LABOUCHERE AND SOCIALISM
We have seen the depth and intensity of Labouchere's political views.
Conservatism in its Tory or Whig form he hated and relentlessly
fought. On the other hand, it is not to be doubted that some of the
modern developments of the social side of radical policy since his
retirement from politics would be far from meeting with his approval.
The fact is that he was as strongly anti-socialist as
anti-conservative. He believed in competition as a principle of
social existence and inequality as a natural fact, although he held
firmly that the natural inequality of men should not be reinforced or
distorted by the artificial inequality of rank. He did not believe
that the task of government could rightly be held to imply moral
responsibility towards weaklings; such as were unable to survive by
themselves should not be assisted to do so. This was his theory; in
his personal relations with others he often failed to practise it.
"A fair field and no favour" was his social formula. Government
might legitimately intervene to prevent such abuse of opportunity as
might result from the business relations of employers and employees;
but when all was done that could be done in that way, it was a man's
natural qualities that enabled him to swim or doomed him to sink.
Any attempt to interfere by legislation with this ultimate
differentiation of nature was in his opinion immoral and sentimental
folly. A Cabinet had no charge of souls, it was {459} merely a
business concern running the affairs of the nation as cheaply and
effectively as possible.
It is evident that a man holding these opinions could not be other
than unfavourable to Socialism. The question of Socialism, indeed,
as a practical factor in politics hardly presented itself during the
most active period of his political life, but in later days it came
to the fore, and that, as might have been expected, in his own
constituency, so largely composed of workers. In going through Mr.
Labouchere's papers I have come across the report of a public debate
which he held with Mr. Hyndman, the well-known Socialist leader, in
the Town Hall of Northampton. The discussion is interesting as
illustrating very clearly Mr. Labouchere's own view of the whole
problem of labour and also as showing the definite line of cleavage
between the spirit of the older radicalism in popular estimation, at
all events, and much that is identified with the radicalism of to-day.
Mr. Labouchere had been heckled in a more or less friendly way by
some Socialist listeners at one of his meetings and had in
consequence consented to meet Mr. Hyndman in debate. The subject of
discussion was: "The socialisation of the means of production,
distribution, and exchange to be controlled by a Democratic State in
the interest of the entire community, and the complete emancipation
of labour from the domination of capitalism and landlordism, with the
establishment of social and economic equality between the sexes."
Mr. Hyndman opened the discussion with a speech of great eloquence.
He began by denouncing the terrible evils of poverty and sickness
among the working classes. "There are through the length and breadth
of England large proportions of the population sunk into the most
terrible misery--misery which I will defy you to find equalled in the
most savage tribes on the planet." The growth of wealth and poverty
were admitted to be simultaneous and out of the total wealth produced
the workers only took a quarter or, {460} on the most favourable
showing, a third. "That means that for every stroke of work the
producer does for himself he does three for other people. It had
been said that the prevalent misery had been exaggerated by
Socialists, but according to the statistics of Mr. Charles Booth, who
was no Socialist, 180,000 families were living in London below the
level at which a family could subsist. City life debilitated country
stock, and the third and fourth generations of those who have come
into our great cities become valueless even for capitalists to make
tools out of."
All this was misery due to capitalists and the system of wagedom. On
the other hand, the economic forms of to-day were rapidly weakening,
and the probability was that capitalism would drift much sooner than
was expected into universal bankruptcy. "I long to see--I am not
afraid to repeat the words--a complete social revolution, which shall
transform our present society, by inevitable causes, from senseless
and miserable competition, in which men fight and struggle with one
another like pigs at a trough (the biggest hog perhaps getting his
nose in first, and, it may be, upsetting the whole thing), into
glorious and universal co-operation where each shall work for all and
all for each.
"Even now, if it were not for competition, there would be plenty, and
more than plenty, for all. I say that the economic forms are ready
for the transformation I have spoken of. But first, what is our
position of to-day? The old Malthusian delusions are gone.
Everybody can see that where the power to produce wealth is
increasing a hundredfold, at the same time the population is
increasing but one per cent. per annum. It is not over-population
that causes the difficulty, but the miserable system of distributing
the wealth which the population creates. What are the conditions
to-day? What are the powers of production at the control of mankind?
Never in the history of man were they near what they were to-day. At
this present moment, Mr. Chairman, according to the evidence of the
{461} American statist, Mr. Atkinson, on the great factory farms in
the west of America, four men, working with improved and competent
machinery upon the soil, will provide enough food for 1000; and in
every other department of industry it is true in a like, or almost in
a like degree. The power of man to produce cloth, linen, boots, for
instance, is infinitely greater than ever before in the history of
the race. What is more, it has trebled, quadrupled, centupled within
the last fifty or a hundred years. What is then your difficulty at
the present moment? Not as in old times, a difficulty to produce
enough wealth, but the fact that your very machines which are so
powerful to make wealth for all, are used against you in order to
turn thousands of you out on the streets. It is no longer, as at was
in some earlier communities, the power to produce wealth that is
lacking. In Northampton as in every industrial town in England, you
see great mechanical forces around you, but the workmen instead of
controlling the machines are controlled by them. And the products?
What is our theory? This. All production to-day is practically
social. Everything that is produced is produced for exchange and in
order to make profit. Commodities are socially produced by
co-operation on the farm, in the great workshop, in the mine. But
the moment the product is produced it ceases to belong to those who
have produced it and goes into the hands of the employing capitalist,
who uses it in order that he may make out of it a personal gain.
Consequently, you have here a direct and distinct antagonism between
the form of production and the form of exchange. On the one hand,
you have got great mechanical forces socially used simply for
production for profit, whereas if they were socially used and the
product socially exchanged every member of the community would
benefit. To-day every increase in the power of machinery may result,
frequently does result, in hundreds, or thousands, or tens of
thousands of hands being thrown out unemployed on the market. Under
the system of society we are inevitably {462} coming to those very
powers which will engender wealth, happiness, and contentment for
all."
Mr. Labouchere then rose and replied as follows:
"As your Chairman has already told you, this meeting is the outcome
of a remark I made the other day when I was down here. Some of those
who entertain strong Socialist views were asking me this or that
question on the occasion of my giving an account of my stewardship
before the electors of this town. I pointed out that Socialism was
only one of the subjects I had got to deal with, but if they would
excuse me from going into details then I should be able to come down
and discuss with them. I did not anticipate then that we were to
have the pleasure of Mr. Hyndman's company in that discussion. I
thought it was to be a sort of free-and-easy between the Socialists
and myself. But you have sent for your big gun to demolish me. I
can only lay before you my own views and those of the Radical Party
upon social matters, and make a few observations, showing, as I
think, that Mr. Hyndman's system, a very millennial system it is no
doubt, is neither practicable, nor, if carried out, would effect the
ends which he anticipates. Now, Mr. Hyndman's system, I fully admit,
is for the entire regeneration--he has told us so, I think--of the
world. It is to be carried out by a scheme which has never yet,
since the commencement of the world, been tried. No doubt, as Mr.
Hyndman has stated, there are evils, very great evils, and much
misery in the world under the present system. But it is not enough
to prove that to show that any particular remedy will do away with
them. There is, no doubt, a great deal of sickness in this world.
That we all admit. But we should be amused if a doctor came forward
and said: 'If you try this particular pill you will find that all
sickness will be driven away from the entire world. You are a
criminal, you are mistaken, if you don't take that pill.' But Mr.
Hyndman's plan goes much further than the example of the pill. You
must remember that if Mr. Hyndman's plan were not successful it would
ruin this {463} country and everyone in it. Surely, then, it is our
business as practical men to look thoroughly and cautiously into this
plan before we adopt it. Mr. Hyndman himself will admit that it is,
at least, a leap in the dark. Mr. Hyndman has a light in his hand,
but this light is not sufficient to tell us what would occur if we
were to take this leap. I am not going to say just now whether it
would be successful or unsuccessful; all I say is, we ought to look
at this matter in a thorough strict and business manner, not dealing
with it in vague generalities, but looking into it in all its
details, because when it comes to a question of any business, the
real consideration in deciding whether the business is a sound one or
an unsound one is not of generalities but essentially of details.
Now I think that Mr. Hyndman, whether his plan be good or not,
somewhat exaggerates the evils of the present system. Mr. Hyndman
told us just now that in towns labour was in such a condition that
those who engaged in labour faded out in three generations. Well, I
confess I was astonished at that. I don't suppose you are all
descended from Norman ancestors or anything of that, but I put it to
you. Many of you can surely remember that you had
great-grandfathers; many of you had great-grandfathers who lived in
Northampton. There are many of you whose grandfathers, whose fathers
were engaged in labour. You are engaged in labour yourselves. Do
you feel yourselves such a puny miserable body of men that you are
going absolutely to die out? But I forget. It is not that you are
going to die out, you have died out according to Mr. Hyndman. Then
what do I see before me? As the American says: 'Is there ghosts
here?' Are you human beings? There you stand; you have been engaged
in trade; you have been for many generations in Northampton; I do
think you have utterly deteriorated--that you are absolutely worth
nothing. But statistics prove the contrary of what Mr. Hyndman says.
If you take the death-rate in any large town--Manchester, Birmingham,
or London, for instance--you will find that, so far from having {464}
gone up, it has gone down. Notwithstanding the misery that no doubt
exists, the towns are more healthy now than before. Now, I do not
think that Mr. Hyndman seems to understand precisely the present
system under which we live. ['How about yourself?'] My friend says
'How about myself?' I am going to explain the present system. In an
argument it is always desirable to take some common ground, and we
may take this as a common ground: the end of all government is to
secure to the greatest numbers such a condition of existence that all
may obtain fair wages for a fair day's work, and that all may be
employed; and that the government is good or bad in proportion as it
approaches to this goal. Now, gentlemen, there are Individualists
and there are Collectivists. Modern Radicalism, I would point out to
you, recognises this perfectly. It recognises perfectly that while
Individualism is a necessary basis for social organisation, yet there
is a very great deal that the State can do. Modern Radicalism is in
favour of both Collectivism and Individualism. Now I will read to
you some words I wrote down some time ago--words that were used by a
statesman whom I do not always agree with on foreign politics, but
who, in domestic politics, is a very sensible man. Speaking before
some association, Lord Rosebery said this:
"'Do not be frightened by words or phrases in carrying out your
designs, but accept help from whatever quarter it comes. The world
seems to be tottering now between two powers, neither of which I
altogether follow. The one is Socialism, the other is Individualism.
I follow neither the one school nor the other, but something may be
borrowed from the spirit of each to get the best qualities of
each--to borrow from Socialism its large, general conception of
municipal life, and from Individualism to take its spirit of
self-respect and self-reliance in all practical affairs.'
"Upon that subject those are essentially my views; and I would
contend they are the views of the Radical Party {465} as it at
present exists. Now I am coming to our present system. I am going
to say something for this poor old system. I have often, in
different parts of Northampton, attacked the details of the system.
I am now going to say there is something good in it. Mr. Hyndman
seems to consider that the world is composed of a great many men who
are engaged in labour on the one side, and on the other a great many
huge capitalists who exploit those men. Mr. Hyndman told you that
the man engaged in manual labour only receives a third of the value
of his labour, and that the other two-thirds go to those horrible
capitalists. Gentlemen, I essentially and absolutely deny that such
is the case. But allow me to point first to these capitalists. Now
a difference is often made between the amount obtained by labour and
the amount obtained by those who do not engage in manual labour. It
is exceedingly difficult to arrive at exact figures, and for this
reason, that when you take what you call the national income of the
country it is often forgotten that the national income is very much
counted twice or three times over. Take, in the first place, the
income tax returns. I want to show you how money is really
distributed. There is about £100,000,000 coming to individuals in
England from investments in foreign bonds. Very well, and you surely
will admit that that is not derived from the labour of Englishmen.
Then £49,000,000 is paid to officials. It sounds an enormous
quantity, this £49,000,000 paid to officials of the imperial and
local government. I have often thought that a great many officials
are paid a great deal too high, but we are not entering into that
this evening, and there must be some officials; there must be some
government, and payment of the officials does not directly come from
the sweat and labour of working men. Then there is £143,000,000
derived from public companies. Now these public companies are all in
shares. These shares, too, are held by small men, not by great men.
A vast number of men hold them. Remember that the whole system of
limited liability companies are {466} really created in order to
enable small men to act together and hold their own against the very
rich men.
I now come to the real amount which is directly derived from
production and distribution, banking and such like; which directly
goes into their pockets from the labour of working men. For this
amount you must consult what is called Schedule D of the Income Tax.
That schedule puts down the professions and trades. Altogether the
total is £147,000,000 on which the tax is raised. That is the amount
of the income. Now, if you take the professions, law, medicine, art,
etc., as producing £67,000,000--I believe that is considered a fair
amount--£80,000,000 is left for all the traders, all the shopkeepers,
all the bankers, and all the middlemen of the entire country. Well
now, you must remember another thing. You must remember that these
incomes are not eaten by the men who have them, but really go back to
labour. ['No, no.'] Did I hear somebody say 'No'? You do say 'No,'
do you? Well, then, tell me what does become of them? Let a man
spend his money in luxuries as he likes; these have to be produced;
he is a consumer; it may be a foolish one, but his money goes back
and forms a part of the entire wage fund of the country. When you
say they have not a right to waste and squander their money, I think
it would be better if they did not. But just remember how much is
spent in the drink trade in this country. Let us look at ourselves a
little, or I will trouble you to look at yourselves a little.
£132,000,000 is the amount, I think, that is spent every year in
drink. Of that £80,000,000, it is estimated, is spent by the working
classes. I am not going into the question of drink, whether right or
wrong, foolish or proper; I only want to point out that every class,
to a very considerable extent, squanders a good deal of its means.
Gentlemen, there is no more incontrovertible fact than this--that the
more capital there is in the country the better it is for the country
and the better it is for labour. I have already pointed out that it
itself creates labour by those {467} persons who have capital
consuming the capital. For instance, this £100,000,000 which comes
from foreign investments: would it be of any use that its owners
should fly from this country with their £100,000,000 per annum? It
is better that they should spend it here.
"There are other advantages connected with capital. Mr. Hyndman has
pointed to the evils of competitions. Now I am going to show you
that competition is really to the advantage of the working man. You
will admit that a certain amount of capital is necessary in order to
fructify industry. You have to have a factory, plant, and a wage
fund. All this requires capital. The cheaper capital is obtained
the more there remains for wage fund. On that there can be no sort
of difference. ['How is it we never get it?'] Well, you are begging
the question. I am going to show you that you do get it. Owing to
this country having so much increased in wealth the interest upon
capital has gone down. There is perpetual competition going on among
capitalists themselves. This is proved by facts. In 1800 the
interest on money was about five per cent.; at the present moment
interest is rather less than four per cent. All that is taken away
from capital most unquestionably goes to labour. It cannot go
anywhere else. This is why countries compete for capital. Look at
our colonies and foreign nations. Do not they all compete for
capital? Of course they do. There is a third reason: the greater
number of rich you have in a country, the greater the amount of wool
which you may shear for the national expenditure. Take Northampton.
Suppose twenty men came here, each with £10,000 per annum. You would
say it is an uncommonly lucky thing they have come to Northampton.
We'll levy rates upon their houses, and they will spend money here
and benefit the town. Suppose these men came with £100,000 and
suppose they put up some hosiery factories. Surely you admit that
that would be a great advantage to the town of Northampton.
Evidently, the greater the amount of {468} capital attracted to any
one particular place the greater the advantage to that place. The
idea of driving away capital is much like a farmer saying: I will
drive away my sheep because these sheep eat grass. They do eat
grass. But the grass is converted into mutton. In the same way the
money of the capitalists is converted into a labour fund for you.
Well, gentlemen, I say the only way for a country to be prosperous is
to encourage capital to go there, and the only way to encourage
capital to go there is to give some sort of security to capital.
"What is the difference between this country and Persia, or any other
Eastern country? In the Eastern country a despot is always laying
hands on every atom a man can save. A man therefore hides away, or
runs away, from the country with his savings. The result is that the
country is poor and the working men of that country are poor. Now
take the cases of China and this country. In China there are
400,000,000 inhabitants. No doubt the Chinese work very hard. There
is, however, no capital there; there is no safety for capital. And
the consequence is that the Chinese labourers do not produce so much
as the comparatively few million workers in England. Moreover, every
fifteen Chinese do not get the wage of one single working man in
England. The reason is that the Chinese are not industrially
organised. They have not the advantage of capital to aid them in
producing. Each works, so to say, on his own hand, with the result
that they are far worse off than the men in the factory which has
been brought into existence by capital.
"Now, gentlemen, I will take a cotton factory, under the present
system. It has to be built and equipped. That requires capital.
There is capital required for the wage fund, that is to say, to pay
wages to the men during the year, because of course the money does
not come in until the end of the year, and then capital is required
to buy the raw material. Mr. McCulloch says that for every adult
thousand men employed in such a factory £100,000 is required for
fixed capital, £60,000 is required for a wage fund, and {469}
£200,000 is required for the purchase of raw material. The total is
£360,000. Now, gentlemen, the first charge is obviously interest on
capital. You must get the capital in some way. Assume that you
borrow it. You get interest on capital. Another charge is the raw
material. Raw material you cannot alter because the cotton comes
from abroad. All you can do in order to increase the amount going to
the wage fund is to reduce the amount that goes as interest on
capital, and that which is called profit to the undertaker of the
concern. Now what is the profit in the whole of the textile trade?
The profit and the interest on capital do not amount to more than
four per cent. A portion of that goes to the capitalist and the
remainder for the organising skill and intelligence of the man who
brings the whole thing together and works it. Well, you surely will
not tell me that that is excessive. It is rather too little. For my
part I have often wondered why in the world a man takes the risks of
trade instead of investing his money in something that brings him in
four per cent. Mr. Hyndman talked of the gambling interests of the
capitalists. Why, that is all for your benefit. Each capitalist,
call him a gambler or a vain man, thinks himself cleverer than other
people and says, I am going to make a fortune. One does make twenty
per cent., and the other gets ruined. But if you take the whole body
of capitalists their profits come out at four per cent. If it were
not for the gambling chance, or the ability shown by some undertaken
in making this four per cent., you would not get money at so low a
rate of interest as now, nor would you get a body of skilled
organisers ready to take so little as they do take at the present
moment for their ability and work. Now, Mr. Hyndman will, I think,
admit with me that the thousand men would not produce so much were it
not for the organising powers of some man, and also for the capital
employed. We know they would not. Each man without the aid of
capital would make so much a day. With the organisation and with the
capital employed in the {470} business he makes a great deal more, so
that he really benefits--he gets more than he would from his own
particular separate work. He gets more that is from his collective
work by this application of capital and organisation than he would be
logically entitled to were he to work without the aid of capital and
machinery.
"Now I am going to show you by a few figures what benefit capital has
been to the working man. Here, again, you have a great difficulty
with the figures. They are calculated out by various men, but I
think this conclusion is generally accepted. In 1800 all that was
earned, obtained, secured in wages to working men was seventy
millions sterling. In 1860 this had increased to 400 millions. In
1860 the numbers engaged in manual labour were double those engaged
in 1800, so you must make a deduction for that. It would then stand
thus, that whereas a man got seventy pence, shillings, or pounds for
his work in 1800, in 1860 by the co-operation of capital he received
200. But it is even more at the present time, for he now receives
600 millions. There is a dispute as to whether it is 500 millions or
600 millions. Mr. Giffen says it is 600, Mr. Leone Levi says it is
531. Mr. Hyndman says it is 300. Well, anyhow, that is two to one.
I stand by Mr. Giffen and Mr. Leone Levi and take the figure as at
531. But here again is another way of putting it. In the first year
of the present reign, the gross income of the country was 515
millions. Of this 235 millions went to labour. Labour at the
present time gets 531 millions according to the lower estimate of
Professor Leone Levi, consequently labour now gets more than the
income of the entire country at the commencement of the present reign.
"Gentlemen, there can be no more erroneous idea than to suppose, as
Mr. Hyndman apparently (as I gathered from him) laid down, that the
lot of the working man is not bettered by machinery, or that
machinery by doing part of the work now done by working men either
increases the number of hours or reduces the wages of labour. My
contention is {471} that it reduces the number of hours and increases
the wage of the individual. Listen to this: Machinery, of course, is
revolutionising the labour market; but it is not found that
machinery, while it displaces labour, though opening up new channels
for the displaced workers, either increases the hours of labour or
decreases the remuneration. Before the Sweating Committee it was
stated that the wages of nailmakers in this country was 12s. a week
on the average. The American nailer earns £6 a week; yet American
nails are only half the price of English. The explanation is that,
owing to excellent machinery and efficient labour, maintained by high
wages and short hours, the American produces 2½ tons of nails while
the English man or woman is making two cwt. You say 'Shame!' I say,
'Why don't you do it?' Why don't you follow the example of the
Americans?
"Take again the illustration of a Waterbury watch. So exact is the
machinery which cuts the different parts of this watch that an
assistant will put one of these instruments together in a few minutes
by selecting at random a piece from as many heaps as there are parts
in the watch. Yet the workmen earn 45s. a week, and the watches can
be sold cheaper than those made by workmen earning 8s. or 9s. a week
in the Black Forest. How is this? Because by the aid of his
improved machinery the American completes 150 watches in the same
time as the European is painfully manufacturing forty. You will say
that some capitalist wrote that; some man who was unfit to judge the
matter. I will tell you who the capitalist was. I got it out of
Reynolds's newspaper last Saturday. As I pointed out, in the factory
you have these diverse charges--the charge for interest, the charge
for ability in organising, and the charge for the wage of the worker.
The business, I hold, of the wage worker is to see that he gets a
fair wage; and it is because the only way to do this is to combine in
trade unions that I am one of the strongest advocates of trade
unionism in the whole country. Then take distribution. I leave
{472} out the carriage and sale of the various articles in the shops.
Here again competition reduces prices. You know that as well as I
do. You know perfectly well that you see stuck up in some shops:
'Come and buy here; things are half a farthing less than anywhere
else.' Shopkeepers compete against each other. And there you have
just the same reason as in the case of factories why men go into the
business of shopkeeping, because each man thinks he is cleverer than
his neighbour; each one believes he is going to make his fortune and
his neighbour is not. But labour benefits by this because the lower
the price of the article the greater the demand for it. I say that,
taking the whole shopkeepers of this country, taking their labour,
taking the amount of capital they put into their different shops, it
is impossible to say that they get an excessive profit from their
trade.
"Now, of late there has been a good deal of discussion in regard to
co-operation. I observe that Mr. Hyndman did not allude to
co-operation. But co-operation exists at present, both in regard to
production and in regard to distribution. In order to carry out
co-operation on the very largest scale it would not be necessary to
alter the whole basis of society. Under the present despised system
any working-men may co-operate with each other, may be their own
employers, and in that way get every farthing that is derived from
their employment. Statistics show that co-operation, just like other
things, sometimes pays and sometimes does not pay. In Lancashire, in
Yorkshire and in the north of England there is a great deal of
co-operation both in regard to production and in regard to
distribution. The latest returns show that about $15,000,000 is
employed in this work. As I have said, in some cases they pay and in
some cases they do not pay. I have observed some curious things in
connection with this. You would say that at a co-operative store you
would get an article cheaper than at a shop, whereas, as a matter of
fact, you do not get an article cheaper. It is a curious thing that
you don't, and the reason is this. The {473} co-operators get
together in shares a certain capital which has to pay four or five
per cent. Then each member gets a _pro rata_ return at the end of
the year, a percentage upon the amount he has paid in the store in
connection with his own particular trading. That is perfectly fair.
Well, so eager are they to get the return that they put up the price
of the goods against themselves. You must remember that while I
advocate co-operation, or while I say that co-operation needs no
Socialism to enable working-men to get every farthing from the
process of production and distribution, I do not believe that
co-operation in distribution is not without certain evils. Why is it
that shops still hold their own, and I believe always will hold their
own? By competition in the first place prices in the shops are
reduced to as little as or less than the prices in the stores.
Again, if a man wants a red herring he don't walk to the middle of
the town, near where the stores have to be, but prefers going to a
neighbouring shop and buying it there. Moreover, we know that a
great many men have spent their wages before the end of the week, and
they want a little credit. You may depend, upon taking all things
into consideration, that no very great benefit is to be got out of
co-operative distribution. I merely went into this question of
co-operation, not to discuss so much the advantages or disadvantages
of co-operation, as to point out to you that co-operation can exist,
may exist, and does exist among working men, whenever they like it,
under the present system.
"Now I come to Mr. Hyndman's plan. I have said a few words in favour
of the present system. I have tried to explain what that present
system is, and how, as a matter of fact, labour does benefit by the
existence of capital and capitalist. Mr. Hyndman's plan, I take it,
is based upon the notion that labour does not get its full share;
that it only gets one-third. ['It ought to get the lot.'] Very
well, I have often in the course of my life thought I ought to get
the lot, but I have never got it, I can tell you. Mr. Hyndman's
{474} idea is that if the State took upon itself the functions
performed by private capitalists everybody would be fully employed
and properly paid. Could this desirable result be brought about?
That is the real thing. If, at once, under Mr. Hyndman's guidance we
could enter upon the millennium we should all be for entering. But
the question is whether we _should_ enter it by this gate or whether
we should get somewhere else.
"I have got here the programme of the Social-Democratic Federation.
I have extracted it from Justice. It is all right. Mr. Hyndman
pointed out that a great many things in the programme were merely
doctrines which had been put forward by the Socialists, and had now
been adopted by the Radicals. I should say that there was a great
deal in it that was put forward by the Radicals and had always been
advocated by the Radicals; and we are exceedingly glad that the
Socialists agree with us so far. Now I like this programme. What
has been my trouble in talking with some Socialists is that they
never have the courage of their own opinions. What are you hissing
for? I am going to praise you. As members of the Social-Democratic
Federation you are surely not going to take under your wing every
Socialist in the world. I have often had discussions with
Socialists, and I have found that they leave out certain portions of
their programme. I have said to them: That is a necessary plank in
your programme; knock out any of these stones and you knock down the
arch. You have done nothing of the kind. You have fairly and
squarely put this as the Social Revolution in all its details. You
see I am not complaining of you, so don't cry out again before you
are hurt. Now, Number 7 says: 'The means of production,
distribution, and exchange to be declared as collective or common
property.' Now, what does this mean? That all manufacturing, all
shopkeeping, all shipping, all the agricultural industry, and all
banking ought to be done by the State----"
{475}
_Mr. Hyndman_: "Community."
_Mr. Labouchere_: "Or community. Every man, as I understand it, is
to do his bit of work, every man is to have his share of the profit
of the business. Have you ever thought what amount of capital this
would require? The building of factories would require 1000 million
pounds for ten million workers. The wage fund would be 600 millions;
the raw material would be 200 millions; the shipping, say about 500
millions. I am trying to underestimate the amount. As to the shops,
I suppose, if you took all there are in the whole country, they would
cost about 100 millions. Then the agricultural buildings and
machinery, excluding the land itself, would be, say, 500 millions.
This would be very much under a proper estimate, but still the whole
amount runs up to something like 3000 millions. Are all the
factories to be seized? My friend says 'Yes.' That will knock off
1000 millions at once. Are all the shops to be seized? ['Yes,
yes.'] This will knock off 100 millions for the shops. Still, if
you do this, you won't certainly have done. Obviously you have to
buy the raw material, you have to have a wage fund, and a good deal
to keep the machinery in order even when you have laid hands on it in
the expeditious way your friend proposes. That would be 2000
millions. How are you going to get it? You would borrow it.
_Would_ you borrow it? Let us suppose you borrow it. To borrow it
you have to get somebody to lend it to you. I have known a great
many persons ready to borrow more than people are ready to lend.
Another item, which I am bound to say is not in the Radical programme
of the Social-Democratic Federation, is the repudiation of the
National Debt. Now, sure, if you repudiate the National Debt you
would find a difficulty in getting anybody to lend you the money you
want. Where are you going to get it? Are you going to levy it upon
property? What property are you going to levy it upon? We'll allow
that the land and factories are to be seized. If they are not to be
{476} seized they are to be ruined; they are to be left high and dry.
No individual man is to work in them. You would have a certain
amount of portable property like the money that comes in from foreign
investments, but its owners would not wait to have it taken. They
would immediately clear out of the country."
_Mr. Hyndman_: "Hear, hear."
_Mr. Labouchere_: "I am going from surprise to surprise. I really do
believe that Mr. Hyndman wishes that the men with the 100 millions
should clear out of the country. These 100 millions are derived from
investments made abroad. The investments are already made, and the
money may be paid here or abroad just as its owners please.
Therefore you would absolutely have no control over it. Its owners
could walk off to America or France to-morrow, or to one of our
colonies, where they would be welcomed with pleasure and where they
would be able to live with their 100 millions and spend it just as
they liked. The only difference would be that they would not be
consumers here, they would not compete with their capital to reduce
the interest on the capital necessary to run the whole business of
the country. I am very curious to know, I cannot quite make out,
whether a man may save or not. It is not clear. I see one of the
articles is, 'the production and distribution of wealth is to be
regulated by society.' That leads me to suppose he may not save. I
should say myself that if you are going to carry out this millennium
you could only do it by preventing any sort of saving: because if
savings take place you will have some men rich and some poor,
evidently. But how about the professions? What are they to be done
with? Are professional men not to be allowed to make any savings? I
see all justice is to be free. Well, that would create a good deal
of litigation; but I personally suffer a good deal from justice, so
that I don't know that I should particularly object to that item.
You would have, I presume, these professions! You would have doctors
and men {477} engaged in art and so forth? They would be able to
sell their productions abroad, their skill abroad. Consequently how
would you regulate their fortunes? How are you going to regulate the
distribution of wealth in regard to these men? I say the thing is
absolutely and utterly impracticable. You could not. Yet,
gentlemen, it seems there is some idea of saving, for I see this in
another article: 'The extension of the Post Office Savings Bank which
will absorb all private institutions that draw profit from money or
credit!' Well, but who would put into the Post Office? The Post
Office, if they did put it in, would have to incur all the risks of
the great business. But I told you that the National Debt was to be
repudiated. What is the fact? That the Post Office Savings Bank has
invested £5,599,000 of public savings, of labour mainly, in consols.
If, consequently, you were to do away with the National Debt one of
the things you would do would be to repudiate five millions sterling
saved by labour. Now, I think it was some gentleman who was
discussing the matter with me in the _Reporter_ who said that you
might save, but no man would be allowed to employ any savings by
making another man work for him. Allow me to point out to you that
indirectly one man must work for another if he does not work for
himself. Is he going, like that wicked man in the Bible, to hide his
talent in a napkin? Not a bit. I suppose he will make a little
interest on it. He won't work for the interest himself, so somebody
else will. If you are going to try to distribute wealth you will
have continual disputes, for I deny that, so long as human nature is
what it is, so long as a man wants to lay by something for his
children, you will be able to prevent savings. The only thing you
would be able to do would be to frighten savings away from this
country, and cause them to be taken to some other country, which
would compete against you.
"Let us suppose now that this initial difficulty of obtaining the
money is got over. Then there comes the organisation. Well, who
would organise? Who would be {478} superintendents, and who would be
workers? Who would engage in the complicated business of exchange
with foreign countries? Remember, all skilled talent would
disappear. You say 'Ha, ha!' Do you really think that a man who
perhaps is a skilled organiser of labour, who could earn a thousand
or two thousand a year abroad or in the colonies, would stay here and
receive an exceedingly small sum, simply because he was an
Englishman? Of course he would go away. I say you would deprive the
country of its most intelligent organisers.
"There is another difficulty. Who would settle the employment to be
secured for each person? Here is a shepherd. He would say: 'I want
to be a shoemaker.' 'My good friend,' they would say, 'we don't want
you; go and be a shepherd.' They'd say to me: 'We've got quite
enough newspapers without yours. We want a good chimney sweep. Be
that. Go to Newcastle.' They'd say to our friend, Mr. Hyndman:
'We'll find employment for you in hay-making in Somersetshire.' Mr.
Hyndman may say he likes that paternal arrangement; he likes
hay-making. I'll tell you one thing: I wouldn't go and sweep
chimneys in Newcastle. But you say that the State carries on the
Post Office, the Army, and the Navy, among other things; and I say it
carries them on exceedingly badly too. You will find, taking ship
for ship, that ships can be built in a private yard much cheaper than
in a public yard. As for the Post Office, I agree with Mr. Hyndman
in saying I do not know any public Department so badly managed as the
Post Office. There is an enormous deal of sweating; the big men get
too big salaries, and the little men do not get enough. If the Army,
Navy, and Post Office be an exemplication of what would be done under
the paternal arrangement, Heaven help us!
"But, gentlemen, what really surpasses my understanding is this, how
in the world, if Mr. Hyndman's system were adopted, any regular work,
or shorter hours, or better pay, {479} or employment of all would be
more easily obtained than under the present system. I say your
capital, if you did get it, would be at a higher cost. I say that
profit, if you take profit, is almost reduced by competition to a
minimum. You would not make one shilling by the transaction.
Supply, surely, would depend upon demand. You could not alter that.
Take the foreign trade. You would not increase your foreign trade,
under this system. You would still have to compete with foreign
countries in China and elsewhere. Foreign consumers would take goods
from those from whom they could buy them cheapest. The Socialists
have perceived this, and they have invented the idea of establishing
on the land an enormous number of labourers, who are to act as
consumers, and consequently take all the home surplus products. And
I see here it is proposed that the Municipal or State army of
labourers should be organised as on the great farms in America. Mr.
Hyndman alluded to what they did on these bonanza farms. They send
men down to them twice a year, once to sow and once to reap. You
might find if you had the proposed armies that the product might be
increased, but the number of persons employed on the land, that is to
say, the consumers on the land, would be reduced. That is why I have
been in favour of small holdings.
"As to the numbers of the agricultural labourers, those labourers won
us the election last time, remember. What are you hissing at? Did
you want the Conservatives to win? You must take people as they are.
These agricultural labourers may be wrong, but their strongest desire
is to become possessors of small holdings. That has been the aim and
object of the Parish Councils Bill, which will slowly and quietly
nationalise the land by throwing the property, little by little, and
very quickly I think, into the hands of the Parish Councils, who will
let it to the villagers. You will then get a large number of
agriculturalists on the land, far greater than now, consuming your
products. At the same time you would avoid their coming into the
towns and {480} competing with you for labour. The subject is a very
lengthy one. As I said, you have to go into the question in all its
absolute details. I will only tell you one other reason why I object
to this system of making us all children in the hands of the State.
I say it would be the greatest danger to our liberties. Why is the
Anglo-Saxon race the master race in the world? Why has the
Anglo-Saxon race maintained its liberties? It is because of that
individualism, that self-reliance, which exists in this country. I
would trust no body of men, not Mr. Hyndman and the leaders of the
Social-Democratic Federation--though I make no implication against
them--nor even a body of angels, with the power of destroying and
ruining, at one fell blow, the entire nation. This unquestionably
would be the case, and who would be able to resist it? You would
have some strong and powerful man coming forward, supported by all
the discontented, all the men who were not prepared to accept this
wondrous dispensation, this dead level of equality. I say you would
have such a man; I say the risk is too great. Mr. Hyndman has
alluded to France. What did one great Frenchman, M. Guizot, say?
He said: 'The evil of France is that a Frenchman must either be
administered or an administrator.' What is the consequence of that
feeling? They have no self-reliance. Every now and then they have a
Republic, and then comes one like Napoleon, who overturns their
Republic and seizes upon the whole thing.
"I have almost finished now. I infinitely prefer listening to Mr.
Hyndman to speaking myself, but I had to make some defence of the
cause by which I stand. I do say that the Radical Party as at
present constituted, the modern Radical Party, has adopted every
reasonable idea of Socialism. And the future of this country depends
upon Socialism being recognised within proper limits--Collectivism I
would prefer to call it--individualism being recognised, trade
unionism being recognised, co-operation being recognised. We must
all give up our little separate fads and all work together in {481}
the cause of Democracy, the rule, the absolute rule, of the people,
ruling for the benefit of the people."
Mr. Hyndman said in reply:
"There are just one or two points I should like to deal with in reply
to Mr. Labouchere. To begin with I have listened with the greatest
surprise to-night to his constant reference to the wage fund.
Without any disrespect to him I say that, as a matter of fact, that
figment has been abandoned by every political economist of any note
for the last thirty years. It was abandoned by Mr. John Stuart Mill,
in deference to the criticism of Long and Cairnes twenty-five years
ago. The bottom was knocked out of it by Marx forty years ago. What
is the wage fund, my friends? The wage fund is provided by the
labourer himself, who, mark you, advances his labour to the
capitalist before he gets a farthing of wages. There is not a man in
this hall, however big an Individualist or Radical he may be, not a
single working man here who goes to work from week end to week end
that does not advance a week's labour to the capitalist before he
gets a sixpence in return. The fact of the matter is that the
capitalist has got in his possession the value, and more than the
value, far more than the value paid as wages before he pays a
sixpence of those wages. He can go to his banker with the product he
has got out of the labourer and get an advance before he pays those
wages. Practically in getting the advance he realises the product of
his employees' labour. The fallacy of the wage fund theory is
recognised by every economist, and I defy Mr. Labouchere to prove I
am wrong. I will defy Mr. Labouchere to name an economist who
upholds it."
At this point of Mr. Hyndman's speech Mr. Labouchere rose and said:
"I deny that there is one single economist of repute who questions
the effect of what I said about the wage fund. The employer has
either to provide himself with a wage fund, and then he is entitled
to interest on his money, or he has to {482} borrow it from someone
else, and then he has to pay interest. The working-man, it is
perfectly true, gives him credit for a week--not always, but I am
taking Mr. Hyndman's statement--but the employer does not, I
say--take the cotton industry--the employer does not get back his
money till the end of the year. Consequently, whereas the working
man gives credit for a week, the employer has to give him credit for
fifty-one weeks. ['No, no.'] I say yes, there is no question about
it. All that I want to point out is that you have to pay interest on
this wage fund. Mr. Hyndman admits it, because he says, what does he
do? He goes and obtains it from his banker. Does his banker give it
to him?"
To which Mr. Hyndman retorted, not ineffectually:
"I say that the security has been provided by the working man before
the capitalist is able to raise a sixpence on it, and that all he
does is to divide up the surplus value he has got from the worker
with the banker who has made the advance. There is no such thing as
a wage fund, except that provided by the worker himself. And it is
exactly the same with the capital. Friends and fellow-citizens,
where does this capital come from? From the labourers themselves.
Where can the capital come from if not from the labour of the
workers? Did not the workers build every factory in this country,
from its base to its topmost storey? Did they not put down every
sleeper on the railways, and lay down every mile of line? I say,
therefore, that this idea of the wage fund, which has been repudiated
by John Stuart Mill, by Cairnes, by Mr. Alfred Marshall, by every
economist of note, does not exist in economy, but is a figment of the
imagination. Now, friends, as to this question of families fading
out. Mr. Labouchere says that the death-rate has lowered. That is
perfectly true. On the average the death-rate _has_ lowered. But
mark this. It has lowered principally in the well-to-do districts.
The death-rate in St. George's, Hanover Square, is 11 per 1000; in
several districts of Lambeth it is 66."
{483}
Mr. Labouchere, evidently astonished, turned to the Chairman and
said, "Is that a fact?" Some one in the audience shouted "Proof!"
"Proof you must look up in the statistics; I can't bring a library
here with me. I say, friends, in addition to that, that vitality is
on a lower plane. For this, again, I give as my authority passages
quoted in Alfred Marshall's _Principles of Economics_, where you will
find the opinions of doctors. I also refer you to reports of
certifying surgeons for the factories for the year 1875 and later
dates. I say that when I speak of families fading out, I mean that
the physical and mental vigour and initiative of those families are
crushed down in our great cities. I have never heard it disputed
before; I don't think I shall hear it disputed again. If you ask any
of the great contractors as to his supply of powerful navvies, he
will tell you he cannot get them out of the towns. If you ask any of
the recruiting officers he will tell you the lads from the cities are
physically useless. You will find the standard of height for
recruits has decreased five inches during the present reign, and the
chest measurement in proportion. Consequently there is, I say, in
our great cities, which form the bulk of the population, a constant
physical deterioration going on, which will end in the fading-out of
the people unless we replace this system of robbery and rascality and
oppression that is going on at present by a better. I cannot stop
any length of time to dispute about the way in which the wealth that
is taken from the workers is divided up. It matters not to me
whether it is the Royal Family, or the professional men, or the
servants who divide it, or in what proportion they divide it, after
it has been taken from the worker. That makes, I say, no difference
whatsoever. The workers never see it again. Four per cent. also on
£100,000,000 is forty per cent. on £10,000,000. How is the amount of
capital reckoned? Mr. Labouchere knows perfectly well that a coal
mine or factory which has cost but £40,000 will frequently be
capitalised at £200,000. {484} That is the way they put it in the
Blue Books. I can give an example of a mill in Rochdale where the
freehold belongs to the man who owns that mill, when and where every
single charge is met in a separate category, and then, after all
these are divided, the interest on the capital is reckoned over again
on the whole capitalised value. I say that four per cent. does not
represent the profits on cotton, even in these comparatively bad days
for the cotton industry. But the mere fact that the profit is going
down means that competition is cutting its own throat, that we are no
longer masters of the markets of the world. And what does the
capitalist do when his profits go down? He tries to make another
turn of the screw on his labourers--and the result was the great
cotton strike which occurred a short time ago, when, for sixteen
weeks on end, the poor unfortunate spinners and weavers stood out
because they would not have that amount which the capitalist was
losing in the competitive market sweated out of their very bone and
blood. So much for your four per cent. or your forty per cent. It
is wrung out of the workers, it can come from nobody else. As to the
organiser, what did the Roman slave-owner give to his villeins, who
stood in the same relation to the working slaves as the capitalist
organiser to the labouring classes to-day? He paid him lower
remuneration because his labours were less exhausting. That is a
positive fact. I say that if you want organisers who to-day are
appointed by the capitalist, let them be appointed by the workers,
who can pay them far better than the capitalists, because you will
have all the capitalists' profits and all the amounts the capitalists
sweat out of their employees' labour as well to pay with. ['Don't
capitalists start as working men?'] Yes, and the more they grab, the
bigger they get. As to the amount received by the working men as
wages, Mr. Leone Levi was one of the most unscrupulous and lying
champions of the capitalist class who ever wrote. He represented
that the average wages of working men and women throughout England
{485} were 32s. a week. That is a positive fact; it is on record in
his own books. Thirty-two shillings a week! I say that is a
deliberate lie. And that is how he made out his amount of 531
millions. As a matter of fact, Mr. Giffen and Mr. Mulhall both
included in the wages of the working classes all those paid to
domestic servants, the soldiers and sailors, all that is paid to your
noble friends the police. I say that, as a matter of fact, those are
not producers in the common sense of the word. They are simply
encumbrances upon the industrial community. I say, further, that out
of the amount paid in wages to the working classes, which I reckon at
£300,000,000 to £350,000,000, not a sixpence more, one-fifth or
one-fourth has to be paid as rent for the miserable dwellings the
workers occupy. That is, I say, the position of the labouring
portion of the community at the present time. I am told that
shopkeepers are a useful class. Well, surely there are too many of
them. You will find in one street half a dozen people vending the
same wares. The organisation of any decent system of distribution
would not allow such a state of things to continue, but would turn
the unnecessary distributors into producers, and thus lighten the
weight of producing on the others. Mr. Labouchere does not seem to
understand that what we want is not money. You cannot eat it; you
cannot be clothed with it. What you want is good hats, good homes,
and good beefsteaks--enjoyment, contentment in life, comfort, and
beyond all these, public amusements of every kind. I say that these
have nothing whatsoever to do with money. If you want to save, you
don't want to save money; you want to save those things which are
necessary to the support and continuance of life. Mr. Labouchere
seems to think that communism is unknown on this planet. I say that
human beings far lower in the range of civilisation than we, with
comparatively small and puny means of production, live far more
happily, in far better conditions of life, than enormous proportions
of our great city population. Where? I will tell you. I say I
{486} have lived among communal tribes where, as a matter of fact,
the conditions are as I have told you. The inhabitants of Polynesia,
the Pueblas of New Mexico, and the people of other places which I
have not seen, live better, considerably better, with all their small
means of production, than the proletariat of our great cities, and
they produce, regard being had to the productive powers at their
command, articles of clothing and domestic use as remarkable in their
way as the finest products of civilisation. More than that, all the
great bed-rock inventions of humanity, the wheel, the potter's wheel,
the smelting of metals, the canoe, the rudder, the sail, every one of
these and many more, the stencil plate and weaving, to wit, were
invented under communism and no human being knows who invented them.
That is a sufficient answer to the supposition that under a Socialist
state of society there would be no progress in the invention. But I
am asked what the capitalists will do when the transformation to a
co-operative commonwealth is made. They will go away with their
capital. What is capital? Capital is the means and instruments of
production used by a class to make profit out of labour. Can the
capitalist roll up the railways and take them away in his
portmanteau? Will he walk away with the factories in his waistcoat
pocket? Mr. Labouchere himself sees the futility of some of this.
He advocates the nationalisation of the railways because he says that
they will be better administered under the State than to-day."
_Mr. Labouchere_: "No, no."
_Mr. Hyndman_: "Why then do you want to nationalise them?"
_Mr. Labouchere_: "I very much doubt whether they would be better
managed in the sense that they would produce more money than now. I
hold that the roads of a country ought to belong essentially to the
State. It is better for the general benefit that they should be held
collectively. I do object to their giving preferential rates to
foreigners and {487} charging excessive amounts to persons sending
goods a short distance in England. That is the reason why I think
the railways would be better in the hands of the State."
_Mr. Hyndman_: "As a matter of fact, preferential rates can be
stopped without the nationalisation of the railways. Mr. Labouchere
can bring in a Bill when Parliament meets to prevent them. Why,
then, is he so Utopian as to demand the nationalisation of the
railways? I want, however, to raise the discussion out of the minor
points, and I say this, that Socialism does not mean organisation by
the State under the control of Mr. Hyndman, or any one else, but the
entire organisation of industry, on the highest plane of co-operation
for the benefit of all. In that co-operative commonwealth
competition for profit will be unknown. Mr. Labouchere has drawn a
tremendous picture of what it will cost to effect the change. What
does the social system cost you as it is going on to-day?
Competition carried to its logical issue must engender monopolies.
These monopolies have been given by the capitalist class to
themselves in their capitalist House of Commons. That assembly must
be re-constituted and turned to Social-Democratic purposes. But then
you will lose all those clever men who will not join with you! Where
will they go? We are stronger in France than in England, and
stronger in Germany than in France. Will they go to China? That
seems to me the last refuge of the wandering individualist, the last
place on the planet where the individualist will be able to go.
Socialism is gaining ground in every country in the world, and mark
this, where the people are best educated, there we are most powerful.
Germany is the best educated country, and Socialism is stronger there
than in any other nation. Whatever city in England has a body of
educated workers, there we make way quickly. Mr. Labouchere seems to
think that no one will serve his fellowmen unless he is able to grab
from them. His idea of humanity seems to me--I wish to say {488}
nothing that is in the least offensive, and I will withdraw it at
once if it is considered so."
For about a minute there was disorder so great that Mr. Hyndman was
unable to proceed. The Chairman rose and appealed for quietness
during the two or three minutes that remained to Mr. Hyndman.
Silence having been restored, Mr. Hyndman said:
"I say, friends, that the representation that the men of
intelligence, of genius, of capacity, and the like would leave us and
go to other places means that they are not animated by the idea of
serving their species, but simply of making their own fortunes. I
say that mankind, as a whole, has higher ideals than that. I say
that all the great work done on this planet, all the great books that
have ever been written, all the great inventions that have ever been
made, have not been made for money, but for something higher than
that. I say further, that when a man has been paid all he requires
to sustain a happy, contented, and wholesome life, when he has around
him a people living happily with him, co-operating with him, when he
sees that every effort he makes tends to the advantage of the whole
community and to the drawback and domination of none, I say that
then, animated with a lofty public spirit, he will place his whole
power, his whole intelligence, his very faults, and his life at the
disposal of the community he benefits by his existence."
Mr. Hyndman went on to point out that many of the reforms adopted by
the Radicals were in reality due to Socialist inspiration. He
instanced the eight hours day and the nationalisation of railways,
which Mr. Labouchere had advocated, and concluded what must have been
a stirring and able speech as follows:
"Now I repeat, friends and fellow-citizens, that we are arguing for
what is inevitable, that at the present moment the capitalist system,
like the feudal system before it, and chattel slavery before that,
heads back progress. I say {489} that now, in many directions the
force of electricity, and various great mechanical and chemical
inventions, which might tend to the benefit of the race are being
headed back by low wages and vested private interests. I don't think
anybody can deny that. It must be admitted also that universal
commercial crises have occurred time after time in this century, each
one worse than the one before it. Since the Baring crisis of 1890
there have been great financial difficulties, and thousands and tens
of thousands of people have been thrown out of work. Why? Not
because there is not plenty of wealth to be produced, but because, as
a matter of fact, the power to produce it is taken from the producers
altogether. I say that, whether we like it or not, a system of
Socialism is being built up out of the facts of to-day. From the
misery we see around us there is necessarily arising a glorious
future, the golden age which all the greatest of the sons of men from
Plato and Moore onward have desired and foreseen, an age in which
wage-slavery and competition having ceased, men will co-operate for
the greater advantage and enjoyment of all. Friends, that which the
great thinkers of old saw through a glass darkly we see face to face.
We are the inheritors of the martyrdom of men to the forms of
production and distribution throughout the ages. I ask you to-night
not to treat this question as being brought down to you from on high,
but as growing up under your feet below. Consider it earnestly for
the sake of the men, women, and children who are being crushed down
in our cities, and whose lives may be rendered worthy and happy. Let
us uplift ourselves at once from the question of twopenny and
twopenny-halfpenny profit into a higher, nobler, and more glorious
sphere."
Mr. J. G. Smith, on behalf of the Socialists, wound up the
proceedings by proposing a vote of thanks to both speakers. He
expressed his appreciation of the "sincerity and honesty" with which
Mr. Labouchere had met Mr. Hyndman.
{490}
Opinions will probably differ as to who really got the better of this
encounter, nor shall I be rash enough to award the palm. At least
Mr. Labouchere's speech shows the sort of way in which he approached
the question. It shows his dislike of theory, his determination to
stick to the concrete, and his distaste for rhetoric.
{491}