
distress in which it is to-day, so long as it continues to be
composed of wage-laborers. When you have your com
petition hampered by absolute proprietorship in the whole
of the materials of wealth production on the one side, and
on the other a proletariat without property—a proletariat
who must get at the land and capital or starve—then your
pretence of free competition is a fraud and a hypocrisy,
for one of the competitors has a clog around his neck
which makes it impossible for him to swim against the
other. (Cheers.) And that is not all. So long as you
have these proprietors and the proletariat, the proletarians
will have to work for the proprietors as well as for them
selves. And the difficulty is that the proprietors can wait,
and the proletarians cannot. The proprietor has got hisland. He can cultivate it himself if the worst comes to
the worst. He has got his capital. He can utilise that if
the worst comes to the worst. And land and capital give
him credit, and that will keep him well-clothed and wellfed for years and years. But the proletarian cannot wait,
for he wants food and can only get it by taking the wages
offered to him. He starves if he waits. And to say that
these parties are equal, and are able to make a fair con
tract, is to fly in the face of every fact of our present
society. (Cheers.) That brings me-—following Mr. Eoote
step by step—to the statement that he remembers a pas
sage of mine in which I stated that Communism would
mean the living of the idle on the industrious. I presumehe was quoting from my pamphlet on “ Modern
Socialism,” in which I stated what I stated to you to
night—that it was likely that society would evolve into
Communism. But I added—and this Mr. Foote omitted
to mention—“ 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”. (Hear,
hear.) I hold that immediate complete Communism is.
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
23:
utterly impracticable, but that through Collectivism you
may come to Communism. Mr. Foote says the struggle
for" existence is necessary; the fact of the struggle for
existence must be recognised. That both Darwin and
Huxley realise it is true; but it was because Darwin
realised it that he was against those checks to undue in
crease of the population which I propose. He says, if you
limit the number of competitors and soften the struggle
for existence, progress will be arrested. He would leave
the old brute struggle to go on among men, trusting that
thus, despite the suffering, improvement will result. Is
Mr. Foote prepared to take up that position, and to deny
everything we have striven to do to lessen and regulate
this strife by substituting rational for natural selection ?
(Hear, hear.) But Mr. Foote also says—and here I agree
with him—that if the law of population is not recognised
poverty will once more result. Mr. Foote is right. Many
of my fellow Socialists—not thinking as carefully and
thoughtfully as they should — ignore or deny that
indisputable truth. But I allege that when you
have Socialism, the fact that unless you regulate the
relative numbers of producers and consumers you
will overburden your producers, will be a fact so
patent and obvious that the blindest will be compelled to
see it. (Hear, hear.) Well, but says Mr. Foote, suppose
there is enough for every ninety-nine out of a hundred, is
it not better for the unfit to perish and not transmit their
unfitness to their offspring ? But do you kill out the unfit
in the present condition of society ? Is it the unfit who go
to the wall in the social struggle for existence ? Why, it
is your idlers who five; your idle aristocrats who cannot
earn their own living ; the lazy women who cannot sweep
a room or clean a saucepan. (Hear, hear.) These are the
men and women who live under your present social system,
and it is the fit who are crushed out—those who could work
and who long to work; those who are industrious and
pray for work; those you kill off by your competition, and
your idle vagabonds it is who live. (Hear, hear.) Then
Mr. Foote says the poor marry very young. I know that.
And why ? Because they are crowded together in small
rooms where no separation of the sexes is possible, and
where in consequence the sexual instinct is awakened at
an age when it should still be sleeping; because in their
�24
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
miserable life their poverty makes them old when they
ought to be young, and the longings of manhood and of
womanhood are roused in them when they should be still
almost in their childhood. (Hear, hear.) There is no
blame to them. Forced in this impure hothouse of
poverty; with no pleasure save that of the sexual relation;
with no relief for their feelings save in sexual intercourse;
shut out from art, from beauty, from education, and
from everything that might make life fair to them as to
others, they cling to this one joy of their manhood and
their womanhood as all of happiness that is open to them.
(Cheers.) But Mr. Foote says—Why not go in for land
nationalisation? it is more simple. Mr. Foote did not
think it worth while to deal with the difficulty of national
ising the rent of land. He ignored the fact that in
nationalising the rent of land—which is capital as well as
land, a point he had apparently forgotten—he has the
whole of the Socialist difficulty to face. (Hear, hear.) I
will take Sidgwick on this head. He points out that
capital and land cannot be separated; that land is capital,
and is largely the result of accumulated labor. Take, for
instance, a railway. Is the railway running through a
county land or capital ? Does not the land over which it
runs represent part of the capital of the railway company ?
And Mr. Foote, in an eloquent passage, said that those—
the idle class—who took the rent of the land did not make
the land ; that they did not even co-operate in making the
land. I can find no better words than his to describe the
class that lives on the capital made by the labor of others ;
“They did not make the capital; they did not even co
operate in making it
They have taken it unfairly, by
force and fraud, that is, by theft, and we want to take it
back from them. (Cheers.) But Mr. Foote says that all
who work to make the capital work with their eyes open,
and that they have no right to quarrel with the result. Is
that true ? Surely not. Even with their eyes open men
prefer a poor wage to absolute starvation. But it is not a
case of freedom of contract. They are forced into the
contract by the absolute pressure of their bodily necessities.
(Hear, hear.) It is not a case of willingly accepting a
contract which you have power to refuse. You are driven
into it with the whip of starvation, and you must take
it or starve. (Cheers.)
�IS SOCIALISM SOUXI) ?
25
Mr. Foote : To-night Mrs. Besant naturally circumscribes
-the limits of the debate : I follow her and must do so..
Next Wednesday night I trust to alter to some extent the
character of the debate. I shall then go a little further
into the Socialistic scheme, and see how it would work in
practice—or rather how it would be likely to work in
practice. (Hear, hear.) For the present I confine myself
to the duty of following Mrs. Besant. She admits that
Individualism is not incompatible with progress. I cannot
say that the admission was wrung from her, because it is
one that no student of history could possibly refuse to
make. But the fact that the progress the world has made
during the last three centuries—the great era of progress
—has been achieved under the system of Individualism
ought to make innovators pause before they propose to
substitute something for it, unless they can clearly show—
not in mere words but almost in the visualisation of imagi
nation—that what they propose to put in its place will be
far better than what they wish to remove. (Cheers.)
Under the present system we do somehow hold on ; we do
not go from bad to worse; we keep making some little
improvement year by year and generation by generation.
(Hear, hear.) If you cannot cultivate, under purely
arbitrary conditions of your own making, a special variety
■of a plant in a short time, how are you going to cultivate,
under what cannot be purely arbitrary conditions, a special
new variety of human nature in a short time ? Mrs.
Besant says present human nature is not fit for her whole
scheme. Her whole argument is founded on prophecy.
Some day or other human nature will be fit for it I I
think that, some day the forces which have elevated man
in the past will bring him to higher things. I know
Individualism is not incompatible with social elevation.
It is an essential requisite for a man to assist anyone else
that he shall be strong and self-helpful himself. You
cannot have a really strong society when everybody is
a leaning-post to everybody else. (Hear, hear.) In
.some parts of the world where they five under a system
which is very much nearer Socialism than ours, they look
upon the suffering and peril of their fellow creatures almost
with amusement. But in a country like ours where In
dividualism so predominates, our instincts are such that
brave fellows will leap into the water, and brave firemen
�26
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
will run up the fire-ladder, and men will go out in the
lifeboats to sinking crews, and women will send their
dearest to save the fives of others. (Hear, hear.) These
things are done under Individualism—it is not incompa
tible with the highest development of human nature.
Mrs. Besant says I cannot separate land from wrought
material. Now land is not wrought material in the ordinary
sense of the word—that it can be carried about. Whatever
improvements you make in the soil you cultivate, by
digging, manuring, and planting, you cannot carry them
away with you. They remain on and in the land. And that
is one of the reasons why the law interferes, and gives the
tenant compensation for whatever improvements he has
made when his lease is terminated by the landlord’s action.
Now, if the land were nationalised, is it true that we could
not possibly separate the value of the land, for the pur
poses of statemanship, from the value of other things ? A
railway runs over a certain amount of land. Supposing
we wanted that bit of railway. The company is not in the
true sense of the word “ a bloated capitalist ”. (Laughter.)
Thousands on thousands of persons have small sums of
money invested in it as shareholders. Heaps of money
are invested in railway security by life assurance societies.
If you were to take it you would make these bankrupt,
and ruin the expectations of almost everybody who assured
their lives for the benefit of their wives and children.
These things are talked about without the consequences of
what is proposed being seen. A laugh is cheap and a
sneer is easy. But when you find yourselves face to face
with the consequences you never foresee, you might feel a
little less jubilant. (Cheers.) If the land w§re bought
under Act of Parliament, and a price given for it, any
State that took possession of it would be bound to
compensate for it, otherwise it would injure thousands
who have invested their money in it. Socialists may
claim their right to take it without compensation. I
for one deny their right to do it. (Hear, hear.) Mrs.
Besant may differ from me. Well, in that case we must
both appeal to such feelings of fair play , as men may
possess. (Cheers.) It would not be very difficult to take
over a railway. My opinion is that it is confusion to sup
pose that because the State can do one thing well it can do
everything well. You might as well say that because a
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
27
man can build a house well he could paint a picture well.
(Hear, hear.) There is no natural reason for believing it.
A municipality can supply us very well with water and
also with gas. But what municipality could supply. uswith anything except what had been simplified for it
through long experience and experiment under individual
istic enterprise ? If any one tried to get municipalities to
take up the electric fight he would be laughed at. In
dividualism has to work it up, and risk the money, and
by and by when it has succeeded society will step in and
reap the advantage of it. (Hear, hear.) There are certain
things that must be monopolies. Mrs. Besant may say
that capital is a monopoly too. But what I want to point
out is, that although for the moment the amount of
capital existing is determined, the amount of capital that
may exist is indeterminate. The amount of land that
exists in England is determined; but land is also deter
minate—it cannot be more to-morrow than it is to-day.
But capital can. (Hear, hear). While the land is now
practically the same as in the time of William the Con
queror, capital is probably a thousand times as much as it
was then. I hold that what is a natural monopoly the
State should undertake, and the State has never relinquished
that right. There is no such thing in English law as
private ownership of land; there is no such thing in Eng
lish law as an absolute private right to work a public
monopoly. A railway has only a right given to it by Act
of Parliament. A water company has only the right given
to it by Act of Parliament. It is simply a question of
prudence whether it is better to give a public com
pany a right of working a monopoly under Parliament,
within legal conditions, or for a municipality or State to
take the direct management of it itself. But the prin
ciple of it is the same whether the company work understatutory limitations, or whether the State provide the
directors. (Hear, hear.) The State is the ultimatesovereign of all monopolies. I hold, as an Individualist,
that they should be regulated by the State, and that they
should be actively conducted by the State.
Now let us try to separate our land from the wrought
material. What would be the actual problem ? Here is some
land the State proposes to take. All the State has to do is to*
lay down what it considers just principles of compensation,
�■28
IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
which, of course, it is impossible to argue out in detail at
present. Besides, Mrs. Besant is a land nationaliser as
well as I. The State would have to lay down broad
principles of fair compensation. And commissioners would
have to apply them in particular cases, just as commissioners
did when they fixed the judicial rents in Ireland, or as the
Land Court does when it adjudicates on the question of a
tenant’s unexhausted improvements. There would be no
difficulty in it at all. I cannot understand how Mrs.
Besant can so dwell upon a difficulty which is, after all,
mainly of her own creation. (Hear, hear.)
Why is the land different from capital ? Mrs. Besant says
capital is a social product. Admitted. She says that land
and capital are both used for production. Yes. But there is
this difference. Land is naturally a monopoly. Land was
not created at all. Nobody co-operated in the making
of it. But people did co-operate in the making of capital.
The difference between capital and land is, that in the
one you have a vast mass of value created by the volun
tary cooperation of employers and workmen under all
varieties of association, while in the other you have an
uncreated and indestructible gift of Nature to all her
children. You have the right to take for all the prime
gift of Nature. But I cannot see your right to take
for all what has been created by separate bodies of men
after giving such consideration for the raw material as
the law of the land declared at the time to be just.
(Cheers.)
Mrs. Besant says that under the present system
■ capital fixes the terms upon which labor shall workI
Bid she never hear of trades’ unions ? Mr. Thornton’s
fine book, “On Labor”, showed how it was that trades’
unions were able, in spite of the mistaken notions on
the subj ect of most political economists, to affect the price
of labor. Mrs. Besant says the capitalist fixes wages!
Is there no such thing as supply and demand? Mrs.
Besant must know that it is one of the commonplaces
of political economy, as you will find in Mill, that under a
highly-developed economical system like ours, with im
mense accumulation of capital and increasing skill in labor,
wages tend to rise and profits to fall to a minimum. That
is a commonplace of political economy. And the proof of
lies in the fact that the profits are falling. Statistics
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
29'
show it. And wages have risen a hundred per cent.—in
some cases more and in others less—during the last fifty
years. Further, the return on capital, which, as I said,
is simply interest—the market rate for the use of capital—
gradually gets less and less. You cannot now get for
invested capital, unless you conduct the enterprise your
self, what was obtained ten years ago. Interest now is so
low that bankers have been declining to give interest at
all, and depositors have often been glad for the bankers to
take charge of the money for them without any percentage.
(Laughter.)
Mrs. Besant says that the proletariat cannot rise—that
it is the unfit, the idle, who five. Not all of them, I hope.
It is rather too sweeping a condemnation. I am in favor,
as a Radical, as much as Mrs. Besant can be, of abolishing
all privileges created by law. (Cheers.) And what is more
I have always been in favor, in all public reforms, of
adopting the wise German proverb of sweeping the stairsfrom the top downwards. But it is not true that it is
simply the unfit who survive and the fit who are killed
out. What is the fact ? According to the income tax
table, schedule D, incomes from £200 to £1,000 have in
creased in number, from 1874 to 1885, from 162,435 to
215,790; incomes from £1,000 to £2,000 from 11,944 to
13,403 ; and so on right up the scale. But you find a
decrease when you come to incomes from £5,000 to £10,000.
These have diminished from 2,035 to 1,928. (Hear, hear.)
And the incomes above £10,000 a year have diminished
from 1,283 to 1,220. So that there is a great increase of'
incomes from £100 upwards to £5,000, and a decrease atthe wealthier end of the scale. The wages of the workman
have also increased. (“No, no.”) I say yes. If Mrs.
Besant denies it I will prove it, but not otherwise. I say
then that under the circumstances it is not the fit who are
killed out and the unfit who survive. The fact is the mass
of the people are better off. The workers are in an improved condition. The income tax returns show an increase
of small incomes and a decrease of big ones. That is in
consistent with Mrs. Besant’s position. It is corroborative
of mine. (Cheers.)
Annie Besant : Mr. Foote alleged—I am going back to
the speech made before the last, when he was dealing with,
the conditions under which men accepted labor for which.
�30
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
they took wage—that if the product was a failure the loss
fell on the capitalist, and not on the worker. If Mr. Foote
will think that question out he will find that if a product
•is a failure—that is, if the capitalist cannot sell that which
has been produced and a glut is caused—that while the
capitalist may lose his profit the workman loses his live
lihood, which is a much more important thing. And it is
looking excessively superficially at the subject to say, that
because a man receives a certain amount of wage he runs
no risk from the failure of the market. (Hear, hear.) Mr.
Foote went on to urge that capital is easily killed, and that
it is a very tender plant. That is a favorite phrase of the
capitalist. But capital is not a tender plant. Look at the
way France was treated at the Franco-German War, and
see how soon she replaced the wealth of which she was
then robbed. The making of capital lies in the productive
power of the nation, and you cannot frighten away capital
in the fashion some persons imagine. You have it left
behind you after your big capitalists are frightened, and
the sooner they are frightened off the spoil the more chance
there is for the worker who really creates the capital. Then
we are told that the capitalist’s profits must cover insur-'
ance against risk, interest on capital, and the cost of pro
duction ; and Mr. Foote might have added the rent. It is
true that they cover these things, but when Mr. Foote
goes on to urge the enormous value of generalship and of
business ability, and to declare that the man, who cannot
distinguish between the value of the labor of laying, bricks
and that of writing Hamlet, is apparently not worthy of
having an opinion on a scientific problem, one cannot
help asking two questions. Are not the wages of
superintendence enormously higher than they ought
to be, judged by comparison with the value added
to the product by the business manager? And is it
not possible that, valuable as Hamlet is, the laying of
bricks is even more necessary to the community; and if
society wants to be served both by the bricklayer and
the poet, it must be content to take from each that
which his natural capabilities enable him to give ; and not
to give enormous extra advantages to the man who, being
an artist, has joy in his work as part of his payment, but
whose work is not more necessary to the community than
is that of the humbler members who do the actual manual
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
31
labor on which our lives depend. (Cheers.) Mr. Foote
argues that the wages of skilled workmen have doubled,
and those of unskilled workmen have risen; and we all
know these figures come from Mr. Gillen. When he says
so scornfully, 11 Is it worth while to make a revolution for
3 per cent ?”, I turn to Mr. Giffen, and I see he puts rent
and interest, without a penny of wages of superintend
ence, at £407,000,000 ; and I am inclined to say that as
the total produce per year is only £1,250,000,000, then to
rescue from the idle class even one-third of that total is
worth trying hard for by law, and might even, if it could
be effected thereby, excuse a revolution. (Cheers.) Then
we are told that under the present system we at least go
on—we do not go from bad to worse. Why, that phrase
is used by every tyranny, as well as by every Tory as an
excuse for opposing the wicked Radicals whenever they
propose a change. They use it by the necessity of their
position; but it is, indeed, strange, for a Radical to use
against Socialism the very argument he would scoff at if
it came from a Tory against himself. (Hear, hear.) Then
we are told that Mrs. Besant admits that human nature
is not fit for it—what is “it”? Mrs. Besant admitted
that human nature was not yet fitted for Communism, but
not that it is not fit for collectivist Socialism. Mrs. Besant
thinks it is fit for collectivist Socialism. (Hear, hear.)
Then I am told that in the savage state—which for some
mystic reason is like Socialism—men look on unmoved
at drowning men, whereas under Individualism they
plunge in to the rescue. I think I have read not
so very long ago of men walking away from a
pond whilst children were drowning.
But that is
not argument — it is only an attempt to raise prejudice
against the system at which it is aimed. (Hear, hear.)
Under your Individualism also the wealthy people look on
unmoved in the great cities at the poor, as they slowly die
of that which is a worse death than drowning. (Hear,
hear.) Then Mr. Foote urges that if you take the railways
you will rob people of the insurance they are hoping to
leave to their widows. But this difficulty is not special to
Socialism. The insurance offices have a large number of
mortgages on freehold land. When you nationalise the
land, are you going to steal from these offices ? or is it not
true that just the same difficulties will occur in the
�32
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
nationalisation of land as in the nationalisation of capital ?
and that while these difficulties are a good reason for pro
ceeding with caution, they are not the slightest reason for
not moving at all ? (Cheers.) In any such change you
will have to be careful as to the method; but the diffi
culties placed against the nationalisation of capital are of
equal force in dealing with the nationalisation of the land.
Then Mr. Foote says that municipalities can only take up
things when experience has shown them to have been
successful. I was told only the other day by the secretary
of a company for the raising of water by hydraulic power
that their machines were only taken by municipalities which
had the water supply in their own hands, and that these
were ready to take the cost in this instance which private
companies refused to incur. (Hear, hear.) Next, Mr.
Foote argues that the land differs from capital in that it is
a fixed quantity, while capital is not. The soil of England,
he says, has not increased since the time of William the
Conqueror. Does Mr. Foote mean to say that the soil is
not more productive now than it was in the time of
William the Conqueror ? If his argnment as to the land
is good for anything, that is the meaning of it. You
measure your soil by its power of production; and if you
increase the productive power and get more food from it
than before, then the increased productivity is the measure
of the increased land ; and it is only throwing out words to
those who look at words rather than things to say that,
because the outline of the country is very much the same,
therefore the land has not increased. (Cheers.) The
land has increased in everything that makes it valuable.
Thousands of aeres have been brought under cultivation,
and those cultivated have been made more productive.
Land is increasing in productive power. Capital, says Mr.
Foote, cannot be limited. I was under the delusion that
capital could only be obtained by applying labor to raw
material, and Mr. Foote expects me to believe that the
material is limited, and that that which is made out of it
is unlimited. I find myself unable to accept that view.
(Hear, hear.) Then, against the argument I put at the
end that the wages of the laborers as a class could not
rise very high—Mr. Foote asks me if I have not heard of
trades unions and whether I do not think they can affect
the rate of wages ? To a very small extent. Mr. Foote
�33
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
quotes Mr. Mill, but he knows that Mr. Mill’s political
economy has been discredited in point after point, and is
in much given up to-day by every economist of repute.
You cannot now quote Mill as a final authority. You
must take the arguments of Cairnes and Sidgwick and
Jevons, who have taken up the science where Mill dropped
it, and you must meet and refute their arguments. And
what is it that Cairnes has said on this subject? Cairnes
distinctly tells us that “nothing is more certain than that
taking the whole field of labor, real wages in Great Britain
will never rise to the standard of remuneration now pre
vailing in new countries” ; that the “possibilities of the
laborer’s lot are confined” within “very narrow limits”,
“ so long as he depends for his well-being on the produce
of his day’s work. Against these barriers trades unions
must dash themselves in vain.” (Hear, hear.) And then
he says, if you deal with the relative position of the in •
dustrial classes you find that inequality is continually in
creasing ; that “unequal as is the distribution of wealth
already in this country, the tendency of industrial progress
is towards an inequality greater still. The rich will be
growing richer, and the poor, at least relatively, poorer ”
(“Some Leading Principles of Political Economy”, pp.
337, 338, 340, ed. 1874). And he winds up his argument
on this point by declaring that ‘‘ if workmen do not rise
from dependence on capital by the path of co-operation,
then they must remain in dependence upon capital ;
the margin for the possible improvement of their lot
is confined within narrow barriers which cannot be
passed, and the problem of their elevation is hopeless ”
{Ibid., p. 348). (Hear, hear.) These are Professor
Cairnes’ words. I ask Mr. Foote to meet Professor
Cairnes on his own ground, and give us the authority
which will show us that Cairnes’ judgment is wrong. It
is true that profits tend to fall because of the competition
between employers. But when Mr. Foote says that wages
still tend to rise, then he speaks against the deductions of
political economy, and against the knowledge of facts of
every practical man who hears him. Wages do not now
tend to rise in the fashion which has been put. By com
bination something can be done. But as Sidgwick points
out—a man worthy of careful thought—Sidgwick points
out that if you are going to deal with the condition of
D
�34
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
wage-laborers, then you must recognise that the tendency
of our system is to press their wages down to a minimum,
and to a minimum which is below what is necessary .for
healthy life. (Cheers.) Mr. Sidgwick points out that
wherever laborers belong to the capitalist—as the horse
and the ox belong to him—then they have a fair subsist
ence to keep them in working order ; but he says that the
pressure of competition has forced the wage-laborer below
a fair subsistence; and that is the point to which the wage
continually tends. (Hear, hear.) And I submit that on
that point you find that the views deduced from the prin
ciples of political economy as to the results of the present
competitive system have been really borne out by all the
facts of the society you have around you, and that what
Professor Sidgwick says is true. And whilst you have more
absolute money going into the laborer’s hands in some
trades to-day than before, it is also true that the share of
the produce obtained by the worker is not growing greater
but smaller. (Hear, hear.) Mr. Foote says that he is in
favor of abolishing privileges established by law. I ask
him to come over then to the Socialist ranks, and join us in
abolishing the privileges conferred on the landlords and
the capitalists by giving them these unfair monopolies. And
when he says that the salvation of the workman lies in his
own hands, I endorse that with all my power. I say your
salvation does lie in your own hands. Till you are edu
cated, till you understand your own condition, till you are
loyal to each other, till you unite to win your own
liberty, you will remain oppressed ; and only as you band
yourselves together, and realise the changes you should
seek to bring about, will you raise yourselves from your
position of dependence. The workers must save them
selves. We can only talk; but you must act. (Cheers.)
Mr. Foote : I notice in this debate that up to the present
Mrs. Besant is fonder of relying upon other person’s
opinions than on statistics and facts that cannot be ques
tioned. I submit that the question before us to-night is
not what Mill or Cairnes thought. We are here to think
for ourselves, and it is the business of the debaters to lay
before you grounds upon which you can form your own
judgment. And the best of all grounds, and in the long
run the only ground, is fact. Now Mj?s. Besant has not
denied the truth of my statement, that during the last
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
35
fifty years mechanics’ wages have risen in the majority of
cases nearly a hundred per cent., and that during the same
period the wages of unskilled labor have increased nearly
fifty per cent. (Hear, hear.) Cairnes’ opinion cannot
avail against those facts. It is useless for Cairnes to say
that the workman’s elevation is impossible if, during those
fifty years, the workman has been elevated.
Again, you have heard I daresay a good deal about the
distress in the shipbuilding trade, and I know many of the
hard-working men of the Tyneside have suffered seriously
owing to the glut of ships in the market. There are ships
lying idle there because there is no carrying trade for them.
And the shipbuilding trade has consequently suffered
very much. But still, with all that, what is the fact as to
the wages ? Before the Royal Commission, Mr. Knight
(the secretary of the Amalgamated Boilers and Engineers
Society, with whom I had the honor of speaking once at
the Crystal Palace) was interrogated as to the recent strike,
and he said that the reason of it was that the men com
plained that upon the piece work they had accepted they
could not manage to earn as much as they thought they
should according to the rate of day wages. Now the
question was put to Mr Joseph Knight ££ What do you call
a fair day’s rate for rivetters for piece work ? ” ££ I should
say”, he replied, ££a fair day’s rate, working at piece
work, is 8s. per day”. Now if you take five and a half
days a week, which leaves at least one day and a half
leisure a week for a man, to say nothing of his evenings,
you get a wage of £2 4s. per week. Because they could
not get that sum they had gone out on strike. Now, does
that look as if the working classes in the main were in
such a truly deplorable case as Mrs. Besant endeavors to
depict ? I admit that there are evils and suffering in
society, and everyone of us thinks that something should
be done to remedy them. (Hear, hear.) But I see no use
in exaggerated pictures of blackness and despair. Mrs.
Besant said I used forms of words to appeal to your pre
judices. I say she has painted a black picture so as to
appeal to your finer feelings of sympathy to foist upon
you an economical system which is to be judged according
to pure scientific canons of criticism and not according to
sentiments excited by one side or the other.
Mrs. Besant said that capital was not a tender plant, and she
d 2
�36
IS SOCIALISE! SOUND ?
said, “see how quickly France recouped herself after the war
with Germany ’ ’. Why, that ‘ ‘ exploded ’ ’ political economist
John Stuart Mill explained it himself. If a war in civilised
times leaves the land, the plant employed in manufac
tures, the canals, the railways, the docks, and all the per
manent instruments of production, all the people have to
do is to set to work again. But how soon would France
have recovered herself if Germany had spoiled all her
canals and railways and docks, ruined her machinery,
destroyed her buildings, broken down her hedges, and
devastated her vineyards ? France would not be in the
position she is in to-day. It would be found that capital
was hard to accumulate. It would take generations of
hard effort to remedy the result of one single devastating
campaign fought on the old barbarous methods that were
practised three or four centuries ago. (Hear, hear.)
Mrs. Besant says that generalship is necessary, but that
it should not be rated too highly. Do I rate it too
highly ? I do not rate anything except at its market
value. I know of no other method. If a man asks me
how much a bricklayer’s work is worth, or an artist’s, I
say I do not know. What does he get in the market?
That is the only means I have of judging of its value.
All the economists who have learnedly explained or be
fogged the question have got no further than old Butler,
who wrote “ Hudibras ”, and who said : “ The value of a
thing is just as much as it will bring ”. (Hear, hear,
and laughter.) Generalship can be rated too high! Now
supposing you have industrial armies, as Socialists are
fond of advocating, these armies would have to be com
manded. (“No, no.”) But you cannot have armies
without commanders. Why use the word army, if you
do not mean a similar mode of direction from head
quarters ? Why not find some other term ? Mrs. Besant
said she preferred to find new terms. Why not find a
new term for that ? Is it a fact that an army is of
much use without its general ? No. A general in military
matters and a general at the headquarters of an industrial
army would be of similar value. Such a general in
military matters is often of more worth in a struggle than
another army as large as the one he commands. The
difference between the genius of command on the one hand
and on the other will often make a small army more valu
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
37
able than a big one. What was it made the difference
between Oliver Cromwell, with a small sick army shut up
on the peninsula of Dunbar, and David Leslie, with nearly
three times the number ranged on the heights ? The
English soldiers were brave, but the Scotch were also
brave; and they fought after at Worcester as bravely as
men ever fought on this earth. But the difference lay in
this, that at the head of the smaller army there was the
sleepless vigilance, the military genius, the unfaltering and
invincible mind of one of the greatest generals that the
earth ever produced. (Cheers.) Although he was down
below and David Leslie had a better position on the
heights, the result was that Cromwell’s army, by a splendid
stroke of generalship, defeated the other army, losing
itself only a few men, and taking ten thousand of the
others as prisoners. (Cheers.) I say that the captain or
general of a great industrial enterprise may be of as much
importance to its success as the whole army put together,
and under any system you must pay him somehow. Mrs.
Besant said society must fix the wage. But supposing the
man objects and walks off, and goes elsewhere. (Hear,
hear, and laughter.) It is very well to speak of altruism,
but even under the selected communisms of America, as
Noyes tells us in his history of those institutions, what he
called general depravity—in other words, personal interest
—even among the elect divided them again and again.
One concern—a big one—broke up because the artisans
themselves complained that the value of their product was
twice that of those who worked in the fields, and they
should therefore only work half as long as agriculturists
did. Mrs. Besant says that human nature is fit for'Collec
tive Socialism. In my opinion Collective Socialism is not
fit for human nature. (Hear, hear, and laughter.)
Mrs. Besant proposes to wrest capital and land from the idle
classes. It is well to understand not only what they
propose to do, but how they propose to do it. Wrest
ing means taking away, and taking away without com
pensation. (Cheers.) Now the wealth is to be taken
from the idle classes. What idle classes ? (A voice:
“Those who do not labor”).
Do you . mean the
English aristocracy? (Cheers.) I am as ready to deal
with them by law as you are. Why, Mr. Bradlaugh, who
is opposed to Socialism, is quite ready to deal with the
�38
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
English, aristocracy, if he gets the chance. (Hear, hear,
and laughter.) Surely we do not need Socialism as a
revelation to inform us that the English aristocracy should
be removed. Radicals have known that long. But some
whom Mrs. Besant includes in this idle class are not idle.
Was Josiah Mason idle, who worked as he did, and,
having made a fortune, founded the best institution in
Birmingham, erecting out of his fortune a splendid monu
ment of his wise generosity ? Was Whitworth idle ? Was
Bessemer idle ? But why go through a long list of these ?
Mrs. Besant knows and you know, as I know, that many
of these men included in the idle classes work in their
way, and contribute in their way to the production which
is the result of labor and capital and superintendence.
Without their guidance, and without the capital which
their ability helped to get together and increase, the work
man would really be worse off than he is to-day. (Hear,
hear.)
Mrs. Besant says that I should not scoff like the
Tories, who say that we should do nothing fresh because
we still go on. I never said we should do nothing because
we still go on. What I said was that if we do go on under
the present system, you must show us some very clear
reason for believing that the new system will supplant it
with immense benefit before we give up all we now
possess. That is very different. I am surprised that Mrs.
Besant could not see the difference. Mrs. Besant also
thought that it was not right for me to insinuate that
certain barbarous or savage people were somehow in. a
state of Socialism But if Socialism means an omnipotent
State, that the State regulates all industry, that the State
owns all the land and all the capital employed in produc
tion, then nearly every primitive form of society is more
or less in a condition of Socialism or Communism. (Hear,
hear.) The Individualism of the last three centuries has
revolutionised the modern world and done more in that
time than the Socialism of the lower states has done in as
many thousands of years. (Cheers.) Again, Mrs. Besant
holds me wrong for saying that the soil of England is of
the same extent now as it was in the time of William the
Conqueror. I said “soil” ; I did not say its productive
ness, nor did I say cultivated soil or uncultivated soil. _ I
I said simply soil. And the soil of the earth means all its
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
39
surface and what is under it that can be got out. Now, is
the soil of England in that respect any greater than it was
in the reign of 'William the Conqueror ? On the contrary,
some miles of coast on the east have been washed away by the
sea. (Laughter.) But it is true that the capital has increased
a thousandfold. Mrs. Besant says she cannot understand
that, but if the fact is true, not understanding it will not
alter it. The explanation is not so difficult. There is so
much raw material got somehow from the land, either
from plants, or from animals that consume the vegetation,
or from the surface of the ground, or from the bowels of
the earth. Now that raw material so worked might be
consumed the very same year, or a portion of it might be
kept over for further production. That amount so kept
over goes on accumulating—the abstinence of each genera
tion from consumption causes an accumulation of capital.
And that process goes on to an extent which is practically
illimitable; although at any one moment it is determined.
If that explanation does not make it clear, my power to do
so fails me.
Mrs. Besant says it is not true that the workman can
emancipate himself. I say it is. That is the grand dis
tinction between us to-night. She wants to call in an
omnipotent State to provide the brains which we have
not got, to provide the moral cohesion which we have
not got. But where is it to come from ? When we have
the moral cohesion, when we have the intellectual capacity,
we can join together. We do not want to wait for the mil
lennium. Any Trades Union could, if it had the necessary
mental and moral qualities, begin co-operative production
to-morrow. When we are sufficiently advanced we shall
go in the right direction, and the workers will find in
voluntary co-operation the way to elevate themselves from
the dependence of the wage system. But until we are
sufficiently advanced we must not expect the reward, and
no social mechanism will ever supply us with the qualities
we lack. (Cheers.)
A vote of thanks, proposed by Mr. Eoote and seconded
by Mrs. Besant, having been accorded the chairman, the
debate was adj ourned.
�40
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
SECOND NIGHT.
Mr. Arthur B. Moss
in the
Chair.
The Chairman : Friends, to-night we are to listen to
the second instalment of this interesting and instructive
discussion on Socialism. Mr. Foote will open the proceed
ings with a speech of half-an-hour’s duration. Mrs.
Besant will follow with a speech of the same length.
There will then be two subsequent speeches of a quarter
of an hour for each disputant, and that will terminate the
proceedings. As I know from personal experience that
audiences who assemble in this hall are for the most part
trained listeners, I have only to ask you to give to the
consideration of the subject all the attention which the
importance of it undoubtedly demands. I have great
pleasure in calling upon Mr. Foote to open the discussion.
(Cheers.)
Mr. Foote : Mr. Chairman, ladies, and gentlemen, in
opening this discussion to-night I have the opportunity of
settling the lines upon which it is to go. I am glad of the
opportunity, because it is highly necessary not only that I
should be able to reply to what Mrs. Besant advances on
behalf of Socialism, but that I should also be able to urge
objections against it in my own fashion, which she will
have to reply to in return. First of all, let me say—not
for the instruction of all, but for the instruction of some—
that Socialism is by no means a new thing. Almost all the
Socialistic pills that are prescribed in our age have been
tried by the human race again and again in various stages
of its career. The peculiar American sect of Free Lovers,
for instance, is only teaching something which was taught
long, long ago, which is always tried more or less as
society is in a low condition, and is always left behind as
society advances into what is called civilisation. So it is
with Socialism.
What is, after all, the essence of
Socialism ? It is the omnipotence of the State : the de
claration that the State is rightly lord of all, that no
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
41
citizen has any rights excepting those which the State
allows him, and that even the family itself only exists by
the toleration of the State. If that is the essence of
Socialism, it is to be found amongst savages, amongst bar
barian nations, and is still to be found amongst peoples
in Oriental lands. An extreme instance of it was found
in ancient Peru, where everything was managed by State
officials, and where every department of the life of the
citizen was absolutely under the control of those who were
in authority. (Hear, hear.) There is, then, nothing new
in Socialism. Further, ever since Christianity had any
power Socialism has been a commonplace of its teaching.
I am not here for the purpose of dealing with theology,
but simply to deal with the relation of the system to social
matters. Mrs. Besant kindly drew my attention, in fur
nishing me with a list of books she would use, to two
articles by Emile de Laveleye, one in the Fortnightly
Review and one in the Contemporary Review, both for the
same month of April, 1883. I was exceedingly glad of
the references, because they had very naturally escaped
my attention, having been published at a time when,
owing to the law of the majority, which of course is
supreme, I was secluded for my country’s good. (Laughter.)
Now Laveleye, in the second of those articles, cannot
understand why Socialists reject Christianity, which ad
mits a great deal of their claims, and accept Darwinianism,
which denies the very equality they urge. He says,
“ Christianity condemns riches and inequality with a
vehemence nowhere surpassed” ; and (on page 565), after
citing a long and eloquent passage from Bossuet, a great
French divine, he gives the following brief quotations
from the early Christian Fathers. “The rich,” says St.
Basil, “ are thieves ”. St. Chrysostom says, “ the rich are
brigands. Some sort of equality must be established by
their distributing to the poor of their abundance ; but it
would be preferable if everything were in common ”. St.
Jerome says, “ opulence is always the result of a theft; if
not committed by the actual possessor, it has been the
work of his ancestors”. (Cheers.) I am glad to see so
many Socialists in accord with these early Christian
Fathers. (Laughter.) St. Clement says, “ H justice were
enforced there would be a general division of property”.
Mrs. Besant must, of course, be also aware that the
�42
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
founder of Christianity taught the precept, “ Sell all that
thou hast and give to the poor”. She must be further
aware that the early Christian Church practised Com
munism ; but as soon as it grew large—as soon as the
fanatical bond of the small community was broken—this
teaching had to be relinquished in the interest of the very
order itself. (Hear, hear.)
Again, we have had no dearth of paper Utopias—from
Plato, whose Republic is a classic, down to Gronlund, the
American writer, whose “ Social Commonwealth ” I referred
to as a sort of New Testament for Socialists. If you
invest ninepence in one of Routledge’s shilling series, you
will get a little collection of more modern Utopias than
Plato’s, beginning with Sir Thomas More, going on to Lord
Bacon, and ending with Thomas Campanella, whose “ City
of the Sun ” has some affinities with More’s work, and
also some differences, which I have not time to dilate upon
now. In more recent times still we have had the Utopian
schemes of Owen, Fourier, and St. Simon; and essentially
Utopian schemes even by men like Comte. Then there
have been attempts to reduce their teachings to practice in
France, in England, and in America. Curiously enough,
in every case, unless the community was held together by
some bond of religious bigotry, or fanaticism, or as I should
sometimes prefer to say, of sheer imbecility, they have
always broken up and had to resolve themselves into the
general competitive system of mankind. (Cheers.)
While it is perfectly true that many noble natures have
been attracted by Socialistic Utopias, it is also a fact that
a very different class of persons are attracted by them.
Horace Greeley, who at one time belonged to a Socialist
community in America, and who after he ceased to be a
practical Socialist assisted some Socialist communities with
his money, wrote from bitter experience as follows : “A
serious obstacle to the success of every Socialistic experi
ment must always be confronted. I allude to the kind of
persons who are naturally attracted to it. Along with
many noble and lofty souls, whose impulses are purely
philanthropic, and who are willing to labor and suffer
reproach for any cause that promises to benefit mankind,
there throng scores of whom the world is quite worthy—
the conceited, the crotchety, the selfish, the headstrong, the
pugnacious, the unappreciated, the played-out, the idle,
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
43
and the good-for-nothing generally; who, finding them
selves utterly out of place and at a discount in the world
as it is, rashly conclude that they are exactly fitted for the
world as it ought to be.” (Laughter.) There cannot be
any doubt in the minds of those who know Mrs. Besant
that she belongs to the first and better class of those
whom Greeley mentions. (Cheers.) But I am decidedly
of opinion that even in England there is a large contingent
of the second class. Watching the antics of some of the
more forward class of Socialists, who do not follow the
example of the Fabians, but go out into the streets and
advertise themselves lustily, I am inclined to think that
Horace Greeley wrote from a very accurate and very painful
observation of Socialists and of mankind. (A. voice:
“Apply it to yourself”.) Socialism I urge, is really a
case of recrudescence. In my opinion it might be described
as economical atavism. In our country, curiously enough,
every time there is acute distress, Socialism comes to the
front, and every time the distress disappears it recedes
until it becomes invisible. (Hear, hear.) If the trade
of England improves—and it has shown signs lately of
improving—the probability is that Socialism will have to
wait until distress is again acute. (“No, no.”) I know
that some Socialists think differently, but that is my
opinion and as I am in possession of the platform I shall
say just what I think—(cheers)—and it will be well to leave
Mrs. Besant the opportunity as well as the right of replying
to me. (Cheers.)
In defining Socialism last Wednesday, Mrs. Besant said
that you might take the definition of Proudhon. Now
Proudhon was certainly a writer of great power, and
nobody can read his writings without feeling that he lived
habitually in a lofty moral atmosphere ; but it would be
as well, if we are to judge of his economics, to take his own
definition of property. La propriete c'est le vol, he says :—
“ Property is theft ”. I do not know whether Mrs. Besant
accepts that definition of property ; if not, I do not know
why Proudhon was referred to at all. But really Mrs.
Besant’s definition comes to much the same thing. She
says that “ Socialism teaches that there should be no
private property in the materials used in the production
of wealth”. That is, not only the land, but also the
capital of the country is to be appropriated by the State.
�. 44
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
(Hear, hear.) I deny that such a definition leaves any
right of private property at all. (Hear, hear.) I deny
the possibility of any separation of wealth into two classes
—one capital and the other simply wealth. Every particle
of wealth is capable of being used as capital for the pro
duction of fresh wealth. The line is arbitrary. Only a
certain amount of wealth is used as capital at a certain
time, but the whole is capable of being so used. Mrs.
Besant’s definition would result in the complete abolition
of private property, a result which, I think, Socialism must
eventually come to if we accept it. I agree with Mr.
Bradlaugh in saying that no definition of Socialism is
accurate except that which includes the abolition of private
property. Any other definition is divided from this by a
thin sheet of tissue paper, which probably is set up in
order that we may not see all that Socialism means, and
thus be led to accept its best side without seeing its worst
side, which is inseparably connected with it. (Cheers.)
Now, how is capital to be appropriated by the State ?
I said last Wednesday that we not only want to know
what Socialists propose to do, but how they propose to do
it. If a man wants me to go to Manchester, it is a
matter of importance to me to know whether he wants
me to go on a bicycle, by train, by stage-coach, or
to fly. Unless he goes my way, I shall not go his
way. Now, how is this appropriation to be made ?
Mrs. Besant says it will be taken somehow, but she does
not tell us how. I should like to know how it is to be
done. Our friends of the Social Democratic Federation
say, for instance, of railways, that they are to be appro
priated by the State “with or without compensation”.
(Cheers.) Now that implies that “with or without” are
equally right, and if it be right to appropriate with
out compensation what utter fools they must be to
include the possibility of compensation. (Cheers.) I
submit that we have no right to deal with interests
that have been allowed by law without compensation.
(Cheers.) Of course, if Socialists say, as Gronlund does,
that the State has a right to do everything; if they
urge that there are no rights antecedent to the State,
and that there are no rights which are inviolable by the
State ; there is nothing more to be said. That, however,
is not my philosophy, nor, if I read mankind aright, is
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
45
that the philosophy of mankind. All of us recognise that
there are personal rights over which the State has no just
control or authority. Mrs. Besant recognises it every day
of her life. Mrs. Besant stands every day of her life in
opposition to the declared law of the land. Mrs. Besant
writes and prints and publishes what, according to the
law, is illegal. She justifies by her conduct—and I, of
course, quite approve of the position she takes up—the
principle that there are imprescriptible rights of mankind,
which altogether transcend the power of the State, whether
the power be exercised by a single despot or by a multi
tude that transforms itself into a despotism. (Cheers.)
One of the French Socialists, called Clement Duval, an
Anarchist, who is now unfortunately paying the penalty
of his mistakes in a prison—(cheers)—he has evidently
two or three friends here who, I hope, will never share his
fate—committed a burglary at the house of a widow lady,
abstracted money that did not belong to him, and stood by
while his comrade set fire to the house. That looks like
an ordinary case of ruffianism. When a man profits by
his theories in this way, it certainly looks as though self
interest had a great influence among some Socialists.
But on his trial Duval said: “I declare from my
point of view I am not a thief. Nature, in creating
man, gives him a right to existence, and he is justified
in availing himself of it. If society does not supply
him with the means of living he is entitled to take what
he requires.” (Cheers). He did not, however, quite
approve of the house being set on fire, whereupon his
comrade reproached him by saying : “ Then you are not a
true Anarchist”, to which he answered: “lam. Why
burn down houses which, after the great revolution, will
afford shelter to the workers ? ” (Cheers.) I am pained
to think that robbery by individuals like this can find
any justification. (Hear, hear.) Do our Socialist friends
propose to carry this right through ? Do they propose to
do by a majority what many of them would censure when
done by an individual ? If an individual had no right to
help himself, what right has the majority to help itself ? I
do not believe that majorities have a right to do anything
they like—(hear, hear)—although I admit that their power
to do so is unquestioned. I say that the majority have
only the right to act within the lines of those purposes for
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
which, all society is formed. All society is, in my opinion,
formed for the protection of life, of liberty, and of property.
(Cheers.) Gronlund says: “We shall not trouble our
selves overmuch about compensation ”. Mrs. Besant does
not, so far as I know, give her views on that point at all.
I beg her to-night to give us some idea of how she would
have the State appropriate the possessions of private indi
viduals. (Cheers.)
The motive of this appropriation is the redress of poverty.
Assuredly poverty should be redressed if possible. (Hear,
hear.) And assuredly poverty is being redressed. (Cries
of “ Oh, oh,” and Hear, hear.) Now I am quite prepared
for the “oh’s,” and I will give the “oh’s” a few facts
which they can digest at leisure. Birst of all the removal
of ignorance is one means .for the redress of poverty.
(Cheers.) In my opinion ignorance is simply the mother
of all the preventible ills that human flesh is heir to.
(Hear, hear.) In 1851 in England (excluding Scotland
and Ireland) there were 239,000 children at school; in
1881 there were 2,863,000 at school. (Cheers.) Look for
a moment at the statistics of crime. In 1839 there were
24,000 prisoners committed for trial in England, and in
1881 there were only 15,000, although the population had
largely increased. Now look at the statistics of pauperism.
In 1849—from which date our statistics become accurate—
there were 934,000 paupers in England; in 1881 there
were 803,000—that is, a decrease of 131,000, although in
the interval there had been a large increase in the popula
tion. (Hear, hear.) In the whole of the United Kingdom
in 1849 there were 1,676,000 paupers, but in 1881 there
were only 1,014,000. Now look at another class of figures.
In 1831 there were 429,000 depositors in our savings
banks, and the amount of their deposits was £13,719,000.
In 1881 the number of the depositors had increased to
4,140,000, and the amount of the deposits had increased to
£80,334,000. (Cheers.) In 1862 there were 90,000 members
of co-operative societies with a paid-up capital of £428,000,
and annual sales of £2,333,000. In 1881 there were
525,000 members, with a paid-up capital of £5,881,000,
and total sales of £20,901,000. (Cheers.) In the various
building societies in the country there were as many as
500,000 members. (Hear, hear.) Now these statistics are
facts. They are not fancies. They are not Individualistic
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
47
dreams to set against Socialistic dreams. They are things
that have already happened. If this accumulation of wealth
—this saving practically by the working classes—has been
effected during the last twenty or thirty years, what reason
is there for supposing that the improvement may not
go on with accumulating power, gathering momentum as
it goes, until by self-help, and personal thrift, and the
sense of individual responsibility, the social problem is
solved on the lines of Individualism—without transform
ing the State into an almighty and omnipresent tyrant,
ruling every person and everything with a rod of iron ?
(Cheers.)
If Socialism were inaugurated, you would not settle
the question. It is only the few in every generation who
do the forward work. The mass simply mark time. It is
the few who go ahead and point the way. When they
have convinced the rest by experience, when their ideas
are proved to be true, the rest take advantage of the
demonstration and join them. (Hear, hear.) Mrs. Besant
complained that the great instrument of Individualism is
cut-throat competition. There is an old adage that if you
give a dog a bad name, that is sufficient to secure his
destruction. Now why cut-throat? Of course it makes
competition look ugly. It suggests a razor and blood.
But why not say simply “competition”. Competition
may be a very bad thing for those who cannot keep up.
It does not follow that it is for those who can. Competi
tion may be a bad thing for a man who runs in a race and
loses ; but it is not so bad a thing for the man in front.
(Hear, hear, and laughter.) And unless you are going to
abolish all competition, which Mrs. Besant proposes to do ;
unless you are going to remove it as she proposes from
every department of human life ; I do not see how you can
object to the principle at all. (Hear, hear.) John Stuart
Mill who, although, according to Mrs. Besant, he is a
discredited economist, is not by any means a discredited
thinker—for his writings will probably live when both
Mrs. Besant and myself are forgotten-—John Stuart Mill
says:—“Instead of looking upon competition as the
baneful and anti-social principle which it is held to
be by the generality of Socialists, I conceive that,
even in the present state of society and industry,
every restriction of it is an evil, and every extension
�48
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
of it, even if for the time injuriously affecting some
class of laborers, is always an ultimate good”. (Hear,
hear.) I agree with Mill in this. If competition is to
be removed, what do you propose to substitute for it
as a method ? Are you going to base society on pure dis
interestedness ? Gronlund himself, the writer of the New
Testament of Socialism, says: “Morals are not the founda
tion, still less religion. They are the top of our system.
Interest—self-interest—is the foundation, the prime motor, the
mainspring of our actions, so it is, has always been, and
will always be.” Self-interest, then, is to be the mainspring
of our actions even under Socialism. It must be, and I
will tell you why. You may do disinterested actions and
practise generosity—the more the better. But daily life
can only be organised on permanent motives. And the only
permanent motive which will keep the average man at
work, prevent him from idling, and make him thrifty, is
the desire of his own personal advantage—the desire of
the advantage of his own family—without infringing on
the equal right of all others to work for the same ends for
themselves. (Cheers.)
I have a number of other points for Mrs. Besant, but if
she goes over these I shall be satisfied. Meanwhile let
me ask her, above all things, to tell us how she proposes
to carry out the appropriation of all the wealth of the
country by the State. (Hear, hear.) How is it to be
done ? On what principles is it to be conducted ? For
until you tell us that, you are working with one hand
behind your back. Show us the hidden hand. (Cheers.)
Annie Besant, who was received with cheers, said: In
Mr. Foote’s last speech, on Wednesday night, he threw out
a challenge which I was then unable to answer, as I had
no further right of speech; and, with your permission, I
will accept that challenge very briefly before passing on to
the points which were raised in the speech to which we
have listened to-night. Mr. Foote then asked me to ex
plain how we were going to deal under Socialism with
what, he said, were the necessary “ generals” of industry,
and he compared Oliver Cromwell in his generalship of the
army to the best of those men who organised industry, and
who because of their special ability were highly paid.
I would submit to Mr. Foote first that in that comparison
he confused two things, which are very different—the
�49
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
wages paid for exceptional ability and the interest paid for
the use of capital held by idlers. It is not wise to mix up
different things in that fashion if you desire to seek clear
ness of thought. Wages for exceptional ability might
exist under Socialism, where the interest for capital was
abolished as a payment to idle individuals. Not only so,
but it must be also remembered as to generalship
that history tells us that the greatest generals were not
those who were attracted merely by high pay ; and I read
Oliver Cromwell’s character very badly if he was moved to
his devotion to his country by the hope of the cash pay
ment that he might receive, and not by his enthusiasm for
the cause which he thought was the nobler cause at that
time in England. Then Mr. Foote, arguing on the ques
tion of the “tenderness” of capital, asked me what would
have happened in France had Germany destroyed the
canals, and generally the fixed capital of the country.
There would have been a far slower revival of prosperity.
But I desire to reassure Mr. Foote on this head, and to
tell him that when the Socialists take over the land and
capital here they do not propose to destroy, before taking
over, the canals and fixed plant, but to keep them for the
benefit of the people to work with, so that they shall start
with the advantage of the past accumulation, and use it
for the facilitation of present and future labour. (Cheers.)
Then Mr. Foote challenged me on the question of the rate
of wages. Here I am obliged to go over the point very
quickly, and I would suggest to Mr. Foote that in dealing
with Mr. Giffen’s figures there are certain points he over
looked. Mr. Foote stated that the wages of skilled labor
had risen 100 per cent., and that that of the other
forms of labor had risen 50 per cent., and he asked
me to explain the cause of that. But Mir. Foote did not
state that which Mr. Giffen put with great frankness—
that his figures were, to a considerable extent, guess-work
rather than absolute certainty. His statement was that un
fortunately there was no account drawn up that would give
full statistics on the question save from the date of about
fifteen or sixteen years ago, and he explained that in dealing
with this matter, he was dealing with figures drawn from local
trades and then he takes from these an average which he
admits himself might not be really accurate. (Hear, hear.)
He then goes on to say that the wages have risen variously
E
�50
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
from 20 per cent, up to 50 and 100 per cent. And after
he has admitted that variation of percentages, for the rest
of his pamphlet he speaks of the rate of wage as having
doubled. Instead of taking into account the small increase
of 20 per cent, he takes the highest percentage for the
purpose of his argument, and uses that as if valid for the
whole of his argument. But I am willing to admit a
very considerable rise of wages. That has, however, been
largely balanced by the enormous rise of rent. It has also
to some extent been balanced by the very great rise in the
price of meat which is used to a considerable extent in this
country. The rise of rent is simply enormous. If you
take the rent in 1843 it amounted only to £95,000,000 ; if
you take it now it has run up to at least £200,000,000 ;
and if you are going to put the gain of the workers on the
one side, you must take into account the gain of those who
live on the workers on the other side. (Hear, hear.) Nor
is that all. Mr. Giffen himself admits that while wages
have risen in this fashion, the returns from capital have
risen from £188,500,000 to £407,000,000. He admits that
the wages which are paid to the workers among the upper
and middle classes, the wages of the highly paid, have
risen from £154,000,000 to £320,000,000; so that you have
your returns from capital more than doubled ; your returns
of these higher wages more than doubled, and I ask
you with what pretence, after admitting figures of that
sort, can Mr. Giffen say that the whole of the material
advantage of the last fifty years has gone into the pockets
of the manual workers? (Cheers.) But even this is not
all; in order thoroughly to understand how the rise has
come about, you must investigate the surrounding condi
tions, and you will find that you are dealing with a time
when an enormous impetus was given to trade. You are
covering the whole of the time when trade was expanded
by the first rush consequent on the free trade movement.
You are dealing with a. period in which England prac
tically stood alone as the workshop of the world; when
her coal and her iron went everywhere; when she was
the maker of nearly all the improved machinery, and
had nearly all the other nations of the world as her
customers to give her laborers work. All these things
must be taken into consideration when you are dealing
with the rise of wages that, as I admitted, has been con
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
51
siderable. But that is now no longer the case. You have
come to the end of the tether of your prosperity, for other
countries now raise their own coal and produce their own
iron. Your coal and your iron are getting lower down,
and therefore harder to work, while other countries are not
coming to you now as formerly for your machinery. You
used to be the world’s workshop, but you are now com
petitors with other nations; and the result of that is that
as you are competing with men whose wages are lower,
your wages will have to sink to the level of those which
are paid to the worst paid workers in foreign countries.
(Hear, hear.) That is my position. The past was a time
of unexampled prosperity, but that time is over, and now
the share to be divided among the workers is less than
it has been; the workers feel the pinch of poverty, and
that is the problem with which you have to deal at the
present time. Nor still is that all. During the time over
which Mr. Giffen has taken his figures you have had a
growing Socialism with all its advantages. There has
been the great benefit of trades unions, which fifty years
ago were illegal. They were combinations of workmen
struggling together to obtain the legal right of combining,
the right to work with each other for a rise of wages.
Trades unions are essentially Socialistic. (Hear, hear.)
They do away among the members with that competition
of which Mr. Foote is so strong a supporter; they tell the
stronger men not to use their strength for the injury of
their weaker brethren, but to hold together so that the
advantage of the strength may spread over all, and not be
taken by the stronger to the detriment of the weaker.
The same sort of attack as that of the Tories on trades
unionism is now being made on Socialism, and the same
reasons are given for the attack, namely, that trades
unionism was tyrannical, that it held back the stronger,
and tended to equalise the earnings of the more and the less
skilled workers.
There is one other point as to the growing Socialism
that I wish to refer to, and that is the passing of various
Factory Acts, which have practically, to a certain extent,
limited the power of plunder of the propertied classes.
These Acts, which came between the capitalist and the
worker limiting the hours to a considerable extent, have,
by their influence on public opinion, even limited the hours
n2
�52
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
of labor in places outside the statutory scope. You have
the whole of these matters operating on this question
of the rise of wages, and simply to say that the wages have
risen and to leave out of consideration everything that has
been a factor in that rise, is really not to go to the
root of the question, but to deal with it with absolute
superficiality. And I contend that these figures are used
against the workers in a fashion that even Mr. Griffen—
holding a brief for the capitalist as he said he was accused
of doing—would have been ashamed to use them. (Hear,
hear.) I will conclude this brief answer to Mr. Foote’s
challenge by reminding him of that which of course he
must know, the relative position of workers and of capital
ists in the matter of increased incomes. He submitted to
you figures as to the rise of incomes amongst the poor folk.
Why not have laid some stress on the enormous rise of
incomes amongst the wealthier persons as well ? Why not
have told us of the fortunes of £50,000 and upwards, that
whereas there were only eight of these in 1843, there were
sixty-eight in 1880 ? Why not have told us that the
fortunes ranging from £1,000 to £5,000 have enormously
increased during that time, having risen from 6,328 in 1843
to 15,671 in 1879-80? Why did he only lay stress upon
the increase of small incomes and not on the increase in
the large incomes? and why not have pointed out that,
according to Mr. Giffen, you will find that out of sixteen
and a half millions of different incomes, there are only one
and a half millions over £150 a year ? Why not also have
pointed to the shocking extravagance that has been one of
the signs of that fifty years’ growth, and the shameful
luxury and waste which have characterised the aristocracy
of wealth ? And why not have cast one thought towards a
point of serious importance in dealing with the possibility
of change—to that wise remark of De Tocqueville, that the
French made their Revolution when their condition was
improving ? He suggested that people do not rise in revolt
when crushed down by hopeless misery, but that it is as
they improve, as their position gets somewhat higher, as
they have hope in their life, that then it is the hope that
sometimes pushes them into the revolution which they
would never have dreamt of making in their days of utter
degradation. (Cheers.)
I pass from that to deal with the speech of to-night.
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
53
Mr. Foote says Socialism is old. So is man. But it does
not necessarily follow that because a thing has been long
in the world it is bad. (Hear, hear.) How ought history
to be used ? History is the record of the experiences of
our race. Are we to read it only to abuse our ancestors
and to say what fools they were? Or are we to read it
to learn wisdom from their experience ; to utilise only
what was proved to be right and true, and to avoid
falling into their errors by marking the places where they
stumbled? (Cheers.) Mr. Foote passed on to what he
called the peculiar American sect of “Free Love”. . I
fail to understand why any mention of that sect was in
troduced into this debate. (Hear, hear.) It has nothing
to do with our discussion. The phrase “free love”
raises in England a very bitter feeling, largely because
the views implied by it are not sufficiently understood.
And I quite fail to understand—and Mr. Foote did not
give us any explanation—why he dragged that particular
sect into a discussion on the question “ Is Socialism Sound? ”
(Cheers.) Mr. Foote says that Socialism is the character
istic of a low state of civilisation ; and to some extent it is
true that you will find in the low stages of civilisation a
very crude form of Socialism as well as of Individualism.
(Hear, hear.)- But if it is true that you are to condemn
Socialism because among some tribes of low civilisation you
will find a community of goods, are you then to condemn
Individualism because in some tribes in low stages of civilisa
tion you find it in the crudest form, and see the strongest
man preying upon the weaker and using his imprescriptible
right of eating his neighbor for his dinner ? Because, if
you are going to argue in that way then Socialism and
Individualism are alike to be rejected; where is the path
along which humanity is to walk ? (Cheers.) But Mr.
Foote says that according to Socialism the State is every
thing ; everything is to be done by the State. I cannot
help regretting that Mr. Foote did not define what he
meant by the State. If by the State he means a bureau
cracy ruling over the people, or a despotism like that of
Peru—a despotism in which the workers had no political
or social power whatever, but were merely a class tyran
nised over by an absolute sovereign and a hierarchy of
priests and aristocrats-—then I deny that such a State
has anything to do with Socialism. (Hear, hear.) But
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
if by the State he means the whole of the community
organised for self-government; if he means a society
organised for the good of the whole of society; then I agree
with him that it is of the essence of Socialism that that
organised community shall be supreme over itself. And I
fail to see any difference there can be between the Socialist
and the Radical on this head, when the Socialist says that
the community should be the controller of itself, and the
Radical desires the government of the people, by the people,
and for the people. (Cheers.) We ought not in this discus
sion to merely play with words. (Hear, hear.) We want
to get to facts, and it is necessary for Mr. Foote to define
what he means by the State before I can deal with his
statement as to the tyranny implied.
Then Mr. Foote went off to touch on Christianity, and
stated that ever since Christianity had begun Socialism
was a part of it. But this need not be any accusation against
Socialism, since he also says that it existed long before
Christianity was in existence, and it was very likely to be
partly taken into Christianity when Christianity became
one of the religions of the world. It is possible that if I
had lived in those times I might have approved of some of
the doctrines which were put forward by those fathers of
the Church which Mr. Foote quoted. (Hear, hear.) And
if Christianity walked on the same lines as Socialism then
Socialists would be willing to welcome it on these points
of agreement, as they are willing to-day to welcome
Christians as workers for this common purpose. (Hear,
hear.) But if we are to bring theology into this discussion,
it is as well to remember that Jesus Christ not only said,
“ Sell all that thou hast and give to the poor ”, but also,
“ Blessed be ye poor ”, and that Socialism considers as an
absolute curse that poverty which the founder of Chris
tianity is said to have blessed. But will it not be wiser to
try and deal with the thing itself rather than say whether
or not it enters into a religion to which both Mr. Foote and
myself are known to be antagonistic, and which can hardly
be introduced here without unfairly prejudicing the view
I am advocating? (Hear, hear.) I pass from this about
Christianity to the statement that many Utopian schemes
of Socialism have been suggested in the past. That is so.
Is it wonderful that men, grieving sorely at the sorrow of
their present, should strive to picture some nobler life on
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND
55
earth, where the sorrow and the misery should have passed
away ? (Cheers.) Remember it was the noblest men who
did this. Utopian dreamers or not, they were the nobler
outcome of humanity. All who long for a nobler life on
earth must at times dream of some Utopia. (Hear, hear.)
And it was better to have noble dreams even, than to rest
satisfied with the brutal gratifications of gain and greed.
Is it therefore, because some have made their Utopias too
perfect, that we shall not strive to realise something better
than the Pandemonium we have now ? (Cheers.) But Mr.
Poote says they were not only Utopian, but that many of
those who have started Socialistic experiments were only
held together by the bands of fanaticism, or religion, or
by sheer imbecility. I am not so sure that the desire of
persons to make a life of brotherhood—although imperfectly
carried out—should be characterised as an attempt in which
they were only held by sheer imbecility. (Cheers.) And I
doubt whether the use of words such as that will lead us to
any satisfactory result in this debate. (Hear, hear.) Mr.
Poote said that some of the nobler minds now approve of
Socialism, and that large numbers of the ignorant and the
poor also join them from baser motives, and he was kind
enough to say that I was one of the dreamers of the former
class, while he put the mass of Socialists in the other. He
also said that many of the members of the Social Demo
cratic Federation were going into the streets to advertise
themselves. And is it in this hall—the hall which is the
very centre in London of Preethought, of aggressive
Radicalism—that the going out into the streets to reach
the poor is to be pointed and scoffed at as being an un
worthy attempt at self-advertisement? (Cheers.) How
else are we to reach many of the poor? Mr. Poote may
say that I do not go out street-preaching. It is true I do
not speak in the streets, because I have not the physical
strength, and because I believe that the work I do is more
useful when I speak in this hall and elsewhere, and when
I use my pen—(cheers)—then if I did work others can do
more effectively. But if. there were no others to do the
street-work—if there were no Socialists able and willing to
do it—then would I too take my share in it and speak in
the streets. (Cheers, and cries of “Bravo”.) But whilst
there are others willing to do it, and whilst they are also
willing that I should do the other part of the work for
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
which I am more fitted, I will not scoff at them because
some of them may not always be wise in their speech, be
cause some may be even reckless in their utterances.
(Hear, hear.) I will thank them, despite even their
recklessness and their passion, for that they at least
see the evil of the present, and long for some nobler and
better form of brotherhood, instead of the struggle in which
the weaker are trampled out of life. (Cheers.)
M e are next told that Socialism is a symptom of distress,
and there is truth in that. The desire to make things
better comes from the recognition of the sufferings of
others. While everything goes on smoothly and easily, it
is quite possible that men’s minds may not turn towards
a change. But I think that trade depression has lasted
quite long enough to teach the lesson of Socialism, and
that the lesson being learned that poverty must grow out
of the form of proprietorship to which Socialists object, an
improvement in trade will only make the workers stronger
to effect the necessary change. (Cheers.)
I am a little surprised at—if Mr. Foote will pardon methe phrase—what seems to me Mr. Foote’s somewhat rough
and inaccurate translation of Proudhon’s phrase “la pro
priety c'est le vol”, as “property is theft”. Mr. Foote, is,
I know, well acquainted with the French language, and he
will bear me out in saying that “property ” in the English
sense is not the equivalent of “propriete” in the French.
A Frenchman would no more speak of his hat or his stick
as his “propriete” than an Englishman would say that
similar articles were his “estate”. In fact, the word
estate is a nearer equivalent for “propriete”, and it is
used for land, or for wealth in a wide sense, not for the
personal property of individuals in small articles. I put
this, not as agreeing with Proudhon, but as doing him
justice in a matter in which he is very generally misunder
stood. (Hear, hear.) As to Mr. Foote’s remark that my
presentation of the Socialist arguments is designed to hide
the bad side of my case, I cannot help thinking that the
debate will proceed more smoothly if such imputations be
omitted. The distinction that I made between wealth in
general, and wealth which is set apart for purposes of pro
duction, is not a distinction invented by myself, but is one
which is made by every political economist. There is a
very wide distinction between the ownership by the com
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
57
munity of land and capital, that is, of the raw and wrought
materials for the production of wealth, and the enjoyment
by individuals of their share of the products of labor. It
is perfectly possible to have public property in the one
existing simultaneously with private property in the other.
(Cheers.) Mr. Foote, as a land nationaliser, is face to face
with a similar difficulty with respect to the land. He
surely thinks that a man might pay rent to the State, and
yet remain owner of a vegetable he had raised on State
land. That is, that there might be public property in the
material for wealth production, and private property in the
wealth produced. Then why might not the distinction be
equally maintained between public property in capital, and
private in the products of labor when once they had been
acquired? The difficulty is of words not of things, and
affects all change in the ownership of raw, as much as it
does change in the ownership of wrought, material. Ought
I then to say to Mr. Foote, in his own words, that
his argument was a sheet of “thin tissue paper” in
tended to hide the true state of his case ? (Laughter and
applause.)
In my next speech I will say something on the possible
methods of appropriation of the material we claim for
society, though on questions of method there is much
divergence of opinion among Socialists, and in dealing
with them I can give only my personal views. Let me, in
conclusion, express my dissent from the doctrine of the
natural, or imprescriptible rights of man. These supposed
rights have no historical basis, they have no answering
realities in life. The natural right of a man is to grab as
much as he can, and to hold all he can grab as long as he
can. “The spoils to the victor” is the natural law.
Rights were not anterior to society, but grew slowly out
of society. They grew out of the desire of each to be safe
and free from oppression, and from the union of many to
restrain the aggressor, from public opinion codified as law.
Anterior to society and to law there were no rights. The
doctrine is an idle metaphysical theory, and what we now
call the “ rights of man ” are those conditions which bn man
experience has shown to be most conducive to happiness.
The idea of a “ right ” has been slowly evolved in, slowly
recognised by, society, and society exists to secure these
rights for the weaker, who can only obtain them by law,
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IS SOCIALISM SOW ?
and to guard for all those advantages which are naturally
enjoyed only by the strong. (Loud applause.)
Mr. Foote : Mrs. Besant seems to have perverted many
things I said, or perhaps she misunderstood them. A little
sense of humor would have prevented these blunders. Mrs.
Besant might, for instance, have seen that I was speaking
as euphemistically as I could of the Social Democratic.
Federation ; that I meant a good deal more than I said,
but I did not care to use strong language. Since I must
speak plainly, however, to make myself properly understood,
I will do so at once. I did not complain simply because the
more eager Socialists went into the streets. Mrs. Besant
says she would go into the streets and speak herself if there
were no others to do the work. Well, I have gone into the
streets. (Cheers.) I have done it repeatedly, and when the
summer months come round I shall probably do it again.
(Applause). But I have never assembled men and led
them to places of worship, where neither they nor I have
any business. (Hisses and cheers.) I have strongly op
posed the teaching given in such places, but I have no right
to obtrude my opinions there. (Hear, hear.) bl or have I
ever sought to gain a hearing by appealing to the basest
passion of the human mind, the passion of envy. (Hear,
hear.) I have never addressed half-starved men, or men
out of work, in such a way as would encourage them to
■commit offences which the law would punish; nor after
wards, when brought before a jury, have .1 pitifully
pleaded “ It was not I that did it ”. (Loud and repeated
applause, hisses, and cries of “order”.) I have stood
before juries, and I may have to do so again. Who knows ?
What has happened may happen once more. But what
ever I may be tried for, in the matter of advocacy of
opinion, I shall, as before, defend what I have done.
(Loud applause.)
Mrs. Besant says I mistranslated the sentence I quoted
from Proudhon. But I had at least the honesty to give
the French original before I gave my translation. It is
impossible to translate with absolute precision from one
language into another, especially in the case of two
such different languages as the French and English. I
might have said “Owning is theft”, or “Ownership is
theft”—which is perhaps the nearest translation. But
really, what difference is there between that and “Pro
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
59
perty is theft?”. It is simply a quarrel about words.
(Hear, hear).
Mrs. Besant also said I was unfortunate in my reference
to Cromwell. But was I ? It is true he did not work
simply for mercenary motives, but there was in him a mix
ture of regard for his own interest. Cromwell did not
refuse substantial rewards. He was exceedingly well paid
for what he did. He had something like £10,000 a year,
a palace to live in, and many acres of confiscated royalist
estates. I do not deny Cromwell’s earnestness, but I say
it was not unalloyed; and there are other generals who
would be patriots on the same terms. (Cheers.)
Again, I adhere to all I said about the destruction of
French capital by the Germans. They did not destroy the
permanent capital of the country, but only some of its
floating capital, and that chiefly food. In fact, they merely
helped to consume what the French would otherwise have
consumed by themselves. When the French were left in
peace with their railways, docks, canals, fields, houses,
and machinery, all they had to do was to go on working as
before, and the replacement of floating capital was an easy
task. (Hear, hear.)
I have been accused by Mrs. Besant of not representing
Mr. Giffen fairly. Well, Mr. Giffen gives a great
quantity of figures, and I could only select what suited my
purpose. With respect, however, to the proportion of the
national income taken by labor as against capital, Mr.
Giffen distinctly says that he has, if anything, understated
it. I am also aware that he says the early figures are not
quite satisfactory. But they are satisfactory as far as they
go. Mr. Giffen takes the actual wages, for instance, of
many parts of the country. They are numerous and far
apart, so that he gets a very fair average. How otherwise
would you have him proceed ? (Hear, hear.) Mrs. Besant
says that Mr. Giffen holds a brief for the capitalists. I
don’t quite see it. But suppose he does; might I not
reply that Mrs. Besant holds a brief for the Socialists ?
(Hear, hear.) It seems that we must listen to nothing
here but Socialist facts, and”by a judicious selection and a
judicious use they may be made to prove anything.
(Cheers.) If Mr. Giffen’s figures are wrong, let the
Socialists furnish other figures that are right and that
will controvert his. (Cheers.)
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
Mrs. Besant said that trade unions are carried out on
Socialistic lines. But is thst so ? Any member of a trade
union may leave it to-morrow if he chooses. But if you
socialise everything, the only way to leave it will be to go
to another planet. (Laughter.) Then trade unions do
not prescribe an absolute uniformity of wage, but only a
minimum, and even that breaks down where piece-work
is taken. The reason of the uniform minimum is obvious.
Trade unions are to some extent fighting organisations,
and under a fighting system you must submit to the com
mon law of the machine, otherwise united action in warfare
would be impossible. But I maintain that if it were not
for that necessity there would be nothing like uniformity
of wage, and the men themselves would reject it. The
tailors’ establishment at Clichy started by Louis Blanc,
despite his sentimentalism, gave up equal payment. It
was found to be unworkable. The men would not put up
with it. In the great house of Leclaire, which is worked
on the co-partnership principle, the men would laugh at
you if you suggested that they should all have the same
wages. The difference in the skill and application to the
work makes all the difference in the result of the man’s
labor, and, as Mrs. Besant says everyone should have the
result of his labor, why should not everyone in the ideal
state of things have the wage for which he honorably
works and which he has actually earned? (Applause.)
It is not fair to say that I did not refer to the increased
incomes of the rich during the last fifty years. I stated
that the rate of the working men’s wages had increased
during the last fifty years to counteract Mrs. Besant’s
picture of the gradual deterioration of the workman and
the poverty in which he was found now. Next, Mrs.
Besant wishes me to give her an explanation of how the
land is to be nationalised without falling into the very
evils which she will fall into with her nationalisation of
capital. I dealt with that last Wednesday, when I stated
that if land were to be nationalised, the use of it would
would have to be paid for as now. There would be com
petition amongst those who wanted to use the land, and
those able to give the best rent would get it. But there
would be this difference—that rent, when paid by the in
dividual cultivators of the soil, competing against each
other in the open market, instead of often going as un
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
61
earned increment into the pockets of the absolute idlers,
who do not co-operate to produce the general result, would
go into the national exchequer, for the benefit of all.
(Cheers.)
What is the State ? asks Mrs. Besant. The State, always
and everywhere, is a body of men appointed by other men,
or self-elected, or coming in by what is called hereditary
right, to manage the affairs of the people. (Hear, hear,
and “No, no”.) That is not a State? Then I will ask
Mrs. Besant to give me her definition of a State. I know
what some of you may mean. You may have in your
mind the idea of society. But society, consisting of every
body under the State, is a very different thing. (Hear,
hear.) The State itself is the government of the country,
no matter how it be appointed or held.. It involves coer
cive power. That coercive power is rightfully used for
some things, and is wrongfully used for others. The dif
ference between us is that Mrs. Besant says it rightly
covers everything, while I say it only rightly covers some
things. Against its exercise in some things she rebels,
and I rebel, and every man or woman here also rebels.
(Applause.)
But let us return to our old friend “cut-throat compe
tition”. (Laughter.) Mrs. Besant is, of course, aware of
the fact that we largely depend upon foreign trade. Until
the world is Socialised—and that will be a very long time,
for before you convert the Chinese and the Hindoos, the
Central Asians, the South Americans, and the Central
Africans, a good period must naturally elapse, even under
the most hopeful prospects—(laughter)—we shall have to
depend largely on foreign trade. How are we to hold our
own in that open market of the world where we are noy
obliged to trade, unless we compete with the foreigner in
respect to the prices at which we can offer our goods for
sale ? And if we are obliged to compete as to prices, we
must compete as to labor, and consequently, to that extent
at least, competition is inevitable. (Hear, hear.)
Now, I come to a point which Mrs. Besant did not deal
with, although I invited her to do so last Wednesday, and
that is, What are you going to do with the population
question ? Mrs. Besant says, in her pamphlet on Social
ism, that “Under a Socialist regime the community will
have something to say as to the numbers of the new
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
members that are to be introduced into it
I urge that
the community must say its wordyzrsh All your construc
tion, if you do not settle the population question, is like
erecting castles on the sand of the sea-shore in front of an
advancing tide. (Hear, hear.) It is a peculiarity of
Socialists that they laugh at the population question.
Gronlund says of Malthus that ‘ ‘ This doctrine of his is a
vicious monstrosity, hatched in the saloons of the wealthy,
and flattering to the conscience of the ruling classes, and
therefore it has been so widely accepted”. Mrs. Besant
does not argue thus. She argues quite to the contrary.
The law of population is an absolute fact, and if anyone
cannot see it it shows the deficiency of his sight. If the
State finds everybody with work—and Mrs. Besant holds
it must—the Socialist state, with respect to population,
would be in the same position as a Communistic state;
because, if it cannot provide everyone with work, it must
provide everyone with food ; for, if it takes all the capital
and leaves none for private enterprise, it is bound to fur
nish food for the starving. (Hear, hear.) If you find
everybody with food, how are you going to prevent over
population by those who have no sense of responsibility ?
Under the present system, conjugal prudence and parental
responsibility prompt those who possess them not to pro
duce a larger offspring than they are able to rear, and
they have thus an advantage in the struggle for existence.
I know the struggle is hard. Therefore it is better to
breed from the fit than from the unfit. It is better for
posterity that the stronger should survive than that the
weaker should hand down their weakness to subsequent
generations. (Hear, hear.) Mrs. Besant and her friends
must settle this problem, not after but before they ask us to
inaugurate Socialism. She understands the vital importance
of this point, and I ask her to speak out clearly. She was
never grander than when she defended the right to
publish the truth on this subject. It is one of the regrets
of my life that I misinterpreted her motives, and I take
this public opportunity of saying so. But I also ask her
to be true to the great cause now as she was true to it
then, to champion still the theory of population which she
maintained in the face of danger and in front of the gaol.
(Loud applause.)
Annie Besant : Mr. Foote asks me, How do you pro
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
63
pose to nationalise the land and capital ? and he quotes a
phrase—I think it is from the manifesto of the Social
Democratic Federation—about taking over the railways
“ with or without compensation ”. The phrase is not difficult to understand. If the change be made in peace, it
would be possible to make it with reasonable compensation
to the holders, the unjust holders, of land and capital.
But if the change be made, not by law but by force, then
the question of compensation would be swamped in the
rush of revolution. That is probably what is meant when
the phrase is used “ with or without compensation ”. If
the present holders are wise, then, remembering that
society has made them, and that, unsatisfactory results as
they are, we are responsible for them, we may still keep
them for the remainder of their unprofitable lives ; but if
they are not wise, and set themselves against the people,
then they will have to take their chance in the struggle
which they have provoked. (Hear, hear.) How should
we make the change ? I grant that is a question for dis
cussion. My point, as a Socialist, is to persuade people it
would be a good thing to make the change, and until that
is done all the talk about the methods of doing it is
almost useless. (Cries of “No, no”.) You say no. But
Radicals’ proposals for sweeping changes are open to a
similar objection. Do you mean to say that in dealing
with proposals for change that you do not always first try
to persuade people that change is desirable before going
into the methods ? How many imperfect schemes of nation
alisation of the land are there? The land nationalisers
are not agreed as to the method, although they are agreed
on the principle. (Hear, hear.) Socialists are not agreed
as to the method, although they are agreed that they must
do something to bring that nationalisation about. (Hear,
hear.) My view of the easiest way to do it is to try and
make a reasonable allowance to the present holders of
land and capital, to terminate with their lives. That is.
more than just; it is generous in the extreme. You must
remember that in dealing with human affairs you have not
always the choice between good and evil, but you have to.
choose the lesser of two evils. At the present time a small
class lives idly because they possess these monopolies. It
would be better that that small class should be deprived
of that monopoly without compensation, rather than
�64
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
myriads of the people should continue to live as they live
to-day. (Cheers.) But I do not believe that absolute
confiscation is necessary. I believe we can find a method
by which, with the least possible suffering to any, this
great change can be made. But I say frankly that this
question needs very full and very complete discussion. It
is a question for Socialists to discuss amongst themselves
rather than for Socialists to discuss with their antagonists.
We want to convince you first that it would be well for us
to cross to the other side of the river, and when that is
done we will consult as to the best methods of building
the bridge that will take us over. (Hear, hear.) But, as
I have said before, it may be done simply by making a
number of those persons life-charges on the rents of the
monopolies. I believe it might be done in that fashion
to a large extent. Then the National Debt should be
gradually paid off, so that those who five on the interest of
the National Debt may be got rid of even though it be
done by very considerable taxation. I should not propose
to continue to pay interest, but to pay off the value of
their stock; because I know that when you have once
closed the source of idle living by stopping the interest,
small harm would be done by letting them have what they
originally invested; but you must stop them from levying
a perpetual tax upon industry by the interest which they
are able to draw. I put it to you that these and similar
methods of turning these people into life annuitants is a
practical reasonable way of making the great transition,
and of getting rid, in a generation, of the idle class. I
admit there are many difficulties, but they are not always
insuperable. What is wanted is, first to get the idea clearly
before the people that these monopolies for the few mean
poverty for the many, and that we must use our brains to
discover the best method of destroying them, and so of
striking at the root of our social evils. (Hear, hear.)
After dealing with that point, Mr. Foote went on to the
case of Clement Duval, but I fail to follow his argument.
Clement Duval was said to be an Anarchist, and was
clearly a thief. But is it because a thief calls himself an
Anarchist that Socialism is to be condemned ? If so, as
Individualism produces most of the thieves, Individualism
stands condemned in the same way. (Hear, hear.) And
I must remind you that your legalised thievings breed
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
65
illegal thefts. If a man. like Clement Duval sees a wealthy
man taking wealth that he has not earned, how is he to
distinguish in principle. between the capitalist’s right to
take the wealth he has not earned from the worker, and
his own right to take that for which he gives no equiva
lent from a private house ? If you destroy men’s sense
of honesty by your legalised system of thieving—called
capitalism—you cannot wonder that men, with somewhat
muddled brains, imitate on a small scale what is done on
a large by the leaders of society. (Hear, hear,) Mr.
Foote says that the majority has only the right to protect
life, liberty, and property. But society, in its supreme
right over its members, very often tramples on the whole
of those rights, and I think with the approval, to some
extent, of Mr. Foote himself. What about taking the
life of a man who has committed a murder ? I do not
say it is right. I do not think it is consistent with the
highest morality ; but if society is formed for the protec
tion of life, speaking generally and universally, it seems
strange that the life of man should be taken by society, and
this action seems to support the view that society can claim
supremacy even over the lives of those who are its mem
bers. Mr. Foote says that society defends liberty and
property. Liberty and property are very fine words, but
we complain that the present organised system defends
neither liberty nor property for the majority. We allege
that instead of defending property, it confiscates the property
of the workers, and places it in the hands of those who do
not labor. We allege that it only protects the property of
the rich, and authorises the constant robbery of the poor.
When you are dealing with this question of property, has
it ever struck you to turn to some statistics—not made by
Socialists, but issued by a benevolent Government for the
instruction of its subjects—and to read there that out of
every 1,000 persons who die—I am dealing with the
probate and legacy returns—only thirty-nine leave behind
them £300 worth of personal property, including furniture.
So that, on the whole, the protection of property in our
country is scarcely satisfactory, since it can hardly be con
tended that the worker in a whole life would not have
made more than that to leave behind him when he dies.
And again, when you have the idler who leaves hundreds
and thousands of pounds behind him when he dies,
u
�66
IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
although, he has done nothing, then your view as to the
value of society in protecting property will have to undergo
some modification before being accepted. (Hear, hear.)
I am told that poverty is now redressed, and stress is
laid on the spread of education and on the decrease of
crime, and when Mr. Foote urged that I found myself very
much in agreement with him. The statistics quoted as to
education and diminution of crime are such as we must
all be glad to know ; but as to the decrease of pauperism,
the statistics are not so satisfactory, because we know how
it has been caused; we know that the poor-law officers
have made the conditions of relief much more stringent,
and the taking away of out-door relief has diminished the
number of paupers, in consequence of the shrinking of
the people from going into the workhouse. This has made
the diminution shown by the statistics not so real as it
looks. (Hear, hear.) Then we are told as to the growth of
savings in banks, and so on, and we are asked why not go
on in this particular line. I answer, because if we go on
in this line the masses will continue to get so little and
the few will still get so much ; because although in savings
banks you may get a large sum in the aggregate, if you
work it out and compare it with the number of the popu
lation you will find it amounts to a contemptibly small
amount per head, and even then we have no right to say
that all is the savings of the workers. But still all those
points are points which show some sort of slight improve
ment here and there. But they are balanced by an amount
of misery, by an amount of wretchedness, that surely
should urge us to some method of dividing the nation’s
produce which shall not leave only one-third of it in the
hands of 5,000,000 families, while the remaining twothirds go to 2,000,000 families to keep them in wealth.
(Hear, hear.)
But, Mr. Foote says, why use the phrase, “cut-throat
competition”, and he says it suggests a razor and blood.
But how many of our people are killed out in this struggle
for life ? (Hear, hear.) I speak of cut-throat competition,
and I base that phrase, not on Socialist figures, but on the
report of the Registrar-General, where I find the average
life of the workers is very little more than one half the
average age of the idlers, and it makes no difference to me
in looking at the effect of things whether a man has his
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
life cut short by direct violence, or if his throat is cut by
the razor of semi-starvation carried on during a great part
of his childhood and manhood, sinking him to the grave
sooner by half a life than if he shared the better food and
sanitary conditions of the wealthy class. (Hear, hear.)
Then Mr. Foote made another attack on the Social
Democratic Federation, into which I will not again
follow him, for this debate is on the question, “Is
Socialism Sound?”, not on whether it is wise for persons
to enter a church and hiss at the Queen. Supposing these
things were done over and over again by foolish persons
that does not touch the subject of this debate. (Hear,
hear.) Then Mr. Foote tells me that Oliver Cromwell was
well paid in the end. Mr. Foote will not say that that
payment was Cromwell’s motive in his work. In fact, all
the great works of genius are done because the genius is
there, impelling the man to act. It was not money that
made Mil ton write “ Paradise Lost ”. It is the imperious
faculty in the artist that makes him create, and makes him
find a joy in his creative work. Little cares he whether
money come to him as payment; his payment comes in
men’s love, in men’s gratitude, and the memory they keep
of him ; he knows that the future is his, and herein is his
reward, rather than in the mere cash amount that may be
paid over to him. (Cheers.)
Mr Foote : I have again and again heard Mrs. Besant
say what the facts of life strictly disprove—that men of
genius are simply moved by theijs creative impulse. If
Mrs. Besant went and told the members of the Royal
Academy that they only painted for public applause, they
would probably all laugh at her. Certainly the artist
does like public applause, just as Mr. Gladstone or any
minister of the crown likes public applause. But somehow
they all like to be as well paid as possible too. (Hear,
hear.) Gronlund supposes—and I have heard the same
thing from other Socialists—that it would be absurd to
think of a great man of genius painting or writing for
payment. The name of Raphael was given as one instance,
but Raphael painted for popes and cardinals, and other
men of great eminence and great wealth. It is well to
keep the facts of history before you. (Hear, hear.)
When Mrs. Besant says that the suffering of to-day is a
balance against the improvement that I indicated, she is
f 2
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
also conflicting with the facts of history. I have read some
thing of the history of my country, and Mrs. Besant pro
bably has too. I have also spoken to old men belonging to
the party with which I have the honor to work, up and
down the country in the manufacturing districts, who
remember what was the state of things thirty and forty
years ago, and they corroborate what I have read in the
pages of recent history. If I may trust these reports, the
state of the worker forty years ago was greatly worse than
it is to-day. (Hear, hear.) It is easy enough for a man
who feels the distress to-day to exclaim like mourners are
always apt to do, “Never was grief like unto mine”.
But if you look at the real facts you will find that in your
deepest misery others suffer as greatly; and if you now
suffer from distress, there was greater distress forty years
ago. However, Mrs. Besant says—and true it is—that
poverty is to be redressed. But it does not at all follow
that mere benevolence is likely to redress it. It does not
follow that rash action is likely to redress it. (Hear,
hear.) If a man is in dire agony, it does not follow that
the first half-a-dozen persons who drop in to see him in a
neighborly way, and to sympathise with him, will do him
any good. The surgeon who is called in must keep
his sympathy in the background. He must use his skill
with the utmost callousness. He must not allow his
sympathy to affect his nerves. He must work in the
cold, dry light of the intellect. Unless he does that the
patient will suffer more, from his sympathy than he will
gain from it. So with this great social question. You
cannot eradicate the evils of human nature in a moment
or in a generation. I tell Mrs. Besant she takes too
optimistic a view of human nature. I know there are
heroes in the world, but there are also cowards; there are
wise men, and there are fools; there are Shaksperes,
and there are Silly Billys. (Laughter.) You cannot with
the same old human nature work a new scheme simply
because you have devised it on the strictest rules of
altruism. (Hear, hear.) The same human nature that
produces to-day’s evils will reassert itself. No matter
what your social mechanism is, it will show the same old
fruit. Covetousness will not be abolished by Socialism.
Idleness will not be abolished because the whole com
munity will find work or food. Thrift will not be increased
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
69
because you say that a man should work for all instead of
for himself. (Applause.) If this human nature could be
twisted and turned like dough, and we were to agree that
the most benevolent scheme of the loftiest dreamer should
be put into operation, we might perhaps do some good.
But if it were applied to ordinary human nature it would
not, it could not, work. (Cheers.) Why, if ever a Social
istic experiment could have succeeded, surely it would have
been the Brook Farm in America. Surely it might be
thought that persons like Emerson, Hawthorne, Margaret
Fuller, and the others assembled together in a Socialistic
system, had the wisdom and the lofty nature for the pur
pose. But there was the old human nature in every one
of them. There it was, deeper down than their intellect
and their aspirations, and asserting itself in its own way.
In the end the experiment broke up, as all others have
done, except when supported by fanaticism and religious
bigotry. (Applause.)
Mrs. Besant says that she does not quite understand my
saying that society, or rather the State, exists for the pro
tection of life, liberty, and property. She carefully refrains
from saying a word about liberty. In the last night of
this discussion, when my turn comes to open again, I shall
perhaps have enough to say about liberty, which I believe
Communism, Socialism, or any such system, would crush
from off the face of the earth. (Cheers.) Meanwhile, I
will say that I cannot understand how Mrs. Besant thinks
that hanging a murderer is a violation of the principle that
the State is organised for the protection of life. Why is
the murderer hanged or incarcerated for the rest of his
days ? Because he has taken life; because he has violated
the very principle for which the State is organised. Unless
the State protects the people, you have anarchy instead of
organised society. (Cheers.)
It may, perhaps, be clever, but it is on the whole a little
too clever, to say that the protection of property means
merely the protection of idlers. Are all the members of
building societies idlers ? Are all the men who own—as
many do throughout England—the freehold of their houses,
idlers ? Are all the men who deposit in savings banks,
idlers ? Are all those who have paid money year by year
in fire and life insurance societies, idlers ? (Cries of “ No,
no ”.) You will find that if John Smith thinks the fate of his
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
fifty pounds is bound up with that of the Duke of Bedford’s
millions, he will fight in defence of his own and the Duke’s
too. (Applause.) It is easy enough to under-estimate the
power which is held by those who own small properties in
this country. Socialists may laugh, but the moment they
thought they were in the majority, and tried to put their
proposals into execution, they would find a million bayonets
lifted in defence of property. (Cheers.) The right of
property is not simply a principle that’ covers the idler;
it covers the worker too.
Mrs. Besant allows that we both agree that poverty
should be redressed. Before this debate is over it will be
my duty to show that I am not simply occupying a nega
tive position, although I am doing so to-night. (Hear,
hear.) I will attempt to show that without the Collectivist
system, or any of its dangers, by a gradual and sure
process we can emancipate the worker in the true sense of
the word. Bor what is it he suffers from ? Compe
tition? I say, nonsense I (Hear, hear.) Competition
gives a hard-working man an advantage over a lazy
man. Competition gives a skilful man an advantage over
a man who will not take the trouble to be skilful. What
the worker really suffers from is the subordination of
labour to capital. Aye, and that subordination can be
remedied just in proportion as the workers show that they
possess the moral and intellectual qualifications without
which their emancipation is an impossibility. (Cheers.)
Mrs. Besant has not yet touched the population question.
I want to know how she proposes to deal with it. She says
that under Socialism the necessity of conjugal prudence
would be obvious to the blindest. Why is it not obvious
now, when the parents have to bear the whole responsi
bility, unless the poor-law or private benevolence inter
venes ? How will it be obvious to the blindest when the
whole burden is thrown on collective society ? I did not
make the world, and I am glad of it. I did not lay down
the law of natural selection, and I am glad of it. But
nature has laid it down. It is a sure sign of a fool to
fancy that if you walk and talk round a fact it will change
or vanish. Facts must be met. H you go on breeding
population you must meet the question somewhere. H you
keep all that are not working, or for whom work cannot
be found, you will have the unfit, the scrofulous, the con
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
71
sumptive, the indolent, and the stupid, exactly on a par,
as respects their offspring, with the more capable and
energetic, from whom it would be far better that the race
should be continued. It is better to face these facts
instead of blinking them. (Cheers.)
In concluding my last speech to-night, let me draw your
attention to something curious in Socialism. In every
other system, persons all say “ experiment will show the
thing can be done ”, Why do not the Socialists try an ex
periment and see whether they can manage to succeed.
(A voice: “We are not organised”.) In this world we
do not make discoveries, we do not make inventions, we do
not make any progress, except by the one method of ex
periment. We try fifty or a hundred wrong ways until we
find the right one. By closing the avenues to experiment
with a cut-and-dried universal system, you really block
progress. Instead of doing this, let the Socialists show us
by experiment that Socialism can succeed. Why wait for
the whole world to join you before you make a move ?
Why don’t the Socialists give their scheme a trial on a fair
if modest scale, and show us that they can produce
better results than are obtained under Individualism.
(Cheers.) But Mrs. Besant’s Socialism cannot be practised
tilll the whole world is converted. There never was such
a Gospel before. She invites us all to ascend Mount
Pisgah, or some other height, and view the beauties of the
Socialist promised-land. Some of us think it is nothing
but a mirage, a mere haze on the horizon, or only a dream
of the prophet’s brain. But Mrs. Besant asks us to ascend
with her, and she will provide us with a patent Socialistic
flying-machine. We are not to go on in the old plodding
way, step by step, but we are to try our wings, we are to
fly instead of walking. It will be fortunate for those who
hold back when the flight begins. (Laughter.) There is
only one true method of progress in this world. It is step
by step, line upon line, here a little and there a little.
(Applause.) Pessimism is probably false, and Optimism is
probably false, but there is sound philosophy in Meliorism,
or making things a little better day by day. When Louis
Blanc, after years of sentimentalising, had an opportunity
of doing something after the fall of the Empire, he went
on sentimentalising as before. He kept talking and writ
ing about “the social question ”, until he provoked Gam-
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
betta into saying: “ There is no one social question ; there
are many social questions, and each must be dealt with
when it is ripe”. Every stimulation of the intellect and
higher feelings of the people, every fresh advance in public
education, every new political reform, every gradual im
provement of the relations between labor and capital, every
sure step of the workers in the direction of self-help through
voluntary co-operation, is of more advantage to the world
than all the fanciful Utopias ever spun by metaphysical
spiders. (Loud applause.)
Annie Besant : Let me dispose first of the Royal
Academy. I quite grant that the members of the Royal
Academy paint for money. My words only applied to
geniuses. I quite admit that where you are dealing with
mental ability short of genius, it may be necessary for
some time to come to have some difference of remunera
tion. That is not in any sort of way necessarily antagon
istic to Socialism, and the confusing of the two things may
give a dialectical triumph, but will hardly stand much in
vestigation. (Hear, hear.) Mr. Eootesays I take too opti
mist a view of things. Socialism urges itself upon the world,
not because it takes an optimist view, but because it tries
to take a real one. It believes that where one man can
live idly on the labor of others, that man will live idly on
other’s labor. That is, it realises that unless you can
make it impossible for men to live in idleness, and can
thwart men’s evil instincts by arrangements which do not
permit of their having full play, these instincts will
triumph and cause misery in society. It is because we
believe this that Socialists propose to take away the pos
sibility of idle living, so as to be able to say to a man,
“ If you do not work you will starve
(Hear, hear.) It
is because we know men will live idly if they can, that we
want to destroy the means of their living on the labor of
others. (Hear, hear.) Socialism tries to destroy the
monopolies in the material for wealth, because only by
that destruction can the men who own them be prevented
from preying on their fellows. Hear, hear.) Well, Mr.
Eoote says that the Socialistic experiment at Brook Farm
did not succeed, and that, if that failed, where can we
hope for success. And he asks, why do you not try your
Socialist experiments yourself ? We say that the failure
of the previous experiments has convinced us that small
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
73
Socialist societies living in the midst of a competitive
system can never realise our idea of what true Socialism
is. It can only be done by the conversion of the majority
to Socialism, and by that majority taking over the means
of production already in existence. And when we are
asked why do we not now make our experiment, we say
that we are not going to surrender our right to the accu
mulations of previous labor, and that by leaving these in
the hands of the present owners, and starting afresh, we
should be only playing into the hands of the plunderers.
(Cheers.) The workers have already made the capital;
why should they leave it in the hands of the appropriating
class, and set to work to build it all up anew ? Then Mr.
Foote challenges me—and rightly—to speak on the popu
lation question, and he uttered words of generous recog
nition of what I have done in the matter in the past, for
which I earnestly and cordially thank him. (Hear, hear.)
I do not move from the position I took up in 1877. I
would stand as readily on my trial now, as then, for the right
to teach the people how to limit their families within their
means. I know I am in a minority on this question in the
Socialist party. I know that the majority of my Socialist
friends, realising rightly, as they do, that the population
question alone cannot solve this problem of poverty, at
present shut their eyes too much on this matter, and turn
their backs too angrily on a truth which they ought to
realise. (Hear, hear.) But none the less is it true that if
you solved the population question to-morrow your people
would still remain exploited for the benefit of others; if
the population were so reduced that the masters were left
to compete for labor as laborers now compete for employ
ment, justice would still be left undone. Why do masters
try to get hold of the laborers but in order to make a
profit out of them—that is, to deprive them of some of the
result of their labor ? and whilst, given the same amount
of employment, the laborer’s wage with a small population
would be higher than with a larger population, it would
still only be a wage—a share of what he earned—and the
idler would still live on the industrious man. (Cheers.)
Socialists see this ; but they very unwisely, as I often tell
them, go out of their way and put themselves into a false
position by setting themselves against a law of nature,
instead of recognising and utilising the truth for them
�74
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
selves. (Hear, hear.) Mr. Foote says, how will your
Socialist State prevent over-population ? and I might
answer him by saying, How would your Individualist
State prevent it ? But that is no answer. The Socialist
State would probably prevent it by law. (Laughter, and
“Oh, oh”.) Yes, by law. The Socialists will be forced
to understand that the children are a burden on the com
munity ; education being supported out of the taxes and
education going on from childhood until the citizen is
almost an adult—education will be a very heavy burden
which the producers will have to bear. When they feel
that the undue increase of their families makes that burden
too great, when they realise that the multiplication of non
producing consumers means more work, less leisure, more
hardship for themselves, can it be pretended that they will
be likely to leave the comfort of the community at the
mercy of its most reckless members ? And when you are
dealing with society organised as we propose it should be
organised, it will be far easier to stop these mischiefs even
by public opinion than it is now. (Hear, hear.) Mr. Foote
speaks about breeding from the fit and from the unfit. But
is it from the fit only that the population is recruited under
the Individualist system ? Are the Brunswicks then among
the fit ? The idlers of the country add largely to the
numbers of the population, and we want to strike at all
idle living, and we believe that by doing that we shall be
able the sooner to educate the people to realise the full
scope of this question of population. But I say again,
as before, that every system which does not realise or
recognise this law of population will break down. (Hear,
hear.) Socialism without it would break down, and even
Bebel himself, who speaks against Malthusianism now,
admits that under the Socialist regime we shall come face
to face with this increase of population, and that the time
will come for dealing with it. (Hear, hear.)
I will now pass on from that to another point raised.
Mr. Foote says why not have free competition ? You can
not have free competition whilst you have monopolies in
land and capital. You can only get anything of the value
of free competition when every man shall be able to reach
the land and have the use of capital, so that each shall be
really free. (Hear, hear.) There is no freedom of con
tract between the proprietors and the proletariat. For one
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
75
is clogged by the absolute necessity of having to get his
livelihood from the other, and to talk of free competition
under such conditions is a mere hypocrisy. Then Mr.
Foote says that the State under Socialism would interfere
with everything. We do not allege that the State should
do everything and interfere with everything. We allege
that you should have an organisation elected by the people,
responsible to the people, removable by the people, which
should administer for the general good the material for
the production of wealth in the country. (Hear, hear.)
But such a State, or rather the Executive of such a State,
would be nothing more than a body or bodies of officers
elected by the people, much as your municipalities are now
elected to discharge certain functions for the benefit of the
towns whose business they administer. (Hear, hear.) Next,
Mr. Foote asks, what about foreign countries ? and he
says truly that it will take a long time before China,
India, and various barbarous races will be socialised.
Then, he says, we should have to compete with these non
Socialist States in the markets of the world. I am not
aware that we compete with the negro or with these
lower races in the world’s markets ; and is it quite fair to
use the argument that it will be a long time before these
lower races are socialised, and then the next moment to
speak of them as if they were our competitors, whereas
the only relation between us and them is that we plunder
and murder them, and that they resist us? (Hear, hear.)
It will indeed be a long time before the negro is socialised;
but we hope it will not be long before England, France,
Germany, America, and Italy will be socialised. (Cheers.)
These are the nations with which we have to compete in
the world’s markets, and these are the nations in which
the Socialists are winning over the majority of the working
population, and are obtaining adherents in every circle of
society. (Hear, hear.)
Then Mr. Foote says, poverty will not be redressed by
benevolence and sympathy. I admit it; and it is because
of that that Socialism tries to trace the poverty to its
source. I reiterate the statement that the source of
poverty is private ownership in the material necessary to
produce wealth, and so long as private ownership in this
material continues, so long will poverty be found to be
its inevitable result. (Hear, hear.) That is not talking
�76
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
benevolence; that is not simply acting on sympathy or
appealing to yonr emotions. It is laying down a hard
economical fact out of which the whole of Socialism grows,
and that fact it is with which our opponents must deal.
And Mr. Foote has not attempted to do so. (Hear, hear.)
Mr. Foote finally spoke about liberty. Mr. Foote urges
apparently, and he has said that he will strengthen his
contention hereafter, that under Socialism liberty would
disappear, that tyranny would override society. Never
from my lips shall come one word of attack upon liberty—
that liberty which is the source of human progress, which
is the condition of human growth. (Hear, hear.) But
even liberty is not all. Nearly one hundred years ago a
cry broke out from an awakening people, and that cry
had in it the word “liberty”, but it had joined with
it as watchword for the Revolution “Liberty, equality,
fraternity”. (Cheers.) That cry rang over to England,
and the Radicals caught it up, and on their banner they
put the motto, they named the indivisible three which
make human progress safe. (Cheers.) And are the
modern Radicals going to drop the last two words, and
in the exaggeration of the importance of liberty forget
that of equality and fraternity, which are its sisters
and inseparable? (Cheers.) Liberty! What liberty
under your Individualistic society for the poor sempstress
stitching in the garret for the pittance of a shilling a day ?
(Cheers.) What equality possible between your duke and
your dock laborer? What fraternity to be hoped for
between your millowner and-his hands? (Hear, hear.)
Is equality to become only a word ? Has fraternity passed
into a dream for the modern Radical? 0 my Radical
brothers, who turn deaf ears against our Socialist plea:
you who dream in your zeal for liberty that by this you
will win everything, no matter over what human lives your
car travels, I remind you of your older days ; I recall you
to your older traditions. (Cheers.) I appeal to you for
help for the movement which began a hundred years ago,
and which is going on among us still; I appeal to you—
do not use against us the weapons which of old Toryism
used against you; do not throw at us the old taunts and
scoffs which were thrown at you by our common enemies.
I appeal to you to remember your past. (Hear, hear.) If
you would have liberty to work for progress have also
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
77
fraternity and equality, and let us work together for that
nobler society where all shall be free, where all shall be
equal, and where all shall be brothers because masterhood
shall have passed away. (Cheers.)
Mr. Foote : I beg to propose a hearty vote of thanks to
our chairman.
Annie Besant : I second it.
The vote having been carried,
The Chairman said: I thank you for your vote of
thanks, and I ask you to attend in large numbers next
week, when Mrs. Besant will open the discussion.
�78
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
THIRD NIGHT.
George Bernard Shaw
in the
Chair.
The Chairman: Ladies and gentlemen; our business to
night is the continuation of the debate on the subject,
“Is Socialism Sound?”. Mrs. Besant says that it is
sound. Mr. Foote contends that it is not. The arrange
ments of the debate this evening will be : each debater
will speak three times—once for half-an-hour, and twice
for fifteen minutes, the speakers speaking, of course,
alternately. On the last evening the debate was commenced
by Mr. Foote. It is therefore Mrs. Besant’s duty to open
to-night; and I now call upon her.
Annie Besant : Friends, as I said on the first night of
the debate, I propose to deal to-night with the historical
evolution of Socialism, and with the absolute necessity for
its adoption in this and in other civilised countries, if the
civilisation of the present is not to break down as past
civilisations have done. I am, of course, aware that there
is something of rather portentous impudence in the attempt
to sketch the evolution of society in the space of half-anhour ; but as I am limited to that time, I must do the best
I can, merely giving you the landmarks of the chief stages
through which, as I contend, society has passed. And to
begin with, we will go back to that condition which Mr.
Foote fairly enough described as the condition of primitive
Communism; this you find in a few cases of tribes in a
very low condition of civilisation ; this is found only where
life-conditions are easy, where the soil is fertile, and where
food is abundant, and can be obtained without very much
trouble. Under those conditions you will occasionally find
what may be called primitive Communism—a condition of
things in which private property has practically no exist
ence, and there being abundance for everyone, each man
takes according to his own needs. These communities,
however, are very few in number, for the simple reason
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
79
that the parts of the earth where such abundance is easily
obtained, are themselves very limited in number. And the
moment that you come under harsher life-conditions, then
over the greater part of the habitable globe you will very
soon find a struggle for existence going on amongst men,
which makes anything like Communism absolutely im
possible. You then get the right of the strongest to take
what he can and to keep what he can. Thus you get what
we may call a primitive Individualism, where strength is
the supreme law, and where the individual’s rights are
only measured by his power of enforcing them. (Hear,
hear.) Under those conditions private property very rapidly
springs up ; for when a man has to work hard for that which
he obtains, he naturally feels resentment, and desires to
punish those who, without labor, would deprive him of the
results of his own toil. And so, as practically there is only
one man who is the strongest in the tribe and only a few
who are above the average strength, the resentment of the
majority who are plundered finds expression in the form
of law and of punishment; and private property becomes
recognised as a right by the limitation of the power of the
stronger and by the defence of the weaker who form the
majority of the community. (Cheers.) And when that
stage has been reached, the next one is the condition in
which civilisation, having somewhat advanced, and the
cultivation of the ground having taken the place of hunt
ing and fishing, and of that particular form of war in
which war and the chase are united—-I mean the institu
tion of cannibalism—when society has passed beyond that
stage into the agricultural stage, you find appear in prac
tically every early community a form of labor which is
known as slavery. (Hear, hear.) Men who are taken in
war, instead of being used as food immediately, are used
as food in a less direct fashion. And you find the owners
of these captives taken in war setting the captives to labor,
turning them into slaves who produce for their master’s
benefit, and who have no rights beyond those which
their masters may bestow upon them for their own advan
tage. And you then get this property in man. This is
one of the results of the growing civilisation under the
Individualistic condition, and you find society divided into
the propertied and the non-propertied classes—the nonpropertied class in these early conditions being literally
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
slaves—chattel slaves—who produced for their owners, who
took the result of their labor, giving back in return suffi
cient to keep them in healthy working order. (Hear,
hear.) If you look back to the various stages of civilisa
tion which we should class as ancient, you will find that
they were all very largely based on this institution of
slavery. You will find that in Greece and in Rome you
have a vast mass of the population absolutely without
property, absolutely without rights; and the nation was
considered to consist of the higher classes of the com
munity who owned the slave, no rights of the commonest
citizenship being given to the slaves themselves, who
labored for their masters. (Hear, hear.) And on that rock
of utter division of classes—of the breaking up of society into
practically two nations in every community—on that rock
ancient civilisations split, and every one of them in turn
went down before a flood of barbarism. (Cheers.) I pass
now to the next stage that I mark on this brief sketch
of historical evolution. Of collective property in land you
find traces practically down to our own time, and I must
ask you in thought to distinguish between the less numerous
cases where the property in land was really of a collective
kind, and the far more numerous cases which were more
analogous to peasant proprietorship, where families inheri
ted certain plots of land to which they had a special right,
in which each member of the community had his own
piece, as it were, of the ground, none being left absolutely
landless. But still all the community, with this sort of
limitation, owned property in land, though not having
absolute collectivism. But you do find in some communi
ties absolute collective property in land, and I suppose
there is no better instance of that at present than you will
find in the case of some Slavonic tribes, such as you may
see a good example of in the Russian Mir. In the western
parts of Europe the property in land was of a very different
character. There you find—in countries like our own, in
France, and in other western lands of Europe—there is
a kind of holding of land known as feudal, that is practi
cally the result of the military state in which the people
lived. The nations of the north, urged on by the necessity
for subsistence and the pressure of the population, were
constantly overrunning the more fertile lands, and the con
quering tribes set up the system which grew into feudalism
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
81
in the lands of which they were the conquerors. And
then you find the Danes and the Northmen spreading over
France and settling in England; and then some passing
from Normandy into England, destroying the old fashion
of land-holding and establishing feudalism in its stead.
(Hear, hear.) Under these conditions the king was really
the one owner of the whole of the soil. I know that
it is said that the king was the representative of the
nation. But that is a myth, a mere figure of speech. The
king was really the owner, for he granted the land to his
barons. (Hear, hear.) What is, however, very important
to us is that the baron’s rights in these lands were strictly
limited, and under feudalism these barons had duties con
nected with their ownership of the soil, and one special
duty was that of defending it from all outside attack.
(Cheers.) In Scotland and Ireland the method of hold
ing land was somewhat different. There you had the
clansmen living on the land. There were clans under
a chief who was autocratic, but still the clansmen had cer
tain rights in the soil, and the very chief himself would
have been careful how he touched them. (Hear, hear.)
And the result of that was that there was a feeling on the
part of those who then dwelt on the land that they had
rights in the soil as sacred as any of the rights of their
chief. And if you enquire into the traditions of these
people—which are now held by men like the Scotch
crofters and the Irish peasants—you will find that the root
of these men’s resistance to the modern landlord is not so
much that they are fighting against the rights of property
of the landlord, as that they are fighting for their own
right of property in the soil upon which they were born.
(Cheers.) And you will never convince a Highland crofter
or an Irish peasant that justice is not on his side, however
much landlord-made law may be against him. (Hear,
hear.) In passing from the feudal system, I pause for a
moment to remind you of that great act of robbery whereby
the landlords conveyed the land into their own complete
possession, throwing off the rental which in the feudal
days they had to pay in dues and various charges to the
king, and they thus became practically absolute owners of
the soil. (Hear, hear.) I am of course aware that there
is no such thing as absolute ownership of land known to
our law; but for all practical purposes the landlords are
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
absolute owners ; and that act of theirs was really a great
act of expropriation, a robbery, whereby they made them
selves the real owners of the land which they had up to
that time only held by payment of dues. (Hear, hear.)
We find, upon turning from these various stages through
which this land-holding went, that the claim for collective
property in capital is of comparatively very modern origin.
(Hear, hear.)
And naturally so, because until very
modern times there have been no vast accumulations of
capital for the purpose of wealth production. You have
the small industries of the Middle Ages—you have the
handicraftsmen banded together in guilds, but you have
no great accumulations of capital; nor have you any
thing which is at all analogous to our modern system of
factory labor of gathering together great crowds of
men to co-operate in the formation of a common product.
And it is only from the sixteenth century upwards that
you will find the struggle beginning between traders
and landowners; and only practically from the end of
the last century will you find the true beginning of the
industrial difficulties with which we are dealing at the
present time. (Cheers.) From 1760 to 1781 you get
the great age of invention in machinery; the destruction
—not of industries themselves but—of the small methods
of manufacture, and the putting in their stead of the
modern method of manufacture by which hundreds of
men work together to make a common product, dividing
the various parts of the labor amongst them. It is thus
only for the last 100 years that society has been face to
face with this great difficulty of the aggregation of capital
in the hands of a few. (Hear, hear.) What was the im
mediate result of this sudden outburst of mechanical
energy ? It was the revival of slavery under a new name.
(Cheers.) Just as when society, taking up agricultural
pursuits and working on the land, found that by enslaving
men and making them work their masters would be raised
to a position of wealth and of luxury which they could
not reach by their own toil, so in modern times, when this
sudden productivity of machinery was discovered or prac
tically started—we may say just about a century ago—then
you get the beginning of a similar division of propertied
and unpropertied classes — the employing class and the
employed class—the one completely at the mercy of
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8.
the other. (Hear, hear.) And although it is true that
the slavery was a wage and not a chattel slavery, still fun
damentally the two things are identical; for you have in
each case one man taking another man and using his labor
for his own purposes—taking the product that the laborer
has produced and giving back to him only enough to keep
him in working order. (Cheers.) It is true that in the
chattel slavery the produce—or the share of the produce—
that the laborer got was given to him in the form of food,
clothing, and shelter. It is true that in the modern sub
stitute for slavery that part of the produce the laborer
gets is given to him in the form of money, with which he
buys food and clothing and shelter. But the principle
is exactly the same—(hear, hear)—men working for a
master not for themselves; men with no control over the
product of their own labor, but the product passing into
another man’s hands, and the laborer in each case getting
in return the possibility of subsistence; getting in return
sufficient to keep him in fair working order. (Hear,
hear.) But there is this difference. Under the old system
the slave really did get sufficient to keep his body in the
best possible condition for labor. (Cheers.) Not only so,
but as a child he was maintained, as an aged man he was
fed and he was sheltered. The chattel slave was a
valuable property as the horse is valuable and the ox—
(hear, hear. A Voice : 11 And no more ”)—and the owner
of the slave kept him in a condition of the highest effi
ciency. (Hear, hear.) But the modern slave owners have
found out a cheaper method than that of breeding and of
owning slaves. (Cheers.) They have found that it is
cheaper to hire than to buy them. They have found that
it pays better to take them only for their working life and
to have no responsibility beyond it. (Hear, hear.) And the
advantage is a very simple one. James Nasmyth, the
great engineer, was being examined before a Parliamen
tary Committee on the subject of trade unions, and he ex
plained that he constantly increased his receipts by sub
stituting apprentices at a low wage for able-bodied men
who demanded payment of the full wage that was paid in
their trade. And the questiou was asked him, “What
becomes of the men you discharge : of their wives, and cf
their families ?” Nasmyth answered: “I do not know.
I leave their fate to the natural forces that govern society”.
g2
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
Now that is exactly what the slave owner could, not do.
(Hear, hear.) But it is what the modern capitalist can do,
and does do, although very few of them are honest enough
to speak out as frankly as James Nasmyth spoke before
that Parliamentary Committee. (Cheers.)
I pass for a moment from that to the next point in my
argument. We have to trace in that growing industrialism
the growing interference of the State. I will just remind
you of the early attempts of the State to regulate Middle
Age industries. You will remember that the first edict
fixing wages was in the Fourteenth Century, and that the
Statute as to laborers that followed it tried to fix the
laborer’s wage at a definite sum, and that it failed, and
Jailed for a very simple reason. (Hear, hear.) It failed
because the men wanted higher wages than were specified,
and because it paid the masters to give a higher wage.
(Hear, hear.) And as the men were anxious to get the
higher wage and the masters were ready to give it, the
law became practically inoperative. It was a regulation
between two classes, neither of whom was willing to accept
that regulation of the State. But it is not because that
one case failed that any student of history can pretend
that it is true that all attempts at wage-fixing have been
inoperative. (Hear, hear.)
Take, for instance, the
Statute of Apprentices. It was successful to such an ex
tent that when it became an anachronism it was difficult to
get rid of it. And one half of the difficulty of the adminis
tration of the old Poor Law was due to the attempt to
circumvent in some sort of fashion this Statute with its
fixed wages, and out of the rates they tried to make up
more than the wage which ought legally to have been given.
Then you have a mass of laws interfering with workmen’s
combinations. And then, going on again, we come to the
time which I previously spoke of, when machinery was in
troduced, and you have the struggle between the workmen
who were fettered by the laws against combination, and
the employers, who were absolutely free—absolutely un
fettered by law. (Hear, hear.) What was the result of
this condition of things ? Vast fortunes on the side of
the propertied class ; frightful degradation on the side of
the unpropertied class—(cheers)—degradation so horrible
as to frighten Parliament itself. The death-rate of children
so great; the deterioration of the factory population so
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
85
terrible, that even Parliament itself—composed as it was
chiefly of the propertied class—found itself forced to pass
the first Factory Act, which interfered with this condition
of so-called free contract and free labor. (Cheers.) Then
you had—first, interference with child labor; next, inter
ference with woman labor. And the result of this inter
ference with the child’s and with the woman’s labor was
practically a limitation of that of the man’s. (Hear, hear.)
Because since these three worked together in the factories
—and since the female and the male labor were practically
complementary to each other—the limitation of the women’s
hours of labor indirectly brought about a limitation of
the men’s hours. (Hear, hear.) And so this legislation
went further than those who initiated it intended, and it
acted as a very general limitation of the hours of labor.
(Hear, hear.) And then you had still further State inter
ference—interference with contracts over and over again,
as when rent-courts and so on were established in Ireland
and in the northern parts of Scotland. And step by step as
that legislation has progressed, the condition of the laboringclasses has to some slight extent been improved. (Hear,
hear.) That is to say : the growing Socialism has brought
about a growing improvement, and the gradual inter
ference of the community to make the conditions more
equal on the side of the men has really given them oppor
tunities of rising which were utterly out of their reach in
the earlier years of the present century. (Cheers.) Nor
has that been all. There has been a growing recognition
on the part of the community that it is concerned with
something more than the regulation of business relations.
The responsibility of the community for the feeding of its
helpless members had long been recognised. (Hear, hear.)
The recognition of its responsibility for the curing of its
sick members had also to a considerable extent been recog
nised. But the fault in both these cases has been that the
conditions for getting food or medicine were, with the
object of discouraging people from embracing them, made
so degrading that those who may be considered the least
worthy accepted the opportunity of relief, whereas those
who were self-respecting and independent found the con
ditions so insulting that many a one would rather starve
than condescend to accept the relief. (Cheers.) Next,
society recognised its duty in matters of education. It
�bG
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
recognised that it was a thing in which the community
had a right of interference, and it went on the plan of
taxing everyone, although only some had the immediate
benefit of the taxation. (Hear, hear.) And rightly so;
because you cannot divide off society into small cliques
and tax each for its own necessities. And although it may
be true that only some profit directly by the taxation for
education, yet the whole community profits indirectly ; not
only in the greater utility of the educated man or
woman, but also from the decrease of crime which is one
of the most marked results of our Socialist plan of national
education. (Cheers.) Next came the acceptance of re
sponsibility to a considerable extent on the part of society
even for the health and amusement of its members ; and
parks were made and kept up out of the public rates ;
galleries and museums were provided out of the national
taxation; libraries were adopted by parish after parish
taxing itself directly for this benefit to all. And so, step
by step, and more rapidly than ever during the last twenty
years, this growth of practical Socialism has been spreading
amongst our people, so that John Morley truly said, in his
“Life of Cobden”, that England, although Socialism was
little spoken of, had a greater mass of Socialistic legisla
tion than any other country in the world. (Hear, hear.)
And at the same time the Socialist spirit is spreading in
the smaller representative bodies in our country; corpora
tions and municipalities, passing beyond their at first very
limited duties, have been gradually taking over more and
more administrative and trading work into their hands.
And so you find municipalities now beginning to trade in
water and in gas ; and wherever that has commenced, the
advantages of that kind of Socialist trading become patent
to the town that adopts it. And the result is a gradual
but more and more rapid growth of Socialist feeling.
(Cheers.) Take a town like Nottingham—a town I hap
pened to visit recently. There the municipality has taken
over the supply of gas. What has been the result ? Not
only that the gas has been very much cheapened to the
citizens—although that is something—but that out of the
profits obtained from the cheapened gas-rate, at the same
time that the people of Nottingham can get their light for
very much less than ever before, instead of the profits
going to the shareholders of a company and being divided
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87
amongst them, and. so keeping in idleness men who did
nothing for the town, those profits on the gas have been
utilised to build a great college, fitted up with everything that
is wanted for literary, for scientific, and for artistic training.
(Hear, hear.) There in that college, paid for out of the
profits of the town’s gas, are professors for instruction in the
various branches of learning ; and there every night classes
are held at merely nominal prices, to which every citizen
of Nottingham can go and train himself into wider know
ledge, into deeper enjoyment of life. (Hear, hear.) And
that is the result of Socialist legislation. (Cheers.) Under
Individualism the profits would go to enrich shareholders.
Under Socialism the profits go to be used for the benefit
of the town, and that grand educational experiment is the
result of practical Socialism in Nottingham. (Cheers.)
Mr. Foote : Last Wednesday evening Mrs. Besant occu
pied the first half of her first speech in replying to what
I had said on the previous evening. She cannot therefore
complain if I follow her excellent example to-night. And
I feel that I shall be all the more entitled to do so because
a considerable quantity of Mrs. Besant’s first speech to
night is the kind of thing you may read in any primer of
universal history, and which therefore I do not feel called
upon to dispute. (Hear, hear.) It will be remembered
that last Wednesday I pressed Mrs. Besant in two speeches
to say how she proposed to take over capital and land, and
how she proposed to deal with the population question.
Now either by design or inadvertence—I prefer to think
the latter—Mrs. Besant left these two questions unanswered,
although she had two opportunities of replying, until her
last speech, when of course I had no opportunity of rejoin
ing, and therefore it had necessarily to be left until this
evening. Now how does Mrs. Besant propose to take over
capital and land ? A great many Socialists say, following
Gronlund, 11 the matter of compensation will not trouble us
much”—(hear, hear, and laughter)—and evidently when
Socialists speak out in unguarded moments—(hear, hear)—
Mr. Gronlund and the Social Democratic Federation have
a very large amount of sympathy. But Mrs. Besant says—
and in this as in so many other points she follows Gronlund
—“we would give capitalists and landowners life annui
ties”. Gronlund’s proposal is a little more sensible, if
Mrs. Besant will allow me to say so. By Mrs. Besant’s
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IS SOCIALISM SOUXD ?
plan all the capitalists would be given life annuities.
Some of them would live a great while, but some of them
would die to-morrow, and their wives and families would
be swept among the wreckage of society—(“Oh, oh”)—
to find some kind of compensation of a character which
I think it is far better to contemplate than to realise.
(Cheers.) Gronlund proposed that they should all be paid
off; so that, supposing Vanderbilt were worth eighty
millions, he should have a million a year for eighty years.
I very much doubt if a Socialistic Society would have the
million a year to pay for eighty years—(hear, hear)—I
still more gravely doubt whether the ease with which the
first measure of confiscation were passed would not speedily
raise an agitation for complete repudiation of the obliga
tions that were incurred. The great difference between
Mrs. Besant and myself on this point is that I deny her
right to do this; I say that the man who owns property
under the existing law, which he has not stolen in violation
of any law, has a right not only to get his price for it, if
someone else demands it, but a right to withhold it from
sale if he chooses. (Cheers.) So that there is a moral
difference here between myself and Mrs. Besant, and I do
not see how it can be easily bridged over. I fancy it must
leave Mrs. Besant and myself on two different sides of a
chasm, across which she strikes me in vain, and across
which I strike her in vain. And I can only leave the
moral aspect of that question to every man and woman, to
be decided by such instincts of justice and fair play as they
may happen to possess. (Hear, hear.)
With respect to the population question, which Mrs.
Besant does not appear to treat with quite her old serious
ness, she says that the new society—whatever that may
be; it is largely a question of prophecy—will deal by law
with the progress of population. But if law can deal with
it, why does not the law deal with it now ? And how are you
to get your law ? Under Socialism everybody will have a
vote. Of course, everything will be decided by the vote
of the majority. If Mrs. Besant thinks that the human
nature, which we all know, will by a majority of voters
pass a law making the procreating of offspring over a
certain number penal, she is a great deal more sanguine
than I happen to be. (Cheers.) But if human nature
can assent to such a law, why does not human nature
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
89
assent to such a law now ? Mrs. Besant says that the
workers only breed slaves for the capitalist. (Hear, hear.)
She says that all their children are kept, or nearly all of
them—the exceptions being hardly worth counting—in
the state of society in which they are born. Well, if this is
so, and if the fact is obvious, how is it that the workers
do not voluntarily restrict population now ? Because it is
much easier to ask somebody else to come under a law
than to come under it yourself. (Cheers.) I cannot help
contrasting the almost Bacchanalian fury with which Mrs.
Besant incites the workers to take possession of other
people’s property—(cries of “No, no”)—and the bated
breath and whispering humbleness with which she reminds
her Socialist friends that they really do not attach quite
sufficient importance to this law of population. Mrs.
Besant did not use to speak so. She spoke in sterner
accents years ago. (Cries of “Oh” and “Question”.) Is
it not a fact, after all, that great as may be the courage
required to face juries and judges and prisons, a still
higher and rarer courage is required to turn on friends
who are mistaken and tell them in the stern accents of verity
what they have neglected or forgotten ? (A Voice: “She
has the courage”.) A gentleman, who has I fancy inter
rupted me more than once, says Mrs. Besant has courage.
I have not said she has not. (Cheers.) Now, what kind
of law is it to be that will deal with population ? Are you
going to have public committees watching young couples ?
(Laughter.) Are you going to say a husband and wife
shall have two, three, or four children as the case may be?
And if they have more children than the law prescribes,
how will you deal with them ? Are you going to put them
in prison ? If so, you must keep them there. And when
they come out they will violate the law with the same
equanimity as before. (Cheers.)
This law of population is the rock on which all com
munistic and Socialistic schemes must founder. (Cries of
“No, no.”) Suppose you have Socialism inaugurated to
morrow. Suppose you remove the competition which
Mrs. Besant detests. Suppose you guarantee, as she un
dertakes to guarantee, productive work for everybody.
Suppose you monopolise all the means of subsistence.
You are then bound to do what the law of England does
at present: make the possessors of the means of sub
�90
IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
sistence find food for those who are out of employment.
(Cheers.) The State would be obliged to feed everybody
who was starving for want of work. (“Oh, oh.”) The
lady or gentleman who disputes that is really without a
rudimentary acquaintance with the subject. Persons out
of work have to be fed now, and persons out of work under
Socialism will also have to be fed. (A Voice: “There
will be none”.) A gentleman says, “ there will be none”.
Well, he and I differ on that point. You will have to find
food for all your population. You remove competition,
and you remove parental responsibility for offspring. The
feeding of the children will be done by the State if the
parents are unable to do it, and what will be the result ?
(A Voice: “Enough to eat”.) The result will be—
(dissent)—Well, really, it appears that the manners of
economical atavism are quite what one might expect.
(Laughter.) You would have to do one of two things.
Either you would have to weed out the utterly incapable—
the semi-idiotic, the scrofulous, the consumptive, and all
those whom a sensible doctor would declare to be unfit to
procreate—and sternly forbid them to do so. Otherwise
you would have a perennial supply of the unfit, who would
all flourish; whereas, under the present competitive system,
notwithstanding our hospitals, our charities, and our work
houses, they get gradually eliminated, because the odds are
against them from the very beginning. (Cheers, and cries
of “No, no”.) If you are not prepared to do that, you
would have swarms of population beyond your power to
maintain. Then what would happen ? Either there would
be such anarchy, such poverty, that society would remould
itself round some stable centre—perhaps in the form of a
military conqueror—figuring once more as a savior of
society; or else the more vigorous and more progressive
members would separate themselves from the rest, form
new communities of their own, strike out in fresh direc
tions, and so restore the old competive system which was
abolished in a moment of Socialistic folly. (Cheers.)
I am very sorry to spoil a pretty peroration. I am very
sorry to throw a cold shower of common sense upon what
was a glowing piece of rhetoric. But at the same time I
would ask Mrs. Besant, who accuses me of mistranslating
Proudhon without giving a better translation herself, how
she comes to read Liberte, Egalite, et Eraternite as meaning
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
91
anything Socialistic? “Egalite”, which we translate
equality—very roughly, hy the way, though—has never
meant in the mouths of the French people who used it
anything like equality in the Socialistic or Communistic
sense. Nor has “ fraternity ” meant anything like Com
munism. Liberty and equality were both meant as a
protest against the privilege created by law under the
ancien regime. Egalite. meant equality before the law
for everyone, high and low, rich and poor; the aboli
tion of all law-created distinctions; the placing of everybody
on what Thomas Paine called the “democratic floor”, where
he is entitled to no more consideration than his own energy,
intellect, and character entitle him to. (Cheers.) Perhaps
Mrs. Besant will tell me what great leader of the French
Bevolution used the word egalite as meaning anything like
Socialistic equality. If she cannot point to any such
leader, and if the word has never been used in that sense,
it appears to me that her peroration was far more mis
leading than my translation of Proudhon’s definition of
property. My translation was as near as possible, con
sidering the difference between the genius of the two
languages, which makes it utterly impossible to translate
epigrams from one into the other without some roughness
and some loss of the finer shades of meaning. (Cheers.)
Practically Mrs. Besant, in one of her remarks, gave up
the whole of the debate. She said that it was perfectly
absurd—and I agree with her—to start Socialistic experi
ments in the midst of a competitive society; or, as Mr.
Hyndman grandiosely called it in his debate with Mr.
Bradlaugh, “making Socialistic oases in a howling desert
of competition”. By the way, Arabs and other people
do keep up oases in the desert, where they cheer and
refresh the traveller with palm trees and water. Mr.
Hyndman and his friends might try to do the same kind
of thing. But what is their admission ? Why is it that
Socialistic experiments cannot succeed in the midst of a
competitive state of society ? Because competitive society
is more robust and virile, calling forth the energies of the
people, and producing grander results. Socialism cannot
succeed by experiment because competitive society would
beat it and kill it in the open field. (“Oh, oh.”) Mrs,
Besant shows a wise and true instinct in asking that every
body shall join Socialism at once before it is carried out.
�92
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
Socialism could never hold its own unless, by means of an
overwhelming majority, it got the power to make the laws
into its own hands, and used that power to proscribe every
form of rivalry with itself. (Cheers.)
Monarchy, aristocracy, and such things, I am quite as
much prepared to deal with as Mrs. Besant can be, and
therefore they may as well be eliminated from the debate.
(Cries of “ No, no ”.) My opinion is that if many things
Mrs. Besant and I equally object to were remedied there
would be very little distress now or at any time. But we
need not dwell upon these. They are common points of
agreement. But let me say that Mrs. Besant attaches a
little too much economical importance to a Duke with
£200,000 a year or a rich capitalist with £50,000 a year. As
a matter of fact, a man with that immense income cannot
eat it and drink it. (Laughter.) A laborer once facetiously
remarked, though with a great deal of truth, when some
one was talking to him about a rich man: “Well, I guess
he has not a bigger stomach than I have”. (Laughter.)
Now, what does a rich man do with his wealth ? He
spends nearly all of it in employing some kind of labor.
(Laughter and cries of “Oh, oh”.) One moment. It
may be the labor of domestic servants; it may be
the labor of men engaged in various forms of fine
art, it may be the labor of men engaged in painting
pictures, it may be the labor of men engaged in carving
statuary, it may be the labor of men employed in one or
other of the twelve thousand different trades that are
tabulated by the Registrar-General. Well if this be so,
and all the rich men were immediately abolished, all the
persons who follow the trades they maintain would be
thrown helplessly on the labor market. (“ Oh, oh.”) I
say they would if it were done at once. (“Oh, oh,” and
cheers.) I say that the peculiar kind of work they do is
only such as rich men can pay for. (Hear.) That is no
argument against any kind of reform, but it certainly is an
argument for gradual proceeding, instead of revolutionary
haste. (Cheers.) The real grievance is that so much is
spent in non-productive labor. That is the true economical
grievance ; and I should very much like to see less money
spent in non-productive labor. But there will always be a
great deal of money spent in that way, unless you widen
the term productive so as to include everything that can be
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
93
done. Mrs. Besant might think that publishing a book is
productive work. It is in a sense, but I doubt whether it
is in a Socialistic sense. I do not know what particular
value a book has. If it is printed and sells, it is worth
something; but if it is not instructive or interesting, or
too good for the public, and does not sell, it is only worth
waste paper. It is not like a commodity turned out in the
open market which has a natural value, and will always
fetch it. I will turn to another point. Mrs. Besant over
estimates the amount which would be distributed amongst
the workers if capital were appropriated by them “with
or without compensation”. A fact is worth any quantity
of theory, especially if the theory conflicts with it.
(Laughter.) I have taken the trouble, as I have on
previous occasions, to put together a few statistics. I find
that in 1884 our total output of coals and metals was of
the value of £64,000,000. I find also that the number
of miners was about 441,000. Now if you divide the out
put by the number of miners, you will find it gives a total
sum for each worker of £145 per year. But mark, the
£64,000,000 is the total value of the output. In addition
to the miners’ wages there are other expenses, a few of
which I will recite. Birst taxes, including income tax,
as now paid; secondly, rates on the property; thirdly,
interest on the capital, or sinking fund ; fourthly, savings
for increasing, maintaining, and extending the business;
fifthly, extra payments for skill, such as foremen, engineers
and managers ; sixthly, rent, or royalty to the Government;
seventhly, payment for clerks, surveyors, etc.; eighthly,
payment for materials, machinery and ventilating appa
ratus ; ninthly, payment for tramways, horses, and so
forth; tenthly, payment for insurance and employers’
liability. Now, if you took all those expenses for each
colliery from the total output, you would find that they
made a very serious diminution in the amount that would
be available for distribution amongst the workers them
selves. The total only comes to £145 for each worker, and
the nett amount could not come to anything like that sum.
Surely the difference between the wages now paid to the
miners and the amount they would receive if the whole
value of the output, minus the working expenses, were
distributed amongst them, is not sufficient to justify Mrs.
Besant’s revolutionary proposals. She asks us to leave
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
the shore we are accustomed, to, where great possibilities
of improvement still remain, and embark with her for the
opposite shore. It is politic to ask us all to go at once,
for if we succeed in crossing safely the pilot will be
universally praised, and if we sink there will be nobody to
utter a word of blame. (Cheers.)
I will deal in my next speech, and more fully, with what
Mrs. Besant has advanced to-night. What she said does
not seem to have any particular relation to Socialism. The
great questions of universal history—how States arose and
fell, how slavery originated, how it affected civilisations,
how far it helped to break them up, the growth and pro
gress of education, and so forth—have nothing to do with
the distinctive question “Is Socialism Sound?”. (Cheers.)
Mrs. Besant has to deal with the economical and practical
objections to Socialism. She has to show, by an effort of
constructive imagination, how Socialism would work in
practice. But she has done nothing of the kind. She has
denounced evils that we all deplore; she has urged that
they should be remedied, and we all wish to remedy them.
The question at issue is: Is her remedy a good one ?
Denouncing evil is beside the point. She must show that
her remedy will cure it; and unless she does that, she
has no right to invite us to follow her prescriptions.
(Applause.)
Annie Besant : I am almost sorry that Mr. Foote did
not think it worth while to deal with the speech with
which I opened, because one of the great differences be
tween modern thought and older thought is the tendency
of modern thought to study how things evolve. (Hear,
hear.) And that can only be done by studying the past,
and tracing through the past up to the present. The
modern progress of science is based largely on that
method. (Cheers.) And to renounce that, or to treat it
with contempt, is to turn your back on the truth which
has made the scientific progress of the last twenty years.
(Hear, hear.) I pass from that, and I will deal very
briefly with my peroration of last week, to which Mr.
Foote objected. Now I am sure that Mr. Foote knows as
well as I know that you cannot destroy the effect of a
peroration after a week has elapsed. A peroration moves
for the moment; it is the arguments before it that remain.
A peroration is like the closing passage of a sonata, bring
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
95
ing the music to an effective conclusion. You remember
the sonata, and you cannot destroy its effect even when
the chord which concluded it no longer fills the ears that
listened to it. I make Mr. Foote a present of my perora
tion without any further remark, save this : that I admit
at once that the Frenchmen who used that cry did not
mean Socialism when they spoke of “liberty, equality, and
fraternity
They were not face to face with a condition
of society in which Socialism was possible. But what I
meant in applying their phrase was that just as in those
days equality meant the destruction of the privileged
classes, which were then kings and nobles, so the cry of
equality now means the destruction of that aristocracy of
wealth which is more highly privileged and more mis
chievous to society than the old one. (Cheers.)
I now come to the points raised by Mr. Foote in his
speech. Mr. Foote spoke as to compensation. Let me
put very clearly what I said. I said that I should be
willing to give life annuities to the expropriated owners.
The income of the Duke of Westminster will shortly, as
the building leases fall in, reach a million and a half a
year. The way in which I should deal with the Duke of
Westminster would be something like this : I should say—
“ My lord duke, you are not of the very least good in the
world; you are the result of a very bad system, and we are
even more responsible for that than you are, because you are
only one and we are many. We have practically made you
the very unprofitable creature that you are. You cannot use
your hands to keep yourself. You cannot earn your living
by any useful work. Although this is our fault more than
yours, we cannot allow you to keep on robbing others for
an income. We will therefore give you for the rest of
your unprofitable life a decent little income, say of £500 a
year.” (Hear, hear, and laughter.) That is the sort of
compensation which I meant when I spoke of life annuities.
And I should be willing, in a case where a man died and
left a widow, to continue the annuity to her; and I might
be generous enough, if there was a son left about forty
years of age, too old to learn to be of any use, to continue
the annuity to him. (Hear, hear, and laughter.) I do
not desire to make these people a wreckage on society—
I see too much social wreckage as it is. (Cheers.) And I
do not desire to add one single life to it. (Hear, hear.)
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
But what I do desire is to prevent these men continuing
to make wreckage of thousands in order to keep them
selves. (Cheers.) Then Mr. Foote says man has a right
to withhold his property from sale if he chooses. Would
he have used that argument in the Southern States of
America to defend slavery ? I deny that a man has any
absolute right to withhold property from sale if he chooses.
(Hear, hear.) The rights of property were made by society,
and society is supreme over them. No man has a right to
hold his property to the injury of the greater number
among whom he lives, and you do not even now allow
~Hm “so to hold it. (Hear, hear.) You force men to sell
now by law, if they will not sell of their own good will,
when their property is wanted for the community; and
you must, if you are going to have society at all, admit
the right of society to control the property of the members
of the community to an enormous extent. (Hear, hear.)
And if a man usurps property which he has not made,
that he has no right to—property which he only holds by
virtue of bad laws—then the majority has the right to
repeal those laws and destroy his power of exploiting, and
thus, by destroying his property in man, to free the men who
must remain slaves whilst he holds them. (Cheers.) Mr.
Foote says there is a moral difference between us. I grant
there is an enormous moral difference between Socialism
and Individualism, and the whole of the moral difference
is this—that from Mr. Foote’s point of view a small num
ber of persons have the right to rob other persons and get
the result of their labor, whereas Socialism says that theft
is wrong in the prince as much as in the peasant, and that
neither shall be allowed to rob his neighbors and live
upon the labors of the industrious. (Cheers.)
Mr. Foote challenges me again on the question of the
law of population, and asks me how it is possible by law
to limit the population, and why not pass such a law, and
why don’t the workers see the difficulty now. There are
several reasons why the workers of this country do not see
the bearing of the law of population. In the first place,
they have so little property themselves that they do not
see the mischief done by making too many claimants
among whom it is divided. They are already so poor
that they cannot well be poorer, and they are careless
and indifferent, thinking it matters comparatively little
�97
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
whether twelve are starving on 12s. a week or four are
starving on the same sum. (Cheers.) One important
step towards limiting the population is to raise the standard
of comfort; because when you do that you make the
people anxious not to fall back from the comfort they have
obtained. (Hear, hear.) But if always on the verge of
starvation they do not feel the fall, because practically
they cannot fall very much further in position. (Hear,
hear.) And, unfortunately, through our history there has
been an opposition from the time of Malthus between
those who consider that the remedy for poverty lies in
State interference and those who believe it lies in limita
tion of the family. The result of that has been a certain
antagonism between those who would improve matters by
legislative action, and those who would only deal with the
law of population. And that hereditary antagonism, like
the fighting of dogs and cats, comes out rather as a matter
of instinct than of intelligence. Nor is that all. I ask
Mr. Foote to notice that in France where you have, to
some extent, raised the standard of comfort for a great
part of the population, that part of the population has re
cognised the law of population, and has voluntarily
limited its own increase. (Hear, hear.) And in every
Socialist experiment in America it has been found neces
sary to recognise the law by the very condition of their
living. And whatever steps they took—whether by pre
ventive checks of various kinds—in every case limitation of
the population has been one of the primary conditions
insisted on in these communities. That is, the moment
you establish Socialism, even among a limited number of
persons, they recognise that you must keep the balance
between the arms that produce and the mouths that eat.
(Cheers.) Another reason why I think the law of popu
lation is not now seen by Socialists as it ought to be, is
because of the bluncFfing way in which it has been put
by many economists. I think I have mentioned before
that the old wage-fund theory on which it was based has
been given up. But as this law was based by economists
on an economical theory now discredited, it is not wonderful
that with the discredit of the theory the other theory based
on it disappears from the thoughts of Socialists. And
when you take these facts into consideration—the raising
of the standard of comfort; the recognition that society
H
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
must maintain its members, and that therefore every man
is interested in the limitation of the family; it being then
seen—as it will be then seen—that for every large family
there is less leisure and more labor for the producing
community, then you will have made a public opinion in
favor of the limitation of the family, which is utterly
impossible at the present time. (Hear, hear.) Then,
again, Mr. Foote asks : How are you going to limit the
number ? Are you going to imprison the parents ? H
you do, the multiplication will go on as soon as the people
come out of prison. (Hear, hear.) But you don’t use such
arguments against imprisonment for theft. (Hear, hear.)
We know that penalties practically make conscience and
public opinion. But, at the same time, I very much doubt
whether for the limitation of the family you would want
anything more than the education, especially, of the women,
and a rather stern social boycotting for those who trans
gressed the limit too recklessly. (Cheers.) Nor is that
all. I believe that one of the strongest arguments in
favor of the limitation of the population will come from
the women ; as you educate your women more highly, as
they take part in public life, as they become more economi
cally independent than they are to-day, your women will
refuse to be mere nurses of children throughout the whole
of their active life. (Cheers.) They will be willing to
give all the care that is necessary for two or three children,
but will refuse to have their health ruined, and the whole
of public life shut to them, by having families of ten
or twelve, which are practically destructive of motherly
feeling as well as of happiness and comfort in the home.
(Cheers.) Mr. Foote suggests that under the present con
ditions the sickly, the scrofulous, and so on, get killed out
amongst the poor. You do not kill them out from among
the rich. And what I want is a public opinion to make it
a crime for a diseased man or woman to transmit their
disease to a child. (Cheers.) And it is public opinion
that will do this better than any other way; and that
public opinion I am trying to make. (Cheers.) But Mr.
Foote says that I used to use stronger language on this
question than I do now : and that it requires more courage
to speak out to friends things they do not like, than even
to face a judge and jury. I do not think I have softened
my language on the population theory. (Hear, hear.)
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
I say now, as I said long ago, that the limitation of the
family, if it stood by itself, would never remedy poverty.
I pointed then to the changes which we wanted in the
land laws and in other ways, side by side with the law of
population, and I say the same still. I say the law of
population alone is not our most important matter. It.is
more important to get the right idea on the production of
wealth to-day even than it is to press—as I still press—
the duty of the limitation of the family. (Cheers.) I
thoroughly agree with Mr. Foote, that it does need more
courage to speak unpalatable truths to friends than to
face judge and jury. (Hear, hear.) And I can assure
him that, in my own experience, I stood before judge and
jury, and lay under sentence of imprisonment, with a far
lighter heart, and with a far less troubled mind, than I
have felt in taking the name of Socialist, and thus setting
myself against some of those with whom I have worked
for the last thirteen years—(hear, hear,)—and when I have
seen faces grow cold and friends grow distant, because I
have dared to speak a truth unpalatable to them. (Cheers.)
The Chairman : Ladies and gentlemen, in calling upon
Mr. Foote this time will you allow me to say that the way
in which you have listened to Mrs. Besant’s speech is very
greatly to the credit of those who disagree with her. I
want to appeal therefore to those who disagree with Mr.
Foote not to allow themselves to be outdone in patience
and courtesy. (Hear, hear.)
Mr. Foote: Unfortunately, I and the chairman mis
understood each other towards the close of my first speech.
He said something about my having half-a-minute more,
but he told me afterwards that I had three and a-half
minutes, so I am to have my compensation in this speech.
(Hear, hear.)
Mrs. Besant says you cannot spoil the effect of a perora
tion a week after. It depends upon the circumstances.
She says a peroration is something that influences people
at the moment. That is not quite my notion of a perora
tion. If a peroration is something that cannot subsequently
be defended, I do not think it is a right thing to try to
influence people with it at any moment. (Hear, hear.)
Mrs. Besant says she would compensate the Duke of
Westminster in the way you heard. It is a curious thing
that Mrs. Besant avoids all the ticklish parts of her case.
h2
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
The Duke of Westminster, as an English nobleman, has
no right whatever in the land except the right which he
holds legally under the Crown. The Duke of Westminster,
as a peer of the realm, can be dealt with by Parliament,
with the Crown’s sanction, differently from men who have
purchased the land, or men who are holders of land in the
sense that their small moneys, collected together in fire
and fife insurance and other societies, are invested in that
way. I want Mrs. Besant to tell us, not how she proposes
to deal with the Duke of Westminster—with whom I, as
an Individualist, believe we can deal by law—but how she
proposes to deal with the hundreds and thousands of poorer
persons who own smaller quantities of land—(hear, hear)—
and how she proposes to deal not only with the big capita
list who makes a fortune, but with the thousands of little
capitalists, some of whom only get a bare living, and
others not a much better living than the highest form of
skilled labor which they happen to employ.
Mrs. Besant says a man has no right to do as he pleases
with his property. Aye, but what property ? Mrs. Besant
has referred to land, but the law of England does not
recognise private property in land—not absolute private
property. The soil of England is always held under law.
But I do not hold my watch under law. A capitalist does
not hold his capital under law, except in the sense that the
law protects him against the thief who wishes to appro
priate it. The land, of course, has to be sold if it stands
in the way of a public improvement, but the Bill which
empowers the public improvement also provides for fair
compensation. I want Mrs. Besant not to be merely
facetious about the Duke of Westminster—as to whom I
don’t care very much—but to deal with the interests of all
these other persons—hundreds and thousands of our fellowcountrymen, as honest as Mrs. Besant and I, as honest as
all of us here—who, with their wives and children, if they
have any, must all be considered in your scheme, unless
a ou are going to violate all the instincts that throb in the
heart of every man with a feeling for his fellows.
(Cheers.)
As to population, Mrs. Besant says she would somehow
deal with it by law. But she takes particularly good care
not to tell us what kind of law she would put in operation.
She trusts more to public opinion, however, in the long
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
101
run. That is exactly what I trust to, and public opinion
grows under our Individualist system quite as much as it
could under a Collectivist system. (Hear, hear.) It is
true that the prejudiced jury, representing a mistaken
majority, found Mrs. Besant guilty of an obscenity which
she never committed. Yet at the same time, notwithstanding
these occasional outbursts of bigotry, Individualist society
is more and more willing to act fairly, and to allow
discussion on vital subjects. (Hear, hear.) The proof of
it lies in the fact that Mrs. Besant can go on, despite that
verdict, advocating the very same principles for which .the
jury condemned her. (Hear, hear.) Public opinion is
growing, and it cannot very well be forced. Collectivist
social machinery won’t, as Herbert Spencer says, produce
golden actions out of leaden instincts. You have to wait.
Progress is slow. Jumping at the moon is sport for
lunatics. Our way in this world, set for us by nature, is
steady plodding, step by step. We make some advances
even on the question of population. Mrs. Besant says byand-bye women will be educated. But we are not waiting
for Collectivism to educate women. (Hear.) The Education
Act of 1870, passed under an Individualist state of society,
provides for the education not only of every boy, but of
every girl, in the State. (Hear, hear.) Girton College,
University examinations for women, education in the fine
arts for girls, and tutorship even at the Royal Academy—
these things are not the gift of Collectivist Socialism.
(Hear, hear.) Women are being educated, and all of us
are glad of it. (Cheers.) I quite believe with Mrs. Besant
that as women become more educated, and take a larger
interest in public affairs, and think more about general
questions, they will not oppose that prejudice, which they
now oppose more than men, to a prudent restriction of
offspring. (Cheers.) They will refuse, as Mrs. Besant
well says, when their standard of comfort and feeling and
education is raised, to become mere domestic drudges from
the beginning to the end of their married life. We do not
want Socialism to tell us that. We see the improvement
of woman going on now. If Socialism disappeared to
morrow, and was never heard of again, the cause of
woman would be safe. When a great cause has raised its
head from the dust, and begun to boldly challenge opposing
prejudices, it must win in the long run, unless you can
�102
IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
crush, it by law. But the time for that is gone by, and the
elevation and emancipation of woman is assured. (Cheers.)
Mrs. Besant says that under a Socialistic state of society
the workers would see that if they bred too fast they
would injure themselves. Here is a man who is earning
two pounds a week. He has four children, and the fifth
is coming. He says “It is hard ” ; he knows his two
pounds a week is becoming relatively less and less. He
knows he must keep himself and all the children he brings
into existence. Yet although the burden of keeping them
falls directly, obviously, perceptibly, beyond all question,
upon his own shoulders, Mrs. Besant says he has no in
ducement to refrain from breeding, but that under a Col
lectivist state of society the inducement will be perfectly
clear. (Hear, hear, and laughter.)
I will deal now with Mrs. Besant’s first speech. She
told us how tribes began, and as I think, quite wrongly.
She said that in the tribe one man was stronger than the
others and he gained the predominance. But one strong
man cannot terrorise five thousand by his physical power.
The five thousand could break him in a moment. Why
is he the head of the tribe ? The whole explanation of it
is, that tribes war against tribes, and military organisation
is necessary. The military machine must be worked from
one centre, with one controlling mind. A debating society,
as Lord Macaulay said, never fights. A general, whether
he be a tribal chief, or a Duke of Marlborough, or a
Napoleon, must have absolute control, otherwise the whole
business will come to grief. Savages are subordinated to
chiefs because everything must be subordinated to the
tribal law of self-preservation. They are obliged to protect
themselves against the attacks of the predatory tribes
about them. There thus arises a military state of society,
entirely because of the militancy of the populations sur
rounding the tribe, and the constant necessity of selfdefence. (Cheers.)
Mrs. Besant told us quite rightly that slaves were origin
ally captives in war. That clearly shows that slavery did
not begin out of the mere lust of slavery. (Hear, hear.)
Originally, as you will read in many ancient scriptures
the captives taken in war were slain—immolated on the
altars of cruelty. But as men got a little more intelligent
and a little more humane they discontinued this, and all
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
103
the captives in war became slaves. All the various castes
in India and elsewhere are simply the results of so many
waves of conquest sweeping over the land, the conquerors
establishing themselves as rulers, and subordinating those
whom they conquered. But I do not see what that has to
do with Individualism. I do not propose that we should
go prowling over the world, and imposing ourselves on
subordinate populations. Unfortunately we are in India,
and we shall have to face many difficulties before we can
■clear out of it. (Hear, hear.) But if we were not in India,
what sensible man would ever propose that Englishmen
should go there ? (Cheers.) How slavery arose is a very
long question, and how it developed is a longer question
still. But when Mrs. Besant says that slavery broke up
all the ancient civilisations, I have to differ from her.
What broke the power of Greece ? The greater power of
Borne. Both of them were founded on slavery. What
ultimately broke the great power of Home ? Was it
slavery? No. It was the employment of mercenary
troops, by which the Romans themselves grew out of the
habit of war, lost their old instinctive valor, and so the
barbarians from the north were able to overrun them. The
barbarians, who overran them, brought Feudalism.
Feudalism was established by the Goths upon the ruins of
the Roman Empire, and that Feudalism was slavery in
another form. (Hear, hear.) The serf of the soil was no
better off than the ancient slave. He was really in a worse
position than the. slave in the best days of the Roman
Empire, when many of the leading men—artists and
thinkers—were slaves. They were protected by the law
then. No owner was allowed to do as he liked with his
slaves. If maltreated, the slave could appeal to the
tribunals, and obtain his freedom or a better master. But
under Feudalism the lord was practically absolute. Out of
that Feudalism our modern system has arisen. (Hear,
hear.) Mrs. Besant points to the Act of 1694—I presume—
by which the English aristocracy threw off from them
selves the burdens of Feudalism, which went with the
holdership of land, and practically threw those burdens
upon the shoulders of the industrial community. I should
be as glad to undo that as Mrs. Besant, but I do not see
how the undoing of it conflicts with the principles of
Individualism, which I am here to maintain. (Hear, hear.)
�104
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
Let me now deal with, something which Mrs. Besant
says is Socialistic and which she claims for the principle of
Socialism. She speaks of the town of Nottingham. But
she might, without going to Nottingham, have found at
Birmingham many years ago that the Municipality had
taken over the gas supply. The Municipality may also
take over the water supply. But, as I said in a previous
part of this debate, no Municipality, no State, ever did, or
ever will, inaugurate a new thing. (Hear, hear.) The
State and the Municipality can only take over what has been
begun and perfected by individual enterprise. (Cheers.)
Mrs. Besant says that education is Socialistic. I hope
not, I believe not. What is public education founded
upon? Upon Socialism? No. Upon Individualism, upon
the right of every individual brought into the world to
have those duties performed that are involved in the obli
gation which the parents undertake. (Hear, hear.) A
parent is forced to find education for his child, but the
duty had been so long neglected that the State had to say—
“ The child, who is an individual as well as the parent,
the child towards whom the parent has contracted obliga
tions, shall be sent to school”. (Hear, hear.) And as
the State made it compulsory, the State had to find the
machinery. It was a question of ways and means. The
easiest method was to establish School Boards all over the
country. And that education does not in any way interfere
with competition. Certainly that education does not dimi
nish competition. That education gives all the children
brighter minds, more knowledge, keener faculties, to start
with some measure of equality in that great race of life,
where the prize is to the swift, and the victory to the
strong. And that law—the law of all struggle, and the
law of all progress—cannot be set aside by all the devices
of all the dreamers in the world. (Cheers.)
Annie Besant : Doubtless, from the brevity with which
I had to make my opening statements, Mr. Foote did not
quite catch my idea in dealing with slavery in connexion
with the downfall of the older civilisations. I alleged
that they fell from the great division between the proprie
tary and the unpropertied classes, caused by the slavery
on which they were founded. And the reason why they
fell was chiefly this: that those who did not labor, in their
idleness grew luxurious, effeminate, and careless. (Hear,
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
105
hear.) That happened in Greece and it happened in Rome.
(Cheers.) The earlier strength of Borne broke down Greece
where the slave canker had existed longer, and had made
these idle, useless classes unable to defend themselves.
The younger vigor of the Goths broke down Rome when
the sloth made possible by the slave-class had destroyed
the manhood of those who possessed them. And so in
England the upper classes are growing, as the upper classes
of Greece and Rome grew, luxurious, effeminate, caring
more for soft living than for hard thinking. And for them,
living on a vast and degraded population, there is the
danger of a similar fall to that which wrecked both Greece
and Rome. (Hear, hear.) Mr. Foote repeated the state
ment that no municipality had ever taken up a new thing.
But he appears to have ignored the fact which I stated
that the only bodies which had taken up the hydraulic
machine for supplying water at high pressure were munici
palities, and that that fact was fatal to the whole of the argu
ment that the State can never inaugurate an improvement.
(Cheers.) Mr. Foote ignores the fact, and simply repeats
the statement.
\
I go back to Mr. Foote’s earlier speech. He asks once
more, Why do we not make a Socialist oasis, and he says:
Because Socialism could not hold its own against competi
tion. It is true that a small number of Socialists, who are
poor, entirely without plant, without accumulated capital,
cannot hold their own against the vast accumulated capital
which is in the hands of the supporters of the competitive
system to-day. (Hear, hear.) The competitors have the
railways, the great carrying companies, the canals; they
have a vast store of goods and of accumulated wealth
of every kind. It is not reasonable that a few of
those who have helped to make this wealth should go
outside, and, practically without capital, begin a fresh
accumulation with the hope of being able to hold
their own against the results of the robbery of their
rights for centuries. (Cheers.) Such a proposal is a pro
posal utterly unworthy of consideration. The Socialists
mean to have the railways and the canals and the plant
that they and their fellows have made, and not to leave
these to the competitive system whilst they go out naked
into the wilderness to make more. (Cheers.) Then Mr.
Foote stated that a very rich man cannot eat his income,
�106
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
and he told us of a not very clear-sighted agricultural
laborer who said that the rich man had not a bigger
stomach than he had. The agricultural laborer wanted
more education, and then he would have seen a little fur
ther, for he would have seen that the rich man with his
servants—the domestics, the gardeners, and the game
keepers—has a hundred stomachs to fill, and fills them all
out of the produce of the laboring classes who support
him. (Cheers.) It is quite true that a Vanderbilt cannot
eat up the whole of his income; but he can get a lot of
lazy persons to hang on to him; and that is where the
mischief of these very wealthy men is shown. And if
the agricultural laborer had been able to see a little fur
ther he would have seen a multiplication of stomachs
feeding on other men’s labor, which is the result of the
very wealthy classes. (Hear, hear.) Then Mr. Foote says
that all the servants and others employed by the wealthy
would be idle if capital were abolished. He threatened
us with 12,000 trades—all the members of which would be
thrown helpless on the world. But why so ? A large
number of trades would, I admit, fall out of existence in
a healthy and rational condition of society. Those trading
in jewels, which have only their value for show; traders
in many articles which are utterly worthless, and which
are simply bought by persons who do not know how to
waste their money fast enough—these useless trades would
fall out under Socialism ; and the men who used to make
so many articles of luxury for the idle and the rich would
be employed in making useful and beautiful articles for
the masses of the community whose wider wealth would
enable them to purchase them, and would multiply a hun
dred fold the commodities which would be wanted for the
comfort of the whole of the community. (Hear, hear.)
For what you have got is so much human labor to be
utilised in the best way ; and while it makes useless articles
and luxuries for the wealthy, you are depriving those who
are wanting absolute necessaries of the results of labor
in which they have a right to share. (Hear, hear.) Mr.
Foote spoke of productive and non-productive work. I
object to the phrase. Useful and useless work are better
terms. It would be far better to speak of useful work,
when the work done supplies anything to society of which
society stands in need. (Hear, hear.) I draw no distinc
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
107
tion in usefulness between the teacher and the grower of
corn, between the author of a great book and the man
who builds a useful house. Society has many needs, and
they all have to be supplied; and any man who fulfils a
function that is useful—that man deserves his place in
society. There is no sense in the distinctions between pro
ductive and non-productive work, which took John Stuart
Mill into the absurdity of calling the work of an artist
who painted a picture productive work, whereas the
work of the man who played a sonata on the piano he
called non-productive work. These distinctions are idle
and useless, and the sooner we get rid of them the better.
(Cheers.)
Then Mr. Foote says to me : I do not care what you do
with the Duke of Westminster, but how will you deal with
the poor men who have their own freeholds and a little
money invested.
Mr. Foote : As a point of order, I did not say I did not
care, but that I did not care much.
Annie Besant : I should suggest to Mr. Foote as I did
before that that lies quite as much on him as a land
nationaliser as on me as a Socialist. I challenged him on
that point, and he avoided it. I said I should have the same
law for the rich as for the poor. I should destroy private
property in land completely and utterly. But I would
make this distinction: Where a man had earned money
and invested his savings in the land, I should admit that
he had a right to the usufruct of that land during his life,
oi’ else to receive back the sum he invested in it—without
payment of interest—if he preferred so to receive it; and
I should certainly in this case give full compensation on
this principle, that you may compensate a man fully when
you are dealing with what he has absolutely earned, but
there is no need to compensate a man fully when you are
taking from him what he did not earn and what he became
possessed of by the labor of others. (Cheers.) Mr. Foote
spoke of dealing with thousands of poor capitalists barely
getting a living now. Socialism will put them in the way
of getting more than a bare living, and so they will profit
by Socialism. And the result, we say, of your competition
is to make the fives of the poor capitalists a burden and
misery; more and more of the wealth is going into the
hands of the few, and all these little fishes will get
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
swallowed up by the big ones. (Hear, hear.) We want
to save them from this misery by placing the distribution
of wealth in the hands of organised societies, so that there
may not be so many competing in getting a living out of
a small amount of capital, but rather that they may be in
the position of acting as functionaries of society, fulfilling
useful work for which they would receive full and complete
remuneration. (Hear, hear.) Then there again I ought
to say that where any small capitalist had made his capital
himself I should be prepared to fully restore to him any
thing he had himself earned. The difference would be that
he would not be able to employ it as he had been used to
do in simply appropriating his neighbor’s labor, but would
have the result of his own work without being able to get
interest upon it—without being able to make money From
another person’s labor. Then Mr. Foote says land is
held under law, but he does not hold his watch under
law. I do not understand in what other fashion he
does hold it. If it were held without law probably that
watch would not remain long in his pocket. As a matter
of fact every right in a civilised community is based
on and defended by law. (Hear, hear.) Mr. Foote says
public opinion grows under Individualism. I have not
denied it. I say that probably it would grow faster under
Socialism if we may draw conclusions from analogy.
Take the force of trade public opinion within a trade
union. Public opinion where men are brought close to
gether works far more strongly on them and influences
them much more than it can do under our present condition
of struggling. (Hear, hear.) And I agree again with Mr.
Foote that public opinion cannot be forced. But public
opinion can be educated, and Socialists are trying to edu
cate the public opinion which they know will bring about
changes in these matters. (Hear, hear.) Then Mr. Foote
says that the Education Act was passed in an Individual
istic State. Not quite so. The Education Act was passed
in a State undergoing transition from Individualism to
Socialism, and it is a mark of the growing Socialist feeling
which is forcing these changed measures on the legislature.
And the thorough Individualists—take men like Auberon
Herbert and Herbert Spencer—admit this with regard to
State education, and point to the growing Socialism in legis
lation, which they contend is a danger. But Mr. Foote, in
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
109
legislation from his Individualistic standpoint, accepts the
fruit of Socialism, and then abuses the very tree from which
it comes. Mr. Foote says, “ We don’t want Collectivism to
raise women”. Don’t you? The Socialist body, as a
body, is the only one that claims complete equality in
every respect for women. (Cheers.) The old Radicals are
not sound upon it; some of them are in favor of it, and
some are against it. You find some Radicals everywhere
denying equality to women, and trying to keep them out
even from the rights of citizenship. There is no body in
the world save the Socialist, whether you take them in
England, or in America, or in Germany, or among the
Nihilists in Russia, there is no other body where you find
the absolute independence and equality of women pro
claimed as one of the cardinal points in their creed.
(Cheers.) That was one of the things that attracted me
to the Socialist party, because they do claim absolute
economical independence for women; because they do
claim absolute equality for her; and because in Russia,
above all, they have never grudged to women the place of
danger, but have stood side by side with her in conspiracy,
in peril, aye, and in the very worst prisons and on the scaf
fold. (Hear, hear.) They have never said, Your sex dis
qualifies you for the post of danger; our strength shall
guard your weakness. And this is the noblest thing which
Socialism has to say—there is no distinction of class, no
distinction of sex. It destroys every distinction and
every enmity, and places men and women on one plat
form of duty and of right. (Cheers.) And when Mr.
Foote tells us we do not need Socialism to do this, my
answer is, only under Socialism is that complete enfran
chisement of women possible. (Hear, hear.) Mr. Foote
says slavery existed under feudalism. It has existed
under every Individualistic condition of society, and it
must so be if the race is always to be to the swiftest and the
victory of the battle always to be with the strongest; for if
this is to be taken as meaning absolute muscular ability and
absolute want of scruples of conscience and human sympathy,
then, indeed, no true equality is possible. But, as I believe,
real individuality will only become possible under Socialism
—(hear, hear)—no Individualism is possible while men are
struggling for bare life. So long as they have to think
•only of food there is no possibility of that brighter day of
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
progress to a higher future. And only as you free them,
from that continual want; only as you secure to them the
necessities of existence; only as you destroy monopoly of
that material for the production of wealth on which this
controversy really turns; only as you destroy that mono
poly can you have the leisure for the possibility of culture,
the possibility of refinement, and the possibility of time,
for that great effort which will change the masses of the
people from the drudges they are to-day into the cultured
men and women who shall form our Socialist Common
wealth. (Cheers.)
Mr. Foote: Mrs. Besant gave us another very glowing
picture of what Socialism would do for women. It is all
future tense with her. She plays the role of the prophet
throughout. Socialism may do this and that, and Socialism
may not do it. But when Mrs. Besant says that Socialists
are the only body who proclaim, and have proclaimed,
equality between man and woman—by which I suppose
she means legal equality, for otherwise the word can have
no meaning—I happen to remember that a body with
which I have had the honor to work for many years, and
with which Mrs. Besant had the honor to work before ever
she joined the Socialists, not only proclaimed that equality,
but in practice made no distinction whatever between the
sexes. (Cheers.) The best way to promote the equality
of the sexes is not to be always shouting it, but to practise
it. If you treat women as though they were men’s equals
you will do far more than by the most ardent declamation.
(Hear, hear.) I happen also to belong to one of the
largest Radical societies in London—the Metropolitan
Radical Federation, which is an organisation of nearly
all the workmen’s and Radical clubs in the metropolis.
When the programme was drawn up one gentleman with
drew because adult suffrage was carried instead of man
hood suffrage. Only one withdrew, and all the rest
laughed at him. So I do not think Mrs. Besant is quite
right in saying that Radicals, here, there, and everywhere,
are opposed to woman suffrage. (Hear, hear.) I know that
Admiral Maxse and Mr. Cremer are opposed to woman suf
frage; but does Mrs. Besant mean to say that every Socialist
is prepared to defend it? (Cries of “Yes”.) I doubt it.
Mt. Belfort Bax, who is one of the leading Socialist
writers, calls woman suffrage a bourgeois superstition, and
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
Ill
says that as women are numerically the majority, it would
be handing over political power absolutely into their hands.
(Cheers.) That is pretty much the view which Admiral
Maxse takes. But I quite agree that neither Radicalism
nor Socialism is to be judged by an individual member.
The great body of Radicals are in favor of woman
suffrage. I do not see what is to be gained by charging
on them what they are not guilty of. (Hear, hear.)
Again, we are told by Mrs. Besant that I claimed for
my Individualism all that has been done from her prin
ciples in a transition state of society. But how does she
know this is a transition state of society ? How does she
know that Socialism is going to win? (Hear, hear.) It
is all prophecy. She cannot know that Socialism is going
to succeed. I don’t say it won’t, but I don’t think it will
—(hear, hear)—and I deny Mrs. Besant’s right to claim
that we are in a transition state of society. Time will
show. I have my opinion about it as well as she, and I
have quite as much right to my opinion as she has to
hers. (Hear, hear.)
As to the difference between productive and non-pro
ductive labor, Mrs. Besant says there is none, or it is not
worth taking notice of. She says the difference is between
useful and useless labor. Permit me to say that in the
long run it comes to very much the same thing. When
John Stuart Mill was dealing with productive and non
productive labor, he was dealing with it simply as an econo
mist, who was considering the laws of the production and
distribution of material wealth. The man who plays a
sonata does not produce a material thing, but the man who
carves a beautiful statue produces something which has
a market value—something which could be put into the
market and sold. Mill was drawing a real and not a
fanciful distinction, without being concerned at all, as an
economist, with the moral or aesthetic aspects of the matter.
(Hear, hear.)
Mrs. Besant comments upon my allusion to the facetious
laborer, and says that he had a good deal to learn. Un
doubtedly he had; but not as to the dimensions of their
respective stomachs. (Laughter.) Mrs. Besant says that
a rich man gets a lot of idle persons about him. They are
not always idle. The real fact is, as I said, that the man
of wealth gets about him a lot of persons whom he employs
�112
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
in labor which in non-productive. That is the whole
gravamen of the charge. I am not sure that all the rich
men who employ labor are idle. Some of them have to
work very hard, and some of the persons they employ have
to work hard, although their labor produces nothing, and
does not help to swell the material, or intellectual, or
moral wealth of the community. (Hear, hear.) Mrs.
Besant thinks that a large number of the twelve thousand
trades I referred to are useless. (Hear, hear.) But if she
looks at the names of many of them she will see that most
of them are not employed by rich persons. They are
trades of all sorts and kinds and descriptions. It appears
to me that Mrs. Besant does not really see the gravity of
the proposals she is making. She does not seem to see
that the labor in these industries will have to be organised.
She does not seem to see that Collectivism, if it were
agreed to, would have to face tremendous difficulties.
She does not seem to see that it would have to provide
by sheer foresight the machinery for carrying out all the
multifarious labors of society, that are now done by indi
viduals finding out the proper spheres for their operations.
(Cheers.)
Socialistic experiments, Mrs. Besant says, could not be
expected to succeed. I know it. I agree with her. I
think they will never succeed, except occasionally here and
there, as in America where the ordinary laws of human
society are contravened. (Hear, hear.) Mrs. Besant
referred to the way in which they dealt with the population
question. Yes, and in one of the communities, owing to
the religious principle, or, as I should prefer to call it, the
principle of fanaticism, they had only two babies in twelve
months among two hundred and fifty adults. (Laughter.)
I know very well, in a small community like that, you can
deal with the population question. I know that in a small
community, which is recruited from all the cranks of the
world, you can hold men together by a principle which
the general run of humanity would not tolerate. Mrs.
Besant says that Socialism would fail because it has not
possession of all the railways, canals, etc. I fail to under
stand this. The railways will carry your Socialist produce,
as well as Individualist produce, and at the same rates
to the same markets. You do not want to take over
the railways in order to be put on an equality with Indi
�113
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
vidualists. If your produce will compete successfully with
theirs you will beat them, but not else. You know better
than to try it. (Cheers.) You say you cannot get capital
now. I pointed in my previous speech to the fact that
trades unions have spent hundreds of thousands of pounds
in their strikes and in resisting lock-outs—in many cases
justifiably, but in some cases not—but they have not started,
as far as I am aware, a single concern for the production
of commodities, under organised, voluntary, co-operative
labor. (Cheers.) And why have they not done it? Because
they are not yet ripe for it. Again, in the co-operative
societies that distribute—and those are the general body
of co-operative societies in our country—that sell goods in
the course of a year to the amount of over £26,000,000 in
value, you find that a great difficulty is to find proper
managers, and a greater difficulty still is, how to keep
them. (Hear, hear.) They have also found it exceedingly
difficult to produce their own goods, for they generally
find that they can buy in the open market the produce of
Individualist enterprise better and cheaper than they can
make for themselves. (Hear, hear.) If they could produce
better and cheaper themselves, they would do so to-morrow.
But distribution is one thing, and production is quite
another. (Hear, hear.) What does the State produce ?
What did the State ever produce ? What can the State
ever produce? Water, gas? When Individualism has
once produced these the question is mainly one of distribu
tion. Mrs. Besant says that somebody has invented an
improvement in water-supply and that municipalities are
taking it up. Well, I have not much information on that
point. Mrs. Besant does not say who the man is, or what
the invention is. I should like to investigate it before I
take a mere statement like that absolutely. Not that I
distrust Mrs. Besant, but when a statement passes from
one to another, although there may be no intention to ex
aggerate, there may be some exaggeration. I should like to
investigate it fully before I dealt with that improved
machine. But meanwhile I will say this : No municipality
invented it. It was invented by an individual seeking his
own gain. (Cheers.) Then again, education is not pro
duction. It is a question of distribution; the State does
not produce its schoolmasters ; the State does not produce
its scholars. All the State does is to put the children and
i
�114
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
the teachers into juxtaposition. It is a question of distri
bution. (Hear, hear.) The Post Office itself is simply a
question of distribution. Our Socialist friends often
attach great importance to it, and I find Mrs. Besant’s
colleagues introducing it as a very fine Socialistic experi
ment. But let us see. The Post Office produces nothing.
It distributes an article which is peculiarly imperishable.
It is not like meat, or fish, or tea, or sugar. Letters,
newspapers, and book-post parcels, whatever the climate
or the temperature may be, whether it be wet or dry,
hot or cold, arrive at their destination pretty much
what they were when they were posted. (Hear, hear, and
a voice : “What about the parcels post ? ”.) I will say a
word about that in a moment. The Post Office is also
protected by law against competition. The Post Office is
allowed to charge its own price. And how is the work
done under these conditions ? There is no datum to go
upon in deciding whether the Post Office is cheap or not.
You have no private enterprise competing with it, for
competition is prevented by law. But here and there
an illustration does sometimes arise which shows that the
Post Office is not so cheap after all. The Post Office says
it carries letters from one part of England to another
for one penny, just as it carries a letter round the corner.
But the cost is nearly the same, whether the letter is
carried round the corner or to Newcastle. The difference
is simply in the cost of the transit paid to the railway
company. The labor of collecting letters, sorting them,
and delivering them, is the same whether they go to the
next street or to Scotland. (Hear, hear.) It was found,
even in the old coaching days, that the cost of taking a
letter to Edinburgh was only the fraction of a farthing,
and that all the other expense was incurred in collecting
and distributing and other forms of labor. The other day
I had to send a parcel across London. The Post Office
wanted eighteenpence, but the Parcels Delivery Company
wanted fourpence. Of course, I sent it by the latter. This
is a good illustration of the advantage of private com
petition. Individualism will beat your Socialist produc
tion or distribution right out. You know it. You are
afraid to compete with it. Therefore you want the law to
crush all rivalry. You would show Socialism the brightest
star by darkening all the rest of the sky. (Cheers.)
�115
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
FOURTH NIGHT.
Mr. 2Eneas Smith in the Chair.
The Chairman : Ladies and gentlemen, I am sure the
debate to-night will require little preface from me. Will
you allow me to impress upon you the absolute necessity
of attention to the speakers ? The turn of a word, or even
an emphasis, may affect the meaning; and as this debate
is intended for others besides those who are here, I am
sure you will see the necessity of paying attention to both
sides. (Hear, hear.) I will now call upon Mr. Foote.
Mr. Foote: Although we have occupied three evenings in
discussing this question, there remains very much still to be
said—so much, indeed, that I shall, if possible, keep straight
on on my own lines this evening, leaving Mrs. Besant to
reply in her speeches to what I say. As on last Wednesday,
I prefer to begin with a few figures. Figures are facts—or
should be ; and there can be little dispute as to the truth
of the old proverb that an ounce of fact is worth a pound
of theory. Mrs. Besant proposes as a Socialist that all
capital as well as land should be appropriated by the State.
(Hear, hear.) And I can quite understand that a large
number of persons who are not much accustomed to
analysing figures, and who see wealth which they cair
never hope to possess often massed in the hands of one
man, fancy that if the State did appropriate all the-land and all the capital, there would be such an extraA
ordinary increase in the earnings, or at any rate in the • y
receipts, of the masses of the people, that the millennium
might almost be thought to have arrived. Now I am
really sorry to say that figures do not support this enchant
ing prospect. The Socialists are very fond of saying that
Mr. Giffen holds a brief for the capitalists. (Hear, hear.)
In fact, Mrs. Besant has said it in this debate. Yet I
notice that whenever Mr. Giffen serves their turn, they use
his figures without the least scruple, and only raise o'bjeci 2
�116
IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
tions when the figures seem to go in the opposite direction.
It seems to me that if Mr. Giffen’s figures are not correct,
and the Socialists know it, they should compile a different
set of statistics, and let us see what, according to Socialistic
research, the real facts of the case are. (Hear, hear.)
But fortunately for my purpose Mrs. Besant has, in one
of her articles in her magazine, virtually admitted, with
respect to Mr. Giffen’s division of the £1,200,000,000 at
which he places the annual income of this country, that he
is practically right. Now the £1,200,000,000 is divided as
follows. Capital, according to Mr. Giffen’s figures, and
according to Mrs. Besant’s admission, receives £400,000,000,
although on that point, I think it only fair to say that Mr
Giffen thinks the amount is relatively exaggerated; but
still he puts it at the highest possible figure. Working
incomes that are taxed amount to £180,000,000; and the
working classes receive incomes which are not assessed
amounting, to £620,000,000. Now that £400,000,000
which capital receives undoubtedly looks a large sum,
At a superficial glance, it may seem that Mrs. Besant is
perfectly right when she contends that what she calls idle
capital ought not to receive this large amount every year
in the shape of interest. (Hear.) But let us look'below
the surface, and see what this £400,000,000 return on
capital really implies. Of this amount, I think, Mrs.
B esant is prepared to admit that something like£100,000,000
comes as return on English capital invested abroad. Now
if the Socialists appropriated all the capital in this country,
unless all the world were socialised at the same time—
which is very much of a dream—it would be impossible
to exploit that hundred millions. It is paid by foreign
countries, and foreign countries would in all probability
continue to pay the interest on these investments to the
persons who made them. This sum must therefore be
deducted. It is not a sum which can by any means be
appropriated. Next, Mr. Giffen states—and I think he
cannot be far from the truth—that about £200,000,000
every year are added to the amount of the national capital,
which is, of course, required to find employment for the
increasing number of the workers; for although the law
of population is going to be dealt with in the Socialist
millenium, it is not dealt with at present, and it requires
more capital to keep a larger number of persons every
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
117
year in productive work. There would, therefore, only
remain £100,000,000, if so much as that, to be seized, or
appropriated, or rescued, according as Mrs. Besant pleases
to term it, and to be distributed among the workers. Now
if we take the workers as the main body of the population,
and I presume Mrs. Besant would agree to that, this
£100,000,000 would only amount to about one shilling a
week, or less than three pounds per year. If the whole
of the £180,000,000 at present received by skilled labor,
either of hand or head, should also be appropriated, there
would be a further sum of from five to six pounds a year
for each person available, the total amount thus obtained
coming to about eight pounds a year per head, or in other
words about three shillings a week. Now is that three
shillings a week anything like what Mrs. Besant’s picture
of the Socialist millenium implies ? To my mind it is
not. And that amount could not be increased unless we
found some means of increasing, first the sum total of the
capital of the country, and next the income of the country
which arises from the productive use of that capital.
(Hear, hear.)
Now let us look at these figures in another way. The total
income of the country, setting aside nearly £100,000,000
derived from foreign investments, and £200,000,000 saved
every year to increase the capital for further production,
amounts to about £900,000,000. Taking the entire popu
lation of the country, it amounts, roughly speaking, to £20
per head. That is, for a family of five there would be an
income of £120. Of course this implies that the present
long hours of labor are to continue, and the extensive
employment of women and children as at present. But if
the hours of labor were shortened, if only the adult males
were employed, if the females and the children were no
longer allowed to engage in industrial pursuits as they
now do, you would probably have little more than half
that sum; that is something over £60 per family of five.
(Hear, hear.) But I will take it at the outside, and regard
the total for a family of five as £120. On the most
sanguine estimate then, by equalising everybody all round,
there would only be £2 6s. a week for every family; and
that wage would have to be made up to the inferior workers
by taking from the reward of skilled labor. There is no
escape from this dilemma that I can perceive. Perhaps
�118
IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
Mrs. Besant. may be more sagacious. If so, all the better
for her position. But if she cannot see any escape it
simply comes to this: that unless you can exploit the
wages of skilled labor, and give a portion of them to
unskilled labor, the millenium would be as far off as ever.
(Hear, hear.) Now I deny that that would be right, to
begin with. And I deny, in the second place, that it would
be economically sound. (Hear, hear.) Not only is skill
necessary, but I venture to say the reward of unskilled
labor is greater where skill directs it than it could be with
out that direction, even if skilled labor takes what seems
to unskilled labor a preposterous share. (Cheers.) If you
contravene this, by all means let us see on what grounds
you contravene it. It will not do simply to say the wages
of superintendence are too high, or that skill receives too
much. I say that skill will be paid. (Hear, hear.) I
say that if you don’t pay in our country for skill it will
emigrate to countries where it would find its proper
reward. (Cheers.)
Now having adduced these figures, which are at least
worthy of some attention, I propose to deal with some
of the practical difficulties of Mrs. Besant’s scheme. You
will perhaps remember that I said she had not by an
effort of constructive imagination attempted to show us
that her scheme would work well in practice. But that is
absolutely necessary. Any scheme can be made to look
well on paper. (Hear, hear.) Any scheme which can put
its good side forward, and never have any of its ill aspects
presented, would naturally gain a great deal of acceptance
among the unthinking, and a good deal of applause among
those whose hearts on this subject are a good deal bigger
than their heads. (Cries of “Oh, oh”.) I am sorry that
any gentleman should resent the idea that he has a big
heart, and if it pains him to think so I will retract the
observation. (Cheers and laughter.) Unfortunatelv what
ever scheme you propose would have to work in practice
with the same old human nature we all know. (Hear,
hear.) I have said that in my opinion Mrs. Besant takes
too optimistic a view of human nature. That is not a matter
we can easily discuss, because all people differ more or
less in their estimate of human nature, and the thing must
be left for overyone to decide for himself. But certainly
there is a great deal of improvidence in human nature.
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119
There is a great of want of forethought in human nature.
There is a great deal of stupidity in human nature. (Laugh
ter.) There is a great deal of idleness in human nature.
(Hear, hear.) If you have a scheme which looks excellent
on paper, promising to work with a brand-new form of
human nature, in which all the old evils are eliminated
and only its better qualities survive, naturally you have
not a very difficult task before you. But taking human
nature as we know it, leaving a slight margin for probable
improvement in the immediate future, let us see how this
scheme of Mrs. Besants would be likely to work. First
let us deal with its economical aspect. Mrs. Besant holds—
following Gronlund in this, as she follows him in so many
other points—that the industries of the country would be
conducted by groups of workers holding capital—that is
holding all the machinery and all the tools, every kind
of plant and every kind of structure necessary for carrying
on their trade. Now as I pointed out in a previous part of
this discussion there are no fewer than twelve thousand
different trades tabulated by the Registrar General. At
the outset it looks an extremely difficult thing for nominees
of the State, public committees, or what not, to decide how
much capital is the proper amount for each of these twelve
thousand groups. I should be very sorry to sit on the
committee myself. (Laughter.) It would tax more powers
than I possess. But as very sensible persons are going to
turn up in the immediate future, that may not be a very
great difficulty after all. (Laughter and hear, hear.)
Now I put it to Mrs. Besant that these groups would
either be related to each other under a central Board, or
they would be separate. In either case you would have
to face one of two evils. If they are connected together
under one Board, if they have all the capital necessary to
conduct their enterprise, if they also have complete control
over it so that they can fix their wages and decide the
prices of the commodities which they will put into the
market, all the community will be absolutely at the mercy
of any particular group; and if the group be the producers
of one of the prime necessaries of life, in a manufacturing
country like ours, the dependence of the rest of the com
munity upon it would be something shocking to contem
plate. (Hear, hear.) Now suppose the groups are
separate. Then the competition which Mrs. Besant so
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much, dreads will simply continue—for group will still
compete with group. I suppose people will not be obliged
to purchase from whatever group the committee may
specify. The better kinds of work would, of course, be
done by the better kinds of workmen, and these would
gradually find each other out. They would group together,
and the most skilled groups would get the largest share
of public support, while the unskilled would be gradually
driven out of employment, and in all periods of commercial
distress they would be thrown upon the community, whowould have to be responsible for their support. (Cheers.)
Even if all your groups were connected under one Board,
you would have the evils of competition, because the groups
of persons in similar industries in other countries would
compete with ours in the general market. In fact, as I
have said before, you could not by any mechanism destroy
that competition, which is not a hindrance to progress, but
rather, as I hold, the very essence of progress, stringing
the faculties of men in the great battle of life, where if
occasionally the sluggish are left behind, there is reward
for those who have the courage and the energy to hold their
own. And this applies to the great mass of the people.
Even in the greatest commercial crisis—and you hear so
much now in the papers about public distress—the great
majority of the workers are in fair remunerative employ
ment. It is only a small percentage who are out of work,
depending upon public or upon private charity. (Hear,
hear.)
I should like to know how these groups are going to
settle prices. Suppose a group fixes the price of an article,
and says, “ That is what it takes us to produce it ” ? Who
is to estimate this ? There is a very good way of estima
ting whether a thing is offered at the right price or not now.
Supply and demand settles it in the open market. But if'
the price is to be fixed by a group, then one of two things
would happen—either that group would be able to exact
something which under the present competitive system
it would not be able to get from the community, or else
all the other groups would raise their prices as well, and I
need not say that a common rise of prices would leave
things exactly the same as before, without the least advan
tage to anybody concerned. (Hear, hear.)
Next, I should like to know whether foreign compe
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121
tition would not have something to do with the price of
commodities in our own country even under Socialism.
All the world is some day to be Socialised, but still it will
take a good deal of time. Perhaps it may be said that
the Social Democrats are making advances in Germany.
(Cheers.) Well, perhaps so; but if you were to ask the
Social Democrats of Germany to sit down and write out
what they all want, you would find there are large differ
ences between them. In my opinion, the social democracy
of Germany is largely a reaction against the oppressive
militarism of Bismarck and Moltke. (Hear, hear.) If
the country were allowed, not only nominal, but actual
free institutions, we should hear a great deal less of
fanciful schemes and extreme ideas. (Cheers.)
I should also like to know how wages are to be settled.
Mrs. Besant says in one of her pamphlets that the worker
would have control over the price of his own labor,
exactly as he has now. Well, I fail to see this. Wages
would have to be fixed by a committee, and from what I
know of human nature I should think it highly probable,
if there are eleven commonly skilled persons and one
exceptionally skilled person, that they would pull him
down to their economical level. (Hear, hear.) I believe
that if salaries had to be fixed, salaries would be fixed
by the vast majority pretty much on their own level, and
in that case, as I have said before, I believe they would
drive skill out of the market. (Hear, hear.) But how
would the wages of the general run of workers be fixed ?
How could it be fixed, in the long run, except by the
market value of'lhe commodities they produced ? Well,
that is exactly how wages are fixed, in the long run,
now. There would have to be a return on capital, as
there is now. There would have to be, if your industrial
enterprises are to be fairly successful, the same payments
for skill as at present. Then, if the groups were overrun,
as many of them would be, owing to the pressure of popu
lation ; if the lower unskilled labor-market were flooded
by this growth of population—a disaster to which the
higher skilled groups would be less subject; then wages
would gradually get lower and lower. The only remedy
would be to raise prices. But that is impossible. In the
long run the only way of fixing wages is leaving it to be
determined by the price of the commodity; and the price
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
of the commodity in the open market, no matter whatever
Socialism may do, would inevitably be determined by the
great economical law of supply and demand. (Cheers.)
Next, I should like to know how you are going to
settle the question of occupations. Mrs. Besant thinks it
would be pretty much the same as now, and that if a
particular trade were flooded, a man would have to go
into something else—or rather a boy, for that is the end
of life at which you begin learning a business. Well, that
may seem very nice to some people, but to my mind it seems
an intolerable tyranny. (Hear, hear.) Occupations are
not so easily settled. There would, of course, be a rush
for the best kind of work. Who is to settle who shall
have them ? Would it not be a question of first come
first served ? And would not those who got inside stand as
a rampart to guard the rings, and keep outsiders from
coming in and lowering the wages of their privileged
groups. (Cheers.) The inferior groups would naturally take
all the rest. But suppose you had a more ideal system, and
the occupations were determined by fitness. How will
you estimate the fitness ? Who is to decide whether a
gloomy, melancholy youth like James Watt has in him
the capacity which he manifests in after life ? Who is to
decide whether Shakspere, running away from home, is
going to be the mightiest poet in the world ? (Cheers.)
Who is to decide whether Robert Burns at the plough-tail
is to be the greatest glory of Scotland? (Cheers.) Who
is to decide these things ? You cannot decide them by
forethought. You can only allow them to be decided by
Nature herself, giving free play and exercise to all quali
ties, and letting the highest and the best come to the front.
■( Cheers.)
Then, of course, in all societies there is a great deal of
•dirty and irksome work to be done. (Hear, hear.) It is
idle to shun facts. I have said before in this debate, and
I repeat it now, that the sure sign of a man of judgment
is the recognition of a fact as unalterable, and the sure
sign of a fool is the inability to recognise that facts are
unalterable. Now, this dirty and irksome work would
have to be performed by somebody. Mrs. Besant thinks
that in the Socialist State there will be a much greater
mixture of labor than at present. She says the clerk will
be as ready to fill the cart as a carter, and that the carter
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123
will be as ready to handle the pen as the clerk. (Laughter.)
I do not believe it. Still, I do not deny Mrs. Besant her
right to believe it. What is the fact at present ? The fact
is, human nature consists of all levels—from Newton and
Shakspere to the lowest forms of mentality outside the
walls of a lunatic asylum. There are all grades. What
to one man is utterly disgusting, to another man is scarcely
irksome. What to a man of very fine tastes and feelings
would be simply intolerable, to another man would be
simply something which he would perhaps rather avoid,
but it does not make his daily life a burden, and his nightly
life sleepless. (Hear, hear.) Now, at present the lower
forms of human nature fall into positions where they do
the more irksome and dirty work, and it is less irksome
and disagreeable to them than to others. (Hear, hear,
and “Oh, oh.”) If you were to put Shakspere, if you
were to put a highly skilled physician, or a consummate
artist, to the same kind of labor which is done as a matter
of course by some of the coarser human organisms, it
would be infinitely more distressing to them. (Hear,
hear.) And I say that generally the finer intellect goes
with finer tastes. (Hear, hear.) But suppose this dirty
work, this irksome work—as Mrs. Besant proposes—
should be divided among all. What would be the result ?
Here is a skilled surgeon who has to perform the most
delicate operations. With a sensitive touch, the lancet
being inside the skin and invisible, he has to discriminate
between one tissue and another, and the life or death of
the patient depends upon his hand not swerving a hair’sbreadth from the right line. To tell me that that man can
go out for half-an-hour to fill the place of a carter, and
come back retaining his previous fine skill, is to tell me
something utterly repugnant to common-sense. (Cheers.)
I shall conclude this half-hour’s speech—for I have a
good deal more to urge—by dealing with the question of
amusements. All theatres, concert rooms, parks, public
galleries, museums, etc., are to be regulated by State com
mittees. Fancy a State committee trying to manage the
Lyceum Theatre. (Laughter.) Fancy a State committee
dictating what Mr. Irving shall play. Fancy a State
committee deciding all these things. What would happen ?
The great general average of low taste would swamp the
better taste. The average taste, I believe, would not be
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
for Patti, but for Jenny Hill. (Hear, hear.) Those whowanted the higher and better forms of amusement would
be asked if they were so much better than their neighbors,
and whether what was good enough for Smith, Brown,
Jones, and Robinson, was not good enough for all the rest.
(Cheers, and hear, hear.) I am not surprised at that “ hear,
hear ”, but I am sorry. I say that the better forms of amuse
ment suit the better natures. The highest natures require
the highest forms of recreation. Under the present system
they can gratify their tastes. But if all the means of pro
duction, all the capital of the country, all the halls, and
all the theatres, are to be under State regulation, the
great mass of lower tastes will swamp the superior. In
stead of the world being advanced in all those higher
qualities that are of the very essence of progress, it would
be driven back, generation after generation, until in the
course of time we should return to the savagery and
anarchy from which we have emerged. (Great cheers.)
Annie Besant : Friends, in making my last half hour’s
speech in this debate, I propose to mark exactly the stage
that we have reached; to note what are the difficulties
that I have put before Mr. Foote, which he has not met,
and to point out also how many of the difficulties that he
has raised are difficulties of the nature of a nightmare
rather than of reality. The position that I put first in
this debate was, that so long as private property existed
in the material necessary for wealth-production then
whether you take the theory of political economy, or
whether you take the facts of society around you, you find
that that property in the material of wealth-production
must result in the continued subjection of the wage
earners, and in the impossibility of the masses rising far
above the level of subsistence. I put that to Mr. Foote
first as a fair deduction made by the leading economists of
our own times ; and next, as proved by the facts of society
visible to us as we study the pheenomena around us. I
pointed out to him thefactthat in every civilised country that
result had followed from the appropriation, that in every
civilisation around you, you had the extreme of wealth and
the extreme of poverty. That central proposition has only
been met by raising difficulties in the details of its possible
application, and not by grappling with it; not by showing
us how these evils might be prevented while private pro
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125
perty in those materials remained, but only by asking us
how, in a variety of minute details, are you going to try to
apply it, and how are you going to try to work out your
new system; and my answer to that is, that difficulties in
the way of application are difficulties in the way of every
veforming body—(cheers)—and that while those difficulties
are, as I put it to you the first night, a reason for caution
in our movement, they are no reason for despair. And I
pointed out to him, and he never tried to answer the diffi
culty^—that every difficulty of detail that he put to me with
regard to the total material for wealth-production was an
equal difficulty on his own shoulders with respect to the
nationalisation of the land, or to that half-and-half Socialism
which he advocates without knowing the principle which
underlies it, and the results that would flow from it.
(Cheers.) I put to him on the next night on which I led
the debate the historical difficulty, that every civilisation
in which this private property had existed had its pro
prietary and its slave classes. I pointed out to him that
on that division of classes each civilisation in its turn had
been wrecked; that the upper classes grew effeminate,
lazy, and luxurious, while the lower class were degraded,
helpless, without self-respect. I pointed out to him that
in the older ones we had chattel slaves, in the Middle Ages
we had serfs, and in our own times we have wage slaves ;
and I showed him that the difficulties on which the other
civilisations had been wrecked were difficulties in our own
time. Yet he never tried to meet that position, but simply
sneered at my raising a historical question. (Cheers.) I
submit to you that in dealing with a question like this you
must try and go to the root of the matter. I submit to you
that the causes which have destroyed every previous Indi
vidualistic society are at work in your own society. Take
America, where the land in proportion to the population is
practically boundless. The difficulties in America are as
great as in our own country, the same extremes of wealth
and poverty, the same sub] ection of the workers, the same
■divorcebetween classes; even wider divisions than we have
here; for here they are modified by some of the old
traditions of feudal duty on the one sideband feudal looking
for help on the other; whereas in America you have your
modern Individualistic system utterly naked, utterly un
ashamed, and you have the whole mass of society there
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
restless and troubled, and giving rise to the same Socialist
agitation that you find yourself face to face with at your
own doors. (Cheers.) Your Individualistic society is being
destroyed from within more than it is in danger of being
overthrown from without. The causes of its failure are
within itself, and those causes are becoming more and more
palpable, and their results more clear. The result of the
international capitalism is the driving of our home trades
down to the lowest level of the worst paid foreign work
men. (Hear, hear.) Even during the last week, with all
the difficulties in our own coal trade, the difficulty is in
creased by the joining together of a number of capitalists
to bring over Belgian coal raised by Belgian miners at the
starvation wage paid in the Charleroi basin; this is to be
put on the London market at 2s. 6d. per ton cheaper than
any coal which can be brought from South Wales. How
are you going to deal with that under the Individualistic
system ? It can only be met in two ways : either by your
capital, or so much of it as can do so, leaving the country
to be invested in lands where labor is cheaper than at
home ; or in the way it will be chiefly done, by the sinking
of your mining population to the level of the worst paid
workmen; and the degradation of our Northumberland,
of our Durham, of our Yorkshire, and of our South
Wales miners to the miserable condition in which the
Belgian miners are starving at the present time.
(Cheers.) Not only so, but I say that the present system
of competition leads to monopoly more and more. Your
great industries are falling into fewer hands, more and
more they are passing into joint stock companies, and in
America you see this system carried further yet. But when
they become monopolies, as they are becoming; when the
smaller men are crushed out, as they are being crushed out
at the present time ; then you will be face to face with an
absolute tyranny over society as you have got it in America,
where a ring of capitalists simply plays with the market
for its own profit and plunders the community for its own
gain. You must either submit to that or you must adopt
the Socialist plan, and take over those monopolies into the
power of the community, and make them social instead of
anti-social as they are under your Individualistic system.
(Cheers.)
And at this point I naturally come to those figures with
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127
which. Mr. Foote dealt in the early part of his speech.
Mr. Foote stated—and stated accurately enough—that there
would not be an enormous increase of wage if the pro
portion of land and of capital he mentioned were divided
up among the workers. But he will pardon me, I am sure,
for saying that he very much understated it, because I
have the figures here to prove the contention that I shall
put to you. In the first place the 400 millions which
Mr. Giffen gives include not only interest on capital,
as Mr. Foote was putting it, but the whole of the rental
also which goes into the pocket of the landlord. (Hear,
hear.) These do not include the wages of superintendence
at all. I am not dwelling on the fact that Mr. Giffen
gives his figures on one occasion as 407 millions,
and at another as 400 millions, because seven millions,
are a trifle for the purpose of this argument. But
I would point out to you that you practically get400 millions to dispose of by the admission of Mr.
Giffen, and that Mr. Foote in his argument managed to
whittle the 400 millions down to 100 millions, and
then to base the rise that would take place in the wages
of workers on the lower figure. And let me say why
it is I take Mr. Giffen’s figures, although I—to quote
his own phrase—think that he was fairly accused of holding
a brief for the capitalists. I take them because, although
they are understated and unfair to our side of the question,
they are quite strong enough to bear the weight of the
whole of the Socialists’ contention. (Hear, hear.) Out of
our enemies’ mouth we can prove our case. For what are
Mr. Giffen’s figures ? According to Mr. Giffen 400
millions go for rent and interest to idle capitalists—
(cries of “Shame”)—out of the total income of 1,200
millions, from which we are to take 100 millions forinterest on foreign investments. The wages for special
ability are variously reckoned by Mr. Giffen, Mr. Mulhall,
and Professor Leoni Levi, but we find that they comeroughly to 350 millions. That is to say: that out of theproduce of the country, when you have taken interest on
capital and rent of land, when you have taken higher salaries
and wages, which are sometimes called rent of ability, then
you have left to divide amongst the manual labor class only
450 millions out of 1,250 millions, with which you started ;
that is 800 millions of pounds made by the workers go
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
completely out of their hands. And now what does that
mean ? It means in the first place that those who get these
three rents, as the economists call them—of land, of
capital, and of special ability—numbering, as they do, ac
cording to Mr. Giffen’s computation, two millions of
families, take 800 millions out of the national income ; and
the producers, numbering five million families, get
450 millions; that is, that the two million families get
800 millions, and the 5,000,000 get 450 millions. Then I
find Mr. Giffen again stating that out of the 16^ millions
of separate incomes, which are made in this country only
millions are over £150 a year. I find Mulhall, in the
‘ ‘ Dictionary of Statistics, ’ ’ giving 222,000 families of the very
rich, that is with incomes over £1,600 a year, and 604,000
families of the rich, that is with incomes of £320 a year,
and 1,220,000 in the middle and trading classes; and that
if those figures are added together you get two-thirds of the
total income of the country. Now I submit that if you
recovered even one-third of the income of the country for
the producers, and distributed it among them in addition
to the one-third already held by them, no twisting of figures
can leave the wages at the point at which they are to-day,
for you would at least increase them by bringing that onethird more within the workers’ reach to be used for their
benefit. (Cheers.) No Socialist pretends that the whole
of that rent and the whole of that interest on capital can
ever under a Socialistic condition go directly into the hands
of manual workers: but it says this—that while your
economic rent must remain, while your payment for ad
vantages in productivity in machinery must remain, to
equalise the condition of the workers ; that that rent, and
that interest on capital, instead of going to the support of
the class who are absolutely idle, and who therefore act as
a poison to the community, will go into the national
exchequer to be used for national purposes, to remove the
burden of taxation from labor, and to be utilised for the
benefit of those from whom it came, and to whom it should
go. (Cheers.)
Now what is the result of your present industrial
system ? Compare your death-rate of rich and poor.
Mr. Foote wants figures. I intend to-night to give him
some. You can go to the Registrar-General’s report and
•compare the death-rates of rich and poor. I will first take
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children under five years of age; you will find that ac
cording to Dr. Playfair the death-rate of children of the
upper classes is only 18 per cent., as against tradesmen 36
per cent., and workmen 55 per cent. (A Voice : “ Hor
rible.”) That is, more than half the children of the workers
die before they reach the age of five years. And it is not
only amongst the children. The children, inheriting feeble
frames from underfed parents, die very fast, and the un
derfeeding, the slow starvation, of the parents shortens their
lives even when they reach the adult condition; and I
find in the report made by Dr. Drysdale to the Industrial
Remuneration Conference that, comparing the average age
at death among the nobility and professional classes with
that of some classes of the poor, that the average age of
death of the so-called higher classes was fifty-five years,
while the average age amongst the artisan class of Lam
beth only amounted to twenty-nine years. Now, I want
to know why that is, if everything is for the best in this
best of all possible worlds; if the division of profits is so
admirably made by the law of supply and demand, and by
those laws of which we hear so much, why is it that those
who supply the demand supply death also with so many ?
(Cheers.) Why is it that the poor man’s child has so much
less chance of life than the rich man’s, if it is not that your
society is built up on the plan of putting at the base of
your social pyramid a class which you exploit to the utter
most, and of whose life you are absolutely careless ; while
at the apex you have persons whom you point to as pro
ducts of your magnificent civilisation, and who are as use
less in their lives as they are mischievous in their action on
society. (Cheers.) I admit that under any conditions life
for some time to come will be a hard struggle. I admit
that the conditions that surround us are such that life
without hard labor is impossible; and I say that that
fact is no reason for allowing a class that earns nothing to
appropriate so much, and that the very fact that much
work is wanted to produce the necessities of life is a reason
for getting rid of the drones who eat so much honey while
they do nothing to increase the store. (Cheers.) I will go
a step further. I find Mr. Mulhall, reckoning the pauper
class from the figures of paupers receiving relief in Eng
land, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, and reckoning the
whole pauper class, put it at three million persons, or one
K
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
in eight of the manual labor class. I find Mr. Giffen, the
great authority, talking of the residuum of five millions
whose condition is a stain on our civilisation. Mr. Foote
talks of a small minority, but one in eight is not a small
minority—when that means a pauper class in the midst of
industrial civilisation, and when you take five millions of
residuum whose condition is a disgrace to our civilisation.
When you remember that the total number of manual
workers in the country only amounts to not quite
16 millions, I ask you to think of the five millions who are,
according to Mr. Giffen’s own account, a stain on our
civilisation. (Cheers.)
Well, but, says Mr. Foote, when you deal with this
question how are you going to get on with your change ?
I submit that if I show a grave cause for change; if I
prove that the result of the present economical and indus
trial system is the degradation which we see around us,
and which is proved by figures, that then the question is
no longer—“ is the change needed ?” but “ how shall that
change be made in the most rapid and most efficient way?”
(Cheers.) And I come to the points which were put by
Mr. Foote. Mr. Foote states that I take a too optimistic
view of human nature. No, it is because I do not take an
optimistic view of human nature that I advocate Socialism.
(Hear, hear.) I believe that men are selfish; I believe
that men are apt to trample on their fellows; I believe
that the result of centuries of struggling for life has been
to make men much more hard-hearted than they ought to
be, and that when they can take advantage of their fellows
they will do so ; and therefore I want to do away with the
opportunities of living on other persons which human
selfishness, sloth, and greed will most certainly take ad
vantage of. (Hear, hear.) I want to say to the selfish
man living on his brother, “We will take away from you
the possibility of living upon another by making you work
for anything you desire to get ”. It is because I do not be
lieve that human nature is perfect that I want to take
away the opportunities of exploitation which are enjoyed
by men under the present conditions of society. But Mr.
Foote goes on to say that an unskilled man gets more by
being directed by the skilled; and I am not prepared to
challenge that statement. I believe the working together
of skilled and unskilled is good for both, but I do not want
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
to try to keep the unskilled, class where they are, but to
raise them up into the skilled ; and while I admit the value
of skilled over unskilled, labor, I say that the amount it
gets as proved by the figures of the other side is far too
high. (Hear, hear.) Mr. Foote says that skilled, labor
will emigrate ; but there are two sides to that question. If
all the skilled persons go out of the country to foreign
countries they will become a drug in the foreign market,
and will drive down their own wages by competition among
themselves. If they desert us, they will at least no
longer exploit the laborers. (Hear, hear.) But I am in
clined to think that it may be worth our while to keep
some of them, and that until they are civilised into beings
with higher sense of duty to society than they have now,
it may be worth while to grant them some exceptional pay
for the work that they do, and so keep some of them to
direct our industrial enterprises. I believe amongst Social
ists I am in a minority in thinking that the various forms
of labor should be equally paid; I believe the majority are
in favor of unequal payment, so that you may still be able
to give some extra advantages to the extra skill. But
however that may be, equal or unequal remuneration is
not of the essence of Socialism. But it is of the essence
of Socialism that you should not have any payment what
ever made to an idle class. (Hear, hear.) And that is
why I pointed out before that Mr. Foote was confusing
wages of superintendence with the interest paid on capital
to persons who do nothing at all. That 407 millions are
rent and interest on capital without one stroke of work
being done in return; and it is not fair to speak as though
the whole or any of that came as remuneration for skill,
when really it only comes as remuneration for being born
the eldest son of your father and your mother.
Let us take a step further. Mr. Foote raised a great
many difficulties about occupations. He wanted to know
how Socialists were going to manage the 12,000 trades;
he wanted to know how prices were to be fixed either by
the groups or federations of groups; he said if one group
stood out you would have the whole community at its
mercy, or the groups thrown on the community for support.
But is there any reason why the Socialists should be such
fools as Mr. Foote supposes ? He is good enough to tell us
that our hearts are bigger than our heads, and then he
G 2
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
complained that his sneer was not taken as a compliment,
as if he had dealt with the largeness of our hearts and not
with the smallness of our heads. But I would point out
to Mr. Foote that Socialists are not fools enough to believe
that they can settle beforehand every detail of a future
condition of society. (Hear, hear.) What the Individualist
prefers to do is to get away from the central principle on
which we stand, and put conundrums of this kind to which
he challenges us to find an answer. Our answer is that
you will have working then the natural laws of society as
you have them now. Demand and supply will still exist;
prices will still be fixed by demand and supply ; and when
you deal with foreign goods taken in exchange for your
own products, if the foreigner has a more limited amount
to exchange and you are in need of it, his price will go up,
that is, you will have to give more of your commodities in
exchange for his goods ; and you will have to require more
labor here from those who desire to possess a portion of that
which has been obtained at the higher price. We do not
propose to start a new heaven and a new earth with laws
different from what they are now. (Hear, hear.) We
propose to destroy private property in the material of
production, and then to let economic forces mould the
details of the new condition of things, as they have
moulded the old. But we say, if we start on a basis which
is sound instead of on one that is rotten, we may reason
ably hope that the structure will be sounder than the one
you have to-day. (Cheers.) Then Mr. Foote put the
difficulty of the division of labor, and spoke about the refined
man feeling the intolerable burden of heavy work and the
lower human organism who is only fit for the work he does.
Then I ask Mr. Foote whether he deliberately means that
his Individualist society is based on the existence of a
helot-class, in which every taste, every feeling of art, every
longing for beauty and refinement, is to be crushed out in
order that a small minority may usurp all. (Hear, hear.)
If that be what he means, then the moral difference
between us is indeed deep and wide. (Hear, hear.) We
deny that there should be a helot-class. We do not ask
that a physician with his delicate fingers should go into the
streets and sweep up, nor do the scavanger’s work there,
for every society must have division of labor. But we say
that the physician is useful to society and the scavenger is
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133
useful to society; that under Socialism the scavenger’s
work will be honorable ; that he shall not be a mere helot,
a mere drudge, but shall have the enjoyment of hearing
a Patti and of higher art, and we say that the civilisation
which is based on helotry will fall. (Cheers.)
Mr. Foote : Sometimes I envy Mrs. Besant’s power of
appealing to people’s feelings. (Hear, hear.) Fortunately
this debate will be reported verbatim, and will be read in
cold blood. Mrs. Besant says that she objects to a helot
class. At the same time she says that under Socialism
there will be men set apart for surgery and men set apart
for scavenging. Exactly so. And why ? Because some
are fit for surgery and some are fit for scavenging. Other
wise you are going to appoint them because they are unfit
for the special work they have to do. (Hear, hear.) But
mark. Mrs. Besant says the scavenger who does this—I
am but speaking the plain truth—disgusting work—
(Interruption)—why this complaint, when under Socialism
somebody will have to do it ? Mrs. Besant says that the
scavenger shall, under Socialism, hear Patti. Well, if he
has a taste for Patti, he can hear her now. (Cries of
“ No, no ”.) Can’t he ? I can remember the time when
my earnings were not greater than any scavenger’s in the
country, yet I still saved my two shillings for a treat at
the Italian opera, climbing the flight of stairs that led to
the gallery. Although I did not sit in a luxurious seat,
I heard Patti and Albani as well as the man who paid
his guinea. (Cries of “No, no”.) I say, yes. I heard
the music and the singing, and he could do no more.
(Cheers.)
Mrs. Besant says that if we do not pay for skill, and it
emigrates, it will bring down the value of the skill abroad.
But that depends upon where the skill goes. There is
Australia, there is South Africa, there are large parts of
North America, there are other portions of the globe at
present being colonised by the English-speaking race,
which could take as much skill as ever the old countries
could send them. (Hear, hear.) It is not skill that they
object to. Skill can always find its reward. (Cries of
“ No, no ”.) It is persons going there with no skill and no
means that they object to. (Hear, hear, and “No, no”.)
Why, even now, on the landing-stage at New York they
turn emigrants back if they have not a fair prospect before
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
them, and make them return to the country they camefrom or anywhere else they can go to.
Mrs. Besant also says there is a great deal of selfishness
in human nature. She believes that human nature has a
large amount of ingrained selfishness. Yet she proposes
to take away all opportunity for using a faculty which is
more or less in everybody. You will need a very stringent
law to frustrate a faculty in everybody, and a faculty which
has hitherto been legitimate, and will not therefore feel
criminal all at once. It is very much like saying that be
cause persons sometimes cut their throats with razors,
no more razors shall be made. Is selfishness a bad thing ?
It is more than selfishness when it steps out of its way to
inflict suffering upon others. That is not mere selfishness,
but crime. It is aggressive egoism, which the law of every
civilised society represses and punishes. But that is not a
bad selfishness which enables a man to work hard, to fore
see consequences, to make provision for the morrow, toforego a present gratification for a more important future
one, and to strive to make provision for the wife and
children in his own home, whom he must love more
than the wives and the children of society in general.
That selfishness is not a crime. If you could eliminate
it from society you would kill society. But the passion is
indestructible and society is safe. (Cheers.)
I did not say in any part of this debate that everything
was for the best. I said that man was a gradually im
proving creature. I did not say there was no room for
improvement. Mrs. Besant cannot deplore more than I do
the evils that afflict mankind. (Hear, hear.) And I have
in my own way done my little share towards making the
world a trifle better. (Cheers.) The question between us
is not whether the world requires reform, but what is the
kind of reform it requires. (Hear, hear.) If a patient is
sick, Mrs. Besant and I may both deplore his condition,
but the question of what is the best remedy for his dis
order is entirely independent of our appreciation of the
fact that he is ill. You may as well say there is no use in
discussing the merits of allopathy and homoeopathy while
patients are sick. I say our patient must be treated care
fully in cold blood, by persons who subordinate their
feelings to their skill. You may work as much mischief
by good feeling wrongly directed as by bad feeling itself.
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
135
If you could measure all the evil done in society by mis
directed benevolence it would appal you. (Hear, hear.)
Pauperism itself is intensified by this evil. I admit that
society requires change; but how is the change to be
brought about ? Mrs. Besant says let us turn over a brandnew leaf. I say there is plenty of good message on the
leaf we have not yet exhausted. It is not a fact that in
our present system we have merely exchanged the old
slavery for a new one. (Cries of “ Oh, oh”.) It is not a
fact. Words often cheat people. They fancy that two
different things, because they can be called by the same
word, are really identical. Do you mean to tell me there
is any identity between the black slave, put up in the mar
ket for sale, and knocked down to the highest bidder,
separated from his wife and family probably never to see
them more, driven to work in the fields with a whip, and
not having a single thing to call his own, even his life
being almost absolutely at the mercy of his master—and
the skilled mechanic—(Cries of “ Oh, oh ”.) One moment.
If there are persons who are unskilled, whose fault is it ?
Cannot the unskilled laborer become a skilled laborer ?
(Cries of “ No, no ”.) Is there any penal statute in the
wide universe to prevent any man with the capacity getting
as much skill as any other man with the same capacity.
(Cheers.) I repeat, then, What analogy is there between
that black slave and the skilled or half-skilled mechanic,
who goes to work five and a half days in the week, and has
his evenings to himself ; who, if he does not live altogether
on the fat of the land, at least has his own inviolable domi
cile, where he can shut his door, and enjoy unmolested the
society of those he loves ? It may not be quite so large as
he might like ; but it is his. (Hear, hear.) Why, if you
were to call half the working men in this country in their
own workshops slaves, they would feel insulted. (Hear,
hear.) Although I daresay some will go to a public hall
and cheer the utterance when it serves their side of the
dispute. These workers are not slaves. (Cries of “We
are ”.) Well, if any gentleman feels he is a slave, I will
not dispute the fact any further. (Laughter.)
Now is it a fact that the working classes have no means
of redress ? I said before that they had. I say their
proper road to salvation is not through enforced co-opera
tion, but through voluntary co-operation. (Cheers.) No
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
State co-operation, can. succeed until the necessary qualities
are there ; and if they were there, they would make volun
tary co-operation possible to-morrow. (Hear, hear.) Volun
tary associations have succeeded; succeeded with picked
men it is true, but no new enterprise, no progressive
movement, can ever succeed except with picked men.
(Hear, hear.) The mass of mankind go on doing pretty
much the same thing from the cradle to the grave. It is
only the exceptional persons who strike out in fresh direc
tions, and they are followed by-and-bye when the experi
ment they began has proved a success. Many co-operative
societies have succeeded. Mill mentions some of them in
his chapter on the Probable Future of the Working Classes.
Others are mentioned by Thornton. You will also find
others in the Government' “Report on Co-operation in
Foreign Countries ” issued last summer. Mrs. Besant says
the workers cannot obtain capital, but she is entirely
wrong. These experiments prove the very opposite. Nay
more, while nearly all—I believe absolutely all—the State
subventioned enterprises failed in France in 1849, the
successful ones were those animated wholly by the spirit
of self-help. Let me cite a few instances from the Govern
ment Report:
“In 1849, fifty-nine tailors started with some assistance
from outsiders, a co-operative tailors’ shop. They soon
raised a business capital of 200,000 francs in fifty franc
shares, which were to be paid for in weekly one franc instal
ments. In 1851 this association was doing work on a large
scale, and had at the same time a benefit fund formed by re
taining five per cent, on salaries, and ten per cent, on profits.”
“ Fourteen piano makers in 1848, without any means of
their own, or Government aid, after great hardships and
difficulties in starting, founded and carried on successfully,
a business which two years afterwards owned 40,000 francs’
worth of property.”
“A small association of armchair makers, which started in
1849 with 135 francs, made 37,000 francs of net profits, and
could afford to pay 5,500 francs per annum for their work
shop.”
“A co-operation of file-makers, starting with fourteen
members and 500 francs, acquired a capital of 150,000
francs, and two houses of business, one in Paris, the other
in the provinces.”
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
137
“A successful co-operation of boot-form makers began
with two francs. One of spectacle makers, with 650 francs,
had in 1883 a capital of over 1,270,000 francs.” (Cheers.)
You see, then, that the statement that labor, if it be
energetic, earnest, possessed with the necessary intellectual
and moral qualities, cannot get capital, is belied by these
facts, which are of infinitely more value than all the de
clamations and theories in the world. (Cheers.)
Now just a word in concluding this speech. Mrs. Besant
says she is not here to solve conundrums. I never asked
her to. She says she is not going to trouble herself about
details, as it is not necessary to work them out. But
everything in the long run consists of details. (Hear,
hear.) Great masses are made up of small quantities.
Details mean everything in the end. Mind you, the ques
tion between us is, not whether society requires improve
ment, but whether Mrs. Besant’s particular scheme for
improvement is likely to turn out a good one. You may
as well say that a Prime Minister should bring in a Bill
for Home Rule, without telling the House or the country
any of the details of the scheme by which he proposes to
carry his principles out, as shirk the practical details of
a question like Socialism. Mr. Gladstone was opposed
by many who approved his object but disapproved his
method. They agreed on the principle, but split on the
ways and means. So I approve Mrs. Besant’s principle
of agitating for the improvement of society, but I object
to her method. I know that reform is wanted, but I also
know that to shirk the details of new proposals is to over
look the fact that life is made up of details, and that men
must be guided by experience. H you will shirk the prac
tical difficulties of your scheme, you have no right to ask
us to accept it. (Applause.)
Annie Besant : Let me say at once that I thoroughly
and gladly admit that Mr. Foote is as earnest for social
reform as I am myself. (Hear, hear.) I should be
sorry in the strictures I level against the system of
society he supports, to be supposed in any way to
make any kind of imputation against his sincerity or
against his earnest desire to see improvement. It is
the system he advocates I am attacking, without throwing
any kind of slur on his own desire of making any
improvement. And on the question of detail there is
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
one more word I should like to say. Suppose a naturalist
desires to breed to any particular type, he will select
his type, and then basing his actions on scientific prin
ciples, he will try to breed towards that type, knowing
generally what he desires to attain. But he will not be
able to tell you the exact length of the animal’s ears, the
number of curls there will be in his tail, or the particular
direction in which his eyes may slope. (Laughter.) Those
are the kind of details about which the scientific naturalistwould not try to prophesy. (Hear, hear.) He would take
his general type as I have done in this subject, but he
would not commit himself to prophecies for which the
foundation is not in any way attainable. Mr. Foote gives
me an illustration of the present Socialist policy by refer
ring to a Prime Minister. He says that a Prime Minister
must not bring in a mere abstract of a Bill without details;
but I ask Mr. Foote whether anything is more common
than that a statesman should bring in an abstract resolution
embodying some particular principle, and try to carry that
resolution, and thus to gather the general sense of the
House before he passes into the details of the Bill, details
which are, I grant, necessary, when it becomes a project
for immediate legislation. (Cheers.) That is exactly our
Socialist position at the present time. (Hear, hear.)
We are trying to carry a resolution before the public in
favor of the Socialist principle; and, mark you, we are
giving our definite reason for doing it. We have said over
and over again, and I say it now for the last time in
this debate, that we allege that private property in
the material of wealth-production is at the root of
poverty. (Hear, hear.) That as long as that lasts you
must have your propertied and your slave classes. We
allege that this is the source from which the evils flow, and
we must fight out that question of principle before it is
even worth while to go into minute details, which must be
considered, I thoroughly accept that, before you can make
a Socialist community; but it is idle to discuss the details
so long as the main principle of difference between the
Individualists and the Socialists remains undecided by the
public voice. (Hear, hear.) I go back to the speech of
Mr. Foote, which, he very fairly said, I did not completely
answer. There was a slight error in quotation Mr. Foote
made in connexion with the question—How wages should
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
13^
be settled, when he quoted me as saying the worker
should have control over the value of his labor. The whole
context of the passage shows that what I was arguing wasthat when the workmen had received a return for the labor
he had done, that amount which he received would beentirely under his own control. Just as now, a man re
ceiving wage from an employer can spend that wage as hepleases; so the workman employed, as he may be, by a
group of workers, or by whatever other phrase you may
use, when he receives the recompense of his labor, would
be able to use that recompense as he chose, as he thought
best. (Hear, hear.) That is the point I put in my essay,
and it appears that Mr. Foote has entirely misconceived it,
and has turned it into the man fixing his own wage instead
of controlling the equivalent for his own labor. (Hear,
hear.) Then Mr. Foote asks us to take a case which we
find in our present society—take the case of men like
Burns or Watt—what shall they do, and who shall decidein what way they shall be employed ? One of the reasons
why we want to press the Socialist solution is because,
under your present Individualistic system, you crush out
such an enormous amount of talent that might make its
way if it only had the opportunity. (Cheers.) If, as the
Socialists propose, the people were educated thoroughly
and completely in the years of their childhood and of their
youth, do you mean to say that it would be possible that
the talent of a Burns would escape notice, as it did when
he was sent to the plough-tail in his childhood, and had no
possibility of education which would enable him to show
his literary power ? (Hear, hear.) Under your present
system it is but a mere chance whether the child
of great ability succeeds or not. It depends largely
on the rank of society in which he is born. (Hear,
hear.) I do not say that you may not here and there havea child born under unfavorable conditions, who has talent
which amounts to absolute genius, and a strength of will
as of iron, so that even circumstances cannot break it. I
do not say that such a one amongst a myriad may not fight
his way to the front despite all that is against him. But
I do say that under your present system you practically
lose to society thousands upon thousands of personsdowered with real ability, whose ability would have been
discovered had they had a reasonable and rational educa
�140
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
tion, but whose ability is crushed out of them in their
•childhood and their youth by the hard circumstances of
their life. (Cheers.) And that is why we say that your
Individualistic system crushes Individualism. That is
why we say that only under Socialism can you hope to get
all the benefit through individual development which
■comes from removing persons from the constant strain and
struggle for existence, and, by securing the means of liveli
hood to all, give time and opportunity for the development
of the particular capacity. (Hear, hear.)
Then Mr. Foote asks, are you going to have all your
amusements arranged by public committees, because if so
their low tastes will swamp the higher tastes for the fine
arts. Now that is exactly what happens at the present
time, because the managers are now ruled by the receipts,
and the receipts come from the majority. Mr. Foote says
that low tastes are the tastes of the majority, and that it is
only the small minority that have the higher tastes. And
what is the result ? Your wretched melodrama and the
• comic opera are what the manager readily accepts, because
they appeal to the majority. (Hear, hear.) And even
Irving, great as he is, has his genius stunted, and, like a
fine jewel in tawdry setting, he has to fall back on fine
upholstery and limelight because he dares not trust to the
attraction of his own genius, for he knows it would not
pay. (Hear, hear.) It is the testimony of everyone who
has looked into the subject—(cries of “No, no”)—I am
going to give you a fact—(cries of “ Question! ”)—the
question is that of amusements under Socialism, and I am
dealing with that. (Hear, hear.) It is a fact which
everyone knows who has looked into the subject that the
only countries in which new genius—either dramatic or
artistic of any kind—can really make its way and be heard
by the public are those countries where theatres and places
of amusement are endowed by the State. (Hear, hear.)
The French stage is the very model of the other European
theatres. And why ? Because there a man of genius can
really bring forward a play that has to wait before it is
. appreciated. But your stage here falls back upon the off
scourings of the French theatres, and plays adapted from
the lower stage of France are played at your best theatres
here. (Hear, hear.) And so in Germany. Take the case
of Wagner. He was on the verge of starvation, was nearly
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
141
killed by your Individualistic system, until an endowed
theatre made it possible for him to get his music heard.
And these are facts for Mr. Foote to deal with instead of
theorising and floating about in the clouds. (Hear, hear.)
But Mr. Foote argues that the scavenger can hear Patti if
he is prepared to pay his two shillings, and to wait two
hours at the doors. But the scavenger cannot easily pay
that money and wait two hours or more. I have paid that
and waited—(A Voice : “It’s half-a-crown”)—the gentle
man is quite right, it is half-a-crown and not two shillings,
(Laughter.) But I do not think that a scavenger with a
small family of hungry children at home, can afford to
spend 2s. 6d. and to wait two hours, and then spend three
or four more in listening to Patti. (Cheers.) And what
is worse, he does not want to do so. He has not had the
education which would make it possible for him to enjoy
such music ; and he won’t have the desire until the educa
tion given by the community includes art and literary
culture as well as the mere elements it now gives. (Cheers.)
I pass on to yield my perfect agreement to Mr. Foote’s
statement of what we are seeking—viz., the best remedy.
And that is why I complain that he has not tried to deal
with the fundamental remedy of Socialism, and has ap
pealed to feeling and prejudice instead of dealing with my
proposals. (Hear, hear.) I pointed out to Mr. Foote that,
if he speaks of words leading to mistakes, that is the very
complaint which the Socialists make. We say that the
word “freedom”, applied to any laborer who has only a
choice of accepting the contract offered him and starvation,
is but a word, and is not a thing. (Hear, hear.) When
freedom of contract is spoken of, I say that that can only
take place between persons tolerably equal; and when Mr.
Foote speaks of the tension of muscles caused by compe
tition, I answer that such benefit can only result when each
competitor has a chance of reaching the winning-post.
There is no stimulating competition, but only a crushing
feeling of disqualification, if you set to race one man who
is only allowed to go on one leg and is carrying a heavy
chain, and another man who is allowed to use a bicycle to
get round the course. (Hear, hear.) The man with the
disadvantage finds it practically impossible for him to race
at all. And I allege that in your modern society the man
of the bicycle is the landlord and the capitalist who has
�142
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
everything made easy for him in the life-race ; and the man
with one leg and the chain, who is asked to compete with
him, and to feel the benefit of freedom of competition and
free contract, is the laborer who has nothing whatever but
his labor to sell, and who must starve unless he can sell
it. (Cheers.)
Mr. Foote : Mrs. Besant says that if a naturalist wishes
to produce a particular variety of dog, he does not before
hand say what length its tail is going to be, or how many
hairs it is going to have on its body. But if he proposes
to breed a long-tailed dog, surely the length of the tail
would have something to do with his prevision. If that
naturalist proposed to produce a special variety of dog,
and made it a condition of his experiment that he should
have every dog in the country under his control, the rest
of us would want to know what he was going to do before
■consenting to allow him to make such a vast experiment.
(Hear, hear.)
Mrs. Besant'reiterates that private property in capital is
at the root of all the poverty there is. Now we have had
three nights of this debate already. This point has been
•debated over and over again, and why Mrs. Besant wants
that particular point debated afresh to-night I do not
understand. I contravene it. I say there is no one root,
but many roots of evil, and the cause of all the roots of
evil lies in the fact that man is as yet only partially
evolved. He has advanced a long way from his brutish
progenitors, but he has yet higher ranges of capacity, of
thought, and of feeling, to reach in his development.
(Hear, hear.) You cannot do with your present human
nature what you could do with a better human nature.
The better human nature will come in time, for the Dar
winian theory which gives us a certitude of progress in the
past gives us a reasonable guarantee of progress in the
future.
I gave as one of the causes of poverty the pressure of
population on the means of subsistence. (Cheers.) Mrs.
Besant herself has given it. She has to-night told you
that the death-rate is lower among the upper classes than
among the lower classes. (Hear, hear.) If I had known
that Mrs. Besant was going to use those particular
statistics to-night, instead of following my lead, I should
have come prepared with some counter statistics. But I
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
143
now make the broad statement that the birth-rate among
the lower classes is as high as their death-rate relatively
to the upper classes. (Hear, hear.) They marry earlier,
breed faster, and therefore their numbers are kept down
by a heavy death-rate. I never said that the poor man
was in as good a condition as the man who is better off.
(Laughter.) But that is not our argument. How are the
great mass of people to be improved ? is the question at
issue. And after all, it is not my remedy, but Mrs.
Besant’s remedy, that is under discussion. When she
says I have not dealt with the difficulties she raised, I beg
to say that she has to deal with the difficulties which I have
raised against the system she wants us to embrace. (Hear,
hear.) . She says that, under the Individualist system,
talent is crushed down for want of education. We all
know that to some extent, but we did not wait for
Socialism to provide education in the Board Schools for
every boy and girl. We did not wait for Socialism to
found our system of secondary education, and we shall not
wait for Socialism to realise the dream of Radicals that
the endowments of the universities shall be put to their
right purposes, and applied to the education of those
higher capacities that are selected from the lower schools
to which all the mass of the children go. (Cheers.)
It is perfectly true that to some extent the lower taste
at present swamps the higher taste. But if the lower
taste gets the reins of power in its hands it will be an
overwhelming deluge. Now you can paddle your own boat,
but then you will have no boat to paddle. (Hear, hear.)
It is perfectly true that what pays best is put on the stage ;
but I said that there was a select circle of finer tastes, and
that they can get what they want. It may be true that
Mr. Irving has too much recourse to upholstery and lime
light, but that may be due to his melodramatic instincts.
He has played in many Shaksperian characters, however,
and in other legitimate dramas, and I do not see how his pos
turing in “Faust ” proves that he is a panderer to the lowest
tastes of the day. (Hear, hear.) If you can go and see
low comedy, you can also go and see high comedy. Tf
you want your tastes gratified with the best music, or
drama, or literature, you can have it. Shakspere is brought
into our homes, decently printed, for a shilling; and in
all sorts of ways the highest taste in such things can be
�144
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
gratified without a very great expenditure. The poorest,,
even, can sometimes have the pleasure of hearing a great
singer like Patti ; and even under Socialism she could not
sing every night to everybody, unless the opera house
were large enough to hold the nation. Wagner was a
poor illustration. He was outlawed for fighting on behalf
of liberty against what turned out to be the majority of
his countrymen. Mrs. Besant says his musical genius
stood no chance till he was endowed. But the person who
assisted him with money was the mad King of Bavaria.
That fact does not favor Mrs. Besant’s position. It rather
tells, if at all, on behalf of the monarchy which she and I
are both opposed to. (Hear, hear.)
I will now take a few more difficulties. I do not know
much about carpentering, and I think Mrs. Besant knows
as little. (Laughter.) I have no practical knowledge of
a variety of trades. But I do know something about
writing and publishing, and so does Mrs. Besant. Under
Socialism, Mrs. Besant would like to write and publish
articles and pamphlets maintaining her Freethought, Mal
thusian, and other views. Yet if all the means of produc
tion were in the hands of State officials, or under the
control of industrial groups, how does she know that she
would be able to do what she wanted ? Gronlund says
that society would not allow anything and everything to
be printed. It would draw the line somewhere. Yes,
and I think the line would be very hard upon the minority
and all unpopular ideas. It would seriously hamper the
advanced few who are the cream of every generation, and
whose thought to-day decides the action of to-morrow.
(Cheers.) Mrs. Besant knows very well that she is not in
the majority at present. Her Malthusianism is unpopular
with general society, and she regrets to say that among
her Socialist friends it is more unpopular still. She and !
would continne to hold unpopular opinions, and if we did
not, other persons would. Now those opinions would have
to be ventilated, and in a highly organised society like
ours they cannot be ventilated, except through the press
and the pl at,form. But all the halls, all kinds of meeting
places, are to be controlled by public committees, and all
printing plant is to be under similar management. Would ,
Mrs. Besant get what she wanted printed, if it were
generally distasteful? Would not the managers of the
�145
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
printing group be very reluctant to offend their constituents
and imperil their prospect of re-election to office ? She
would also probably find that if the hall she wanted was
not absolutely refused, it would be required for something
else on that date. The free play of mind would thus be
checked. But upon that very thing all progress hinges.
What is progress ? The only valuable, or indeed intelli
gible definition I know of is Sir Henry Maine’s “progress
is the constant production of fresh ideas”. Fresh ideas
might be produced, but they would be absolutely abortive,
unless there were the means of disseminating them and
carrying them out. Could those means be counted on when
all the agencies were in the hands of the majority who
would naturally be content with the state of things in
which they exercised supreme power ? How can you praise
liberty, when under your system liberty would be arrested
at its source ? Mrs. Besant may smile at this. She may
say, as she has said, that if you cannot get a hearing in a
hall you must go to some open space. But if the officials
would not let you speak in public halls, they would put
obstacles in the way of your speaking in public places of
other kinds. (Hear, hear.) You would then have to hold
forth on Dartmoor or the Yorkshire wolds, where the
chances of finding an audience are exceedingly limited
(Laughter.) I really wish Mrs. Besant would tell us how
these difficulties are to be surmounted.
Individualism will produce all the benefits Socialism
could possibly bestow, and it gives us other benefits which
Socialism would destroy. It was finely said by Channing
that you may spring a bird into the air by mechanism,
but its flight is only admirable when it soars with its own
vital power. So the mechanism which would elevate
people despite themselves does not really elevate them.
They are only lifted up when their life is improved by
their own energy, foresight, and capacity. (Cheers.) If
you gave a man with the lowest tastes ten times his present
income, do you mean to tell me that he would be ten times
better ? He would probably spend it all very much as he
spends his money now. But if he got more by voluntary
co-operation with his fellows, his character would be
elevated in the very process of bettering his material con
dition. (Cheers.)
Mrs. Besant complains that competition is impossible
L
�146
IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
with those who have personal advantages. Yes, and I
know that without riding on bicycles there are some
stronger and fleeter than others. Those with the most
powerful and subtle brains must win the first prizes in the
race of life. But there are many competitions and millions
of minor prizes of all degrees. We cannot all run in the
race for the Premiership. Only a few can compete for
that, and let us hope the best man gets it. But if a man
cannot compete for the Premiership, he may be first in the
making of good honest boots. (Hear, hear.) There are
thousands of races, and if a man cannot succeed in one he
may enter another. Competition is not the frightful
thing Mrs. Besant supposes. It does not imply that only
one wins and all the rest absolutely lose. In our com
petition there is a first prize, a second, a third, a fourth,
and'so on down to the point at which there really is com
plete failure, and a man is thrown out of employment.
But the great mass of workers are in employment, and
there is something even for those who are farthest behind.
The vast majority get what is worth having, though all
cannot be first. (Hear, hear.)
Now, in conclusion, let me say a word as to what Indi
vidualism has done. There was a time when man fought
for the possession of caves with his brute contemporaries.
There was a time when man was so low in the scale of life
that he could scarcely be discriminated from his ape-like
progenitor. Through countless ages he has advanced to
his present position. And that position gives only a fore
taste of what he will realise in the days to come. The science
which affords us so many benefits is still in its childhood,
and what it has done is but “ an earnest of the things
that it shall do ”. Individualist competition, man wrest
ling with nature and the brutes, man matched against
man, thrift against improvidence, sagacity against dulness,
energy against indolence, courage against cowardice, sense
against stupidity—this has brought civilisation to its pre
sent pitch. Individualism has constructed railways, made
the steam-engine, bridged rivers, covered the ocean with
ships, invented the printing press, and given us all our
science and art. Individualism has given to “the poor”
what they consider necessaries of life, but what once were
luxuries to princes and kings. And what has your State
done? It has always been trying to “ regulate ” things,
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
147
making mistake after mistake with the best intentions, and
failing again and again because it could not possibly succeed.
It has tried to take men’s religion under its control; it has
tried to take all their thoughts and all their actions under
its control. It decreed the status in which men should
remain from the cradle to the grave. It hemmed them in
on every side. And while individual Europeans have gone
all over the world, colonising and founding new empires,
what have the Europeans States done ? They have hurled
people against people. They have contracted four thou
sand five hundred millions of debt in senseless quarrels.
The 1 ‘ State ’ ’ has done more harm than good. Individualism
has made progress. Without it none is possible. Col
lectivism, State control, crushes liberty, hinders Indi
vidualism, and prevents that noble progress which we all
see brightening and heightening in the great future before
us. (Prolonged applause.)
Annie Besant : I did not state in my last speech that
the present system of private property in the material of
wealth production is at the root of all the poverty. Mr.
Eoote has put in the word all. I quite admit that there
are other influences at work as well; and you know that
in dealing with the question of population I have pointed
to that cause. But Mr. Eoote rightly said in an earlier
speech that under the present system that difficulty was
not dealt with, because it is to the interest of the capitalist
that the workers should rapidly increase, that he may play
off the one against the other. (Hear, hear.) Then Mr,
Eoote stated—and I agree with him—that society will
improve by evolution. And it is because I am an evolu
tionist that I am a Socialist; it is because I see that society
is evolving in the direction of Socialism, and that the
tendency of the most Radical legislation is to promote the
growth of Socialism. (Hear, hear.) And then Mr. Eoote
says that the birth-rate and the death-rate balance each
other. But surely Mr. Eoote must have noticed that I
gave percentages, and not absolute numbers, of deaths,
and that brief answer of his does not deal with my diffi
culty, which really was the price that society pays for the
maintenance of the present system. (Hear, hear.) Then
Mr. Foote says we don’t wait for Socialism to get educa
tion. But your education is founded on the Socialist
principle ; you tax the community for a special benefit of
�148
IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
which, some only take advantage; the State compels
parents to do their duty towards their children, forcing
upon them that which otherwise they would not do, and
intruding even within the circle of the home; in fact, you
treat the children as belonging in the highest sense to the
community rather than to the parents, and you forbid the
parent to inflict an injury upon the community by keeping
the child in ignorance, and therefore in degradation.
(Cheers.) I admit in that good work has been done; but
it is work done by society—by the State that Mr. Foote
attacks—and not by Individualistic effort. (Hear, hear.)
The voluntary school system was the growth of Indi
vidualism ; the national system is the growth of the
tendency towards Socialism in the State.
Mr. Foote goes on to say a word about publishing
papers and pamphlets : Here are Mrs. Besant and Mr.
Foote. Their opinions are in a minority. How are they
to publish their views under Socialism? But we are
in a minority now, and we have paid for it under your
Individualistic system. (Hear, hear.) We have found
not only that it is very difficult to get a hearing for the
views of the minority, but that a man may be sent to gaol
for putting his views in print. What worse tyranny than
this can Socialism inflict ? (Hear, hear.) Individualistic
society shuts up a man in prison because he dared to print
something against the views of the majority. (Cheers.)
What more could Socialism do ? But let us be frank in
this matter. Socialism will not at once quite alter human
nature. These difficulties which Mr. Foote speaks of are
the difficulties of minorities everywhere, and there is no
way of getting over them save by courage on the part of
the minority, and the gradual growth of education and of
a feeling of respect in the majority for the opinions of
others. (Hear, hear,) But I can tell you why we think
that under Socialism the minority would have a better
chance of making itself heard than it has now. It is
because even under the present condition of things those
institutions which are most nearly on the road to Socialism
are those where the greatest liberty is already permitted.
(Hear, hear.) Co-operation, for instance, which is the
grouping of many together to work side by side and there
fore is only in a small way—when it is real, and not mere
dividend hunting—what the Socialist State will be in a
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
149
large form—co-operation may serve as an instance. Mr.
Foote knows that it is the halls scattered over the country
which have been built by the co-operative societies, and
which are controlled by committees and not by individual
owners, which are most readily granted for the propaga
tion of the opinions of the minority. (Hear, hear.) Often
when an individual owner refuses to let me his hall, I find
the co-operative society readily grant it, although many
members of their committee are in opposition to my views.
(Hear, hear.) The truth is that where an individual refuses
to let any views be heard but his own, the clash of opinions
on a committee makes each member disposed to give others
a hearing in order that his own views may obtain a hearing
in turn. Take another case. You speak of the tyranny
of the State. I take as an illustration of the difference
between being under a State and being under the indi
vidual, an incident that happened at the British Museum.
There was a gardener there who committed the horrible
crime of calling by his first name the son of one of the
officials—he called him George instead of Master George.
(Laughter.) Such a piece of gross insolence on the part of
a gardener could not be overlooked, and the result was that
he was dismissed. So far he shared the fate which would
have befallen him had he been hired by an individual owner.
But as he was a servant of the State and not the mere
hired servant of an individual owner, his complaint was
listened to, an inquiry ordered, and the result was that a
fresh post was found for the gardener to compensate him
for the loss he had undergone. H he had called an indi
vidual’s son George he would have been thrown out into
the world to seek a fresh livelihood for himself; but as he
called the State functionary’s son George, the State inter
fered in order to protect him, and gave him another place
instead of the one he lost. (Cheers.)
But Mr. F oote points to what Individualism has done—
it has covered the sea with ships. Aye, with coffin ships,
which went to the bottom until the State interfered to save
life. (Hear, hear.) Individualism has done much. On
my very first night I said that being an evolutionist I
recognised the fashion in which society had grown ; from
my point of view it is idle to find fault with what has been
done in the past; it is for us to try with the experience of
the race, by the study of history, by the growing knowledge
�150
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
of man, and by our increased scientific ability, to find a
better road for the future, than our ancestors have struggled
along in the past. (Hear, hear.) And the difference
between Mr. Foote and myself is this—that I recognise
that evolution has brought us to the point where this
Individualistic struggle must give way to organised action.
And I notice that we have grown from the Individualism
of the savage up to the co-operative Socialism of civilisa
tion : because as Mr. Foote truly says—civilisation is co
operation ; that is, it is the raising of the group and the
group interests above the interests of the units who compose
the group.
I put to you now in closing this debate one or two points
which I venture to think are not unworthy your careful
■consideration. Mr. Foote says that we have been making
progress, we have been improving in the past. I have
urged on him, on the other side, that the improvement has
been far slower than it need be, and that the root of the question of poverty must be dealt with if improvement is
to go on. I have pointed out to him that while there is
improvement in one part of society there is retrogression
in another. I have pointed out to him the ever-widening
of the gulf between the rich and the poor—the evergrowing division between the cultured and the masses of
the people—the ever-increasing danger of that which
Sidgwick pointed out, viz., that the tendency of our
present industrial system is to make the rich grow richer
and the poor grow poorer. (Cheers.) That I hold to be
the position in which we stand to-day; and I, a Socialist,
come forward, and pointing to these evils in modem
society say they are evils which are inherent in the system.
Under a Socialist system—and only under that system—
is the change and the remedy for us possible. Mr. Foote,
I recognise, desires that improvement should go on. He
says to us: Your Socialism will fail when it is tried. I
answer him: Your Individualism has been tried and
has failed—(cries of “No, no!”)—and our wars, our
poverty, our misery, our ignorance, our wretchedness,
are the proofs of the failure of an Individualistic
system of society. (Cheers.) You say it has not
failed. How then is it that in every civilised country
the millionaire and the pauper stand side by side ? How
is it, if it be a success, that in this great metropolis of ours
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
151
where thousands of pounds are given for a china dish
hundreds of men and women are dying of slow starvation ?
(Hear, hear, and cries of “ Shame ”.) Go down to Shadwell
High Street when the crowds are turning out of the music
rooms and gin palaces, and next morning go to the Ladies’
Mile; see how the West End differs from the East End,
and then ask yourself, can a civilisation last where the
contrasts are so glaring, where the divisions are so
extreme? (Hear, hear.) Eor remember that you have
no longer the safety of the past—the safety of the ignorance
of the masses of your people. (Hear, hear.) While there
was no penny press, while there was no public education,
much of the luxury of the rich man remained hidden from
the eyes of the poor, starving in their cellars and in their
garrets. But to day your halfpenny paper takes the news
everywhere. The sempstress reads of the great ladies
decked in diamonds at a Court ball, and the costermonger
•reads of the millionaire giving thousands for a race horse,
spending thousands in luxury and in vice. These are
beginning to think—beginning to ask questions ; beginning
to ask, must these things always be ? is there not something
fundamentally wrong in a condition of society where such
things exist ? And that is not all. Your idle classes are
the very cancer of society. (Hear, hear.) The luxury in
which they live makes them rotten by its very idleness.
They consume without producing; they enjoy without
discharging a duty; they live easily, smoothly, without
difficulty, and society takes nothing from them in ex
change for what they take from it. And what is the
result ? Your higher classes with their profligacy are
the scandal of the whole civilised world at the present
time. A press, greedy for profit, tears down every curtain
in the desecrated home, and exhibits it to the eyes of the
whole of Europe, until the very noblest of human passions
becomes as filth, fit only to roll through the sewer which
runs beneath your streets. (Cheers.) And this is the
outcome of the Individualistic system. This is the result of
luxury and idleness, the result of the neglecting of duty,
and of the making possible of luxury without service done
in exchange for those who give it. And one plea I make
to you—to you, the majority of whom in this Hall are
against me—the large majority of whom judge us harshly
and blame us sternly, because looking at the misery, and
�152
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
the luxury of society we strive to bring about a remedy
which may make things other than they are to-day. (Hear,
hear.) Many of us are ignorant; most of us are poor.
Tongues of education and of culture are but here and
there amongst us, and rough men speak for us out of the
miseries that they feel. What wonder that sometimes the
tongues should be reckless; what wonder that some
times the speech should be bitter; what wonder that
men, feeling what they might have been, and knowing
what they are, speak words that may not be measured as
carefully as the perfectly cultured and the unsuffering
may measure theirs; what wonder if their indignation
grows hot against the wrongs they know. But this I ask
of you. If sometimes we speak too hotly; if sometimes
our passion gets the better of our judgment; if sometimes
the misery of the poor voices itself too sharply in our
words and rings out in a fashion that the easy and idle
class may not like ; at least do us this justice: that in a
society where the stronger trample upon the weak ; in a
society where most men seek for power, for luxury, or for
money; at least admit this to the despised Socialists
amongst you—that in that society we have withdrawn from
the strife for gold, we have turned aside from the struggle
for power, and we have eyes that see and hearts that love
some nobler ideal of society than you have yet found
possible in your Individualistic life. (Great cheering.)
Mr. Foote : I rise to propose with great pleasure a very
hearty vote of thanks to the chairman.
‘ Annie Besant : I second that.
The motion was carried, and the meeting dispersed.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Pamphlet
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Is socialism sound? : verbatim report of a four nights' debate between Annie Besant and G. W. Foote : at the Hall of Science, Old St., London, E.C. : on February 2nd, 9th, 16th and 23rd, 1887
Creator
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Besant, Annie Wood
Foote, G. W. (George William)
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 152 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Stamp on title page: 'South Place Chapel Finsbury, Lending Library'.
Publisher
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Freethought Publishing Company
Date
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1887
Identifier
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T404
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 (Is socialism sound? : verbatim report of a four nights' debate between Annie Besant and G. W. Foote : at the Hall of Science, Old St., London, E.C. : on February 2nd, 9th, 16th and 23rd, 1887), 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
Debates and Debating
Socialism