CHAPTER XToC

[430]Socialism Made Plain, p. 9.

[431]Capital and Land, pp. 5, 6.

[432]Kautsky,The Social Revolution, p. 11.

[433]Blatchford,The Clarion Ballads, p. 9.

[434]Blatchford,The Pope's Socialism, p. 2.

[435]Bax and Quelch,A New Catechism of Socialism, p. 17.

[436]Sorge,Socialism and the Worker, p. 11.

[437]Keir Hardie,From Serfdom to Socialism, p. 11.

[438]Joynes,The Socialist Catechism, p. 3.

[439]Davidson,The Gospel of the Poor, p. 54.

[440]See Appendix.

[441]Justice, October 19, 1907.

[442]Davidson,The Democrat's Address, p. 5.

[443]Socialism Made Plain, p. 8.

[444]Davidson,The Gospel of the Poor, p. 49.

[445]McLachlan,Tyranny of Usury, p. 13.

[446]Davidson,The Old Order and the New, p. 76.

[447]Wealth Makers and Wealth Takers, p. 1.

[448]Sorge,Socialism and the Worker, p. 10.

To Socialists taxation is chiefly a means for impoverishing the rich and the well-to-do. It is their object to transfer by taxation the wealth from the few to the many, as they believe that the impoverishment of the rich will mean the enrichment of the poor. Therefore they do not aim at economy in national and local expenditure. On the contrary, they wish to spend as much as possible. As money is to be obtained solely from the rich, "An increase in national taxation has no terrors for Socialists."[449]Every increase in expenditure is greeted by them with joy, and wastefulness in national and local undertakings is rather encouraged than condemned. "Socialists look to the Budget as a means not only of raising revenue to meet unavoidable expenditure, but as an instrument for redressing inequalities in the distribution of wealth."[450]Let us first look into the financial views of the Socialists, and then into their positive proposals.

"The purpose of Socialism is to transfer land and industrial capital to the people. There are two ways in which, simultaneously, this object may be carried out. The one way is by the municipal and national appropriation—with such compensation to the existing owners as the community may think fit to give—of the land and industrial concerns. The second method is by taxation.Taxation has its special sphere of usefulness in helping the community to secure some part of its own by diverting into the national purse portions of the rent, interest, and profit which now go to keep an idle class in luxury at the expense of the industrious poor."[451]

"The existence of a rich class, whose riches are the cause of the poverty of the masses, is the justification for the Socialist demand that the cost of bettering the condition of the people must be met by the taxation of the rich. The Socialist's ideas of taxation may be briefly summarised as follows: (1) Both local and national taxation should aim primarily at securing for the communal benefit all 'unearned' or 'social' increment of wealth. (2) Taxation should aim deliberately at preventing the retention of large incomes and great fortunes in private hands, recognising that the few cannot be rich without making the many poor. (3) Taxation should be in proportion to ability to pay and to protection and benefit conferred by the State. (4) No taxation should be imposed which encroaches upon the individual's means to satisfy his physical needs."[452]

"To the Socialist taxation is the chief means by which he may recover from the propertied classes some portion of the plunder which their economic strength and social position have enabled them to extract from the workers; to him, national and municipal expenditure is the spending for common purposes of an ever-increasing proportion of the national income. The degree of civilisation which a State has reached may almost be measured by the proportion of the national income which is spent collectively instead of individually. To the Socialist the best of Governments is that which spends the most. The only possible policy is deliberately to tax the rich, especially those who live on wealth whichthey do not earn; for thus, and thus only, can we reduce the burthen upon the poor."[453]

The Fabian Society suggests the following reform of national taxation: "In English politics successful ends must have moderate beginnings. Such a beginning might be an income-tax of 2s.6d.in the pound. Unearned incomes above 5,000l.a year would pay 2s.6d.in the pound, below 5,000l.a year 1s.8d.in the pound. The estate duty might be handled upon similar principles. Estates between 500,000l.and 1,000,000l.would be charged twelve and a half per cent, instead of seven and a half, and estates exceeding 1,000,000l.fifteen per cent, instead of eight."[454]The Fabian Society does not disguise its aim in proposing the foregoing: "These suggestions are doubtless confiscatory, and that is why they should recommend themselves to a Labour party. But even so, the confiscation is of a timorous and a slow-footed sort. The average British millionaire dies worth about 2,770,000l., on which the death duty would be 415,500l., leaving the agreeable nest-egg of 2,254,500l.to the heirs. Even if we assume that the inheritance passes to one person only, so as to be subject to the highest rate of duty, it would not be until five more lives had passed that it would be reduced to a pitiful million. The most patient Labour party might not unreasonably demand something a trifle more revolutionary than this."[455]

According to the above proposals the income-tax would return 47,600,000l.per annum. This sum seems far too moderate to most Socialist writers. Councillor Glyde, for instance, gives in a widely read pamphlet elaborate tables in which the produce of a graduated income-tax is carefully calculated. The Fabian Society would make "a moderate beginning" by taxing large incomes 2s.6d.in the pound. Councillor Glyde would beginby levying a 3s.income-tax on them. Taxation of incomes in accordance with his proposals would bring in 70,281,839l.per annum.[456]

Mr. Smart, of the Independent Labour Party, gives lengthy details of a taxation reform scheme in which figure a foundation-tax, a special property-tax, and a super-tax. Large incomes would have to pay 17-1/2 per cent., or 3s.6d.in the pound, and his property and income tax would bring in 78,000,000l.per annum.[457]

Mr. Philip Snowden, M.P., submits a different scheme of taxation. There is to be an income-tax of 1s.in the pound and a graduated super-tax up to 6s.in the pound. Whilst the three authorities mentioned so far propose to take from the large incomes 2s.6d., 3s., and 3s.6d.in the pound as a "moderate beginning," Mr. Snowden would, presumably also as a "moderate beginning," take 7s.in the pound from them. He is quite touched with his own generosity and magnanimity, for might he not demand at once 17s.or 20s.in the pound? "To console the possessors of incomes in the higher grade, say 50,000l.a year, to the payment of an income-tax of 1s.in the pound, we may remind them that they still retain 33,500l.a year, which is a very generous payment by labour to them for the privilege of seeing them exist in gorgeous splendour and sumptuous idleness."[458]

The proposals regarding the estate duty to be charged also vary. The Fabian Society proposes a maximum of 15 per cent. Mr. Smart would be satisfied with a graduated estate duty with a maximum of 25 per cent, instead of the present maximum of 8 per cent.[459]Mr. Snowden proposes a scale of duties which ranges from 1 per cent, up to 50 per cent.[460]

Besides the very greatly increased income-tax and estate duty, there would be, according to Mr. Snowden, a land value tax of a penny in the pound of its capital value, which is equal to 10 per cent. annual value. It is to be the small beginning of the policy of taxing landowners out of existence, to be speedily followed by confiscation. "The annual value of land being 250,000,000l., the produce of the land value tax would be 25,000,000l.a year."[461]The author justifies the creation of that tax as follows: "Liverpool, London, Glasgow owe their existence and their prosperity to their respective situations, which are natural advantages and which ought not in justice to be enjoyed solely by those who live upon the sites. Every town and village in the country contributes to the prosperity of every other part. The nation is a unit; its resources and its obligations should be mutually shared."

"Land values are so obviously not created by individual effort that the justice of taking the increment for the use of the community appeals to those who may have some difficulty in grasping the working of the 'unearned increment' in commercial concerns, where, however, it operates just as truly though not so obviously. The imposition of an Imperial tax of one penny in the pound on the capital value of the site would be a beginning, but by no means the end, of the process of diverting socially-created rent of land into the public exchequer. Taxation will do something towards that end; but taxation would be a long, irritating, and untrustworthy way of trying to secure the whole annual value of the land for the community."[462]"The taxation of land values is not a land reform. To get the fullusefulness and the full value of the land for the community there is no way but for the State to own the land."[463]

The contemplated reform of taxation will not be limited to taxing the rich and the well-to-do out of existence. Relief will be afforded to the masses by the repeal of all duties on food, and, indeed, of all indirect taxation. "The reforms which the Labour party will endeavour to obtain from the Government, in which it believes it will be expressing the democratic sentiment of the country, are:

1. Repeal of the duties on foods.

2. A minimum wage of 30s.to all workers in Government employ or working under a contractor for the Government.

3. Old-age pensions of 7s.a week for persons over sixty."[464]

Practically all Socialists agree that all indirect taxation should be abolished. "Indirect taxation has nothing whatever to recommend it to an intelligent people, however advantageous it may be to the well-to-do. Indirect taxation violates every principle of sound economy."[465]"Its maintenance is excused on the ground that indirect taxation is the only means by which the working class can be made to contribute to the cost of national government at ah. The poorer working classes should not be taxed by the Government at all."[466]"Under a just system of taxation all indirect taxation for revenue purposes would be abolished."[467]"With 43 per cent, of the working classes living in poverty, with an average wage over the whole working class not sufficient to provide themselves with the standard of workhouse comfort, it becomes a crime to tax them for the protection of their property and the enjoyment of theirprivileges"[468]—Is it true that, as Mr. Snowden, M.P., writes, the whole working class of Great Britain is so badly paid that it cannot provide for itself the standard of workhouse comfort? How then can he reconcile with that assertion the following statement which he gives in the same book a few pages further on: "Experts assign the proportion of the total annual drink bill of the United Kingdom contributed by the wage-earning classes at 100,000,000l.A committee of the British Association, reporting on the 'appropriation of wages,' in 1882 said that 75 per cent, of the total consumption of beer and spirits, and 10 per cent. of the wine bill, might be assigned as the shares of the working class."[469]

As a matter of fact experts estimate that the British working men spend even more than 100,000,000l.per year on drink, and that they spend about 50,000,000l.on betting. It is really very inartistic for a professional agitator to tell us that the British workers are too poor to pay any taxes, that it is a "crime" to tax them at all, and then to remind us that the same starving ill-used workers can afford to spend more than the amount of the whole nation's Budget in drink and betting, that about one-sixth of the workman's wages are spent at the public-house, that many workmen spend the larger half of their income in drink, and that the British nation is the most drunken in the world, although drink is far more expensive in Great Britain than in any other country.

With part of the money taken by means of extortionate taxation from the rich, whole sections of the population are to be bribed into supporting Socialism. "Two objectionable heads of revenue would find no place in a Socialist national balance-sheet—the profit from the Post Office and the stamp duties. Improvements in the wages and conditions of labour in the lower grades of the postal service would absorb a considerablepart of the present annual profit of 5,000,000l.and the rest might, with benefit, be utilised for cheapening the cost to the public of postal rates and services."[470]

Mr. Snowden, in promising in one phrase the repeal of stamp duties and cheapening of postage, very likely thought that that step would relieve the poor. He apparently imagined that duty stamps were identical with postage stamps. If he had known that stamp duties are largely derived from Stock Exchange transactions and the sale of every kind of property on a large scale, from legal documents, &c., he would probably have proposed that they should be increased tenfold in order to strike another blow at private property, not that they should be abolished. Even the policy of confiscation requires an elementary knowledge of facts.

Furthermore, "The Socialist Budget would provide for a very considerable increase of the grants-in-aid, retaining for the central Government just sufficient control or inspection over the expenditure as would not interfere with the reasonable freedom of the local authority."[471]"Control which would not interfere" is at present illogical and impossible, because the one excludes the other. It may be possible in the Socialist State of the future, because logic will have to be abolished in it. At all events it seems clear that Mr. Snowden wishes to secure the support of the local authorities by the same curious means by which he strives to secure the support of the Post Office servants.

The foregoing extracts should suffice to show that the Socialists mean to ruin the owners of property of every kind by indirect confiscation in the form of extortionate taxation, which is to be constantly increased and which may be followed by direct confiscation, and that they rely upon force for achieving their aim. Capitalists may leave the country, but they must leave their capitalbehind, and their disappearance, Socialists assert, will be no loss. "The vast majority of our employers are routineers, who could no more contribute an intelligent statement of their industrial function to this paper than a bee could write the works of Lord Avebury. Routineers can always be replaced, and replaced with profit, by educated functionaries. Consequently when the employers threaten us with emigration, our only regret as to the majority of them is that it is too good to be true."[472]"Supposing those who have the money were to threaten to leave the country and to take their money with them, would not that upset your plans? Money is not wealth. You would have cause to rejoice. So would the country which was fortunate enough to see its capitalists emigrate."[473]

According to the Socialist teaching, the workers maintain the capitalists. The brain is mightier than the hand, though the brain requires the hand. In reality it rather seems that the capitalists maintain the workers. It cannot too often be pointed out that those countries which have many wealthy capitalists are highly civilised and prosperous, and their workers are well off. On the other hand, those countries which have few or no wealthy capitalists are little civilised and poor, and their workers are exceedingly badly off. The masses may conceivably rob the capitalists of their property, and try to manage the national capital themselves, but whether they will benefit by spoliation remains to be seen. Lacking direction, foresight, unity, organisation, discipline, and thrift, the masses will probably quickly waste the national capital, and national ruin and distress and starvation will be the consequences of wholesale robbery.

The confiscation experiment has often been tried in the past, and it has always failed. The last time it hasbeen tried was at the time of the French Revolution. The money secured by robbery was recklessly squandered. Production was neglected, and the people became poorer than ever. In the country agriculture came to a standstill, weeds grew where corn had been growing, gardens became a natural wilderness, and wolves roamed in thousands.[474]The great manufacturing towns were dead, manufacturers in Paris who had employed sixty or eighty men employed but ten.[475]The people in town and country were starving. Many lived on roots and bark. Many of the poor in Paris waited outside the slaughter-houses and lapped the blood from the gutters like dogs.

Private capital has existed in all countries and at all times, because it is a plant of natural growth. One can destroy it, but it will ever grow again.

[449]Snowden,Socialist Budget, p. 1.

[450]Ibid.

[451]Snowden,The Socialist's Budget, p. 2.

[452]Ibid.pp. 7, 8.

[453]Socialism and Labour Policy, p. 4.

[454]Ibid.pp. 4, 5.

[455]Ibid.p. 5.

[456]Glyde,A Peep Behind the Scenes on a Board of Guardians, pp. 28,29.

[457]Smart,Socialism and the Budget, pp. 14,15.

[458]Snowden,The Socialist's Budget, pp. 78, 79.

[459]Smart,Socialism and the Budget, p. 8.

[460]Snowden,The Socialist's Budget, p. 81.

[461]Ibid.p. 82.

[462]Ibid.pp. 82, 83.

[463]Snowden,The Socialist's Budget, p. 84.

[464]Smart,Socialism and the Budget, p. 15.

[465]Snowden,The Socialist's Budget, p. 15.

[466]Ibid.p. 31.

[467]Ibid.p. 16.

[468]Snowden,The Socialist's Budget, p. 17.

[469]Ibid.pp. 21, 22.

[470]Snowden,The Socialist's Budget, p. 71.

[471]Ibid.p. 59.

[472]G.B. Shaw in theNew Age, November 30, 1907.

[473]Wheatley,How the Miners are Robbed, p. 12.

[474]Vandal,Avènement de Bonaparte, 1903, vol. i. p. 25.

[475]Schmidt,Tableaux de la Révolution, vol. iv. p. 383.

Most British Socialists object to the Empire on various grounds, and desire its downfall and dissolution. According to their views Great Britain should, in the first place, give up her non-self-governing colonies. Let us take note of some Socialistic pronouncements to that effect:

"Governments have no right to exist except with the consent of the governed, and the British have no more right to dominate other peoples than other peoples have to dominate us. What we can only hold by maintaining an alien garrison had better be given up. The people of these islands would not be losers, but the gainers by such a course."[476]"Is it possible for a self-governing people to rule a subject race, and yet keep its own love for liberty? Neither the Greeks nor the Romans could do it, and we are not doing it very well ourselves. The reason is obvious. No nation can play the part of the despot (even the benevolent despot) abroad and that of the democrat at home."[477]"Socialists should oppose the creation of empires on this simple ground—that empire-building is accompanied by terrible misery and suffering for those subject races, as they are called, which are the chosen victims sacrificed on the altar of cupidity and pride."[478]"A people gain power and influence in the world in proportion as they solve for themselves the greatproblems of democratic self-government. We shall do more to civilise Africa by civilising the East End of London than by governing from Cape to Cairo."[479]"It is not only impossible for one nation to civilise another by governing it; it is wrong that it should attempt to do so. Conquest may have opened up one civilisation to another in times long antecedent to the steam engine and a world commerce, but to-day its only effect is to crush out and level down all national life to the dead uniformity of an alien political routine."[480]

"What is the attitude of Socialism towards backward races, savage and barbaric peoples who are to-day outside the civilised world? The position of Socialism towards these races is one of absolute non-interference. We hold that they should be left entirely alone to develop themselves in the natural order of things; which they must inevitably do or die out. It is the duty of Socialists to support the barbaric races in their resistance to aggression."[481]"It is the duty of International Socialists, the only international non-capitalist party, to denounce, and wherever possible to prevent, the extension of colonisation and conquest, leaving to each race and creed and colour the full opportunity to develop itself until complete economic and social emancipation is secured by all."[482]"Duty, like charity, begins at home, and if the civilisation of the blacks is to be purchased only by the destruction of our own democratic spirit, the balance to the world is of evil, not of good. There is another view of Imperialism expressed with brutal candour by Mr. Rhodes when he said that the flag was our best commercial asset, that trade follows the flag. Trade does no such thing. Trade follows business enterprise. Imperialism is, indeed, a policy of industrial deterioration, and by impoverishingthe skill of the country and encouraging the worst forms of financial capitalism, must crush out every budding hope that labour has of becoming economically and politically free."[483]

The foregoing extracts should suffice to show that there is among British Socialists a strong desire to abandon the non-self-governing colonies.

The attitude of the British Socialists towards the great self-governing dominions is not much more favourable than it is towards tropical colonies. Their attitude is one of hardly disguised hostility, which appears to spring partly from jealousy of the colonists, partly from hatred of the British capitalists who have invested money in the colonies. The loss of British capital invested in the colonies would probably be greeted with jubilation by the Socialists. "The well-to-do sections of society in Great Britain have found a secure and profitable outlet for their capital in loans and advances to the colonists alike as organised communities and as individual property-owners. But the drain for interest and dividends to England on this account is heavy, and is severely felt at times of depression, such as that which Australia as a whole has been suffering from during the recent seven years of almost continuous drought. It seems tolerably certain, therefore, that this comparative handful of colonists, eleven millions in all, of which only four millions in Australia, will in time to come, and as the Labour party and Socialists gain strength, repudiate, or at any rate reduce, these onerous obligations. It is also probable that with regard to Australia, as the white population does not increase and England's day as a colonising power proper is practically over (having no longer any agricultural population to send out as emigrants), this huge territory will not be permanently left at the sole dog-in-the-manger control of its presenthandful of inhabitants. We may expect, at least, that Australia will not be permanently able to retain its position without an infusion of entirely fresh blood, and should other peoples require an outlet in that direction, the present preposterous policy will have to be abandoned."[484]

Socialists seem, on the whole, to be opposed to the federation of the British Empire. "The Labour party approaches Imperial problems with the politics of the industrious classes as guide on the one hand, and the internationalism of its nature as guide on the other."[485]Its "internationalism" apparently prevents it from approving of any practical scheme of Imperial Federation. Mr. Ramsay Macdonald, M.P., of the Labour party, has not expressed actual hostility to the Empire. In fact, he has even declared: "Socialism did not intend to re-write history. It accepted the facts of life, and one of these facts was that we were responsible for the Empire, and, whether we liked it or not, we had to rule that Empire. He was overjoyed the other day to find that at Stuttgart their Dutch and German and French friends were fully aware of the fact that, if Socialism was to play the proper part that belonged to it, it must devise a colonial policy."[486]Nevertheless, Mr. Macdonald's views do not appear to be very practical, as will be seen in the following pages.

"These free colonies, though of enormous extent, count for little in the matter of population. Their wealth is out of all proportion to their numbers, as their pretensions are out of all proportion to their power. That they will play any very great part in the future of the world, either federated to the mother country or in any other way, seems exceedingly improbable."[487]"Imperialism is crudely ineffective. Imperial Federation would give the colonies a fuller sense of independence and liberty, and thus far would benefit them. But Imperial Federation is not approved on this account, but because it is supposed to be a way of uniting the Empire. That, it will not do: it will very likely do the opposite. In whatever form it comes, it will give to the independent interests of the colonies new importance. We shall then hear less of the Empire and more of Canada, or New Zealand, or South Africa, and a great danger will arise that a purely sectional view of Imperial interests may secure the support of the might and the arrogance of the whole Empire."[488]"Canada has almost claimed that it is a right of self-governing States to be allowed to make treaties for themselves. When that happens, the colonies might as well sever themselves from the mother country altogether. For under present circumstances the authority which makes treaties is the authority which ultimately controls armies. To give any of our colonies the power to embroil us in war, or to determine our relations with European Powers, is to give the first shattering blow to Imperial solidarity."[489]

Nearly all British Socialists passionately oppose the retention of India. They never tire of condemning British rule in India, and of endeavouring to incite the native races to rebellion. According to the assertions of Socialists, the British Government has "manufactured" famine and plague in India, and its rule is the worst, the most cruel, and the most pernicious form of despotism which the world has seen.

Mr. Hyndman says: "India is the greatest and most awful instance of the cruelty, greed, and short-sightedness of the capitalist class of which history gives any record. Even the horrors of Spanish rule in South America aredwarfed into insignificance in comparison with the cold, calculating, economic infamy which has starved, and is still deliberately starving, millions of people to death in British India."[490]"I charge it against the British Government, at this moment, that the economic condition of India is much more horrible than ever it was. I declare that the despotism of Russia is more apparently cruel, but the actual economic effect of the British Government's rule in India is more desperate than anything in the situation in Russia."[491]

Mr. Hare also speaks of "famine made by Government"[492]—India suffers from two great evils: famine and the plague. India is very densely populated. The natives live chiefly upon rice, and rice requires an enormous quantity of moisture. If rain fails, there is famine, and no Government can prevent it, though it may alleviate it. Therefore all rice countries—China, India, Japan—are periodically stricken by famine. It is difficult enough, and taxes the resources of a country to the utmost, to feed in a barren country an army of 500,000 men who are closely assembled. It is impossible to feed a population of 60,000,000, even if funds and stores of food are unlimited. With the most perfect system of harbours, canals, railways, &c., the distribution of food for 60,000,000 people offers insurmountable obstacles. Plague is caused by infection, and may be stamped out by the observance of those sanitary rules which Indians refuse to observe. Cases of plague are not reported to the authorities, but are hidden from them, so that the sanctity of the home may not be defiled by the entrance of a medical man. Nevertheless, Socialists never tire of preaching: "If there is one disease which is more directly the outcome of poverty than any other,it is the plague."[493]"Just think of 250,000 people dying of manufactured black plague in one month. It is not the people of England who benefit by our murderous despotism in India. It is not the working classes who would suffer if India were relieved from its present frightful oppression. If the present trade is beneficial, it is beneficial to the wealthy rather than to the workers."[494]"If ever there was a population in the history of the world possessed of a remarkable climate, with a fruitful soil, with all the opportunities for making wealth, and having been the source of wealth to the peoples who have traded with them for centuries, the population of India is that people and Hindostan is that country which ought to be supremely wealthy."[495]

Socialists have done all in their power to arouse the hostility of Europe and America against Great Britain by denouncing British misrule, cruelty, and tyranny in India. "I rejoice, as an Englishman, that I have done my share for nearly thirty years to expose in Europe, America, and Asia the systematic rascality of my aristocratic and plutocratic countrymen."[496]"I appeal to this International Socialist Congress to denounce the statesmen and the nation guilty of this infamy before the entire civilised world, and to convey to the natives of India the heartfelt wish of the delegates of the workers of all nations here assembled that they may shortly, no matter in what manner, free themselves finally from the horrors of the most criminal misrule that has ever afflicted humanity."[497]

Socialists unceasingly work for the overthrow of British rule in India. Theirs is a larger humanity. They wish to bring about a rising of the Indian population, and they seem to care little if the 250,000 British people residing in that country are incidentallyexterminated. Their hatred of the "capitalist" Empire is apparently greater than their sense of humanity and duty towards their own countrymen.

At a recent Socialist meeting in connection with the unrest in India, Mr. Hyndman submitted the following motion: "This meeting of the citizens of London expresses its deepest sympathy and admiration for Lajpat Kai, Adjit Singh, and the Sikh leaders at Rawal Pindi, Amritsar, and Lahore, now undergoing imprisonment without trial, at the command of Mr. John Morley and the Liberal Government, and sends its cordial greetings to the agitators all over India who are doing their utmost to awaken their countrymen of every race and creed to the ruinous effect of our rule, which, by draining away 35,000,000l.worth of produce yearly from India without return, has manufactured poverty upon a scale unprecedented in history and is converting the greatest Empire the world has ever seen into a vast pauper warren and human plague farm. This meeting further records its fervent hope that this infamous British system which crushes all economic, social, and political life out of 230 millions of people will ere long be peaceably or forcibly swept away for ever."[498]Proceeding, Mr. Hyndman said: "I may mention I have just finished a pamphlet on India I have written for the International Socialist Congress at Stuttgart, which is going to be translated by the International Socialist Bureau into German and French, and I will take care it is translated into some other languages—Eastern languages—including the Japanese language."[499]

Attempts to incite the native Indians to rise in rebellion and to massacre the British garrison and the British people residing in India are not restricted to Mr. Hyndman. We read in the leading Socialist monthly: "The maintenance of British rule in India means thatthe working people of Great Britain are engaged in helping their masters—the class which robs them—to plunder the unfortunate people of India of over thirty millions sterling every year. We desire to see the people of India, as of every other country, not only possessed of national independence and political rights, but of social and economical liberty and equality. We assert the right of the Indian people to manage their own affairs, and ardently desire the destruction of British rule there."[500]From the official organ of the Independent Labour Party we learn that that party also "has declared itself wholly in favour of constitutional government in India and the social emancipation of the poverty-stricken Indian people. We believe that Mr. Hardie has had that purpose solely in view, and the party will stand solidly with him in conveying to the Indian people the strongest expression of the sympathy and support of British Socialists in their struggle against social and political oppression."[501]If British subjects are murdered in India by the ten thousand, we may thank our revolutionary Socialists.

Mr. Ramsay Macdonald, M.P., of the Labour party very sensibly recommends with regard to India: "The Government should win the confidence and assent of the people."[502]He then continues: "The immediate reforms necessary are a lightening of India's financial load by relieving it of the Imperial burdens which it now unjustly bears, and a readjustment of taxes; the extension of local and State self-government and further opportunities for natives to be employed in public offices; the freeing of the press."[503]It is easy to formulate a policy by expressing generous abstract sentiments. Is Mr. Macdonald aware that "the lightening of India's financial load" would mean its transference to English shoulders,that the granting of self-government and the freeing of the press might lead to a position which would put before this country the alternative of a war of repression in India or of its abandonment, and that the abandonment of India would ruin Lancashire?

We have taken note of the destructive part of the policy which Socialists wish to pursue towards the Empire. Now let us take note of their constructive proposals, though these are not nearly as numerous as their destructive ones.

Mr. Ramsay Macdonald, M.P., of the Labour party, is dissatisfied with Imperial administration in its present form. He would democratise it and replace the present Imperial Governors by labour men and Socialist agitators and orators. "The Crown cannot be the custodian of an Imperial policy, though it may be an Imperial link—and even in this respect its influence is greatly exaggerated at home."[504]"The real difficulty lies in securing the confidence of the Imperial States for whatever authority is to be custodian of the Imperial standard. Downing Street is ignorant of colonial opinion and needs. Above all, Downing Street is the surviving symbol of the era of the British 'dominions' and the real 'colonies.' The Imperial States will not repose confidence in Downing Street, therefore Downing Street cannot remain the custodian of Imperial standards. What is to take its place?"[505]

"The failure of our Empire, except to produce mechanical results, such as keeping warring tribes at peace, is largely owing to the fact that the Empire is governed by the most narrow-visioned of our social classes. National pride may be a valuable possession, but when it becomes a consciousness of racial superiority it ceases to be an Imperial virtue. Thus it is not only in its origin, but also in its present administration, that theEmpire in a special sense is a perquisite of the rich classes, and the influence of the Labour party on Imperial politics must be to democratise thepersonnelof the Imperial machine. A trade union secretary could govern a provinceprima faciebetter than the son of an ancient county family or someone who was a friend of the Colonial Secretary when he was passing time at Balliol. We honestly think that the colonies appreciate our aristocracy, but the colonies laugh at our amiable illusions."[506]

Is Mr. Macdonald sure that the dominions and colonies would welcome a change, and that "trade union secretaries" in their very narrow circle of activity might not become even more "narrow-visioned" than our present pro-consuls? At the same time it cannot be doubted that all labour leaders and Socialist agitators will highly approve of his proposals to make all vice-royalties and governorships their "perquisites." Apart from a few not very practical proposals, Socialists follow not a constructive, but a purely destructive, policy with regard to the Empire, which in their eyes is merely a capitalist institution. Pursuing consciously or unconsciously a policy of revolutionary anarchism, they would break up the Empire and even Great Britain herself. Therefore many Socialists advocate the legislative independence of both Ireland and Scotland, although some preach, "'Home Rule'per sewill not rid Ireland of Lord Deliverus and the gang he represents; the remedy for Ireland's distress, as the early leaders of Irish discontent perceived, is release from the grip of the brigands who stole the nation's heritage. In other words, the real object of the Irish movement is Socialism; their cause is ours, and our paths lie side by side. But they too have been tricked and led astray by the old political will-o'-the-wisp, the seeming angel of 'Liberty' translated in their case to 'Home Rule.' For many years now theyhave pursued this shifty light through the arid desert of politics, and unless they can come to a clear understanding of their own original purpose again, and join with their English Socialist comrades to find a way out of our common difficulties, they are like to abide in that dreary desert for ever."[507]

Whilst the vast majority of British Socialists are unpatriotic, anti-national, and anti-Imperial, and would act as traitors to their country, the powerful Socialist party of Germany is strongly, one might almost say passionately, national and Imperial. Many German Socialists are enthusiastic supporters of the German Navy League, and they would not hesitate in depriving, if possible, and if need be by force, Great Britain of those colonies which her Socialists desire to get rid of.

The attitude of German Socialists towards their Fatherland, Empire, colonial possessions, and native races, may be gauged from the words of Herr Bernstein, one of her most prominent Socialist leaders: "The national quality is developing more and more. Socialism can and must be national. Even when we singUbi bene, ibi patriawe still acknowledge apatria, and therefore, in accordance with the motto 'No rights without duties,' also duties towards her. To-day the Social-Democratic party is, and that unanimously, the most decided Imperial party that Germany knows. No other party is so keen to make over more and more legislative authority to the Empire and to widen its competence as the Social-Democratic party. The idea that in a country there exists a powerful party which is only waiting for war in order to make difficulties for its own Government, to set on foot a military strike and such-like, this idea may become the greatest menace to peace by being a spur to adventurous politicians to work towards a war with that country. But the home Government knows very well that thedeclaration that the Social-Democrats would, in case of need, give their lives for the independence of Germany against a foreign Power is by no means a free pass for them to take war easily."[508]

In another periodical Herr Bernstein wrote: "The advantages of colonial possessions are always conditional. At a given period a nation can only sustain a certain quantity of such possessions. As long as she was ahead of all other nations in productive power, England could support a much larger amount than any other modern nation. But the time of her industrial supremacy has passed away, or at least is nearing its end. Protectionism on the Continent and in the United States may protract the advent of the inevitable in some degree. But its hour will strike one day, and when the advantages which free trade secures her to-day disappear, she would either have, I believe, to free herself of part of her colonial burdens or lose more and more of her trade, and with it her regenerative force. So much for England. With Germany the question is quite different. Although her rural population is now decreasing, she could, with a yearly increase of about 800,000, well stand more colonial possessions than she actually holds, nor would the costs and outlays for her colonies press very hard on her finances. Where two civilisations clash, the lower must give way to the higher. This law of evolution we cannot overthrow, we can only humanise its action. To counteract it would mean to postpone social progress."[509]

It is sad to compare the sane, manly, national, and patriotic attitude of German Socialists with the foolish, anti-national cosmopolitanism of British Socialists, who, parading beautiful motives of the largest humanity, would not hesitate to sacrifice their country and their countrymen, their Empire and their colonies.

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