FOOTNOTES:

FOOTNOTES:[93]The Communist Manifesto.[94]The Coming Nation, Sept. 9, 1911.[95]Mr. Gompers's articles in theFederationisthave recently appeared in book form.[96]Carl D. Thompson, "The Constructive Program of Socialism" (pamphlet).[97]Victor Grayson and G. R. S. Taylor, "The Problem of Parliament," p. 56.[98]Editorial in theSocialist Review(London), May, 1910.[99]Vorwaerts(Milwaukee), Jan. 3, 1893.[100]Edmond Kelly, "Individualism and Collectivism," p. 398.

[93]The Communist Manifesto.

[94]The Coming Nation, Sept. 9, 1911.

[95]Mr. Gompers's articles in theFederationisthave recently appeared in book form.

[96]Carl D. Thompson, "The Constructive Program of Socialism" (pamphlet).

[97]Victor Grayson and G. R. S. Taylor, "The Problem of Parliament," p. 56.

[98]Editorial in theSocialist Review(London), May, 1910.

[99]Vorwaerts(Milwaukee), Jan. 3, 1893.

[100]Edmond Kelly, "Individualism and Collectivism," p. 398.

The Socialist parties in Italy, Belgium, and France, where "reformism" is strong, are progressing less rapidly than the Socialists of these countries had reason to expect, and far less rapidly than in other countries. It would seem that in these cases the same cause that drives the movement to abandon aggressive tactics also checks its numerical growth.

For example, it is a matter of principle among Socialists generally to contest every possible elected position and to nominate candidates in every possible district. The revolutionary French Socialist, Jules Guesde, even stated to the writer that if candidates could be run by the party in every district of France, and if the vote could in this way be increased, he would be willing to see the number of Socialists in Parliament reduced materially, even to a handful—the object being to teach Socialism everywhere, and to prepare for future victories by concentrating on a few promising districts rather than to make any effort to become a political factor, at the present moment. Similarly, August Bebel declared that he would prefer that in the elections of 1912 the Socialists should get 4,000,000 votes and 50 Reichstag members rather than 3,000,000 votes and 100 members. In the latter case, of course, the Socialist members would have been elected largely on the second ballot by the votes of non-Socialists.

The policy actually carried out in both Italy and France has of late been exactly the opposite to that recommended by Guesde and Bebel. In the elections of 1909, the Socialist Party of Italy put up 114 less candidates for Parliament than they had in the election of 1904, while the number of candidates nominated in France was 50 less in 1910 than it had been in 1906. The consequence was that the French Party received an increase of votes less absolutely than that gained by the conservative republicans and scarcely greater than that of the radicals, while in Italy the Socialists actually cast a smallerpercentageof the total vote in 1909 than they did in 1904, while the party membership materially decreased.

This policy had a double result; it sent more Socialists to the Parliaments, in each case increasing the number of members by about 50 per cent; on the other hand, it helped materially those radical and rival parties most nearly related to the Socialists, for in many districts where the latter had withdrawn their candidates these parties necessarily received the Socialist vote. A vast field of agitation was practically deserted, and even when the agitation was carried on, the distinction between the Socialist Party and the parties it had favored, and which in turn favored it, became less marked, and the chances of the spread of Socialism in the future were correspondingly diminished.

In France it is this policy which has brought forward the so-called "independent Socialists" of the recent Briand ministry. Being neither Socialists nor "Radicals," they are in the best position to draw advantages from the "rapprochement" of these forces, and it was thus that Millerand came into the ministry in 1900, that Briand became prime minister in 1910, and Augagneur minister in 1911. These are among the most formidable opponents of the Socialist movement in France to-day. It will seem from this and many other instances that the opportunist policy which leads at first to a show of success, later results in a weakening of the immediate as well as the future possibilities of the movement.

The opportunist policy leads not only to an abandonment of Socialist principle, an outcome that can never be finally determined in any case, but sometimes to an actual betrayal or desertion, visible to all eyes, as, for instance, when Ferri left the movement in Italy, or Briand and Millerand in France. That such desertions must inevitably result from the looseness taught by "reformist" tactics is evident. Yet all through Briand's early political career, Jaurès was his intimate associate, and even after the former had forsaken the party, the latter confessed that, like the typical opportunist, he had still expected to find in Briand's introductory address as minister "reasons for hoping for the progress of social justice."

The career of Briand is typical. "One must understand how to manage principles," he had said in 1900 at the very time he was making the revolutionary declarations I shall quote (in favor of the general strike and against the army). Two years later when he made his first speech in the Chamber, the conservative "Temps" said that Briand was"ministrable"; that is, that he was good material for some future capitalistic ministry. Now Briand was making in this speech what appeared to be a very vigorous attack against the government and capitalism, but, like some prominent Socialists to-day, he had succeeded in doing it in such a way that he allowed the more far-seeing of the capitalistic enemy to understand clearly what his underlying principles were.[101]

At his first opportunity he became connected with the government, and justified this step on the ground of "his moral attitude," since he was the proposer of the famous bill for separating the Church and the State. He was immediately excluded from the party, since at the time of Millerand's similar step a few years before the party had reached the definite conclusion that Socialists should not be allowed to participate in their opponent's administrations.

When Briand became minister, and later (in 1909) prime minister, he did not fail at once to realize the worst fears of the Socialists, elevating military men and naval officers to the highest positions, and promoting that minister who had been most active in suppressing the post office strike to the head of the department of justice. So-called collectivist reforms that were introduced while he was minister, like the purchase of the Western Railway, were carried through, according to conservative Socialists like Jaurès, with a loss of 700,000,000 francs to the State. So that now Jaurès, who had done so much to forward Millerandism and Briandism felt obliged to propose a resolution condemning Briand and Millerand and Viviani as traitors who had allowed themselves to be used "for the purpose of 'capitalism.'"

"'Socialistic' ministers," says Rappoport, "have fallen below the level of progressive capitalistic governments. No 'Socialistic' minister has done near so much for democracy as honorable but narrow-minded democrats like Combes. 'Socialistic' ministers have before anything else sought the means of keeping themselves in office. In order to make people forget their past, they are compelled to give continuously new proofs of their zeal for the government."

In France, where strong radical, democratic, and "State Socialist" parties already exist, ready to absorb those who put reform before Socialism, the likelihood that such desertions will lead to any serious division of the party seems small, especially since the Toulouse Congress, when a platform was adopted unanimously. Of course, the leading factor in thisplatform was Jaurès, who stands as strongly for a policy of unity and conciliation within the party as he has for an almost uninterrupted conciliation and coöperation with the more or less radical forces outside of it.

If Jaurès was able to get the French Party to adopt this unanimous program, it was because he is not the most extreme of reformists, and because he has hitherto placed party loyalty before everything. In the same way Bebel, voting on nearly every occasion with the revolutionists, is able to hold the German Party together because he is occasionally on the reformist side, as in a case to be mentioned below. Jaurès looks forward, for instance, to a whole series of "successful general strikes intervening at regular intervals," and even to the final use of a great revolutionary general strike, whenever it looks as if the capitalists can be finally overthrown and the government taken into Socialist hands—though he certainly considers that the day for such a strike is still many years off. Nor does he hesitate to extend the hand of Socialist fellowship to the most revolutionary Socialists and labor unionists of his country, though he says to them, "The more revolutionary you are, the more you must try to bring into the united movement not only a minority, but the whole working class." He says he is not against revolution, or the general strike, but that he is against "a caricature of the general strike and an abortive revolution."

It is only by actions, however, that men or parties may be judged, and though Jaurès has occasionally been found with the revolutionists, in most cases he acts with their rivals and opponents, the reformists, and in fact is the most eminent Socialist reformer the world has produced. No one will question that there are Socialists who are exclusively interested in reform at the present period, not because they are opposed to revolution, but because no greater movements are taking place at the present moment or likely to take place in the immediate future—and Jaurès may be one of these. But it is very difficult, even impossible, to distinguish by any external signs, between such persons and those for whom the idea of anything beyond the reforms of "State Socialism" is a mere ideal, which concerns almost exclusively the next or some future generation. Many of those who were formerly Jaurès's most intimate associates, like the ministers Briand and Millerand, the recent ministers Augagneur and Viviani, and many others, have deserted the Party and arenow proving to be its most dangerous opponents, while several other deputies, who are still members like Brousse, recently Mayor of Paris, are accused by a large part of the organization of taking a very similar position. Surely this shows that, even if Jaurès himself could be trusted and allowed to advocate principles and tactics so agreeable to the rivals and enemies of Socialism, there are certainly few other persons who can be safely left in such a compromising position.

In view of these great betrayals on the part of Jaurès's associates, the mere fact that his own position towards the Party has usually been correct in the end—after the majority have shown him just how far he can go—and will doubtless remain technically correct, becomes of entirely secondary importance. He has openly and repeatedly encouraged and aided those individuals and parties which later became the chief obstacles in the way of Socialist advance, as other Socialists had predicted. The result is, not that the Socialist Party has ceased to grow, but that a large part of the enthusiasm for Socialism, largely created by the party, has gone to elect so-called "Independent Socialists" to the Chamber and to elevate to the control of the government men like Briand, who, it was agreed by Socialists and anti-Socialists alike, was the most formidable enemy the Socialists have had for many years.

The program unanimously adopted by the French at the Congress of Toulouse must be viewed in the light of this internal situation. "The Socialist Party, the party of the working class and of the Social Revolution," it begins, "seeks the conquest of political power for the emancipation of the proletariat [working class] by the destruction of the capitalist régime and the suppression of classes." The goal of Socialism could not be more succinctly expressed than in these words: "The destruction of the capitalist régime and the suppression of classes." Any party that lives up to this preamble in letter and spirit can scarcely stray from the Socialist road.

"It is the party which is most essentially, most actively reformist," continues another section, "the only one which can push its action on to total reform; the only one which can give full effect to each working class demand; the only one which can make of each reform, of each victory, the starting point and basis of more extended demands and bolderconquests...." Here we have the plank on which Jaurès undoubtedly laid the greatest weight, and it was supported unanimously partly because of the necessity of party unity. For this is as much as to say that no reform will ever be brought to a point that wholly satisfies the working people except through a working class government. But it cannot be denied that there are certain changes of very great importance to the working people, like those mentioned in previous chapters, which are at the same time even more valuable to the capitalists, and would be carried out to the end even if there were no Socialists in existence. If the revolutionary wing of the French Party once conceded to capitalism itself this possibility of bringing about certain reforms, they would be in a position effectively to oppose the reformist tactics of Jaurès within the Party. By giving full credit to the semi-democratic and semi-capitalistic reform parties for certain measures, they would go as far as he does in the direction of conciliation and common sense in politics; by denying the possibility of the slightest coöperation with non-Socialists on other andstill more important questions, they could constantly intensify the political conflict, and since Jaurès is a perpetual compromiser, put him in the minority in every contested vote within the party. By attacking the capitalists blindly and on all occasions they have created the necessity of a conciliator—the rôle that Jaurès so ably and effectively fills.

But, however friendly the Toulouse program may have seemed to Jaurès's reform tactics, it is not on that account any less explicit in its indorsement of revolutionary methods whenever the moment happens to be propitious. It states that the Socialist Party "continually reminds the proletariat [working class] by its propaganda that they will find salvation and entire freedom only in a collectivist and communist régime"; that "it carries on this propaganda in all places in order to raise everywhere the spirit of demand and of combat," and that "the Socialists not only indorse the general strike for use in economic struggles, but also for the purpose of finally absorbing capitalism."

"Like all exploited classes throughout history," it concludes, "the proletariat affirms its right to take recourse at certain moments to insurrectionary violence."

The Toulouse Congress showed, not the present position of the French Party or of the International, but the pointson which Socialist revolutionists and reformers, everywhere else at sword's point, can agree. The reformers do not object to promising the revolutionaries that they shall have their own way in the relatively rare crises when revolutionary means are used or contemplated. The revolutionaries are willing to allow the reformers to claim all the credit for all reforms beneficial to the workers that happen to be enacted. Neither gives up their first principle, whether it be revolution or reform, but in the matter of secondary importance, reform or revolution, each side tolerates in the party an attitude in diametrical opposition to its principles and the tactics it requires. Both do this doubtless in the belief that by this opportunism they will some day capture the whole party, and that a split may thus be avoided in the meanwhile.

Since the Toulouse Congress the divisions within the French Party have become much more acute. Briand's conduct in the great railway strike in 1911 is discussed below. Yet in spite of this experience of how much the government is ready to pay for railways and how little it is ready to do to their employees, Jaurès's followers at the Party Congresses of 1911 and 1912 stood again for the policy of nationalization, and Guesde was impelled to warn the party that Briand's "State Socialism" was the gravest danger to the movement.

Briand's positive achievements are also defended by Jaurès. The recent workingmen's pension law, unlike that of England, demands a direct contribution from the employees. Nevertheless, it contained some slight advantages, and of the seventy-five Socialist members of the Chamber of Deputies, only Guesde voted against it. Even when the Federation of Labor was conducting a campaign against registration to secure these "benefits," Jaurès's organ,L'Humanitétook the other side. The working people, as usual, followed their unions. Less than 5 per cent registered; in Paris only 2.5 per cent, and in Brest 22 out of 10,000.

The experience with Millerand and Briand has made it impossible for Jaurès to tie the French Party to "reformism." But reformism has brought it about that the Party is often split in its votes in the Chamber of Deputies. In the Party Congresses, however, Jaurès is outvoted where a clear difference arises, an outcome he does his best to avoid. The Congress of 1911 (at St. Quentin) reaffirmed the international decision at Amsterdam which prevents the party going in for reform as a part of anon-Socialist administration. It declared that "Socialists elected to office are the representatives of a party of fundamental and absolute opposition to the whole of the capitalist class, and to the State, its tool." And Vaillant said that since the Amsterdam Congress in 1904 the question of participation in capitalist ministries had ceased to exist in France.

It is true that Jaurès secured at this Congress, by a narrow majority, an indorsement of his policy of accepting the government pension offer. But the orthodox followers of Guesde and the revolutionary disciples of Hervé joined to secure its condemnation first by the Paris organization, and later by the National Council of the Party by the decisive vote of 87 to 51. This resolution which marks a great turning point in the French Party, is in part as follows:—

"The National Council declares that each time a labor question is to be decided, the Socialist Party should act in accord with the General Confederation of Labor."

As the Confederation has indorsed Socialism both as an end and as a means, few, if any, Socialist parties would object to this resolution. But the Confederation is also revolutionary, and this policy, if adhered to, marks an end to the influence of the "reformism" of Jaurès.

The precise objections to the government's insurance proposal are also significant. The National Council protested against the following features:—

(1) The compulsory contributions.(2) The capitalization (of the fund).(3) The ridiculous smallness of the pension.(4) The age required to obtain the pension.(5) The reëstablishment of workingmen's certificates.

(1) The compulsory contributions.

(2) The capitalization (of the fund).

(3) The ridiculous smallness of the pension.

(4) The age required to obtain the pension.

(5) The reëstablishment of workingmen's certificates.

Among the working people there is no doubt that the first feature was the chief cause of unpopularity. But Socialists know that, through indirect taxes or the automatic fall in wages or rise in prices, the same object of charging the bill to the workers may be reached. The capitalization refers to the investment and management of the large fund required by a capitalist government, thereby increasing its power. The last point has to do with the tendency to restrict the workers' liberty in return for the benefits granted—a tendency more visible with the pensions of the railway employees which were almost avowedly granted to sweeten the bitter pill of a law directed against their organizations.

The same orthodox and revolutionary elements in the Partyoverthrew the Monis Ministry by refusing to vote for it with Jaurès and his followers. But this ministry, perhaps the most radical France has had, was in part a creation of Jaurès, who had hailed it with delight in his organ,L'Humanité. The fact that it only lived for three months and was overthrown by Socialists was another crushing blow to Jaurès. As it came simultaneously with his defeat in the National Council, it is highly improbable that the reformists will succeed soon, if ever, in regaining that majority in the movement which they held for a brief moment at the time of the St. Quentin Congress and during the first days of the Monis Ministry.

It is now in Belgium and Italy only that "reformism" is dominant and still threatens to fuse the Socialists with other parties. In the last election in Italy the Socialists generally fused with the Republicans and Radicals, while the Belgian Party has decided to allow the local political organizations to do this wherever they please in the elections of 1912.

In Belgium, Vandervelde, who has usually represented himself as an advocate of compromise between the two wings in international congresses, has now come out for a position more reformistic than that of Jaurès and only exceeded by the British "Labourites." He was one of the movers of the Amsterdam resolution (seeChapter VII), which he now declares merely repeated the previous one of Paris (1900) which, he says, merely "forbids an individual Socialist to take a part in a capitalist government without the consent of the Party." On the contrary, this Amsterdam resolution, as Vaillant says, forbids Socialist Parties to allow their members to become members of capitalist ministries except under the most extraordinary and critical circumstances.[102]

We are not surprised after this to hear Vandervelde say that the Belgian Party has not decided whether it will take part in a future Liberal government or not, because, though the occasion for this might occur this year (1912), he considers it too far off in the future for present consideration—surely a strange position for a Party that pretends to be interested in a future society. We are also prepared to hear from him that Socialists might be ready to accept representation in such a ministry, not in proportion to their numerical strength, or even their votes, but in proportion to the number of seats an unequal election law gives them in Parliament. Whether, when the question actually presents itself, the Party will follow Vandervelde is more than questionable.

In Italy "reformism" has reached its furthermost limit. When last year (1911) Bissolati was offered a place in the Giolitti Ministry he hesitated for weeks and was openly urged by a number of other Socialist deputies to accept. After consultations with Giolitti and the king he finally refused, giving as a pretext that, as minister, he would be forced to give some outward obeisance to monarchy, but really because such an action would split the Socialist Party and perhaps, also, because he might not be able altogether to support Giolitti on the one ground of the military elements of his budget. Far from condemning Bissolati, the group of Socialist deputies passed a resolution that expressed satisfaction with his conduct and even appointed him to speak in their name at the opening of the new Parliament. All the deputies save two then voted confidence in the new ministry and approbation of its program.

The opinion of the revolutionary majority of the international movement on this situation was reflected in the position of the revolutionaries of the two chief cities of the country, Milan and Rome. At the former city where they had a third of the delegates to the local Socialist committee they moved that the Socialist Party could neither authorize its deputies to represent it in a capitalist ministry or give that ministry its support, "except under conditions determined, not by Parliamentary artifices, but by the needs and mature political consciousness of the great mass of workers." At Rome two thirds of the Socialist delegates voted a resolution condemning the action of Bissolati as "the direct and logical consequence of the thought, program, and practical action of the reformist group," and reproved both the proposal of immediate participation in a capitalist government and "the theoretical encouragement of such a possibility" as being opposed to all sound and consistent Socialist activity.

The "reformists," led by Turati, were of the opinion merely that the time was not yet ripe for the action Bissolati had contemplated. But the grounds given in the resolution proposed by Turati on this occasion show that it was not on principle that he went even this far. He declared that "in the present condition of the organization and the present state of mind of the Party" a participation in the government which was "not imposed by a real popular movement, would profoundly weaken Socialist action, aggravating the already existing lack of harmony between purelyparliamentary action and the development of the political consciousness and the capacity for victory on the part of the great mass of the workers."[103]In other words, as in France, the working people, especially those in the unions, will not tolerate a further advance in the reformist direction, but Turati and Bissolati, like Jaurès and Vandervelde are striving to compromise, just as far as they will be allowed to do so. There is thus always a possibility of splits and desertions in these countries, but none that the party will abandon the revolutionary path.

The tactics of the Italian "reformists" were immensely clarified at the Congress of Modena (October, 1911). For the question of supporting a non-Socialist ministry and of participating in it was made still more acute by the government's war against Tripoli, while the Bissolati case above mentioned was also for the first time before a national Party Congress. Nearly all Socialists had opposed the war, as had also many non-Socialists—but after war was declared, the majority of the Socialist members of Parliament voted against the general twenty-four hours' strike that was finally declared as a demonstration against it. This majority had finally decided to support the strike only after it was declared by aunanimousvote of the executive of the Federation of Labor, and then its chief anxiety had been lest the strike go too far. The revolutionary minority in the parliamentary group, however, which had consisted of only two at the time of the Bissolati affair, was now increased to half a dozen of the thirty-odd members, while the revolutionary opposition to "reformism" in the Modena Congress, as a result of these two issues, rose to more than 40 per cent of the delegates.

At this Congress the reformists were divided into three groups, represented by Bissolati, Turati, and Modigliani. All agreed that it was necessary not only to vote for certain reforms—to this the revolutionists are agreed—but also at certain times to vote for the whole budget and to support the administration. Modigliani, however, declared (against Bissolati) that no Socialist couldeverbecome a member of a capitalist ministry; Turati, that while this principle held true at the present stage of the movement, he would not bind himself as to the future; while Bissolati was unwilling to make any pledge on this question. As Bissolati did not propose, however, that the Socialists should take part in the present ministryat the present moment, this question was notan immediate issue. What had to be decided was whether, in order to hasten and facilitate the introduction of universal suffrage and other social reforms, the government is to be supported at the present moment—when it is waging a war of colonial conquest to which all Socialists are opposed.

The resolution finally adopted by the Congress was drawn up by Turati and others who represented the views of the majority of reformists. While purely negative, it was quite clear, and the fact that it was finally accepted both by Bissolati and by Modigliani is highly significant. It concluded that "the Socialist group in Parliament ought not any longer to support the governmentsystematicallywith their votes." It did not declare for any systematicoppositionto the administration, even at the time when it is waging this war. It did not even forbid occasional support, and it left full discretion in the hands of the same parliamentary group whose policy I have been recording.

As a consequence the Italian Party at this juncture intentionally tolerated two contradictory policies. Turati declared: "We are in opposition unless in some exceptional case, in which some situation of extreme gravity might present itself." Rigola, who was one of the three spokesmen appointed for the less conservative reformists (with Turati and Modigliani) said: "We have been ministerialists for ten years, but little or nothing has been done for the proletariat. Some laws have been approved, but it is doubtful if they are due to us rather than to the exigencies of progress itself." In other words, Turati and Rigola thought there could be occasions for supporting capitalist ministries, though the present was not such an occasion; while the latter practically confessed that the policy had always been a failure in Italy. But in the face of all criticism Bissolati announced that he refused absolutelyto pass over to the opposition to the ministry of Giolitti. Turati and his followers, now in control of the Party, might tolerate this position; the large and growing revolutionary minority would not. This could only mean that Socialist group in the Italian Parliament, like that of France, and even of Germany, would divide its votes on many vital matters, or at least that the minority would abstain from voting. Which could only mean that on many questions of the highest importance there was no longer one Socialist Party, but two.[104]

Turati himself wrote of the Modena Congress:—

"Only two tendencies were to be seen in the discussion and the voting;two parties in their bases and principles: the Socialist Party as a party of the working people, a class party, a party of political, economic, and social reorganization, and on the other side a bourgeois radical party as a completion of, and perhaps also as a center of new life force for, the sleeping and half moribund bourgeois democratic radicalism."[105]That is, the "reformist" Turati denied that there is anything Socialistic about Bissolati's "ultra-reformist" faction. To this Bissolati answered that compromise and the political collaboration of the working people with other classes, was not to be reserved, as Turati had said, for accidental and extraordinary cases, but was "the very essence of the reformist method."[106]The revolutionaries, of course, agree with Bissolati that, if the Socialists hold that their prime function is to work for reforms favored by a large part of the capitalists, compromises and the habit of fighting with the capitalists instead of against them are inevitable.

Turati now began to approach the revolutionaries, said that they had given up their dogmatism, immoderation, and justification of violence, and that he only differed from them now on questions of "more or less." The revolutionaries, however, have made no overtures to Turati, and Turati's overtures to the revolutionaries have so far been rejected. Turati's "reformism" seems to be less opportunistic than it was, but as long as he insists, as he does to-day, that it is only conditions that have changed and not his reformist tactics, that the revolutionaries are moving towards the reformists, the relation of the two factions is likely to remain as embittered as ever. Only if the revolutionaries continue to grow more powerful, until Turati is obliged still further to moderate his "reformist" principles and to abandon some of his tactics permanently, instead of saying, as he does now, that he lays them aside only temporarily, will there be any real unity in the Italian Socialist Party.

Within a few weeks after the Modena Congress, Turati had already initiated a movement in this direction when he persuaded the executive committee of the Party, after a bitter conflict, and by a majority of one (12 to 13), to enter definitely into opposition to the government, which in the meanwhile had given a new cause for offense by delaying on a military pretext the convocation of the Chamber of Deputies.[107]

Among the opportunist and ultra "reformists" who were still anxious to take no definite action, were such well-known men as Bissolati, Podrecca, Calda, and Ciotti. Bissolati deplored all agitation in criticism of the war except a demand for the convocation of the Chamber. Turati and others who had at last decided to go over definitely to the opposition, did so on entirely non-Socialist and capitalist grounds such as the expense of the war, the unprofitable nature of Tripoli as a colony, the aid the war gave to clericals and other reactionaries (elements opposed also by progressive capitalists), and the interference it caused with other reforms (favored also by progressive capitalists). Turati, indeed, was frank enough to say that he had Lloyd George's successful opposition to the Boer War as a model, and called the attention of his associates to the fact that Lloyd George became Minister (it will be remembered that Turati is not on the whole opposed to Socialists also becoming ministers—even in a capitalist cabinet). Even now it was only the revolutionary Musatti who pointed out the true Socialist moral of the situation, that failure of the non-Socialist democrats to stand by their principles and to oppose the war, ought to lead the party to separate from them, not only temporarily, but permanently, and to make impossible forever either the participation of the Socialists in any capitalist administration or even the support of such an administration in the Chamber of Deputies.

It was only when Bissolati secured a majority of the Socialist deputies, and this majority decided tocompelthe minority to accept Bissolati's neutral tactics as to the war and his readiness actively to support the war government at every point where that government was in need of support, that Turati rebelled and demanded that his minority, which announced itself as willing as a unit to obey the decisions of the Party Congress, should be recognized as its official representative in the Chamber. Turati's position was the same as before, but Bissolati's greater popularity among the voters,including non-Socialists, gave the latter control of the Parliamentary group, and forced the former to a declaration of war. The effect was to throw Turati and his followers into the arms of the revolutionaries, where they form a minority.

And thus the situation becomes similar to that in France. The reformist "leaders," Jaurès and Turati, do all that is possible to lead the Socialist Parties of the two countries in the opposite direction from that in which these organizationsare going. But though these "leaders" are turned in the direction of class conciliation, they are constantly being dragged backwards in the direction of class war. Unconsciously they are doing all they can to retard Socialism—short of leaving the movement. But as long as they consent to go with Socialism when they are unable to make Socialism go with them, their ability to retard the movement is strictly limited.

FOOTNOTES:[101]Charles Rappaport, "Das Ministerium Briand,"Die Neue Zeit(1910).[102]SeeDie Neue Zeit, April, 1911, p. 46. Article by Vandervelde.[103]TheAvanti, April, 1911.[104]TheAvanti, Oct. 18, 1911.[105]Critica Sociale, Nov. 1, 1911.[106]Azione Socialista, Nov. 19, 1911.[107]Avanti, Dec. 2 and 3, 1911.

[101]Charles Rappaport, "Das Ministerium Briand,"Die Neue Zeit(1910).

[102]SeeDie Neue Zeit, April, 1911, p. 46. Article by Vandervelde.

[103]TheAvanti, April, 1911.

[104]TheAvanti, Oct. 18, 1911.

[105]Critica Sociale, Nov. 1, 1911.

[106]Azione Socialista, Nov. 19, 1911.

[107]Avanti, Dec. 2 and 3, 1911.

The British Socialist situation is almost as important internationally as the German. The organized workingmen of the world are indeed divided almost equally into two camps. Most of those of Australia, South Africa, and Canada, as well as a large majority in the United States, favor a Labour Party of the British type, and even the reformist Socialist leaders, Jaurès in France, Vandervelde in Belgium, and Turati in Italy, often take the British Party as model. On the other hand the majority of theSocialistseverywhere outside of Great Britain, including the larger part of all theworking peoplein every country of continental Europe, look towards the Socialist Party of Germany as their model, the political principles and tactics of which are diametrically opposed to those of the British Labour Party.

Far from opposing their Socialism to the "State Socialism" of the government, the British Socialists in general frankly admit that they also are "State Socialists," and seem not to realize that the increased power and industrial functions of the State may be used to the advantage of the privileged classes rather than to that of the masses. The Independent Labour Party even claims in its official literature that the "degree of civilization which a state has reached may almost be measured by the proportion of the national income which is spent collectively instead of individually."[108]

"Public ownership is Socialism," writes Mr. J. R. MacDonald, until lately Chairman of the Labour Party,[109]while Mr. Philip Snowden says that the first principle of Socialism is that the interests of the State stand over those of individuals.[110]

"I believe," says Mr. Keir Hardie, "the collectivist state to be a preliminary step to a communist state. I believe collectivism or State Socialism is the next stage of evolution towards the communist state." "Every class in a community," he said in this same speech, "approves and accepts Socialism up to the point at which its class interests are beingserved." It would appear, then, that Mr. Hardie means by "Socialism" a program of reforms a part of which at least is to the benefit of every economic class. He contends only that this "Socialism" could never be "fully" established until the working class intelligently coöperate with other forces at work in bringing Socialism into being.[111]

"State Socialism with all its drawbacks, and these I frankly admit," said Mr. Hardie, "will prepare the way for free communism." Mr. Hardie considers it to be the chief business of Socialists in the present day to fight for "State Socialism," and is fully conscious that this forces him to the necessity of defending the present-day State, as, for instance, when he writes elsewhere, "It is not the State which holds you in bondage, it is the private monopoly of those means of life without which you cannot live." Private property and war and not the State Mr. Hardie believes to have been the "great enslavers" of past history as of the present day, apparently ignoring periods in which the State has maintained a governing class which consisted not so much of property owners as of State functionaries; to periods which may soon be repeated, when private property served merely as one instrument of an all-powerful State.

Mr. MacDonald still more closely restricts the word "Socialism" to the "State Socialist" or State capitalist period into which we are now entering. "Socialism," says MacDonald, "is thenextstage in social growth,"[112]and throughout his writings and policy leaves no doubt that he means the very next stage, the capitalist collectivism of which I have been speaking. The international brotherhood of the nations, which many Socialist thinkers feel is an indispensable condition for the establishment of anything like democratic Socialism, Mr. MacDonald expects only in the distant future, while the end of government based on force, which is also considered essential by the majority of Socialist writers, Mr. MacDonald postpones to "some far remote generation."[113]In other words, the position of the recent Chairman of the Labour Party is that what the world has hitherto known as Socialism can only be expected after a vast period of time, and his opinion accords with that of many bitter critics and opponents of the movement, who avoid a difficult controversy by admitting all Socialist arguments and merely asking for time—"Socialism, a century or two hence—but not now,"—for all practical purposes an endless postponement.

Mr. MacDonald, who is not only a leader of the Labour Party, but also one of the chief organizers also of the leading Socialist Party of that country, has given us by far the fullest and most significant discussion of that party's policy. He says that an enlightened bourgeoisie will be just as likely to be Socialist as the working classes, and that therefore the class struggle is merely "a grandiloquent and aggressive figure of speech."[114]Struggle of some kind, he concedes, is necessary. But the more important form of struggle in present-day society, he says, is the trade rivalry between nations and not the rivalry between social classes.[115]Here at the outset is a complete reversal of the Socialist attitude. Socialists aim to put an end to this overshadowing of domestic by foreign problems, principally for the very reason that it aids the capitalists to obscure the class struggle—the foundation, the guiding principle, and the sole reason for the existence of the whole movement.

Mr. MacDonald claims further that a class struggle, far from uniting the working classes, can only divide them the more; in other words, that it works in exactly the opposite direction from that in which the international organization believes it works. The only "natural conflicts" in the present or future, within any given society, according to the spokesman of the Labour Party, represent, not the conflicting interests of certain economic classes, but the "conflicting views and temperaments" of individuals.[116]And the chief divisions of temperament and opinion, he says, will be between the world-old tendencies of action and inaction—a view which does not differ one iota from that of Mr. Roosevelt.

Mr. MacDonald asserts that "it is thewholeof society which is developing towards Socialism," and adds, "The consistent exponent of the class struggle must, of course, repudiate these doctrines, but then the class struggle is far more akin to Radicalism than to Socialism."[117]I have already pointed out how the older Radicalism, or political democracy, no matter how individualistic and anti-Socialist it may be, is often, as Mr. MacDonald says, more akin to International Socialism than that kind of "State Socialism" or State capitalism Mr. MacDonald represents.

Mr. MacDonald typifies the majority of British Socialists also in his opposition to every modern form of democratic advance, such as the referendum and proportionalrepresentation. Far from being disturbed, as so many democratic writers are, because minorities are suppressed where there is no plan of proportional representation, he opposes the second ballot, which has been adopted in the majority of the countries of Continental Europe—and, in the form of direct primaries, also in the United States. The principal thing that the electors are to do, he says, is to "send a man to support or oppose a government."

Mr. MacDonald finds that there is quite a sufficiency of democracy when the elector can decide between two parties; and far from considering the members of Parliament as delegates, he feels that they fill the chief political rôle, while the people perform the entirely subordinate task either of approving or of disapproving what they have already done. Parliament "first of all initiates ideas, suggests aims and purposes, makes proposals, and educates the community in these things with a view to their becoming the ideals and aims of the community itself."[118]

While Mr. MacDonald continues to receive the confidence of the trade union party, including its Socialistic wing, the Trade Union Congress votes down proportional representation by a large majority, apparently because it does not desire its members to be constituted into a truly independent group in Parliament, does not care to work for any political principle however concrete, but prefers to take such share of the actual powers of government as the Liberal Party is disposed to grant. Proportional representation would send for the first time a few outright Socialists to Parliament, but the election returns demonstrate that the trade unionists, if more independent of the Liberals, would be fewer in number than at present. A part of the Socialist voters desire this result and, of course, believe it is their right. The majority of the trade unionists, however, who have won a certain modicum of authority in spite of the undemocratic constitution of their party, do not care to grant it—as possibly conflicting with the relatively conservative plans of "the aristocracy of labor."

The Fabian Society's "Report on Fabian Policy" says that the referendum, "in theory the most democratic of popular institutions, is in practice the most reactionary."[119]Mr. MacDonald refers to it as a "crude Eighteenth Century idea of democracy," "a form of Village Community government."[120]At the Conference of the Labour Party atLeicester in 1911 he declared that it was "anti-democratic" and that if the government were to accept it, the Labour Party "would have to fight them tooth and nail at every step of that policy." As opposed to any plans for a more direct and more popular government, he defends the "dignity and authority" of Parliament and bespeaks the "reverence and deference" that the people ought to observe toward it.

Contrast with these views Mr. Hobson's presentation of the non-Socialist Radical doctrine. "Under a professed and real enthusiasm for a representative system," as opposed to direct government, Mr. Hobson finds that there is concealed "a deep-seated distrust of democracy." He acknowledges "that the natural conservatism of the masses of the people might be sufficient to retard some reforms." "But this is safer and better for democracy," he says, "than the alternative 'faking' of progress by pushing legislation ahead of the popular will. It is upon the whole far more profitable for reformers to be compelled to educate the people to a genuine acceptance of their reform than to 'work it' by some 'pull' or 'deal' inside a party machine."[121]

Mr. MacDonald not only puts a high value on British conservatism and a low one on the French Revolution and the Declaration of Independence, but declares that no change whatever in the mere structure of government can aid idealists and reformers in any way, and expects politics and parties to be much the same in the future as they are at the present moment. It is this attitude that Mr. Hobson has in mind when he protests that "the false pretense that democracy exists" in Great Britain has proved "the subtlest defense of privilege"—and that this has been the greatest cause of the waste of reform energy not only in England but also in France and in the United States.[122]Mr. MacDonald says explicitly, "The modern state in most civilized countries is democratic," and adds impatiently that "the remaining anomalies and imperfections" cannot prevent the people from obtaining their will.[123]To dismiss in so few words the monarchy, the restrictions of the suffrage, the unequal election districts and other shortcomings of political democracy in Great Britain, and to insist that the government is already democratic, is surely, as Mr. Hobson says, "the subtlest defense of privilege."

Mr. MacDonald comes out flatly with the statement that under what he calls the democratic parliamentarygovernment of Great Britain it is practically impossible to maintain a pure and simple Socialist Party. He says proudly that "nothing which the Labour Parties of Australia or Great Britain have ever done or tried to do under their constitutions departs in a hair's breadth from things which the Liberal and the Tory Parties in these countries do every day."[124]"Indeed, paradoxical though it may appear," he adds, "Socialism will be retarded by a Socialist Party which thinks it can do better than a Socialistic Party."[125]

The Independent Labour Party, indeed, has had a program of reform that is remarkably similar to that of Ministers Churchill and Lloyd George, and is indorsed in large part by capitalists—as for example, by Andrew Carnegie. The first measure of this program provided for a general eight-hour day. Mr. Carnegie protests that to put the Socialist label on this is as "frank burglary as was ever committed," and the trade union movement in general would agree with him.[126]

The second demand was for a "workable unemployment act." The Labour Party had previously introduced a more radical measure which very nearly received the support of a majority of Parliament. The third measure called for old-age pensions. Mr. Carnegie remarked of this with perfect justice: "Mr. MacDonald is here a day behind the fair. These have been established in Britain before this [Mr. Carnegie's "Problems of To-day"] appears in print, both political parties being favorable." It is true that the Labour party demands a somewhat more advanced measure than that to which Mr. Carnegie alludes, but there is no radical difference in principle, and the Labour Party accepted the present law as being a considerable installment of what they want.

Of the fourth point the "abolition of indirect taxation (and the gradual transference of all public burdens to unearned incomes)," Mr. Carnegie remarks that "we must read the bracketed works in the light of Mr. MacDonald's philosophy," and "that this is a consummation which cannot be reached (in Mr. MacDonald's words) 'until the organic structure of society has been completely altered.'" We have seen that Mr. Churchill also aims at theultimateexpropriation of the whole future unearned increment of the land.

The fifth point of the program was similar,—a series of land acts (aimed at the ultimate nationalization of the land).

The sixth point was the nationalization of the railroadsand mines. Mr. Carnegie reminds us that many conservative and reactionary governments own their own railroads. We have seen that Mr. Churchill is in favor of the same proposal. Mines also are now national property in several countries, and there is nothing particularly radical or unacceptable to well-informed conservatives in the proposal to nationalize them elsewhere.

The seventh demand of the program was for "democratic political reforms." While the Independent Labour Party and some of its leaders are in favor of a complete program of democratic reforms, I have shown that others like Mr. MacDonald are directly opposed even to many modern democratic measures already won in other countries.

It would certainly seem that the social reformers, Mr. Carnegie and others, have as much right as the Socialists to claim such measures as all those outlined.

Many of the other reforms proposed by the Independent Labour Party are such as might readily find acceptance among the most conservative. Indeed in urging the policy of afforestation, as one means of helping in the solution of the unemployed problem, the party actually uses the argument that even Prussia, Saxony, and many other highly capitalistic governments are undertaking it; though it does not mention the reactionary purposes of these governments, as for example, in Hungary where it is proposed to use the government's new army of labor to build up a scientific system of breaking strikes. Afforestation would add to the general wealth of the country in the future, and would be of considerable advantage to the capitalist classes, which makes the largest uses of lumber. Such a policy could undoubtedly be devised in carrying out this work as would absorb a considerable portion of the unemployed, and, since unemployment is a burden to the community and troublesome in many ways, besides tending to bring about a general deterioration of the efficiency of the working class, it is also to the ultimate interest of the employers to adopt it.

A leading organ of British Socialism, theNew Age, went so far as to say of the Budget of 1910 that it was almost as good "as we should expect from a Socialist Chancellor in his first year of office," and said that if Mr. Philip Snowden, were Chancellor, the Budget would have been little different from what it was.[127]And it is true that the principles of the Budget as interpreted by Mr. Snowden only a few yearsago in his booklet, "The Socialist Budget," are in nearly every instance the same, though they are to be somewhat more widely applied in this Socialist scheme. Of course all Socialists would have desired a smaller portion of the Budget to go to Dreadnoughts and a larger part to education, though, in view of the popularity of the Navy, it is doubtful whether Labour Party Socialist's would materially cut naval expenditure (seeChapter V). It must also be noted that the Socialists are wholly opposed to the increase of indirect taxation on tobacco and liquor, some four fifths of which falls on the shoulders of the workingman. But aside from these points, there is more similarity than contrast between the two plans.

Mr. Snowden declared that it was the intention of the Socialists to make the rich poorer and the poor richer, that they were going to use the power of taxation for that purpose, and that the Budget marked the beginning of the new era, an opinion in strange contrast with Premier Asquith's statementconcerning the same Budget, for which he was responsible, that one of its chief purposes was "to increase the stability and security of property."

Indeed the word "Socialism" has been extended in England to include measures far less radical than those contemplated by the present government. The Fabian Society, the chief advocate of "municipal Socialism" and a professed and recognized Socialist organization, considers even the post office and factory legislation as being installments of Socialism, while the Labour Party would restrict the term to the nationalization or municipalization of industries—but the difference is not of very great importance. The latter class of reform will undoubtedly mark a revolution in the policy of the British government, but, as Kautsky says, this revolution may only serve "to Prussianize it,"i.e.to introduce "State Socialism."

"The best government," says Mr. Webb, "is no longer 'that which governs least,' but 'that which can safely and advantageously administer most.'"

"Wherever rent and interest are being absorbed under public control for public purposes, wherever the collective organization of the community is being employed in place of individual efforts, wherever in the public interest, the free use of private land or capital is being further restrained—there one more step toward the complete realization of the Socialist Ideal is being taken."

The fight of the British Socialists has thus been directed from the first almost exclusively against the abstraction, "individualism," and not against the concrete thing, the capitalist class. John Morley had said that the early Liberals, Cobden, Bright, and others, were systematic and constructive, because they "surveyed society and institutions as a whole," because they "connected their advocacy of political and legal changes with theories of human nature," because they "considered the great art of government in connection with the character of man, his proper education, his potential capacities," and could explain "in the large dialect of a definite scheme what were their aims and whither they were going."

"Is there," Mr. Morley had asked, "any approach to such a body of systematic political thought in our own day?" Mr. Webb announced that the Fabians proposed to fill in this void. It was primarily system and order rather than any particular principle at which he aimed. The keynote of his system was to be opposition to the individualistictheoryof the philosophic Liberals whom the Fabians hoped to succeed rather than opposition to theprinciplesof capitalism, which lend themselves equally well either to an individualistic or to a collectivistic application.

Just as Mr. Webb is the leading publicist, so Mr. Bernard Shaw is the leading writer, among the exponents of Fabian Socialism. It is now more than twenty years since he also began idealizing the State, and he is doing the same thing to-day. "Who is the people? What is the people?" he asked in the Fabian Essays in 1889. "Tom we know, and Dick; also Harry; but solely and separately as individuals: as a trinity they have no existence. Who is their trustee, their guardian, their man of business, their manager, their secretary, even their stockholder? The Socialist is stopped dead at the threshold of practical action by this difficulty, until he bethinks himself of the State as the representative and trustee of the people."[128]It will be noticed that Mr. Shaw does not say the State may become the representative and trustee of the people, but that itistheir representative. "Hegel," he continues, "expressly taught the conception of the perfect State, and his disciples saw that nothing in the nature of things made it possible or even difficult to make the existing State if not absolutely perfect, at least trustworthy;" and then, after alluding with the greatest brevity to the anti-democratic elements of the British government, Mr.Shaw proceeds to develop at great length the wonderful possibilities of the existing State as the practically trustworthy trustee, guardian, man of business, manager, secretary, and stockholderof the people.[129]

Yet Mr. Shaw says that a Social-Democrat is one "whodesiresthrough democracytogather the whole people into the State, so that the State may be trusted with the rent of the country, and finally with the land and capital and the organization of national industry." He reasons that the transition to Socialism through gradual extensions of democracy and State action had seriously begun forty-five years before the writing of the Essays, that is, in the middle of the nineteenth century (when scarcely one sixth of the adult male population of Great Britain had a vote, and when, through the unequal election districts, the country squires practically controlled the situation—W. E. W.). In Mr. Shaw's reasoning, as in that of many other British Socialists, a very little democracy goes a long way.[130]

Later Mr. Shaw repudiated democracy altogether, saying that despotism fails only for want of a capable benevolent despot, and that what we want nowadays is not a new or modern form of democracy, but only capable benevolent representatives. He shelved his hopes for the old ideal, governmentbythe people, by opposing to it a new ideal of a very active and beneficent governmentforthe people. In "Fabianism and the Empire" Shaw and his collaborators say frankly: "The nation makes no serious attempt to democratize its government, because its masses are still in so deplorable a condition that democracy, in the popular sense of government by the masses, is clearly contrary to common sense."[131]

Mr. H. G. Wells, long a member of the Fabian Society, has well summed up the character of what he calls this "opportunist Socialist group" which has done so much to shape the so-called British Socialism. He says that Mr. Sidney Webb was, during the first twenty years of his career "the prevailing Fabian."

"His insistence upon continuity pervaded the Society, was re-echoed and intensified by others, and developed into something like a mania for achieving Socialismwithout the overt change of any existing ruling body. His impetus carried this reaction against the crude democratic idea to its extremest opposite. Then arose Webbites to caricature Webb. From saying that the unorganized peoplecannot achieve Socialism, they passed to the implication that organization alone, without popular support, might achieve Socialism. Socialism was to arrive as it wereinsidiously."To some minds this new proposal had the charm of a schoolboy's first dark lantern. Socialism ceased to be an open revolution, and become a plot. Functions were to be shifted, quietly, unostentatiously, from the representative to the official he appointed; a bureaucracy was to slip into power through the mechanical difficulties of an administration by debating representatives; and since these officials would, by the nature of their positions, constitute a scientific government as distinguished from haphazard government, they would necessarily run the country on the lines of apretty distinctly undemocratic Socialism."The process went even farther than secretiveness in its reaction from thelarge rhetorical forms of revolutionary Socialism. There arose even arepudiation of 'principles' of action, and a type of worker which proclaimed itself 'Opportunist-Socialist.' This conception of indifference to the forms of government, of accepting whatever governing bodies existed and using them to create officials and 'get something done,' was at once immediately fruitful in many directions, and presently productive of many very grave difficulties in the path of advancing Socialism." (Italics mine.)[132]

"To some minds this new proposal had the charm of a schoolboy's first dark lantern. Socialism ceased to be an open revolution, and become a plot. Functions were to be shifted, quietly, unostentatiously, from the representative to the official he appointed; a bureaucracy was to slip into power through the mechanical difficulties of an administration by debating representatives; and since these officials would, by the nature of their positions, constitute a scientific government as distinguished from haphazard government, they would necessarily run the country on the lines of apretty distinctly undemocratic Socialism.

"The process went even farther than secretiveness in its reaction from thelarge rhetorical forms of revolutionary Socialism. There arose even arepudiation of 'principles' of action, and a type of worker which proclaimed itself 'Opportunist-Socialist.' This conception of indifference to the forms of government, of accepting whatever governing bodies existed and using them to create officials and 'get something done,' was at once immediately fruitful in many directions, and presently productive of many very grave difficulties in the path of advancing Socialism." (Italics mine.)[132]

Besides the obvious absurdities of such tactics, Mr. Wells points out that they ignored entirely that reconstruction of legislative and local government machinery which is very often an indispensable preliminary to Socialization. He is speaking of such Socialism when he says:—

"Socialism has concerned itself only with the material reorganization of Society and its social consequences, with economic changes and the reaction of these changes on administrative work; it has either accepted existing intellectual conditions and political institutions as beyond its control or assumed that they will obediently modify as economic and administrative necessity dictates.... Achieve your expropriation, said the early Fabians, get your network of skilled experts over the country, and your political forms, your public opinion, your collective soul will not trouble you."[133]

Here Mr. Wells shows that, while the practical difficulties of making collectivism serve all the people were ignored on the one hand, the first need of the people, political education, was neglected on the other. It is true that during the first few years of its existence the Fabian Society made a great and successful effort to educate public opinion in a Socialist direction, but soon its leading members deserted all such larger work, to support various administrative "experiments."

Mr. Wells referred to this same type of Socialism in his "Misery of Boots":—

"Let us be clear about one thing: that Socialism means revolution, and that it means a change in the everyday texture of life. Itmaybe a very gradual change, but it will be a very complete one. You cannot change the world, and at the same time not change the world. You will find Socialists about, or at any rate men calling themselves Socialists, who will pretend that this is not so, who will assure you that some odd little jobbing about municipal gas and water is Socialism, and backstairs intervention between Conservative and Liberal the way to the millennium.... Socialism aims to change, not only the boots on people's feet, but the clothes they wear, the houses they inhabit, the work they do, the education they get, their places, their honors, and all their possessions. Socialism aims to make a new world out of the old. It can only be attained by the intelligent, outspoken, courageous resolve of a great multitude of men and women. You must get absolutely clear in your mind that Socialism means acomplete change, a break with history, with much that is picturesque;whole classes will vanish. The world will be vastly different, with different sorts of houses, different sorts of people. All the different trades and industries will be changed, the medical profession will be carried on under different conditions, engineering, science, the theatrical trade, the clerical trade, schools, hotels, almost every trade, will have to undergo as complete an internal change as a caterpillar does when it becomes a moth ... a change as profound as the abolition of private property in slaves would have been in ancient Rome or Athens." (The italics are mine.)

Here is the exact opposite view to that which has been taught for many years by the Fabian Society to no small audience of educated Englishmen (and Americans). For there are comparatively few who have neither read any of the Fabian pamphlets nor seen or read any of Bernard Shaw's plays in which the same standpoint is represented.

Mr. John A. Hobson classes the Socialist and non-Socialist reformers of Great Britain together as regards their opportunism. Though a Liberal himself, he objects that some Socialists are not radical enough, and that "the milder and more opportunist brand suffer from excessive vagueness." Of the prevailing tendency towards opportunism, Mr. Hobson writes:—

"This revolt against ideas is carried so far that able men have come seriously to look upon progress as a matter for the manipulation of wirepullers, something to be 'jobbed' in committee bysophistical motions or other clever trickery. Great national issues really turn, according to this judgment, upon the arts of political management, the play of the adroit tactician and the complete canvasser. This is the 'work' that tells; elections, the sane expression of the national will, are won by these and by no other means."Nowhere has this mechanical conception of progress worked more disastrously than in the movement towards Collectivism.Suppose that the mechanism of reform were perfected, that each little clique of specialists and wirepullers were placed at its proper point in the machinery of public life, will this machinery grind out progress? Every student of industrial history knows that the application of a powerful 'motor' is of vastly greater importance than the invention of a special machine. Now, what provision is made for generating the motor power of progress in Collectivism? Will it come of its own accord? Our mechanical reformer apparently thinks it will. The attraction of some present obvious gain, the suppression of some scandalous abuse of monopolist power by a private company, some needed enlargement of existing Municipal or State enterprise by lateral expansion—such are the sole springs of action. In this way the Municipalization of public services, increased assertion of State control over mines, railways, and factories, the assumption under State control of large departments of transport trade, proceed without any recognition of the guidance of general principles. Everywhere the pressure of special concrete interests, nowhere the conscious play of organized human intelligence!..."My object here is to justify the practical utility of 'theory' and 'principle' in the movement of Collectivism by showing that reformers who distrust the guidance of Utopia, or even the application of economic first principles, are not thrown back entirely upon that crude empiricism which insists that each case is to be judged separately and exclusively on its own individual merits."

"Nowhere has this mechanical conception of progress worked more disastrously than in the movement towards Collectivism.Suppose that the mechanism of reform were perfected, that each little clique of specialists and wirepullers were placed at its proper point in the machinery of public life, will this machinery grind out progress? Every student of industrial history knows that the application of a powerful 'motor' is of vastly greater importance than the invention of a special machine. Now, what provision is made for generating the motor power of progress in Collectivism? Will it come of its own accord? Our mechanical reformer apparently thinks it will. The attraction of some present obvious gain, the suppression of some scandalous abuse of monopolist power by a private company, some needed enlargement of existing Municipal or State enterprise by lateral expansion—such are the sole springs of action. In this way the Municipalization of public services, increased assertion of State control over mines, railways, and factories, the assumption under State control of large departments of transport trade, proceed without any recognition of the guidance of general principles. Everywhere the pressure of special concrete interests, nowhere the conscious play of organized human intelligence!...

"My object here is to justify the practical utility of 'theory' and 'principle' in the movement of Collectivism by showing that reformers who distrust the guidance of Utopia, or even the application of economic first principles, are not thrown back entirely upon that crude empiricism which insists that each case is to be judged separately and exclusively on its own individual merits."

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