SOCIALISM.

PRELIMINARY REMARKS.

Directing attention to the Attacks of Socialism, and the Character and Authority of its Modern Representatives.

AN apology for bringing before the public the subject of this volume is scarcely needed. The fresh currents of a powerful movement, now sweeping across every country in Europe, are felt by all, and dreaded by not a few. Socialism and democracy are words of pregnant meaning, and the antagonism between the possessing and the labouring classes becomes daily more evident and more alarming. The frequent meetings of working men to assert their claims, the unwelcome interruptions of industrial pursuits by means of strikes, are some of the indications (and others are not wanting) to warn us of a powerful ferment which now is agitating the heart of our labouring people. Some think that what we experience now are only the first waves of an advancing flood—a great social revolution. The old "patriarchal relationship" between the paid artisan and the capitalist who employed him has disappeared, to return no more. Even from Russia tidings have reached us of the spread of agrarian socialism. In Basle the International Congress, held in 1869, declared that private landed property is to cease. Hired labourers know how to use

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their rights of coalition in forming themselves into Unions for resistance and defiance. Many of their leading spirits are in full expectation that the year 1889 may bring deliverance to the fourth estate (i.e. the labouring class) from the yoke of the "money aristocracy," just as the Revolution of 1789 rescued the third estate from the plundering domination of the other two-the spiritual and temporal aristocracy. The chasm between the money-possessing portion of the community, called by continental writers the "bourgeoisie," and that portion of it which possesses nothing, the operative classes or so-called "proletarians," appears not only externally in wealth and poverty, but internally and most profoundly in the heart of the people. It is not the result merely of agitation caused by the "emissaries" of some secret society, or the intangible influences of some "evil spirit." It must be traced rather to the stupendous development of modern industry, and that inequality which has accompanied it, pari passu, in the distribution of acquired wealth. We will endeavour to obtain a clear view of this grave reality which stares us in the face, and the deep significance of this modern movement.

In order to do this, we ask three questions:

(1.) What do social agitators affirm respecting the order of things existing in our present system of human economy ?

(2.) What are the improvements and changes they demand?

(3.) What is the manner of, and who are the persons by whom, this criticism is represented and these demands are made?

Respecting the first of these questions, "socialism" gives a most positive reply. Proudhon, a man of character and genius, says unreservedly "Property is theft."

SOCIALISM DECLARES PROPERTY IS THEFT." 3

Lassalle, that extraordinary champion of the German working man, gives precisely the same unflinching answer, "Present possessions are alienated property." Thus it seems that the men who clamour for a redistribution of property, the men who would render that device of justice, "Suum cuique," "Take from everybody what is his," are the very men too, who maintain that the citizen who honestly gathers wealth is a thief! However, this is not exactly the meaning of agitators such as those we have mentioned above. Their meaning is rather that the order of society, as it is, with the predominant power of capital, leads frequently, nay compels, even wellmeaning employers to make hard terms with their labourers. Competition demands the lowering of wages below the actual value of labour, and the extortion of a portion of labour produce by the rich from the poor. In this sense, capital is compared to a sponge which persistently absorbs the surplus value of "another's work," who is terrified into an agreement for wages too low, by the threat of cessation of employment. Upon this issue Karl Marx speaks with the greatest authority, as a man of learning and intellectual power. According to him, capital, which is formed by the produce of another's labour, commands the market and the fluctuations of the exchange. It knows how to turn to account the various conjunctures of trade for the depression of wages; and by its agency small trade, partly destroyed by wholesale enterprise, is finally defrauded at the exchange. "How would you define socialism?" asks Lassalle of his opponents. Manifestly thus: "Division of property, for the benefit of society at large." "Now," he says, "this is precisely the condition of society of the present day. Under a semblance of individual production, a distribution of property prevails, which is determined altogether by the

objective movements of society, the hegemony of capital, competition, and conjuncture. This is in reality a division of property, for the benefit of society. At this very moment there reigns an anarchical socialism in the form of property." He then goes on to say that the object of socialists is not, therefore, to abolish property, but to establish private property founded on labour. And disregarding, he continues to say, for a moment existing rights, on account of existing social conditions, we have an undoubted right to decree that the property of the future, which is as yet non-existing, and is to be produced differently, shall be the property of labour. According to writers of this stamp, then, the present distribution of wealth is an anarchical and unjust socialism; and this "bad" form must be replaced by a better socialism in some sort of collective or common property. This may be realized either by means of free association property, tending towards social federalism, or by a concentration of all capital property in the state, which leads to pure communism. Or, again, the organization may be by state authority, without a communistic destruction of private property, without levelling down altogether, but allowing each individual a share in the common product, "in proportion to the talent, capital, or labour contributed." This leads to "semi-communism," or what is properly called socialism. Or, lastly, it may be brought about by a liberal community of goods, contributed by spontaneous love, brotherly kindness, or humanity. This leads to Christian, or humanitarian, socialism.

Now whichever of the above forms be adopted for the purpose of replacing private or individual property by common or collective property, all social neologians alike demand a new organization of property, more in proportion to the actual exertions of the individual. All