CHAPTER IV.

SOCIALISM AND LABOUR.

SOCIALISM seeks to reconstruct and reorganise the whole social system, and to effect a vast improvement in every department of human life. But it aims primarily and especially at a thorough reorganisation of industry and property; at such an alteration of the conditions and arrangements as to the production, distribution, and enjoyment of wealth, as will abolish poverty and remove the discontent of the operative classes. While it contemplates a revolution in the intellectual, religious, moral, and political state of mankind, it acknowledges and affirms that this must be preceded and determined by a revolution in their economic state. It follows that while Socialists, in attempting to bring about the vast social revolution which they have in view, are bound to have a new theory as to the proper constitution of society as a whole, they are especially bound to have a new theory as to the proper economic constitution of society; to have other and more correct opinions as to the subjects and problems of which economic science treats than mere social reformers and ordinary economists; and, in a word, to have a political economy of their own. New doctrines as to labour, land, and capital, money and credit, wages, profits,

interest, rent, taxes, and the like, are needed to justify the new measures which are required to bring about the socialist revolution.

Socialists cannot be fairly charged with failing to recognise the necessity and obligation herein implied. They frankly claim to have a political economy of their own, entitled to displace that which has been prevalent; and they demand that their system should be judged of chiefly by that portion of its teaching which constitutes its political economy. Whatever merits they may assign to their philosophical, religious, and ethical theories, they hold them to have only a secondary and supplementary place in the socialist creed, and grant that it is not by their proof or disproof that Socialism can be either established or overthrown. They will admit no verdict on the character of Socialism to be relevant and decisive which has failed to recognise that its answers to economic problems, its proposals. for the organisation of industry and the administration of wealth, are what is primary and fundamental in it.

Thus far they are, I think, perfectly right; and, therefore, I shall in the present work confine myself chiefly to the economics of Socialism. Of course, it is only possible to consider even the economic teaching of Socialism on a limited number of points; and naturally the selected portion of its teaching should be that which is most obviously crucial as regards the truth or falsity of the socialist system, and which is concerned with questions of the widest range of interest. What Socialism teaches on the subject

of labour certainly meets this requirement. To consideration of the socialist doctrine of labour let us now accordingly turn.

The importance of true and the danger of false teaching in regard to labour can hardly be exaggerated. The history of labour is one in many respects most painful to contemplate. For although it is a wonderful manifestation of the power, ingenuity, and perseverance of man, it is also a most deplorable exhibition of his selfishness, injustice, and cruelty. It is the history of secret or open war from the earliest times, and over the whole earth, between rich and poor, masters and servants, labour and capital. It shows us men not only gradually subduing nature, so as to render her forces obedient to their wills and subservient to their good, but constantly engaged in a keen and selfish struggle with one another, productive of enormous misery. Pride and envy, merciless oppression and mad revolt, wicked greed and wanton waste, have displayed themselves in it to a humiliating extent, and have left behind them in every land a heritage of woe, a direful legacy of mischievous prejudices and evil passions.

On no subject is it at present so easy to satisfy prejudice and to enflame passion. Religious animosities are now nearly extinct among all peoples in the first ranks of civilisation, and those who endeavour to revive them talk and strive without effect. Merely political distinctions are losing their sharpness and their power to divide, and political parties are finding that their old battle cries no longer evoke the old

enthusiasm, and that their principles have either been discredited or generally acknowledged and appropriated. But the labour question is in all lands agitated with passionate fierceness, and gives rise, in many instances, to violence, conspiracy, assassination, and insurrection. It is the distinctively burning question of the Europe of to-day, as the religious question was of the Europe of the Reformation period, or the political question of the Europe of the Revolution epoch. And it burns so intensely that the spokesmen and leaders of the labour party may easily, by the errors and excesses which spring from ignorance, recklessness, or ambition, as seriously dishonour and compromise their cause, and produce as terrible social disasters, as did the fanatics and intriguers who, under the plea of zeal for religious and civil liberty, brought disgrace on the Reformation and the Revolution.

If they do so they will be even more guilty than were their prototypes. The excesses of fanaticism are growing always less excusable, seeing that it is becoming always more obvious that they are unnecessary. It might well seem doubtful at the time of the Reformation whether the cause of religious freedom would triumph or not; but in the nineteenth century, and in countries where speech is free, where public opinion is of enormous influence, and political power is in the hands of the majority of the people, it surely ought to be manifest to all sane human beings that the just claims of labour will and must be acknowledged, and that none the less speedily or completely for being

unassociated or uncontaminated with unreasonableness and disorder.

Unfortunately many Socialists refuse to acquiesce in this view of the situation. They have come to the conclusion that the condition of the labouring classes is so bad that the first and chief duty of those who befriend them is to spread among them, as widely and deeply as possible, discontent with their lot. And, accordingly, they concentrate their efforts on the attainment of this end. By the selection only of what suits their purpose, by the omission of all facts, however certain and relevant, which would contravene it, and by lavishness in exaggeration, the past and present of the labouring classes are so delineated as to embitter their feelings and pervert their judgments, while their future is portrayed in the colours of fancy best adapted to deepen the effect produced by the falsification of history and the misrepresentation of actuality.

Further, assertions the most untrue, yet which are sure to be readily believed by many, and which cannot fail to produce discontent as widely as they are believed, are boldly and incessantly made in all ways and forms likely to gain for them acceptance. I refer to such assertions as these: that the labourers do all the work and are entitled to all the wealth of the world; that the only reason why they require to toil either long or hard is that they are plundered by privileged idlers to the extent of a half or three-fourths of what is due for their services; that capitalists are their enemies; that mechanical inventions have been of little, if any,