The Monthly Magazine of Scientific Socialism. VOL. III. (NEW SERIES,) JANUARY-JUNE, 1885. LONDON: THE MODERN PRESS, 13, Paternoster Row, London, E.C. 1885. CONTENTS. Experiences of a Visit to Skye. By R. P. B. Frost The Elections in Germany. By Karl Frohme, (Deputy for Altona in the Reichstag) The Jevonian Criticism of Marx. By George Bernard Shaw Ghosts, Act I. Translated from the Norwegian of Henrik Ibsen by Frances Lord Social Progress and Individual Effort. By Edward Carpenter Ferdinand Freiligrath. By his Daughter Ghosts, Act II. Translated from the Norwegian of Henrik Ibsen by Frances Lord Strikes. By the San Francisco International Workmen's Association Communism. By Rev. R. Heber Newton Ghosts, Act III. Translated from the Norwegian of Henrik Ibsen by Frances Lord Ferdinand Freiligrath, (Concluded). By his Daughter The Jevonian Criticism of Marx (a Rejoinder). By Rev. Philip H. Wicksteed Anglo-Saxon Barbarism versus English "Civilization." By Thorold King Cashel Byron's Profession. Chapters I. and II. By George Bernard Shaw. TO-DAY. No. 13.-JANUARY, 1885. The Meaning of Socialism. ELLOW CITIZENS, FELL We come before you as Revolutionists, that is, as men and women who wish to see the basis of society changed. Why is this? Because in the society which now exists the majority of the people is miserable and oppressed. Often as it has been done, sickening as the task of doing it again is, we must, in order to make our meaning clear, lay before you a statement of the condition of those who live by labour in the present state of society. In these Islands, as generally throughout civilized countries, a vast part of the workers, the "labourers," including all those who are engaged in the necessary work of producing food for the community, are scarcely raised above starvation, or are punished for the crime of being born poor, by being compelled to accept the cruel relief of the workhouse. A step above these come the artisans, the inheritors of the hoarded skill of so many generations, who earn a poor livelihood, a pleasureless existence, by hard and constant toil at dull, mechanical work which is but a burden to them. The surroundings of their life are miserable and squalid; for if they live amidst the excitement of great cities, they have to pay for this by being forced to lodge in mere hovels and hutches in the midst of such sordidness and disorder, that it would almost seem as if it had been the aim of men to make the workmen's quarters of such cities as loathsome as possible: and this livelihood, such as it is, is at the best but precarious, because a shift of the markets, a change in machinery, a hard winter-or a soft one, some accident in short over which the workman neither singly nor collectively has any control, may throw him out of work and, after months of anxiety and wearing Vol. III. No. 1. New Series. A |