WHAT is the state of parties in England to-day? How shall we enumerate
them? The Whigs, who stand first on the list in my title, are considered
generally to be the survival of an old historical party once looked on as
having democratic tendencies, but now the hope of all who would stand
soberly on the ancient ways. Besides these, there are Tories also, the
descendants of the stout defenders of Church and State and the divine
right of kings.
Now, I don’t mean to say but that at the back of this ancient name of
Tory there lies a great mass of genuine Conservative feeling, held by
people who, if they had their own way, would play some rather fantastic
tricks, I fancy; nay, even might in the course of time be somewhat rough
with such people as are in this hall at present. {37b} But this feeling,
after all, is only a sentiment now; all practical hope has died out of
it, and these worthy people _cannot_ have their own way. It is true that
they elect members of Parliament, who talk very big to please them, and
sometimes even they manage to get a Government into power that nominally
represents their sentiment, but when that happens the said Government is
forced, even when its party has a majority in the House of Commons, to
take a much lower standpoint than the high Tory ideal; the utmost that
the real Tory party can do, even when backed by the Primrose League and
its sham hierarchy, is to delude the electors to return Tories to
Parliament to pass measures more akin to Radicalism than the Whigs durst
attempt, so that, though there are Tories, there is no Tory party in
England.
On the other hand, there is a party, which I can call for the present by
no other name than Whig, which is both numerous and very powerful, and
which does, in fact, govern England, and to my mind will always do so as
long as the present constitutional Parliament lasts. Of course, like all
parties it includes men of various shades of opinion, from the
Tory-tinted Whiggery of Lord Salisbury to the Radical-tinted Whiggery of
Mr. Chamberlain’s present tail. Neither do I mean to say that they are
conscious of being a united party; on the contrary, the groups will
sometimes oppose each other furiously at elections, and perhaps the more
simple-minded of them really think that it is a matter of importance to
the nation which section of them may be in power; but they may always be
reckoned upon to be in their places and vote against any measure which
carries with it a real attack on our constitutional system; surely very
naturally, since they are there for no other purpose than to do so. They
are, and always must be, conscious defenders of the present system,
political and economical, as long as they have any cohesion as Tories,
Whigs, Liberals, or even Radicals. Not one of them probably would go
such a very short journey towards revolution as the abolition of the
House of Lords. A one-chamber Parliament would seem to them an impious
horror, and the abolition of the monarchy they would consider a serious
inconvenience to the London tradesman.
Now this is the real Parliamentary Party, at present divided into jarring
sections under the influence of the survival of the party warfare of the
last few generations, but which already shows signs of sinking its
differences so as to offer a solid front of resistance to the growing
instinct which on its side will before long result in a party claiming
full economical as well as political freedom for the whole people.
But is there nothing in Parliament, or seeking entrance to it, except
this variously tinted Whiggery, this Harlequin of Reaction? Well, inside
Parliament, setting aside the Irish party, which is, we may now well
hope, merely temporarily there, there is not much. It is not among
people of “wealth and local influence,” who I see are supposed to be the
only available candidates for Parliament of a recognized party, that you
will find the elements of revolution. We will grant that there are some
few genuine Democrats there, and let them pass. But outside there are
undoubtedly many who are genuine Democrats, and who have it in their
heads that it is both possible and desirable to capture the
constitutional Parliament and turn it into a real popular assembly,
which, with the people behind it, might lead us peaceably and
constitutionally into the great Revolution which all _thoughtful_ men
desire to bring about; all thoughtful men, that is, who do not belong to
the consciously cynical Tories, _i.e._, men determined, whether it be
just or unjust, good for humanity or bad for it, to keep the people down
as long as they can, which they hope, very naturally, will be as long as
they live.
To capture Parliament and turn it into a popular but constitutional
assembly is, I must conclude, the aspiration of the genuine Democrats
wherever they may be found; that is their idea of the first step of the
Democratic policy. The questions to be asked of this, as of all other
policies, are first, What is the end proposed by it? and secondly, Are
they likely to succeed? As to the end proposed, I think there is much
difference of opinion. Some Democrats would answer from the merely
political point of view, and say: Universal suffrage, payment of members,
annual Parliaments, abolition of the House of Lords, abolition of the
monarchy, and so forth. I would answer this by saying: After all, these
are not ends, but means to an end; and passing by the fact that the last
two are not constitutional measures, and so could not be brought about
without actual rebellion, I would say if you had gained all these things,
and more, all you would have done would have been to establish the
ascendancy of the Democratic party; having so established it, you would
then have to find out by the usual party means what that Democratic party
meant, and you would find that your triumph in mere politics would lead
you back again exactly to the place you started from. You would be Whigs
under a different name. Monarchy, House of Lords, pensions, standing
army, and the rest of it, are only supports to the present social
system—the _privilege_ based on the wages and capital system of
production—and are worth nothing except as supports to it. If you are
determined to support that system, therefore, you had better leave these
things alone. The real masters of Society, the real tyrants of the
people, are the Landlords and Capitalists, whom your political triumph
would not interfere with.
Then, as now, there would be a proletariat and a moneyed class. Then, as
now, it would be possible sometimes for a diligent, energetic man, with
his mind set wholly on such success, to climb out of the proletariat into
the moneyed class, there to sweat as he once was sweated; which, my
friends, is, if you will excuse the word, your ridiculous idea of freedom
of contract.
The sole and utmost success of your policy would be that it might raise
up a strong opposition to the condition of things which it would be your
function to uphold; but most probably such opposition would still be
outside Parliament, and not in it; you would have made a revolution,
probably not without bloodshed, only to show people the necessity for
another revolution the very next day.
Will you think the example of America too trite? Anyhow, consider it! A
country with universal suffrage, no king, no House of Lords, no privilege
as you fondly think; only a little standing army, chiefly used for the
murder of red-skins; a democracy after your model; and with all that, a
society corrupt to the core, and at this moment engaged in suppressing
freedom with just the same reckless brutality and blind ignorance as the
Czar of all the Russias uses. {43}
But it will be said, and certainly with much truth, that not all the
Democrats are for mere political reform. I say that I believe that this
is true, and it is a very important truth too. I will go farther, and
will say that all those Democrats who can be distinguished from Whigs do
intend social reforms which they hope will somewhat alter the relations
of the classes towards each other; and there is, generally speaking,
amongst Democrats a leaning towards a kind of limited State-Socialism,
and it is through that that they hope to bring about a peaceful
revolution, which, if it does not introduce a condition of equality, will
at least make the workers better off and contented with their lot.
They hope to get a body of representatives elected to Parliament, and by
them to get measure after measure passed which will tend towards this
goal; nor would some of them, perhaps most of them, be discontented if by
this means we could glide into complete State-Socialism. I think that
the present Democrats are widely tinged with this idea, and to me it is a
matter of hope that it is so; whatever of error there is in it, it means
advance beyond the complete barrenness of the mere political programme.
Yet I must point out to these semi-Socialist Democrats that in the first
place they will be made the cat’s-paw of some of the wilier of the Whigs.
There are several of these measures which look to some Socialistic, as,
for instance, the allotments scheme, and other schemes tending toward
peasant proprietorship, co-operation, and the like, but which after all,
in spite of their benevolent appearance, are really weapons in the hands
of reactionaries, having for their real object the creation of a new
middle-class made out of the working-class and at their expense; the
raising, in short, of a new army against the attack of the disinherited.
There is no end to this kind of dodge, nor will be apparently till there
is an end of the class which tries it on; and a great many of the
Democrats will be amused and absorbed by it from time to time. They call
this sort of nonsense “practical;” it _seems_ like doing something, while
the steady propaganda of a principle which must prevail in the end is,
according to them, doing nothing, and is unpractical. For the rest, it
is not likely to become dangerous, further than as it clogs the wheels of
the real movement somewhat, because it is sometimes a mere piece of
reaction, as when, for instance, it takes the form of peasant
proprietorship, flying right in the face of the commercial development of
the day, which tends ever more and more towards the aggregation of
capital, thereby smoothing the way for the organized possession of the
means of production by the workers when the true revolution shall come:
while, on the other hand, when this attempt to manufacture a new
middle-class takes the form of co-operation and the like, it is not
dangerous, because it means nothing more than a slightly altered form of
joint-stockery, and everybody almost is beginning to see this. The greed
of men stimulated by the spectacle of profit-making all around them, and
also by the burden of the interest on the money which they have been
obliged to borrow, will not allow them even to approach a true system of
co-operation. Those benefited by the transaction presently become eager
shareholders in a commercial speculation, and if they are working-men, as
they often are, they are also capitalists. The enormous commercial
success of the great co-operative societies, and the absolute no-effect
of that success on the social conditions of the workers, are sufficient
tokens of what this non-political co-operation must come to: “Nothing—it
shall not be less.”
But again, it may be said, some of the Democrats go farther than this;
they take up actual pieces of Socialism, and are more than inclined to
support them. Nationalization of the land, or of railways, or cumulative
taxation on incomes, or limiting the right of inheritance, or new factory
laws, or the restriction by law of the day’s labour—one of these, or more
than one sometimes, the Democrats will support, and see absolute
salvation in these one or two planks of the platform. All this I admit,
and once again say it is a hopeful sign, and yet once again I say there
is a snare in it—a snake lies lurking in the grass.
Those who think that they can deal with our present system in this
piecemeal way very much underrate the strength of the tremendous
organization under which we live, and which appoints to each of us his
place, and if we do not chance to fit it, grinds us down till we do.
Nothing but a tremendous force can deal with this force; it will not
suffer itself to be dismembered, nor to lose anything which really is its
essence without putting forth all its force in resistance; rather than
lose anything which it considers of importance, it will pull the roof of
the world down upon its head. For, indeed, I grant these semi-Socialist
Democrats that there is one hope for their tampering piecemeal with our
Society; if by chance they can excite people into seriously, however
blindly, claiming one or other of these things in question, and could be
successful in Parliament in driving it through, they would certainly draw
on a great civil war, and such a war once let loose would not end but
either with the full triumph of Socialism or its extinction for the
present; it would be impossible to limit the aim of the struggle; nor can
we even guess at the course which it would take, except that it could not
be a matter of compromise. But suppose the Democratic party peaceably
successful on this new basis of semi-State Socialism, what would it all
mean? Attempts to balance the two classes whose interests are opposed to
each other, a mere ignoring of this antagonism which has led us through
so many centuries to where we are now, and then, after a period of
disappointment and disaster, the naked conflict once more; a revolution
made, and another immediately necessary on its morrow!
Yet, indeed, it will not come to that; for, whatever may be the aims of
the Democrats, they will not succeed in getting themselves into a
position from whence they could make the attempt to realize them. I have
said there are Tories and yet no real Tory party; so also it seems to me
that there are Democrats but no Democratic party; at present they are
used by the leaders of the parliamentary factions, and also kept at a
distance by them from any real power. If they by hook or crook managed
to get a number of members into Parliament, they would find out their
differences very speedily under the influence of party rule; in point of
fact, the Democrats are not a party; because they have no principles
other than the old Whig-Radical ones, extended in some cases so as to
take in a little semi-Socialism which the march of events has forced on
them—that is, they gravitate on one side to the Whigs and on the other to
the Socialists. Whenever, if ever, they begin to be a power in the
elections and get members in the House, the temptation to be members of a
real live party which may have the government of the country in its
hands, the temptation to what is (facetiously, I suppose) called
practical politics, will be too much for many, even of those who
gravitate towards Socialism; a quasi-Democratic parliamentary party,
therefore, would probably be merely a recruiting ground, a nursery for
the left wing of the Whigs; though it would indeed leave behind some
small nucleus of opposition, the principles of which, however, would be
vague and floating, so that it would be but a powerless group after all.
The future of the constitutional Parliament, therefore, it seems to me,
is a perpetual Whig Rump, which will yield to pressure when mere
political reforms are attempted to be got out of it, but will be quite
immovable towards any real change in social and economical matters; that
is to say, so far as it may be conscious of the attack; for I grant that
it may be _betrayed_ into passing semi-State-Socialistic measures, which
will do this amount of good, that they will help to entangle commerce in
difficulties, and so add to discontent by creating suffering; suffering
of which the people will not understand the causes definitely, but which
their instinct will tell them truly is brought about by _government_, and
that, too, the only kind of government which they can have so long as the
constitutional Parliament lasts.
Now, if you think I have exaggerated the power of the Whigs, that is, of
solid, dead, unmoving resistance to progress, I must call your attention
to the events of the last few weeks. Here has been a measure of
pacification proposed; at the least and worst an attempt to enter upon a
pacification of a weary and miserable quarrel many centuries old. The
British people, in spite of their hereditary prejudice against the Irish,
were not averse to the measure; the Tories were, as usual, powerless
against it; yet so strong has been the _vis inertiæ_ of Whiggery that it
has won a notable victory over common-sense and sentiment combined, and
has drawn over to it a section of those hitherto known as Radicals, and
probably would have drawn all Radicals over but for the personal
ascendancy of Mr. Gladstone. The Whigs, seeing, if but dimly, that this
Irish Independence meant an attack on property, have been successful in
snatching the promised peace out of the people’s hands, and in preparing
all kinds of entanglement and confusion for us for a long while in their
steady resistance to even the beginnings of revolution.
This, therefore, is what Parliament looks to me: a solid central party,
with mere nebulous opposition on the right hand and on the left. The
people governed; that is to say, fair play amongst themselves for the
money-privileged classes to make the most of their privilege, and to
fight sturdily with each other in doing so; but the government concealed
as much as possible, and also as long as possible; that is to say, the
government resting on an assumed necessary eternity of privilege to
monopolize the means of the fructification of labour.
For so long as that assumption is accepted by the ignorance of the
people, the Great Whig Rump will remain inexpugnable, but as soon as the
people’s eyes are opened, even partially—and they begin to understand the
meaning of the words, the Emancipation of Labour—we shall begin to have
an assured hope of throwing off the basest and most sordid tyranny which
the world has yet seen, the tyranny of so-called Constitutionalism.
How, then, are the people’s eyes to be opened? By the force evolved from
the final triumph and consequent corruption of Commercial Whiggery, which
force will include in it a recognition of its constructive activity by
intelligent people on the one hand, and on the other half-blind
instinctive struggles to use its destructive activity on the part of
those who suffer and have not been allowed to think; and, to boot, a
great deal that goes between those two extremes.
In this turmoil, all those who can be truly called Socialists will be
involved. The modern development of the great class-struggle has forced
us to think, our thoughts force us to speak, and our hopes force us to
try to get a hearing from the people. Nor can one tell how far our words
will carry, so to say. The most moderate exposition of our principles
will bear with it the seeds of disruption; nor can we tell what form that
disruption will take.
One and all, then, we are responsible for the enunciation of Socialist
principles and of the consequences which may flow from their general
acceptance, whatever that may be. This responsibility no Socialist can
shake off by declarations against physical force and in favour of
constitutional methods of agitation; we are attacking the Constitution
with the very beginnings, the mere lispings, of Socialism.
Whiggery, therefore, in its various forms, is the representative of
Constitutionalism—is the outward expression of monopoly and consequent
artificial restraints on labour and life; and there is only one
expression of the force which will destroy Whiggery, and that is
Socialism; and on the right hand and on the left Toryism and Radicalism
will melt into Whiggery—are doing so now—and Socialism has got to absorb
all that is not Whig in Radicalism.
Then comes the question, What is the policy of Socialism? If Toryism and
Democracy are only nebulous masses of opposition to the solid centre of
Whiggery, what can we call Socialism?
Well, at present, in England at least, Socialism is not a party, but a
sect. That is sometimes brought against it as a taunt; but I am not
dismayed by it; for I can conceive of a sect—nay, I have heard of
one—becoming a very formidable power, and becoming so by dint of its long
remaining a sect. So I think it is quite possible that Socialism will
remain a sect till the very eve of the last stroke that completes the
revolution, after which it will melt into the new Society. And is it not
sects, bodies of definite, uncompromising principles, that lead us into
revolutions? Was it not so in the Cromwellian times? Nay, have not the
Fenian sect, even in our own days, made Home Rule possible? They may
give birth to parties, though not parties themselves. And what should a
sect like we are have to do in the parliamentary struggle—we who have an
ideal to keep always before ourselves and others, and who cannot accept
compromise; who can see nothing that can give us rest for a minute save
the emancipation of labour, which will be brought about by the workers
gaining possession of all the means of the fructification of labour; and
who, even when that is gained, shall have pure Communism ahead to strive
for?
What are we to do, then? Stand by and look on? Not exactly. Yet we may
look on other people doing their work while we do ours. They are already
beginning, as I have said, to stumble about with attempts at State
Socialism. Let them make their experiments and blunders, and prepare the
way for us by so doing. And our own business? Well, we—sect or party,
or group of self-seekers, madmen, and poets, which you will—are at least
the only set of people who have been able to see that there is and has
been a great class-struggle going on. Further, we can see that this
class-struggle cannot come to an end till the classes themselves do: one
class must absorb the other. Which, then? Surely the useful one, the
one that the world lives by, and on. The business of the people at
present is to make it impossible for the useless, non-producing class to
live; while the business of Constitutionalism is, on the contrary, to
make it possible for them to live. And our business is to help to make
the people _conscious_ of this great antagonism between the people and
Constitutionalism; and meantime to let Constitutionalism go on with its
government unhelped by us at least, until it at last becomes _conscious_
of its burden of the people’s hate, of the people’s knowledge that it is
disinherited, which we shall have done our best to further by any means
that we could.
As to Socialists in Parliament, there are two words about that. If they
go there to take a part in carrying on Constitutionalism by palliating
the evils of the system, and so helping our rulers to bear their burden
of government, I for one, and so far as their action therein goes, cannot
call them Socialists at all. But if they go there with the intention of
doing what they can towards the disruption of Parliament, that is a
matter of tactics for the time being; but even here I cannot help seeing
the danger of their being seduced from their true errand, and I fear that
they might become, on the terms above mentioned, simply supporters of the
very thing they set out to undo.
I say that our work lies quite outside Parliament, and it is to help to
educate the people by every and any means that may be effective; and the
knowledge we have to help them to is threefold—to know their own, to know
how to take their own, and to know how to use their own.