sort of unconscious or semi-conscious recognition of the fact that
the word “State” has taken to itself new and diverse connotations,
that the State idea has changed its content. Whatever State control
may have meant fifty years ago it never meant hostility to private
property as such. Now, for us, and for as far ahead as we can see,
it means that and little else. So long as the State interfered with
the private property and powers of one set of proprietors with a view
only to increasing those of another, the existence of parties for
and against such interference was a necessity of the case. A duty on
foreign corn meant the keeping up of incomes drawn from rent:[99]
its abolition meant a rise of manufacturers’ profits. “Free Trade”
swelled the purses of the new _bourgeoisie_: the Factory Acts depleted
them, and gave a sweet revenge to the rent-docked squire. But of this
manipulation of the legislative machine for proprietors’ purposes we
are at, or at least in sight of, the end. The State has grown bigger
by an immense aggregation of units, who were once to all intents
and purposes separate from it; and now its action generally points
not to a readjustment of private property and privileges as between
class and class, but to their complete disappearance. So then the
instinct which is welding together the propertied politicians is truly
self-preservative.
But, it may be asked by the bewildered Radical, by the tremulous
Conservative, by the optimistic Socialist, if the political leaders
are really opposed to State augmentation, how comes it that every new
measure of reform introduced into the House of Commons is more or less
colored with Socialism, and that no popular speaker will venture to
address a public meeting without making some reference of a socialistic
sort to the social problem? Why, for instance, does that extremely
well oiled and accurately poised political weathercock, Sir William
Harcourt, pointing to the dawn, crow out that “we are all Socialists
now”?
To these questions (and I have not invented them) I answer: in the
first place because the opposition of the political leaders _is_
instinctive, and only, as yet, semi-conscious, even in the most
hypocritical; in the second place, that a good deal of the legislative
Socialism appears more in words than in deeds; in the third place that
the famous flourish of Sir William Harcourt was a rhetorical falsehood;
and fourthly, because, fortunately for the progress of mankind,
self-preservative instincts are not peculiar to the propertied classes.
For it is largely instinctive and wholly self preservative, this change
in the position of the working people towards the State, this change by
which, from fearing it as an actual enemy, they have come to look to
it as a potential savior. I know that this assertion will be violently
denied by many of my Socialist brethren. The fly on the wheel, not
unnaturally, feels wounded at being told that he is, after all, not the
motive power; and the igniferous orators of the Socialist party are
welcome, so far as I am concerned, to all the comfort they can get from
imagining that they, and not any great, blind, evolutionary forces are
the dynamic of the social revolution. Besides, the metaphor of the fly
really does not run on all fours (I forget, for the moment, how many
legs a fly has); for the Socialist does at least know in what direction
the car is going, even though he is not the driving force. Yet it seems
to me the part being, and to be, played by the Socialist, is notable
enough in all conscience; for it is he who is turning instinct into
self-conscious reason; voicing a dumb demand; and giving intelligent
direction to a thought wave of terrific potency.
There is a true cleavage being slowly driven through the body politic;
but the wedge is still beneath the surface. The signs of its workings
are to be found in the reactionary measures of pseudo reform advocated
by many prominent politicians; in the really Socialist proposals of
some of the obscurer men; in the growing distaste of the political club
man for a purely political pabulum; and in the receptive attitude of a
certain portion of the cultivated middle class towards the outpourings
of the Fabian Society.
This conscious recognition of the meaning of modern tendencies, this
defining of the new line of cleavage, while it is the well-spring of
most of the Socialist hopes, is no less the source of some lively fear.
At present it is only the acuter and more far seeing of the minds
amongst the propertied classes who are at all alive to the real nature
of the attack. One has but to listen to the chatter of the average
Liberal candidate, to note how hopelessly blind the man is to the fact
that the existence of private property in the means of production,
forms any factor at all in the social problem; and what is true of the
rank and file is true only in a less degree of the chiefs themselves.
Ignorance of economics and inability to shake their minds free of
eighteenth century political philosophy,[100] at present hinders the
leaders of the “party of progress” from taking up a definite position
either for or against the advance of the new ideas. The number of
English statesmen, who, like Prince Bismarck, see in Socialism a
swelling tide whose oceanic rush must be broken by timely legislative
breakwaters, is still only to be expressed by a minus quantity. But
this political myopia is not destined to endure. Every additional
vote cast for avowed Socialist candidates at municipal and other
elections, will help to bring home to the minds of the Liberals, that
the section of the new democracy which regards the ballot merely as a
war-engine with which to attack capitalism, is a growing one. At last
our Liberal will be face to face with a logical but irritating choice.
Either to throw over private capital or to frankly acknowledge that
it is a distinction without a difference which separates him from the
Conservatives, against whom he has for years been fulminating.
At first sight it looks as though this political moment in the history
of the Liberal party would be one eminently auspicious for the
Socialist cause. But although I have a lively faith in the victory of
logic in the long run, I have an equally vivid knowledge that to assure
the triumph the run must be a very long one; and above all I have a
profound respect for the staying powers of politicians, and their
ability to play a waiting game. It is one thing to offer a statesman
the choice of one of two logical courses: it is another to prevent his
seeing a third, and an illogical one, and going for it. Such prevention
in the present case will be so difficult as to be well nigh impossible;
for the Liberal hand still holds a strong suit--the cards political.
It is quite certain that the social programme of our party will
become a great fact long before all the purely political proposals
of the Liberals have received the Royal assent; and the game of the
politician will be to hinder the adoption of the former by noisily
hustling forward the latter. Unfortunately for us it will be an
easy enough game to play. The scent of the non-Socialist politician
for political red herrings is keen, and his appetite for political
Dead Sea fruit prodigious. The number of “blessed words,” the mere
sound of which carries content to his soul, would fill a whole page.
In an age of self-seeking his pathetic self-abnegation would be
refreshing were it not so desperately silly. The young artizan on
five-and-twenty shillings a week, who with his wife and children
occupies two rooms in “a model,” and who is about as likely to become
a Lama as a leaseholder, will shout himself hoarse over Leaseholds’
Enfranchisement, and sweat great drops of indignation at the plunder
of rich West End tradesmen by rich West End landlords. The “out of
work,” whose last shirt is in pawn, will risk his skull’s integrity in
Trafalgar Square in defence of Mr. O’Brien’s claim to dress in gaol
like a gentleman.
Of course all this is very touching: indeed, to be quite serious, it
indicates a nobility of character and breadth of human sympathy in
which lies our hope of social salvation. But its infinite potentiality
must not blind us to the fact that in its actuality the dodgy Liberal
will see his chance of the indefinite postponement of the socialising
of politics. Manhood suffrage, female suffrage, the woes of deceased
wives’ sisters, the social ambition of dissenting ministers, the legal
obstacles to the “free” acquirement of landed property, home rule
for “dear old Scotland” and “neglected little Wales,” extraordinary
tithes, reform of the House of Lords: all these and any number of other
obstacles may be successfully thrown in the way of the forward march
of the Socialist army. And the worst of it all is that in a great part
of his obstructive tactics the Liberal will have us on the hip; for
to out-and-out democratisation we are fully pledged, and must needs
back up any attack on hereditary or class privilege, come it from what
quarter it may.
But, to get back to our metaphor of the card table (a metaphor much
more applicable to the games of political men), the political suit does
not exhaust the Liberal hand. There still remains a card to play--a
veritable trump. Sham Socialism is the name of it, and Mr. John Morley
the man to plank it down.
I have said above that the trend of things to Socialism is best
shewn by the changed attitude of men towards State interference
and control; and this is true. Still it must not be forgotten that
although Socialism involves State control, State control does not imply
Socialism--at least in any modern meaning of the term. It is not so
much to the thing the State does, as to the end for which it does it
that we must look before we can decide whether it is a Socialist State
or not. Socialism is the common holding of the means of production
and exchange, and _the holding of them for the equal benefit of all_.
In view of the tone now being adopted by some of us[101] I cannot too
strongly insist upon the importance of this distinction; for the losing
sight of it by friends, and its intentional obscuration by enemies,
constitute a big and immediate danger. To bring forward sixpenny
telegrams as an instance of State Socialism may be a very good method
of scoring a point off an individualist opponent in a debate before
a middle-class audience; but from the standpoint of the proletariat
a piece of State management which spares the pockets only of the
commercial and leisured classes is no more Socialism than were the
_droits de Seigneur_ of the middle ages. Yet this is the sort of sham
Socialism which it is as certain as death will be doled out by the
popular party in the hope that mere State action will be mistaken for
really Socialist legislation. And the object of these givers of Greek
gifts will most infallibly be attained if those Socialists who know
what they want hesitate (from fear of losing popularity, or from any
more amiable weakness) to clamor their loudest against any and every
proposal whose adoption would prolong the life of private capital a
single hour.
But leaving sham Socialism altogether out of account, there are other
planks in the Liberal “and Radical” programme which would make stubborn
barriers in the paths of the destroyers of private capital. Should, for
instance, Church disestablishment come upon us while the _personnel_ of
the House of Commons is at all like what it is at present, few things
are more certain than that a good deal of what is now essentially
collective property will pass into private hands; that the number of
individuals interested in upholding ownership will be increased; and
that the only feelings gratified will be the acquisitiveness of these
persons and the envy of Little Bethel.
Again, the general state of mind of the Radical on the land question
is hardly such as to make a Socialist hilarious. It is true your
“progressive” will cheer Henry George, and is sympathetically inclined
to nationalisation (itself a “blessed word”); but he is not at all sure
that nationalisation, free land, and peasant proprietorship, are not
three names for one and the same proposal. And, so far as the effective
members of the Liberal party are concerned, there is no question at
all that the second and third of these “solutions” find much more
favor than the first. In fact, in this matter of the land, the method
of dealing with which is of the very propædeutics of Socialism, the
Radical who goes for “free sale” or for peasant ownership, is a less
potent revolutionary force than the Tory himself; for this latter only
seeks to maintain in land the state of things which the Ring and Trust
maker is working to bring about in capital[102]--and on the part which
_he_ is playing in economic evolution we are all agreed.
From such dangers as these the progress of Democracy is, by itself,
powerless to save us; for although always and everywhere Democracy
holds Socialism in its womb, the birth may be indefinitely delayed by
stupidity on one side and acuteness on the other.
I have gone at some length into an analysis of the possible artificial
hindrances to Socialism, because, owing to the amiability and
politeness shown us by the Radical left wing during the last twelve
months; to the successes which Radical votes have given to some of our
candidates at School Board and other elections; and to the friendly
patronage bestowed upon us by certain “advanced” journals, some of our
brightest, and otherwise most clear-sighted, spirits have begun to base
high hopes upon what they call “the permeation” of the Liberal party.
These of our brothers have a way of telling us that the transition to
Socialism will be so gradual as to be imperceptible, and that there
will never come a day when we shall be able to say “now we have a
Socialist State.” They are fond of likening the simpler among us who
disagree with them as to the extreme protraction of the process, to
children who having been told that when it rains a cloud falls, looks
disappointedly out of the window on a wet day, unconscious that the
cloud is falling before their eyes in the shape of drops of water. To
these cautious souls I reply that although there is much truth in their
contention that the process will be gradual, we shall be able to say
that we have a Socialist State on the day on which no man or group of
men holds, over the means of production, property rights by which the
labor of the producers can be subjected to exploitation; and that while
their picturesque metaphor is a happy as well as a poetic conceit, it
depends upon the political acumen of the present and next generation of
Socialist men whether the “cloud” shall fall in refreshing Socialist
showers or in a dreary drizzle of Radicalism, bringing with it more
smuts than water, fouling everything and cleansing nowhere.
This permeation of the Radical Left, undoubted fact though it is of
present day politics, is worth a little further attention; for there
are two possible and tenable views as to its final outcome. One is
that it will end in the slow absorption of the Socialist in the
Liberal party, and that by the action of this sponge-like organism,
the whole of the Rent and Interest will pass into collective control,
without there ever having been a party definitely and openly pledged
to that end. According to this theory there will come a time, and that
shortly, when the avowed Socialists and the much socialised Radicals
will be strong enough to hold the balance in many constituencies, and
sufficiently powerful in all to drive the advanced candidate many
pegs further than his own inclination would take him. Then, either
by abstention or by actual support of the reactionary champion at
elections, they will be able to threaten the Liberals with certain
defeat. The Liberals, being traditionally squeezable folk (like all
absorbent bodies), will thus be forced to make concessions and to
offer compromises; and will either adopt a certain minimum number of
the Socialis_tic_ proposals, or allow to Socialists a share in the
representation itself. Such concessions and compromises will grow in
number and importance with each successive appeal to the electorate,
until at last the game is won.
Now it seems to me that these hopefuls allow their desires to distort
their reason. The personal equation plays too large a part in the
prophecy. They are generally either not yet wholly socialised Radicals
or Socialists who have quite recently broken away from mere political
Radicalism, and are still largely under the influence of party ties
and traditions. They find it almost impossible to believe that the
party with which they acted so long, so conscientiously, and with
so much satisfaction to themselves, is, after all, not the party to
which belongs the future. They are in many cases on terms of intimate
private friendship with some of the lesser lights of Radicalism, and
occasionally bask in the patronizing radiance shed by the larger
luminaries. A certain portion of the “advanced” press is open to
them for the expression of their views political. Of course none of
these considerations are at all to their discredit, or reflect in
the very least upon their motives or sincerity; but they do color
their judgment and cause them to reckon without their host. They are
a little apt to forget that a good deal of the democratic programme
has yet (as I have said above) to be carried. Manhood suffrage, the
abolition of the Lords, disestablishment, the payment of members:
all these may be, and are, quite logically desired by men who cling
as pertinaciously to private capital as the doughtiest knight of the
Primrose League. Such men regard the vital articles of the Socialist
creed as lying altogether outside the concrete world--“the sphere of
practical politics.” Meanwhile the Socialist votes and voices are well
within that sphere; and it is every day becoming more evident that
without them the above-mentioned aspirations have a meagre chance of
realisation. Now, from the eminently business-like Liberal stand-point,
there is no reason whatever why concessions should not be made to the
Socialist at the polling booth so long as none are asked for in the
House of Commons. And even when they are demanded, what easier than to
make some burning political question play the part which Home Rule is
playing now? Thus an endless vista of office opens before the glowing
eyes of the practical politician, those short-sighted eyes which see so
little beyond the nose, and which, at that distance only, enable their
owner to hit the white.
The Radical is right as usual in counting on the Socialist alliance
up to a certain point. For us the complete democratisation of
institutions is a political necessity. But long before that complete
democratisation has been brought about, we shall have lost our patience
and the Radicals their temper.
For as Mr. Hyndman tells the world with damnable (but most veracious)
iteration, we are “a growing party.” We recruit by driblets; but we
do recruit; and those who come to us come, like all the new American
newspapers, “to stay.” Our _faith_, our reason, our knowledge, tell
us that the great evolutionary forces are with us; and every addition
to our ranks causes us, in geometrical proportion, to be less and
less tolerant of political prevarication. Directly we feel ourselves
strong enough to have the slightest chance of winning off our own bat,
we shall be compelled both by principle and inclination to send an
eleven to the wickets. They will have to face the opposition, united or
disunited, of both the orthodox parties, as did the defeated Socialist
candidates at the School Board election in November, 1888. And whether
our success be great or small, or even non-existent, we shall be
denounced by the Radical wire-pullers and the now so complaisant and
courteous Radical press. The alliance will be at an end.
There is yet another way in which we may win the ill-will of our
temporary allies and, at present, very good friends. I have spoken
above of certain reactionary items of a possible Radical programme,
which, although they have a grotesque resemblance to Socialism, are
worlds away from being the thing itself. These proposals we not only
cannot support, but must and shall actively and fiercely oppose. At the
first signs of such opposition to whoever may be the Liberal shepherd
of the moment, the whole flock of party sheep will be in full cry upon
our track. The ferocity of the _mouton enragé_ is proverbial; and we
shall be treated to the same rancour, spleen, and bile which is now so
plenteously meted out to the Liberal Unionists.
The immediate result of this inevitable split will be the formation
of a definitely Socialist party, _i.e._, a party pledged to the
communalisation of all the means of production and exchange, and
prepared to subordinate every other consideration to that one end. Then
the House of Commons will begin dimly to reflect the real condition of
the nation outside; and in it we shall see as in a glass, darkly, or
smudgedly, something of that “well defined confrontation of rich and
poor,” of which all who attend Socialist lectures hear so much, and to
which _ex hypothesi_, the world, day by day, draws nearer. Then, also,
will begin that process which, I submit, is more likely than either the
absorption of the Socialist or the prolonged permeation of the Radical:
namely, the absorption of the Radical himself into the definitely
pro-private capital party on the one side, and the definitely
anti-private capital party on the other.
A really homogeneous Socialist party once formed, the world political
reflects the world economic, and there is no longer any room for the
Radical, as we know the wonder. Each fresh Socialist victory, each
outpost driven in, each entrenchment carried, will be followed by a
warren-like scuttle of alarmed and well-to-do Radicals across the floor
of the House of Commons, which will once more become a true frontier;
and, finally, the political battle array will consist of a small
opposition, fronting a great and powerful majority, made up of all
those whose real or fancied interests would suffer from expropriation.
Thus far the outlook has been clear and focusable enough; and it has
needed no extra-human illumination to see the details. All that has
been wanted has been normal vision and a mind fairly free of the
idols of the cave. But here the prospect becomes dim and uncertain;
and little purpose would be served by trying to pierce the mist which
enshrouds the distant future.
Much, very much, will depend upon the courage, the magnanimity,
the steadfastness, the tact, the foresight, and above all upon the
incorruptibility of those whose high mission it will be to frame the
policy and direct the strategy of the Socialist party in those early
days of its parliamentary life. It will have sore need of a leader as
able as, and more conscientious than, any of the great parliamentary
figures of the past. The eye expectant searches in vain for such a man
now among the younger broods of the new democracy. He is probably at
this moment in his cradle or equitably sharing out toys or lollipops
to his comrades of the nursery. And this is well; for he must be a man
quit of all recollections of these days of _Sturm und Drang_, of petty
jealousies, constant errors, and failing faith. He must bring to his
task a record free from failure and without suspicion of stain.
But whatever may be the difficulties in store for us who name the name
of Socialism, of one thing at least they who have followed this course
of lectures may make quite sure. That, however long and wearisome the
struggle, each day brings us nearer victory. Those who resist Socialism
fight against principalities and powers in economic places. Every new
industrial development will add point to our arguments and soldiers
to our ranks. The continuous perfecting of the organisation of labour
will hourly quicken in the worker the consciousness that his is a
collective, not an individual life. The proletariat is even now the
only real class: its units are the only human beings who have nothing
to hope for save from the levelling up of the aggregate of which they
form a part. The intensifying of the struggle for existence, while
it sets _bourgeois_ at the throat of _bourgeois_, is forcing union
and solidarity upon the workers. And the _bourgeois_ ranks themselves
are dwindling. The keenness of competition, making it every year more
obviously impossible for those who are born without capital ever to
achieve it, will deprive the capitalist class of the support it now
receives from educated and cultivated but impecunious young men whose
material interest must finally triumph over their class sympathies; and
from that section of workmen whose sole aspiration is to struggle out
of the crowd. The rising generation of wage workers, instead of as now
being befogged and bedevilled by the dust and smoke of mere faction
fight, will be able at a glance to distinguish the uniforms of friend
and foe. Despair will take sides with Hope in doing battle for the
Socialist cause.