France, which was so long the foremost nation in the revolutionary movement, has for the last three decades yielded the first place to Germany. The terrible disasters sustained by the working men of Paris in 1848 and 1871 quelled their revolutionary energy for a time. The first working men’s congress after the Commune met in 1876, and at the congress of Marseilles in 1879 a socialist party was organised. It remained a united party till 1882, when it polled 98,000 votes. Since that year French socialism has been fruitful in division. In view of the danger which in 1899 appeared to threaten the Republic in connection with the Dreyfus case, the socialist parties combined in common action for its defence. For this purpose they formed a permanentcomité d’entente socialiste. Five important socialist organisations were included in the agreement. The good understanding was broken when the socialist Millerand entered the emergency Cabinet of that year. Without going into details, it is enough to say that there have been two main tendencies in French socialism—the uncompromising revolutionary school which adheres to Marx, and an opportunist orpossibilistschool which has been ready to co-operate with other democratic parties. The first-named school naturally objected to Millerand entering the Cabinet.
Socialism is rapidly becoming a power in France. According to M. Marcel Fournier, in theRevue Politiqueet Parlementaire, the radical socialists polled 171,810 votes at the general election of 1893 and 629,572 at that of 1898, whilst the socialists polled 598,206 in 1893 and 791,148 in 1898. TheParti Ouvrieror Marx party claimed to have cast 152,000 votes in 1893 and 371,000 in 1898. The socialist members in the Chamber of 1898 numbered about fifty.
After 1900 two distinct parties, representing the two tendencies of which I have spoken, were for a time consolidated. The Socialist Party of France represented the uncompromising section. The French Socialist Party stood for the more opportunist policy. In 1902 the French socialists together polled 805,000 votes, and returned 48 members to the Chamber of Deputies. There was really very little difference between the two leading parties, and they formed a union in 1905. At the general election in 1906 it was calculated that the whole socialist vote amounted to 1,120,000. The unified party returned 52 members with 896,000 votes, while 23 were described as independent socialists. There were besides 143 radical socialists.
The radical and democratic republicans are to a large degree dependent on labour and socialist support. There is also a growing conviction that the political principles of the Revolution of 1789, which are so dear to the French heart, cannot be realised apart from the economic principles which are comprehended in socialism. In the great debate of Clemenceau with Jaurèz in the Chamber in 1906 it was no impassable gulf which separated radical and socialist. The formerwas in favour of a graduated income-tax, the eight hours’ day, and the restoration of monopolies to the State. What we may call the prevailing republican atmosphere is most favourable to social justice and the claims of labour. But it would be a very serious mistake to believe that France is at all convinced of the reasonableness or practicability of the abstract collectivism of the socialist party. When a motion for the substitution of collective property for individual property was put to the vote at the close of the debate, it was rejected by 505 to only 55. As at present advised, France will have neither clericalism nor collectivism.
The socialists form a majority in many of the most important French communes, and exercise great practical influence on their work. Thus they are taking a large part in the national and local life of France.
Revolutionary feeling tending to anarchism has considerable influence in France, especially among the trade unions (syndicats ouvriers).
The Italian socialist party definitely separated itself from anarchism and formed a distinct organisation at a congress in Genoa in 1892. Its career has been a hard and troubled one. There has been much discord in its own household. The government was for some years openly hostile. It has been concerned in many strikes and popular disturbances. The working classes of Italy, we must remember, were from an educational, economic, and political point of view at an inferior stage of progress. Between the various provinces, and especiallybetween the north and south, the differences of development were very serious. Italy has had long to suffer from the burden of a divided and depressed historical past.
At the general election of 1892 the party had only 26,000 votes and returned 6 deputies. The next elections showed a rapid increase, till in 1900 they counted 175,000 votes and returned 32 members to the Chamber. On that occasion an alliance with the radicals and republicans partly accounted for the increase of members returned. At the general election of 1904 the party had a voting strength of 320,000, but returned only 27 members.
For some time after 1900 the Government was not only sympathetic, but in some degree dependent on the party for support. As in other countries, there is a reformist or moderate and a revolutionary wing in the Italian socialist party. The latter takes asyndicalistor trade-union form and is largely imbued with anarchism. At the congress at Rome in 1906 a new movement calledintegralismbecame supreme. The integralists aimed at combining the best and most effective methods of all sections, gradual reform when possible, but violence also, and the general strike if necessary. They are anti-monarchical and anti-clerical.
The Italian socialists have been active not only in organising strikes but in municipal work and in co-operative undertakings. A marked feature in the brief history of the party has been its success in organising the peasantry. One of these peasant combinations, with a membership of 200,000, held a national congressat Bologna in 1901 and formed a national federation. In that and the following year many agrarian strikes were successful, and brought a little improvement in the hard lot of the rural workers in Italy. It was a notable awakening of labour, in which the party took a leading share. When we consider the very backward condition of Italy and the short period during which the party has been in existence, we must regard its success as remarkable.
After making some progress the Working-Men’s Socialist Party of Spain has declined in recent years. The number of its votes for the Chamber decreased from 26,000 in 1904 to 23,000 in 1905. It has, however, succeeded in sending representatives to a good number of municipalities and communes. The political and industrial life of Spain has been in a most depressed condition.
Besides the Parliamentary Socialism, which is based more or less on Marx, anarchism has always found a congenial soil in Spain, Italy, and other countries where misery and oppression have been hereditary for so many centuries, and which even yet have not learned habits of self-control, of free discussion, and open action. It is such an unhappy environment that produced the assassins of President Carnot, the Empress of Austria, and King Humbert of Italy. Anarchism is very powerful and widespread in the south of Spain.
We may note a rapid progress of socialism in Eastern Europe. Even Servia and Bulgaria have socialist parties, which are affiliated to the International. InAustria there is a numerous and active Social Democratic Party, which has introduced the federal principle into its organisation. It is a united party with a common programme and tactics, but it is composed of national groups—German, Czech, Polish, Italian, etc., each of which enjoys a real autonomy. In fact, the party is an International on a small scale, of which the basis as regards principles and tactics is national autonomy and international solidarity. On the political side, it holds that the real and vital forces of the State in Austria can be developed only on the two principles of national autonomy and complete democracy. On the economic side the party adheres to the common principles of socialism. At the general election of 1901 the party polled about 800,000 votes. Its most pressing demand was for universal suffrage as necessary to the political development of the country. After long debate this was granted in 1907, in which year the party polled 1,050,000 votes and returned 87 members to the Reichsrath. The Christian Social Party returned 96 members with 722,000 votes. In view of the medley of races and languages which exist in Austria, the position and organisation of the party have a special interest. The various national groups, we are told, work together in perfect harmony.
The revolutionary movement in Russia had in 1881 its tragic culmination in the assassination of the Emperor Alexander II. Though his successor Alexander III. was for a time kept a prisoner in his palace at Gatschina by fear of the revolutionists, the movementwas suppressed, and for several years there was comparative quiet. Among the innovating party a feeling set in that they had been trying to force the march of natural evolution, and a tendency prevailed to await the time when the economic development of the country would make revolutionary action practicable. Under a very high tariff the industrial revolution made rapid progress. Large factories soon led to the creation of a numerous proletariat, with the usual strikes. A gigantic strike at St. Petersburg in 1896 may be regarded as the starting-point of a new revolutionary movement arising naturally out of modern industrial conditions. A Social Democratic Party, which laid great emphasis on the doctrines of Marx, originated in this way. The Russian socialists were for the first time represented at an International Congress in London, 1896.
Groups of socialists, however, had been rising up and taking shape all over the country, and it was felt by many that they could not wait for the unfolding of the economic evolution, and that in the special circumstances of Russia a strenuous revolutionary action was necessary. Some surviving members of the old revolutionary party helped to supply the nucleus of a Socialist Revolutionary Party, which was accordingly formed towards the end of 1901. There were now two important socialist parties in the empire: the Social Democrats, who emphasised the need for awaiting the economic development of Russia, including the full creation of the proletariat, and the Socialist Revolutionary Party. The first party had little hope ofleading the peasantry into the movement, so long as they were not expropriated by the growth of the great estates. The second party insisted on an energetic propaganda among the peasantry as well as an active campaign against the Tzardom and its servants.
Besides these two parties we find in Lithuania, Russian Poland, and other parts of Western Russia, a socialist organisation of Jewish workmen called the Bund. It is the peculiar fate of the Jews in Russia that their revolutionary activity renders them obnoxious to the Government, whilst the exactions of the usurers and dealers of the same race make them hateful to peasantry and workers. The Jewish question in Russia can be understood only by due recognition of both points.
The anarchists also are still active in Russia. And among the peasantry there is an agrarian movement, which may be regarded as the most powerful of all, though vague and ill-organised. As we saw in our chapter on anarchism, the revolution in Russia was an exotic or importation from abroad in the reign of Alexander II. It has now taken root in the soil and very strongly shows the influence of conditions peculiar to the country. Mutinies in fleet and army, strikes and popular risings, massacres, assassinations, conflagration, and pillage seem to portend the dissolution sooner or later of an ancient society and a long-established autocracy. The socialists have been the most active agents in the appalling movement.
After the decline of the Owen agitation and of theChristian Socialist movement in 1850, socialism could hardly be said to exist in England, and where it attracted any attention at all, it was generally regarded as a revolutionary curiosity peculiar to the Continent, with little practical interest for a free and normal country like our own. As we have seen, the English workmen took a considerable share in the founding of the International in 1864 and subsequently. But on the fuller development of the revolutionary tendencies of that movement, and especially after the great disaster of the Commune at Paris, socialism lost the not very serious hold which it had found among the English working class. There had indeed always been a group of men who were influenced by personal intercourse with Karl Marx and Engels during their long residence in this country, but they were mostly of foreign extraction, and had no wide relations with the English workmen.
About 1883 English socialism took a fresh start, indirectly through the influence of Henry George, and directly through the teaching of Karl Marx. By his vigorous and sympathetic eloquence Henry George gained a hearing for opinions which were not distinctly socialistic, but certainly tended to disturb the existing modes of thought. Though it led to little positive result, the agitation connected with his name was really the beginning of a radical change in English economics. A variety of causes, among which we may mention the agrarian agitation in Ireland, and the legislation which was designed to meet it, had contributedto shake the confidence of the English public in the finality of the accepted economic doctrines.
The recent English socialism had, in 1884, a definite beginning with the Social Democratic Federation, which, with great fervour, denounced the existing system and proclaimed the views of Marx. Most active and prominent in this movement was Mr. Hyndman; the most eminent was the robust and genial figure of William Morris, widely known as the author of theEarthly Paradise, and one of the foremost of living poets. The chief literary product of the movement at this early stage was Hyndman’sHistorical Basis of Socialism in England. The organ of the Federation was, and continues to be,Justice.
About the end of the year 1885 the Socialist League diverged from the Federation on grounds of difference, which were partly personal, partly of principle, for the League showed a decided sympathy with the anarchist theory of socialism. Morris himself, its leading member, had anarchist leanings, which come out clearly inNews from Nowhereand other works. Belfort Bax, another prominent member of the League, has publishedEthics of Socialismand other works, which represent the extreme and uncompromising side of the movement. TheCommonwealwas the organ of the League. The League and its organ, however, did not survive many years.
The year 1884 also saw the beginning of a Socialist Society of a nature different from the above. This was the Fabian Society, whose members weremostly young men, clever, full of initiative, and little disposed to bow before accepted authority. They are socialists whose aim has been first to educate themselves in the economic, social, and political questions of the time, and then to educate the English people in their views, or, to use their own language, to “permeate†English Society with progressive socialist ideas.The Fabian Essays on Socialism, by seven of its leading members, published in 1890, a work which has been the chief literary product of the Society, have had a great success. By its popular lectures and discussions, by its tracts and its articles in the monthly reviews, as well as by its activity in the press, the Fabian Society has undoubtedly done much toward the permeation of public opinion with a progressive evolutionary socialism. The tracts, of which there is now a large number, have been always able, generally well informed, and often brilliant. A tract by one of its members on the Workmen’s Compensation Act, issued in 1898, had a circulation of 120,000 the first year of its publication. Important works on a large scale have beenThe History of Trade UnionismandIndustrial Democracyby Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Webb. The writings of Mr. G. B. Shaw and of Mr. H. G. Wells have done much to startle men’s minds out of the old way of thinking. In 1908 the membership of the Fabian Society had increased to 2500 in the London society, and 500 more in local societies. We give its Basis in the Appendix.
The Independent Labour Party, formed in 1893,was an organisation of socialists with a view to political action. It was to a large extent an offshoot from Fabianism in the provinces, and many of its leading members are Fabians. It has kept itself in close touch with trade unions.
All sections of recent English socialism have included men of real ability and culture, and the movement has been marked by sincere conviction, generous enthusiasm, and hard work in a great cause. For some years after its rise, in 1883, it had considerable influence in the country. Its mission was to rouse men of all classes out of the individualistic routine which had so long been prevalent. Trade unionists and co-operators were the objects of denunciation not less unsparing than that which they poured upon the middle class. The disturbances in Trafalgar Square in 1887 made no little stir; and the Dock Strike in London, which was so ably conducted by John Burns in 1889, for a time gave the movement a national importance. It almost seemed at one period as if English public opinion was veering round to Socialism. The reaction which was bound to set in was certainly due in part to the vehemence and extravagance of the socialistic orators, and to their want of skill and insight in adapting their theories to the atmosphere of the English mind. It is clear that recent English socialism has been too loyal to Marx. This particularly applies to the Social Democratic Federation, now the Social Democratic Party. But even the Fabian basis has implicationswhich are ultra-revolutionary, and hardly consistent with a peaceful and orderly evolution.
At the general election of 1895, the organised socialism in England polled only about 45,000 votes. The mass of the English working men still voted with the old political parties. On the other hand, the Trade Union Congresses, representing over a million workers, for several years passed resolutions of a collectivist nature by large majorities, showing that when the man or men appear that know how to give voice and form to the half-articulate or latent socialism of the country it may have a great future.
In 1900 steps were taken towards the political organisation of labour on a wider scale than formerly. There was formed a Labour Representation Committee in which trade unions, the Independent Labour Party, the Social Democratic Federation, and the Fabian Society were represented. The Social Democratic Federation retired, however, at the end of the first year.
The new committee had been too recently formed to take much part in the general election of 1900. Yet it then returned two members, and two more at subsequent by-elections. At the general election of 1906 it had a great success, and produced an impression even greater on the national mind. As there was no definite dividing line at the election between socialism and labour on the one hand, or between labour and liberalism on the other, it is impossible to speak precisely as to the results. The committee had 323,000 votes and returned 30 members to the House ofCommons. There was also a labour or trade-union group, which formed part of the Liberal Party. We may reckon the labour members at 54, of whom about half were socialists.
After the election the Labour Representation Committee transformed itself into the Labour Party, and very wisely decided not to formulate a programme. The new party had behind it a million adherents, of whom 21,000 were members of socialist societies, the rest being trade unionists. Mr. Keir Hardie had taken the leading share in the formation of a Labour Party distinct from the old political parties. In 1908 the trade unions and especially the Miners’ Federation which were represented by the liberal-labour group resolved to join the Labour Party, but this decision was not to be operative with regard to sitting members during the existing parliament. The same year the Labour Party was definitely affiliated to the International. It now represented one and a half million of adherents.
The Labour Party, whose origin we have briefly described, may fairly be regarded as a successful attempt on a worthy scale to form a labour-socialist organisation suited to British conditions. It appears to be commendably free from the excessive Marx influence; but in many important questions it has not thrown off old radical views which are inconsistent with a reasonable and enlightened socialism.
What we may call the avowed and organised socialism has made no great headway in the United Statesof America or in the English colonies. Books like Bellamy’sLooking Backwardhave made a great impression, but in a vague way. Labour questions have, on the other hand, attained to a very high state of development. The struggle between trade-unionism and the employers’ combinations is carried on with an energy and comprehensiveness which can hardly be equalled in any part of the old world.
Australia has a Labour Party which is well organised and well led and takes a most honourable place in the recently constituted Commonwealth. It even formed the government in 1904, though it did not retain power long. It is, however, most powerful when out of power, as it then holds the balance between the other two parties. The party is to a great degree socialistic in aim and tendency. It was in power again in 1908.
During recent years we have seen in America a transformation which is without parallel in the history of the world. Till the middle of the nineteenth century the United States might be described as an agricultural country, which, apart from negro slavery, had no division of classes, no poverty, and no social question. It was a highly favoured region which to the most energetic and enterprising of the working classes of Europe had for generations been a Land of Promise. The early settlers had in the main brought from England all that was best and highest in respect of character, belief, and institutions. In particular, for the planting of New England the “finest of the wheat†was sifted from the most progressive counties ofEngland; and as the area of emigration widened it embraced the best elements in the British Isles and in north-western Europe, the best endowed and the most progressive in the world. The country they came to live in had resources, and offered opportunities which were almost boundless. In the development of the country from the first settlement of Virginia, there was just enough of difficulty to stimulate and correct the energies of a free people.
A marvellous set of new conditions came into operation in the latter half of the nineteenth century. The industrial revolution ran its course with astonishing rapidity and thoroughness, and on a scale absolutely unprecedented. The Republic now has a gigantic machine industry and a vast railway and financial system organised in trusts which are controlled by a few men wealthy beyond example in history, and it has also got a large wage-earning class, the unemployed, poverty and slums. If the commonwealth has not already become a plutocracy, it appears to be on the downward way to it.
If the wage-earning class consisted of fully trained American citizens, the situation would be clearer. It is complicated by the fact that for many years the Republic has received an enormous number of immigrants from the less-advanced countries of eastern and southern Europe, and has the very difficult task of raising them to its own high standard of citizenship. The general result is that America is confronted with the vast problem, which socialism has undertaken tosolve, in its most formidable form. Between a highly organised and gigantic capitalism and a continually increasing labour class which is largely composed of new immigrants, and is only partially organised, a wide gulf is fixed. A growing chasm threatens to divide the commonwealth in two. This rent is made manifest in the strikes, which degenerate into private war and even into civil war. Socialists maintain that they have been repressed with a severity and brutality known in Russia alone. As yet the organised socialism has made only moderate progress. In 1902, however, a resolution in favour of socialism obtained about half the votes at the congress of the American Federation of Labour, which numbered over 2,000,000 members. At the presidential election of 1904 the socialist candidate Eugène V. Debs received 408,000 votes, in 1908 he had 500,000 votes. It was widely recognised that the presidential election of 1908 turned on the vote of organised labour. The Republican and Democratic candidates both made special appeal to organised labour and made a special effort to gain its vote. It is obvious that the gigantic growth of the trust system in America has quickened inquiry into the most fundamental questions of industrial and social order. The programme of the Knights of Labour was for many years the nearest approach to socialism made by any great labour combination in America. But there can be no doubt now that America contains all the elements which favour the growth of socialism, and especially of the labour organisations which make for socialism.
The result of our brief review is, that in most countries of Europe the avowed and organised socialism has a formidable and rapidly increasing number of adherents. It is equally clear that socialistic theories have made a wide and deep impression on the opinion of most countries of the civilised world. Socialism has been a standing challenge to the economic theories so long prevalent: it is a protest against the existing social-economic order; and as such it has been discussed on every platform, in all journals, and we may venture to say in every private gathering, with some comprehension of its nature and aims. Whatever the issue may be, it is very improbable that reasonable men can ever again regard the competitive system of economics with the same satisfaction as formerly. The mere fact that we can survey and analyse great ideas and institutions with critical objectiveness is a proof that we are looking back upon them, and that we have already so far left them behind in the onward march of progress. In countries where the socialistic theory is accepted in its entirety only by a few, it has nevertheless effected a great change in opinion. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that the orthodox political economy, if it exist anywhere, survives only in old books and in the minds of a diminishing band of doctrinaires. Friends of the existing order would now almost have us believe that the old competitive political economy never existed at all, which at least may be taken as a sufficient proof that its days are numbered. Under these circumstancesit is not surprising that we do not at present possess a settled political economy.
We may best consider the growing influence of socialistic ideas on current opinion under the following heads:—
1. On the theory of the State’s relation to labour.—The attitude of most governments to the organised socialism is naturally unfriendly; but the accepted view of the relation of the State to the working and suffering classes has marvellously changed in recent years. Whereas not many years ago the policy and principles of government took little account of the masses of the people, it is now a recognised duty of the State to care for them. So complete has the transformation been, that it will soon require a considerable knowledge of history to realise it, for the times when the claims of the lower orders were ignored are already beginning to pass out of the memory of the younger and most active portion of the community.
2. The relation of political economy to socialism.—We have already referred to the influence of social problems on the classical political economy of this country. The development of J. S. Mill’s economic views from loyal adherence to Ricardo, to a reasonable socialism, cannot be regarded as representative, seeing that he has so entirely outstripped his scholars. In recent important works on economics we see indeed only a moderate recognition of the new influences, but they do not command the assent of the public as formerly, the result being that English Political Economyremains in a most unsettled problematical and unsatisfactory condition.
Here again Germany leads the way. The socialism of the chair is not to any large extent really socialistic. But it includes among its representatives eminent professors and other economists, who recognise the historical and ethical sides of political economy, who go far in giving labour problems their due place in the treatment of their subject, and who have made most important concessions to the socialistic criticism of the existing society and the prevalent political economy. One of the most notable of living German economists and sociologists, Albert Schäffle, is more than historical; his great workBau und Leben des socialen Körpersis a construction of society from the evolution point of view. In the same work he has even expressed his conviction that ‘the future belongs to the purified socialism,’ though later utterances make his attitude somewhat doubtful. However that may be, he has brought to the study of social problems a combination of learning, of philosophic insight directed by the best light of his time, and of sympathy inspired by the cause of the poor man, which is not equalled by any living economist. No great living economist has been so powerfully influenced by socialist speculation.
3. The relation of the Christian Church to socialism.—It is a most serious mistake to suppose that there can be any real antagonism between the ethical and spiritual teaching of Christianity and the principles ofsocialism rightly understood. The difficulty is how to reconcile the prevalent competitive system with any reasonable conception of Christian ethics. We can now see that Christianity was a strong assertion of the moral and spiritual forces against the struggle for existence, which had assumed such a hard, cruel, and vicious form in ancient civilisation and in the Roman world. The Christian Church did much to soften and then to abolish slavery and serfdom, into which the peoples defeated in the struggle for existence had been forced. A right comprehension of the Christian life and of the spirit and tendency of Christian history should show that the Church should also use its influence against the continuance of the struggle for existence in the competitive system, and in favour of the less fortunate who in the course of that form of struggle have been driven to precarious wage-labour as their only means of livelihood.
Some of the prominent spokesmen of the Church have clearly seen that the competitive system is not consistent with Christian teaching. As we have already seen, Maurice and Kingsley denounced the Manchester school, started the Christian Socialist movement of 1848, and gave a very considerable impetus to co-operation.
The participation of the Catholic Church of Germany in the social question dates from the period of the Lassalle agitation. In 1863 Döllinger recommended that the Church should intervene in the movement, and Bishop von Ketteler of Mainz lost no time in expressing sympathy with Lassalle. In a treatise entitledDie Arbeiterfrage und das Christenthum(1864)Ketteler criticised the liberalism of the Manchester school in substantially the same terms as Lassalle, and recommended the voluntary formation of productive associations with capital supplied by the faithful. In 1868 the Catholic Socialism of Germany took a more practical form: it started an organ of its own and began to organise unions for the elevation of the working men. The principles of the movement were with some precision expounded by Canon Moufang in an electoral address at Mainz in 1871, and by the writers in their organ.
All agree in condemning the principles of liberalism, especially in its economic aspects, as destructive of society and pernicious to the working man, who, under the pretence of freedom, is exposed to all the precariousness and anarchy of competition and sacrificed to the Iron Law of Wages. Self-help as practised in the Schulze-Delitzsch schemes is also considered to be no sure way of deliverance. The general remedy is union on Catholic principles, especially the formation of trade-guilds suited to modern exigencies, which some of their leaders would make a compulsory measure enforced by the State. The views of Moufang, which are most definite, may thus be summarised: legal protection for the workers, especially as regards hours of labour, wages, the labour of women and children, sanitation; subventions for workmen’s productive associations; lightening of taxes on labour; control of the moneyed and speculating interests. In the organisation of unions the success of Catholic Socialism has beengreat; and for several years the Social Democrats made no progress in Catholic districts.
The socialist activity of the Protestant Church of Germany dates from 1878. The most important literary product of the movement is a work by Pastor Todt entitledDer radikale deutsche Socialismus und die christliche Gesellschaft. In this work Todt condemns the economics of liberalism as unchristian, and seeks to show that the ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity are entirely Scriptural, as are also the socialist demands for the abolition of private property and of the wage system, that the labourer should have the full produce of his labour, and that labour should be associated. The chief leader of the movement was the Court preacher Stöcker, the head also of the anti-Semitic agitation, which is largely traceable to economic causes. Stöcker founded two associations—a central union for social reform, consisting of members of the middle classes interested in the emancipation of labour, and a Christian social working men’s party. The former has had considerable success, especially among the Lutheran clergy. The movement met with the most strenuous resistance from the Social Democratic party, and was greatly hampered by the anti-socialist law of 1878.
In recent years all the sections of the Christian Church in England have felt the influence of the democratic movement, and have shown a commendable interest in social questions. Among Catholics the most notable representative of this new spirit was CardinalManning. The Report on Socialism made to the Pan-Anglican Conference, which met at Lambeth in 1888, by the committee appointed to deal with the question, was also a remarkable sign of the times. This Report accepted what should be regarded as the main aim of socialism—the reunion of capital and labour through the principle of association. Without expressing an opinion on the Report, the Conference commended it to the consideration of the people. The Christian Social Union, founded in 1889 by members of the Church of England, has done good service. Its aim is to study ‘how to apply the moral truths and principles of Christianity to the social and economic difficulties of the present time.’ The late Dr. Westcott, Bishop of Durham, took a leading part in founding and guiding it. It is open to Conservatives and Liberals, socialists and non-socialists, who accept its main aim, as above stated. In a pamphlet onSocialismDr. Westcott gives one of the best and finest expositions of the principles of the subject which we have read.
The sympathetic attitude towards labour shown at the Lambeth Conference of 1888 was maintained also at the Conferences of 1897 and 1908. Very noteworthy was the favourable reception given to socialistic expressions of opinion at the Pan-Anglican Congress which preceded the Conference of 1908, though it would obviously be a mistake to assume that it meant the acceptance of any definite collectivist economic creed. A like sympathetic feeling has been shown in many nonconformist quarters. Dr. Clifford, so eminentas a nonconformist leader, is a socialist and member of the Fabian Society.
4. It is needless to speak of the great revolution in current opinion regarding labour, as reflected in the press and in contemporary literature. All is changed since the time when Carlyle and Ruskin lifted up their voices in the wilderness to an unbelieving generation! All that is best, all that is tenable in the teaching of those two great men is comprehended in socialism rightly understood.
5. Nor is it necessary to say anything of the greatest change of all, which has taken place in the opinions and feelings of the masses of working men, who constitute the modern democracy. Few men, however, really understand the new power that has arisen in the growing intelligence of the workers, in the discontent, in the passion for improvement, in the hopes and aspirations which so deeply move them. It has not yet found adequate expression, direction, and organisation; but every year it is making fresh advance towards clearness of aim. A main part of the significance of Marx’s activity lay in the fact that he strove to give utterance and organisation to this vast and growing mass of vague and half-conscious sentiment. In the future we can but hope that it will receive wise and salutary guidance.
[1]Protokollof the party meeting at Jena, p. 298.
[1]
Protokollof the party meeting at Jena, p. 298.
So much may fairly be said regarding the influence of socialistic speculation on the opinion of the civilised world. It must be admitted, however, that as yet the change is mainly in the region of opinion. For in the domain of practice the competitive system, in spite of many very important modifications, still holds the field; and the old Political Economy, though greatly discredited, still finds its strongest justification in the fact that it is a reasonably accurate analysis of an existing and working system. When asked for any grounds that may be brought forward for believing that the socialistic ideal is becoming a reality, we can only point to symptoms or tendencies, not to definite results on a scale commensurate with the development of modern industry.
Yet these tendencies are large, most significant, and visibly increasing. The following are the main lines along which they may be observed:—
1. The State, which by a reasonable socialism should be regarded as the association of men on a large scale, and as such should continue to have a most important function.
2. The Municipality, or Commune, which, notwithstanding certain objections, is the more convenient word, as it includes the parish as well as the municipality, and which should be regarded as the association for local purposes. As every one knows how greatly the range of State and municipal action for the common good has been extended in recent years, we need not enlarge on this aspect of our subject. But in what we have to say it will be convenient to consider the State and the local body together, as they are really complements of each other. In a well-ordered community there should be no real opposition between the two. Under the conditions which now prevail there can be no nourishing local life except in reasonable relation to an efficient central organ; and the central organ can do its part wisely and effectively only by allowing suitable scope to local energy. No absolute rules can be laid down for the relations of the two to each other; these must be determined by considerations of time and circumstance. But the problem of their opposition under anyrégimecan be a difficulty only for unwise statesmanship.
It may not be a new thing in theory, that the State should be an association for the promotion of the common interests of all its members, or that the commune should be an association for the general good of the inhabitants of a locality; but it is practically new. It is only during the last generation that the people who form the majority of every society have received any reasonable consideration from the organs of theState. We have during the last seventy years seen a tardy reversal of the old injustice in our own country, and for some years the movement towards improvement has been growing apace. But our leading statesmen seem even yet to be reluctant or only half willing to advance. The domestic history of recent times is the record of concessions made, not because the leaders of either of our great parties particularly approved of them, but because they were demanded by large sections of voters. In fact the initiative in legislation has now passed from the statesmen to the democracy. We can hardly regard it as the outcome of a reasoned and comprehensive theory of the State when politicians trained in the theory and practice oflaissez-fairein 1908 passed an Old Age Pensions Bill, which under certain restrictions gave a pension of 5s. a week to persons over 70.
The statesmen of Germany have been more consistent; for when they inaugurated their schemes of State socialism they frankly proclaimed their adhesion to its principles. In this they were encouraged by the old law of Prussia, which recognised the duty of the State to provide subsistence for those who could not make a living, and labour for those who were out of employment. The position of the Prussian kingdom has always been such that it required to foster the full strength of the State by all available means, and therefore could not afford to neglect any considerable portion of its population. In his State socialism, therefore, Bismarck could appeal with some show ofreason to the traditional policy of Prussia. But it was really a new departure.
Its leading principles were announced in an Imperial message to the Reichstag on the 17th of November 1881. Besides the repressive measures necessary to restrain the excesses of the Social Democracy, the Emperor declared that the healing of social evils was to be sought in positive measures for the good of the working man. The measures proposed were for the insurance of the workmen against accident, sickness, old age, and inability to work, by arrangements under State control. ‘The finding of the right ways and means for this State protection of the working man is a difficult task, but also one of the highest duties that concern every society standing on the ethical foundations of the Christian national life.’ The aged Emperor next went on to say that he would look back with greater satisfaction on the successes with which Providence had visibly blessed his reign, if he could bequeath to the Fatherland new and lasting pledges of peace at home, and to the needy greater security and larger means for rendering the help to which they had a claim. The message also spoke of ‘organising the life of the people in the form of corporative associations under the protection and furtherance of the State, to render possible the solution of problems which the central power alone cannot undertake.’ The Imperial programme has now been realised. It may be regarded as the beginning of better things to come. The help provided by itsvarious measures is scanty enough, but no one can reasonably doubt that it is immeasurably superior to our English Poor Law.
So much for State socialism in Germany. To find a democracy which is really government of the people by the people for the people, we must go to our colonies at the antipodes. It is a democracy which both in theory and practice has most fully recognised that the State is an association for the promotion of the well-being of the whole people. New Zealand, one of the youngest of the English colonies, is the finest example of such a State. The State in New Zealand owns and works railways, telegraphs, and telephones. When the Bank of New Zealand was on the point of stopping payment, with the most disastrous results to the country, the government came to its help with a guarantee of £4,000,000 and made it a State institution. It made advances of cheap money to settlers and passed legislation to break up large estates. The laws for the protection of labour are of the most advanced type. It settles labour disputes by compulsory arbitration, and has in operation an old-age pension scheme by which persons over 65 years of age receive an annual pension. At first fixed at £18, this has been raised to £26, or 10s. a week. It has introduced women’s suffrage, graduated taxation, a complete system of local option in the drink trade, a public system of life insurance and of medical care, and a public trustee with very wide and beneficent powers.
All these measures and others which we need not name are the outcome in New Zealand of a great wave of agrarian labour and socialistic feeling which spread over the world about twenty years ago. It has been well described as socialism without dogma. Every measure has been examined and approved on its merits. The policy therefore is all the more valuable as a mass of testimony to the beneficent tendency of a reasonable socialism. The conditions have no doubt been exceptionally favourable. New Zealand is a young country with great natural advantages and a small population which has a very high average of intelligence, initiative, and energy. It is an example, however, which should be most encouraging to the world, as it shows what may be done in a true democracy, where the government is in entire sympathy with the people and responsive to their wishes. The high honour of carrying out this model legislation belongs to Richard Seddon and his associates. Seddon was Prime Minister of New Zealand from 1893 to his death in 1906.
3. The co-operative society or association for the ordinary purposes of industry.—Co-operation for some time made comparatively little progress in production, but when we consider the low point from which the movement started, only about sixty years ago, and how painfully capital, experience, and skill had to be acquired by the poor workers, we should rather be surprised at the advance that has been made in so many progressive countries. It is only a partialrealisation of the socialistic ideal, but it is well founded, solid, and most promising. Its strongest point is that it has arisen directly out of the people and remains in close touch with them.
In England a co-operative society is usually a group of workers who manage distribution with their joint capital in their own interests. The group is entirely democratic, open to every one, organised on the principle of one man one vote, and choosing their own committee or executive; the manager is a social functionary; no member can legally hold more than £200 of capital in any society. Production, especially for domestic consumption, has now made very great progress. In 1907 the movement had 1566 registered societies and 2,434,000 members. By that date the £28 with which the movement started in 1844 had expanded into a capital of £32,000,000, with an annual turnover of £105,000,000, and an annual profit of £12,000,000. It provides for the consumption of one-fifth of the population. The co-operative movement in Great Britain is already an industrial and economic power of no mean order. If it has not solved the social question, it has at least done much to clear the way towards a solution. The movement is also making rapid progress in Germany, Austria, Belgium, France, and Italy, and its greatest successes are in other fields than distribution. In Denmark the co-operative system is one of the brightest features of recent history. More recently a co-operative movement of great promise has begun in Ireland.
The co-operative society, therefore, is a self-governinggroup of workers, which has already made very considerable progress in controlling the economic interests of the labouring class. Not a little disappointment is felt that it has not accomplished greater results; as we believe, without good ground. It might reasonably have been expected that human nature would survive among co-operators, and that the self-regarding principle would continue to be the mainspring of individual action. Better social arrangements can only provide for it a more efficient system of regulation.
It is particularly regrettable that co-operative societies have not always had sufficient regard for their employees. There can be little doubt that the contrast between producers and consumers, and between the centralising and de-centralising tendencies in organisation, will long be a difficulty among co-operators, who do not thoroughly understand the new system to which they belong. Yet it should also be said that many of the objections raised by the critics of the movement are really due to the fact that they do not understand its real nature, and imagine that they find old things where really they meet only old names.
The noblest embodiment of the co-operative idea is to be found in one of the oldest seats of industry in Western Europe. This is the Vooruit (Forward) Society, which was founded at Ghent in a season of scarcity by Edouard Anseele and a few weavers in 1873. It was started with a capital of 84 francs and 93 centimes, about £3: 8s., at first naturally as a bakery, and has grown till it embraces the economyand life of about 100,000 out of the 165,000 inhabitants of the city. Besides the enormous and splendidly-equipped bakeries, it has huge stores and the largest cotton factory in Ghent, with an eight-hours’ day. It has its own printing works, a daily and weekly press, its own system of life insurance, and old-age pensions. It offers to its members at its People’s Palace the means of education and of wholesome recreation and it encourages art. This is a great achievement in a country where Church and State, landlord and capitalist, have so long combined to keep the workers in the lowest ignorance and degradation. The Vooruit has been a model to similar co-operative enterprises not only in Belgium, but in France, Holland, and Germany.
4. Of all the recent movements for the better ordering of society in England, we believe the co-operative movement to be the most hopeful, because the most thorough and practical, but it is only one of many. During the last half-century we have seen a long succession of efforts, partially successful, towards a new organisation of society rendered necessary by the changes due to the industrial revolution. In all spheres the watchword of the new era has been freedom, the removal of restraint. But it has been found that positive measures of reconstruction were also necessary. Factory legislation carried in opposition to the prevailing economic theory, trade-unions, employers’ combinations, industrial partnerships, boards of conciliation, the co-operative system,—all these arereal, if partial, endeavours towards a new organisation of society suited to the new conditions. They are all modifications and limitations imposed on the competitive system, and to them the progress of the last sixty years is largely due. Socialism claims to be the comprehensive scheme of organisation which embraces in a complete and consistent unity all these partial efforts.
5. But the most striking feature of recent economic history is the continuation of the movement which began with the industrial revolution. Through this process the small producer was superseded by the capitalist, the smaller capitalist by the larger. And now the single capitalist is being absorbed by the company, an increasing proportion of the world’s business being so vast that only a great company can provide the requisite capital and organisation; whilst in the large companies, in case they cannot drive each other out of the field, there is a marked tendency to bring about a fusion of interests. In all this we see a great constructive process going on as the result of the inherent laws of industrial development.
The movement is active in our own country; but it is far surpassed in magnitude and activity by similar phenomena in the United States of America, where it is favoured by special circumstances. Under the protective system the economic development of America has proceeded without being disturbed by the industrial power of England. It is a self-contained and self-sufficing continent with a vast area and enormous naturalresources. The people have not such a wide variety of political, social, literary, and artistic interests as have the ruling classes of England, and have therefore been all the more keenly engaged in the exploitation of the new world that lay open to them. Capitalism in America has shown an energy, acuteness, and fertility of resource which even in England are unparalleled. But in the various departments of industry the chiefs have found that competition may be suicidal and mutually destructive, and have therefore seen it expedient to arrange with each other for the regulation of production, of prices and wages. Hence the trusts, or great combinations of capitalists, which now confront American society and the American Republic, and which, as the latest development of capitalism, are well calculated to excite scientific curiosity in every country.
The trust system is, however, by no means confined to America. A like organisation under the name of cartels or syndicates is, in proportion to the size of the country, almost equally strong in Germany. In forms more or less open and undisguised it is spreading in England, Austria, and other lands. It may be regarded as an inevitable stage in the natural history of capitalism.
Thus far have we come through the natural growth of the company. If we consider the nature and development of the company, we shall find that it is not entirely undemocratic. The directors are, in principle at least, elected and removable by the shareholders.And as the shares are open for purchase by any one, a porter may be a shareholder in the railway company of which he is a servant, with, so far, a voice in the management. But in point of fact the companies are owned and controlled by the capitalist classes, and are a development of capitalism. The directors are usually large capitalists. Their main aim is to produce dividends. The relation of the management to the employees cannot have much of a kindly, human, and personal element.
On the other hand, the development of the company in a large degree means that the real administration of the economic movement is passing out of the hands of the owner of capital as such. The companies are for the most part managed by paid officials, who may or may not have a substantial holding in the capital. That is, the capitalists do not really manage the companies in which their capital is embarked. The manager, with a staff of paid officials, has become the pivot of the industrial movement. Generally speaking, the large company is more amenable to social regulation than a variety of small enterprises. And now we see that the natural development of the company has prepared the whole organisation necessary for its complete transference to social ownership and control, if such a step were deemed advisable. A great railway or system of water-supply can be transferred to State or municipal control without any particular change in the organisation by which it is worked. In fact, capitalism has prepared or is preparing the mechanismby which it may be superseded. It has done its work so thoroughly that it has been rendering even itself superfluous. We need not add that preparatory steps towards the transformation of the company may also be seen in the spread of the principle of industrial partnerships or profit-sharing. In America, where the industrial development is more recent, the founders of the great corporations still to a large degree continue to control them. Yet we can see how the constructive talent they have so marvellously shown has paved the way for social control when the time may come for it.
6. But the greatest force in the social evolution of the present time consists of the human beings who are most directly interested in it—the modern democracy. This democracy is marked by a combination of characteristics which are new to history. It is being educated and enlightened in the school and by the cheap press; it is being drilled and organised in large factories, in the national armies, by vast popular demonstrations, in the gigantic electoral struggles of the time. Thus it is becoming conscious of its enormous power, and able to make use of it. It is becoming conscious also of its unsatisfactory social and economic position. The democracy which is growing to be the master-force of the civilised world is still for the most part economically a proletariat dependent on precarious wage-labour. While they are resolved to proceed with the consummation of the political change which is involved in the establishment of democracy, their goal is an economictransformation. But the inevitable process of concentration of industrial operations already referred to is entirely against the continuance or restoration of the small producer, whether workman or peasant proprietor. Such efforts of continuance or restoration are reactionary: they are economically unsound and must fail. The economic transformation must be sought in the application of the principle of association to the large industry.
7. We are thus brought to the conclusion that the competitive system, with precarious wage-labour as the lot of the vast majority of the people, is not a suitable and adequate form for the social development of the future. The competitive system has led to great strikes, which have been the cause of widespread misery, almost as grievous as the suffering endured during the worst campaigns under the old style of warfare. It has led to great commercial and industrial crises, which have scattered over the civilised world panic and ruin, followed by long-continued stagnation and depression. Thus anarchy, waste, and starvation have been its too frequent attendants, while the normal position of the workmen under it has been precarious and unworthy of free, enlightened men. England has had less reason than most countries to regret the prevalence of competition, for her industrial supremacy has generally left her victor in the struggle, and she has hitherto looked forward to widening markets as the solution of her economic troubles. But the rapid development of Germany and America may teach usthat our industrial position is not so secure against assault as it used to be, and that we may in future suffer the bitter experience of the vanquished, which we have so long inflicted on others. And we may thus learn that reason and law should control industry and commerce as well as other spheres of human activity.
In America the development of the trust system is only another proof of the inadequacy of the competitive system. The supporters of the trusts maintain with very good show of reason that unregulated competition is harmful and may be ruinous to all concerned, and that they can maintain fair prices, pay fair wages, and secure a fair return to capital only by mutual arrangement among the producers. But the system obviously involves the serious objection, that the great industrial chiefs who organise and direct the trusts are thereby constituted supreme judges of their own interests and of the economic interests of the whole American people; that such combinations form a huge monopoly in so many of the leading articles of consumption, and establish an economic, social, and political power which may be a danger to American society. In short, we are driven to the result that while competition has been hurtful or ruinous to those engaged in it, the now prevailing system of regulation by capitalism in its own interests is a serious danger to the whole people. There is only one right way out of such a dilemma. A return to the competitive method is neither possible nor desirable. Monopolyis incompatible with freedom. The only course for peoples who desire to be free is to adopt some form of social ownership and control. This appears to be the lesson taught us by the development of the trusts.
8. The success of socialism greatly depends on the realisation of the two ideals, which may be regarded as the main pillars of the theory, when applied to practice. These are:—
(a) The normal working day: the general reduction of the working day to eight hours in the immediate future, and eventually to a shorter time. Such a desirable change would be better accomplished by voluntary agreement under the pressure of public opinion than by legislation; but it would be better made by legislation than by the cruel and clumsy method of strikes.
(b) A remuneration which will ensure a suitable standard of living; in other words, the means of a normal development. A reasonable standard of living, the competent means of a normal development have been determined by science and are no longer a matter of utopian guess-work. A fairly definite measure of fresh air, food, clothing, house comfort, recreation, and of satisfaction for the affections associated with wife and children constitute the rational needs of the average man. This is the moral and scientific basis of a rational system of distribution. The competitive wage determined by theiron law of wagesof the older economists should be superseded by a remunerationembodying this principle. It is the Daily Bread of the Lord’s Prayer as definable by modern science.
The effect of the socialistic theory on these points is to remove two vital interests of man from the range of competition, and to place them on an ethical and scientific basis under social control. In so far as the working day of the employees of government, municipalities, co-operative societies, companies, and private firms approximates to eight hours, in so far as the wage paid by them secures to the workers a fit and reasonable standard of living, in so far is the socialistic ideal realised. Every one conversant with the history of the last sixty years knows how vast an improvement has been made in both respects.
We have thus reviewed the great social and economic movements of our time. How shall we interpret them? There are two main tendencies: one towards control of the economic processes by the people in state, municipality, and co-operative society; the other towards the consolidation of capitalism in trusts. In both we see plan, constructive and organising intelligence, the limitation of the anarchy of competition. But while the former makes for the public good, the latter is subservient to overgrown wealth.
The portentous growth of the trusts is indeed an object-lesson to the world. It proves that socialism is not an idle question; nor is it utopian or revolutionary merely. It is a question forced upon the present generation by the most gigantic industrial movement of recent times. All good citizens, all friends of righteousnessand of progress, all inquirers worthy of the name, are under an imperative obligation to understand the true inwardness of the subject.
In considering the question of the practicability of a rational socialism, let us remember that it only proposes to accomplish on a wider scale and for a more enlightened time a task analogous to that undertaken by the guilds for the mediæval world. The guild was an organisation for the promotion of the common interests of the workers at a time when law and order were not sufficiently established by strong central governments, and when the present distinction between labourer and capitalist had not declared itself. It was a fairly equitable organisation of an industry which was local and associated with city life, and which worked with a very limited and undeveloped technique. Socialism proposes an equitable organisation of industry for the modern world with its enormous mechanical development and large industry, under a democracy guided by science and professing allegiance to the highest moral ideals.