removed above the lower animals; but as time went on, it began, as we
have seen, to take a higher form. The main motive power, however, has
always been the self-regarding principle in which the struggle
originated. On the whole it was only a more rational and enlightened
self-interest which dictated the change from extermination to slavery,
from slavery to serfdom, and from serfdom to the system of competitive
free labour. Idealism, the longing for a better life, has always had a
considerable power in human affairs, and we hope that its influence will
never cease to grow and prevail. Yet it could not be seriously
maintained that the peoples who instituted slavery, serfdom, or the
competitive system, were in the main actuated by ideal or high ethical
motives. It is our duty to recognise with thankfulness that the
inevitable progress of society has brought with it a higher life, even
though it be merely due to a more enlightened self-interest.
Thus, while in its early stages it was a struggle for mere existence, in
later times it has become more and more a struggle for a privileged or
superior existence. The victors in most historic struggles have reserved
to themselves the loftier functions of government, war and the chase,
and the vanquished have been constrained to provide a subsistence both
for their masters and themselves by means of labour. Life still is a
struggle for the best places in society. And it is a particular object
of struggle not to belong to the class of manual labour.
The competitive system is the latest form of the struggle for existence.
It is not an accident, but the outcome of the prevalent historic forces.
The time had come when free labour was found to be more efficient than
servile labour. The feudal system, of which serfdom was a part, went
down before the strongly centralised State. The competitive system is
the form assumed by the struggle for existence in societies which were
controlled by powerful central governments; it is industrial freedom
under conditions of legality enforced by strongly constituted
governments. In earlier and less settled states of society the struggle
for existence used to be decided by more direct and forcible methods. In
other days men slew their rivals; at the present time they undersell
them.
And we need not say that the competitive system has been a process of
selection, bringing to the front, as leaders of industry and also as
heads of society, the fittest men.
The struggle for existence, therefore, has continued through human
history, and does still continue. And we may feel assured that under the
pressure of an ever-increasing population it will continue. The only
question is regarding the form it is likely to take in the historic
conditions which now tend to prevail all over the world.
For no conclusive solution of the population question is possible under
any system. It has been a fundamental difficulty since the beginning of
human society, and more than anything else may be regarded as the key to
history. The migrations, wars, and conquests recorded in history have
for the most part had their origin in want caused by the pressure of
population on the extant means of subsistence. No doubt, ambition,
vanity, suspicion, and restlessness have played a very considerable part
of their own in the military annals of the race, but not nearly so large
a part as is generally supposed. Historians have not given anything like
adequate attention to the economic factors which have often so
decisively operated in human affairs.
In its most comprehensive form, indeed, the population question does not
concern the immediate future, for the world is not nearly replenished
with human beings. In all the countries dominated by European
civilisation, wealth has, owing to the vast mechanical development of
the last hundred years, increased much more rapidly than population. But
the question is one which does already practically concern the more
populous centres over large areas of the world. In many of the old seats
of population, both in Europe and the East, the struggle for existence
is intense, and if not strongly counteracted, must tend to the increase
of egotism, unscrupulousness, and general demoralisation. This is most
observable in cases where a large population has to face the prospect of
a declining prosperity. If the prosperity of this country were menaced
by a great war, or a great shock to the national credit, or by both
together, or simply by the slow decline of its industrial and commercial
supremacy, the struggle for existence in our large towns would be
unspeakable.
It is obvious, therefore, that we are not yet done with the problem of
population. It is always a serious matter in the great centres; it may,
under very conceivable circumstances, be a fearful dilemma at no very
distant date; and as the world becomes more thickly peopled it will more
and more present itself as a pressing question. We cannot here, however,
enter into a detailed discussion of the problem. It will probably always
be a difficulty, and will call forth a variety of answers. But, as we
have already said, no satisfactory and conclusive solution can be
offered or expected by any one who understands the conditions of the
problem. The solution must wait on the moral and social development of
mankind. There is certainly no prospect of the question being materially
affected by any physiological modification of the human constitution. We
can only hope that the present progress of civilised countries in
morality, intelligence, and in a reasonable standard of living, will
continue; that the improvement in material and economic conditions will
go hand in hand with ethical advancement; that the happiness of mankind
will not be wrecked by the irrational and unrestrained gratification of
a single passion. If the mass of the people remain as they are, ready to
sacrifice their own happiness and that of posterity to animal instinct,
the population question cannot be solved, and the best hopes of human
progress must be unfulfilled.
For socialism, as we have explained it, it may be claimed that it gives
the strongest guarantees that the difficulty will receive the best and
most rational treatment. As socialism generally means the supremacy of
reason and morals over the natural forces, so with reference to the
population question it means that natural appetite should be controlled
by nobler and more rational feelings and principles. Under a socialistic
system every member of the community will be interested in this as in
every other serious question. The general enlightenment and the social
conscience will most powerfully co-operate with the light and the
conscience of the individual to effect a reasonable and a beneficent
solution, as far as possible.
* * * * *
But we must now return to the questions with which we started—the
relation of socialism to the struggle for existence, and to social
progress as dependent on the struggle for existence. As we have seen,
the Darwinian theory of the struggle for existence has the widest
application to human society and human history. But the struggle for
existence is not the sole principle of social progress. Social progress
proceeds from the interaction, the balance and harmony, of many
principles. The general question of social development, in which that of
progress is involved, must be regarded in the light of the following
considerations. Only we must premise that they are not a contradiction
of the Darwinian theory; they are to be taken as a complement of it, and
a correction of the narrow and one-sided conception of the theory.
1. The political, social, and ethical development of mankind is largely
a record of the endeavour to place the struggle for existence under
regulation. Progress chiefly and supremely consists in the growing
control of ethical principle over all the forms of selfishness, egotism,
unscrupulousness, and cruelty called forth by such struggle. In other
words, progress mainly consists in the growing supremacy of law, order,
and morality over the excess of the self-regarding principle in which
the individual struggle has its root. We do not say that this exhausts
the meaning of the ethical development of man, but it is a most
important aspect of it.
Thus the ethical factor is the decisive one in human progress, but it
has advanced _pari passu_ with the general social and political
progress. We see it in the crudest and most elementary forms when man
emerged from the darkness of pre-historic times, and it has gradually
developed into a noble complex of ideals, informed by a growing
knowledge and by widening sympathies. In short, human progress has been
a continual effort towards the realisation of the true, the beautiful,
and the good, in such measure as was attainable by each succeeding
generation of the race.
Not that the struggle for existence is hereby abolished. The struggle,
and the regulation of it too, are carried forward into a further stage
of progress, to be continued on a higher social and ethical plane. The
human struggle generally is on a higher plane than the animal one which
Darwin describes. It is a struggle on the plane of an intelligence which
never ceases to develop, amongst beings who pursue social and ethical
aims with growing clearness and energy. If the results still fall so far
below our aims, it is because our intelligence and means of performance,
though enlarging, are still very imperfect.
What we call natural selection in the animal world is in human history
transformed, elevated, and idealised; it becomes social selection. We
may call it natural, if we please; only, we must remember the greatly
altered character of the agents concerned in it. While at every stage we
see moral and intellectual growth, we must particularly remember that
the new society for which socialists strive will consist of associated
free beings acting under the regulation and stimulus of high ethical and
artistic ends and ideals.
Nothing, therefore, can be more narrow and one-sided than to consider
the struggle for existence as the sole lever of human progress. Such
one-sided insistence on the idea of struggle is to deny the whole
ethical development of the world.
Socialism professes to continue and promote the ethical and social
development which we have described; on a higher plane of progress than
has hitherto been reached to place the natural economic powers operating
in human destiny under the regulation of reason, moral principle, and
ideals of beauty; to render technical and mechanical appliances, and all
the material and economic factors underlying human life, subservient to
the well-being of man in a way hitherto unattained; and so to achieve
the ethical freedom of man and his rational supremacy over the world.
The competitive system is the latest phase in the struggle for
existence, and socialism is the latest theory for the regulation of it
along the well-approved lines of human progress.
By such tests, none lower or narrower, must a rational socialism be
tried.
2. There is, however, one side of this ethical progress which deserves
to be more particularly considered. The ethical progress of man is
largely a development of the principle of sociality, community, or
association. This principle has its centre in the family, with all that
is implied therein; in the association of man and woman, in the
sacrifices made by both and especially by the mother for the children.
Historically, it has developed from the tribe into ever wider and more
complex forms—the city, nation, and race—until it more and more
embraces the whole human family. That is, it finally tends to become
international, so that the whole human family may be included in common
ethical and social bonds—a state of things which is still far from
being realised, but it is in process.
In the evolution of living things two factors have been decisive, the
development of brain power and the development of the social principle.
We need scarcely add that the two are intimately connected, and further
that the brain power of man is closely co-ordinated with his physical
development. The supremacy of man is due to his brain power and to his
readiness to associate for common ends, far more than to his strength or
hardihood, in which he is greatly excelled by other animals. The entire
history of civilisation bears witness to the potency of the two factors;
for it is a truism to say that the communities and races that have
excelled in brain power and in the family and social moralities have
prevailed. A rational socialism might be defined as the mastery of
associated human intelligence over the resources of nature for the
general good. In this respect, also, the success of socialism would
simply mark the continuous development of man along the tested and
approved lines of progress.
It is no doubt one of the many exaggerations of Lassalle, due partly to
his function of agitator, that he laid excessive emphasis on the
principle of community as the lever of progress, compared with the
individual principle. Progress has always depended on the action and
interaction of both principles. It is rather an idle question, which of
the two is the more important; like that other question, whether the
great man makes the age, or the age makes the great man. The man and the
age make each other.
We know the great influence often exerted in history by exceptional
brain power or character, and both are often associated with a prominent
individual. But high individual capacity is usually, if not always,
found in an age and community with a high average of talent.
Well-organised and well-endowed societies are most likely to produce the
strongest and finest individuals, and it is only in such societies that
the greatest individuals are likely to find adequate scope for their
powers. We cannot form a just estimate of our subject unless we give due
weight to both principles, but obviously the danger to society lies in
the excessive development of the individual principle. History has too
often witnessed the abnormal development of private selfishness, so
overgrown as to weaken and finally dissolve the society in which it
acted, thus accomplishing its own destruction. This is indeed the open
secret of the ruin of most communities that have existed. We should seek
in vain for an instance of a community ruined by excessive regard for
the public good. A happy and wholesome individual development can be
secured only by healthy relation and due subordination to society and
the common weal.
It will be seen, then, that the principle of sociality or of association
plays a specially important part in human development. Yet in close
connection with it we again observe the wide operation of the struggle
for existence. The struggle for existence is not only a struggle of
individuals against each other. It has also been a struggle of tribe
against tribe, of city against city, of nation against nation, and race
against race. In the existing society it is, moreover, a struggle of
classes against each other. Considered in this aspect, which is too
obvious to require illustration, the struggle for existence has assumed
the most complicated forms, and has had the greatest influence in the
history of the world. And the intensity of the struggle has called forth
some of the highest human qualities—inventiveness, capacity for
organisation, submission to discipline, enthusiasm, heroism, and
self-sacrifice. The struggle, hateful though it be in many respects, has
been one of the great training schools of the human race.
Modern European history is an impressive example of the importance of
this struggle for existence. The progress of Europe is greatly owing to
the fact that in this continent we have a group of communities which are
closely related, yet independent, and rivals. In every department of
activity they learn from each other, and spur one another on by
continual emulation. Each must follow its rivals in the adoption of
every new improvement, under penalty of decline and even ruin.
Communities like China and India in the old world, and the native States
of Mexico and Peru in the new world, were isolated, and therefore
stationary.
Under the existing conditions, a social organisation favourable to the
development of the intelligence, energy, and enthusiasm of the mass of
the people is more and more necessary to success in the keen and arduous
struggle waged by the European communities. The future both of democracy
and of socialism will largely depend on how far they can supply these
advantages of organisation. For it is a struggle also between forms of
social organisation. Any better form of organisation, when adopted by
one of the communities, must also be adopted by its rivals. As soon as
it was recognised that universal education and universal liability to
military duty gave Prussia an exceptional advantage in the European
struggle, other nations have been eager to follow.
Thus, through the development of the principle of sociality in the
history of civilisation, the struggle for existence is not abolished. It
is continued under more complex conditions, on a wider scale, over
larger areas, by greater masses of organised men, with mightier weapons
and vaster resources.
3. It is one of the most interesting aspects of history, that we regard
it as the education of the human race. Social progress is the result of
a long process of discipline, and the training has often been most
severe. It would appear as if mankind needed to be goaded and driven
forward on the path of improvement.
The theory of the struggle for existence throws new light on the
education of humanity. The nations of the world have been schoolmasters
to each other; and the competitive system, too, has been a process of
discipline for all who have been concerned in it. Socialism, rightly
understood, may be regarded as a new phase of the discipline of
humanity. For the transition into socialism, if attainable at all, will
be more difficult than many suppose. It must be gradual, preparing the
minds and morals, the habits and institutions, of the mass of the people
for a higher form of social-economic life. As isolated individuals, the
working class have no prospect of success. They can make progress only
by practising the virtues of combination, foresight, self-control,
self-denial, discernment in choosing their leaders, loyalty, unwearying
perseverance in well-doing. These qualities have been already cultivated
in them by means of their trade-unions and co-operative societies. The
process of socialistic evolution will carry on the process of
social-economic education.
Socialism must therefore be regarded as providing an economic and social
discipline for all men who have the requisite insight, and particularly
for the working class, who are its special representatives and
promoters. It will offer fresh scope and opportunity to the working
class as a whole. But it will also be a process of social selection;
for, while inviting all, it will attract the fittest and most worthy,
and lead them on to higher things.
CHAPTER XIII
RECENT PROGRESS OF SOCIALISM
During recent years the organised socialism has made notable progress in
nearly all parts of Europe. The German working men still continue to
form the vanguard of the proletariat of the world. At the general
election of 1893 the Social Democrats polled 1,786,000 votes, which was
an increase of nearly 360,000 on the large figures of 1890. At the
general election of 1898 the Social Democratic vote rose to about
2,100,000. Their seats in the Reichstag increased from 48 to 56, out of
a total of 397.
There is no change to record in the principles of this powerful party.
Its tactics, while remaining essentially the same, naturally vary to
some degree according to circumstances. It adheres to the Erfurt
programme. Its single-minded aim is the advocacy and promotion of the
interests and ideals of the working class of Germany without compromise
and without alliance with other parties, though it is ready to
co-operate with them in particular questions. The party consistently
refuses to vote for the imperial budgets, not only because they are
designed for the support of militarism, but because they are so largely
made up of indirect taxes that throw an unfair burden on the poorer
classes. To the high tariff, which, after long discussion, came into
operation in 1906, they offered the most strenuous resistance. The
Social Democrats are also in general opposed to the colonial policy of
the empire. They are the champions of the democratic rights of the
people, of free speech, of a free press, and especially of the right of
combination, which was lately threatened by the Emperor. In all matters
relating to factory legislation and the better protection of the working
class in its daily life and vocation they are forward both to make
suggestions themselves and to assist any legislation which is really
fitted to contribute towards these important ends. They claim, in fact,
to be the representatives and advocates in the widest sense of the
working class of Germany, and are opposed to all measures which tend to
strengthen the class State to which they are so entirely opposed. While
expressing a preference for peaceful methods, they still regard as
probable a great crisis or catastrophe by which they will gain political
power and so realise their collectivist ideal. Such a crisis will, they
say, be brought on not by them but by the ruling classes, of which the
class State is the representative.
At the Annual Congress at Stuttgart in 1898 the busts of Marx and
Lassalle appeared on the platform amidst laurels and palms. The busts of
Lassalle, Karl Marx, and Engels were grouped amidst ferns and flowers
round an allegorical figure of Liberty on the platform at the Hanover
Congress of 1899. It is only right to add that, with the development of
Social Democracy in Germany and throughout the world, the stage on which
these men appear seems to widen and their stature to grow. Their
writings, whether learned or popular, are read and pondered in all lands
of the civilised world, sometimes leading to organisation and action,
often to latent thought and conviction ready to bear fruit in due time.
Lassalle and Karl Marx promise to be, if they are not already,
historical figures of the first magnitude.
It is also clear that, if the Social Democracy means to be worthy to
guide the destinies of the working class of Germany, it must not stiffen
and degenerate into a sect. Its principles and tactics founded on the
views of Marx must be subject to continual discussion and to revision.
The party is disposed to take Marx too literally, more literally than
Marx took himself. They have been disposed out of season to emphasise
the ultra-revolutionary side of Marx. We have already seen that this
ultra-revolutionary side of Marx was the product of a time and of
circumstances which no longer prevail in Germany or elsewhere, or
prevail at least in a much milder degree. But there was another side to
Marx. It would not be fair to call it his opportunist side. On this side
Marx had regard to his environment, as every man must have. Even in the
communistic manifesto Marx recommended co-operation with other advanced
parties for the attainment of democratic ends. He recognised the
possibilities of progress contained in a peaceful evolution. Factory
legislation and the co-operative movement in England were not only good
results, they were the victories of new principles. As we have seen, he
believed that in America, England, and Holland the workmen might attain
their goal by peaceful means. In a milder time it would only be
consistent that this milder side of Marx should be more emphasised by
his followers.
The necessity for a criticism of Marx as a condition of the further
development of his teaching has recently been pointed out by Eduard
Bernstein, formerly editor of the _Sozialdemokrat_. This criticism he
attempted in a memorial addressed to the Congress at Stuttgart, and more
fully in 1899 in a book _Die Voraussetzungen des Sozialismus und die
Aufgaben der Sozialdemocratie_. Bernstein’s criticism is applied more or
less to all the leading positions of Marx, his materialistic conception
of history, his dialectical method, his theory of surplus value, his
revolutionary conception of social development which looks forward to a
great catastrophe as the close of the capitalistic era. He maintains
that statistics do not favour the theory that a social catastrophe is
imminent as the result of a class war carried on by a continually
increasing host of impoverished and degraded proletarians against a
diminishing band of the colossal magnates of capitalism, and has greater
faith in a peaceful evolution through the democratic transformation of
the State, the extension of municipal socialism and of the co-operative
movement. We need not say that we believe that these criticisms are in
the right direction.
Bernstein’s book made a great stir in Germany, and received a limited
support at the Hanover meeting. But a resolution, which was moved by
Bebel in a long and able speech, and which affirmed the old positions of
the party against Bernstein, was carried by an overwhelming majority.
The abstract collectivism of the German Social Democratic party is not
fitted to ensure success among the peasantry. Yet at the election of
1898 they gained ground in many agricultural districts east of the Elbe.
We may presume that these results were obtained chiefly among the purely
labouring class as distinguished from the men who own their farms. But
they do not despair of also winning over the peasant owners, many of
whom are heavily burdened with mortgages. The peasant owner is often
proprietor only in name, being really caretaker for the mortgagee, and
therefore merely a dependent of the capitalist.
All previous successes of the German Social Democrats were eclipsed by
the triumph at the general election of 1903, when they counted 3,010,000
votes, and returned 81 members. Of the entire poll they had 32 per cent,
or nearly one-third. It was an increase of 900,000.
The number of their seats in the Reichstag never correspond to their
votes at the elections. There has been no Redistribution Act since the
founding of the Empire, and the strength of the party lies in the towns,
which have grown enormously since 1871. Even under the most favourable
circumstances they have little direct influence on the legislation of
Germany, and still less on the executive, which depends on the Emperor
and his ministers. The rôle prescribed to them by their circumstances is
vigilant scrutiny and outspoken criticism. They are an opposition party.
In fact, they are more and more becoming the only effective opposition
party in Germany.
At the Jena meeting of 1905 the bust of Liebknecht, who died in 1900,
held a place of honour on the platform beside those of Marx and
Lassalle. Changes of organisation aiming at greater energy and
efficiency were introduced. This meeting elected a party direction
(_Parteivorstand_) of two chairmen, four secretaries and a treasurer,
with the two assessors chosen by the Board of Control. It thus consisted
of nine members. The Board of Control, which acts as check on this
executive, also numbers nine members. Among the subjects discussed were
the dearness of meat and other necessaries of life caused by the German
protective system, and the question of the general strike, introduced in
a masterly speech by Bebel, who advocated it as a possible resource in
case universal suffrage be withdrawn, or the right of combination be
infringed by the Government. A resolution in this sense was in principle
adopted by a very large majority. It was confirmed at the Mannheim
meeting in 1906.
The German Social Democrats do not insist on universal suffrage in the
hope of exercising any immediate influence on the Government or in the
Reichstag. They regard it rather as an instrument of agitation and
education. They seek to enlighten the masses of the people, to make them
of one mind on the political and economic questions that concern them,
to organise and discipline them for the great task of emancipation.
Their main field of action is the people, not parliament. Their ‘main
aim is to win the whole working class for socialism.’
In this aim their prospect of success depends on how far they can win
over the Catholic working men and the rural population. With both they
have so far gained ground. It is not impossible that they may in time
prevail with both. In their principles and tactics there is nothing now
that need give offence to the religious convictions of the Catholic
electors. The rural population could be won over by a suitable agrarian
programme. In these circumstances the Centre and the Conservatives would
alike have the ground taken away from under their feet, and the German
Government would find itself in an untenable position. For in such a
case the army could hardly continue to be a trustworthy support. The
following significant passage occurs in the speech of Bebel already
referred to:—‘The struggle in Russia sends a chill into the
marrow-bones of our rulers much more than you believe. They have a
deadly fear that the fire may cross the border. They say to themselves,
if that is possible in Russia where there is no organisation, and the
proletariat is comparatively small, what then may happen in Germany
where we have politically enlightened masses and an organised
proletariat, where already there are not only battalions but whole
regiments in the army which consist of Social Democrats, and when the
Reserve and the Landwehr are called out, whole brigades are formed of
them?’[1] The raising of the tariff has been to the party a most helpful
subject of agitation, which they have used to the uttermost. Molkenbuhr,
one of their leaders, looks forward to the doubling of their adherents
in a few years.
At the general election of 1907 the party had 3,260,000 votes, but owing
to the more active combination against it of other parties it returned
only 43 members. The congress at Nürnberg in 1908 was notable for the
first serious opposition to the rigid discipline of the party. The claim
of the South German members to vote for the budgets of their governments
was maintained by a minority of 119 against 258.
It was not till 1894 that a Social Democratic party was founded in
Holland. It is making progress: in the general election of 1897 it
counted 13,000 votes, and returned 3 members out of 100. In 1901 it had
38,000 votes, and returned 7 members, and there was besides an
independent socialist member. It had 65,000 votes and 7 members in 1905.
An interesting feature of the Dutch movement is the sympathetic
reception which socialism has met among the artist and intellectual
class generally. It is curious that anarchism has had considerable
influence, which, however, is declining.
In Denmark the social democratic movement began in 1871, and it
continues to have a strong and growing influence. At the general
election of 1903 the party returned 16 members out of 114, polling
56,000 votes. In 1906 it polled 77,000 votes and returned 24 members to
the popular chamber. For some time before 1902 half of the members of
the municipal council of Copenhagen were socialists. The mayor also was
one of the party. Denmark may still rightfully be regarded as the most
progressive country in Europe. Even in Norway and Sweden the socialists
are gaining ground. They claim to have wielded a considerable influence
in securing the peaceful separation of the two countries.
No country in Europe has during recent years had a more interesting
social history than Belgium. In hardly any country has the working class
endured such misery. Ignorance, long hours of labour and low wages, the
want of political rights and of organisation, have for generations
tended to keep the workers in the lowest estate. All the more
remarkable, therefore, is the awakening which has recently taken place.
The Belgian socialist party can now muster at the polls a voting
strength of about half a million, and in a chamber of 166 it returns
about one-fifth. In 1900 it had 33, in 1902 it had 34, in 1904 only 28,
in 1906 it had 30, and 34 in 1908. The organisation of the trade-unions
is well developed. But the distinctive feature of the social movement of
Belgium is its co-operative undertakings. These are affiliated to the
socialist movement, and form an admirable training on its more practical
side. The Belgian socialist party is specially fortunate in such leaders
as Anseele and Vandervelde.
France, which was so long the foremost nation in the revolutionary
movement, has for the last three decades yielded the first place to
Germany. The terrible disasters sustained by the working men of Paris in
1848 and 1871 quelled their revolutionary energy for a time. The first
working men’s congress after the Commune met in 1876, and at the
congress of Marseilles in 1879 a socialist party was organised. It
remained a united party till 1882, when it polled 98,000 votes. Since
that year French socialism has been fruitful in division. In view of the
danger which in 1899 appeared to threaten the Republic in connection
with the Dreyfus case, the socialist parties combined in common action
for its defence. For this purpose they formed a permanent _comité
d’entente socialiste_. Five important socialist organisations were
included in the agreement. The good understanding was broken when the
socialist Millerand entered the emergency Cabinet of that year. Without
going into details, it is enough to say that there have been two main
tendencies in French socialism—the uncompromising revolutionary school
which adheres to Marx, and an opportunist or _possibilist_ school which
has been ready to co-operate with other democratic parties. The
first-named school naturally objected to Millerand entering the Cabinet.
Socialism is rapidly becoming a power in France. According to M. Marcel
Fournier, in the _Revue Politique et Parlementaire_, the radical
socialists polled 171,810 votes at the general election of 1893 and
629,572 at that of 1898, whilst the socialists polled 598,206 in 1893
and 791,148 in 1898. The _Parti Ouvrier_ or Marx party claimed to have
cast 152,000 votes in 1893 and 371,000 in 1898. The socialist members in
the Chamber of 1898 numbered about fifty.
After 1900 two distinct parties, representing the two tendencies of
which I have spoken, were for a time consolidated. The Socialist Party
of France represented the uncompromising section. The French Socialist
Party stood for the more opportunist policy. In 1902 the French
socialists together polled 805,000 votes, and returned 48 members to the
Chamber of Deputies. There was really very little difference between the
two leading parties, and they formed a union in 1905. At the general
election in 1906 it was calculated that the whole socialist vote
amounted to 1,120,000. The unified party returned 52 members with
896,000 votes, while 23 were described as independent socialists. There
were besides 143 radical socialists.
The radical and democratic republicans are to a large degree dependent
on labour and socialist support. There is also a growing conviction that
the political principles of the Revolution of 1789, which are so dear to
the French heart, cannot be realised apart from the economic principles
which are comprehended in socialism. In the great debate of Clemenceau
with Jaurèz in the Chamber in 1906 it was no impassable gulf which
separated radical and socialist. The former was in favour of a graduated
income-tax, the eight hours’ day, and the restoration of monopolies to
the State. What we may call the prevailing republican atmosphere is most
favourable to social justice and the claims of labour. But it would be a
very serious mistake to believe that France is at all convinced of the
reasonableness or practicability of the abstract collectivism of the
socialist party. When a motion for the substitution of collective
property for individual property was put to the vote at the close of the
debate, it was rejected by 505 to only 55. As at present advised, France
will have neither clericalism nor collectivism.
The socialists form a majority in many of the most important French
communes, and exercise great practical influence on their work. Thus
they are taking a large part in the national and local life of France.
Revolutionary feeling tending to anarchism has considerable influence in
France, especially among the trade unions (_syndicats ouvriers_).
The Italian socialist party definitely separated itself from anarchism
and formed a distinct organisation at a congress in Genoa in 1892. Its
career has been a hard and troubled one. There has been much discord in
its own household. The government was for some years openly hostile. It
has been concerned in many strikes and popular disturbances. The working
classes of Italy, we must remember, were from an educational, economic,
and political point of view at an inferior stage of progress. Between
the various provinces, and especially between the north and south, the
differences of development were very serious. Italy has had long to
suffer from the burden of a divided and depressed historical past.
At the general election of 1892 the party had only 26,000 votes and
returned 6 deputies. The next elections showed a rapid increase, till in
1900 they counted 175,000 votes and returned 32 members to the Chamber.
On that occasion an alliance with the radicals and republicans partly
accounted for the increase of members returned. At the general election
of 1904 the party had a voting strength of 320,000, but returned only 27
members.
For some time after 1900 the Government was not only sympathetic, but in
some degree dependent on the party for support. As in other countries,
there is a reformist or moderate and a revolutionary wing in the Italian
socialist party. The latter takes a _syndicalist_ or trade-union form
and is largely imbued with anarchism. At the congress at Rome in 1906 a
new movement called _integralism_ became supreme. The integralists aimed
at combining the best and most effective methods of all sections,
gradual reform when possible, but violence also, and the general strike
if necessary. They are anti-monarchical and anti-clerical.
The Italian socialists have been active not only in organising strikes
but in municipal work and in co-operative undertakings. A marked feature
in the brief history of the party has been its success in organising the
peasantry. One of these peasant combinations, with a membership of
200,000, held a national congress at Bologna in 1901 and formed a
national federation. In that and the following year many agrarian
strikes were successful, and brought a little improvement in the hard
lot of the rural workers in Italy. It was a notable awakening of labour,
in which the party took a leading share. When we consider the very
backward condition of Italy and the short period during which the party
has been in existence, we must regard its success as remarkable.
After making some progress the Working-Men’s Socialist Party of Spain
has declined in recent years. The number of its votes for the Chamber
decreased from 26,000 in 1904 to 23,000 in 1905. It has, however,
succeeded in sending representatives to a good number of municipalities
and communes. The political and industrial life of Spain has been in a
most depressed condition.
Besides the Parliamentary Socialism, which is based more or less on
Marx, anarchism has always found a congenial soil in Spain, Italy, and
other countries where misery and oppression have been hereditary for so
many centuries, and which even yet have not learned habits of
self-control, of free discussion, and open action. It is such an unhappy
environment that produced the assassins of President Carnot, the Empress
of Austria, and King Humbert of Italy. Anarchism is very powerful and
widespread in the south of Spain.
We may note a rapid progress of socialism in Eastern Europe. Even Servia
and Bulgaria have socialist parties, which are affiliated to the
International. In Austria there is a numerous and active Social
Democratic Party, which has introduced the federal principle into its
organisation. It is a united party with a common programme and tactics,
but it is composed of national groups—German, Czech, Polish, Italian,
etc., each of which enjoys a real autonomy. In fact, the party is an
International on a small scale, of which the basis as regards principles
and tactics is national autonomy and international solidarity. On the
political side, it holds that the real and vital forces of the State in
Austria can be developed only on the two principles of national autonomy
and complete democracy. On the economic side the party adheres to the
common principles of socialism. At the general election of 1901 the
party polled about 800,000 votes. Its most pressing demand was for
universal suffrage as necessary to the political development of the
country. After long debate this was granted in 1907, in which year the
party polled 1,050,000 votes and returned 87 members to the Reichsrath.
The Christian Social Party returned 96 members with 722,000 votes. In
view of the medley of races and languages which exist in Austria, the
position and organisation of the party have a special interest. The
various national groups, we are told, work together in perfect harmony.
The revolutionary movement in Russia had in 1881 its tragic culmination
in the assassination of the Emperor Alexander II. Though his successor
Alexander III. was for a time kept a prisoner in his palace at Gatschina
by fear of the revolutionists, the movement was suppressed, and for
several years there was comparative quiet. Among the innovating party a
feeling set in that they had been trying to force the march of natural
evolution, and a tendency prevailed to await the time when the economic
development of the country would make revolutionary action practicable.
Under a very high tariff the industrial revolution made rapid progress.
Large factories soon led to the creation of a numerous proletariat, with
the usual strikes. A gigantic strike at St. Petersburg in 1896 may be
regarded as the starting-point of a new revolutionary movement arising
naturally out of modern industrial conditions. A Social Democratic
Party, which laid great emphasis on the doctrines of Marx, originated in
this way. The Russian socialists were for the first time represented at
an International Congress in London, 1896.
Groups of socialists, however, had been rising up and taking shape all
over the country, and it was felt by many that they could not wait for
the unfolding of the economic evolution, and that in the special
circumstances of Russia a strenuous revolutionary action was necessary.
Some surviving members of the old revolutionary party helped to supply
the nucleus of a Socialist Revolutionary Party, which was accordingly
formed towards the end of 1901. There were now two important socialist
parties in the empire: the Social Democrats, who emphasised the need for
awaiting the economic development of Russia, including the full creation
of the proletariat, and the Socialist Revolutionary Party. The first
party had little hope of leading the peasantry into the movement, so
long as they were not expropriated by the growth of the great estates.
The second party insisted on an energetic propaganda among the peasantry
as well as an active campaign against the Tzardom and its servants.
Besides these two parties we find in Lithuania, Russian Poland, and
other parts of Western Russia, a socialist organisation of Jewish
workmen called the Bund. It is the peculiar fate of the Jews in Russia
that their revolutionary activity renders them obnoxious to the
Government, whilst the exactions of the usurers and dealers of the same
race make them hateful to peasantry and workers. The Jewish question in
Russia can be understood only by due recognition of both points.
The anarchists also are still active in Russia. And among the peasantry
there is an agrarian movement, which may be regarded as the most
powerful of all, though vague and ill-organised. As we saw in our
chapter on anarchism, the revolution in Russia was an exotic or
importation from abroad in the reign of Alexander II. It has now taken
root in the soil and very strongly shows the influence of conditions
peculiar to the country. Mutinies in fleet and army, strikes and popular
risings, massacres, assassinations, conflagration, and pillage seem to
portend the dissolution sooner or later of an ancient society and a
long-established autocracy. The socialists have been the most active
agents in the appalling movement.
After the decline of the Owen agitation and of the Christian Socialist
movement in 1850, socialism could hardly be said to exist in England,
and where it attracted any attention at all, it was generally regarded
as a revolutionary curiosity peculiar to the Continent, with little
practical interest for a free and normal country like our own. As we
have seen, the English workmen took a considerable share in the founding
of the International in 1864 and subsequently. But on the fuller
development of the revolutionary tendencies of that movement, and
especially after the great disaster of the Commune at Paris, socialism
lost the not very serious hold which it had found among the English
working class. There had indeed always been a group of men who were
influenced by personal intercourse with Karl Marx and Engels during
their long residence in this country, but they were mostly of foreign
extraction, and had no wide relations with the English workmen.
About 1883 English socialism took a fresh start, indirectly through the
influence of Henry George, and directly through the teaching of Karl
Marx. By his vigorous and sympathetic eloquence Henry George gained a
hearing for opinions which were not distinctly socialistic, but
certainly tended to disturb the existing modes of thought. Though it led
to little positive result, the agitation connected with his name was
really the beginning of a radical change in English economics. A variety
of causes, among which we may mention the agrarian agitation in Ireland,
and the legislation which was designed to meet it, had contributed to
shake the confidence of the English public in the finality of the
accepted economic doctrines.
The recent English socialism had, in 1884, a definite beginning with the
Social Democratic Federation, which, with great fervour, denounced the
existing system and proclaimed the views of Marx. Most active and
prominent in this movement was Mr. Hyndman; the most eminent was the
robust and genial figure of William Morris, widely known as the author
of the _Earthly Paradise_, and one of the foremost of living poets. The
chief literary product of the movement at this early stage was Hyndman’s
_Historical Basis of Socialism in England_. The organ of the Federation
was, and continues to be, _Justice_.
About the end of the year 1885 the Socialist League diverged from the
Federation on grounds of difference, which were partly personal, partly
of principle, for the League showed a decided sympathy with the
anarchist theory of socialism. Morris himself, its leading member, had
anarchist leanings, which come out clearly in _News from Nowhere_ and
other works. Belfort Bax, another prominent member of the League, has
published _Ethics of Socialism_ and other works, which represent the
extreme and uncompromising side of the movement. The _Commonweal_ was
the organ of the League. The League and its organ, however, did not
survive many years.
The year 1884 also saw the beginning of a Socialist Society of a nature
different from the above. This was the Fabian Society, whose members
were mostly young men, clever, full of initiative, and little disposed
to bow before accepted authority. They are socialists whose aim has been
first to educate themselves in the economic, social, and political
questions of the time, and then to educate the English people in their
views, or, to use their own language, to “permeate” English Society with
progressive socialist ideas. _The Fabian Essays on Socialism_, by seven
of its leading members, published in 1890, a work which has been the
chief literary product of the Society, have had a great success. By its
popular lectures and discussions, by its tracts and its articles in the
monthly reviews, as well as by its activity in the press, the Fabian
Society has undoubtedly done much toward the permeation of public
opinion with a progressive evolutionary socialism. The tracts, of which
there is now a large number, have been always able, generally well
informed, and often brilliant. A tract by one of its members on the
Workmen’s Compensation Act, issued in 1898, had a circulation of 120,000
the first year of its publication. Important works on a large scale have
been _The History of Trade Unionism_ and _Industrial Democracy_ by Mr.
and Mrs. Sidney Webb. The writings of Mr. G. B. Shaw and of Mr. H. G.
Wells have done much to startle men’s minds out of the old way of
thinking. In 1908 the membership of the Fabian Society had increased to
2500 in the London society, and 500 more in local societies. We give its
Basis in the Appendix.
The Independent Labour Party, formed in 1893, was an organisation of
socialists with a view to political action. It was to a large extent an
offshoot from Fabianism in the provinces, and many of its leading
members are Fabians. It has kept itself in close touch with trade
unions.
All sections of recent English socialism have included men of real
ability and culture, and the movement has been marked by sincere
conviction, generous enthusiasm, and hard work in a great cause. For
some years after its rise, in 1883, it had considerable influence in the
country. Its mission was to rouse men of all classes out of the
individualistic routine which had so long been prevalent. Trade
unionists and co-operators were the objects of denunciation not less
unsparing than that which they poured upon the middle class. The
disturbances in Trafalgar Square in 1887 made no little stir; and the
Dock Strike in London, which was so ably conducted by John Burns in
1889, for a time gave the movement a national importance. It almost
seemed at one period as if English public opinion was veering round to
Socialism. The reaction which was bound to set in was certainly due in
part to the vehemence and extravagance of the socialistic orators, and
to their want of skill and insight in adapting their theories to the
atmosphere of the English mind. It is clear that recent English
socialism has been too loyal to Marx. This particularly applies to the
Social Democratic Federation, now the Social Democratic Party. But even
the Fabian basis has implications which are ultra-revolutionary, and
hardly consistent with a peaceful and orderly evolution.
At the general election of 1895, the organised socialism in England
polled only about 45,000 votes. The mass of the English working men
still voted with the old political parties. On the other hand, the Trade
Union Congresses, representing over a million workers, for several years
passed resolutions of a collectivist nature by large majorities, showing
that when the man or men appear that know how to give voice and form to
the half-articulate or latent socialism of the country it may have a
great future.
In 1900 steps were taken towards the political organisation of labour on
a wider scale than formerly. There was formed a Labour Representation
Committee in which trade unions, the Independent Labour Party, the
Social Democratic Federation, and the Fabian Society were represented.
The Social Democratic Federation retired, however, at the end of the
first year.
The new committee had been too recently formed to take much part in the
general election of 1900. Yet it then returned two members, and two more
at subsequent by-elections. At the general election of 1906 it had a
great success, and produced an impression even greater on the national
mind. As there was no definite dividing line at the election between
socialism and labour on the one hand, or between labour and liberalism
on the other, it is impossible to speak precisely as to the results. The
committee had 323,000 votes and returned 30 members to the House of
Commons. There was also a labour or trade-union group, which formed part
of the Liberal Party. We may reckon the labour members at 54, of whom
about half were socialists.
After the election the Labour Representation Committee transformed
itself into the Labour Party, and very wisely decided not to formulate a
programme. The new party had behind it a million adherents, of whom
21,000 were members of socialist societies, the rest being trade
unionists. Mr. Keir Hardie had taken the leading share in the formation
of a Labour Party distinct from the old political parties. In 1908 the
trade unions and especially the Miners’ Federation which were
represented by the liberal-labour group resolved to join the Labour
Party, but this decision was not to be operative with regard to sitting
members during the existing parliament. The same year the Labour Party
was definitely affiliated to the International. It now represented one
and a half million of adherents.
The Labour Party, whose origin we have briefly described, may fairly be
regarded as a successful attempt on a worthy scale to form a
labour-socialist organisation suited to British conditions. It appears
to be commendably free from the excessive Marx influence; but in many
important questions it has not thrown off old radical views which are
inconsistent with a reasonable and enlightened socialism.
What we may call the avowed and organised socialism has made no great
headway in the United States of America or in the English colonies.
Books like Bellamy’s _Looking Backward_ have made a great impression,
but in a vague way. Labour questions have, on the other hand, attained
to a very high state of development. The struggle between trade-unionism
and the employers’ combinations is carried on with an energy and
comprehensiveness which can hardly be equalled in any part of the old
world.
Australia has a Labour Party which is well organised and well led and
takes a most honourable place in the recently constituted Commonwealth.
It even formed the government in 1904, though it did not retain power
long. It is, however, most powerful when out of power, as it then holds
the balance between the other two parties. The party is to a great
degree socialistic in aim and tendency. It was in power again in 1908.
During recent years we have seen in America a transformation which is
without parallel in the history of the world. Till the middle of the
nineteenth century the United States might be described as an
agricultural country, which, apart from negro slavery, had no division
of classes, no poverty, and no social question. It was a highly favoured
region which to the most energetic and enterprising of the working
classes of Europe had for generations been a Land of Promise. The early
settlers had in the main brought from England all that was best and
highest in respect of character, belief, and institutions. In
particular, for the planting of New England the “finest of the wheat”
was sifted from the most progressive counties of England; and as the
area of emigration widened it embraced the best elements in the British
Isles and in north-western Europe, the best endowed and the most
progressive in the world. The country they came to live in had
resources, and offered opportunities which were almost boundless. In the
development of the country from the first settlement of Virginia, there
was just enough of difficulty to stimulate and correct the energies of a
free people.
A marvellous set of new conditions came into operation in the latter
half of the nineteenth century. The industrial revolution ran its course
with astonishing rapidity and thoroughness, and on a scale absolutely
unprecedented. The Republic now has a gigantic machine industry and a
vast railway and financial system organised in trusts which are
controlled by a few men wealthy beyond example in history, and it has
also got a large wage-earning class, the unemployed, poverty and slums.
If the commonwealth has not already become a plutocracy, it appears to
be on the downward way to it.
If the wage-earning class consisted of fully trained American citizens,
the situation would be clearer. It is complicated by the fact that for
many years the Republic has received an enormous number of immigrants
from the less-advanced countries of eastern and southern Europe, and has
the very difficult task of raising them to its own high standard of
citizenship. The general result is that America is confronted with the
vast problem, which socialism has undertaken to solve, in its most
formidable form. Between a highly organised and gigantic capitalism and
a continually increasing labour class which is largely composed of new
immigrants, and is only partially organised, a wide gulf is fixed. A
growing chasm threatens to divide the commonwealth in two. This rent is
made manifest in the strikes, which degenerate into private war and even
into civil war. Socialists maintain that they have been repressed with a
severity and brutality known in Russia alone. As yet the organised
socialism has made only moderate progress. In 1902, however, a
resolution in favour of socialism obtained about half the votes at the
congress of the American Federation of Labour, which numbered over
2,000,000 members. At the presidential election of 1904 the socialist
candidate Eugène V. Debs received 408,000 votes, in 1908 he had 500,000
votes. It was widely recognised that the presidential election of 1908
turned on the vote of organised labour. The Republican and Democratic
candidates both made special appeal to organised labour and made a
special effort to gain its vote. It is obvious that the gigantic growth
of the trust system in America has quickened inquiry into the most
fundamental questions of industrial and social order. The programme of
the Knights of Labour was for many years the nearest approach to
socialism made by any great labour combination in America. But there can
be no doubt now that America contains all the elements which favour the
growth of socialism, and especially of the labour organisations which
make for socialism.
The result of our brief review is, that in most countries of Europe the
avowed and organised socialism has a formidable and rapidly increasing
number of adherents. It is equally clear that socialistic theories have
made a wide and deep impression on the opinion of most countries of the
civilised world. Socialism has been a standing challenge to the economic
theories so long prevalent: it is a protest against the existing
social-economic order; and as such it has been discussed on every
platform, in all journals, and we may venture to say in every private
gathering, with some comprehension of its nature and aims. Whatever the
issue may be, it is very improbable that reasonable men can ever again
regard the competitive system of economics with the same satisfaction as
formerly. The mere fact that we can survey and analyse great ideas and
institutions with critical objectiveness is a proof that we are looking
back upon them, and that we have already so far left them behind in the
onward march of progress. In countries where the socialistic theory is
accepted in its entirety only by a few, it has nevertheless effected a
great change in opinion. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that the
orthodox political economy, if it exist anywhere, survives only in old
books and in the minds of a diminishing band of doctrinaires. Friends of
the existing order would now almost have us believe that the old
competitive political economy never existed at all, which at least may
be taken as a sufficient proof that its days are numbered. Under these
circumstances it is not surprising that we do not at present possess a
settled political economy.
We may best consider the growing influence of socialistic ideas on
current opinion under the following heads:—
1. On the theory of the State’s relation to labour.—The attitude of
most governments to the organised socialism is naturally unfriendly; but
the accepted view of the relation of the State to the working and
suffering classes has marvellously changed in recent years. Whereas not
many years ago the policy and principles of government took little
account of the masses of the people, it is now a recognised duty of the
State to care for them. So complete has the transformation been, that it
will soon require a considerable knowledge of history to realise it, for
the times when the claims of the lower orders were ignored are already
beginning to pass out of the memory of the younger and most active
portion of the community.
2. The relation of political economy to socialism.—We have already
referred to the influence of social problems on the classical political
economy of this country. The development of J. S. Mill’s economic views
from loyal adherence to Ricardo, to a reasonable socialism, cannot be
regarded as representative, seeing that he has so entirely outstripped
his scholars. In recent important works on economics we see indeed only
a moderate recognition of the new influences, but they do not command
the assent of the public as formerly, the result being that English
Political Economy remains in a most unsettled problematical and
unsatisfactory condition.
Here again Germany leads the way. The socialism of the chair is not to
any large extent really socialistic. But it includes among its
representatives eminent professors and other economists, who recognise
the historical and ethical sides of political economy, who go far in
giving labour problems their due place in the treatment of their
subject, and who have made most important concessions to the socialistic
criticism of the existing society and the prevalent political economy.
One of the most notable of living German economists and sociologists,
Albert Schäffle, is more than historical; his great work _Bau und Leben
des socialen Körpers_ is a construction of society from the evolution
point of view. In the same work he has even expressed his conviction
that ‘the future belongs to the purified socialism,’ though later
utterances make his attitude somewhat doubtful. However that may be, he
has brought to the study of social problems a combination of learning,
of philosophic insight directed by the best light of his time, and of
sympathy inspired by the cause of the poor man, which is not equalled by
any living economist. No great living economist has been so powerfully
influenced by socialist speculation.
3. The relation of the Christian Church to socialism.—It is a most
serious mistake to suppose that there can be any real antagonism between
the ethical and spiritual teaching of Christianity and the principles of
socialism rightly understood. The difficulty is how to reconcile the
prevalent competitive system with any reasonable conception of Christian
ethics. We can now see that Christianity was a strong assertion of the
moral and spiritual forces against the struggle for existence, which had
assumed such a hard, cruel, and vicious form in ancient civilisation and
in the Roman world. The Christian Church did much to soften and then to
abolish slavery and serfdom, into which the peoples defeated in the
struggle for existence had been forced. A right comprehension of the
Christian life and of the spirit and tendency of Christian history
should show that the Church should also use its influence against the
continuance of the struggle for existence in the competitive system, and
in favour of the less fortunate who in the course of that form of
struggle have been driven to precarious wage-labour as their only means
of livelihood.
Some of the prominent spokesmen of the Church have clearly seen that the
competitive system is not consistent with Christian teaching. As we have
already seen, Maurice and Kingsley denounced the Manchester school,
started the Christian Socialist movement of 1848, and gave a very
considerable impetus to co-operation.
The participation of the Catholic Church of Germany in the social
question dates from the period of the Lassalle agitation. In 1863
Döllinger recommended that the Church should intervene in the movement,
and Bishop von Ketteler of Mainz lost no time in expressing sympathy
with Lassalle. In a treatise entitled _Die Arbeiterfrage und das
Christenthum_ (1864) Ketteler criticised the liberalism of the
Manchester school in substantially the same terms as Lassalle, and
recommended the voluntary formation of productive associations with
capital supplied by the faithful. In 1868 the Catholic Socialism of
Germany took a more practical form: it started an organ of its own and
began to organise unions for the elevation of the working men. The
principles of the movement were with some precision expounded by Canon
Moufang in an electoral address at Mainz in 1871, and by the writers in
their organ.
All agree in condemning the principles of liberalism, especially in its
economic aspects, as destructive of society and pernicious to the
working man, who, under the pretence of freedom, is exposed to all the
precariousness and anarchy of competition and sacrificed to the Iron Law
of Wages. Self-help as practised in the Schulze-Delitzsch schemes is
also considered to be no sure way of deliverance. The general remedy is
union on Catholic principles, especially the formation of trade-guilds
suited to modern exigencies, which some of their leaders would make a
compulsory measure enforced by the State. The views of Moufang, which
are most definite, may thus be summarised: legal protection for the
workers, especially as regards hours of labour, wages, the labour of
women and children, sanitation; subventions for workmen’s productive
associations; lightening of taxes on labour; control of the moneyed and
speculating interests. In the organisation of unions the success of
Catholic Socialism has been great; and for several years the Social
Democrats made no progress in Catholic districts.
The socialist activity of the Protestant Church of Germany dates from
1878. The most important literary product of the movement is a work by
Pastor Todt entitled _Der radikale deutsche Socialismus und die
christliche Gesellschaft_. In this work Todt condemns the economics of
liberalism as unchristian, and seeks to show that the ideals of liberty,
equality, and fraternity are entirely Scriptural, as are also the
socialist demands for the abolition of private property and of the wage
system, that the labourer should have the full produce of his labour,
and that labour should be associated. The chief leader of the movement
was the Court preacher Stöcker, the head also of the anti-Semitic
agitation, which is largely traceable to economic causes. Stöcker
founded two associations—a central union for social reform, consisting
of members of the middle classes interested in the emancipation of
labour, and a Christian social working men’s party. The former has had
considerable success, especially among the Lutheran clergy. The movement
met with the most strenuous resistance from the Social Democratic party,
and was greatly hampered by the anti-socialist law of 1878.
In recent years all the sections of the Christian Church in England have
felt the influence of the democratic movement, and have shown a
commendable interest in social questions. Among Catholics the most
notable representative of this new spirit was Cardinal Manning. The
Report on Socialism made to the Pan-Anglican Conference, which met at
Lambeth in 1888, by the committee appointed to deal with the question,
was also a remarkable sign of the times. This Report accepted what
should be regarded as the main aim of socialism—the reunion of capital
and labour through the principle of association. Without expressing an
opinion on the Report, the Conference commended it to the consideration
of the people. The Christian Social Union, founded in 1889 by members of
the Church of England, has done good service. Its aim is to study ‘how
to apply the moral truths and principles of Christianity to the social
and economic difficulties of the present time.’ The late Dr. Westcott,
Bishop of Durham, took a leading part in founding and guiding it. It is
open to Conservatives and Liberals, socialists and non-socialists, who
accept its main aim, as above stated. In a pamphlet on _Socialism_ Dr.
Westcott gives one of the best and finest expositions of the principles
of the subject which we have read.
The sympathetic attitude towards labour shown at the Lambeth Conference
of 1888 was maintained also at the Conferences of 1897 and 1908. Very
noteworthy was the favourable reception given to socialistic expressions
of opinion at the Pan-Anglican Congress which preceded the Conference of
1908, though it would obviously be a mistake to assume that it meant the
acceptance of any definite collectivist economic creed. A like
sympathetic feeling has been shown in many nonconformist quarters. Dr.
Clifford, so eminent as a nonconformist leader, is a socialist and
member of the Fabian Society.
4. It is needless to speak of the great revolution in current opinion
regarding labour, as reflected in the press and in contemporary
literature. All is changed since the time when Carlyle and Ruskin lifted
up their voices in the wilderness to an unbelieving generation! All that
is best, all that is tenable in the teaching of those two great men is
comprehended in socialism rightly understood.
5. Nor is it necessary to say anything of the greatest change of all,
which has taken place in the opinions and feelings of the masses of
working men, who constitute the modern democracy. Few men, however,
really understand the new power that has arisen in the growing
intelligence of the workers, in the discontent, in the passion for
improvement, in the hopes and aspirations which so deeply move them. It
has not yet found adequate expression, direction, and organisation; but
every year it is making fresh advance towards clearness of aim. A main
part of the significance of Marx’s activity lay in the fact that he
strove to give utterance and organisation to this vast and growing mass
of vague and half-conscious sentiment. In the future we can but hope
that it will receive wise and salutary guidance.
-----
[1] _Protokoll_ of the party meeting at Jena, p. 298.
CHAPTER XIV
TENDENCIES TOWARDS SOCIALISM
So much may fairly be said regarding the influence of socialistic
speculation on the opinion of the civilised world. It must be admitted,
however, that as yet the change is mainly in the region of opinion. For
in the domain of practice the competitive system, in spite of many very
important modifications, still holds the field; and the old Political
Economy, though greatly discredited, still finds its strongest
justification in the fact that it is a reasonably accurate analysis of
an existing and working system. When asked for any grounds that may be
brought forward for believing that the socialistic ideal is becoming a
reality, we can only point to symptoms or tendencies, not to definite
results on a scale commensurate with the development of modern industry.
Yet these tendencies are large, most significant, and visibly
increasing. The following are the main lines along which they may be
observed:—
1. The State, which by a reasonable socialism should be regarded as the
association of men on a large scale, and as such should continue to have
a most important function.
2. The Municipality, or Commune, which, notwithstanding certain
objections, is the more convenient word, as it includes the parish as
well as the municipality, and which should be regarded as the
association for local purposes. As every one knows how greatly the range
of State and municipal action for the common good has been extended in
recent years, we need not enlarge on this aspect of our subject. But in
what we have to say it will be convenient to consider the State and the
local body together, as they are really complements of each other. In a
well-ordered community there should be no real opposition between the
two. Under the conditions which now prevail there can be no nourishing
local life except in reasonable relation to an efficient central organ;
and the central organ can do its part wisely and effectively only by
allowing suitable scope to local energy. No absolute rules can be laid
down for the relations of the two to each other; these must be
determined by considerations of time and circumstance. But the problem
of their opposition under any _régime_ can be a difficulty only for
unwise statesmanship.
It may not be a new thing in theory, that the State should be an
association for the promotion of the common interests of all its
members, or that the commune should be an association for the general
good of the inhabitants of a locality; but it is practically new. It is
only during the last generation that the people who form the majority of
every society have received any reasonable consideration from the organs
of the State. We have during the last seventy years seen a tardy
reversal of the old injustice in our own country, and for some years the
movement towards improvement has been growing apace. But our leading
statesmen seem even yet to be reluctant or only half willing to advance.
The domestic history of recent times is the record of concessions made,
not because the leaders of either of our great parties particularly
approved of them, but because they were demanded by large sections of
voters. In fact the initiative in legislation has now passed from the
statesmen to the democracy. We can hardly regard it as the outcome of a
reasoned and comprehensive theory of the State when politicians trained
in the theory and practice of _laissez-faire_ in 1908 passed an Old Age
Pensions Bill, which under certain restrictions gave a pension of 5s. a
week to persons over 70.
The statesmen of Germany have been more consistent; for when they
inaugurated their schemes of State socialism they frankly proclaimed
their adhesion to its principles. In this they were encouraged by the
old law of Prussia, which recognised the duty of the State to provide
subsistence for those who could not make a living, and labour for those
who were out of employment. The position of the Prussian kingdom has
always been such that it required to foster the full strength of the
State by all available means, and therefore could not afford to neglect
any considerable portion of its population. In his State socialism,
therefore, Bismarck could appeal with some show of reason to the
traditional policy of Prussia. But it was really a new departure.
Its leading principles were announced in an Imperial message to the
Reichstag on the 17th of November 1881. Besides the repressive measures
necessary to restrain the excesses of the Social Democracy, the Emperor
declared that the healing of social evils was to be sought in positive
measures for the good of the working man. The measures proposed were for
the insurance of the workmen against accident, sickness, old age, and
inability to work, by arrangements under State control. ‘The finding of
the right ways and means for this State protection of the working man is
a difficult task, but also one of the highest duties that concern every
society standing on the ethical foundations of the Christian national
life.’ The aged Emperor next went on to say that he would look back with
greater satisfaction on the successes with which Providence had visibly
blessed his reign, if he could bequeath to the Fatherland new and
lasting pledges of peace at home, and to the needy greater security and
larger means for rendering the help to which they had a claim. The
message also spoke of ‘organising the life of the people in the form of
corporative associations under the protection and furtherance of the
State, to render possible the solution of problems which the central
power alone cannot undertake.’ The Imperial programme has now been
realised. It may be regarded as the beginning of better things to come.
The help provided by its various measures is scanty enough, but no one
can reasonably doubt that it is immeasurably superior to our English
Poor Law.
So much for State socialism in Germany. To find a democracy which is
really government of the people by the people for the people, we must go
to our colonies at the antipodes. It is a democracy which both in theory
and practice has most fully recognised that the State is an association
for the promotion of the well-being of the whole people. New Zealand,
one of the youngest of the English colonies, is the finest example of
such a State. The State in New Zealand owns and works railways,
telegraphs, and telephones. When the Bank of New Zealand was on the
point of stopping payment, with the most disastrous results to the
country, the government came to its help with a guarantee of £4,000,000
and made it a State institution. It made advances of cheap money to
settlers and passed legislation to break up large estates. The laws for
the protection of labour are of the most advanced type. It settles
labour disputes by compulsory arbitration, and has in operation an
old-age pension scheme by which persons over 65 years of age receive an
annual pension. At first fixed at £18, this has been raised to £26, or
10s. a week. It has introduced women’s suffrage, graduated taxation, a
complete system of local option in the drink trade, a public system of
life insurance and of medical care, and a public trustee with very wide
and beneficent powers.
All these measures and others which we need not name are the outcome in
New Zealand of a great wave of agrarian labour and socialistic feeling
which spread over the world about twenty years ago. It has been well
described as socialism without dogma. Every measure has been examined
and approved on its merits. The policy therefore is all the more
valuable as a mass of testimony to the beneficent tendency of a
reasonable socialism. The conditions have no doubt been exceptionally
favourable. New Zealand is a young country with great natural advantages
and a small population which has a very high average of intelligence,
initiative, and energy. It is an example, however, which should be most
encouraging to the world, as it shows what may be done in a true
democracy, where the government is in entire sympathy with the people
and responsive to their wishes. The high honour of carrying out this
model legislation belongs to Richard Seddon and his associates. Seddon
was Prime Minister of New Zealand from 1893 to his death in 1906.
3. The co-operative society or association for the ordinary purposes of
industry.—Co-operation for some time made comparatively little progress
in production, but when we consider the low point from which the
movement started, only about sixty years ago, and how painfully capital,
experience, and skill had to be acquired by the poor workers, we should
rather be surprised at the advance that has been made in so many
progressive countries. It is only a partial realisation of the
socialistic ideal, but it is well founded, solid, and most promising.
Its strongest point is that it has arisen directly out of the people and
remains in close touch with them.
In England a co-operative society is usually a group of workers who
manage distribution with their joint capital in their own interests. The
group is entirely democratic, open to every one, organised on the
principle of one man one vote, and choosing their own committee or
executive; the manager is a social functionary; no member can legally
hold more than £200 of capital in any society. Production, especially
for domestic consumption, has now made very great progress. In 1907 the
movement had 1566 registered societies and 2,434,000 members. By that
date the £28 with which the movement started in 1844 had expanded into a
capital of £32,000,000, with an annual turnover of £105,000,000, and an
annual profit of £12,000,000. It provides for the consumption of
one-fifth of the population. The co-operative movement in Great Britain
is already an industrial and economic power of no mean order. If it has
not solved the social question, it has at least done much to clear the
way towards a solution. The movement is also making rapid progress in
Germany, Austria, Belgium, France, and Italy, and its greatest successes
are in other fields than distribution. In Denmark the co-operative
system is one of the brightest features of recent history. More recently
a co-operative movement of great promise has begun in Ireland.
The co-operative society, therefore, is a self-governing group of
workers, which has already made very considerable progress in
controlling the economic interests of the labouring class. Not a little
disappointment is felt that it has not accomplished greater results; as
we believe, without good ground. It might reasonably have been expected
that human nature would survive among co-operators, and that the
self-regarding principle would continue to be the mainspring of
individual action. Better social arrangements can only provide for it a
more efficient system of regulation.
It is particularly regrettable that co-operative societies have not
always had sufficient regard for their employees. There can be little
doubt that the contrast between producers and consumers, and between the
centralising and de-centralising tendencies in organisation, will long
be a difficulty among co-operators, who do not thoroughly understand the
new system to which they belong. Yet it should also be said that many of
the objections raised by the critics of the movement are really due to
the fact that they do not understand its real nature, and imagine that
they find old things where really they meet only old names.
The noblest embodiment of the co-operative idea is to be found in one of
the oldest seats of industry in Western Europe. This is the Vooruit
(Forward) Society, which was founded at Ghent in a season of scarcity by
Edouard Anseele and a few weavers in 1873. It was started with a capital
of 84 francs and 93 centimes, about £3: 8s., at first naturally as a
bakery, and has grown till it embraces the economy and life of about
100,000 out of the 165,000 inhabitants of the city. Besides the enormous
and splendidly-equipped bakeries, it has huge stores and the largest
cotton factory in Ghent, with an eight-hours’ day. It has its own
printing works, a daily and weekly press, its own system of life
insurance, and old-age pensions. It offers to its members at its
People’s Palace the means of education and of wholesome recreation and
it encourages art. This is a great achievement in a country where Church
and State, landlord and capitalist, have so long combined to keep the
workers in the lowest ignorance and degradation. The Vooruit has been a
model to similar co-operative enterprises not only in Belgium, but in
France, Holland, and Germany.
4. Of all the recent movements for the better ordering of society in
England, we believe the co-operative movement to be the most hopeful,
because the most thorough and practical, but it is only one of many.
During the last half-century we have seen a long succession of efforts,
partially successful, towards a new organisation of society rendered
necessary by the changes due to the industrial revolution. In all
spheres the watchword of the new era has been freedom, the removal of
restraint. But it has been found that positive measures of
reconstruction were also necessary. Factory legislation carried in
opposition to the prevailing economic theory, trade-unions, employers’
combinations, industrial partnerships, boards of conciliation, the
co-operative system,—all these are real, if partial, endeavours towards
a new organisation of society suited to the new conditions. They are all
modifications and limitations imposed on the competitive system, and to
them the progress of the last sixty years is largely due. Socialism
claims to be the comprehensive scheme of organisation which embraces in
a complete and consistent unity all these partial efforts.
5. But the most striking feature of recent economic history is the
continuation of the movement which began with the industrial revolution.
Through this process the small producer was superseded by the
capitalist, the smaller capitalist by the larger. And now the single
capitalist is being absorbed by the company, an increasing proportion of
the world’s business being so vast that only a great company can provide
the requisite capital and organisation; whilst in the large companies,
in case they cannot drive each other out of the field, there is a marked
tendency to bring about a fusion of interests. In all this we see a
great constructive process going on as the result of the inherent laws
of industrial development.
The movement is active in our own country; but it is far surpassed in
magnitude and activity by similar phenomena in the United States of
America, where it is favoured by special circumstances. Under the
protective system the economic development of America has proceeded
without being disturbed by the industrial power of England. It is a
self-contained and self-sufficing continent with a vast area and
enormous natural resources. The people have not such a wide variety of
political, social, literary, and artistic interests as have the ruling
classes of England, and have therefore been all the more keenly engaged
in the exploitation of the new world that lay open to them. Capitalism
in America has shown an energy, acuteness, and fertility of resource
which even in England are unparalleled. But in the various departments
of industry the chiefs have found that competition may be suicidal and
mutually destructive, and have therefore seen it expedient to arrange
with each other for the regulation of production, of prices and wages.
Hence the trusts, or great combinations of capitalists, which now
confront American society and the American Republic, and which, as the
latest development of capitalism, are well calculated to excite
scientific curiosity in every country.
The trust system is, however, by no means confined to America. A like
organisation under the name of cartels or syndicates is, in proportion
to the size of the country, almost equally strong in Germany. In forms
more or less open and undisguised it is spreading in England, Austria,
and other lands. It may be regarded as an inevitable stage in the
natural history of capitalism.
Thus far have we come through the natural growth of the company. If we
consider the nature and development of the company, we shall find that
it is not entirely undemocratic. The directors are, in principle at
least, elected and removable by the shareholders. And as the shares are
open for purchase by any one, a porter may be a shareholder in the
railway company of which he is a servant, with, so far, a voice in the
management. But in point of fact the companies are owned and controlled
by the capitalist classes, and are a development of capitalism. The
directors are usually large capitalists. Their main aim is to produce
dividends. The relation of the management to the employees cannot have
much of a kindly, human, and personal element.
On the other hand, the development of the company in a large degree
means that the real administration of the economic movement is passing
out of the hands of the owner of capital as such. The companies are for
the most part managed by paid officials, who may or may not have a
substantial holding in the capital. That is, the capitalists do not
really manage the companies in which their capital is embarked. The
manager, with a staff of paid officials, has become the pivot of the
industrial movement. Generally speaking, the large company is more
amenable to social regulation than a variety of small enterprises. And
now we see that the natural development of the company has prepared the
whole organisation necessary for its complete transference to social
ownership and control, if such a step were deemed advisable. A great
railway or system of water-supply can be transferred to State or
municipal control without any particular change in the organisation by
which it is worked. In fact, capitalism has prepared or is preparing the
mechanism by which it may be superseded. It has done its work so
thoroughly that it has been rendering even itself superfluous. We need
not add that preparatory steps towards the transformation of the company
may also be seen in the spread of the principle of industrial
partnerships or profit-sharing. In America, where the industrial
development is more recent, the founders of the great corporations still
to a large degree continue to control them. Yet we can see how the
constructive talent they have so marvellously shown has paved the way
for social control when the time may come for it.
6. But the greatest force in the social evolution of the present time
consists of the human beings who are most directly interested in it—the
modern democracy. This democracy is marked by a combination of
characteristics which are new to history. It is being educated and
enlightened in the school and by the cheap press; it is being drilled
and organised in large factories, in the national armies, by vast
popular demonstrations, in the gigantic electoral struggles of the time.
Thus it is becoming conscious of its enormous power, and able to make
use of it. It is becoming conscious also of its unsatisfactory social
and economic position. The democracy which is growing to be the
master-force of the civilised world is still for the most part
economically a proletariat dependent on precarious wage-labour. While
they are resolved to proceed with the consummation of the political
change which is involved in the establishment of democracy, their goal
is an economic transformation. But the inevitable process of
concentration of industrial operations already referred to is entirely
against the continuance or restoration of the small producer, whether
workman or peasant proprietor. Such efforts of continuance or
restoration are reactionary: they are economically unsound and must
fail. The economic transformation must be sought in the application of
the principle of association to the large industry.
7. We are thus brought to the conclusion that the competitive system,
with precarious wage-labour as the lot of the vast majority of the
people, is not a suitable and adequate form for the social development
of the future. The competitive system has led to great strikes, which
have been the cause of widespread misery, almost as grievous as the
suffering endured during the worst campaigns under the old style of
warfare. It has led to great commercial and industrial crises, which
have scattered over the civilised world panic and ruin, followed by
long-continued stagnation and depression. Thus anarchy, waste, and
starvation have been its too frequent attendants, while the normal
position of the workmen under it has been precarious and unworthy of
free, enlightened men. England has had less reason than most countries
to regret the prevalence of competition, for her industrial supremacy
has generally left her victor in the struggle, and she has hitherto
looked forward to widening markets as the solution of her economic
troubles. But the rapid development of Germany and America may teach us
that our industrial position is not so secure against assault as it used
to be, and that we may in future suffer the bitter experience of the
vanquished, which we have so long inflicted on others. And we may thus
learn that reason and law should control industry and commerce as well
as other spheres of human activity.
In America the development of the trust system is only another proof of
the inadequacy of the competitive system. The supporters of the trusts
maintain with very good show of reason that unregulated competition is
harmful and may be ruinous to all concerned, and that they can maintain
fair prices, pay fair wages, and secure a fair return to capital only by
mutual arrangement among the producers. But the system obviously
involves the serious objection, that the great industrial chiefs who
organise and direct the trusts are thereby constituted supreme judges of
their own interests and of the economic interests of the whole American
people; that such combinations form a huge monopoly in so many of the
leading articles of consumption, and establish an economic, social, and
political power which may be a danger to American society. In short, we
are driven to the result that while competition has been hurtful or
ruinous to those engaged in it, the now prevailing system of regulation
by capitalism in its own interests is a serious danger to the whole
people. There is only one right way out of such a dilemma. A return to
the competitive method is neither possible nor desirable. Monopoly is
incompatible with freedom. The only course for peoples who desire to be
free is to adopt some form of social ownership and control. This appears
to be the lesson taught us by the development of the trusts.
8. The success of socialism greatly depends on the realisation of the
two ideals, which may be regarded as the main pillars of the theory,
when applied to practice. These are:—
(_a_) The normal working day: the general reduction of the working day
to eight hours in the immediate future, and eventually to a shorter
time. Such a desirable change would be better accomplished by voluntary
agreement under the pressure of public opinion than by legislation; but
it would be better made by legislation than by the cruel and clumsy
method of strikes.
(_b_) A remuneration which will ensure a suitable standard of living; in
other words, the means of a normal development. A reasonable standard of
living, the competent means of a normal development have been determined
by science and are no longer a matter of utopian guess-work. A fairly
definite measure of fresh air, food, clothing, house comfort,
recreation, and of satisfaction for the affections associated with wife
and children constitute the rational needs of the average man. This is
the moral and scientific basis of a rational system of distribution. The
competitive wage determined by the _iron law of wages_ of the older
economists should be superseded by a remuneration embodying this
principle. It is the Daily Bread of the Lord’s Prayer as definable by
modern science.
The effect of the socialistic theory on these points is to remove two
vital interests of man from the range of competition, and to place them
on an ethical and scientific basis under social control. In so far as
the working day of the employees of government, municipalities,
co-operative societies, companies, and private firms approximates to
eight hours, in so far as the wage paid by them secures to the workers a
fit and reasonable standard of living, in so far is the socialistic
ideal realised. Every one conversant with the history of the last sixty
years knows how vast an improvement has been made in both respects.
We have thus reviewed the great social and economic movements of our
time. How shall we interpret them? There are two main tendencies: one
towards control of the economic processes by the people in state,
municipality, and co-operative society; the other towards the
consolidation of capitalism in trusts. In both we see plan, constructive
and organising intelligence, the limitation of the anarchy of
competition. But while the former makes for the public good, the latter
is subservient to overgrown wealth.
The portentous growth of the trusts is indeed an object-lesson to the
world. It proves that socialism is not an idle question; nor is it
utopian or revolutionary merely. It is a question forced upon the
present generation by the most gigantic industrial movement of recent
times. All good citizens, all friends of righteousness and of progress,
all inquirers worthy of the name, are under an imperative obligation to
understand the true inwardness of the subject.
In considering the question of the practicability of a rational
socialism, let us remember that it only proposes to accomplish on a
wider scale and for a more enlightened time a task analogous to that
undertaken by the guilds for the mediæval world. The guild was an
organisation for the promotion of the common interests of the workers at
a time when law and order were not sufficiently established by strong
central governments, and when the present distinction between labourer
and capitalist had not declared itself. It was a fairly equitable
organisation of an industry which was local and associated with city
life, and which worked with a very limited and undeveloped technique.
Socialism proposes an equitable organisation of industry for the modern
world with its enormous mechanical development and large industry, under
a democracy guided by science and professing allegiance to the highest
moral ideals.
CHAPTER XV
THE PREVALENT SOCIALISM
In the Erfurt Programme we have seen that the task of the social
democracy is to give form and unity to the struggle of the working
class, and to point out its natural and necessary goal. This goal is the
transformation of private property in the means of production into
collective property, but the change will be accomplished not in the
interest of a class but of the entire human race. The Erfurt Programme
has been followed by others of a like nature in Belgium, Austria,
France, and elsewhere. It may be regarded as the aim of the social
democracy of all countries to obtain possession of political power in
order to make the economic transformation which we have indicated.
A like aim has been set forth in the resolutions passed at International
Congresses. In a previous chapter we have seen that International
Congresses were held at Paris in 1889, at Brussels in 1891, at Zürich in
1893, and at London in 1896. These were followed by Congresses, at Paris
for a second time in 1900, at Amsterdam in 1904, and at Stuttgart in
1907.
The disorders which prevailed at the Congresses of Brussels and London
led to the adoption of measures for the better ordering of business and
for the better organisation of the Congresses, ‘destined to become the
parliament of the proletariat.’ We shall now give a brief statement of
the new measures, which date in a general way from the Paris Congress of
1900.
As to terms of admission. All associations are admitted which adhere to
the essential principles of socialism: socialisation of the means of
production and exchange; international union and action of the workers;
socialist conquest of political power by the proletariat organised as a
class party. Also all the trade organisations which place themselves on
the basis of the class struggle and recognise the necessity of political
action, legislative and parliamentary. Anarchists are therefore
excluded.
An International Socialist Bureau having its seat at Brussels has been
established. It consists of two delegates from each country and has a
permanent secretary. Among other functions the Bureau and its secretary
have to organise the International Congresses and to arrange the order
of business at them.
At former Congresses much time was spent in hearing verbal reports, in
French, English, and German, of the progress of socialism in the various
countries. The Bureau now invites and receives from the various national
bodies reports, which are printed and laid before the Congress. These
reports form a most valuable storehouse of information with regard to
the development of socialism throughout the world.
The result of those measures was manifest at the Stuttgart Congress,
where the business proceeded with dispatch and in comparative order.
Delegates to the number of 886 were assembled from twenty-six
nationalities, and discussed matters of importance relating to the
international social movement. The revival of the International could be
regarded as an accomplished fact. But it was a revival in a new form and
under conditions which had undergone a marvellous change. The old
International has been compared by Vandervelde to a brilliant general
staff without an army. In many countries the socialist cause had hardly
begun to move; in no country had it attained to any real strength. Now
socialism had powerful and well-organised parties in most of the leading
countries of Europe, and it counted its adherents by millions.
The Bureau at Brussels does not perform the functions of the general
council of the old International. It has no commanding mind and will,
like that of Karl Marx, to supply initiative and energy. It serves as a
connecting link between the national parties; it tends to co-ordinate
theories, tactics, and action. But the vitality and moving force of the
new International are found in the different national groups.
We may say, then, that the new International only in a limited measure
realises the thought of Marx. The idea of using political power as an
instrument of social amelioration originated with the Chartists and L.
Blanc. Marx in the communist manifesto first made it international and
revolutionary, and he claimed also to have made it scientific. It was
scientific in so far as it was a reasoned and comprehensive expression
of real forces. In the International as we now have it we may perceive
an organisation of the real forces which Marx had the insight to foresee
and enjoin.
A long series of resolutions have been passed by the various Congresses
which have met since 1889. If we take those resolutions along with the
elaborate programmes that have been formulated by the various national
parties, and of which the Erfurt programme may be regarded as the type,
we have a set of documents which may undoubtedly be considered official
and authoritative. Both resolutions and programmes are the result of a
long labour of thought and debate by their best minds. They agree
generally in their exposition of principles and tactics. We may,
therefore, have no doubt that they contain a reliable statement of the
prevalent socialism. We give an abstract of the most important points on
which socialists of all lands agree:—
(1) The goal of the whole movement is an economic revolution or
transformation—the transference to society of the means of production,
distribution, and exchange.
(2) The conquest of political power by the organised action of the
working class of all lands is the chief means towards this great end.
(3) The great task of the socialist parties at present is education,
agitation, and organisation in the widest sense, with a view to the
physical and moral regeneration of the working class, so as to fit it
for its great mission. To rouse the class consciousness of the workers,
to increase their capacity and efficiency for the class struggle, is the
daily task of international socialism.
(4) The struggle for equal and direct universal suffrage, for the
popular initiative and referendum, is an important phase of the
political struggle, and is fitted to have a good influence on the
political education of the workers.
(5) The more purely political struggle of the Socialist Parties should
go hand in hand with the more purely economic struggle of the trade
unions.
(6) The right of association, of combination, of free meeting, of free
speech, and of a free press, is an essential part of the worker’s claim
of rights.
(7) The demonstration of the 1st of May is specially recommended in all
countries as a means of securing an eight-hours’ working day. The
eight-hours’ day is most desirable for improving the family life, the
education, the health, energy, intelligence, and morality of the working
class.
(8) But the eight-hours’ day is only the most urgent part of a large
system of protective legislation in favour of the working class. Besides
an eight-hours’ day for adults, they demand special legislation for
children, young people, and women; proper rest for all ages; restriction
of night work; abolition of the sweating system; effective inspection of
factories, shops, and of domestic labour, as well as of agriculture.
(9) They are very strongly opposed to militarism, which they consider
due not so much to national or political differences, as to the struggle
of the capitalist classes for new markets. They believe that war will
end only with the ending of capitalism. The present standing armies are
the instruments of the ruling and exploiting class, and should be
abolished. Their place should be taken by a citizen army or the armed
nation; that is, the entire able-bodied manhood of the people should be
trained and equipped on a democratic basis, like the Swiss army. The
Socialist Parties of the various countries are recommended to vote
against expenditure for existing army and navy.
(10) The majority at Congresses has without reserve condemned the
colonial system as being merely an extension of the field of
exploitation of the capitalist class. But this majority has consisted
mainly of nations that have little knowledge of colonies and little
interest in them. It has ignored the colonial system of England, which
has so largely consisted in the development of self-governing
communities; and it has also ignored or misunderstood the beneficent
work of England in establishing conditions of peace, order, and progress
in India. The colonial system as understood by the majority simply means
the exploitation of native and coloured races for the profit of the
capitalist class. A large minority, while condemning the present
colonial policy, think that it might be made beneficial.
The goal of the whole movement is collectivism; but little or nothing is
said as to the forms it will take or how it will be realised. That task
is left to the future. On the other hand, much is said of the means by
which political power may be gained. Among these we should observe that
the two points which are most essential, and may be regarded as the key
of the whole position, are universal suffrage and the right of
combination, the former being necessary for the purely political
development of socialism, the latter for the development of labour in
trade unions. For these two rights socialism and labour are prepared to
put forth the greatest efforts and to make the greatest sacrifices. For
them the orderly and well-disciplined Social Democracy of Germany is
ready to adopt in the last resort the drastic measure of the general
strike.[1] Demonstrations in favour of universal suffrage have been
frequent events during recent years in many European countries. The
Russian Socialist Revolutionary Party has declared itself ready to
accept as a field of agitation a constituent assembly elected on a
thoroughly democratic basis and embodying the sovereign will of the
people.
The rights of the trade union have quite recently been a supreme
interest to the Labour Party in Great Britain. And in America the use of
the ‘injunctions’ to hinder the development of labour combinations has
been a chief grievance among the workmen. This grievance took a foremost
place in the discussion of matters which went to form the platforms of
candidates at the Presidential election of 1908. Universal suffrage and
the right of combination, with all that these two great rights involve,
may be regarded as the central points in the present tactics and policy
of international socialism.
The other points in the above statement may here be left to speak for
themselves. But if we note that the most deeply resented grievance of
the workmen is the use of the police and the military by the executives
of various countries to repress agitation, we shall the better
understand many incidents of recent history in Italy, Russia, and even
America.
It will be seen that the task which lies before the social democracy is
a vast one. As yet even the political part of it is only to a small
extent realised. At present the working class, though forming the vast
majority of the people, has no corresponding representation in
legislatures or influence in government. In England the ruling class has
long been, and still is, an aristocracy, slowly changing in the course
of generations into a plutocracy which has the wisdom to yield to the
ever-growing pressure of democracy. France is now nearer to a real
democracy than any other great European state. In Germany the executive
depends on the Emperor; but his Chancellor has to find a majority for
legislation and for the budgets in the Reichstag, which is elected by
universal suffrage with an antiquated distribution of seats. The German
executive is really a bureaucracy with the Emperor as chief. Government
in Austria and Russia is also a bureaucracy of which the Emperor is the
head. In Italy the democracy is slowly growing. It has very little real
influence in Spain.
If the American people do not exert themselves very effectively in the
immediate future, the Republic seems destined to be a plutocracy. A
power which appears to be incompatible with a real commonwealth has
arisen in a marvellously short time. The oil industry in America goes
back only to 1859. Mr. J. D. Rockefeller entered the trade in 1865. It
was organised by him and his associates into the Standard Oil Company;
and the Company has been the type of further organisation, has provided
the men, the methods, and the capital, by which other great industries
have been transformed. That is to say, Mr. J. D. Rockefeller and the men
trained in his methods have gained control of railways, of finance and
insurance, and even of the basic industries of steel and coal. The
process has naturally gained enormously in momentum as it has gone on;
the capital accumulated, and still more the capital controlled by the
Trusts, the interests they have absorbed or brought within their orbit
are gigantic, and continually increasing. Even the American Senate is
declared to be in their pay. Most evil of all symptoms, when an eminent
American senator, Mr. Tillman, lately undertook to speak for his order,
a main point in his defence was, that the House of Representatives was
worse than the Senate! Thus we see the industrial and economic power,
which is also the money power, subordinating to itself the political,
and, indeed, threatening all that is articulate and organic in the
American people. In 1908, at the Chicago Convention, Senator Lodge went
to the heart of the matter: ‘It is the huge size of private fortunes and
the vast extent of the power of modern combinations of capital which
have brought upon us in these later years problems portentous in their
possibilities, and threatening not only our social and political
welfare, but even our personal freedom if they are not boldly met and
wisely solved.’
Warnings have been given by some observers, including the present
writer, that such a condition of things was coming. In my _Inquiry into
Socialism_, published in 1887, I said: ‘In crossing the ocean the
colonists left behind them the monarchy and aristocracy, and many other
social forms hoary with venerable abuse; but they carried with them an
institution older and more fundamental than royalty or a hereditary
legislature—human nature itself.’ The old evils of Europe grew out of
human nature. On the other side of the Atlantic men will still be human.
‘Freedom in America seems threatened by the domination of great
corporations, combining to obtain the control of industrial operations,
of governments, and courts of justice. If unchecked by the healthy
public opinion, and by the collective will of the American people, such
corporations may establish an economic, social, and political tyranny
quite as oppressive as anything existing in Europe. It will be a
miserable thing for the world if triumphant democracy, and a material
prosperity unexampled in the annals of mankind, end in a fiasco such as
this.’[2]
The struggle to curb the corporations and bring them within the limits
prescribed by the public good will not be an easy one. Waves of popular
enthusiasm are apt to be fitful and transient, whilst the pull of
organised wealth is steady, continuous, incessant. The favourite
rhetorical figure of the octopus spreading its gigantic tentacles over
American society gives but a faint impression of the subtle and
insidious activity of the Trusts. Even in Russia the problem is a simple
one compared with that in America; the contest with the Tzardom is
merely one of force striving against force by all available means.
Vastly simpler was the earliest struggle of historic civilisation, when
the Greeks met the clumsy hosts of Persia. The Americans may consider
themselves as the foremost champions, at the most critical point, in the
most momentous struggle now going forward on the planet.
_Noblesse oblige_ was the maxim of a caste that is vanishing. It is
still an imperative call on all truly noble men and nations. The
American colonies were founded by the noblest pioneers of freedom, from
the best and strongest races of Europe. Such a high ancestry lays men
under a special obligation to acquit themselves well in the warfare
against organised wealth. One of the main causes of the present
situation is that in the eager race for wealth or for a living the
Americans have had no leisure to be good citizens, in the sense
contemplated by the founders of the Republic. They have left their own
proper civic work to professional politicians. In the combination of
professional politicians ready to be bought and of wealthy capitalists
ready to buy lies the supreme danger to American freedom. The danger
will be averted when the people take care duly to think the matter out,
and to enter upon a course of resolute organised action suitable to the
time and its needs.