MODERN SOCIALISM
AS SET FORTH BY SOCIALISTS
IN THEIR SPEECHES, WRITINGS,
AND PROGRAMMES
EDITED, WITH AN INTRODUCTION, BY
R. C. K. ENSOR
THIRD EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED
LONDON AND NEW YORK
HARPER Gf BROTHERS
45, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
1910
PREFACE
A BOOK like the present could not possibly be completed on
its English side without the kind co-operation of many English
Socialists. For permission to reprint important matter which
has appeared otherwise, I am deeply indebted to Mr. and Mrs.
Sidney Webb, to the literary Trustees of William Morris, to
Mr. J. Keir Hardie, M.P., and to Mr. John Burns, M.P., to
the Fabian Society, to the Labour Leader^ Limited, and to the
Clarion Newspaper Company.
For the foreign translations I am personally responsible,
except in the case of the extract from Kautsky's " Social
Revolution. " For this I am indebted to the kindness of Mr.
J. B. Askew and the Twentieth Century Press , whose translation
of the whole work has laid every English Socialist under a
sensible obligation.
But for Mr. Askew, very little translation from foreign
Socialist writers has been attempted since that of Marx's
classical works in the 'eighties. One result of this, and of the
limited currency of conscious Socialism in England, is that the
translator has no cut-and-dried vocabulary. Words like
" proletariate," " proletarian," " bourgeoisie," " bourgeois,"
lack in English the everyday actuality which their equivalents
vi PREFACE
in French and German possess, and it is a question whether
to use them. I have used "proletariate," "proletarian,"
without hesitation, only regretting that the antithesis between
them and " capitalists" has not more generally replaced in
English the meaningless one between "poor" and "rich."
" Bourgeoisie " and " bourgeois " are more doubtfully adopted ;
the objection to substituting " middle-class " is, that Socialists
do not treat the bourgeoisie as anything intermediate, but
essentially as one of two parties to a duel. The poverty
of English in words expressing the general conceptions of
sociology is not confined to English Socialism. We had to
borrow " Philistine " from Germany, and we have still no
equivalent for " rentier."
English people interested in Socialism may miss a reference
to certain movements, which in this country are its allies,
though elsewhere sometimes its rivals such as "Christian
Socialism," or the tendencies expressed by Carlyle and
Ruskin. To treat these upon a European scale, however,
would have meant going very far afield without really increas-
ing knowledge of Socialism per se. I have, therefore, with
some regret, left them wholly on one side.
In conclusion, I must thank a great number of friendly
advisers, not all Socialists, for much friendly advice and
assistance.
October , 1903.
CONTENTS
PACK
INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD EDITION ix
INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION . . . xii
INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST EDITION . . . xix
I. THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MODERN AND UTOPIAN
SOCIALISM. BY A. BEBEL i
II. MARXIAN SOCIALISM IN POLITICS. BY W. LIEB-
KNECHT . 4
III. AN ACCOUNT OF MARX'S THEORY. BY F. ENGELS . 14
IV. THE PROGRAMME OF THE "COMMUNIST MANIFESTO."
BY KARL MARX AND F. ENGELS ... 35
V. THE STANDPOINT OF LASSALLE . . . . .38
VI. THE SAINT-MANDE PROGRAMME. BY A. MILLERAND . 48
VII. FRENCH REFORMIST SOCIALISM. BY A. MILLERAND . 56
VIII. THE LABOUR QUESTION FROM THE SOCIALIST STAND.
POINT. BY WILLIAM MORRIS 65
IX. PROBLEMS OF MODERN INDUSTRY. BY SIDNEY AND
BEATRICE WEBB 90
X. WHETHER CLASS ANTAGONISM is SOFTENING DOWN.
BY K. KAUTSKY 114
XI. SOCIAL REFORM IN GERMANY AND IN FRANCE. BY G.
VON VOLLMAR 135
XII. THE REVOLUTIONARY AND REFORMIST CONTROVERSY,
AS ILLUSTRATED AT THE BORDEAUX CONGRESS OF THE
FRENCH SOCIALIST PARTY 163
XIII. THE THEORY OF INCREASING MISERY . . . .185
XIV. GERMAN SOCIALISTS AND THE GENERAL STRIKE . . 189
XV. SOCIALISM AND THE CAPITALISTIC TRANSFORMATION OF
AGRICULTURE. BY E. VANDERVELDE . . .198
XVI. SOCIALISM AND AGRICULTURE AS OFFICIALLY REGARDED
BY THE GERMAN SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY . . 220
vii
VI 11
CONTENTS
XVII. THE FREE TRADE CONTROVERSY IN RELATION TO
INDUSTRIAL PARASITISM AND THE POLICY OF A
NATIONAL MINIMUM. BY SIDNEY AND BEATRICE
WEBB
XVIII. THE ECONOMICS OF DIRECT EMPLOYMENT. BY THE
FABIAN SOCIETY . - -r'
XIX. MUNICIPAL SOCIALISM. BY THE RIGHT HON. JOHN
BURNS, M.P., L.C.C
XX. SOCIALISM AND CO-OPERATION. BY E. ANSEELE
XXI. THE POLICY OF INDEPENDENT LABOUR. BY
J. KEIR HARDIE, M.P
XXII. PROGRAMME OF THE GERMAN SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC
PARTY
XXIII. PROGRAMME OF THE BELGIAN LABOUR PARTY
XXIV. PROGRAMME OF THE AUSTRIAN SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC
PARTY
XXV. A FRENCH PROGRAMME OF 1902 ....
XXVI. PROGRAMMES OF THE ENGLISH SOCIALIST ORGANIZA-
TIONS
i. THE PROGRAMME OF THE SOCIAL DEMO-
CRATIC FEDERATION ....
ii. THE PROGRAMME OF THE INDEPENDENT
LABOUR PARTY (1906-7)
i*-" in. THE PROGRAMME OF THE FABIAN SOCIETY
XXVII. CONSTITUTION OF THE LABOUR PARTY .
XXVIII. ELECTION ADDRESSES OF 1906
i. OF THE GERMAN SOCIAL DEMOCRATS FOR
THE REICHSTAG ELECTIONS, 1907
ii. OF THE FRENCH UNITED SOCIALISTS, 1906
in. OF J. R. CLYNES, M.P., AND G. D.
KELLEY, M.P
iv. OF WILL THORNE, M.P., 1906
XXIX. THE FUTURE. BY ANATOLE FRANCE
INDEX
229
242
265
285
303
323
334
339
35i
357
359
364
3 6 9
373
380
383
388
391
INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD
EDITION
A NEW and cheaper edition of this book seems justified by
its continued sale and the absence of any rival on its own
ground. Most of its excerpts are still entirely typical; and
although no doubt the second piece by M. Millerand and
the piece by Mr. Burns might not have been chosen to-day
after the final secession of their authors from the ranks of
regular Socialism, the interest of their authorship is in some
respects heightened and not diminished by what M. Millerand
and Mr. Burns have since done. The head-notes and also the
programmes of the different English organizations have been
revised up to date ; and the Introductions to the two previous
editions have been left as they were written, giving a sketch of
the movement down to January i, 1907.
Of what has happened since, it is not proposed to write
here at length. In the United Kingdom the Labour Party,
despite much chaotic criticism and the serious lack of cohesion
which results from its lack of a Press of its own, has preserved
its independence, proved its utility, and increased its numbers.
In France the " United Socialist " party has gone steadily
backwards. M. Jaures has been driven by loyalty to his
Guesdist colleagues to adopt and defend their sterile anti-
Governmentalism ; and to this must largely be attributed both
the disappointing barrenness of M. Clemenceau's Cabinet (just
formed when the last edition of this book was issued) and
the continued rise of the anti-Parliamentarian " revolutionary
IX
x INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD EDITION
trade-unionists." The two ablest followers, by far, of the old
Jauresist tendency MM. Viviani and Briand, who have left
the party, are with M. Millerand members of the Cabinet of
which M. Briand is Premier ; and by these and similar side-
channels French Socialism makes up somewhat for its ebb
along the main front. In Germany the anti-Socialist coalition
engineered by Prince Biilow in 1907 reduced the party's
strength in the Reichstag by a half; but they polled even
so an increased vote, and have fared remarkably well at
by-elections since; while at successive congresses their ten-
dency towards Reformism becomes more marked. The largest
Socialist party during recent years has been that in the
Austrian Reichsrath, which is also penetrated by the Reformist
tendency. In Italy the Socialists secured 42 seats at the
general election in May, 1909, which have at by-elections
increased to 44. This growth, almost a doubling of their
previous strength, coincided with a decided triumph of the
Reformists over the Revolutionaries inside the party ranks ;
but the differences between these sections have since recru-
desced in a way which may herald another set-back. Speaking
generally, one may say of nearly every Socialist or Labour
party in Europe except the Belgian, that it is weakened by
constantly halting and oscillating between the two types of
Socialist opinion ; that Reformism is practically the only one
which appeals widely enough to be effective at the polls ; but
that the Revolutionary idea obtains from time to time a new
lease of life among the active spirits of the movement.
Turning to that aspect of Socialist advances which is
embodied in machinery and institutions, we see during recent
years on the whole a standstill, and in some cases an ebb, in
the development of collective enterprise. France under M.
Clemenceau nationalized two great railways, but in England
the policy of municipal trading and direct employment has
been abandoned in some important instances. On the other
hand, the policy of making social provision for individual
needs and of taxing unearned forms of income to pay for it
INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD EDITION xi
goes rapidly ahead, and is securing in varying degree the
assent of quite old-fashioned parties in most of the civilized
countries. Recent developments of it in our own scarcely
require enumeration ; in others it has on many sides gone
much further.
No British election addresses of 1910 have been included
in this volume, as the circumstances of the late election com-
pelled all serious candidates to deal, mostly at great length,
with issues not specifically Socialist.
INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND
EDITION
THE last three years have witnessed a rapid spread of Socialist
ideas in most of the leading states. In England Socialism has
appeared to many in a new light since the accession of a
Labour Party, thirty-one strong, to the House of Commons.
That accession took middle-class opinion by surprise, but it
should not have ; for the party had been built up slowly by
arduous and unconcealed effort, and its emergence could be
foreseen three years ago, as in this volume it was.
So much ink has been wasted in ignorance over the Party,
that it may be worth while setting down a few facts about
The English *** Firstly, of its thirty-one members, 1 twenty
Labour belong to Socialist organizations, seventeen to the
Party. Independent Labour Party, one to the Social
Democratic Federation and two, otherwise unattached, to the
Fabian Society (which also has three members sitting on the
Radical benches). Secondly, as between those members of
the Labour Party who belong to Socialist organizations and
those who do not, there not only is reported to exist personal
harmony, but there undoubtedly exists no fundamental doctrinal
discord. The things which the leading trade-unionists want
and demand, have long been Socialistic ; they have differed
from the Socialists in relying almost solely on private collective
bargaining and deprecating comprehensive action in politics.
1 Twenty-nine were elected as such, and two joined it on the morrow
of their election.
zii
INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION xiii
This difference has now disappeared, for those of them who are in
the Labour Party. In the first session of Parliament they have
secured an Act restoring trade-unions to the position which
they were supposed to occupy before the Taff Vale decision.
But the Labour-Socialist federation shows no signs of being
weakened thereby, for Labour has learned very much in recent
years, both of its weakness while it keeps outside politics and
of its possible strength if it goes into them. And the new
conviction is not confined to the leaders, but has taken root
remarkably among the rank and file throughout the country.
Meantime, in international interest for Socialists, Great
Britain by no means takes first place. The new House of
Commons is eclipsed by the new French Chamber, that
elected in May, 1906, which is the most advanced House yet
chosen by a first-class nation. The French, largely French
through having the second ballot, have developed Socialism,
a party system quite unlike the English ; instead of our two
great parties, each welded rather by mechanical pressure than
by community of ideas and principles, they have a number of
parties each definitely and logically standing for a particular
political point of view. Of eight such parties in the new
Chamber three, the Radicals, Socialistic Radicals, and
Socialists, wield together a substantial majority; while of
these three the least advanced, the Radicals, would be thought
very advanced in our House of Commons, and the largest, the
Socialistic Radicals, would here be denounced as Socialists,
and have a programme for immediate purposes resembling
that of our Fabians. Add that the Socialists themselves
number seventy-five in a Chamber of 591, that they are
disproportionately rich in able men (the ablest of all Socialist
shades having secured election), and that fifty-four of them
regularly act as one tactical unit. As soon as this Chamber
assembled, occurred the famous debate between M. Jaures,
the leader of the United Socialists, and M. Clemenceau, the
leader of the Socialistic Radicals. Nothing could be less
accurate than to suppose this a debate between Socialism and
xiv INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION
anti-Socialism. It was one between a systematic believer
in Socialist principles and an empirical believer in particular
Socialistic measures. The victory of Socialist tendencies took
a plain shape in the autumn, when M. Sarrien was replaced by
M. Clemenceau as Prime Minister. The new Cabinet in-
cluded three Socialists, MM. Millerand, Briand, and Viviani,
the last, who is perhaps the strongest of the three, taking a
new Ministry, that " of Labour and of Social Prevision "
(prevoyance sociale\ a significant title. The Ministerial pro-
gramme prominently included old age pensions, the nationali-
zation of two large railways, the facilitation of collective
bargaining, and a progressive income-tax. The near future in
France is complicated by the struggle between Church and
State; but it will be surprising if some of these Socialistic
measures are not carried in the lifetime of the present
Chamber.
At the other end of Europe, Socialism has played a great
part in the upheaval in Russia. Its course, like that of all
Russian reform movements, has been much
chequered by party divisions; but it can claim,
not only to have supplied the bulk of the militant agitators by
whom the awakening first of town workmen and then of
peasants has been achieved, but to have held out its ideal to
the whole nation across the welter of to-day's chaos as a beacon
for the footsteps of reform. One of the first consequences of
the Russian crisis was the change in Austria, where
Austria. . ... . . . , rr
at last a measure establishing manhood suffrage
has been carried. No single force outside the Parliament
contributed so much to this end as the Austrian Social
Democracy, which is now very strong in numbers, though on
the old franchise very slightly represented in the Reichsrath.
Its decisive step was a demonstration in favour of universal
suffrage in Vienna in November, 1905, when over 300,000
Socialists marched in perfect order through the streets.
Another country immediately affected by the Russian crisis
was Scandinavia, where the result was the severance of
INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION xv
Sweden and Norway. Here, when the prospect of war between
the two countries looked gloomiest, the Socialists decisively
stopped it by threatening a general strike, a threat Norway and
which the Swedish Government knew, from an Sweden,
experience in 1902, could and would be carried out. The
strongest European foothold, perhaps, which Socialism has, is
in the very democratic State of Denmark, which
also leads the Continent in the practical realization
of Socialist ideas. In 1903 the Danish Socialists cast 55,593
votes and elected sixteen members of the Folkthing; in 1906, the
corresponding figures were 76,566 (over a quarter of the national
poll) and twenty-four. Moreover, in 1906, at the municipal
and communal elections, out of 417 seats for which polls were
taken, 155 fell to the Socialists, who with the Radicals have
the majority in Danish local government. These figures are
worth quoting because they show, as the history of New
Zealand also shows, that Socialistic ideas do not necessarily
lose, but may actually increase their popularity by being
embodied rapidly and visibly in the statute-book and
institutions of a country.
Italy is the only important State in which Socialism has lost
ground ; in 1900 its Chamber had thirty-three Socialist deputies,
in 1906 only twenty-four. This has been, however,
less due to outside pressure than to internecine
differences within the party, and may be expected to change
when, as at last seems probable, the differences diminish. In
Belgium the arresting of the Socialist march seems {um
less real ; there can be little doubt that the effective
forces of Socialism there have never been stronger than they
are to-day. Not the least remarkable of all Socialist develop-
ments is that shaping itself blindly and inarticulately in the
United States of America. The Socialist parties The United
there are polling large votes in some centres, states *
though so far these bear an insignificant relation to the
amount of real Socialist opinion indicated by the circulation
of Socialist and Socialistic literature, The campaign of Mr.
xvi INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION
Hearst for the mayoralty of New York in the autumn of
1906 gives a juster idea of this movement, which is quickened
by discontent against the trusts.
The last three years have seen some minor developments
of Socialist statesmanship and theory. In England this work
inner de- still largely devolves on the Fabian Society, which
veiopments. h as carried its own gospel of "gas and water"
Socialism a step further by an elaborate study of the different
areas and authorities requisite for different branches of
collectivism, and has tried to acclimatize the Australasian
gospel in Europe by some practical proposals for a legal
minimum wage. Abroad the most noticeable feature has
been a slackening of the tension between " reformist " and
" revolutionary " Socialists. Concessions have been made on
both sides. In France M. Jaures induced his large reformist
wing to conciliate and finally re-unite with the smaller revo-
lutionary fraction. In other countries, such as Italy and
Germany, the advances have come from the revolutionary
wing, whose best leaders saw themselves undermined and
out-Heroded by the general strike propaganda, against which
they formed with the reformists a coalition of common-sense.
This general strike propaganda requires some detailed
study, since it is the first big attempt for thirty years to
General divert and subvert the Socialist movement by an
strike pro- Anarchist movement from within. It derived its
paganda. main impetus from the supposed success of the
great strike in Russia, which wrung from the Tsar the
ambiguous constitution of October 30, 1905. Russian con-
ditions are unique; and we need not here examine how far
they rendered that general strike the best or the only tactics
in a fight for Russian political freedom. Events have since
shown, that the first estimates of its success were too high,
while the failures of frequent attempts to re-enact its drama
prove how terribly it overstrained the human actors. Its
example, however, struck Western Europe at a psychological
moment. In Germany, Italy, and France alike, there was
INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION xvii
lurking among Socialists a new impatience at Parliamentary
delays. In Germany the powerlessness of the Socialist
members of the Reichstag, in spite of the three million
votes behind them, was felt to be well-nigh intolerable. In
the French and Italian democracies the complaint was
different; their Parliamentary Socialists had been anything
but uninfluential ; but a fruitful period of Socialist alliances
with non-Socialist Ministries was drawing to a close, to an
inevitable accompaniment of self-criticism and disappoint-
ments. Under such influences the ultra-revolutionary wings
of the Socialist parties developed a new gospel, which they
claimed to be Marxian, though it really was an anti-Marxian
revival of the doctrines advanced in the early 'seventies by
Marx's Anarchist rival and adversary, Bakunin. They argued
that State action was fundamentally vicious, and the new
organization of society must be a sort of federation of
autonomous trade-unions of producers. Their means for
attaining this was the general strike, supplemented by
insurrectionary violence; and Parliamentarism, because it
implied associating Socialism with the State, was banned.
This doctrine is now known on the Continent as le
syndicalists revolutionnaire^ or " revolutionary trade-
unionism." Its exponents include, in Germany, Rosa
Luxemburg ; in Italy, Labriola ; in France, the Confede'ration
du Travail, organized by men like M. Griffuelhes, and several
brilliant writers such as Georges Sorel. 1 For nearly a year
after the Russian outburst it spread; and in France, during
April, 1906, it gave rise to serious political disturbances.
But soon the tide ran against it. For one thing, the trade-
unionists rejected it, wherever, as in Germany, the trade-unions
have large funds and are seriously proficient in collective
bargaining ; for another, it aroused the natural hostility of the
great "revolutionary" leaders who believe in Parliamentary
methods, such as Bebel and Enrico Ferri. In Germany the
1 Sorel's eloquent " Reflexions sur la Violence " is among the best short
expositions of this point of view,
b
xviii INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION
Social Democrats, having dallied with the general strike at
their Jena congress in 1905, repudiated it (under the strongest
pressure from their trade-unions) at their Mannheim Congress
in 1906. In Italy, at the Rome Congress in 1906, the party
was split in a novel way, the " reformists " and the great
majority of the "revolutionists" composing their quarrels
and combining to leave a small paring of " syndicalists "
out in the cold. In France the general-strike propaganda
has steadily declined, since the election of the present
Chamber in May, 1906, encouraged a more hopeful view of
Parliament. For the present, it probably may be dismissed
as moribund ; but it needs to be carefully appreciated, both
because of its prominence in the tale of the past year, and
because it is certain periodically to recrudesce.
INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST
EDITION, 1903
SOCIALISM has too long an4 varied a history for its study, with
that of the different national problems which it implies, to be
profitably attempted as a whole within short compass. Some
standpoints for abstraction must be selected. In this volume
there are two ; and the subject is the political Modern
Socialism of the present. It is, of course, impossible political
to know the present without knowing something of Soelallsm
its antecedents ; but the antecedents illustrated here are intro-
duced rather for that reason than for the sake of mere anti-
quarianism. Thus Marx, Engels, and Lassalle appear in this
volume ; but the important thing for its purposes is not what
they actually meant to teach, so much as what the modern
Socialist politicians of France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, or
England have learned from them.
There are two advantages in this method. On the one
hand, Socialism is a faith whose part in politics was never so
great as it is to-day, nor ever seemed surer of an important
future ; on the other, the political Socialism now confronting
the world is singularly little realized by English politicians.
The majority of them still confuse it with a Socialism of sixty
years ago, and chiefly appreciate in that the picturesque crudities
which have not lasted.
This ignorance is the less excusable, because the Socialist
parties regularly do a thing which no others do formulate
a written programme. Of these a considerable its pro-
number are made available to English readers in grammes,
the present volume. They may, of course, be read with some
xix
xx INTRODUCTION, 1903
reserves, especially where not recent. But the oldest here
given, the Erfurt Programme of the German party, only dates
from 1891; and although, if it were now re-examined, many
points in it might claim revision, they are insignificant beside
what would still be unanimously upheld. Each programme
declares certain principles, and appends to them a list of
" immediate " reforms. These lists repay study, and if,
perhaps, they strike an English reader as slapdash, he should
remember the Continental aversion to shackling the legislator
by forecasting legislation in detail. 1 The foreign programmes
have, in fact, been threshed out and voted upon by large
assemblies democratically representing very large organized
parties.
Let us here first briefly review the extent of Socialism in
Europe. For this we may usefully classify Continental
its extent countries into those which have representative
in Europe, democratic Governments and those which have
not. Among the former may be reckoned France, Italy,
Switzerland, and Denmark ; among the latter, Germany,
Austria, Spain, 2 and Russia. Belgium, Holland, and Sweden
we might class as " mixed ; " their Governments are essen-
tially Parliamentary, but not democratically representative. 3
Obviously, Socialists are in a different position in the demo-
cratic and undemocratic countries. In the former they can
at once exert influence in proportion to their numbers ; can
profitably agitate for reforms one at a time; can negotiate
with and even enter the Governments. In the latter they
cannot; their only immediate aim must be to multiply their
numbers as a party, and for this a hard-and-fast aggressive
programme and uncompromising resistance to their arbitrary
Governments have been found of most service. Here, too,
1 Cp. Sir C. Ilbert's Legislative Methods and Forms, chaps, iii. and xi.
2 Spain has nominally a liberal franchise, but its operation is an
acknowledged farce.
3 Belgium is the nearest to being so, but a system of privileged plural
voting has still to be surmounted by a working-class party.
INTRODUCTION, 1903 xxl
their organization cannot lose sight of an ultimate appeal to
force, not, perhaps, to instal Socialism, but to instal preliminary
democracy; which has not been won without force, or the
threat of force, in any modern State. They tend, therefore,
in undemocratic countries to be the more numerous, united,
doctrinaire, and imposing, and in democratic countries to be
fewer, less united, less uncompromising, but more constructive
and more influential.
In France, Italy, and Denmark, Socialists have for some
years inspired and dominated the Government. 1 In 1899 the
Dreyfus case was skilfully used by M. Jaures, F Panee .
leader of the French Socialist party, to effect a
working agreement between the Socialists and other demo-
cratic parties in France, whence issued the Waldeck-Rousseau
Cabinet, with M. Millerand, a Socialist, for its Minister of
Commerce. The Cabinet lasted from June, 1899, to June,
1902, when, after winning a general election, it gave way to
the very similar Cabinet of M. Combes, also dependent on
Socialist votes, although not including a Socialist. Both
Cabinets have been fertile from the Socialistic standpoint.
In Italy, 2 in February, 1901, a similar situation was realized
by the Zanardelli-Giolitti Government, which con- ItaJ
tained no Socialists, but depended on Socialist
support. The negotiating parties were Signer Giolitti on
the side of the Government, and Signor Turati on that
1 In France this policy provoked a Socialist split, two sections under
MM. Guesde and Vaillant leaving the "French Socialist party," and,
finally, coalescing into the (much smaller) "Socialist party of France."
In Italy there was no split, but there have been extremely violent dL-
sensions.
2 The Italian Socialist party is of recent but very rapid growth. It
sent to the Chamber in 1895 eight deputies, in 1897 sixteen, and in IQCO
thirty-three. In 1900 it captured control of no less than 1268 municipal
and communal councils, to which a remarkable law, passed by the Zanar-
delli-Giolitti Government, subsequently gave unique facilities for developing
municipal Socialism. In 1905 and 1906 this growth of the party was
considerably pruned back.
rxii INTRODUCTION, 1903
of the Socialists, and the result was a Socialistic policy
which may fairly be said to have changed the face of Italian
administration. 1 This came partially to an end in June, 1903,
when the Socialists, perhaps prematurely, broke away, and
Denmark. Signor Giolitti resigned office. In Denmark, during
the same period, the Socialists supported, to their
advantage, the Radical Government of Professor Deuntzer.
Shortly before the general election of June, 1903, they broke
off relations, and in the election polled 29 per cent, more
votes than in 1 90 1. 2 In all these three countries very remark-
able experiments in Socialistic legislation and administration
have been initiated. In Switzerland Socialists are prominent
only in the towns, especially Zurich, and their forte is municipal
Socialism. In 1901 their national party organization absorbed
the chief non-Socialist workers' organization, the Griitli, and
has since made progress.
Turning to the undemocratic countries, the first to consider
is, of course, Germany. The State Parliaments and the town
Germany councils are elected on very undemocratic bases,
and few Socialists figure on them. The exception
is the little State of Hesse, where, however, their activity,
though interesting, cannot compare with those we have men-
tioned. The imperial Reichstag is elected by universal suff-
rage, but its active power is nearly nil, and its composition is
vitiated by an obsolete distribution of seats. 8 The remarkable
votes polled at Reichstag elections by the Social Democrats *
1 For a summary of some of its labour measures, see an article by Mr.
Bolton King in the Economic Journal for September, 1903.
2 In 1895 eight Danish Socialists were elected to the Folkething, in
1901 fourteen, in 1903 sixteen, in 1906 twenty-four. An exceptional
feature of the party is its strength in rural districts.
3 The constituencies have not been altered since 1869, when Germany
was still mainly agricultural. Hence the Social Democrats, whose strength
lies in the new great towns, are under-represented. In 1898 each of the
56 Socialists elected was returned on an average poll of 37,626 votes, each
of the no Clericals by 13,228, each of the 54 Conservatives by 15,911, and
each of the 47 National Liberals by 20,666.
* In 1877 they polled 493,288 votes j in 1881 (under the first pressure of
INTRODUCTION, 1903 xxiii
are indications, therefore, of the power which they ought to
have rather than of any power which they have got. The
Social Democrats are in the position of seeing their immense
hold on the masses of the people officially recorded every five
years ; they have in the Reichstag a public platform, on which
they can criticize and expose the governing class with all the
great ability which many of them possess; but they cannot
legislate or administrate an iota. The position is very bad for
them, the barren irritations of a standing injustice being sub-
stituted indefinitely for the' fruitful if sobering effects of govern-
mental experience. German superior intelligence, and in
particular the German workman's exceptional readiness to
think things out, has preserved their political sanity ; but it is
idle to expect from them the Protean constructive genius
called forth in Socialism by democratic opportunities. Closely
allied to them is the Austrian party. 1 In the industrial dis-
tricts, especially in Bohemia, it is numerically Austria,
strong, although no such record of its numbers is
available as is afforded in Germany by the Reichstag elections.
Its leaders show favourably among Austrian party politicians,
and have displayed skill in dealing with the Austrian race
difficulty. As theorists they have been helped by distinguished
University professors ; one need only name in this connection
SchafBe and Anton Menger. Thirdly must be considered
Russian Socialism. Its growth in Russia has, of Russla
course, been wholly underground, and it is driven
to be violent and non-constructive. Its party organizations
are much divided, and have still to fight for political freedom
before Socialism. Its chief doctrinal influence is that exerted
by Russian exiles in Western Europe. These have included
a surprising number of able men ; but their ideas, conceived
with reference to a despotic and agrarian environment, are not
the Anti-Socialist Law) 311,961 ; in 1890 (the year of its repeal) 1,497,298 ;
in 1898 this rose to 2,107,076 ; and in 1903, to 3,008,000.
1 There is a separate party in Hungary, of long standing, but restricted
by the small scale of urban industry.
xxiv INTRODUCTION, 1903
always of service to industrial democracies. Lastly, we must
Spain no * e Spain? the one country where Socialism seems
eclipsed by Anarchism among working men. It
would seem that an utterly corrupt Government blights Socialism
more than an utterly despotic one, because it discourages all
faith in political activity. Among middle-class parties, how-
ever, the Spanish Republicans go far in the Socialistic
direction.
Coming to the three States Belgium, Holland, and
Sweden which we classed as " mixed," we find Socialism in
each with a strong hold on the urban proletariate, but held
back by favoured rural voters. Far the most remarkable of
Belgium tne * r P art ^ es * s tne Belgian, owing to the scale
of Belgian mining and manufacture, the old con-
nection of Brussels with the International Working Men's
Association, and the country's central situation between
French, Germany, and English influences. Workmen of genius
and brilliant " intellectuals," co-operators, trade-unionists,
jurists, economists, artists, and notable authors, all work
harmoniously in its ranks, and perhaps it is the one Socialist
party in which "reformists" and "revolutionaries" rather
complement than curtail each other. In Parliament, although
the weightiest opposition party, it can as yet take no part in
government ; but it has done a great constructive work outside
by focussing co-operation, trade-unionism, and Socialism into
a single movement. It tries to fight the worker's battle all
round as consumer, producer, and citizen ; its methods are
not unique, but their co-ordination is, and the effort at popular
training and culture which goes with them. In matters of
theory the Belgians have particularly pioneered the agrarian
question. They formulated an agrarian programme as long
ago as 1893, whereas neither the Germans nor the French
have yet done so.
Of the Continental situation generally it may be said that
Socialism has a party in every industrial country, which in all
except Spain is increasing, and in most at a phenomenal rate.
INTRODUCTION, 1903 xxv
In the democracies it already lays a hand upon government;
elsewhere it tends to be the backbone of the Opposition. At
present it seems almost the only force, outside the reaction,
which has new ideas ; the older Liberals mark time, and the
Radicals, who are coming to stand between them and the
Socialists, borrow their novelties from the latter. Its partisans
are still mainly urban, and the chief force against them is that
of a Conservatism relying on rural votes. In Roman Catholic
countries this force is commonly organized by the clergy.
Outside the Continent Socialism is practically confined to
certain of the English-speaking countries. 1 These are the
United Kingdom, the United States, and the colonies of
Australia and New Zealand. The last have realized more
Socialistic measures than any other States in Australia
the world, 2 and their experiences are reacting and New
upon European theory. Every Australian colony
possesses a separate Labour party, but in New Zealand Labour
has amalgamated with a very advanced sort of Radicalism to
form a Progressive party. The Queensland Labour party is
the only one which has been Socialist in an orthodox sense ; it
was also until 1903 the least compromising, and has least in-
fluenced government. The others, which all grew up out of
defeated trade-unionism, have squeezed their Socialistic legisla-
tion, as in France and Italy, out of non-Socialist allies. Its
effect has been to emphasize the value and possibilities of the
State regulation of industry as against State-ownership in the
more obvious sense. Not only have factory and workshop
regulations been carried much further than in Europe, but two
quite new principles have been put into practice the State-
enforcement of minimum wage-rates and the State-enforcement
of industrial peace. The former was realized by the system of
wage-boards, established in Victoria in 1896, and in South
Australia in 1900; while both have been attained by that of
1 There is also a party in Japan, which publishes several newspapers.
2 The standard account of them is State Experiments in Australia and
Nfiv Zealand, by the Hon. W. P. Reeves (London, 1902).
xxvi INTRODUCTION, 1903
compulsory State-arbitration in trade disputes, first devised
in New Zealand in 1894 by the Hon. W. P. Reeves. Of these
systems Mr. Reeves's, as amended by experience, has pre-
vailed ; and not only does New Zealand persist in it, but New
South Wales (1901), West Australia (1902), and the Common-
wealth Government have paid it the compliment of imitation.
In the United States Socialism is, perhaps, less forward than
in any other democratic country. This seems due to the
The United extremely individualist tradition, descended with
States. t ne Constitution from the founders of the Republic,
and also to the corruption of politics, for which that tra-
dition may be partly responsible. 1 A Socialist vote is, how-
ever, growing in many centres, quickened by dislike of the
Trusts ; and outside it stretches a penumbra of semi-Socialist
conviction, which first won recognition at the St. Louis Con-
vention of the Democratic party in 1896. Already some of the
most widely read journals find it worth their while to exploit
the tendency. The high education of the American people,
their liability to epidemics of thought, the extreme concentra-
tion of their industry and inequality of their wealth-production,
all favour the possibility of Socialism coming to them in a flood. 2
There remains the Socialism of the United Kingdom.
How much is there of it? A superficial observer might say
The United none. Certainly there are few constituencies
Kingdom. which will elect to p ar ii am ent a "Socialist"
candidate, and it may be doubted whether fifty thousand
electors call themselves "Socialists" in politics. Others,
again, looking at our old and far-advanced factory laws, the
strength of our trade-unions, the numbers of our co-operators,
the progress of our municipalities towards the appropriation
1 Per contra, it seems that a policy of municipalization has tended to
purify municipal politics; Chicago and New York are both instances.
2 In 1900, at the Presidential Election, about 130,000 votes were cast
for the Socialist candidates. In that of 1904 some 441,000 Socialist votes
were cast. This, although through the absence of second ballot, every
vote given for a Socialist is in a sense thrown away.
INTRODUCTION, 1903 xxvii
of public services, towards direct employment, and even (by
wage clauses in public contracts) towards the fixing of a
standard of life, say that without knowing it we are among
the most Socialistic nations. So far as what we have achieved
goes, this is probably true, or was till a few years ago;
but as regards what we are, and what we are likely to
achieve further, more doubt may be felt. All the develop-
ments mentioned dovetail into the Socialistic idea, and nearly
all have grown from Socialist seed. But it is precisely the
inner spiritual bond betw6en them now lacking which is
Socialism, and without a re-birth of which no Socialist can feel
confidence in their future.
The reader of this volume will not require here a long
account of Socialistic theory. Summarily we may describe it
as the doctrine, that whereas the means of pro- Socialistic
duction (capital, with land and raw materials) are theory> -
as indispensable to every man's existence as his own body,
society should secure for all its members an equally free
access to them, by disallowing private property in them (just
as it has secured for all the equally free disposition of their
bodies, by disallowing slavery). Private property, as it exists,
exists solely in virtue of social action, and the motive for
that action is social utility. Its aim is to secure for the
producer the means of production, so that he who will work
may work out his own salvation. Socialists believe this aim to
be unrealized by it, owing to the tendency of capital to con-
centration. 1 This tendency divides society into two classes
a diminishing class who have capital and can work on their
1 This tendency, or law, which seems valid for all industry except pos-
sibly farming, is that in adding capitals 2 + 2 do not = 4, but 4 + *> the
x representing a special advantage of concentration. Thus 200 capital
will enable a man to do more than twice as much as ^100 would, or
,200,000 more than twice as much as jioo,ooo. x will not always be
realized, but will always tend to be. Its value was enormously raised by
the Industrial Revolution, and seems to be still rising. It operates inside
society as a continual handicap, increasing the amounts of capital owned,
and diminishing the relative number of owners.
xxviii INTRODUCTION, 1903
own account, and an increasing class who have not, but must
sell their services tc capitalists " and " proletarians." If the
right of private property in capital is secured in its absolute
form (the form taught to Europe by Roman law), the prole-
tarians are absolutely at the capitalists' mercy. They must
work for the capitalists, for otherwise they cannot work at all,
and would starve. The capitalists can make them do what
work they please, under what conditions they please, and need
only give even a subsistence wage so far as they fear a shortage
of labour.
Socialism then asserts, that unless the capitalists' right of
property is limited, the proletarian's degradation will be un-
limited. Even Roman law, when it forbade the creditor to
enslave his debtor, acknowledged that the State must fix some
minimum, below which the capitalist cannot bargain for the
proletarian to go. When Socialism advocates, e.g., a com-
pulsory eight hours' day, it proceeds on exactly parallel lines ;
a capitalist shall not force a proletarian to work nine hours,
any more than he can force him to become a slave. Broadly
this process may be termed the " expropriation " of capital.
The employers have been quite logical in protesting that " a
man can do what he likes with his own." As soon as the
State says, " You shall not do this or that with your capital,"
expropriation has begun.
We should note here, though, that expropriation may take
one of two forms the State may abolish the owner, or it may
abolish ownership. It does the former, whenever a railway
system is nationalized or a tramway system is municipalized.
It does the latter, partially, when it regulates the hours or
conditions of labour, and more completely, when (as by com-
pulsory arbitration) it fixes labour's wage. The two methods
sometimes compete. Land nationalization illustrates the
former, the State becomes landlord ; while a policy of land
registry combines with a heavy progressive land-tax, restraints
on leasing, prohibition of mortgages, and regulation of landed
INTRODUCTION, 1903 xxix
inheritance, illustrates the latter, the State abolishes land-
lordism. Doubts will arise as to which method is the best in
particular cases; but as a rule the former only protects the
proletarian as consumer, and the latter only as producer.
Each, therefore, needs to be supplemented by the other. A
State railway may benefit the consuming community in any
case ; but it only benefits railwaymen if it adopts a good
standard wage policy (which, eg., the Prussian State Railways
do not). A standard wage system benefits proletarian pro-
ducers in any case; but 'they can only realize its value in
consumption, if the State protects them against monopolies
by intelligently nationalizing and municipalizing them.
The moral claim from which Socialism starts is that for
equality of opportunity. This may be made clearer by a
single illustration. Elementary education in England is
Socialistic ; secondary is not. Observe that neither is possible
without capital that is, proletarian children (say 90 per cent,
of those reared) must in default of State action or charity go
without education. The State has stepped in, and has said
to every proletarian child : " You shall have elementary
education ; you shall have at least the ' three R's ' to help you
in working and in bargaining for the means to work." Social-
ism demands 1 an identical policy for further education. It
asks that every child shall have an equal chance of it, and that
his capacity shall decide how far he shall go. But under a
strict operation of private property the proletarian children must
have no chance at all, and the amount of education which each
gets be proportioned not to his own capacity so much as to his
father's capital.
It is worth while in this place to give a brief glance at the
historical development of Socialism prior to that contained in
this volume. Modern Socialism originated about Genesis of
a century ago in the disillusionments following Socialism,
the industrial revolution, which emanated from England,
and the political revolution, which emanated from France.
1 Cf. all the programmes.
xxx INTRODUCTION, 1903
The " great industry " and the whole cornucopia of machinery
suddenly increased wealth and poverty side by side in a
very puzzling fashion. There is no need to recapitulate here
the horrors of 1800-1850; how with the introduction of
" labour-saving " machinery, men, women, and small children
were worked to death, or how the textile operatives who pro-
duced a hundred times as much as the hand-loom weavers }
suffered hardship where the latter had enjoyed comfort. 1 A
parallel puzzle sprang out of the political revolution. This
was not so much the collapse of constitutional card-castles as
the failure of egalitt of the abolition of privilege. Privilege
of wealth replaced privilege of birth, through the law of
property ; and through the law of inheritance restored it.
The medley of schools and parties and interested classes
who tried to answer these two puzzles may be divided into two
main groups those who saw the good in the two revolutions
and wanted them carried further ; and those who saw the evil
and wanted them put back. The peculiarity of the Socialists
was that they saw both the good and the evil, and could not
therefore go whole-heartedly with either party. Tories of the
type illustrated in England by Southey or Lord Shaftesbury
were in sympathy with the Socialist policy of regulating the
factories. Radicals of the Utilitarian school were in sympathy
with their extreme democracy and with the faith which nearly
all Socialists have always had in the economic soundness
of the new methods of industry. But the Tories could not
accept what might have won the Radicals ; and the Radicals
could not accept what might have won the Tories. Hence
while the Socialists got some help from both parties, they were
generally viewed as Ishmaels by both a curious fate for men
so incurably benevolent as their founders, Owen and St
Simon.
1 That the hardship became starvation was referred by its sufferers to
taxation, Protection, and particularly the Corn Laws. The same sufferers
remained unanimous that their diagnosis had been correct after its remedy,
Free Trade, was applied.
INTRODUCTION, 1903 xxxi
The effect of their finding themselves thus awkwardly
outside the political pale was that the early Utopian
Socialists became Utopians. They were not Socialism,
"unpractical" men in quite the ordinary sense; Owen,
for instance, was the largest manufacturer of his time. But
in the existing party situation they almost despaired of
capturing, except for special objects, the State machinery ; and
easily fell into the error of thinking that they could act for
themselves. Their most obvious resource was to form co-
operative units of producers. Owen knew that, though cotton
operatives were paid very badly, cotton mills paid very well.
Why not work a mill by an association of men, who should
agree to share gains pretty equally, instead of making one man
a millionaire and the rest paupers? Better still, why not
form a settlement of many such associations working at
different industries and exchanging the products in propor-
tions measured by the labour-time spent on each? This
solution, in different forms, haunted Socialists for long. Some-
times the idea was to set up the co-operators in new lands as
fresh nations, sometimes to plant them in existing societies
which they should be in, but not of. Owen himself tried both
experiments. The constructive idea of Fourier his " phalan-
steres" has the same root. Louis Blanc, noting that though
workmen might agree to do without an employer they could
not do without capital, proposed that the State should loan
them capital. This proposal (revived by Lassalle, in 1862-64)
shows Utopianism forced back, in spite of itself, upon
politics. 1 The least Utopian of early Socialists was, in some
respects, St. Simon. The importance of studying in history
the action of classes, the notion of changing the State itself
from a police State to a director of industry, and the idea of
Internationalism, are all to be found in his writing ; and if he
1 It is the Utopianism of co-operation which has endeared it to the
"Christian Socialists" of different countries, who otherwise have very few
points in common. Their leaders have welcomed it as a way of improving
society without disturbing politics.
xxxii INTRODUCTION, 1903
did not found a party, he tried to found a church. Owens'
activity was, by contrast, fertile rather in its by-products. At
New Lanark he showed what a factory and a factory village
could be like. And he was the father of factory legislation as
well as of co-operation and trade-union federation. With the
passing of the first Factory Acts Socialism began to be
realized. As Marx said later, "The Ten Hours Bill was
not merely a great practical success; it was the victory of
a principle." x
The interest of the Utopians is now academic, and nothing
further will be found of them in this volume but an -extract
from Bebel's Charles Fourier ', indicating the differences
Marx and between their Socialism and that of modern poli-
Lassaiie; ticians. The authors of the newer standpoint
making were Karl Marx (with Engels) and Lassalle;
influence. through whose medium, rather than at first hand,
whatever now survives of their predecessors' influence, survives.
Their ideas made an epoch, because with them two decisive
qualities first came to the front in Socialism the scientific
and the political. The change may be in large measure
traced to Hegel, from whom both Marx and Lassalle learned
the evolutionary view of history and the organic view of
society. Both were men of great learning, by whom the
immense work done by economists, historians, and jurists in
the first half of the nineteenth century was appreciated and
utilized. Both also were, though with differences, born
agitators. With " the white steel of science " 2 they set
themselves to seek the naturnothwendig what by the natural
laws of social development must be 3 and to design a policy
1 The dictum has been taken by Bernstein as a motto for his Die
Voraussetzungen des Sozialismus.
2 Cp. infra, p. 45.
* Both were Jews (like Ricardo), and have been reproached with
" Semitic logic " Marx the oftener, Lassalle the more justly. Marx's race,
perhaps, comes out in the habit of expression, by which he continually
presents concrete for abstract, fact for tendency, symbol for thing
symbolized a mere vividness of thought easily mistaken for crudity. Cp.
INTRODUCTION, 1903 ixxiii
as a modern engineer designs a breakwater, so that the
currents it breaks actually strengthen it by their pressure.
And with the agitator's political instinct they set themselves to
build a new party, by bringing into the political arena as a new
conscious element the proletarian class.
Socialism took several decades to come round to the
Lassalle-Marxian point of view, but for most European
countries the process was completed in the 'eighties. Since
then its internal history has been that of a bifurca- Revolu-
tion in each country into two schools. The one ^nS^Re-
is called " Revolutionary" or " Marxist," the other formist"
Possibilist," " Opportunist," " Revisionist," Socialism.
" Fabian," " Ministerial," " Reformist," the last term being
the most exact and comprehensive. Non-Socialists like to
emphasize the difference between them, but seldom under-
stand its bearings. "Revolutionary Socialism," one sees
newspapers say, "is becoming a party of peaceful reform."
The revolutionaries are supposed to be non-Parliamentary, to
wish to replace the methods of democratic constitutionalism
by some dimly conceived method of violence ; the reformists,
on the other hand, are said to be really mere Liberals, men
who have found Socialism worthless, and gone back on it
without having the courage to say so. Neither of these views
will survive an examination of the facts ; the difference
between the two schools, although profoundly interesting, is
not so bald and elementary.
In the first place, the revolutionary Marxists are a constitu-
tional and Parliamentary party. The gospel of violence was
not Marx's but Blanqui's; and though Marx played with it,
notably at the time of the Communist Manifesto, it is one of
his great merits that he saw the indispensableness of consti-
tutionalism to democracy and to a constructive revolution.
Lassalle's splendid suffrage-agitation in Germany drove home
for a striking corroboration of this as a Semitic trait, Renan, Vie de Jesus,
c. xviii. (e.g. "des habitudes de style dont le caractere essentiel est de
preter a la metaphore, ou pour mieux dire a 1'idee, une pleine realite ").
C
xxxiv INTRODUCTION, 1903
the idea, and after the tragedy of the Paris Commune in 1871,
the notion of promoting Socialism by violence yielded every-
where to that of capturing constitutional machinery except in
countries like Russia, where no such machinery exists. Between
Kautsky and Bernstein, Guesde and Millerand, Ferri and
Turati, Mr. Hyndman and Mr. Sidney Webb, there is no
essential dispute as to the expediency of Socialists entering
Parliaments or other popularly elected bodies. Nothing is
more typical of the Marxist leaders in Germany than the almost
sacred importance which they teach the workers to attach to the
vote, and the tenacity with which they defend such Parliamen-
tary privileges as belong to the German Reichstag. The only
non-Parliamentary political method which survives is that of
the general strike. But its adoption has been practically con-
fined to countries where an undemocratic franchise or system
of constituencies renders the capture of elected bodies impracti-
cable, and in nearly all cases it has been adopted on purpose
to remove these restrictions, i.e. to render itself superfluous for
the future. 1 The only country with a democratic machinery,
where further importance is attached to it, is France ; this is
perhaps because the memory of Napoleonic plebiscites still
weakens French confidence in the ballot-box.
In the second place, the reformists have not abandoned
Socialism. They have not come round to laisser-faire^ because
their campaign against it has been worked out more in detail.
In principle they remain very close to Marx how close may
be seen in this volume, if Mr. and Mrs. Webb's preface of
1 Its most successful employment was in Belgium in 1893, when it
secured the abolition of a narrow property franchise, and enabled thirty
Socialists to be at once elected to a Chamber which previously contained
none. In 1902 the Belgian Socialists again employed it in the cause of
franchise reform, but failed ; an almost contemporary effort in Sweden was
rather more successful. On these latter occasions the orthodox organs of
German Social Democracy expressed themselves as very doubtful of the
method. The general strike in Holland in 1903, in which the Socialists
played a leading part, would scarcely have occurred had the Dutch
Parliament been representative. But see supra, pp. xiii.-xv.
INTRODUCTION, 1903 xxxv
1902, or M. Millerand's St. Mande speech, be compared with
Liebknecht's Marxian speech at the Erfurt Congress. Their
innovation is primarily in tactics, though it reacts intricately
upon theory. A party, whose programme comprises more than
one reform, may be impressed either with the value of doing
the many things simultaneously as a system, 1 so that by con-
currence they help each other's operation, or with that of doing
them successively piecemeal, so that each paves the way for
the other. Marxism, with its love of system, takes the former
view ; the reformists take the latter. Again, as we have seen,
Socialism is essentially an appeal on behalf of the interests
of one class, the proletarians, against what the other, the
capitalists, conceive to be theirs. Socialists can either
emphasize this contrast, the Class-War, and rely wholly on
conscious proletarian support, or they can take the line rather
of reconciling the opposition in a higher unity, the Solidarity
of Classes, pleading with the capitalists that they have miscon-
ceived their interest and that the true interest of all the com-
munity is that of the workers. Obviously the Class-War is
adapted for leading up to the simultaneous method, and the
Solidarity of Classes for carrying out the successive. As
between the methods, each has pretty evident pitfalls. The
revolutionary may lead to a sterile propaganda of hate; the
reformist may dissipate itself in demoralizing compromises,
and find all its adherents either bought off or disgusted seriatim.
But as between the ideas, much can be pleaded for each.
English tradition, of course, is utterly in favour of successive-
ness. But the simultaneous idea has a growing importance,
the more complicated society becomes, and the more im-
possible it is to disturb one part without creating a need for
rectification in another. The greatest historical achievements
of English successiveness occurred at simpler stages of society
than to-day's.
1 This does not of course mean in a single " catastrophic" day or by a
stroke of the pen, but it does mean by a Socialist Government which has
definitely attained power and can handle its programme as a whole.
xxxvi INTRODUCTION, 1903
It seemed desirable in this volume to give excerpts from
one of the many general discussions between revolutionaries and
reformists, which have occurred in the great European parties.
For this purpose the Millerand debate at the Bordeaux Con-
gress of the French Socialist party has been chosen. The
Hepp alternative would have been a Bernstein debate of
Bernstein. t ^ e German party. But for several reasons Bern-
steinism has been kept out of this volume. In the first place,
Herr Bernstein, though a brilliant thinker, is not a brilliant
politician, and has hardly any " following " in the strict sense. 1
Secondly, his gospel is cast in the form, largely, of a criticism
upon Marxian details, which few English readers could appre-
ciate. Thirdly, most of its ideas are imported and adapted from
those of foreign democracies, by turning to which we can get
them more at first hand. The Bordeaux debates are pervaded
by a thoroughly French genius for seizing the essential; and
throw, too, into valuable prominence the particular
M. Jaures. . . /* T v TT i 11 j
position of M. Jaures. He, though classed as a
reformist, is really a synthetizer, trying to combine adroitly the
best of both schools. With accepting a solidarity of classes, he
insists that the operation of a conscious organized proletarian
class is indispensable in politics. While pursuing reforms step
by step, he insists that the steps shall always be presented to
the electorate as part of a staircase. While defending alliances
with other parties, he has always insisted that the Socialist
party must remain a separate one. In these respects his
method differs from that of many kindred English progressives
more fundamentally than they are always aware. And it has
been more successful. 3
1 Those leaders of the German party, such as Von Vollmar and Auer,
who, in greater or less degree, sympathize with him, are not disciples. The
germs of all Von Vollmar's reformism may be found in his own speeches
before Bernsteinism appeared. Bernstein may have fortified them by some
arguments, but he has weakened them by his lack of the tactical sense.
8 At present the achievement and prospects of Socialism in France are
probably the best in Europe j and this, although the episode of the Commune
INTRODUCTION, 1903 xxxvii
We will outline the theoretical differences between the two
schools, by comparing their attitudes towards the chief issues
Nationalism (with whose aggressive aspect we may often
identify Imperialism), Clericalism, Protectionism, and Agra-
rianism opposed to Socialism, and towards its principal ally,
Trade-Unionism.
Marxian Socialism was in its genesis international, non-
religious, Free Trade, and urban. Its attitude towards national
and religious differences was purely negative; they were to
be ignored, lest they should divert attention from the all-
important issue between capitalists and proletarians
as such. The Internationalism resulting from this and inter-
has often taken practical and very noble forms ; it national-
is sufficient to recall the protest of Liebknecht
and Bebel against Bismarck's annexation of Alsace-Lorraine.
Outside the Socialist ranks Nationalism in one form and
another has meantime been growing, being evidenced particu-
larly by an unexampled increase in all national armaments
and an unexpected persistence of the militarist spirit. Against
armaments and against militarism the protest of the revolu-
tionary Socialists has everywhere been of the most strenuous.
It is in general echoed by the reformists, but with less
assurance. The concrete spirit of reformism, which is careful
of national peculiarities in its domestic politics, cannot over-
look them wholly in foreign affairs. Moreover, its insistence
on the Solidarity of Classes and the all-round interests of a
in 1871 almost annihilated it, and it has revived in face of an opposition
from laisser-faire theorists and from Roman Catholics to which none in
England is comparable. In the latter country a whole-hearted devotion to
opportunism and piecemeal reform has, since 1895, been virtually fruitless.
Reference, e.g., to the programme for the London County Council
formulated by the Fabian Society in 1895, shows that not one of the more
important of its nineteen desiderata have been secured, and many of the
most important have been decisively negatived. The majority of the
Council itself would at any time have endorsed them almost en bloc ; but
the omission to educate the electorate into a systematic view made it easy
for Parliament, including the London members, to ignore them.
xxxviii INTRODUCTION, 1903
community tends to substitute a national corollary for the
international one of the Class-War. Thus in Germany Herr
Bernstein has reminded the extreme anti-militarists, that
national Germany is the vessel of a certain culture, which some
of her military rivals (e.g. the Slavs) do really threaten. An
analogous course has been taken in France by M. Millerand.
The furthest instance of this tendency was the argument of a
few leading English Fabians who supported the South African
War. They urged that Imperialism and Internationalism were
really the same, since both deprecated the separatism of small
nations. This was not unlike arguing that theft and voluntary
communism are the same, since both operate against private
property. Plainly such arguments only appreciate the negative
sides of Imperialism or of theft, and ignore the animus of the
agent. Nor does Imperialism become less Nationalist by
being pleaded as promoting Civilization. The essence of
Nationalism is that the members of each nation believe their
national civilization to be Civilization. Perhaps the sanest and
most central line on this, as on many other questions, has been
that inspired by M. Jaures. He has not ceased to profess a
warm French patriotism, while putting extreme pressure on
the French Government in the directions of international equity
and European disarmament.
A slighter divergence has occurred on the Clerical question.
The orthodox Socialist policy, that religion is a purely private
Socialism concern, is much strained by the anti-Socialist
andcieri- activity of the clergy in many, chiefly Roman
Catholic, countries. It lets the Socialist insist on
secularizing education and stopping the State-salary which
many States give in one form or another to their clergy;
but it forbids him to attack this or that religion as such.
It has tactical as well as theoretic advantages, and its
more rigid observance by German Socialists in recent
years has won for them at last a considerable number of
Roman Catholic voters. Whether the French Socialist party
has violated it by backing M. Combes must be matter of
INTRODUCTION, 1903 xxxix
opinion. The stiffer Marxians incline to think that they
have. 1
The attitude of Socialism to Protection has not been fully
theorized. The main argument of the classical economists
against it the economic waste and inefficiency socialism
which it involves is one which disciples of Marx & nd Pr *
or Lassalle should, logically, appreciate, though it tec1
is uncertain how many have taken the trouble to do so.
European Socialists are Free Traders largely for obsolescent
reasons. One is the historical influence of the English Anti-
Corn Law agitation, which for many generations of agitators
remained the model of a successful popular movement. 2
Another is the fact that Socialism, like Liberalism, sprang
from the towns, while the kernel of European Protection
has always been agrarian. A third, very powerful abroad,
has been the extreme theory of class war. If it overrides all
other wars, if the employing and employed classes can have
no solidarity of interest against foreigners, no argument for
Protection is possible. Reformist Socialism, with its note
of the solidarity of classes and " national interests," may be
expected to compromise on Free Trade as it does over
Internationalism.
On the other hand, practical Socialism at the Antipodes
is fiercely Protectionist. Local circumstances partly explain
this ; but there are also some general affinities between Socialism
and Protection, as between laisser-faire and Free Trade. Both
the latter tend to take the standpoint of the individual con-
sumer, and ask for what is cheap to him. For Socialism the
consumer is the whole community, in whose life the lives of pro-
ducers as such are a great factor ; and in measuring cheapness
1 An important symposium on the whole subject appeared in 1903 in
Le Mouvement Socialiste, much of it being afterwards Englished in the
Social Democrat. The course of events since has gone far (1906) towards
silencing the Marxian protests.
- As such it dazzled Lassalle (cf. infra, p. 46), while upon Marx its
impression was deepened by his residence in England.
xl INTRODUCTION, 1903
it takes account of the conditions of production. These
might in various ways turn its scale. It might be biassed
towards maintaining particular industries, e.g. agriculture, which
benefit national health and physique. It might object to seeing
industries, where it has established good wages and conditions
of work, undercut by foreign competitors, who reap the in-
dividual advantage of neglecting such things. Lastly, it might
object generally to the fluctuations of and changes in industries,
which Free Trade and its correlative, the world-market, might
be supposed to increase. The last point is one in which a
very characteristic opposition between the Socialists and the
laisser-fairf school is involved. The latter have not always
recognized, that while in the abstract capital and labour are
infinitely plastic, in the concrete form of specialized machinery
and trained workers they are painfully the reverse. The
struggle for existence between industries is one aspect of the
larger struggle, which the laisser-faire school accepts as evolu-
tionary, but whose terrible cost leads the Socialists to ask, how
far the results justify the process.
Very few European Socialists have faced these difficulties.
They see that under present conditions the money advantages
of Protection, for which all pay, go mainly into the pockets of
the very few, as landlords or employers. This settles their
policy satisfactorily for present purposes. But where a Socialist
system of State-owned land and State-controlled industry
comes in, fresh thinking will be needed. Almost the only
Socialists prior, at least, to the present English controversy
who have broken this further ground are Mr. and Mrs. Sidney
Webb. But their remarkable defence of Free Trade, which
will be found in this volume, is confined to the problem of
maintaining a standard of life, and does not go into that of
minimizing industrial dislocation.
Still, it would be a mistake to suppose that industrial dislo-
cation has not seriously engaged Socialist attention. Marxists
may feel a sort of triumph in seeing crises of unemployment
testify, as they think, to the failure of Individualism ; yet they
INTRODUCTION, 1903 xli
have to do their best for the unemployed. And in Germany,
where latterly the crises have been worst, scarcely any Socialists
have been tempted to seek their remedy in Protection. On
the contrary, the Social Democratic party has been the strongest
champion of the cheap loaf. They see that the Protective
tariff in raising prices has not equalized employment. On
the contrary, it seems, as in the German steel and iron indus-
tries, to have accentuated the crises, by encouraging a specu-
lative manufacture for export. So far as regards the industrial
equilibrium, a high and' rising protective tariff has been
accompanied by greater instability than ever. In the face of
these stubborn historical facts the German Social Democrats
have maintained as their programme, " abolition of all indirect
taxes, customs, and other politico-economic measures which
sacrifice the interests of the whole community to the interests
of a favoured minority."
The nearest approach to a volte-face which Socialists have
attempted since Marx has been in relation to Agrarianism.
We have noted how largely the resistance to socialism
Socialism on the Continent depends, electorally andAgrari-
speaking, on the peasants. Marx thought that
the advantage of concentrating capital would be felt in agri-
culture as in other industries ; but in spite of a temporary
confirmation of this view by the mammoth farms which
sprang up in Western America, it now appears very doubtful.
Figures for or against the persistence of peasantry are con-
flicting but at any rate great numbers of peasants remain,
Two questions have been intertangled that of owning land on
a small scale and that of cultivating it on a small scale. Per-
haps the matter of owning has been exaggerated by Socialists ;
for where there are freely alienable peasant plots, economic
rent may be largely neutralized through the land being
divided, not into units of area with differing values, but into
units of value with differing areas. Unless, therefore, accumu-
lation and private landlordism come in, State-landlordism seems
no advantage. Cultivation, again, does seem to follow laws
xlii INTRODUCTION, 1903
other than those of manufacturing industry, which lessen the
possibility of ordering things to be done by rote, and enhance the
value of individual attention and skill. 1 Recognition of this
has led reformists to substitute a policy of actively assisting the
peasants for the orthodox policy of leaving them to succumb
to capitalism. Their formula is : " Collectivize credit, transport,
exchange, and all subsidiary manufacture, but individualize
culture." What reinforces the last clause from another side
is the enormous difficulty of regulating employment in culture.
A regular eight-hours' day for cultivators in Europe scarcely
seems practicable ; and effective inspection would be very
hard. The " self-employment " of the peasant might help to
solve this.
The policy of championing the peasant has important
champions in France and Germany, though not the acknow-
ledged party policy in either. 2 The lines which it would
follow have been largely indicated by practice in Denmark,
and in certain British colonies. In England it hardly seems
to have been heard of, and English Socialists, who are almost
exclusively urban, continue to view Irish land-purchase or
English small-holdings schemes with suspicion. Over against
it the more orthodox Socialist view still develops with great
vitality ; its most brilliant, up-to-date, and elastic exponent is,
perhaps, the Belgian leader, M. Vandervelde.
Most typical of the difference between revolutionaries and
reformists is their attitude to trade-unions. The Marxian view
came out well at the German party's Cologne Congress in
1893, and may be read in a speech made by Liebknecht on
its morrow at Bielefeld. It recognizes their achievement ;
1 Manufacture is making things ; agriculture is watching and tending
things (plants and animals) which make themselves. The latter must
deal constantly with the unpredictable variations of organic growth and
the natural influences (weather, etc.) which react on it.
2 In Germany it was first brought to the front by Herr von Vollmar ;
for its subsequent history cp. infra, pp. 219-227. The French advocacy
of it may be well seen in some remarkable articles by G. Sorel, Revue
Socialiste, March and April, 1901.
INTRODUCTION, 1903 xliii
Liebknecht in the speech cited extolled the English coal-
strike then in progress, and not only brought out the militant
advantages of combining German political, and English trade-
unionist organization, but showed himself partly socialism
conscious that trade-unionism might not be super- and trade-
seded by Socialism even when victorious. 1 But it unlonlsm -
feels that trade-unions, as they exist, often supplant and delay
Socialism, and it only trusts them under reserves. Whereas
reformist Socialism thinks them stepping-stones, and is all for
them. It has theorized tlleir function in Socialist society with
more care than the Marxians. 2 What it does not fully see,
or at least fully acknowledge, is that while the trade-union
which it desiderates is not the trade-union which in Europe
exists, the gulf between them can only be bridged by a
revolutionary alteration 3 of the very ideals which the existing
trade-union most strongly fosters.
England is the classical land of trade- unions, and the
absence of a working-class Socialism in it may be attributed
more to the course followed by them than to any other single
fact. They consolidated their power over the English working-
class in the middle third of the last century. At that time
they were non-political in the sense of having no preference as
between Tory landlords and Liberal capitalists ; but in much
they were political bodies. The Socialists on their side were
willing that trade-unionism should develop rather as a State
within the State than as a party within it. Germans, whose
existing undemocratic States seemed incapable of being ever
fitted for Socialist uses, hoped that the new working-class
1 By no means all revolutionary Socialists have yet advanced thus far.
For a much narrower view of trade-unions see Ferri, Associazioni operate
2 Socialismo (Rome, 1902). But see sufra, p. xiv.
2 The works of capital importance are Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Webb's
History of Trade Unionism and Industrial Democracy. The last chapter
of the latter embodies perhaps the last point yet reached in speculation.
8 In Australasia sensational union-smashing brought such a revolu-
tionary alteration about, while Socialism from Europe helped to shape its
issue.
xliv INTRODUCTION, 1903
organizations might supplant rather than transform. Marx
inclined to this view at the end of the period, after a long
experience of trade-unionism in it. 1
But with the Trades-Union Acts of 1871 and 1875 came
a change. England legalized private collective bargaining^ and
the unions had not to be political to be able to exist and
function freely. Their success now depended on their in-
cluding all possible fellow-workmen irrespective of politics,
and this was a motive for being non-political. Private col-
lective bargaining grew vastly, and was developed by trade-
unionists into a method, whereby they thought that the
working-class could satisfy most reasonable expectations. This
opinion, with a corresponding distrust of politics, still charac-
terizes the English workers. Temporarily there is a breach in
it. Legal decisions of the House of Lords in 1901 restored
certain restrictions on private collective bargaining, which the
trade-unionists find they cannot remove without turning poli-
ticians. Hence the Labour Representation Committee. 2 This
is now supported financially by over a million trade-unionists,
and has captured several Parliamentary seats. At present it has
no explicit common programme, except the restoration of that
state of the law under which its trade-unionist members thought
political action superfluous. But it will go further if they unlearn
their complete reliance upon private collective bargaining.
Socialists seldom apply the idea that " palliatives postpone
Socialistic remedies " so as to belittle what the trade-unions
criticisms have achieved. But to complacent estimates of it
upon pri-
vate coilec- they oppose three mam criticisms :
live bar- / r \ ft j s inconclusive and enormously costly,
gaining. , . , .
All private bargaining means private economic
warfare. That the warfare is collective gives the workman a
chance of winning ; but it also vastly multiplies the sufferings
occasioned. As the author of the New Zealand Arbitration
1 Cp. his letter on the Gotha programme (written in 1875).
2 The Committee was started before the decisions, but they admittedly
vitalized its action.
INTRODUCTION, 1903 xlv
Law puts it, there are three parties to every strike or lock-out
the masters, the men, and the general community, and there
are always at least two losers. 1
(2) The area of the working class benefited is very con-
fined virtually confined to skilled male workers. ' ' 2,000,000
men and 120,000 women are the trade-unionists of a nation,
with perhaps 15,000,000 wage-earners. The residue do not
lose only as part of the public during strikes. Most indus-
tries employ both skilled and unskilled labour. The better-
paid skilled workmen are organized, and demand advances of
wages collectively. If they win without fighting, the improve-
ment in their wage will tend to keep the unskilled labourers'
down. If, however, they fight and work ceases, the unskilled
labourers are thrown willy-nilly into an unemployment which
they can less afford to endure, and which it is not in their
power to terminate, on behalf of interests which are not
theirs. '
(3) The area of working-class interests benefited is small.
Non-political unionism has marshalled the skilled workers, the
natural leaders of their class, almost solely against the em-
ployers. It has withdrawn attention from the pre-eminent
land question, and been a godsend to railway companies and
other monopolists exploiting the consumer. It may have
made Lancashire wages among the best in the world; it has
left Lancashire towns among the worst.
Socialism must regard these criticisms as insurmountable
by any method short of abolishing private collective bargains.
Criticism (2) might be got over by introducing alongside of
trade-unionism the Victorian system of wage-boards for the
earners of low wages. But the more thorough way is that
pointed by New Zealand compulsory State arbitration
between employers and employees. By this trade-unions
would cease to be fighting bodies and become representative ;
1 The strongest unions now avoid fighting wherever possible, and have
learned greatly to increase such possibilities. But upon fighting they
always rest, and their strength is their fighting capacity.
xlvi INTRODUCTION, 1903
rich and poor workers could all alike be organized, and the
former would have no motive for forming unrepresentative
knots by themselves. Sweating could be stamped out, and
unskilled labour be paid the living wage which our social
investigators are convinced that it does not get. The passage
from trade-unionism to Socialism is bridged. This idea is
heartily welcomed by the Socialist historians of trade-unionism,
Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Webb, and in France, M. Millerand's
tireless work for trade-unionism evidently contemplates some
such end. Trade-unionists outside Australasia are still gene-
rally against it, but in part for temporary reasons. The
system's effect in transferring the "fighting" of the workers
from trade-unionist to the political sphere is the essence of
Socialism ; but where, as in England and America, the workers
have strong unions and weak parties, they naturally do not
jump at it. To overcome this hesitation should be a principal
aim of Socialist trade-unionists; but they have not all yet
realized it as such. 1
The movement of the Labour Representation Committee
is therefore still only a hope for the English Socialists ; but it
is their main hope. All experience except in New Zealand
(where an abnormally democratic Radicalism made an excep-
tion more apparent than real) goes to show that a separate
Labour party, allying but not fusing with other parties, is
indispensable for a persistent Socialist policy. Mere "per-
meation " of the bourgeoisie and its parties has not sufficed ;
it seems, indeed, almost a spent force. In municipal govern-
ment, where the governed are relatively near to the eye and
conscience of the governing, it has achieved something; the
wage-clauses of our municipalities are indubitable Socialism.
Their " municipalization " only is so when done in the same
spirit; the likelihood is great that, pursued as much of it is
1 At the English Trade Union Congress in 1906 a resolution in favour
of compulsory arbitration was defeated by 938,000 votes to 541,000. Its
principal opponents were the Miners' Federation, who stand outside the
Labour Party, But for their vote it would have been carried.
INTRODUCTION, 1903 xlvii
" unconsciously " by uninspired men, it may go the way of the
British co-operative movement, and harden into a merely
mechanical device, slightly benefiting the pockets of con-
sumers. But all municipal Socialism is controlled by national
government, upon which "permeation" has made little im-
pression. It was when, on Parnell's death, the Irish question
lapsed, that Socialism had its best chance of capturing English
politics. It tried permeation, and for a few years almost
fancied itself successful. But the first live interest after the
Irish Imperialism knocked it easily out; and now that
after eight years that is flagging, the Protectionist controversy
has intervened, perhaps for an equal period.
By affiliating two Socialist bodies besides its trade-unionists,
the Labour Representation Committee has left open a way
for non-manual workers to join it. But the great politicians,
without whom no political movement can live, are still to
seek. The theorists of English Socialism, though few, may
compare with those of other nations; the English Labour
leaders, though they do not number a Bebel or an Anseele,
compare well with the leaders of the other English classes.
But men like Jaures or Vandervelde, who each are first-rate
thinkers, writers, Parliamentarians, wire-pullers, and mob-
orators, all rolled into one, such men simply do not exist in
English Socialism, nor indeed in English politics ; and perhaps
they never will until members of Parliament are paid. Nor
can Socialists look with full confidence upon the English
electorate. It is hardly disputable that millions of electors in
the greater British cities have reached a point of personal deca-
dence physical, mental and moral to which no Continental
country furnishes a parallel on any comparable scale. Time is
steadily multiplying these millions ; and for English Socialism
there is therefore a race against time which it is very likely not
to win.
MODERN SOCIALISM
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MODERN
AND UTOPIAN SOCIALISM
BY A. BEBEL
This is an excerpt from Bebel's Charles Fourier (pp. 287-9).
August Bebel was born in 1840 ; apprenticed to a wood-turner at
fourteen ; entered politics at Leipzig 1 , and in 1864 was President of
the Deutscher Arbeiterbildungsuerein (a Radical organization) ; in
1865 was brought to Socialism by Liebknecht ; in 1871 protested
with Liebknecht against the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine, whose
neutralization he still advocates ; has, since Liebknecht's death, been
leader of the Social Democratic party in the German Reichstag.
ALL Socialistic experiments which are attempted inside the
bourgeois world, and aimed naturally at the reconciliation of
mutually exclusive opposites, must come of necessity to grief.
While such experiments last some time, as in some small
communistically organized communities in the United States,
they are able to do so only through almost perfect isolation
from the rest of the world, and only under an economic system
which constrains their adherents to Spartan simplicity, and
necessitates patriarchal conditions. This is not the developed
civilization for which mankind strives. That requires a free,
unimpeded unfolding of all men's talents and capacities, and
a full enjoyment of all the attainments of civilization, which is
only to be won if the means of civilization are more and more
I B
2 MODERN SOCIALISM
multiplied up to the highest technical and scientific levels. A
small isolated community, limited in its powers and means,
cannot achieve this, be it never so artistically organized. It
is disturbed by every foreign influence which acts on it from
outside; and this effect will be the more present the more
vital are the relations which the part conceives to be necessary
towards the whole. Either it must go with the whole and
develop with it, or it must remain isolated and ossify; there
is no third alternative.
In the bourgeois world men can only be conceived as
acting in bourgeois fashion. The individual plays towards the
whole the part of a tiny cog on a monstrous mechanism, whose
many dozens of wheels clash with their thousands of cogs and
little cogs in a prescribed order. The effect of the individual
is seen in his effect on the whole, and reversely in the effect
of the whole on individuals. Both complete and condition
each other. Whoever strives as an individual against the
whole, and thinks he can go his particular way; whoever
thinks he can arbitrarily break through the social mechanism
in which all are confined ; whoever fancies he can found his
own particular Kingdom of Heaven, will speedily learn by
hard facts to take another view of his own impotence and
incapacity. Hence all Socialistic experimenting inside the
bourgeois world, whether it proceeds from an individual who
imagines he can produce and distribute Socialistically as a
bourgeois entrepreneur -, or from a small aggregate who endeavour
to do so for and among themselves, is Utopian fancy-mongering.
Every such attempt indicates an immature spirit which can
only have the effect of provoking disillusionments, discrediting
the ideas among undiscerning persons, and giving the adver-
sary the weapons he wants against the efforts of which he is
afraid.
The great progress of our age is, that the Utopians have
died, or are dying, out. Among the masses they find no foot-
hold find one less to-day than ever. Even the simplest
workman feels that nothing can be set up artificially, that what
A. BEBEL 3
is to be must develop^ and must develop with and through the
whole not separated and isolated from it. The thing is to
clear the course for development, to remove all that is old or
has died out, to ease the ending of what is dying out, and with
this object to direct the search of criticism to every point at
which evils appear. People who apply criticism must trace
out the causes which produced evil. When the causes are
ascertained, the remedies spontaneously follow.
II
MARXIAN SOCIALISM IN POLITICS
BY W. LlEBKNECHT
This is an extract from the speech made by Liebknecht at the
Erfurt Congress of the German party in 1891, when moving the final
adoption of the programme there drawn up.
Wilhelm Liebknecht (1826-1900) was the leader of the German
Social-Democratic party throughout the most critical period of its
growth. Himself a Marxist, he was largely responsible for the
union of the Marxists and Lassalleans, and their concentration upon
a common programme at Gotha in 1875. His tactical ability in
subsequently enabling his party to parry Bismarck's Anti-Socialist
Law was acknowledged by Bismarck himself. Like Marx, Engels,
and Lassalle, he belonged by birth to the bourgeoisie ; and he received
a University education at Berlin and Marburg.
I WILL now go into the main principles of the programme, Of
course, you will not expect me to explain here and now every
single point ; I must confine myself to exhibiting the thought
of the general portion broadly and as a whole. Among the
detailed demands I will only note what really requires notice,
because it has been insufficiently discussed or because it varies
from the earlier formulae. The leading thought which was
equally apparent in all the draft-programmes submitted to the
Congress was to indicate clearly the causes whence the
embarrassments of contemporary society proceed to exhibit
the process of economic development which divides the
capitalistic world, the society of to-day, into two hostile camps,
and to make plain the necessity of the class- war in capitalistic
4
VV. LtEBKNECHT 5
society to make plain how, by the necessity of Nature, as
long as bourgeois society exists, the system of exploitation and
oppression must exist too. As the cause of the division of
society into two hostile camps we had to assign the fact that
the means of production i.e. land, raw materials, tools,
machines, mines, and means of transport have passed from
the possession of the community, of collective society, into
the private possession of individuals. If we imagine a state
of things in which the necessary means of production are in
every individual's possession, so that every one can work
independently of others, then there is no production of
commodities ; every one really produces for himself; there is
no dependence of one upon another, no exploitation and
enslavement. Whither and how far such a state of things has
existed, we leave commentators to say. It is only possible
and conceivable in a form of society such that the means of
production notably the chiefest of them, Mother Earth are
in the possession of the real producers, the workers. As soon
as ever private property in the means of production is started,
there begins exploitation and the splitting of society into two
classes whose interests make them each other's enemies.
This process does not accomplish itself suddenly, but it in-
cessantly goes on, and it may be traced back through the
Middle Ages into the most hoary antiquity. In the bourgeois
society, with which we have to concern ourselves and the
programme is concerned, it accomplishes itself with increasing
rapidity and momentum, according to the degree in which the
means of work are concentrated and become the monopoly or
property of a small minority, and according to the increased
productivity of the means of production, which constantly
grow more perfect. Simple tools become machines ; machines
themselves keep on being improved; aggregates of capital,
and with them the intensity of production, grow continuously.
Out of the small industry develops the great industry ; out of
that, as known to us at the beginning of wholesale capitalistic
production, develops the modern giant industry. Even this
6 MODERN SOCIALISM
no longer suffices j the giant concerns coalesce into trusts,
cartels, federations, etc. And with this concentration of
capital, of the means of production, there increases similarly,
on the one hand, the intensity of production, which grows
unlimitedly, and on the other the intensity of exploitation, the
sucking-up of the intermediate classes, the precariousness of
the proletariate's existence, the degree of misery, of oppression,
of enslavement.
This historical process of the development of society and
the laws, according to which it accomplishes itself, had to be
set out in the programme. It had to be shown how the
conditions of to-day originate in this separation of the workers
from the means of production ; how with the growing con-
centration of the means of production exploitation has grown
and must grow ; how the root of the evil lies precisely in the
fact that the means of production become private property;
how from this fact exploitation naturally and necessarily results.
For whoever has the strength to work but lacks the means
which would enable him to exert it, to turn it to account, to
bring it into the " economic play of forces " such a man
cannot live ; he is inseparable from his power of work, and if
he is not to starve he must give himself into the service of
another who is a private owner of means of production.
Hence arises and is developed economic dependence, economic
exploitation, and from it political dependence and enslave-
ment in every form a process which, as stated, goes on with
increasing rapidity. The division of society grows ever deeper
and more complete; what is between the capitalist and
proletarian extremes, the so-called intermediate strata of the
population, which still, on a small scale, own the means of
production but must work themselves even if they also employ
others these intermediate " strata " (to avoid the vague word
" ranks ") disappear more and more, and the whole process
of development of contemporary society proceeds naturally
and necessarily, whither the essential being of that society
drives it, to the concentration of the means of production in
W. LIEBKNECHT 7
a few hands, and the expropriation, the spoliation, of those
who have not the means of production by the monopolists
who have. Thus the whole history of bourgeois society is a
history of expropriation expropriation made a permanent system.
The possessor of the means of production expropriates the
man who has none and must work for him for a wage ; he
pays in the wage only a part of the work performed ; the
surplus-value \ the unpaid performance, becomes in his hand
(the hand of the possessor of the means of work) capital, and
enables him to draw tighter and firmer the worker's chains,
to complete his enslavement and exploitation. Thus the
worker, as he works and creates wealth, forges the fetters of
his own bondage. Nothing in the process can be altered by
pious wishes. All criticisms of capitalism, which do not go
to the core, are fruitless ; all attempts to remove the " excres-
cences " of capitalism, while maintaining its bases, are Utopian.
These "excrescences" are the logical results, the inevitable
consequence of the capitalistic system ; whoever wants to
remove them must remove it, their cause. By this demand
the Social Democracy distinguishes itself from all other parties
and stamps itself a revolutionary party, while all other parties,
without exception, take their stand upon private ownership of
the means of production. This point, because of its out-
standing importance, we have formulated in the programme
now submitted to you more fully and precisely than was done
in the first draft. In the latter it was stated that all other
parties took their stand in common upon capitalism, and,
therefore, were collectively hostile to the working classes.
Against this it could be urged that in Germany we have
movements which, though politically unimportant do aim, like
us, at clipping the wings of capitalism so far as it manifests
itself on the large scale I mean movements like those in
favour of guilds and corporations, or the Anti-Semitic. These
we cannot easily designate as capitalistic, but they do, as our
draft puts it, take their stand on private ownership of the
means of production, and they do so in common with all
8 MODERN SOCIALISM
other parties. And against all parties standing there in
common we Social Democrats close our ranks. There are
no compacts, no compromises; between us and the army of
our allied opponents is a great gulf, a gulf growing wider and
deeper every day, across which the economic leap may be
made from their side to ours, because theirs is the higher ;
and every day and hour the pressure and logic of the economic
development throws across into the proletariate from the
ranks of our adversaries regiments who previously fought
there, and thousands, yes, hundreds of thousands, are hurled
into the abyss of misery. But this bottomless gulf is not filled
up by their bodies ; it exists, it is the boundary separating us
from all other parties, and every one who wants to cross it,
who resigns himself to petty-bourgeois Utopianisms, who does
not at every moment keep clearly before his eyes, that only
the removal of the causes, only the abolition of private property
in the means of production, only the abolition of the entire
present method of producing commodities, can bring misery,
exploitation, and enslavement to an end, who mistakenly
believes that gradually, by way of compromise, by petty
bourgeois salves and palliatives the evils of contemporary
society may be so mitigated as to be at least for some time
bearable every one who subscribes to such views deserts the
revolutionary ground of the party. We have to consider that
when we ask, " Are you one of us or not ? " The finest phrase
about improving the lot of the workers profits nothing, we get
no help thence.
Is it of the essence of the present society and production,
that exploitation grows ever more intense ? Can we, by the
legislation of the State, be it never so powerful, be screwed
back into medisevalism ? Can the great industry be sacrificed
to the small industry, as the guild party desire? No; it is
simply impossible. In the very simple question of the law
for protecting workers the class-State of to-day, which must
serve capitalism, has never had the power to free itself from
the dominating class that same State which dreamers have
\V. LIEBKNECHT 9
called a " social " kingdom or empire ! Society does not
let itself be forced back into earlier forms of production
inferior for business purposes ; and the new forms lead
naturally and necessarily to ever greater concentration of the
means of production, ever greater exploitation and enslave-
ment, ever more general proletarization of the members of
society. Therefore the Social Democracy demands that this
be attacked at the base, at the root, that the causes of these
conditions be removed. Its demand is not a capricious, but
fully conscious demand ; it has risen to that view of the world
which conceives society as an organism whose growth and
development are natural and necessary. It sees that con-
temporary society has created conditions which must destroy
it; it sees what is expressed in all our draft programmes
that the society of to-day is driven onwards with brazen logic
to a catastrophe, to its own " world-ruin," which is not to ba
averted. Socialism is not an arbitrary invention. The so-called
" State of the Future," with which we are derided and whose
bases we can of cotfrse only indicate in general outlines, is the
necessary, inevitable consequence of the capitalistic State of
the Present, as Socialistic production is the necessary result
and consequence of to-day's capitalistic production. Thus
capitalism, while ever expanding further and piling up gigan-
tically the means of its power, is at the same time creating the
enemy and the powers to which it must succumb creating, as
the Communist Manifesto says, its own grave-digger digging
its own grave. Capitalism makes the proletariate, which it
produces, its own heir, prepares its heritage, forges its weapons,
enables it to realize what we are striving after, creates for it
the material conditions for the realization of our ideal, in
short, the Capitalistic State of the Present begets against its will
the State of the Future. In a condition of bourgeois industry
on the small scale, of dwarf economics, a philanthropic
Utopianism, self-styled Socialism, was possible; but revolu-
tionary scientific Socialism, which has grasped the laws of the
development, and regards itself as that development's last
io MODERN SOCIALISM
consequence, was simply inconceivable. Socialism is the result
of modern capitalism ; the Socialist State is the successor and
heir of the Capitalist State.
Therefore in our, draft-programme we have nowhere in-
troduced a misty, airy end to be aimed at. We have stated
what is and what is coming. We have said : Society is thus ;
its laws are these ; we can no more alter them than the State
of to-day can ; they lead necessarily to the Socialistic society,
and since Socialism is a social necessity, we strive after it,
and call on the workers to range themselves under the banner
of the Social Democracy, and to " step into the ring " as of
old the revolutionary peasants said into the ring of the Social
Democratic programme.
We have declared that the movement accomplishes itself
on the basis of the class-war. This word, which was first im-
ported into German from English by Marx, forms the best
refutation of the supposition that the Marxian doctrine,
scientific Socialism, excludes personal interference with the
process of economic development, and favours a certain
fatalism, an inactive expectancy. That supposition is false ;
the exact opposite is true. It was precisely Marx who exhibited
the whole development of bourgeois society as the result of a
series of class-wars, which fulfil themselves in ever higher forms,
with an ever deeper and further content, corresponding to the
uninterrupted onward development of economic conditions.
And the class-war is a war of living men, a real, personally
fought, genuine war ; and no one has expressed this nature of
the war more precisely than Marx.
If we say we wish to abolish the class-State of to-day, we
must also declare, to break the point off our opponents' objec-
tions, that the Social Democracy, while it fights the class-State,
will by abolishing the present form of production abolish the
class-war itself. When the means of production have passed
into the community's possession, then the proletariate is no
longer a class, any more than the bourgeoisie; the classes
cease; there only remains society, the society of equals
W. LIEBKNECHT n
genuine human society, humane humanity. Hence it has
been, and had to be, declared most distinctly that we do not
seek to replace one class-domination by another* Only malice
and thoughtlessness can currently foist such a thought upon
us, for in order to rule, in order to be able to exercise a
domination, I must personally possess means of production
my owning means of production is the indispensable condition
of domination and personal, private ownership of the means
of production is just what Socialism abolishes. Domination
and exploitation in every ibrm are to be abolished ; men are
to be free and equal not masters and slaves, only comrades,
only brothers and sisters.
Next to this general thought, we had to emphasize the
international character of the party. Since the foundation of
the "International" in the middle of the sixties, the inter-
nationalism of the worker's movement has been recognized and
practically observed by the German workers on every occasion.
In the new programme we have expressed this thought very
definitely on two sides : firstly, on the economic side in that
the economic development of its own nature bears an inter-
national character; and secondly, on the political side,
because the international character of the economic develop-
ment makes it impossible to solve social questions nationally
in one land, and hence the international co-operation of the
working-class is necessary. Further we had and in view
of the misinterpretations and perverse conclusions to which
certain proceedings abroad have given rise, this was doubly
our duty to declare with special emphasis and in words which
admit of no doubt, that we " feel and declare ourselves one
with the class-conscious workers of all other lands." The
international Social Democracy is for us not a phantom, not
merely a fine phrase ; it is an end, without whose attainment
the emancipation of the working-class cannot be accomplished.
We are internationalists in deadly earnest. We are fully
aware of the consequences of our declaration and the
obligations which it lays upon us; and if we do not state
12 MODERN SOCIALISM
this in so many words, as the old programme did, that is
merely because, after our present declaration that we "declare
ourselves one with " the Social Democracy of all other lands,
we held it superfluous, indeed weakening. What we here
solemnly resolve will, like everything else in this programme,
be realized in his life by every one of us, and translated into
his acts and affairs. In the international alliance of the
proletariate the German Social Democracy will always do its
duty, and shrink from nothing which duty bids.
I draw your attention, further, to the clause in the seventh
section : " The battle of the working-class against capitalistic
exploitation is necessarily a political battle. The working-
class cannot carry on their economic battles and develop
their economic organization without political rights." There
we express the political nature of our party, and separate
ourselves from those who preach the so-called " propaganda
by action ; " who in reality erect inaction into a programme,
and practise the propaganda of do-nothing with a flood of
revolutionary phrases. We must act, must influence politics,
must use every tool and handle at our disposal, apply every
lever to further our work. There is much to do, and the
more force we expend, the greater the sum-total of force
that we put into the work, the sooner will the work be done.
To expect that without our intervening in the political battle
the transformation of society, the social revolution, will be
achieved, is childish folly. Whoever thinks so has no idea of
the difficulty and magnitude of our war of emancipation. In
Halle I spoke of " how the society of to-day grows info the
Socialistic society." I have often been taken to task for the
word. I meant to indicate by it merely the organic character
of the development of society, which is not a machine, but
a collective living being ; but on every occasion, including
that one, I have clearly insisted that men are not the toy of
destiny, and may not stand inactive, expecting blessings to
descend on them ; that circumstances determine men, but that
they are also determined by men ; and that as the class-war
W. LIEBKNECHT 13
is a constant human wrestle, so the attainment of our end can
only be the fruit of a ceaseless war, in which all fight together,
and each throws his whole self, his existence, recklessly into
the balance, joyfully staking life and property.
" It cannot effect the passing of the means of production
into the ownership of the community without acquiring political
power," says this section, further on; that is, we fight for
power in the State^ for " the latch of legislation," which is now
monopolized by our opponents in their class-interest. "To
shape this battle of the working-class into a conscious and
united effort, and to show it its naturally necessary end is the
object of the Social Democratic party." So it is not our
object to conjure up before the workers the phantasm of
the State of the Future, but to enlighten them upon the
process of development and the laws of the movement,
of the society of to-day; to show them what is necessary
to make an end of exploitation and enslavement, to show
them how bourgeois society itself in its further development
more and more puts into our hands the means of abolish-
ing it. Here the double character of our party is clearly
expressed : the scientific character which refuses, after the
Bismarckian recipe of blood and iron, to conceive the his-
torical movement as an arbitrary one which you can lead as
you like to revolution or reaction, and which recognizes that
the movement has fixed, unalterable laws; and the practical
character of our party, which manifests itself in that the workers
are shown the way to the end, are shown that they can only
attain their end by obtaining political power, only by our
hastening as much as possible the process of dissolution of
contemporary society, only by our organizing ourselves for
power more and more.
Ill
AN ACCOUNT OF MARX'S THEORY
BY F. ENGELS
This is part iii. 2 of Engels' Herrn Eugen Duhrings Umwaizung
der Wissenschaft.
F. Engels (1820-1895) was the son of a wealthy Bremen cotton-
spinner. In 1844 he met Karl Marx in Paris, and for the rest of his
life was Marx's alter ego. The two last volumes of Marx's Capital
were edited by him after Marx's death.
His book, Herrn Eugen Duhrings Umwdlzung der Wissenschaft,
was published in 1878, towards the close of Marx's life. Few books
are cited oftener or with more authority in the discussions of the
German party.
THE materialist conception of history starts from the principle
that production, and next to production the exchange of its
The "ma- products, is the basis of every social system; that
teriaiist in every society arising in history the allotment
of history"' f P roducts > and with lt the division of society
into classes or ranks, depends upon what is pro-
duced, how it is produced, and how when produced it is
exchanged. Accordingly the ultimate causes of all social
changes and political revolutions are not to be looked for in
the heads of men, in their growing insight into eternal truth
and justice, but in changes of the methods of production and
exchange; they are to be looked for not in the philosophy -,
but in the economy of the epoch in question. The awakening
perception that existing social arrangements are unreasonable
and unjust, that reason has become nonsense and goodness
a scourge, is only a symptom of the fact that in the methods
14
F. ENGELS 15
of production and forms of exchange alterations have
silently gone on to which the social system fitted for earlier
economic conditions no longer corresponds. That amounts
to saying that the means for removing the evils revealed must
itself, more or less developed, be present in the altered
conditions of production. This means is not something to be
invented out of the head, but something to be discovered
by means of the head in the material facts of production lying
before us.
How does modem Socialism accord with this conception ?
The present social system has been, as is now pretty
generally conceded, created by the now dominant class, the
bourgeoisie. The method of production proper to the bour-
geoisie, designated, since Marx, as the capitalistic method of
vDroduction, was incompatible with the: local and fixed privi-
leges and the reciprocal personal ties of the feudal system ;
the bourgeoisie shattered the feudal system and erected on
its ruins the bourgeois conception of society, the empire of
free competition, of free locomotion, of equal rights for the
possessors of commodities, and of all the other bourgeois fine
things. The capitalistic method of production The rise of
could now unfold itself freely. The productive the ' : great
forces elaborated under the direction of the bour- i}
geoisie developed, after steam and the new machinery had
transformed the old manufacture into the great industry, with
hitherto unheard-of rapidity on a hitherto unheard-of scale.
But as in its time manufacture and the handicraft developed
under its influence came into conflict with the feudal fetters of
the guilds, so the great industry in its fuller development
comes into conflict with the limitations in which the
capitalistic method of production has confined it. under eon-
The new productive forces have already quite ditionsde-
,. . . ... signed for
outgrown the bourgeois form of their utilization ; petty
and this conflict between productive forces and industry,
methods of production is not a conflict which has originated
in the heads of men, like the conflict between human original
1 6 MODERN SOCIALISM
sin and divine righteousness, but it exists in facts, is objective,
outside of us, independent of the will or the course even of
those human beings who have brought it about. Modern
Socialism is nothing more than the mirroring in thought of
this conflict in fact, its ideal reflection in the heads of the
class, primarily, which directly suffers by it, the working-
class.
In what does this conflict consist ?
Before capitalistic production that is, in the Middle Ages
there everywhere existed petty industry, on the basis of
the workers owning privately their means of production : the
Origins of agriculture of the small free or subject peasants,
the present the handicraft of the towns. The means of work
ownership ^ an( ^> agricultural implements, workshop, manual
and ex- tools were means of work for the individual,
ange * only calculated for individual use, so necessarily
upon a small, pigmy, restricted scale. But for that very
reason they belonged as a rule to the producer himself. To
concentrate these fragmentary, cramped means of production,
to expand them, to transform them into the powerfully
operative lever of the production of to-day, was just the
role in history of the capitalistic method of production and
its agent, the bourgeoisie. How it carried this out historically
after the fifteenth century in the three stages of simple
co-operation, manufacture, and the great industry, Marx
has depicted expressly in the fourth section of Capital.
nd their "^ ut t ^ e bourgeoisie, as is there proved, could
obsoies- not change those limited means of production
thr^u h the * nt m *k tv productive forces, without changing
rise of social them from means of production of the individual
methods of j n j- o soc i a i means of production only to be utilized
production. ' .
by a collectivity of men. In place of the spinning-
wheel, the hand-loom, and the smith's hammer, came the
spinning-mule, the power-loom, and the steam-hammer;
in place of the individual workshop, the factory enabling
hundreds and thousands to work together. And along with
F. ENGELS 17
the means of production, production itself changed from a
series of individual performances into a series of social acts,
and the products from products of individuals into social
products. The yarn, the cloth, the hardware, which now
came from the factory, were the common product of many
workers, through whose hands they had to go in order before
they were ready. No individual can say of them : " I made
that ; that is my product."
Where, however, the natural division of labour within society
is the basic form of production, it stamps on the products the
form of commodities, whose reciprocal exchange, purchase and
sale, puts the individual producers in a position to satisfy their
manifold needs. And in the Middle Ages this was the case.
The peasant,^., sold farm-produce to the handicraftsman, and
bought from him in return the products of handicraft. Upon
this society of individual producers, producers of commodities,
intruded the new method of production. In the midst of the
natural undesigned division of labour prevailing all through
society, it set up the designed division of labour as organized
in the individual factory ; by the side of individual production
appeared social production. The products of both were sold
on the same market, therefore at prices at least approximately
equal. But the designed organization was more powerful than
the natural division of labour ; the factories with their social
labour got out their products more cheaply than the small
individual producers. Individual production failed in one
sphere after another; social production revolutionized the
entire former method of production. But this its revolutionary
character was so little recognized, that on the contrary it was
introduced as a means for augmenting and advancing the
production of commodities. It arose in immediate connection
with definite machinery, already discovered for the production
and exchange of commodities : merchant's capital, handicraft,
wage-labour. While it appeared itself as a new form of the pro-
duction of commodities, the forms of appropriation in force for
the production of commodities remained also in full force for it.
c
1 8 MODERN SOCIALISM
In the production of commodities, as developed in the
Middle Ages, there could arise no question as to whose should
be the product of labour. As a rule, the individual producer
had made it out of raw material belonging to him, and often
incompati- produced by him, with his own instruments of
b !L ity ^k? work, and his own manual labour or that of his
old method .
of appropri- family. There was absolutely no need for him
ation and fi rs t t o appropriate it; it belonged to him entirely
method of of itself. A man's ownership of the product rested,
production, therefore, on his own work. Even where outside
assistance was used, this as a rule remained secondary, and
commonly involved some other benefit besides wages; the
guild apprentice and companion worked less for the money
and the wage than for their own training to be masters. Then
came the concentration of the means of production in great
workshops and factories, and its alteration into a really social
means of production. But the social means of production and
products were treated as though they were still, as they had
been, the means of production, and products, of individuals.
As the possessor of the means of production had hitherto
appropriated the product, because it as a rule was his own
product and the labour of outside assistants was the exception,
so now the possessor of the means of production continued to
appropriate the product, although it was no longer his product,
but exclusively the product of outside labour. Thus the
products now made socially were not appropriated by those
who had really set the means of production in motion and
really made the products, but by the capitalists. Production,
and the means of it, have really become social. But they are
subject to a form of appropriation, which presupposes the
private production of individuals, in which every one possesses
and brings to market his own product. The method of pro-
duction is subject to this form of appropriation, although
it does away with what this form presupposes. 1 In this
1 It need not here be explained, that although the form of appro-
priation remains the same, its character is no less revolutionized by the
F. ENGELS 19
contradiction, which lends to the new method of production
its capitalistic character, the whole discord of the present lies
already in germ. The more the new method of production
came to dominate all important fields of production and all
important countries, the more glaringly came perforce to
light the incompatibility of social production and capitalistic
appropriation.
The first capitalists found, as we said, the form of wage-
labour already to hand. But wage-labour as an exception,
a side occupation, a supplement, a transitional
rr-u i u u f Origin of
stage. The country labourer, who from time to the wage-
time went to earn day -wages, had his few acres earning pro-
... i j r ' L-II i i j < letariate.
of his own land, from which alone he could if
necessary live. The guild ordinances provided that the com-
panion of to-day should pass on to be the master of to-morrow.
But as soon as the means of production were changed and
became social, and were concentrated into the hands of
capitalists, this was altered. The means of production, as
well as the product, of the small individual producer became
more and more valueless; nothing was left for him but to
go to the capitalist for wages. Wage-labour, previously an
exception and a supplement, became the rule and the funda-
mental form of all production ; formerly a side occupation,
it became now the exclusive activity of the worker. The
temporary wage-worker turned into the lifelong wage-worker.
The multitude of lifelong wage-workers was, besides, colossally
increased through the simultaneous collapse of the feudal
iystem, dissolution of the retinues of the feudal lords, dismissal
peasants from their court posts, etc. The cleavage was
described above than is production. If I appropriate my own
roduct, or if I appropriate some one else's, those are naturally two very
ifferent sorts of appropriation. Note too, that wage-labour, in which the
whole capitalistic method of production is contained in germ, is very old ;
in an individualized and scattered form it subsisted for centuries beside
slavery. But the germ could not develop into the capitalistic method of
production, until the historical conditions for it had come about, [Engels*
Note.]
20 MODERN SOCIALISM
complete between the means of production concentrated in
the hands of the capitalists on the one side, and the producers
reduced to possessing nothing but their labour power on the
other. The contradiction between social production and
capitalistic appropriation appeared as an opposition between
proletariate and bourgeoisie.
We saw that the capitalistic method of production intruded
itself upon a society of individual producers producing com-
, modities, the means of whose social connection
Tyranny or ... , _.
competition was the exchange of their products. But every
in the pre- society resting on production of commodities has
sen t system* , .
the peculiarity, that in it the producers have lost
the control over their own social relations. Every one produces
for himself with his means of production, whatever it may be,
and for his individual exchange requirements. No one knows
how much of his article comes to the market, or how much of
it is needed; no one knows whether his individual product
meets a real need, whether he will be able to balance his
expenses, or to sell it at all. There is a prevailing anarchy of
social production. But production of commodities, like every
other form of production, has its peculiar, inherent laws,
inseparable from it ; and these laws are fixed, in spite of the
anarchy, in it and through it. They appear in the single per-
sistent form of social connection, in exchange, and they assert
themselves against the individual producers as the coercive laws
of competition. They are therefore at the outset unknown
to these producers themselves, and have first to be gradually
discovered by them through long experience. They are fixed
not by the producers nor in the producers' interest, but as the
blindly-operative natural laws of their form of production. The
product governs the producer.
In mediaeval society, that is, in the first centuries, produc-
tion was essentially directed to producers' uses. It in the
main satisfied only the needs of the producer and his family.
Where, as in the country, there existed relations of personal
dependence, it contributed also to satisfy the needs of the
F. ENGELS 21
feudal lord. In this case no exchange took place, and the
products did not acquire the character of commodities from it
either. The peasant's family produced nearly everything that
it needed, furniture and clothing no less than food. Only
when it went so far as to produce a surplus over and above its
own requirements and the tribute in kind due to the feudal
lord, did it also produce commodities; this surplus, thrown
into the social exchange, exposed for sale, became a com-
modity. The town handicraftsmen had of course from the
beginning to produce for Exchange. But they, too, worked
principally to satisfy their own requirements ; they had gardens
and small fields ; they sent their cattle into the common forest,
which at the same time supplied them with timber and fire-
wood; the women spun flax, wool, etc. Production for the
purpose of exchange, production of commodities, was only
beginning. Hence a restricted exchange, a restricted market,
a stable method of production, local exclusiveness against
outsiders, local unity within : the manor in the country, the
guild in the town.
But with the extension of production, and in particular
with the rise of the capitalistic method of production, the
hitherto dormant laws of the production of commodities be-
came more openly and powerfully realized. The old associa-
tions were relaxed, the old exclusive limits broken through, the
producers converted more and more into independent, isolated
producers of commodities. The anarchy of social Contrast
between
production became apparent, and was more and the organi-
more accentuated. But the main instrument, by zation of
production
which the capitalists method of production en- inthein-
hanced this anarchy in social production, was the dividual
. 7 - . factory and
exact opposite of anarchy : the increasing organi- the anarchy
zation of production on social lines in every
separate producing establishment. With this in- S0 ciety as a
strument it put an end to the old peaceful stability, whole.
Where it was introduced into a branch of industry, it
ffered no older industrial methods to remain beside it.
22 MODERN SOCIALISM
Where it took hold of handicraft, it annihilated the old handi-
craft. The field of labour became a battle-field. The great
geographical discoveries, and the colonizations which followed
them, multiplied many times over the area of the market, and
emphasized the change from handicraft to manufacture. Not
only did the struggle break out between the separate local pro-
ducers ; the local struggles grew on their side to national ones,
the commercial wars of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Finally, the great industry and the establishment of the world-
market made the struggle universal and at the same time gave
it an unheard-of severity. Between single capitalists as between
whole industries, and whole countries, the favour of natural or
artificial conditions of production decided the question of
existence. The weaker was mercilessly eliminated. It is
Darwin's struggle for individual existence, transferred with
heightened ferocity from nature to society. The natural
standpoint of the beast appears as the summit of human
development. The contradiction between social produc-
tion and capitalistic appropriation, reproduces itself as an
opposition between the organization of production in the
individual factory and the anarchy of production in the entire
society.
In these two manifestations of the contradiction imminent
in it by reason of its origin, the capitalistic method of pro-
duction moves, describing without any way out that vicious
circle, which already Fourier discovered it in. What Fourier,
of course, could not see in his time, is that this circle gradually
contracts, that the movement rather describes a spiral, and must
reach its end, like the movement of the planets, by a collision
with the centre. It is the driving force of the social anarchy
of production, which converts the great majority of human
beings more and more into proletarians, and again it is the
masses of proletarians which finally will put a stop to the
anarchy of production. It is the driving force of the social
anarchy of production, which converts the infinite perfectibility
of the machines of the great industry into an imperative
F. ENGELS 23
command that every individual industrial capitalist shall perfect
his machinery more and more, on pain of ruin. But to perfect
machinery means to render superfluous human labour. If the
introduction and increase of machinery means the crushing out
of millions of manual workers by a few machine- _
5 . The new
workers, the improvement of machinery means the "reserve-
crushinsr out of more and more of the machine- P?*" ?
industry,
workers themselves ; and, in the last instance, the
production of a number of available wage-workers exceeding
the average demand of capital for employees, a regular reserve-
army of industry, as I called it as far back as 1845,* available
for the times when industry is working at high pressure, thrown
on the pavement by the collapse which necessarily follows, at
all times a lead weight tied round the feet of the working-class
in its struggle for existence against capital, a regulator for
depressing the wage of labour to the low level set by the
capitalist demand. So it comes about that machinery, as
Marx puts it, is the most powerful weapon of capital against
the working-class, that the means of work is continually dashing
the means of subsistence out of the worker's hand, that the
worker's own product turns into a tool for the worker's enslave-
ment. Thus it happens that the economizing of the means of
work leads to most reckless squandering of labour-force and
robbery of what the labour-function should normally start
from ; that machinery, the strongest instrument for shortening
work-time, is transformed into the surest instrument for con-
verting the whole lifetime of the worker and his family into
available work-time for capital to profit by; that the over-
employment of one man comes to imply the unemployment of
another, and that the great industry, which hunts the whole
world over for fresh consumers, limits the consumption of the
masses at home to a starvation minimum, and undermines
thereby its own domestic market. " The law which keeps the
relative surplus population or reserve army of industry, con.
tinually balancing the extent and energy of the accumulation of
1 Lageder aibeitenden Klasse in En 'gland \ p. 109.
24 MODERN SOCIALISM
capital, rivets the worker more firmly to capital than Hephaestus
wedges riveted Prometheus to the rocks. It causes an ac-
cumulation of misery corresponding to the accumulation of
capital. The accumulation of wealth at the one pole is there-
fore at the same time an accumulation of misery, hard work,
slavery, ignorance, b realization, and moral degradation at the
opposite pole, i.e. on the side of the class, which produces its
own product in the form of capital." l And to expect any
other division of the products from the capitalistic method of
production, is like wanting the electrodes of a battery, while
remaining connected with it, to leave water undecomposed,
instead of developing oxygen at the positive pole and hydrogen
at the negative.
We saw that the maximized capacity for improvement of
modern machinery turns, through the anarchy of production
in society, into an imperative command that the individual
industrial capitalist shall continually improve his machinery,
continually raise its productive power. Into a similar imperative
command turns the mere de facto possibility of his extending
his sphere of production. The enormous power
The demand r - .. L . , ,
forexpan- f expansion of the great industry, compared to
sionof which that of gases is simply child's play, now
manifests itself to us as a qualitative and quanti-
tative demand for expansion, which laughs at every opposing
check. Such a check is formed by the consumption, the
outlet, the markets, for the products of the great industry.
But the capacity of expansion of markets, extensive and
intensive alike, is governed immediately by quite other laws,
with a far less energetic operation. The expansion of markets
cannot keep pace with the expansion of production. The
clash becomes inevitable, and as it can give rise to no solution
as long as it does not explode the capitalistic method of pro-
duction itself, it becomes periodic. Capitalistic production
gives rise to a new " vicious circle."
In fact, since 1825, when the first general crisis broke out,
1 Marx, Capital; English translation by Moore and Aveling, p, 661.
F. ENGELS 25
the whole industrial and commercial world, the production
and exchange of all the civilized nations and their more or
less barbarous dependencies, gets out of joint just Theopy of
about once every ten years. Transport comes to commercial
a standstill, the markets are glutted, products lie e
unremoved, as abundant as they are impossible to get rid of,
ready money goes out of sight, credit disappears, factories are
idle, the working masses lack the means of subsistence because
they have produced too much of it, bankruptcy follows bank-
ruptcy, and bankrupt after bankrupt is sold up. The standstill
lasts for years, productive forces as well as products are
squandered and destroyed wholesale, till the accumulated
masses of commodities are finally disposed of more or less
below value, and production and exchange gradually resume
their course. After a while the pace becomes marked ; it falls
into a trot ; the trot of industry passes into a gallop, and this
again increases to the unbridled career of a complete industrial,
commercial, banking, and speculative steeplechase, so at last
to attain once more the breakneck leap into the grave of the
crisis. And so all over again and again. Since 1825 we have
now experienced this five times, and at the present moment
(1877) are experiencing it for the sixth. And the character
of these crises is so sharply marked out that Fourier named
them all when he named the first one : " crise plcthorique "
crisis from over-supply. 1
In the crises the contradiction between social production
and capitalistic appropriation breaks out violently. The
circulation of commodities is for the moment annihilated;
the medium of circulation, money, becomes a hindrance to
circulation; all the laws of the production and circulation of
commodities are turned upside down. The economic clashing
1 This theory, and its premiss that the workers only get a small fraction
of the value of their work, was advanced also by the theoretic Socialist
Rodbertus. Unchecked capitalism, in this view, minimizes the purchasing-
power of the majority, while maximizing their producing-power ; hence
the crises.
26 MODERN SOCIALISM
has reached its maximum; the method of production is in
revolt against the method of exchange, the productive forces
are in revolt against the method of production, out of which
they have grown.
The fact that the social organization of production inside
the factory has developed itself to the point at which it is
incompatible with the anarchy of production existing beside
and beyond it in society; this fact is made obvious to the
capitalists themselves, by the powerful concentration of capitals,
which, during crises, is achieved by means of the ruin of many
great, and still more small, capitalists. The whole mechanism
of the capitalistic method of production gives out under the
pressure of the productive forces which it has itself created.
It can no longer convert all these masses of the means of
production into capital; they lie fallow, and for that very
reason, the reserve army of industry must lie fallow also.
Means of production, means of subsistence, available workers,
all elements of production and of the general wealth, are present
in superfluity. But "superfluity is the source of want and
need " (Fourier), because it is just it which impedes the
conversion of the means of production and subsistence into
capital. For in capitalist society the means of production
cannot come into action, unless they have previously been
converted into capital, into means for the exploitation of
human labour-force. Between them and the workers stands,
like a spectre, the necessity for them and the means of sub-
sistence to take the character of capital. It alone prevents
the harmonious working of the material and personal factors
in production ; it alone forbids the means of production to
function, and the workers to work and live. On the one hand,
therefore, the capitalistic method of production becomes con-
vinced of its own incapacity to control further these productive
forces. On the other, these productive forces themselves bring
increasing pressure to bear for the removal of the contradiction,
for their release from their character as capital, for actual
recognition of their character as social productive forces.
F. ENGELS 27
It is this opposition of the powerfully growing productive
forces to their character as capital, this increasing pressure
for the recognition of their social character, which Tendency
compels the capitalist class itself more and more, J^Ja/ l
so far as this is at all possible, inside the capitalistic soeiaiiza-
conditions, to treat them as social productive forces,
Both the high-pressure periods of industry, with their forces,
limitless inflation of credit, and the crisis itself by the collapse
of great capitalist firms, lead to that form of the socialization
of larger quantities of tiie means of production, which confronts
us in the different sorts of joint-stock companies. Many of
these means of production and traffic are from the first so
colossal, that, like the railways, they exclude every other form
of capitalist exploitation. At a certain stage of development,
this form also ceases to suffice; the official representative of
capitalist society, the State, must take over their management. 1
This need for conversion into State property appears first in
1 I say "must." For only in case the means of production or traffic
have really outgrown management by joint-stock companies, and therefore
nationalization has become economically irrefutable, only in this case does it
signify, even though achieved by the present State, an economic progress,
the attainment of a new step forward to the appropriation of all productive
forces by society itself. Recently, however, since Bismarck turned to
nationalization, a certain sham Socialism has appeared, and here and
there degenerated into mere servility, which pronounces all nationalization,
even Bismarck's, to be Socialistic without more ado. Of course if the
nationalization of the tobacco trade were Socialistic, Napoleon and
Metternich would be numbered among the founders of Socialism. If
the Belgian State, for quite everyday reasons of politics and finance, built
its main railways itself; if Bismarck, without any economic necessity,
nationalized the main lines in Prussia, simply to be better able to manage
and utilize them in case of war, to train up railway servants as govern-
ment voters, and above all to get a new source of revenue independent
of Parliamentary votes those were in no way Socialistic steps, neither
directly nor indirectly, consciously nor unconsciously. Otherwise the royal
sea-trade, the royal porcelain manufacture, and the company-tailors in the
army, would be Socialistic arrangements. [Note of Engels. Reformist
Socialists would probably describe all such arrangements as Socialistic,
although "indirectly and unconsciously " so.]
a8 MODERN SOCIALISM
the case of the great traffic concerns : the post, telegraphs, and
railways.
If the crises revealed the inability of the bourgeoisie to
control further the modern productive forces, the conversion
of the great producing and traffic concerns into joint-stock
companies and State property shows that the bourgeoisie can
be dispensed with for that purpose. Every social function
of capitalists is now discharged by salaried servants. The
capitalist has no social activity left, except to pocket incomes,
to cut off coupons, and to gamble on the Stock Exchange,
where the different capitalists relieve each other of their capital.
If the capitalistic method of production at first crushed out the
workers, so now it crushes out the capitalists, and rejects them,
just like the workers, into the surplus population, though not
immediately into the reserve-army of industry.
But neither the conversion into joint-stock companies, nor
that into State property, takes away the character of capital
from the productive forces. In the case of joint-stock com-
panies this is palpable. And the modern State, again, is only
the organization, which bourgeois society gives itself in order
Capitalist to u P no ^ tne universal outward conditions of
ciass-eha- the capitalistic method of production against the
th^existing encroachments, not only of the workers, but of
modern individual capitalists. The modern State, as indeed
its form shows, is an essentially capitalist machine,
a State of the capitalists, the ideal of capitalist aggregate. The
more productive forces it takes over into its ownership, the
more does it become a real capitalist aggregate, the more does
it exploit its citizens. The workers remain wage- workers, pro-
letarians. The relationship of capital is not removed ; rather
it culminates. But at the culmination comes transformation.
State-ownership of productive forces is not the solution of the
conflict ; but it contains in itself the formal means of the
solution, the handle to it.
This solution can only be found in the actual recognition of
the social nature of the modern productive forces, so that the
F. ENGELS
29
methods of production, appropriation, and exchange shall be
harmonized with the social character of the means of pro-
duction. This can only take place, if society,
openly and without beating round the bush, seizes
hold of the productive forces, which have outgrown every
management but its own. Thereby the social character of
the means of production and products, which to-day turns
against the producers themselves, breaks down periodically the
methods of production and exchange, and only accomplishes
itself in violence and destruction, as a blindly working natural
law, will be brought to its full effect by the producers acting
with their eyes open, and will transform itself from a cause of
disturbance and periodical collapse into the most powerful
lever of production itself.
The forces operative in society operate just like natural
forces blindly, violently, destructively, so long as we do not
recognize them and reckon with them. But when once we
have recognized them and grasped their activity, their direc-
tion, and their workings, it only depends upon ourselves to
subject them more and more to our will and to attain our
objects by their means. And this holds particularly true of
the powerful productive forces of to-day. So long as we
obstinately refuse to understand their nature and their cha-
racter and to thwart this understanding the whole capitalistic
method of production and its defenders strive, so long do
these forces work themselves out in spite of us, against us,
so long do they dominate us, as we have in detail described.
But once they are apprehended in their nature, they can, in
the hands of the associated producers, be converted from
demonic masters into willing servants. It is the difference
between the destructive force of electricity in the lightning of
the storm, and the fettered electricity of the telegraph and the
arc-light ; the difference between a fiery conflagration, and fire
working in the service of man. With this treatment of the
modern productive forces in accordance with their ultimately
recognised nature, the social anarchy of production is replaced
30 MODERN SOCIALISM
by a socially designed regulation of production according to
the acquirements of the collectivity and of every individual ;
the capitalistic method of appropriation, in which the product
enslaves first the producer and afterwards the appropriator
too, is replaced by that method of appropriating the products
which is founded in the very nature of the modern means of
production : on the one hand, direct social appropriation as a
means for the maintenance and extension of production ; on
the other hand, direct individual appropriation as a means of
subsistence and enjoyment.
While the capitalistic method of production more and
more converts the great majority of the population into pro-
Theroleof letarians, it is creating the power which is com-
theproie- pelled, on pain of perishing, to achieve this
revolution. While it more and more forces the
great socialized means of production to be converted into
State property, it is itself pointing the path for this revolution's
achievement. The proletariate seizes the power of the State>
and converts the means of production into State property at once.
But it thereby abolishes itself as a proletariate, abolishes all
class distinctions and class antagonisms, and abolishes the
State as State. Society, hitherto, stirred by class antagonisms,
needed the State, i.e. an organization of the exploiting class
in each period to maintain their external conditions of pro-
duction, and especially, therefore, to hold down by force the
exploited classes in the conditions of oppression afforded by
the existing methods of production (slavery, serfdom or
bondage, and wage-labour). The State was the official repre-
sentative of the whole of society, its embodiment in a visible
corporation j but it was this only in so far as it was the State
of that class which itself for its period represented the whole
of society in antiquity the State of the slave-holding burgesses,
in the Middle Ages that of the feudal nobility, in our time
that of the bourgeoisie. When at last it really becomes
representative of the whole of society, it renders itself super-
fluous. As soon as there is no longer a class in society to be
F. ENGELS 31
held in subjection, as soon as, along with the class-domination
and the struggle for individual existence based on the anarchy
of production hitherto, the resultant clashings and excesses
disappear there is no longer anything to be repressed, which
might necessitate a special repressive force, a State. The first
act in which the State really appears as representative of the
whole of society the appropriation of the means of production
in the name of society is at the same time its last independent
act as a State. The interference of a State authority in social
relations grows superfluous in one sphere after another, and
then of its own accord becomes dormant For government
of persons is substituted control of things and management
of the processes of production. The State is not " abolished,"
it dies out. In this context should be considered the phrase
l( free popular State," both in its temporary Tightness for
purposes of agitation, and in its ultimate scientific inadequacy ;
so, too, should the demand of the so-called Anarchists, that
the State should be abolished in twenty-four hours.
The appropriation of all the means of production by society
has, ever since the appearance in history of the capitalistic
method of production, hovered often more or less hazily as
the future ideal before the eyes of individuals and of whole
sects. But it could not become possible, could M a t eP i a i
not be historically necessary, until the material facts con-
conditions were present for it to be carried out. oJSgSSfd
Neither it .nor any other social advance becomes abolition of
realizable through the acquired perception that classes
the existence of classes is contrary to justice, equality, etc. ;
nor through mere willingness to abolish these classes, but
through certain new economic conditions. The splitting of
society into an exploiting and an exploited, a ruling and a
subject class, was the necessary result of the former slight
development of production. As long as the aggregate labour
of society gives a yield only slightly in excess of what was
needed for the bare existence of everybody, as long, therefore,
as labour claims all, or nearly all, the time of the great majority
32 MODERN SOCIALISM
of the members of society, so long does society necessarily
divide itself into classes. Beside this great majority, which
drudges exclusively at labour, is formed a class freed from
directly productive work, which looks after the common con-
cerns of society management of labour, State affairs, justice,
science, the arts, etc. The law of the division of labour,
therefore, is what lies at the base of the division of classes.
But that does not prevent this division of classes from having
been established through violence and robbery, guile and
fraud, nor the ruling class from having, when once in the
saddle, secured their domination at the expense of the working-
class, and transformed the management of society into an
exploitation of the masses.
But if on this view the division into classes has a certain
historical justification, it has it only for a given period of time,
for given social conditions. It was based on the insufficiency
of production ; it will be swept away by the full unfolding of
the modern productive forces. And, in fact, the abolition of
classes in society presupposes a degree of historical develop-
ment, at which the existence, not merely of this or that
particular ruling class, but of a ruling class at all, and there-
fore of the class-distinction itself, has become an obsolete
anachronism. It presupposes, therefore, a high degree of the
development of production, at which for a special class in
society to appropriate the means of production and products,
and with them political supremacy and the monopoly of
education and intellectual management, is not only superfluous,
but economically, politically, and intellectually a hindrance
to development. This point is now reached. While the
bourgeoisie itself is hardly unaware any longer of its political
and intellectual bankruptcy, its economic bankruptcy is re-
peated regularly every ten years. In every crisis society is
suffocated under the weight of its own productive forces and
products, which it cannot utilize ; and stands helpless before
the absurd contradiction, that the producers have nothing to
consume because there is a dearth of consumers. The
F. ENGELS 33
expansive power of the means of production is bursting the
bonds which the capitalistic method of production puts upon it.
Its emancipation from these bonds is the sole condition to be
fulfilled for an uninterrupted, ever rapidly advancing develop-
ment of productive forces, and with it a practically unlimited
increase of production itself. Nor is that all. Social appro-
priation of the means of production removes not only the
present artificial check on production, but also the positive
squandering and spoiling of productive forces and products,
which at present is the inevitable accompaniment of production
and culminates in the crisis. Moreover, it sets free for the
community a mass of the means of production and products,
by doing away with the imbecile expenditure upon luxuries
which the now ruling classes and their political representatives
practise. The possibility of securing for all members of
society, by means of social production, an existence, which
not only is in a material sense perfectly adequate and daily
growing wealthier, but also guarantees to them the perfectly
free training and exercise of their physical and mental faculties
this possibility was never ours until now, but ours it now is. 1
When society takes possession of the means of production,
there is no more production of commodities, and therefore no
more subjection of the producer to the product. The anarchy
inside social production is replaced by systematic conscious
1 A few figures might give an approximate idea of the enormous ex-
pansive force of the modern means of production, even under the pressure
of capitalism. According to Giffen's latest calculation, the total wealth of
Great Britain and Ireland was, in round figures :
1814 2, 200 million .
1865 6,100
1875 8,500
As to the amount of waste of the means of production and products in
crises at the second congress of German manufacturers, at Berlin, February
21, 1878, the aggregate loss of the German iron industry alone in the recent
crisis was put at 22,750,000. [Engels' note. In a paper read to the
British Association on September II, 1903, Sir R. Giffen estimated the
capital wealth of the United Kingdom at 15,000 million pounds.]
D
34 MODERN SOCIALISM
organization. The struggle for individual existence ceases.
In a certain sense this marks the final separation of man from
the animal kingdom, and his passage from animal conditions
of existence to really human ones. The circle of conditions of
life environing men, which hitherto dominated them, now
passes under their domination and control ; they now for the
first time become real, conscious masters of nature, because
and in that, they are masters of their own association. The
laws of their own social action, which previously withstood
them as external overmastering laws of nature, are now applied,
and so mastered, by men, with full practical knowledge. The
peculiar association of men, which hitherto confronted them as
something doled out by nature and history, now becomes their
own free act. The objective external powers, which controlled
history, come tinder the control of men themselves. Hence-
forth for the first time men will make their own history quite
consciously; henceforth the social causes which they set in
motion will predominantly and in a steadily increasing
measure have the results which they wish them to have. Man-
kind leap from the realm of necessity into the realm of
freedom.
To perform this act of world-emancipation is the mission
in history of the modern proletariate. To investigate its
historical conditions, and so its very nature, and to make the
class which is called upon to act the oppressed class of to-day
aware of the conditions and the nature of its own action, is
the object of the theoretic expression of the proletarian move-
ment scientific Socialism,
IV
THE PROGRAMME OF THE "COMMUNIST
MANIFESTO"
BY KARL MARX AND F. ENGELS
The Manifesto was the first great deliverance of Marx and Engels.
It dates from Nov. i847~Jan. 1848. A German revolution on a scale
greater than the French of 1789 was then generally anticipated, and
the thought of the writers took a " catastrophic" tinge, which it
afterwards outgrew. The idea that Marx hoped less from labour
organization than from labour pauperism and despair, has chiefly been
derived from the Manifesto ; which was written when the latter were
everywhere, the former nowhere.
Nevertheless, with its strong sketch of the Class War, and its
appeal "Proletarians of all lands, unite!" it is an epoch-marking
document In a German preface of 1872, the authors justified their
reprinting it on this ground, while observing, <f This programme has
in some details become antiquated. One thing especially was proved
by the (Paris) Commune, viz. that ' the working class cannot simply
lay hold of the ready-made State machinery, and wield it for its own
WE have seen above, that the first step in the revolution by
the working-class, is to raise the proletariate to the position of
ruling class, to win the battle of democracy.
The proletariate will use its political supremacy, to wrest, by
degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all
instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e. of the
proletariate organized as the ruling class ; and to increase the
total of productive forces as rapidly as possible.
Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except
by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on
35
36 MODERN SOCIALISM
the conditions of bourgeois production ; by means of measures,
therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable,
but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves,
necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are
unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionizing the mode of
production.
These measures will of course be different in different
countries.
Nevertheless in the most advanced countries, the following
will be pretty generally applicable.
1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents
of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all right of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the State, by
means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive
monopoly.
6. Centralization of the means of communication and trans-
port in the hands of the State.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production
owned by the State : the bringing into cultivation of waste
lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance
with a common plan.
8. Equal liability of all to labour. Establishment of
industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing in-
dustries : gradual abolition of the distinction between town and
country, by a more equable distribution of the population
over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools.
Abolition of children's factory labour in its present form.
Combination of education with industrial production, etc., etc.
When in the course of development, class distinctions have
disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the
hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public
KARL MARX AND F. ENGELS 37
power will lose its political character. Political power, properly
so called, is merely the organized power of one class for
oppressing another. If the proletariate during its contest with
the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to
organize itself as a class, if, by means of a revolution, it makes
itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the
old conditions of production, then it will, along with these
conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence
of class antagonisms, and of classes generally, and will thereby
have abolished its own supremacy as a class.
In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and
class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the
free development of each is the condition for the free develop-
ment of all.
THE STANDPOINT OF LASSALLE
The following two extracts are from Lassalle's classical Offenea
Antuuort-Schreiben, addressed in March, 1863, to the Central Com-
mittee for summoning a general congress of German workers at
Leipzig. The portions of the letter not here given consist mainly
of an argument that co-operation of the Rochdale sort could not
solve the social problem, and a plea for co-operative (producing)
associations of workmen, to whom the State should loan capital
(Louis Blanc's plan). The Offenes Antwort-Schreiben was the basis
of the Allgemeiner Deutscher Arbeiterverein, the first central German
Socialist party (founded May 23, 1863).
Ferdinand Lassalle (1825-1864) received a university education at
Breslau and Berlin. In 1848 he wrote for Marx's paper, the Neue
Rheinische Zeitung. In 1849 he was tried and sentenced to six months'
imprisonment. Later, he resided at Berlin, publishing literary and
scientific work, including (in 1861) his System der erivorbenen Rechte.
In 1862 his Socialistic address, the Arbeiterprogramm, raised a storm ;
he was prosecuted, and sentenced to four months' imprisonment,
which was commuted. Thenceforward his activity as an agitator
was incessant till his sudden death, which occurred in a duel.
THE brazen economic law l which fixes wages under the con-
dition of to-day, under the control of the supply of and
demand for labour, is this : that the average wage always
remains reduced to the necessary substance which national
custom demands for the continuance of life and propagation.
1 As a brazen law, this is now quite discredited ; it was a valid inference
from premisses of Malthus and Ricardo, which have been upset. Never-
theless it may still throw a certain light on the case of unskilled labourers,
who form a large numerical percentage in all modern industrial com-
munities.
33
THE STANDPOINT OF LASSALLE 39
This is the point around which the actual daily wage gravitates
like a pendulum, without ever being able much to exceed it
or to fall far short of it. It cannot permanently xhs brazen
exceed this average, because, in consequence of law of
the easier and better condition of the workers, the wages *
ranks of the workers would increase, their propagation would
increase, and with the increase of the working population
would go a corresponding increase in the supply of hands,
which would quickly send the wage of labour down to and
below its former level. Wages can also never for long fall
below this necessary subsistence; for there would result in
that case emigration, celibacy, and decrease of the birth-rate,
and finally a decrease, due to misery, in the number of workers,
which by diminishing the supply of working hands would bring
back the wage of labour to its former level.
The actual average wage of labour moves round that centre
of gravity, about which it must continually fluctuate, and to
which it must continually revert, sometimes exceeding it
(in a period of prosperity in all or single branches of trade),
sometimes not reaching it (in a period of more or less general
misery and crises).
The limitation of the average wage to that which national
custom deems absolutely necessary for the continuance of life
and propagation that is, I repeat, the brazen and cruel law,
which controls the wage of labour under the conditions of
to-day.
This law is indisputable. To back it I might cite every
great and famous name in the science of political economy. I
might cite them from the Liberal school itself, for it is precisely
this school which has discovered and demonstrated the law.
This brazen and cruel law you must before all stamp deep,
deep in your souls, and take it as the staning-point for all
your thoughts.
Here I can give you and the whole working-class an
unfailing method whereby once for all you can avoid being
duped and led astray.
40 MODERN SOCIALISM
When any one speaks to you of improving the position
of the workers, ask him first Does he acknowledge this law
or not?
If he does not, then you must infer, that this man either
wants to dupe you, or is pitifully ignorant of political economy.
For, as I have already observed, there is not one economist of
note, even in the Liberal school, who contradicted the law.
Adam Smith and Say, Ricardo and Malthus, Bastiat and John
Stuart Mill, are unanimous in acknowledging it. Agreement
prevails among all men of science.
And if the person who is speaking about the condition of
the workers, acknowledges this law when you question him,
then ask him further How he wants to abolish it ? And if
he cannot answer, quietly turn your back on him. He is an
empty babbler, who wants to dupe and dazzle with vain phrases
either you or himself.
Let us for a moment regard more closely the effect and
nature of this law. Otherwise worded, it is as follows : From
the yield of labour (production) there is deducted and divided
among the workers as much as they require to continue life
(wage of labour). The whole surplus of production of the
yield of labour falls to the employers' share. It therefore
follows from this brazen and cruel law, that you (and for that
reason I called you, in my labour pamphlet to which you
appeal in your letter, " the class of the disinherited ") are
necessarily shut out from the increased productivity due to
the progress of civilization, i.e. from the increased yield of
labour, from the increased yielding capacity of your own
labour. Your portion is for ever the bare necessaries of
life ; to your employers goes everything that is ever produced
by labour over and above that.
But since the very great progress of productivity (the
yielding power of labour) renders many manufactured products
extremely cheap, it may happen that this cheapness gives you,
not as producers, but as consumers, a certain indirect advantage
from the increased productivity of labour. This advantage
THE STANDPOINT OF LASSALLE 41
does not affect you in your activity as producers ; it does not
affect or alter the quota allotted to you from the yield of
labour; it affects your position as consumers. It similarly
indeed much more considerably improves the position, as
consumers, of the employers and of all the people who take no
part in labour.
Even this advantage, which affects you as men and not as
workers, is again effaced by that brazen and cruel law which
in the long run always depresses the wage of labour back to
the level of consumption necessary to support life. Only it
may happen, that if such an increased productivity of labour
and consequent extreme cheapness of many products inter-
vene quite suddenly, and if they coincide with a long period
of increasing demand for manual workers, then these dis-
proportionately cheapened products are taken up into the sum
of things which national custom deems necessary to support life.
The fact, therefore, that the worker and his wage perpetually
oscillate on the extremest verge of what the needs of any given
age render necessary to support life, now just overstepping it,
now somewhat within it, this fact is unchanged. But the
extremest verge itself may at different times have been altered
by a coincidence of the circumstances mentioned; and so it
may come about that, if you compare different ages from one
another, the position of the working-class in a later century or a
later generation shows some improvement on that in an earlier
one, in so far as the minimum which custom demands for the
absolute needs of life is somewhat higher.
This little digression I had to make, though it lies far from
my own objective, because just this trifling improvement in the
course of centuries and generations is the invariable point to
which all those who want to throw dust in your eyes, like
Bastiat, make their cheap and empty declamations revert.
Mark well what I say. For the reasons given, the
necessary minimum livelihood, and with it the position of
the working-class, may, comparing one generation with
another, have somewhat risen. Whether that really is so,
42 MODERN SOCIALISM
whether really the all-round position of the working-class has
improved, and improved continuously, in the different centuries,
is a very difficult and complicated problem a problem far too
learned to be anywhere within or near the competence of those
who keep amusing you with disquisitions on the dearness of
cotton last century, and the amount of cotton clothes you now
use, and similar commonplaces which can be copied out of any
compendium. It is not my purpose to investigate this problem
here. I must confine myself to giving you what is not only
absolutely certain but easy to demonstrate. Let us suppose,
then, that such an improvement in the lowest needs of life,
and therefore in the position of the working-class, does con-
tinuously occur in the different generations and centuries.
Yet I must show you that, all the same, these commonplaces
make away with and utterly distort the really relevant question.
The true ^ ou are cneate ^ behind your backs. If you refer
ground for to the position of the workers and its improvement,
the workers y OU mean your position compared with that of
discontent. * } . l
your fellow-citizens to-day, compared with the
contemporary standard of living. And then they amuse you
by pretending to compare your position with that of the
workers in earlier centuries ! But the question whether,
because the minimum which custom deems necessary for life
has risen (in case it has done so), you are better oft' to-day than
the workers of 80, 200, or 300 years ago, is a question of no
value for you, and can afford you no satisfaction; no more
than can the, of course, admitted fact, that you are better off
now than the Botokudians and the cannibal savages.
Every human satisfaction depends always on the relation
of the means of satisfaction to what the custom of the period
demands already as bare necessaries for existence, or, which is
the same thing, on the excess of the means of satisfaction
beyond the lowest limit of what the custom of the period
demands as bare necessaries for existence. Raising the mini-
mum of the lowest necessaries for existence makes people
suffer and miss things of which earlier ages knew nothing.
THE STANDPOINT OF LASSALLE 43
What does the Botokudian miss if he cannot buy soap, or the
cannibal savage, if he has no proper coat to wear ? What did
the worker miss before the discovery of America, if he could
not smoke tobacco, or what before the discovery of printing,
if he could not procure a useful book ?
All that human beings suffer and miss depends, therefore, on
the relation between the means of satisfaction and the cus-
tomary necessaries of life already recognized at the time. All
human sufferings and privation, and all human satisfaction-
consequently every human condition is measured only by
comparing one's situation with that in which other men of the
same time find themselves in reference to what the custom of
the time deems necessary for existence. The position of any
class is always measured solely by its relation to that of other
classes at the same time. If, therefore, it were ever so certain
that the level of the necessary conditions for existence had
risen in different ages, that satisfactions formerly unknown had
been recognized by custom as necessaries, and that with them
had intervened in consequence privations and sufferings
formerly unknown, yet your position as men has in these
different ages always remained the same oscillating on the
lowest margin of what custom at any time demands as necessary
for existence, now going a little beyond it, now receding a little
below it. Your position as men has thus remained the same,
for it is measured not by its relation to that of beasts in prime-
val forests, or that of African negroes, or that of serfs in the
Middle Ages, or of workers 200 or 80 years ago, but solely by
its relation to that of your fellow-men, to that of the other
contemporary classes.
And instead of considering this, and thinking how to
improve this relation and to alter that cruel law, which keeps
you continually at the lowest margin of the necessaries for
existence at any period, people amuse themselves by confusing
the question under your very noses unnoticed by you, and
entertaining you with problems in the history of civilization
and retrospective glances at the position of the working-class
44 MODERN SOCIALISM
at former epochs retrospects which are the more problematical
because the manufactured products, which are constantly
being cheapened so very much, are only consumed by the
workers on a far smaller scale, while the staples of life, which
they consume principally, are not controlled by any similar
tendency to ever-growing cheapness. These are retrospects,
which could only be valuable, if the all-round position of the
worker in the different ages w r ere brought within their in-
vestigation; they are investigations of the most difficult
nature, and only to be conducted with extreme circumspection.
Those who dissert upon them to you have not at all the
material for them ; and they might the rather, therefore, leave
them to the specialists.
*****
Your see, therefore, that it is just a mathematical impossi-
bility to emancipate the working-class in this way, 1 by the
_ efforts of its members as merely isolated indi-
Necessity of . J
taking viduals ; that these illusions only result from vague
aetion^nd uncritical ideas; and that the sole way to it, the
agitating sole way to abolish the cruel law which fixes the
fopuniver- wa g e o f i a b ourj to which the working-class is
chained as to a martyr's stake, is the furtherance
and development for free private labour associations by the
helping hand of the State. 2 The labour-association move-
ment founded on the mere atomically-isolated powers of
individual workers has only been valuable and in this has
been immensely valuable in showing obviously the way, the
practical way, in which emancipation may proceed, in pro-
viding brilliant practical proofs for the removal of all real or
1 By private co-operative societies, whether distributive or productive,
unassisted by the State.
8 Lassalle's economic panacea was the foundation of the co-operative
associations of producers, to whom capital should be lent by the State. It
was suggested by Louis Blanc (Organization du Travail, 1839). After the
union of the Lassallean party with the Marxists at Gotha in 1875, this idea
gradually disappeared from German Socialism,
THE STANDPOINT OF LASSALLE 45
pretended doubt as to its practicability, and in thereby making
it the State's imperative duty to lend its supporting hand to
this highest interest of human civilization.
I have likewise proved to you, that the State is really
nothing else than the great organization, the great association
of the working-classes; and that therefore the help and
furtherance, whereby the State should make smaller associa-
tions possible, would be nothing but the perfectly natural,
right, and legitimate social self-help which the working-classes
in their great association 'render to themselves, to their members
as separate individuals.
Once more, then, free private association of workers, but
free private association made possible by the supporting and
furthering hand of the State, is the sole way out of the desert
vouchsafed to the working-class.
But how enable the State to intervene thus ? The answer
to this will blaze out at once before the eyes of you all like
the sun : universal and direct suffrage will alone enable it.
If the legislative bodies of Germany proceed from universal
and direct suffrage, then and then only will you be able to
decide the State to undertake this, its duty. Then will this
demand be made in the legislative bodies; then may the
limits and forms and means of this intervention be reasonably
and scientifically discussed ; then, depend upon it, will the
men who understand your position and are devoted to your
cause, stand beside you armed with the white steel of science,
and be able to guard your interests. And then you, the
fortuneless classes of society, will anyhow have only to blame
yourselves and your bad votes, if, and as long as, the repre-
sentatives of your cause remain in the minority. Therefore,
as now appears, universal direct suffrage is the bottom principle
not only for your politics but for your society, the bottom
condition of all social aid. It is the sole means of improving
the material position of the working-class.
But how effect the introduction of universal direct suffrage ?
Look at England. The great agitation of the English people
46 MODERN SOCIALISM
against the Corn Laws lasted for over five years. And then
the laws had to go ; a Tory Ministry itself had to abolish
them.
Organize yourselves as a Universal Union of German
Workers for the purpose of a legal and peaceful but un-
wearying, unceasing agitation for the introduction of universal
direct suffrage in every German State. As soon as ever the
Union includes but 100,000 German workers, it will be a
power with which every one must reckon. Propagate this
cry in every workshop, every village, every hut. May the
workers of the towns let their higher intelligence and education
overflow on to the workers of the country. Debate, discuss,
everywhere, every day, without pausing, without ending, as
in the great English agitation against the Corn Laws, now
in peaceful public assemblies, now in private conferences, the
necessity of universal direct suffrage. The more the millions
who echo your voice, the more irresistible will be its
influence.
Start clubs with funds, to which every member of the
German Workers' Union must contribute, and at which projects
for organization can be submitted to you.
Found with these funds, which, in spite of the smallness of
subscriptions, can form a powerful financial force for purposes
of agitation (a weekly contribution of only one silver penny
would, if the Union had 100,000 members, provide over
160,000 thalers a year) found public newspapers, to make
this demand daily and prove the reasons for it from the state
of society. With the same funds circulate pamphlets for the
same purpose. Pay agents out of the Union's funds to carry
this intelligence into every corner of the country, to thrill the
heart of every worker, every house-servant, every farm-labourer,
with this cry. Indemnify out of the Union's funds all workers
who have been injured or prosecuted for their activity. Repeat
daily, unwearyingly, the same thing, again the same thing, always
the same thing. The more it is repeated, the more hold it
takes, the stronger its power grows;
THE STANDPOINT OF LASSALLE 47
The whole art of practical success consists in concentrating
one's whole force at any time upon one point the most
important point, and looking neither to the right nor to the
left. Do not you look either to the right or to the left ; be
deaf to everything which is not universal direct suffrage or is
not connected with it and capable of leading up to it.
If you have as in a few years you can really propagated
this cry among the 89 or even the 96 per cent, of the whole
population, which as I have shown you form the poor and
property-less classes of society, then you may be sure your
wishes will not long be withstood. Governments can sulk and
squabble with the bourgeoisie about political rights, universal
suffrage included, so long as political rights are regarded with
indifference. But universal suffrage regarded by from 89 to
96 per cent, of the population as a bread-and-butter question
and diffused with the heat of bodily appetite through the whole
frame of the nation that, you may be well assured, no power
whatever will withstand for long.
That is the sign which you must set up. That is the sign
in which you shall conquer, There is no other sign for you.
VI
THE SAINT-MANDE PROGRAMME
BY A. MlLLERAND
From a speech delivered by A. Millerand on May 30, 1896, to
representatives of all the larger groups of French Socialists. Three
circumstances give this programme historical importance the
occasion, the audience, and the sequel. Unity was then germinating
among French Socialists, and the principal groups made an agree-
ment on the basis, that while any might put up a candidate at the
first ballots, all should support at the second ballots whichever
Socialist had at the first polled most votes. The question then arose
what, for this purpose, is a Socialist ? In the following excerpt
may be seen the answer offered by Millerand, in the presence of
Jaures, Jules Guesde, and lidouard Vaillant, the principal leaders of
groups, and also of Dr. Flaissieres, the Socialist Mayor of Marseilles,
and Delory, Mayor of Lille, provincial leaders of the greatest local
influence in South and North France respectively. This audience,
so representative of the most contrasted spirits in French Socialism,
expressed unanimous approval of the programme, by the mouths of
the leaders mentioned.
After this date the fuller unity of the groups was achieved, only
to be soon shattered again by a number of incidents, of which that
of most public importance was Millerand's own entrance into M.
Waldeck- Rousseau's Coalition Cabinet (June, 1899). While in office
Millerand made a point of publicly asserting his fidelity to the Saint-
Mand6 Programme, and connecting his policy at the Ministry of
Commerce and Industry with it. (Cp. his speech at Lens, Oct 7,
1900.) As a " broad-bottom" programme it would probably be still
accepted by most French Socialists.
It may be compared with the Report on Fabian policy, which was
presented to the London International Congress of June, 1896, and is
therefore very closely contemporary (Fabian Tract, No. 70).
48
A. MILLERAND 49
WHAT is the minimum programme, whose acceptance is
binding upon whoever claims the title of Socialist ? . . . With-
out at all assuming to solve the question by my private
authority, I ask your leave to express quite freely my purely
personal opinion on it. At the stage of development which
the Socialist party has reached, I consider it to be its interest
as well as its duty to define its frontiers with all possible pre-
cision. Whither is it going ? By what paths does it propose
to attain its end? Is it true that it has for its
aim the suppression of Hberty and confiscation property;
of private property, for its means the recourse eonstitu-
r -, rr , u ^- u tionalism.
to force? These are the traits with which our
opponents of every kind usually agree in delineating the
Socialist party. Yet does it not appear on the face of it
that all the points of this pretended definition suppression of
property, recourse to force form the crudest antithesis, the
most brutal contradiction, to our doctrines as well as our
facts ?
Is not the Socialistic idea completely summed up in the
earnest desire to secure for every being, in the bosom of
society, the unimpaired development of his personality ? That
necessarily implies two conditions, of which one is a factor of
the other : first, individual appropriation of things necessary for
the security and development of the individual, i.e. property ;
secondly, liberty, which is only a sounding and hollow word if
it is not based on and safeguarded by property.
On the other hand, is not this evening's banquet, in which
representatives of every shade of opinion in the Socialist party
join, the clearest definition of its tactics, and has ever any
party in this country more than our own respected and trusted
in universal suffrage ?
But these two observations, however decisive in the eyes of
all sincere judges, cannot suffice for us. We must have it out
with our opponents ; we must come to close quarters with the
doubt which they try to keep up. We must see what lies be-
hind the declamations, and what definitely are the interests
E
50 MODERN SOCIALISM
which are sought to be safeguarded against us by those who
have constantly on their lips the words "liberty" and
" property."
The anarchy of capitalism has often been described. You
may characterize it in one sentence, by stating that under it
Thecollec- there is no security for any one. Farmers, mer-
tivistview c hants, manufacturers, intellectual as well as
of the '
capitalist manual workers, are the prey of every chance,
system. g ut j t j s fa[ s verv ex cess of ill, whence collectivism
holds that salvation will spring " Collectivism ! " I have
uttered the dreadful word whose magic incantation should
arouse against us the millions of urban and rural workers
whom " Socialism," certainly, no longer avails to terrify. Of
the collectivist idea I will say but one thing ; l it is not the
product of a dreamer's imagination, nor the outcome of a
philosopher's conceptions, but the statement, pure and simple,
of phenomena being unrolled before our eyes. Men do not
and will not set up collectivism ; it is setting itself up daily ;
it is, if I may be allowed the phrase, being secreted by the
capitalist regime. Under the double influence of the progress
of science, of which the development of machinery is only
the translation into practice, and of the concentration of
capital, we see the small proprietors being expropriated, labour
and property being dissociated, and a new feudal class being
set up, which is accumulating in its hands the ownership of
the instruments of production, to become by a slow but
implacable progress the absolute master of the economic,
political, and moral life of the whole people, reduced by it to
the modern form of slavery called the wages system. Collectiv-
ism declares that the wages system will be no more everlasting
than were those previous modes of servitude and human
exploitation called slavery and serfdom. Collectivism observes
that the normal development of capitalistic society replaces
individual property, the condition and safeguard of liberty, by
the tyrannous monopoly of a minority. It does not rebel
1 The following passage is extremely Marxian.
A. MILLERAND 51
against this observed fact; it bows before it. It does not
pretend to retrace the course of the centuries, nor decree the
transformation of mankind ; on the contrary, it adapts itself to
its rules. Since it is a law of sociological evolution that all the
means of production and exchange pass from the form of
individual property to that of capitalistic property, it merely
claims that in proportion as these vast capitalistic properties
are formed beneath whose rays small property, individual
property, withers and dies> in that proportion social property
should replace capitalistic.
Here I seem to have my finger on the characteristic feature
of the Socialist programme. In my view, whoever does not
admit the necessary and progressive replacement Thesine5u a,
of capitalistic property by social property, is not a nonofa
Socialist. That is, it cannot merely be a matter of Soclallst -
transforming those three categories of the means of production
and exchange which may be termed classical ones credit or
banking, transport by rail, and mining enterprises. Here is
besides these I take an instance which discussion cannot
damage an industry incontestably ripe now for social appro-
priation, because, monopolized in a few hands, yielding its
managers vast profits, characterized at once by the perfecting
of its machinery and the intense concentration of its capital, it
is thoroughly fitted to supply a fertile and easy subject for
social management : I mean the sugar-refining industry. It is
an instance, and only one ; but really, is there anything very
novel about this national monopoly, which to-morrow shall
restore to all the gain unduly monopolized by a few ? Surely,
as the representatives of Socialist municipalities in my audience
know only yesterday I had an instance of it in a by no
means Socialist commune in one of our Eastern departments
surely already, in taking over the distribution of water, light,
motor-power, the organization of transport, the use in common
of agricultural machines, numerous small communities in town
and country have in their sphere replaced capitalistic property
by social This progressive socialization of different categories
52 MODERN SOCIALISM
of the means of production can only inspire hope and joy in
the millions of human beings destined thus to rise, by a pro-
gress governed not by men's caprice, but by the nature of
things, from the condition of wage-workers to that of co-
partners in social wealth ; and it would be vain to try rousing
against the Socialist party the alarms of the fortunate few who
still have in their hands both the means of production and the
whole product of their labour. The latter, the small pro-
prietors, not only are not threatened by the change which the
Socialist party pursues since their fragments of property
could not be the object of social appropriation but they will
benefit proportionally with every other member of society by
the incorporation of the great industries, one after another, in
the body of socialized property.
I say " one after another." No Socialist has ever dreamed
of transforming the capitalistic regime instantaneously by a
Elasticity magic wand, nor of building up on a tabula rasa
biiit ad f the" an ent * re ty new society* Vandervelde, the eminent
Socialist thinker and great orator of Belgium, warned his
hypothesis, friends in an article on the collectivist evolution
against the risk of constructing too hastily and too rigidly at a
time when science may upset in a moment the very elements
of life perhaps, as our great chemist, Berthelot, once sug-
gested, by utterly altering our ways of taking food, or, perhaps s
by profoundly modifying the conditions of industry through
unexpected applications of the transmission of energy. In
speaking thus our friend only brought out the two aspects of
Socialism swbat forms at once its ideal power and its practical
greatness. Our philosophers, our ideologues (a fine and a
right word in its proper place) construct systems ; collectivism
is an ideal and complete plan of society. But if we look
upwards, higher and higher, we do not for that lose our foot-
hold ; we keep in touch with the firm, resisting ground. We
do not substitute our imaginations for the realities amid which
we move; and everything we realize is meant to be, and
must be, the consequence and result of phenomena already
A. MILLERAND 53
accomplished. But hypothesis is one of the needful means
to progress in every kind of knowledge; and it would be a
strange representation, or rather misrepresentation, of the
teaching of the geniuses, like Claude Bernard, who have insti-
tuted the experimental method, to pretend to compel sociologist
or scientist to erase from his papers the fruitful hypothesis.
One of our opponents, I fancy M. Mdline himself, once
found no better way of taxing our friend Jaures with the
boldness of his views than to call him "the poet .
of Socialism." Doubtltlss M. Meline scarcely tioVdepends
fancied, as he flung this trait at our friend, that he on its
. , . f * , . synthesis of
was paying him the best and most precious com- human life
pliment ever received either by Jaures or by the and in-
party which is proud of including him. Certainly
he is a " poet " in the grandest sense of the word the supreme
orator who has thrilled the soul of the artisan and peasant
democracy with the most moving accents heard by a French
audience for a hundred years. But it is not given to every
party to arouse poets and be defended thus. A lost cause
wrapped in the double prestige of tradition and misfortune
may know a Berryer. A people arisen to claim its rights or
defend its soil may borrow the voice of a Mirabeau or a
Danton, or, a century later, a Gambetta; but the capitalist
class, wholly tied to the defence of its material interests, with-
out ideals or beliefs, cannot with all its gold purchase an
advocate whose voice can win for it the hearts of the people
whom it exploits. If Socialism to-day dominates and over-
shadows every party, if it attracts and retains the passionate
interest of every cultivated mind, if it thrills every generous
heart, it is because in its large synthesis it embraces every
manifestation of life, because nothing human is alien to it,
because it alone offers to-day to our hunger for justice and
happiness an ideal purely human and apart from all dogma
separating itself thus unmistakably from the "Christian
Socialism," which is only a wretched sham Socialism, 1 since,
1 It is necessary to remind the reader that " Christian Socialism " has
54. MODERN SOCIALISM
far from working to set men free, it works only for the rule and
dominance of a threatened theocracy.
Socialism does aim at securing for every human being, by
a beneficent and quite natural transformation, these two
The methods tw * n ^^ essm g s J liberty and property, of which the
of Socialism capitalistic regime inevitably robs him. But in thus
S!tut? eC i n ~ ideating tne en d which our party pursues, I have
answered beforehand the ridiculous charge, so often
made, that it expects its ideas to triumph only by violent
revolution. Our eminent friend, Gabriel Deville, whom the
Fourth Constituency will send next Sunday to sit with us in the
Socialist group at the Chamber, said some days ago, strongly
and definitely, that we could get the social transformation
from no rebel minority, but from a majority with a purpose.
Resort to force ? for whom and against whom ? Republicans
before everything, we do not indulge the crazy idea of appeal-
ing to a pretender's sham prestige or a dictator's sword to secure
the triumph of our doctrines. We appeal only to universal
suffrage. It is the voter whom we want to set economically
and politically free. We claim only the right of persuading
him. I do not suppose any one will credit us with the absurd
intention of taking revolutionary steps against the Senate;
which a Radical Ministry, had it vacillated less, would have
sufficed to reduce to reason. No, to realize the immediate
reforms capable of relieving the lot of the working-class, and
thus fitting it to win its own freedom, and to begin, as con-
ditioned by the nature of things, the socialization of the means
of production, it is necessary and sufficient for the Socialist
party to endeavour to capture the Government through
universal suffrage.
But while in the commune, the department, and the nation
Socialism works to replace capitalistic by social property, it
cannot lose sight of the general international character, which
the development of knowledge, and consequently of human
an utterly different meaning in nearly every different country, and that M.
Millerand refers to the Christian Socialism of his own.
A. MILLERAND 55
relations, has stamped upon the social problem. I know how
insincerely our opponents have tried to exploit against us the
international understanding between the workers, socialist
Men who know no frontiers when they want to con- internation-
,, , , _ alism.
cert profitable agreements between speculators of
any race, cry out for shame and horror at the thought that workers
who do not speak the same language can meet to discuss their
common interests. These patriots have not feared to fling the
fatherland into our domestic quarrels as a handy argument
to help their cause. But' the good ! sense of the people has
done justice to these shameless manoeuvres. At this meeting,
where our country's single mind, as also her various aspects,
is so strongly asserted, I need not repeat that we have never
had the unnatural and insane idea of breaking and throwing
away that unique instrument of material and moral progress,
forged by the centuries, which is called the French fatherland.
No, never ; not when, in a few days' time, we receive with all
due sympathy and respect Liebknecht, the unfailing champion
of the Socialistic idea, the brave defender of right, who in
1871 sacrificed his freedom for his admirable protest against
the crime of annexing Alsace-Lorraine which the Iron Chan-
cellor was preparing ; not when we receive the German deputy,
nor when in a few weeks' time we go to the international
Congress at London, shall we ever forget that, while inter-
nationalists, we are Frenchmen and patriots. " Patriots " and
" internationalists " are two titles that our ancestors of the
French Revolution were able nobly to combine.
Such, citizens, are in my opinion the three essential points
which are necessary and sufficient to characterize a Socialistic
programme intervention of the State to convert
f ..... . ....... Summary.
irom capitalistic into national property the dinerent
categories of the means of production and exchange in propor-
tion as they become ripe for social appropriation ; capture of
Government through universal suffrage ; international under-
standing between the workers.
VII
FRENCH REFORMIST SOCIALISM
BY A. MlLLERAND
The following is a preface to a collection of speeches published
by Millerand under the above title in 1903. The reformist method as
opposed to the revolutionary, the national interest as beside the
internationalism of the Marxists, the "solidarity of classes" as
beside the Marxian class- war, and the expediency of Socialists
participating in Governments not wholly Socialistic, are the main
points of controversy handled. The ideas here expressed found not
a little echo three and a half years later (October, 1906) in the pro-
gramme adopted by M. Clemenceau as the head of a Ministry, in
which three reformist Socialists (MM. Millerand, Briand, and Viviani)
were included. Although that Ministry proved less fertile than might
have been hoped, its work is continued by one which is at least as
Socialistic and has M. Briand at its head.
I HAVE collected a few of the speeches which I have delivered
in the past ten years, partly by the wish of friends, partly to
indicate once more the leading characteristics of a policy to
which at least the merit of continuity will be conceded.
A party which is not content with ambitions at short range,
which fixes its gaze high and far, requires an ideal; the
Socialist party proclaims its own. I once tried to formulate
it; I was then fortunate enough to secure the assent of all
fractions of the party, voiced by their accredited representa-
tives. Some of those who approved me in 1896 have since
withdrawn their approval. One of their complaints against
the programme, which they had applauded, is that it won over
too quickly too many new adherents. I feel this fault to be
a creditable one. Perhaps the programme only fell into it
because it was equally removed from vague generalities
56
A. MILLERAND 57
Admitting of every construction, and from false definiteness
which events may soon belie.
It is important to determine with the utmost precision the
direction which we wish to follow. Where are we going?
What dream of justice, freedom, and happiness is ours?
By what means and in what shape do we hope to realize it ?
These questions must be answered, and the answer which we
give is, I think, unequivocal and unambiguous.
*****
In transforming the material world science has simultane-
ously, by a parallel effect which cannot be escaped, overturned
the economic conditions of mankind. A chasm has opened
between the lot of the worker of industry, serf no longer of the
soil but of the machine, and that of the employer, often an
impersonal company, whom he serves without knowing him.
In spite of the progress of philosophy, legislation, and morals,
there have appeared two opposing classes with economic
interests which can only be reconciled by the absorption of
the one in the other. Socialism aims, in the social system,
at abolishing the classes, as the French Revolution, in the
political system, resulted in abolishing the orders. It wishes
the wage-earner to rise to the dignity of a partner. It wishes,
not that individual property should be abolished in the new
humanity which is an incomprehensible proposal but, on
the contrary, that it should be so transformed and enlarged as
to be for every man a sort of natural and necessary extension
of himself over things, the indispensable instrument of life and
development.
Socialism does not, any more than did the French Revolu-
tion, propose to legislate for Frenchmen, or Germans, or
Englishmen, but for men. Everywhere where the same stage
of civilization has brought with the same greatness the same
misery, the same transformations seem to it to be rendered
necessary. Thus, in spite of differences of race and language,
the sentiment of a common ideal unites across space the
Socialist proletariate of the two worlds.
5 S MODERN SOCIALISM
Although it is sketched in large strokes, this ideal cannot
therefore without unfairness be reproached as obscure or
equivocal. Its two essential characteristics, on the contrary,
are quite clearly marked. It pursues, through an international
agreement of the workers, the radical transformation of the
conditions of property, which should cease to be the appanage
of a certain number of men, and become the lot of all.
Some Socialists, in every country, have not withstood the
too natural temptation to grasp the problem more closely, and,
forestalling time, to build up the whole structure of the future
city. These Utopias are unembarrassing, and may even be
useful, if people do not forget to take them for what they are
works of imagination, whose shifting shapes are daily
modified by reality. They would be dangerous, they might
even be fatal, if people were drawn on to claim to crystallize
in them Socialist action and thought. Experience has shown,
how inevitably errors become manifest, after a relatively short
time, even in the constructions of a man of genius.
If it is, I do not say legitimate, but inherent in the progress
of all knowledge, that one should use hypotheses, and if the
collectivist hypothesis, which we use, derives from the very
development of the capitalistic regime a singular value, still
its legitimate employment must never blind us into mistaking
the means for the end. We must beware of becoming the
prisoners of necessarily variable formulae which must change
as men progress. Our end is not to erect an immovable
edifice on a fixed plan according to a prescribed ritual ; it is
not to build a church for a sect, but to make the world more
habitable for everybody by effacing in succession the social
injustices, and by educating a humanity emancipated step by
step from internal tyrannies as well as external constraints.
* * * # *
Education : these few syllables enclose the whole future
of mankind. It is true, profoundly true, that the emancipation
of the workers will be the task of the workers themselves ; we
should understand by that, that they must look only to
A. MILLERAND 59
themselves for their liberation, and especially must make them-
selves able and worthy to work it out. But how? And this
question surely has a cruel irony under a social regime, where all
the strength of the worker is daily spent in his master's service
without his retaining any leisure beyond what repairs for
to-morrow's effort the organism worn out by to-day's. So
society, which has the greatest interest in the regular and
normal march of progress, is compelled to intervene with
a view to securing for all its members humane conditions
of work.
This position is no longer debated as regards children
and women. The regulation of the working day, so far as
concerns them, no longer arouses even theoretical opposition.
The force of logic has led legislation to adopt the same rule
for men working with them. The time is at hand, when by a
fortunate necessity the same law will apply to all workers,
whatever their age or sex, setting them free to be men and
citizens as well as producers.
Equally beyond dispute now is the need of regulating
labour so as to secure health and prevent accidents. Per-
ceptible improvements have been made in this respect,
particularly in the great industry; much is left to be won.
It is no mean advantage to have reached a point where only
the facts of cases are disputed, and one does not collide with
the barrier of a pretended principle.
Thus there has been embodied and moulded the concep-
tion of a legislation protecting the individual, careful of his
development, directed towards the defence and the setting in
operation of every power and all the wealth contained in germ
in the human being.
From this higher idea proceed the laws on education of
every grade, whether they are concerned to furnish every
child with the small primary capital without which a man
will live among his fellows like a foreigner to them, or
whether to organize technical education and apprenticeship,
or whether to swell the reservoir of superior knowledge
6a MODERN SOCIALISM
whence every people draws the elements of its prosperity
and power.
It is not enough to arm the individual for the struggle,
and to take care that the very need of living does not reduce
him to a machine's part and rob him of all that makes life
valuable or joyous. Man is an organism no less fragile than
admirable, beset every yard of the way by accidents and
failings, whether they come from conflicts with things, from
imperfections of the social system, or from hereditary taints.
A whole set of laws is being worked out to prevent or
minimize the effects of unemployment, illness, infirmity,
accidents, and old age. At the head of this new code of
Social Insurance and Prevision might fittingly be inscribed the
proclamation of the first of the rights of man the right to
live. On each of its pages it is inspired and vitalized by the
feeling of solidarity, which makes easy for collective humanity
steps forward which the isolated individual would be powerless
even to conceive.
Association, organization : these two fruitful ideas go side
by side. A predominant and decisive part must be played by
them in social evolution. Through them the weak things
of the proletariate will be joined together, and become aware
of their strength. Along with power will come knowledge of
duties and responsibilities.
Trade-unions, co-operative societies : under these two
principal forms, which the proletariate employs with more
or less ease and success according to its degree of education,
the first grouping takes place.
But the time is, I feel confident, not far off when people
will account it in the general interest that the world of workers
should not be organized solely outside the factory. The Bill
on the friendly regulation of labour disputes, which I introduced,
aims precisely at replacing the inorganic mass of workers of the
middle-sized and the great industry exposed in war (I mean
strikes), as in peace, to every impulsive influence by a methodi-
cal organization making the workers of every factory into an
A. MILLERAND 61
ordered group, represented by regular delegates, having
habitual and normal relations with the management, fitted for
taking deliberate and reflective resolutions. The adoption
of its principle will save at once the special interests of the
workers and those, inseparable from them, of national
production.
* * * * #
I touch here a subject which does not fail to excite and
even to scandalize a certain number of our friends. The
national interest, the solidarity of classes are these questions
about which a Socialist has a right to be anxious without
betraying the ideal which he claims to serve, the triumph of a
humanity freed from class-wars and from wars of nations ?
History is made up of elements too numerous and complex
for any one to be able, without vanity, to claim to fix a hard-
and-fast date for the triumph of his ideas. We fulfil our whole
duty if we work in our station, within the limits of our strength,
following the law of our nature, to prepare its victory. I
have said how high the Socialist ideal is, and how it is not
enclosed in the narrow bounds which time and circumstances
have fixed for any given nation. All the same, it spreads
from men to their neighbours, and no bad way of working for
its extension is to take pains first to win over one's fellow-
citizens.
How, then, can this propaganda be determined irrespectively
of the environment wherein it is carried on? Can method
and tactics be the same under different or even opposite
regimes 1 If it is true that the Republic is the political
formula of Socialism, it follows, of course, that in a country
where Socialism has achieved the immense step forward of
realizing its political formula, its action and procedure, once it
possesses republican forms and universal suffrage, will assume
quite a special aspect and character. This means that it is not
only the right but the imperative duty of Social Democracy in
France to adapt its method to the conditions of the political
regime in which it moves, It would betray the first of its
62 MODERN SOCIALISM
duties if it took refuge in mere phrases of revolution in order
to be saved the responsibilities and burdens implied by the
reformist method and the pursuit of immediate results. It
would, by the same act, sacrifice the primordial interests of
the proletariate by declining the effort which should, little by
little, realize the aggregate of improvements which I tried to
resume in an exact summary.
But how will the French Socialist party have the right to
call the republican regime its own, how will it handle practi-
cally that incomparable instrument of reforms, if it affects
keeping outside of the Republican party's life and means to
isolate itself in the barren part of a systematic critic ? It will
only win that authority over the nation without which our
views cannot be realized, on condition that it remains neither
alien nor indifferent to any of its emotions and aspirations.
In domestic affairs it must take sides in the battle in which
the Republic is engaged, and formulate its opinion, inspiring
itself as how should it else ? by its own ideal, but also by
the needs, the thoughts, and the traditions of the Republican
democracy, which it continues and from which it inherits. It
will not neglect either the good order and prosperity of the
public finances, first condition of all social reform, or the
maintenance and development of the national production.
Public works, improvements destined to promote industry,
commerce, and agriculture, judicious management and utiliza-
tion of our colonial domain, all these are questions which
will claim its scrutiny and retain its attention. It will be the
attentive and zealous servant of the nation's greatness and
prosperity.
Its patriotism the more sincere because it hates the noisy
declamations of Chauvinist politicians has nothing to fear
from its ardent love of peace and of mankind. Until that
unknown date when the Governments agree to lay aside in
concert the heavy burden of military expenses, isolated dis-
armament would be worse than a folly ; it would be a crime
against the very ideal whose foremost soldier the Socialists see
A. MILLERAND 63
France to be. While applying themselves to uphold and
strengthen our diplomacy in the ways of peace, to draw from
past conventions every effect of union and concord which they
admit, and to get new treaties concluded tightening the bonds
of friendship and solidarity between nations, they will watch
no less carefully to preserve the country's independence un-
endangered by any aggression, through the power of its arms
and the security of its alliances. While preparing for the
future, they will not forget either the duties created for them
by the past or the obligations imposed by the present.
*****
To pursue successfully this realistic and ideal policy, to
make it yield all its fruits, the Socialist party must clearly
acknowledge its responsibilities.
I have not dissimulated the end towards which it marches,
and I am acquainted with the argument that Socialism can,
and indeed should, call itself " revolutionary," since in fact the
disappearance of the wage-system will be the most real and
radical of revolutions. Words do not frighten me ; but I
dread equivocations. And what equivocation could be more
unfortunate than that of a party masked by a title which
contradicts formally its spirit and its method ? If we reckon
violence reprehensible as well as useless, if legal reforms
appear to us at once as our immediate objective and as the
sole practical procedure to bring us nearer our distant goal, let
us, then, have the courage, not a difficult courage, to call our-
selves by our own name, " reformists," since reformists we are.
Let us take our courage the whole way ; and having declared
for the reformist method, let us dare to accept its conditions
and consequences. Long before yesterday the French Socialist
party gave the first place in its programme to the capture of
government; long before to-day it passed from theories to
acts, and sent its campaigners into town-halls, into depart-
mental assemblies, into Parliament; it did not do so without
resigning itself to the daily compromises which are the price
of action, and allying itself with the parties near to it. Having
6| MODERN SOCIALISM
gone so far, being persuaded more than ever of the utility and
necessity of a method which has proved its value in experience,
by what aberration should it desert that method at the very
moment when it is becoming most effective ? !By what incon-
sistency should it consent to canvass every mandate, and yet
rigorously forbid itself to join in the Government, and take,
along with the highest responsibilities, the most certain power ?
Such an illogical course, if possible to continue, would soon
ruin the credit and influence of the party weak enough and
sufficiently uncertain of itself to commit it. To put the people
off to the mysterious date when a sudden miracle will change
the face of the world, or day by day, reform by reform, by a
patient and stubborn effort to win step by step all progress
those are the two methods which we must choose between.
-Faithful to its principles and to the method which is its
own, equally careful not to arouse chimerical hopes, and not
to break its promises, French reformist Socialism will be able
to assume every responsibility ; it will not decline any of the
burdens imposed on it by its deep feeling of duty towards its
ideal and towards its country.
VIII
THE LABOUR QUESTION FROM THE
SOCIALIST STANDPOINT
BY WILLIAM MORRIS
This lecture was one of a series delivered in Scotland in the
summer of 1886, in which the Secretary of the Amalgamated Society
of Engineers, the London Manager of the Co-operative Wholesale
Society, Professor Foxwell, Professor Patrick Geddes, and Dr.
Alfred Russell Wallace, also took part.
William Morris's definite accession to Socialism may be dated
from the beginning of 1883. He then joined the Social Democratic
Federation ; but in December, 1885, founded the Socialist League,
whose organ, the "Commonweal," he edited till 1889. In 1890 he
left the League, which soon afterwards collapsed.
His work represents the first revival of Socialism in England
through the importation of the Marxist doctrine. It also derives a
large element from his personal genius, which, while missing the
mass of workers at which it was aimed, has left its mark upon
nearly all the leaders.
I HAVE been asked to give you the Socialist view on the
Labour Question. Now, in some ways that is a difficult matter
to deal with far beyond my individual capacities and would
also be a long business ; yet in another way, as a matter of
principle, it is not difficult to understand or long to tell of, and
it does not need previous study or acquaintance with the works
of specialists or philosophers. Indeed, if it did, it would not
be a political subject, and I hope to show you that it is pre-
eminently political in the sense in which I should use the word ;
65 r
66 MODERN SOCIALISM
that is to say, that it is a matter which concerns every one, and
has to do with the practical everyday relations of his life, and
that not only as an individual, but as a member of a body
corporate, nay, as a member of that great corporation
humanity. Thus considered it would be hard indeed if it
could not be understood readily by a person of ordinary intelli-
gence who can bring his mind to bear upon prejudice. Such
a person can learn the basis of the opinion in even an hour's
talk, if the matter be clearly put before him : it is my task to
attempt this; and whether I fail or succeed, I can at least
promise you to use no technical phrases which would require
explanation ; nor will I, as far as I can help, go into any specu-
lative matter, but will be as plain and practical as I can be.
Yet I must warn you that you may be disappointed when
you find that I have no elaborate plan, no details of a new
society to lay before you, that to my mind to attempt this would
be putting before you a mere delusion. What I ask you to
consider is in the main the clearing away of certain obstacles
that stand in the way of the due and unwasteful use of labour
a task not light, indeed, nor to be accomplished without the
most strenuous effort in the teeth of violent resistance, but yet
not impossible for humanity as we know it, and, as I firmly
believe, not only necessary, but as things now are, the one
thing essential to be undertaken.
Now, you all know that, taking mankind as a whole, it
is necessary for man to labour in order to live. Certainly
not all things that we enjoy are the works of man's labour;
the beauty of the earth, and the action of Nature on our
sensations, are always here for us to enjoy, but we can only do
so on the terms of our keeping ourselves alive and in good
case by means of labour, and no inventions can set aside that
necessity. The merest savage has to pluck the berry from the
tree, or dig up the root from the ground before he can enjoy
his dog-like sleep in sun or shade ; and there are no savages
who have not got beyond that stage, while the progressive races
of mankind have for many ages got a very long way beyond it, so
WILLIAM MORRIS 67
that we have no record of any time when they had not formed
some sort of society, whose aim was to make the struggle with
Nature for subsistence less hard than it otherwise would have
been, to win a more abundant livelihood from her.
We cannot deal at any length with the historical develop-
ment of society ; our object is simply to inquire into the con-
stitution of that final development of society under which we
live. But one may first ask a few questions : ist, Since the
community generally must labour in order that the individuals
composing it may subsist, 'and labour harder in order that they
may attain further advantages, ought not a really successful
community so to arrange that labour that each capable person
should do a fair share of it and no more ? 2nd, Should not a
really successful community established surely for the benefit
of all its members arrange that every one who did his due
share of labour should have his due share of the wealth earned
by that labour? 3rd, If any labour was wasted, such waste
would throw an additional burden on those who produced
what was necessary and pleasant to existence. Should not a
successful community, therefore, so organize its labour that it
should not be wasted ? You must surely answer " Yes " to each
of these three questions. I will assert, then, that a successful
society a society which fulfilled its true functions would take
care that each did his due share of labour, that each had his
due share of wealth resulting from that labour, and that the
labour of persons generally was not wasted. I ask you to re-
member those three essentials of a successful society through-
out all that follows, and now to let me apply them as a test of
success to that society in which we live, the latest development
of so many ages of the struggle with Nature, our elaborate and
highly organized civilization.
In our society, does each capable person do his fair share
of labour ? Is his share of the wealth produced proportionate
to his labour ? Is the waste of labour avoided in our society ?
You may, perhaps, hesitate in your answer to the third
question ; you cannot hesitate to say " No " to the two first. I
68 MODERN SOCIALISM
think, however, I shall be able to show you that much labour
is wasted, and that, therefore, our society fails in the three
essentials necessary for a successful society. Our civilization,
therefore, though elaborate and highly organized, is a failure ;
that is, supposing it to be the final development of society, as
some people, nay, most people, suppose it to be.
Now a few words as to the course of events which have
brought us to the society of the present day. In periods
almost before the dawn of continuous history, the early pro-
gressive races from which we are descended were divided into
clans or families, who held their wealth, such as it was, in
common within the clan, while all outside the clan was hostile,
and wealth not belonging to the clan was looked upon as prize
of war. There was consequently continual fighting of clan
with clan, and at first all enemies taken in war were slain ; but
after a while, as man progressed and got defter with his hands,
and learned how to make more effective tools, it began to be
found out that, so working, each man could do more than
merely sustain himself; and then some of the prisoners of war,
instead of being slain on the field, were made slaves of; they
had become valuable for work, like horses. Out of the wealth
they produced their masters or owners gave them sustenance
enough to live on and took the rest for themselves. Time
passed, and the complexity of society grew, the early barbarism
passed through many stages into the ancient civilizations, of
which Greece and Rome were the great representatives ; but
this civilization was still founded on slave labour ; most of its
wealth was created by men who could be sold in the market
like cattle. But as the old civilizations began to decay, this
slave labour became unprofitable; the countries comprised
in the Roman Empire were disturbed by constant war; the
Governments, both central and provincial, became mere tax-
gathering machines, and grew so greedy that things became
unbearable. Society became a mere pretext for tax-gathering,
and fell to pieces, and chattel slavery fell with it, since under
all these circumstances slaves were no longer valuable.
WILLIAM MORRIS 69
Then came another change. A new society was formed,
partly out of the tribes of barbarians who had invaded the
Roman Empire, and partly out of the fragments of that empire
itself; the feudal system arose, bearing with it new ideas,
which I have not time to deal with here and now. Suffice it
to say, that in its early days mere chattel slavery gave place to
serfdom. Powerful men, privileged men, had not forgotten
that men can produce more by a day's labour than will keep
them alive for a day ; so now they settled their labourers on
certain portions of land, stocked their land with them, in fact,
and on these lands they had leave to live as well as they might
on the condition that they should work a certain part of their
time on the land which belonged to their lords. The average
condition of these serfs was better than that of the chattel
slaves. They could not be bought and sold personally, they
were a part of the manor on which they lived, and they had as a
class a tendency to become tenants by various processes. In
one way or another these serfs got gradually emancipated,
and during a transitional period, lasting through the two last
centuries of the Middle Ages, the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries, the labour classes were in a far better position than
they had been before, and in some ways than they have been
since, suffering more from spasmodic arbitrary violence than
from chronic legal oppression. The transition from this period
to our own days is one of the most interesting chapters of
history ; but it is impossible for me to touch on it here. All I
can say is, that the emancipated serfs formed one of the
elements that went to make up our present middle class, and
that a new class of workers grew up beneath them men who
were not owned by any one, who were bound by no legal ties
to such and such a manor, who might earn what livelihood
they could for themselves under certain conditions, which I
will presently try to lay before you, and which are most
important to be considered, for this new class of so-called
free labourers has become our modern working-class.
Now it will be clear to you, surely, how much and how
70 MODERN SOCIALISM
grievously both the classical period, with its chattel slavery,
and the feudal system, with its serfdom, fell short of the
society which we have set before us as reasonably successful.
In each of them there was a class obviously freed from the
necessity of labour, by means of the degradation of another
class which laboured excessively and reaped but a small
reward for its excessive labour. Surely there was something
radically wrong in these two societies. From the fact that
labour is necessary for man's life on the earth, and that
Nature yields her abundance to labour only, one would be
inclined to deduce the probability that he who worked most
would be the best off; but in these slave and serf societies
the reverse was the case : the man of leisureless toil lived
miserably, the man who did nothing useful lived abundantly.
Then, again, as to our third test, was there no waste of labour?
Yes, indeed, there was waste most grievous. I have said that
the slave-owner or the lord of the manor did nothing useful,
and yet he did something he was bound to do something,
for he was often energetic, gifted, and full of character he
made war ceaselessly, consuming thereby the wealth which his
slaves or his serfs created, and forcing them to work the more
grievously. Here was waste enough, and lack of organization
of labour.
Well, all this people lound no great difficulty in seeing, and
few would like, publicly at least, to confess a regret for these
conditions of labour, although in private some men, less
hypocritical or more logical than the bulk of reactionists,
admit that they consider the society of cultivated men and
chattel slaves the best possible for weak human nature. Yet
though we can see what has been, we cannot so easily see
what is ; and I admit that it is especially hard for people in
our civilization, with its general freedom from the ruder
forms of violence, its orderly routine life, and, in short all, that
tremendous organization whose very perfection of continuity
prevents us from noticing it, I say it is hard for people under
the quiet order and external stability of modern society to note
WILLIAM MORRIS 71
that much the same thing is going on in the relations of
employers to the employed, as went on under the slave
society of Athens, or under the serf-sustained baronage of
the thirteenth century.
For I assert that with us, as with the older societies, those
who work hardest fare the worst, those who produce the least
get the most ; while as to the waste of labour that goes on,
the waste of times past is as nothing compared with what is
wasted to-day.
I must now justify thxs view of mine, and if possible get
you to agree with it, by pointing out to you how society at the
present day is constituted.
Now, as always, there are only two things essential to the
production of wealth labour and raw material ; every one can
labour who is not sick or in nonage, therefore every one,
except those, if he can get at raw material, can produce
wealth ; but without that raw material he cannot produce any-
thing anything, that is, that man can live upon; and if he
does not labour he must live at the expense of those that do ;
unless, therefore, every one can get at the raw material and
instruments of production, the community in general will be
burdened by the expense of so many useless mouths, and the
sum of its wealth will be less than it ought to be. But in our
civilized society of to-day the raw material and the instruments
of production are monopolized by a comparatively small
number of persons, who will not allow the general population
to use them for production of wealth unless they pay them
tribute for doing so; and since they are able to exact this
tribute they themselves are able to live without producing,
and consequently are a burden on the community. Nor are
these monopolists content with exacting a bare livelihood from
the producers, as mere vagabonds and petty thieves do ; they
are able to get from the producers in all cases an abundant
livelihood, including most of the enjoyments and advantages
of civilization, and in many cases a position of such power
that they are practically independent of the community, and
72 MODERN SOCIALISM
almost out of reach of its laws although, indeed, the greater
part of those laws were made for the purpose of upholding this
monopoly and wherever necessary they do now use the
physical force, which by one means or another they have
under their control, for such upholding.
These monopolists, or capitalists, as one may call them
broadly (for I will not at present distinguish the land capitalists
from the money capitalists), are in much the same position as
the slave-owners of ancient Greece and Rome, or the serf-
masters of the thirteenth century ; but they have this advantage
over them, that though really they sustain their position by
mere compulsion, just as the earlier masters did, that com-
pulsion is not visible as the compulsion of the earlier
times was, and it is very much their business to prevent
it becoming visible, as may be well imagined. But as I
am against monopoly and in favour of freedom, I must
try to get you to see it; since seeing it is the first step
towards feeling it, which in its turn is sure to lead to your
refusing to bear it.
I have spoken of the tribute which the capitalists exact as
the price of the use of those means of production which ought
to be as free to all as the air we breathe is, since they are as
necessary to our existence as it is. How do they exact the
tribute ? They are, to start with, in a good position, you see,
because, even without any one's help, they could use the labour-
power in their own bodies on the raw material they have, and
so earn their livelihood ; but they are not content with that,
as I hinted above they are not likely to be, because their
position, legalized and supported by the whole physical force
of the State, enables them " to do better for themselves,"
as the phrase goes they can use the labour-power of the
disinherited, and force them to keep them without working
for production. Those disinherited, however, they must keep
alive to labour, and they must allow them also opportunity for
breeding these are necessities that pressed equally on the
ancient slave-owner or the mediaeval lord of the manor, or,
WILLIAM MORRIS 73
indeed, on the owner of draught cattle ; they must at least
do for the workers as much as for a machine, supply them
with fuel to enable them to work; nor need they do more
if they are dealing with men who have no power of resistance.
But these machines are human ones, instinct with desires
and passions, and therefore they cannot help trying to better
themselves; and they cannot better themselves except at
the expense of the masters, because whatever they produce
more than the bare necessaries of life the masters will at once
take from them if they f can ; therefore they have always
resisted the full exercise of the privilege of the masters, and
have tried to raise their standard of livelihood above the
mere subsistence limit. Their resistance has taken various
forms, from peaceful strikes to open war, but it has always
been going on, and the masters, when not driven into a corner,
have often yielded to it, although unwillingly enough; but
it must be said that mostly the workers have claimed little
more than mere slaves would, who might mutiny for a bigger
ration. For, in fact, this wage paid by our modern masters is
nothing more than the ration of the slave in another form ; and
when the masters have paid it, they are free to use all the rest
that the workers produce, just as the slave-owner takes all that
the slave produces. Remember at this point, therefore, that
everything more than bare subsistence which the workers
make to-day, they make by carrying on constant war with their
masters. I must add that their success in this war is often
more apparent than real, and too often it means little more
than shifting the burden of extreme poverty from one group
of the workers to another; the unskilled labourers, of whom
the supply is unlimited, do not gain by it, and their numbers
have a tendency to increase, as the masters, driven to their
shifts, use more and more elaborate machines in order to dis-
pense with the skilled labour, and also use the auxiliary labour
of women and children, to whom they do not pay subsistence
wages, thereby keeping down the wages of the head of the
family, and depriving him and them of the mutual help and
74 MODERN SOCIALISM
comfort in the household, which would otherwise be gained
from them,
Thus, then, the capitalists, by means of their monopoly of
the means of production, compel the worker to work for less
than his due share of the wealth which he produces, that is,
for less than he produces ; he must work, he will die else, and
as they are in possession of the raw material, he must agree to
the terms they enforce upon him. This is the " free contract "
of which we hear so much, and which, to speak plainly, is a
capitalist lie. There is no way out of this freedom save rebellion
of some kind or other strike-rebellion, which impoverishes
the workers for the time, whether they win the strike or lose it ;
or the rebellion of open revolt, which will be put down always,
until it is organized for a complete change in the basis of
society.
Now to show you another link or two of the chain which
binds the workers. There is one thing which hampers this
constant struggle of the workers towards bettering their con-
dition at the expense of their masters, and that is competition
for livelihood amongst them. I have told you that unskilled
labour is practically unlimited; and machines, the employ-
ment of women and children, long hours of work, and all
that cheapening of production so much bepraised now, bring
about this state of things, that even in ordinary years there are
more hands than there is work to give them. This is the
great instrument of compulsion of modern monopoly } people
undersell one another in our modern slave-market, so that the
employers have no need to use any visible instrument of com-
pulsion in driving them towards work ; and the invisibility of
this whip the fear of death by starvation has so muddled
people's brains, that you may hear men, otherwise intelligent,
e.g., answering objections to the uselessness of some occupa-
tion by saying, " But, you see, it gives people employment,"
although they would be able to see that if three of them had
to dig a piece of ground, and one of them knocked off, and
was "employed " in throwing chuckie stones into the water, the
WILLIAM MORRIS 75
other two would have to do his share of the work as well as
their own.
Another invisible link of the chain is this, that the workman
does not really know his own master j the individual employer
may be, and often is, on good terms with his men, and really
unconscious of the war between them, although he cannot
fail to know that if he pays more wages to his men than other
employers in the same line of business as himself do, he will
be beaten by them. But the workman's real master is not his
immediate employer, but his class, which will not allow even
the best-intentioned employer to treat his men otherwise than
as profit-grinding machines. By his profit, made out of the
unpaid labour of his men, the manufacturer must live, unless he
gives up his position and learns to work like one of his own
men, which, indeed, as a rule he could not do, as he has usually
not been taught to do any useful work ; therefore, as I have
said, he must reduce his wages to the lowest point he can,
since it is on the margin between his men's production and
their wages that his profit depends ; his class, therefore, com-
pels him to compel his workmen to accept as little as possible.
But further, the workman is a consumer as well as a producer ;
and in that character he has not only to pay rent to a landlord
(and far heavier proportionately than rich people have to pay),
and also a tribute to the middleman who lives without pro-
ducing and without doing service to the community, by passing
money from one pocket to another, but he also has to pay (as
consumer) the profits of the other manufacturers who super-
intend the production of the goods he uses. Again, as a mere
member of society, a should-be citizen, he has to pay taxes, and
a great deal more than he thinks ; he has to pay for wars, past,
present, and future, that are never meant to benefit him, but
to force markets for his masters, nay, to keep him from
rebellion, from taking his own at some date ; he has also to
pay for the thousand and one idiocies of parliamentary
government, and ridiculous monarchical and official state for
the mountain of precedent, nonsense, and chicanery, with
76 MODERN SOCIALISM
its set of officials, whose business it is, under the name of
law, to prevent justice being done to any one. In short, in
one way or another, when he has by dint of constant labour
got his wages into his pocket, he has them taken away
from him again by various occult methods, till it comes to
this at last, that he really works an hour for one-third of an
hour's pay ; while the two-thirds go to those who have not
produced the wealth which they consume.
Here, then, as to the first and second conditions of a
reasonable society : (i) That the labour should be duly appor-
tioned; (2) that the wealth should be duly apportioned. Our
society does not merely fail in them, but positively inverts
them ; with us, those who consume most produce least, those
who produce most consume least.
There yet remains something to be said on the third con-
dition of a fair state of society : that it should look to it that
labour be not wasted. How does civilization fare in this
respect? I have told you what was the occupation of the
ancient slave-holders, set free by slave-labour from the necessity
of producing it was fighting with each other for the aggran-
disement, in earlier times of their special city, in later of their
own selves ; similarly, the mediaeval baron, set free from the
necessity of producing by the labour of the serfs who tilled
his lands for him, occupied himself with fighting for more
serf-tilled land either for himself or for his suzerain. In our
own days we see that there is a class freed from the necessity
of producing by the tribute paid by the wage-earner. What
does our free class do ? how does it occupy the lifelong leisure
which it forces toil to yield to it ?
Well, it chiefly occupies itself in war, like those earlier
non-producing classes, and very busy it is over it. I know,
indeed, that there is a certain portion of the dominant class
that does not pretend to do anything at all, except perhaps
a little amateur reactionary legislation, yet even of that group
I have heard that some of them are very busy in their estate
offices trying to make the most of their special privilege, the
WILLIAM MORRIS 77
monopoly of the land ; and, taking them altogether, they are
not a very large class. Of the rest some are busy in taxing us
and repressing our liberties directly, as officers in the army and
navy, magistrates, judges, barristers, and lawyers; they are the
salaried officers on the part of the masters in the great class
struggle. Other groups there are, as artists and literary men,
doctors, schoolmasters, etc., who occupy a middle position
between the producers and the non-producers ; they are doing
useful service, and ought to be doing it for the community at
large, but practically they are only working for a class, and in
their present position are little better than hangers-on of the non-
producing class, from whom they receive a share of their privi-
lege, together with a kind of contemptuous recognition of their
position as gentlemen heaven save the mark ! But the great
mass of the non-producing classes are certainly not idle in the
ordinary sense of the word ; they could not be, for they include
men of great energy and force of character, who would,
as all reasonable men do, insist on some serious or exciting
occupation ; and I say once again their occupation is war,
though it is "writ large," and called competition. They
are, it is true, called organizers of labour; and sometimes
they do organize it, but when they do they expect an extra
reward for so doing outside their special privilege. A great
many of them, though they are engaged in the war, sit at home
at ease, and let their generals, their salaried managers to
wit, wage it for them I am meaning here shareholders, or
sleeping-partners but whenever they are active in business
they are really engaged in organizing the war with their com-
petitors, the capitalists in the same line of business as them-
selves ; and if they are to be successful in that war they must
not be sparing of destruction, either of their own or of other
people's goods ; nay, they not unseldom are prepared to further
the war of sudden, as opposed to that of lingering, death, and
of late years they have involved pretty nearly the whole of
Europe in attacks on barbarian or savage peoples, which are
only distinguishable from sheer piracy by their being carried
78 - MODERN SOCIALISM
on by nations instead of individuals. But all that is only by
the way ; it is the ordinary and necessary outcome of their
operations that there should be periodical slackness of trade
following on times of inflation, from the fact that every one
tries to get as much as he can of the market to himself at the
expense of every one else, so that sooner or later the market is
sure to be overstocked, so that wares are sold sometimes at
less than the cost of production, which means that so much
labour has been wasted on them by misdirection. Nor is that
all ; for they are obliged to keep an army of clerks and such-
like people, who are not necessary either for the production of
goods or their distribution, but are employed in safeguarding
their master's interests against their master's competitors. The
waste is further increased by the necessity of these organizers
of the commercial war for playing on the ignorance and
gullibility of the customers by two processes, which in their
perfection are specialities of the present century, and even, it
may be said, of this latter half of it to wit, adulteration and
puffery. It would be hard to say how much ingenuity and pains-
taking have been wasted on these incidents in the war of
commerce, and I am wholly unable to get any statistics of
them ; but we all know that an enormous amount of labour is
spent on them, which is at the very best as much wasted as if
those engaged on it were employed in digging a hole and filling
it up again.
But, further, there is yet another source of waste involved
in our present society. The grossly unequal distribution of
wealth forces the rich to get rid of their surplus money by
means of various forms of folly and luxury, which means
further waste of labour. Do not think I am advocating
asceticism. I wish us all to make the utmost of what we can
obtain from Nature to make us happier and more contented
while we live ; but, apart from reasonable comfort and real
refinement, there is, as I am sure no one can deny, a vast
amount of sham wealth and sham service created by our
miserable system of rich and poor, which makes no human
WILLIAM MORRIS 79
being the happier on the one hand, while on the other it
withdraws vast numbers of workers from the production of
real utilities, and so casts a heavy additional burden of labour
on those who are producing them. I have been speaking
hitherto of a producing and a non-producing class, but I have
been quite conscious all the time that though the first class
produces whatever wealth is created, a very great many of
them are prevented from producing wealth at all, are being
set to nothing better than turning a wheel that grinds nothing
save their own lives. Nay, worse than nothing. I hold
that this sham wealth is not merely a negative evil (I mean in
itself), but a positive one. It seems to me that the refined
society of to-day is distinguished from all others by a kind of
gloomy cowardice a stolid but timorous incapacity of enjoy-
ment. He who runs may read the record of the unhappy
rich not less than that of the unhappy poor, in the futility
of their amusements and the degradation of their art and
literature.
Well, then, the third condition of a reasonable society is
violated by our present so-called society; the tremendous
activity, energy, and invention of modern times is to a great
extent wasted; the monopolists force the workers to waste
a great part of their labour-power, while they waste almost
the whole of theirs. Our society, therefore, does not fulfil
the true functions of society. Now, the constitution of all
society requires that each individual member of it should yield
up a part of his liberty in return for the advantages of mutual
help and defence ; yet at bottom that surrender should be
part of the liberty itself; it should be voluntary in essence.
But if society does not fulfil its duties towards the individual,
it wrongs him; and no man voluntarily submits to wrong
nay, no man ought to. The society, therefore, that has
violated the essential conditions of its existence must be
sustained by mere brute force ; and that is the case of our
modern society, no less than that of the ancient slave-holding
and the mediaeval serf-holding societies. As a practical
80 MODERN SOCIALISM
deduction, I ask you to agree with me that such a society
should be changed from its base up, if it be possible. And,
further, I must ask how, by what, and by whom, such a revolu-
tion can be accomplished ? But before I set myself to deal
with these question-, I will ask you to believe that, though I
have tried to argue the matter on first principles, I do not
approach the subject from a pedantic point of view. If I
could believe that, however wrong it may be in theory, our
present system works well in practice, I should be silenced.
If I thought that its wrongs and anomalies were so capable of
palliation, that people generally were not only contented but
were capable of developing their human faculties duly under
it, and that we were on the road to progress without a great
change, I for one would not ask any one to meddle with it.
But I do not believe that, nor do I know of any thoughtful
person that does. In thoughtful persons I can see but two
attitudes ; on the one hand the despair of pessimism, which I
admit is common, and on the other a desire and hope of
change. Indeed, in a year like the present, when one hears
on all sides and from all classes of what people call depression
of trade, which, as we too well know, means misery at least
as great as that which a big war bears with it ; and when on
all sides there is ominous grumbling of the coming storm, the
workers unable to bear the extra burden laid upon them by
the "bad times," in such a year there is, I do not say no
hope, but at least no hope except in those changes, the tokens
of which are all around us.
Therefore, again I ask how, or by what, or by whom, the
necessary revolution can be brought about? What I have
been saying hitherto has been intended to show you that
there has always been a great class struggle going on, which
is still sustained by our class of monopoly and our class of
disinheritance. It is true that in former times no sooner was
one form of that class struggle over than another took its
place; but in our days it has become much simplified, and
has cleared itself by progress through its various stages of
WILLIAM MORRIS 81
mere accidental circumstances. The struggle for political
equality has come to an end, or nearly so ; all men are (by a
fiction, it is true) declared to be equal before the law, and
compulsion to labour for another's benefit has taken the
simple form of the power of the possessor of money, who is
all-powerful ; therefore if, as we Socialists believe, it is certain
that the class struggle must one day come to an end, we are
so much nearer to that end by the passing through of some of
its necessary stages ; history never returns on itself.
Now, you must not suppose, therefore, that the revolutionary
struggle of to-day, though it may be accompanied (and neces-
sarily) by violent insurrection, is paralleled by the insurrections
of past times. A rising of the slaves of the ancient period,
or of the serfs of the mediaeval times, could not have been
permanently successful, because the time was not ripe for such
success, because the growth of the new order of things was
not sufficiently developed. It is indeed a terrible thought
that, although the burden of injustice and suffering was almost
too heavy to be borne in such insurrectionary times, and
although all popular uprisings have right on their side, they
could not be successful at the time, because there was nothing
to put in the place of the unjust system against which men
were revolting. And yet it is true, and it explains the fact
that the class antagonism is generally more felt when the
oppressed class is bettering its condition than when it is at
its worst. The consciousness of oppression then takes the
form of hope, and leads to action, and is, indeed, the token of
the gradual formation of a new order of things underneath the
old decaying order.
Most thoughtful people are conscious of the fact that the
tendency of the times is to make the labour classes the great
power of the epoch, in the teeth of the other fact that labour
is at least as directly under the domination of a privileged
class as ever it was. Now these two facts taken together : the
obvious uprising of the workers in the scale, and their being
face to face with a class that lives by exploiting their labour,
G
8z MODERN SOCIALISM
these two facts seem to us Socialists to show that one of these
classes must give way, and that this giving way must mean
that one of those classes must be absorbed in the other, and
so the class-war be ended. If that position be accepted, it is
clear that the class that must come alive out of the struggle
must be the producing class, the useful class; therefore the
Socialist's view of the labour question is that a new society
is in course of development from the working-classes the
producing classes, more properly and that the other classes
which now live on their labour will melt into that class. The
result of that will be, that, so far as society has any conscious
organization, it will be an instrument for the arrangement of
labour so as to produce wealth from natural material, and to
distribute the wealth when produced without waste of labour ;
that is to say, it will satisfy those ideal conditions of its reason
for existence which I began by putting before you.
I told you that I was not prepared to give you any details
of the arrangement of a new state of society ; but I am pre-
pared to state the principles on which it would be founded,
and the recognition of which would make it easy for serious
men to deal with the details of arrangement. Socialism asserts
that every one should have free access to the means of pro-
duction of wealth the raw material and the stored-up force
produced by labour; in other words, the land, plant, and
stock of the community, which are now monopolized by certain
privileged persons, who force others to pay for their use. This
claim is founded on the principle which lies at the bottom of
Socialism, that the right to the possession of wealth is conferred
by the possessor having worked towards its production, and
being able to use it for the satisfaction of his personal needs.
The recognition of this right will be enough to guard against
mere confusion and violence. The claim to property on any
other grounds must lead to what is in plain terms robbery;
which will be no less robbery because it is organized by a
sham society, and must be no less supported by violence
because it is carried on under the sanction of the law.
WILLIAM MORRIS 83
Let me put this with somewhat more of detail. No man
has made the land of the country, nor can he use more than a
small portion of it for his personal needs ; no man has made
more than a small portion of its fertility, nor can use personally
more than a small part of the results of the labour of countless
persons, living and dead, which has gone to produce that
fertility. No man can build a factory with his own hands, or
make the machinery in it, nor can he use it, except in combi-
nation with others. He may call it his, but he cannot make
any use of it as his alone-, unless he is able to compel other
people to use it for his benefit ; this he does not do personally,
but our sham society has so organized itself that by its means
he can compel this unpaid service from others. The magis-
trate, the judge, the policeman, and the soldier, are the sword
and pistol of this modern highwayman, and I may add that he
is also furnished with what he can use as a mask under the
name of morals and religion.
Now, if these means of production the land, plant, and
stock were really used for their primary uses, and not as
means for extracting unpaid labour from others, they would
be used by men working in combination with each other, each
of whom would receive his due share of the results of that
combined labour; the only difficulty would then be what
would be his due share, because it must be admitted on all
hands that it is impossible to know how much each individual
has contributed towards the production of a piece of co-opera-
tive labour; but the principle once granted that each man
should have his due share of what he has created by his labour,
the solution of the difficulty would be attempted, nay, is now
hypothetically attempted, in various ways, in two ways mainly.
One view is that the State that is, society organized for the
production and distribution of wealth would hold all the
means of the production of wealth in its hands, allowing
the use of them to whomsoever it thought could use them,
charging rent, perhaps, for their use, but which rent would be
used again only for the benefit of the whole community, and
84 MODERN SOCIALISM
therefore would return to the worker in another form. It
would also take on itself the organization of labour in detail,
arranging the how, when, and where, for the benefit of the
public, doing all this, one must hope, with as little centraliza-
tion as possible; in short, the State, according to this view,
would be the only employer of labour. No individual would
be able to employ a workman to work for him at a profit, i.e.
to work for less than the value of his labour (roughly esti-
mated), because the State would pay him the full value of it ;
nor could any man let land or machinery at a profit, because
the State would let it without the profit. It is clear that if
this could be carried out, no one could live without working.
When a man had spent the wealth he had earned personally,
he would have to work for more, as there would be no tribute
coming to him from the labour of past generations ; on these
terms he could not accumulate wealth, nor would he desire to
for he could do nothing with it except satisfy his personal
needs with it, whereas at present he can turn the superfluity
of his wealth into capital, i.e. wealth used for the extraction of
profit. Thus society would be changed. Every one would
have to work for his livelihood, and everybody would be able
to do so ; whereas at present there are people who refuse to
work for their livelihood, and forbid others to do so. Labour
would not be wasted, as there would be no competing em-
ployers, gambling in the market, and using the real producer
and the consumer as their milch cows. The limit of price
would be the cost of production, so that buying and selling
would be simply the exchange of equivalent values, and there
would be no loss on either side in the transaction. Thus
there would be a society in which every one would have an
equal chance for well-doing, for, as a matter of course,
arrangements would be made for the sustaining of people in
their nonage, for keeping them in comfort if they were physi-
cally incapacitated from working, and also for educating every
one according to his capacities. This would at the least be a
society which would try to perform those functions of seeing
WILLIAM MORRIS 85
that every one did his due share of work and no more, and
had his due share of wealth and no less, and that no labour
was wasted, which I have said were the real functions of a
true society.
But there is another view of the solution of the difficulty as
to what constitutes the due share of the wealth created by
labour. Those who take it say, since it is not really possible
to find out what proportion of combined labour each man
contributes, why profess to try to do so? In a properly
ordered community all work that is done is necessary on
the one hand, and on the other there would be plenty of
wealth in such a community to satisfy all reasonable needs.
The community holds all wealth in common, but has the
same right to holding wealth that the individual has, namely,
the fact that it has created it and uses it ; but as a community
it can only use wealth by satisfying with it the needs of every
one of its members it is not a true community if it does less
than this but their needs are not necessarily determined by
the kind or amount of work which each man does, though, of
course, when they are that must be taken into account. To
say the least of it, men's needs are much more equal than
their mental or bodily capacities are; their ordinary needs,
granting similar conditions of climate and the like, are pretty
much the same, and could, as above said, be easily satisfied.
As for special needs for wealth of a more special kind,
reasonable men would be contented to sacrifice the thing
which they needed less for that which they needed more;
and for the rest, the varieties of temperament would get over
the difficulties of this sort. As to the incentives to work, it
must be remembered that even in our own sham society
most men are not disinclined to work, so only that their
work is not that which they are compelled to do; and the
higher and more intellectual the work is, the more men are
resolved to do it even in spite of obstacles. In fact, the ideas
on the subject of the reward of labour in the future are
founded on its position in the present. Life is such a terrible
86 MODERN SOCIALISM
struggle for the majority, that we are all apt to think that a
specially gifted person should be endowed with more of that
which we are all compelled to struggle for money, to wit
and to value his services simply by that standard. But in a
state of society in which all were well-to-do, how could you
reward extra services to the community? Give your good
worker immunity from work ? The question carries with it
the condemnation of the idea, and moreover, that will be
the last thing he will thank you for. Provide for his children ?
The fact that they are human beings with a capacity for work
is enough ; they are provided for in being members of a
community which will see that they neither lack work nor
wealth. Give him more wealth ? Nay ; what for ? What can
he do with more than he can use? He cannot eat three
dinners a day, or sleep in four beds. Give him domination
over other men ? Nay, if he be more excellent than they are
in any art, he must influence them for his good and theirs,
if they are worth anything ; but if you make him their arbitrary
master, he will govern them, but he will not influence them ;
he and they will be enemies, and harm each other mutually.
One reward you can give him, that is, opportunity for
developing his special capacity, but that you will do for
everybody and not the excellent only. Indeed, I suppose he
will not, if he be excellent, lack the admiration or perhaps
it is better to say the affection of his fellow-men, and he
will be all the more likely to get that when the relations
between him and them are no longer clouded by the fatal gift
of mastership.
In short, in a duly ordered community, everybody would
do what he could do best, and therefore easiest, and with
most pleasure. He who could do the higher work would
do it as easily as the man whose capacity was less would do
the lower work; there would be no more wear and tear to
him in it, or if there were, it would mean simply that his needs
were greater, and would have to be considered accordingly.
Moreover, those who see this view of the new society
WILLIAM MORRIS 87
believe that decentralization in it would have to be complete.
The political unit with them is not a Nation, but a Commune ;
the whole of reasonable society would be a great federation of
such communes, federated for definite purposes of the organi-
zation of livelihood and exchange. For a mere nation is the
historical deduction from the ancient tribal family, in which
there was peace between the individuals composing it, and
war with the rest of the world. A nation is a body of people
kept together for purposes of rivalry and war with other similar
bodies, and when competition shall have given place to
combination the function of the nation will be gone.
I will recapitulate, then, the two views taken among
Socialists as to the future of society. According to the first,
the State that is, the nation organized for unwasteful produc-
tion and exchange of wealth will be the sole possessor of the
national plant and stock, the sole employer of labour, which
she will so regulate in the general interest that no man will
ever need to fear lack of employment and due earnings there-
from. Everybody will have an equal chance of livelihood, and,
except as a rare disease, there would be no hoarding of money
or other wealth. This view points to an attempt to give every-
body the full worth of the productive work done by him, after
having ensured the necessary preliminary that he shall always
be free to work.
According to the other view, the centralized nation would
give place to a federation of communities who would hold all
wealth in common, and would use that wealth for satisfying
the needs of each member, only exacting from each that he
should do his best according to his capacity towards the
production of the common wealth. Of course, it is to be
understood that each member is absolutely free to use his share
of wealth as he pleases without interference from any, so long
as he really uses it, that is, does not turn it into an instrument
for the oppression of others. This view intends complete
equality of condition for every one, though life would be, as
always, varied by the differences of capacity and disposition ;
88 MODERN SOCIALISM
and emulation in working for the common good would supply
the place of competition as an incentive.
These two views of the future of society are sometimes
opposed to each other as Socialism and Communism ; but
to my mind the latter is simply the necessary development of
the former, which implies a transition period, during which
people would be getting rid of the habits of mind bred by the
long ages of tyranny and commercial competition, and be
learning that it is to the interest of each that all should
thrive.
When men had lost the fear of each other engendered by
our system of artificial famine, they would feel that the best
way of avoiding the waste of labour would be to allow every
man to take what he needed from the common store, since
he would have no temptation or opportunity of doing any-
thing with a greater portion than he really needed for his
personal use. Thus would be minimized the danger of the
community falling into bureaucracy, the multiplication of
boards and offices, and all the paraphernalia of official
authority, which is after all a burden, even when it is exercised
by the delegation of the whole people and in accordance with
their wishes.
Thus I have laid before you, necessarily briefly, a Socialist's
view of the present condition of labour, and its hopes for
the future. If the indictment against the present society
seems to you to be of undue proportions compared with the
view of that which is to come, I must again remind you that
we Socialists never dream of building up by our own efforts in
one generation a society altogether new. All I have been
attacking has been the exercise of arbitrary authority for the
supposed benefit of a privileged class. When we have got
rid of that authority and are free once more, we ourselves shall
do whatever may be necessary in organizing the real society
which even now exists under the authority which usurps that
title. That true society of loved and lover, parent and child,
friend and friend, the society of well-wishers, of reasonable
WILLIAM MORRIS 89
people conscious of the aspirations of humanity and the
duties we owe to it through one another, this society, I
say, is held together and exists by his own inherent right
and reason, in spite of what is usually thought to be the
cement of society arbitrary authority to wit that is to say,
the expression of brute force under the influence of unreason-
ing habit. Unhappily though society exists, it is in an enslaved
and miserable condition, because that same arbitrary authority
says to us practically : " You may be happy if you can afford
it, but unless you have a certain amount of money, you shall
not be allowed the exercise of the social virtues; sentiment,
affection, good manners, intelligence even, to you shall be
mere words; you shall be less than men, because you are
needed as machines to grind on in a system which has come
upon us, we scarce know how, and which compels us, as well
as you." This is the real, continuously repeated proclamation
of law and order to the most part of men who are under the
burden of that hierarchy of compulsion which governs us under
the usurped and false title of society, and which all true
Socialists or supporters of real society are bound to do their
best to get rid of, so as to leave us free to realize to the full
that true society which means well-being and well-doing for
one and all.
IX
PROBLEMS OF MODERN INDUSTRY
BY SIDNEY AND BEATRICE WEBB
This is from the introduction to the second edition (July, 1902) of
Mr. and Mrs. Webb's collection of essays entitled Problems of Modern
Industry.
Mr. and Mrs. Webb's principal joint works are, A History of Trade
Unionism (1894) ; Industrial Democracy (1897 * the last chapter con-
tains the fullest account of their views on the development and future
constitution of society); and A History of English Local Government
from 1688 to 1834 (ist vol., 1906). Mr. Webb has been a leading
member of the Fabian Society since its inception, a London County
Councillor since 1892, and has played a chief part in creating and
shaping the London School of Economics. Mrs. Webb is the
authoress of The Co-operative Movement in Great Britain, by Beatrice
Potter, and one of the signatories of the Minority Report of the
Royal Commission on the Poor Laws, 1909.
THE opening of the twentieth century finds both England
and the United States in a state of acute self-consciousness
with regard to the organization of industry and commerce, and
the influence of financial considerations in national politics.
The last decade has witnessed important and even dramatic
changes in the economic organization of the civilized world.
These changes have, both in the United Kingdom and the
United States, produced a marked effect on the public imagi-
nation. Public opinion learns, it is to be feared, little from
books, and only occasionally absorbs a discovery in the realm
of thought. Its most effective teacher is always some objective
happening in the world of things. The English municipalities
learned the elements of sanitation, not from the physiologists,
but from three successive visitations of Asiatic cholera. The
economic changes of the last few years the scramble for
90
S. AND B. WEBB 91
Africa, the territorial expansion of the United States, the
enormous development of individual fortunes, the "inter-
nationalization" of every branch of industry, and, above all,
the startling multiplication of syndicates, trusts, and giant
amalgamations all these have worked a great change in the
mind of the electorate. In the new Introductions to the
current editions of the History of Trade Unionism and
Industrial Democracy we have described some of these
developments of public opinion, with special reference to
trade-unions and strikes- We now add a few suggestions
with regard to Trusts, and the public alarm concerning them.
It is curious to notice with what a start the ordinary
citizen has all of a sudden realized how entirely both England
and the United States have departed from the industrial
organization described by the classic economists. Adam
Smith's Wealth of Nations and the Declaration of Independ-
ence were given to the world in the same year. We need not
here inquire to what extent the argument and philosophy of
both these masterpieces may have been influenced by the
industrial organization then common to England and New
England. What is brought vividly and dramatically to our
minds by the formation of the so-called " Billion Dollar Steel
Trust " and the " Atlantic Shipping Combine " is the extent of
the change which has come over the economic status of the
mass of the nation. A century and a quarter ago, when
Jefferson and Adam Smith were writing, it could be taken for
granted that the normal state of things was for every man to
become, in due course, " his own master ; " it could be
assumed that the work of the world was, for the most part,
done by men who were moved by the stimulus of making
" profit " as distinguished from wages or salary j it seemed a
scientific fact that values were determined by the mutual
exchange of the commodities and services of independent
producers. It was on these assumptions that the classic
political economy was based. What is more important to us
to-day is that, both in England and in the United States, the
92 MODERN SOCIALISM
public opinion of the educated and prosperous classes still
makes, with regard to half its judgments, much the same
assumptions. Neither the prosperous Englishman nor the
prosperous American can rid himself of the feeling that it is
open to every one to become a profit-maker, that no one need
long remain a mere wage-earner, and that it is therefore not
really of vital consequence to the nation how those members
of the community who happen temporarily to be wage-earners
are actually living. The opening of the twentieth century
sees, perhaps, some weakening of this assumption. England
pays more and more attention to its factory legislation. The
prosperous American still believes, however, that at any rate
every native-born American can rise to a higher place, and
that the status of the hired labourer is therefore, on the
American continent, still something transient, exceptional,
and relatively unimportant. He is still revolted by any
glimpse of American democracy as a " democracy of the
* hired man.' " Yet surely nothing is more certain than that
in the United States, as in Western Europe and Australia, the
hired men form, and must necessarily continue to form, at least
three-fourths of the population. This is a fact which the advent
of the Trust, the supremacy of business conducted on a large
scale, the rapidly increasing concentration of nearly every kind
of industry, can hardly fail to drive home to the mind of the
American, as to that of the English citizen. He will, for the
first time, become aware of himself as one of a democracy of
hired men.
We shall be conscious, too, by whom we are hired. It has
long been a fond dream, both in England and in the United
States, to prove, by some mysterious juggling with wage and
price statistics, that wealth is getting more equally distributed,
that the proportion of small competences is increasing, and
that the number is growing of those who, as shareholders or
interest receivers, share in industrial profits. This has, for forty
or fifty years, been an amiable delusion of the statistical philan-
thropist. It is now dispelled. The dramatic concentrations
S. AND B. WEBB 93
of capital exhibited by the Rockefellers and Pierpont Morgans,
like the visible accumulations of some English ducal ground-
landlords, have forced upon everybody's notice the indis-
putable testimony of death-duty statistics. The only point
in dispute is whether wealth-concentration has as yet gone
further in England or in the United States. This is, of course,
not to deny that some or all of the property-less masses have,
during the past fifty years, found their conditions of life
improved. But the advent of the Trust is making both
England and America roalize, as they have never realized
before, that in both countries nine-tenths of all the realized
property belongs to-day to a class that comprises only one-
tenth of the population, that ninety per cent, of the citizens,
the great mass of the people, share among them, even including
their little homes and furniture, and all their much-vaunted
hoards, the ownership of not more than ten per cent, of the
capital wealth.
But if the advent of the trust makes us conscious of our-
selves as nations of hired men, it necessarily compels us to
realize that the conditions of our hiring are all-important, not
only to ourselves individually, but to the community as a
whole. " Every society is judged," as Mr. Asquith, the late
Home Secretary, said the other day, " and survives, according
to the material and moral minimum which it prescribes to
its members." Note that word " prescribes." As hired men,
we find ourselves graded in elaborate hierarchies, from the
sweated trouser-hand or day-labourer, right up to Mr. Schwab
or Mr. Clinton Dawkins at fabulous salaries. But the census
shows four-fifths of us to be manual-working wage-earners,
keeping our families out of earnings which may be anything
from ten shillings to ten pounds a week. These earnings
depend on our successful bargaining with our employers
employers who used to be men like ourselves, but who, as we
now realize, are, for the majority of us, gigantic capitalist cor-
porations, huge joint-stock mills, railways, shipping combines,
and " Billion Dollar Steel Trusts." Between these employers
94 MODERN SOCIALISM
and the individual workmen there has hitherto been assumed
to be "freedom of contract," secured to us by the Constitu-
tion of the United States or by the contemporary general
principles of the law in the United Kingdom; and this
freedom of contract was inaugurated, and is to-day still usually
defended, as being in the highest interests of the wage-earner
himself. " The patrimony of a poor man," says Adam Smith,
11 lies in the strength and dexterity of his hands ; and to hinder
him from employing that strength and dexterity in what
manner he thinks proper, without injury to his neighbour, is
a plain violation of this most sacred property." But the con-
ditions of industry have somewhat changed since 1776, and
the " Billion Dollar Steel Trust," though it does not appreciably
alter the circumstances, is opening our eyes to them. We see
now, what the professors of political economy have gradually
become conscious of, that freedom of contract in the hiring of
labour may mean something very like the compulsion of one
party to serve the other, on terms nominally contractual, but
virtually fixed by overwhelming superiority in strength. When
the conditions of the workman's life are settled, without inter-
ference by law or trade-unionism, by absolutely free contract
between man and man, the workman's freedom is delusive.
Where he bargains, he bargains at a hopeless disadvantage;
and with regard to many of the terms most important to his
health, comfort, and industrial efficiency, he cannot bargain
at all. 1
This conclusion will carry with it such momentous con-
sequences, and is as yet so imperfectly realized, that it is
worth while to think it over. Let us consider how the wage-
contract is actually entered into. Leave out of account, to
1 The whole argument on this point, with the facts on which it is based,
will be found more fully set forth in our Industrial Dftnocracy, part iii.
chap, ii., " The Higgling of the Market ;" and chap, iii., "The Economic
Characteristics of Trade Unionism." See, for a more popular presentation,
The Case for the Factory Acts, edited by Mrs. Sidney Webb (London, 1902).
[Authors' Note.]
S. AND B. WEBB 95
begin with, any period of bad trade, when mills are shutting
down or running only short time, and armies of unemployed
are looking for work. Assume that things are in equilibrium,
that there is only one "hand" applying for it. Watch
carefully the play of motives acting on the two minds, that of
the " man with the dinner-pail " seeking employment, and that
of the employer or foreman with a place to fill. Suppose the
workman to demur to the wage offered by the employer.
There is, we assume, absolutely no other spare hand in sight.
To leave the vacancy unfilled may cause some inconvenience
in the mill. To complete the orders in hand, some of the
other men may have to work more overtime. The delivery of
the goods may even have to be delayed, the year's output may
be diminished, and the year's profits may be fractionally less
than they would have been. But in the mean time the capitalist
or his agent is not actually affected in his daily life. He and
his family go on eating and drinking as they did before. At
most, the matter is a trifling one to them. Thus, the capitalist
can afford to wait until the workman returns in a humbler
frame of mind. And this is just what the workman must do.
What is only a trifling matter to the capitalist is to the work-
man his whole livelihood. Moreover, he cannot wait. Even
if he stands out one day, he has thereby lost that day. His
very subsistence depends on his quickly coming to an agree-
ment. If he is obstinate, consumption of his little hoard or
the sale of his furniture may delay the catastrophe. Sooner or
later slow starvation forces him to come to terms. And, since
success in the "higgling of the market" is largely dependent
on the relative eagerness of the parties to come to terms
conspicuously so if this eagerness cannot be concealed
from the antagonist, capitalist and workman always meet,
in the absence of law or effective trade-unionism, on unequal
terms. Further, the capitalist knows the cards, and the
workman does not. Even in the rare cases in which the
absence of a single workman is of any real consequence to the
employer, this is usually unknown to any one but himself.
96 MODERN SOCIALISM
He, too, knows the state of the market, and can judge
whether it might not even suit him better to slacken production
for the moment. The isolated individual workman bargains
in the dark. Add to this the fact that the workman is not
trained in the art of bargaining, which is the daily business of
the employer, or the constant task of an expert specially
trained for the particular work of hiring men. Thus, in the
bargaining between a capitalist corporation and the individual
labourers whom it hires, the labourers stand to lose at every
point.
So far we have been assuming that the labour-market is in
equilibrium, and that only one hand applies for one vacant
place. But at what periods and in what trades is so perfect
an equilibrium to be found ? When wealthy companies are
concentrating their works and shutting down unnecessary
mills; when new processes or new machines are displacing
labour; when industrial crises, changes of fashion, or the
mere shifts and gusts of international commerce cause our
production to wane, now in this branch, now in that, what
freedom has the hired man ? When the unemployed are
crowding round the factory gates, it is plain to each one
among them that, unless he can induce the foreman to choose
him rather than another, his chance of subsistence for weeks
to come may be irretrievably lost. Bargaining, in any genuine
sense, there can be none. The foreman has but to pick his
man and name the price even if he does so much as name
the price. Once inside the gates, the lucky workman knows
that if he grumbles at any of the surroundings, however
intolerable; if he demurs to any speeding up, lengthening of
the hours, or arbitrary deductions ; or if he hesitates to obey
any orders, however unreasonable, he condemns himself once
more to the semi-starvation and misery of unemployment.
The alternative to the foreman or ganger is merely to pick
another labourer out of the eager crowd at the gate. The
difference to the joint-stock company is nil.
But much more remains to be said. To the capitalist
S. AND B. WEBB 97
corporation the wage-contract is simply a question of so much
money to be paid. To the workman it is a matter of placing,
for ten or twelve hours out of every twenty-four, his whole life
at the disposal of his hirer. What hours he shall work, when
and where he shall get his food, the sanitary conditions of his
employment, the safety of the machinery, the temperature and
atmosphere to which he is subjected, the fatigue or strains that
he endures, the risks of disease or accident that he incurs,
all these are involved in the workman's contract, and not in
his employer's. These are matters of as vital importance to
the wage- earner as are his wages. Yet about these matters
he cannot, in practice, bargain at all. Imagine a weaver, be-
fore accepting employment in a cotton-mill, examining the
proportion of steam in the atmosphere of the shed, testing the
strength of the shuttle-guards, and criticizing the soundness of
the shafting-belts ; a mechanic prying into the security of the
hoists and cranes or the safety of the lathes and steam-
hammers among which he must move ; a work-girl in a sweat-
ing den computing the cubic space which will be her share of
the work-room, discussing the ventilation, warmth, and lighting
of the place in which she will spend nearly all her working life,
or examining disapprovingly the sanitary accommodation pro-
vided ; think of the man who wants a job in a white lead
works testing the poisonous influence of the particular process
employed, and reckoning in terms of weekly wages the exact
degree of injury to his health which he is consenting to under-
go. On all these matters, at any rate, we must at once give
up the notion of freedom of contract. In the absence of any
restraint of law, the conditions of sanitation, decency, and
security from accident in the various enterprises of the United
States Steel Corporation or the Standard Oil Company are
really at the mercy of the rulers of these great undertakings.
They decide these conditions of life for the millions of work-
men whom they employ and thus, to this extent, for the
nation as arbitrarily (and, it is to be hoped, as humanely) as
they do for their horses. " In the general course of human
u
98 MODERN SOCIALISM
nature," remarked the shrewd founders of the American Con-
stitution, " power over a man's subsistence amounts to a power
over his will." 1
These features of the lot ,of the hired man are common to
England and America, and, indeed, to every country in which
capitalist industry and production are found on a large scale.
We must, in intellectual honesty, recognize the fact. But this
is not to say that the condition ot the hired man is either good
or bad, or better or worse than in bygone times. It is different
from what it was when industry was carried on by the village
blacksmith, different from that described by Adam Smith,
different from that which Jefferson knew. The dinner-pail
may be fuller as regards whole sections of the community
it can certainly be proved to be fuller but there has been a
change of relative status. Meanwhile, let us accept the result
in the great wage-earning class as we now know it a com-
munity of hired men ; a relatively small proportion of skilled
artisans earning "good money;" the great mass living on
wages, in England of five and twenty or thirty shillings, in the
United States of ten or twelve dollars, per fully employed
week; while below these come the unskilled labourers and
most women workers, existing, in greater or smaller numbers,
under conditions of " sweating " authoritatively defined as
" earnings barely sufficient to sustain existence, hours of labour
such as to make the lives of the workers periods of almost
ceaseless toil, sanitary conditions injurious to the health of the
persons employed, and dangerous to the pub lie." s Into one
or another of these three categories come seventy or eighty per
cent, of the whole population. Such are the loyal subjects of
Edward the Seventh of England ; such are the free citizens of
the United States. We hate to think about it, but it is so ;
and the advent of the Trust is going to make us realize that
it is so.
1 Federalist, No. Ixxix.
2 Final Report of the Select Committee of the House of Lords on the
Sweating System, 1 890.
S. AND B. WEBB 99
What effect will this growing consciousness of industrial
subordination have upon public opinion ? England developed
its capitalist industry a couple of generations earlier than did
the United States. Though the time for trusts and great
railway combinations had not yet come, the new mills and
mines which, at the end of the eighteenth century, spread over
the northern and midland counties, were the leviathans of their
day, and great was the power which they wielded in the labour-
market. Complete "freedom of contract" prevailed. The re-
sult, as every one knows, was the terrible " white slavery " of
the first quarter of the nineteenth century, when generation after
generation of workers in the factories and coal-mines were
stunted and maimed, brutalized and degraded, and hurried
into early graves, by the long hours, low wages, and insanitary
conditions of those halcyon days, in which, as has been said,
" it was not five per cent., or ten per cent., but thousands per
cent., that made the fortunes of Lancashire." But England
grew alarmed, amid all its profit, at the rapid degeneration of
whole sections of its people. By the untiring efforts of the phi-
lanthropists, Factory Act after Factory Act was passed, setting
limits to freedom of contract, and substituting, for individual
bargaining between man and man, definite " common rules "
on every point deemed of prime importance to the welfare of
the operatives. These common rules, securing a reasonable
minimum of leisure, safety, and sanitation, applied at first only
to the textile and mining industries, and are, to this day, not
yet coextensive with the English wage-earning class. Nor do
they apply to wages. But they grew up, after 1824, in all the
principal English industries, strong trade-unions, which en-
forced, by the instrument of collective bargaining, new common
rules supplementing those laid down by law. The employers
in each trade were numerous and divided. Differing among
themselves in wealth and magnitude of business, as well as in
personal character, they proved unable to present a solid front
to the trade-unions. The result is that, in the course of the last
half century, some of the principal and most successful branches
ioo MODERN SOCIALISM
of English industry notably cotton manufacture, coal-mining,
ship-building, engineering, and the building trades have
come to be regulated by codes of common rules, enforced
partly by law and partly by collective agreement. The rate
of wages, like the hours of work and the fundamental condi-
tions of safety and sanitation, are therefore no longer at the
mercy of individual capitalists. There exists in each trade a
sort of minimum standard, fixed practically by general agree-
ment among the whole body of employers on the one hand and
the whole body of workmen on the other, below which it is
found impossible for any employer to descend. He may break
away, but he discovers presently that it no more pays him to
outrage the public opinion of his trade than to infringe the
factory law. The general opinion of the community acts, in all
well-organized trades, as a real though curiously intangible
check upon the capitalist. Public sympathy is always on the
side of a stable and highly organized trade-union defending
itself against any encroachment on the common rules or reduc-
tion in rates. Great corporations like the London and North-
Western Railway find themselves pulled up sharp by the
peremptory interference of the Board of Trade when they are
guilty of any unconscious tyranny over their employees. Even
in the late engineers' strike, where the men lost sympathy be-
cause they were believed to be resisting machinery, and the
employers won all along the line, the final agreement formally
recognized the right of collective bargaining and the need for
common rules, while the result has been the establishment of
a new tribunal of the trade to maintain these rules a joint
tribunal, in which, for the moment, the associated employers
doubtless have a larger influence than the associated workmen,
but one to which every individual employer, no less than every
individual workman, finds himself practically subject. This
collective rule of the whole trade over every individual em-
ployer in it, as well as over every individual workman, is
typical of most of the industries in England in which there are
great employers or strong capitalist corporations. Moreover,
S. AND B. WEBB 101
the law, where it purports to control, really does control, even
the greatest corporation. Hence neither our philanthropists
nor our workmen fear the Trust. England's industrial peril
lies in quite another direction.
The worst conditions of employment in the United Kingdom
occur in those industries carried on by small employers, or
desolated by home work, which have either escaped as yet
from the ever-widening scope of the factory laws, or in which
such laws are not yet effectively enforced. Here philanthropic
sentiment has hitherto been evoked by the spectacle of the
small master struggling to rise in the world, and unable to
afford to his sweated employees either wholesome workshops,
decent sanitation, or a living wage. These unfortunate
workers, incapable of effective organization, have hitherto
failed to obtain the same help from public opinion or the same
measure of protective legislation that Parliament concedes to
the politically active cotton-operatives or coal-miners, who need
it far less. Unfortunately, too, the efforts to secure effective
factory laws for these workers are at present balked by the
doctrinaire resistance of many of the leaders of the movement
for "women's rights." Thus, the sweated trades, in spite of
their disastrous effects on the community as a whole, are given
at present a positive advantage in the competition for the
world-market. The absence of any collective regulation enables
the employers so to use their superiority in bargaining for the
hire of their labour as to reduce its condition even below sub-
sistence level. These trades are, in fact, parasites on the rest
of the community, drawing from the more prosperous sections,
in one form or another, a continual " bounty " with which to
eke out their starvation wages. Fortunately, the great staple
industries of the kingdom, in which relatively good conditions
prevail, gain so much in efficiency by their very regulation
that they go on, notwithstanding this virtual bounty to the
sweated trades, increasing in extent and prosperity year after
year. What loses ground in England is any industry which
escapes the beneficial effect of collective regulation, but which
102 MODERN SOCIALISM
for some reason fails to get the bounty implied in industrial
parasitism. The most conspicuous example in English agri-
culture, which is constantly falling more and more behind not
only the great regulated trades such as cotton and coal, but
also behind the miserably inefficient sweated trades, fed by
parasitic bounty. Thus, what is most urgently needed in the
United Kingdom, and what is most likely to spring from our
growing consciousness of the weakness of the hired man, is
not any interference with the great employers or their capitalist
combinations, which are at present the least uncontrolled of
our industrial forces, but an extension of the strong arm of
the law on behalf of the oppressed workers in the sweated
trades.
Models for such action are afforded both by New Zealand
and by Victoria. The time is not far distant when we shall
see in London, as already in Melbourne, wage-boards for all
the sweated trades, formed partly of employers and partly of
wage-earners, and empowered to fix minimum rates of piece-
work wages, below which it will be illegal for any employer to
hire a hand. We shall, in fact, begin at the bottom of the
industrial army, which suffers, not from great capitalists, but
from small masters, not from the newest methods of industrial
organization, but from the belated survival of the old-fashioned
ones. These wage-boards, beginning, as in Victoria, in the
sweated trades, will, also as in Victoria, not rest there. New
Zealand points the way. More and more nearly do we
approach the stage at which the conditions of employment
wages as well as hours, sanitation as well as protection from
accident, if not fixed by authoritative decision of joint com-
mittees representing all the workmen and all the employers,
are settled by an arbitrator's decree to which both parties find
themselves compelled to submit. This will long be veiled in
the United Kingdom, where reforms usually arrive in substance
before they are called by their names. Yet English public
opinion is already much impressed by the fact that in Victoria
and in New Zealand the standard minimum conditions of
S. AND B. WEBB 103
employment rates of wages as well as hours and sanitation
which the community thinks fit to require from time to time
in each particular trade, are promulgated as law, and enforced
by the criminal courts. The nineteenth century in the United
Kingdom has seen the extension of the factory law to sanitation
and decency, hours of labour, and protection against accident,
in a select set of trades. The result of our growing conscious-
ness of the weakness of the wage-earner in his bargaining with
the great capitalist employer is to bring us, at the opening of
the twentieth century, to the threshold of the Legal Minimum
Wage for every branch of industry. Note again Mr. Asquith's
word " prescribes."
But the result in the United States may possibly be quite
otherwise. The great capitalist corporations of the United
States differ as widely from those of the United Kingdom as
do the laws and the trade-unions of the two countries. In
England, as I have said, the great capitalist is, and feels
himself to be, effectively under control. The trade-unions, if
inferior in strength on a fight to a finish, are in a position to
offer him stubborn resistance. The law is unquestionably his
master. And public opinion, not altogether on either side in
the conflict, passes with great rapidity, and with irresistible
force, into opposition to any serious attack on the current
Standard of Life. The American capitalist corporation is,
and feels itself to be, in a very different position. American
philanthropy has never been stirred by the sensational evils in
cotton and coal which brought about the English factory and
mining laws. Legal regulation of the conditions of labour,
where it exists at all, has been, and continues to be, an alien
element in the American system, doubtfully constitutional
and hesitatingly enforced. The indispensable administrative
organization for any real enforcement of standard conditions
is nearly everywhere lacking. Nor does public opinion wish
it otherwise. Throughout the whole century, and right down
to our own day, it has been possible to retain" the complacent
assurance, not too obviously contradicted by fact, that the
104 MODERN SOCIALISM
native-born American, of Anglo-Saxon or Teutonic descent,
was always able to rise to a position of command, and to
earn a relatively good living. There is no evidence that the
concentration of industry in great capitalistic corporations, or
the vast accumulation of wealth in the hands of a small class,
has yet had any injurious effect on wages or on the other
conditions of employment. On the contrary, there is some
reason to think that so far, at any rate, as foremen and skilled
workers are concerned, the change in industrial organization
may be to their pecuniary advantage. In the comparatively
few sections of labour in which the workmen's organizations
have any real strength these being usually the higher grades,
with some approach to a monopoly of skill or high technique,
it may well suit the capitalist corporations to buy off opposi-
tion by increased wages, which could not in any case make an
appreciable difference in the total cost of production. Public
opinion, moreover, keenly interested in the greatest possible
development of the national industry, and strongly prejudiced
against the interference of "labour unions," will continue to
operate against any effective strike. Thus, the rulers of the
great capitalist corporations are, within the industrial sphere,
really able to do what they like with their own. When all
the employers in a single industry from California to Maine
combine into a single corporation, this leviathan is, indeed,
perhaps the most perfect example of freedom that the world
has ever seen. In the employment of labour, especially of a
low grade, such a giant corporation may impose very nearly
whatever conditions it chooses. Its power of " disciplining "
any recalcitrant hand, or even a whole community, is terribly
potent. It can shut down here and build up there, without
let or hindrance ; it can maintain whatever brutalizing or
deteriorating conditions of labour that it thinks profitable to
itself; it can disregard with impunity all precautions against
disease or accident ; it can exact whatever degree of speed at
work it pleases; it can, in short, dispose of the lives of its
myriads of workers exactly as it does of those of its horses.
S. AND B. WEBB 105
The workers may "kick;" there may be labour unions and
strikes ; but against such industrial omnipotence the weapons
of the wage-earners are as arrows against ironclads. This will
be all the more certainly the case because it will suit the
leviathian, as a matter of convenience, to come to terms with
the small minority of skilled and well-paid workmen, who
might have stiffened the rest. This is the condition of
monopolist autocracy into which every great industry in the
United States seems fated to pass, and to pass with great
rapidity. A few thousands of millionaire capitalist "kings,"
uniting the means of a few hundreds of thousands of passive
stockholders, and served by perhaps an equal number of well-
salaried managers, foremen, inventors, designers, chemists,
engineers, and skilled mechanics, will absolutely control an
army of ten or fifteen millions of practically property-less
wage-labourers, largely Slavonic, Latin, or Negro in race.
Now, we can hardly seriously predict, as a leading
American economist is said to have done, that this freedom
in autocracy will, within twenty-five years, produce an Emperor
of America. But it is not difficult to see that, unless the
United States learns a new lesson from the advent of the Trust,
it is preparing for itself a twentieth century such as Washington
would have shuddered to think of. From the purely "busi-
ness " point of view, even when reinforced by all the scientific
economics of the college professor, there seems nothing to
stop the triumphant progress of this capitalist autocracy. The
great capitalists have no doubt thought this out, and are
confident of their future profits. But what American capitalists
always seem to undervalue is the influence exercised upon
their profits by wide political movements. How little the
Pierpont Morgans and Rockefellers of 1850 and 1856 thought
about the Abolitionists ! Yet the outcome of the Abolitionist
agitation upset a great many capitalist schemes. Even the
Bryan presidential campaign of 1896 cost the capitalists many
millions in diminished trade, slackened output, and diverted
energy. And so, the outsider ventures to predict, the advent
106 MODERN SOCIALISM
of the Trust will lead to quite unforeseen hindrances to
industrial development and quite unexpected deductions from
capitalist profits, arising from the kind of civilization which it
will produce and the political reactions which it will set up.
Let us, therefore, examine more closely what America has to
fear from the rule of the Trusts.
Notice, to begin with, that the advent of the Trust almost
necessarily implies an improvement in industrial organization,
measured, that is to say, by the diminution of the efforts and
sacrifices involved in production. Just as it was a gain to the
community, from this point of view, for the myriad small
masters to be merged in the relatively few capitalist employers,
so it is a further gain to merge these capitalist employers into
great Trusts or Corporations. The Standard Oil Company
and the United States Steel Corporation represent, in fact, an
improvement in industrial technique. So far as their organiza-
tions prevail, the production of commodities is carried on with
less labour, less friction, less waste, than it was under the
arrangements which they have superseded. There may be
other disadvantages, just as there were other disadvantages
when the hand-loom was superseded by the power-loom.
But we must not let the drawbacks obscure the element of
real progress. The rule of the great capitalist corporations
secures the organization of the work of the world in a way
which enables it to be done with a smaller expenditure of
labour.
But will the public be allowed to get the benefit of this
industrial improvement? Is it not to be expected that the
Trusts will put up prices against the consumer, and so levy
a tax upon the world compared with which the exactions of
Government sink into insignificance? This danger seems to
me exaggerated and comparatively unimportant. It must
be remembered that anything like absolute monopoly of
production in the staple needs of the mass of the people is
unknown, and practically impossible. The main products of
the world are produced in too many different countries, under
S. AND B. WEBB 107
too many different industrial systems, standing at too varying
grades of civilization, for any absolute combination into a
single hand. A Trust may, indeed, easily come to dominate
a single market. But even then, so great is the potential
expansion of demand for the articles of common consumption,
that it will probably pay the Trust better to reduce prices than
to raise them. As regards America, indeed, the remedy for
any oppressive raising of prices is to abolish the customs tariff,
and to call in the foreign producer. The monopolist Trust,
even in countries that freely open their ports to foreign pro-
ducts, can no doubt make large profits. But its profits will
represent chiefly the economies in production brought about
by its own formation. The consumer will not have to pay
more than the consumer of the same article in countries not
subject to the Trust, except by the amount of the freight, and
probably, as we shall see, not even by so much as that.
Hence we may expect the increasing dominance of the Trust
to make for the abolition of protective duties. It is, indeed,
not the consumer, as consumer, who need particularly fear the
Trusts. If, however, this conclusion proves erroneous, the
consumer, as citizen, has another remedy, to which we shall
refer at the end of this introduction.
The competent, " pushful," native-born American will get
on all right under this capitalist autocracy. He will, indeed,
have to give up the chance of becoming his own master, and,
practically, that of " making a pile." But what will be virtually
the civil service of industry, the great salaried hierarchy of the
Trusts, will offer a safer and, on the average, a better paid
career for industrial talent than the old chances of the market.
Every man of skill and energy, competence and " go," will be
wanted in the gigantic organization of the new industry.
Brains will be at a premium. From the skilled mechanic
right up to the highest engineering genius, from the competent
foreman up to the brightest railway organizer, from the merely
practised chemist up to the heaven-born inventor or designer,
and will find, not merely employment, but scope for their
io8 MODERN SOCIALISM
whole talent ; not merely remuneration, but salaries such as
the world has seldom seen. And in serving their employers
they will be at least as directly serving the community as they
are at present.
It is when we come to the great mass of wage-earners the
ten or fifteen millions of day-labourers and ordinary artisans
that we see the really grave consequences of industrial
autocracy. These men, with their wives and families, must
necessarily constitute the great bulk of the population, the
" common lump of men." It is in their lives that the civiliza-
tion of a nation consists, and it is by their condition that it
will be judged. And, though the great ones never believe it,
it is upon the status, the culture, the upward progress of these
ordinary men that the prosperity of the nation, and even the
profits of the capitalists, ultimately depend. What is likely
to be the Standard of Life of the ordinary labourer or
artisan under the great industrial corporations of the United
States ?
Now one thing is definitely proved, both by economic
science and business experience. If the wages of common
labour are left to "supply and demand," and are not interfered
with by factory law or effective trade-unionism, we shall
witness no improvement in the present conditions of life
of the Pennsylvania miner, the Chicago sweat-shop hand,
the day-labourer on the railroad, or the girl seamstresses
sewing for dear life in New York tenement garrets. On the
contrary, we shall see these conditions of life generalized over
the whole range of common labour, male or female. We
shall find wages everywhere forced down, for the ordinary,
common skilled worker, to their " natural level " that is, to
the barest subsistence of the human animal from day to day.
With this state of things will necessarily go the corresponding
life, such as we see it already in the Pittsburg or Chicago slum.
It is, however, needless to amplify the picture. To what
awful depths of misery and demoralization, brutality and
degradation, humanity can, under " perfect freedom," descend,
S. AND B. WEBB 109
we are scarcely yet in a position to say. Is this to be the
contribution to economics, in the twentieth century, of the
country of Jefferson and Washington ?
Fortunately for the world, the United States is not likely
to make this experiment. The millions of common labourers,
however poor and degraded they may be, or may become, are
yet citizens and voters, are, moreover, the inheritors, even
if of alien race, of glorious traditions of manhood and freedom.
That uncontrolled personal power which several centuries of
struggle have displaced from the throne, the castle, and the
altar, is not likely to be allowed to rule in the farm, the
factory, and the mine. As yet, the American citizen still
believes himself to be free, and sees not the industrial sub-
jection into which he is rapidly passing. But it is not to
be supposed that he will witness unmoved the successive
failures of trade-unions and strikes, the general reductions in
wages which will mark the first spell of bad trade, the manifold
dismissals and " shuttings down," the progressive degradation
of his class. He will take up every wild dream and every
mad panacea. He will be tricked and outvoted again and
again ; but if so, the result will be a " class war " more
terrible than any the world has seen, and one in which, though
the ultimate victory will be with the common people, American
civilization may go back several generations.
Yet America ought to avoid this catastrophe. The ex-
periment has already been tried, and the remedy is known.
If the people of the United States will but do that most
difficult of all things learn by the experience of other nations
they may get out of the Trusts all the advantages which
these offer, without suffering the terrible calamity in which
they unwittingly threaten to overwhelm American civilization.
The remedy lies in what we, in our Industrial Democracy^
have ventured to call the " Policy of the National Minimum."
We must give up the idea of individual freedom of competi-
tion, which the combinations of capital have proved to be
illusory, and take up, instead, the higher freedom of collective
i io MODERN SOCIALISM
life. We must get back as a community what we have lost as
individuals.
The Policy of the National Minimum translates itself into
four main branches of legislative and executive activity.
There will have to be a national minimum of wages. The
Trusts, or the other employers, will be under no legal obliga-
tion to employ any person whatsoever. But if they do employ
him or her, it will be a condition of every contract, not to
be waived or ignored, that its terms shall not be such as will
impair the efficiency of the citizen or diminish the vitality of
the race. To engage labour at wages insufficient to repair
the waste of tissue caused by the employment is demonstrably
to injure the community as a whole, and will be prosecuted as
such in the criminal courts. Those whose labour is not
worth the national minimum the aged, the crippled, and the
blind ; the mentally or morally deficient ; the epileptic ; and
the chronically feckless and feeble-minded will be maintained
by the community, as indeed they are now. But of all the
ways of maintaining those unable to earn a full livelihood, by
far the most costly and injurious is to allow them to compete
in the labour market, and thus to drag down by their infirmity
those who are whole. There are still people, of course, who
simply cannot imagine how a legal minimum wage could
possibly be enforced, just as there were, sixty years ago,
economists who demonstrated the impossibility of factory
laws. We have dealt fully with their difficulties and objec-
tions in our Indusfrial Democracy. As a matter of fact,
the legal minimum wage can be seen in force to-day in
Victoria and New Zealand, South Australia and New South
Wales.
There will be a national minimum of leisure and recreation
secured by law to every citizen. It will be an implied con-
dition of every contract of employment, rigidly enforced by
law, that it shall leave untouched sixteen hours out of each
twenty-four for needful sleep, recreation, exercise of mind or
body, and the duties of citizenship and family life. Any
S. AND B. WEBB in
attempt by man or woman to sell for wages any part of the
sixteen sacred hours will be blamed as virtual embezzle-
ment, since this part of the twenty-four hours' day must
be regarded as necessarily reserved for the purpose of
maintaining unimpaired the efficiency of the race. Any
employer purchasing them, or allowing them to be spent in
his mill or mine, will be prosecuted and punished, as if
he had incited to embezzlement or had received stolen
goods.
There will be a national minimum of sanitation, enforced
not merely on land or house owners or occupiers, but also
on local governing authorities. The nation will find it pre-
posterous that any city, merely out of stupidity or incapacity
or parsimony, should foster disease, or bring up its quota of
citizens in a condition of impaired vitality. The power of
the community as a whole, will, somehow or other, be brought
to bear upon every backward district, compelling it to lay on
pure water, to improve its drainage, and to take such action,
even by municipal building if need be ; that no family in the
land shall have less than " three rooms and a scullery," as the
minimum required for health and decency. Along with this
must go the adequate provision of medical attendance, skilled
nursing, and hospital accommodation for the sick. Within a
generation of the adoption of such a policy, the death-rate
and sickness experience would show a reduction of one-third
of what is at present endured as if it were the decree of
Providence.
There will be a national minimum of education not
merely in the provision of schools, but in genuinely com-
pulsory attendance at them. Besides schools and colleges
of every grade, there will have to be an adequate " scholar-
ship ladder," securing maintenance as well as free tuition,
right up to the post-graduate course, for every scholar proving
himself or herself fitted for anything beyond common school-
ing. And this provision will be enforced by the national
power upon local school authorities as well as upon parents
I iz MODERN SOCIALISM
and employers. What right has any part of the com-
munity to allow any part of its quota of citizens to be
reared in ignorance or to suffer even one potential genius
to be lost to the community? The next few years will see
not only a great improvement in common schooling but
also the doubling or trebling of our expenditure on higher
education.
Only by the enforcement of some such national minimum
of subsistence, leisure, sanitation, and education will modern
industrial communities escape degeneration and decay.
Where life is abandoned to unfettered competition, what is
known as " Gresham's Law " applies the bad drives out the
good. To prevent this evil result is, as both Europe and
America are discovering in the twentieth century, the main
function of Government. To enforce the national minimum
will, moreover, not interfere either with the profits or with
the freedom of development of the exceptional man, while it
will enormously increase the prosperity of the community.
Nor does it abolish competition. What it does is to transfer
the competitive pressure from the actual means of subsistence
of the masses (where it works little but harm), to the intellect
of every one who has any, in the degree that he has it (where
it sharpens the wits).
This remedy for the dangers of modern industrialism the
Policy of the National Minimum involves, it will be seen, a
great extension of Government activity, a great advance in the
efficiency of both legislative and executive machinery, and
no little change in constitutional forms. All this will be
difficult enough. Moreover, the consumer, as a consumer,
remains unprotected. Hence, whilst the mere enforcement
of the national minimum adequately solves the problem
presented by the sweated trades, it may be found not com-
pletely to answer for those at the other end of the scale, in
which great Trusts have been organized. It may, therefore,
well be easier, in one industry after another, to take over the
Trust into direct public ownership, as one nation or another
S. AND B. WEBB 113
has already done in the case of railways, telegraphs, telephones,
ocean cables, steamboat lines, water, gas, electric and hydraulic
plants, and what not. One way or another the people must
collectively control the industry by which they live, or, for large
masses of the community, every hope of genuine freedom and
civilization will disappear.
WHETHER CLASS ANTAGONISM IS
SOFTENING DOWN
BY KARL KAUTSKY
This is 5 of Kautsky's Sozialreform und soziafe Revolution,
which, with its sequel Am Tage nach der soc/alen Revolution, has
been translated into English by J. B. Askew. 1 Together they form
the best existing presentation of the Marxian standpoint to-day ; on
account, not only of their ability, but of their Continental vogue, which
amounts to a vast popular ratification.
Perhaps no Continental sociologist anything like as interesting
as Kautsky is so little known or appreciated in England. In the
German party, of whose official review, Die Neue Zeit, he is editor, he
has long exercised a unique influence. Among his other typical works
may be mentioned Das Erfurter Programm in seinem grundsatzlichen
7 'heil and Die Agrarfrage.
LET us examine in the first place the objection : The social
antagonism between the middle classes and the proletariat
tends to diminish. I will here pass over the question of com-
mercial crises, of which it was predicted some years ago that
they would become weaker. This view has since then been
so emphatically refuted by undisputed facts, that I am in the
position to forego on that head all further discussion, which
otherwise would have taken us too far out of our way. Nor
am I going to make any further contribution to the debate on
the already ad nauseam discussed theory of the progressive
increase of misery, which, with a little ingenuity, could be
1 The Social Revolution. London: Twentieth Century Press.
114
KARL KAUTSKY 115
debated for ever, and in which the debate turns more on
interpretation of the word " misery " than on the recognition
of certain facts. We Socialists are unanimous in this, that the
capitalist mode of production, when left to itself, has for its
result an increase of physical misery ; equally unanimous,
however, are we in the opinion, that even in the present
society the organization of the working-class and the interfer-
ence of the State are in a position to check this misery ; finally,
we all agree that the emancipation of the proletariat is to be
expected not from its increasing decadence, but from its growing
strength.
Another question, however, is that of the growing antagonism
between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. This is, in the first
place, a question of the increasing exploitation.
That this does increase has already been shown by Marx a
generation ago, and has, so far as I know, never been refuted
by anybody. Those who deny the fact of the increasing ex-
ploitation of the proletariat must in the first place be able to
back their words by a refutation of Marx's Capital
Now, certainly, it will be said in objection to this that all
this is but so much theory ; we only recognize as true and
demonstrated what we can grasp for ourselves. We do not
want economic laws, but statistical figures. These are not
easily found. It has not yet occurred to any one to demon-
strate statistically, not only the wages but also the profits, for
the very simple reason that the safe is like a castle to the
bourgeois which, be he even the most cowardly and weak-
spirited of the lot, he is ever ready to defend like a lion against
the encroachments of the authorities.
Nevertheless, we can find some figures as to the increase of
wages and other incomes. Some of these, the latest which we
know, shall be given here. They were computed by Mr. A.
L. Bowley, who read a paper on the question in March, 1895,
before the London Royal Statistical Society (printed in the
journal of the Society, June, 1895, pp. 224-285). We take the
following table :
u6
MODERN SOCIALISM
Incomes not arising from wages.
Total yearly
wage-income.
Subject to income
Not subject to
tax.
income tax.
Amount
Per cent.
Amount
Per cent.
Amount
Per cent.
in million
of total
in million
of total
in million
of total
pounds
sterling.
national
income.
pounds
sterling.
national
income.
pounds
sterling.
national
income.
i860
392
47
376
45*
6 4
n
1 866
464
45
485
47
81
8
1870
486
44i
521
48
85
71
1874
1877
609
451
43
652
471
100
130
11
1880
^567
42
652
48^
126
1883
1886
609
605
423
42
696
715
49
49i
122
125
!
1891
699
43i
782
48*
I 3
8
Against this picture many objections may be raised. It
seems to me too optimistic, and makes the sum of the wages
come out much bigger than it is or was in reality.
In reckoning the wages the author did not allow for un-
employment. He, moreover, took for granted that a number
of important factors bearing on the conditions of the working-
classes remained the same wherever the alterations could not
exactly be determined. As a statistician he had naturally the
right to do so, but these are precisely the factors which alter
more and more in a direction unfavourable to the workers.
Thus, for example, the proportion between male and female,
skilled and unskilled labour, etc.
The greatest objection, however, is that the computation is
limited to but a few trades, all of which, with the exception of
agriculture, are very well organized, and that the author takes
for granted that the condition of the entire working-class has,
on the average, improved in the same proportion as that of the
organized workers, who, even in England, form a fifth of the
workers of all trades. It is not uninteresting to consider
KARL KAUTSKY 117
the alterations in the wages of this class of workers. The
rates, in comparison with those of 1860 (the latter taken as
100), were :
1860
1866
1870
1874
1877
1880
1883
1886
1891
Agricultural labourers
Building trades .
Cotton manufacture
Woollen industry .
Iron industry . .
Engineering . . .
Gasworkers .
100
100
100
100
IOO
100
IOO
IOO
100
105
116
125
106
1*1
108
"5
"3
(?)
107
116
"5
112
127
no
1 20
103
IOO
130
126
148
121
143
124
"5
150
ISO
I 3 2
128
148
130
112
123
128
129
"5
122
125
*35
126
112
120
128
123
IOO
117
125
146
120
1 10
127
130
118
"5
in
126
i55
"5
IOO
126
130
110
IOO
nS
128
176
"5
124
126
149
143
150
Miners . . .
Average . . .
IOO
"3
"3
138
132
124
130
125
140
We see that the increase of wages by 40 per cent, from
1860 to 1891, which Bowley calculates for the whole of the
English working-classes, does not even hold good for the entire
labour aristocracy. With the exception of the cotton-spinners,
who in England are not without reason conservative and the
patterns for all dreamers of " social peace," the average is only
exceeded by the gasworkers, the sailors, and the miners. The
gasworkers owe their rise partly to the influence of political
action, which in larger towns has brought to the municipal
employees some improvements. In the case of the gasworkers,
considerations of competition and exploitation through private
enterprise enter least into account. Partly also the rise in 1891
must be accounted for by the sudden advent of the "new
unionism " which aroused so many hopes, but soon fizzled out.
Still more, even than in the case of the gasworkers, does the
rise of wages in 1891 appear sudden, almost accidental, in
the case of the seamen and the miners. With the miners the
wages were in 1886 on a level with 1860, and in 1891 they
were 50 per cent, higher ! This cannot be called an assured
advance. In the case of the workers in the building trade,
u8 MODERN SOCIALISM
and the woollen and the iron industries, the increase of wages
since 1860 falls far below the average. Bowley, therefore,
wishes us to believe that the wages of all the unorganized
workers of England rose 40 per cent, in the same period in
which those of the excellently-organized iron workers only
rose 25 per cent. !
But let us take the figures as they stand. What do they
prove ? Even according to this quite exceptionally optimistic
view, wages form an ever-diminishing portion of the national
income. In the period 1860-74 they form on the average
45 per cent, of the national income; in the period 1877-91,
only 43 per cent. Let us assume, for lack of more reliable
figures, the sum-total of the incomes subject to income tax
and not arising from wages to be equal to the total amount of
surplus value. Thus the latter was in 1860 less than the total
amount of the wages by 16 million pounds; in 1891, however,
the sum-total of the surplus value was greater than that of the
wages by 80 million pounds.
That shows a very palpable increase of exploitation. The
rate of surplus value, />. the rate of exploitation of the worker,
would, according to this, have risen from 96 per cent, to 112
per cent. As a matter of fact, according to Bowley's figures,
that is the extent to which exploitation has risen in the
organized trades. The exploitation of the mass of the un-
organized must have increased to an even greater extent.
We do not attach any very great importance to these
figures. But as far as they prove anything at all, they do not
speak against the assumption of the increasing exploitation of
labour, which Marx, by another method, and by an inquiry
into the laws of the capitalist mode of production, has proved
in a manner not yet confuted. Now it may be said : Granted
that exploitation increases, but the wages rise as well, if not at
the same rate as surplus value, how is, then, the worker going
to feel the increasing exploitation, if it is not patent to his eye,
but must be discovered by means of a lengthened inquiry?
The mass of the workers neither carry on statistical researches,
nor ponder over the theory of value and surplus value.
KARL KAUTSKY 119
That may easily be so. And yet there are means by which
the increase of their exploitation is made evident to them.
To the same extent as the profits rise, does the mode of living
of the bourgeoisie improve. But the classes are not divided by
Chinese walls. The increasing luxury of the upper classes
trickles gradually through into the lower, awakes in them new
needs and new demands, to the satisfaction of which, however,
the slow rise in the wages is inadequate. The bourgeoisie
bewails the disappearance of unpretentiousness on the part of
the lower orders, their increasing covetousness, and forgets
that the increasing pretentiousness in the lower classes is only
a reflex of the rising standard of life in the upper, that it is
their own example which has inflamed the covetousness of the
workers.
That the standard of life in the bourgeoisie rises faster
than among the workers, can be seen at every step. The
working-class dwellings have, during the last fifty years, not
improved to any great extent, whilst the dwellings of the
bourgeoisie to-day are magnificent in comparison with an
average bourgeois house of fifty years ago. A third-class rail-
way carriage of to-day and one of fifty years ago are not so
very different in their internal appointments. But compare a
first-class carriage of the middle of last century with the modern
Pullman cars. 1 I do not believe that the seaman in an ocean
steamer is to-day much better off than fifty years ago. But
certainly the luxury of a saloon of a modern passenger-boat
was a thing undreamt of even in royal yachts fifty years ago.
So much about the increasing exploitation of the worker.
But is not this economic factor neutralized by the two classes
drawing increasingly nearer to each other on the political field ?
1 This can hardly be said to apply to England e.g. the G.N.R. or the
L. and N.W.R., with their third-class dining cars, etc. Of course, that is
in consequence of the tendency which was so strongly noticeable on our
railways in the direction of a single class, or, at the most, two classes.
Prussia still has four, and of the fourth it is quite safe to say that, short of
having no roof, it could not be worse. Translator.
izo MODERN SOCIALISM
Is not the worker more and more recognized by the bourgeois
as equal to himself?
Undoubtedly the proletariat gains rapidly in political and
social respect.
If its economic advancement has been outdistanced by that
of the bourgeoisie, and must in consequence necessarily give
rise to an increasing covetousness and dissatisfaction, the most
remarkable feature of the last fifty years has, on the contrary,
been the steady and uninterrupted advancement of the proletariat
in moral and intellectual respects.
Only a few decades ago the proletariat stood at such a low
level, that there were even Socialists who expected from a
victory of the proletariat the worst results for civilization.
After 1850 Rodbertus wrote: "There is a very great danger
at hand lest a new barbarism, this time arising from the midst
of society itself, lays waste the abodes of civilization and of
wealth."
At the same time Heinrich Heine declared that the future
belonged to the Communists. " This admission that the future
belongs to the Communists I made in a spirit of uneasiness
and greatest anxiety, and ugh ! that was by no means dissimu-
lation on my part. I actually could only think with fear and
horror of the time, when those dark iconoclasts would attain
to power; with their horny hands they will break all the
marble statues of beauty," etc.
As is well known, things have become quite different. It
is not the proletariat that threatens modern civilization ; on the
contrary, it is the Communists who have become to-day the
surest guardians of art and science, and have often stepped
forward on their behalf in a most decided manner.
In the same way the fear which possessed the whole bour-
geois world after the Paris commune, lest the victorious prole-
tariat would behave in the midst of our civilization like the
Vandals of the great tribal migration, and establish on heaps
of ruins an empire of barbaric asceticism, has practically
disappeared.
KARL KAUTSKY 121
It is partly due to the disappearance of this fear that among
the bourgeois Intellectuals there is a visibly growing sympathy
with the proletariat and Socialism.
Like the Proletariat, the Intellectuals as a class are also a
peculiar feature of the capitalist mode of production. I have
already pointed out that the ruling classes need and make use
of them in so far as they, the ruling classes, have neither the
interest nor the leisure to attend to the business of the adminis-
tration of the State, or to apply themselves to art and science,
as the aristocracy of Athens or the clergy at the best period of
the Catholic Church did. The whole of the higher intellectual
activity, which was formerly a privilege of the ruling classes,
they leave to-day to paid workers, and the number of these
professional scholars, artists, engineers, officials, etc., is rapidly
increasing.
These make up the class of the so-called " Intellectuals,"
the " new middle-class ; " but they differ essentially from the
old middle-class in that they have no separate class conscious-
ness. Particular sections of them have a separate conscious-
ness of their order, very frequently a conceit of their order ;
but the interests of each of these sections is too particular to
allow of a common class consciousness to develop. Their
members ally themselves with the most different classes and
parties ; the Intellectuals provide each of these with its intel-
lectual champions. Some champion the interests of the ruling
classes, whom many of them have to serve in their professional
capacity. Others have made the cause of the proletariat their
own. The majority, however, have remained up till now hide-
bound by the petty bourgeois way of thinking. Not only have
they often come from a petty bourgeois stock, but their social
position as a " middle class " is very similar to that of the
petty bourgeois, namely, a cross between the proletariat and
the ruling classes.
These sections of the Intellectuals it is who, as said above,
evince more and more sympathy with the proletariat and
Socialism, As they have no particular class interests, and are,
122 MODERN SOCIALISM
thanks to their professional activity, the most accessible to
scientific insight, they are the most easily won through scientific
considerations for particular parties. The theoretical bank-
ruptcy of the bourgeois political economy and the theoretical
superiority of Socialism must have become patent to them.
In addition, they found that the other classes strive more and
more to hold art and science in subjection. Many, finally, are
also impressed by the success, by the continual rise, of Social
Democracy, especially when it is compared with the continual
decay of Liberalism. In this way, sympathy with Labour and
Socialism become popular among the educated ; there is hardly
a drawing-room where one does not tumble across one or more
" Socialists."
Were these circles of the educated identical with the
bourgeoisie, then certainly we should have had the day won,
and all Social Revolution would have been superfluous. With
these classes one could discuss the matter peaceably ; from
them the slow, quiet development has no violent intervention
to fear.
Unfortunately, however, they form only one section of
the bourgeoisie, and that the one which, though writing and
speaking in the name of the bourgeoisie, does not determine
its action. And classes, like individuals, are to be known not
by their words but their deeds.
Also it is the least energetic and militant section of the
bourgeoisie which evinces a sympathy with the proletariat.
Formerly, of course, when Socialism, even in the ranks of
the educated, passed for almost a crime or lunacy, bourgeois
elements could only join the Socialist movement when com-
pletely breaking with the bourgeois world. Whosoever at that
time passed from bourgeois circles to Socialism, required much
greater energy, revolutionary enthusiasm, and force of con-
viction than a member of the proletariat. In the Socialist
movement, therefore, these elements belonged as a rule to the
most Radical and revolutionary.
Quite different is it to-day, when Socialism has become
KARL KAUTSKY 123
fashionable with the drawing-rooms. It requires no particular
energy, no break with the bourgeois society, for any one to call
himself a Socialist. No wonder that an ever-growing number
of new Socialists remain stuck in the traditional modes of
thinking and feeling of their class. But the methods of war-
fare of the Intellectuals are different to those of the proletariat.
The latter can only bring against wealth and the force of arms
its superior numbers and the solidarity of its class organiza-
tions. The Intellectuals, on the other hand, are insignificant
in numbers and without class organization. Their only weapon
is that of persuasion by word of mouth and by pen ; they fight
with " intellectual weapons " and " moral superiority," and with
these weapons the drawing-room Socialists would also wish to
decide the proletarian class war. They declare themselves
ready to lend the proletariat their moral support, but on con-
dition that it gives up all idea of using force, and that not
only where it has no prospect of success there even the
proletariat gives it up but even where it has. Hence they
try to bring into discredit the idea of revolution, and to
represent it as a worthless method. They endeavour to
detach from the revolutionary proletariat a Social Reform
wing, and help thereby to divide and weaken it.
This, so far, has been the sole result of the commencing
conversion of the Intellectuals to Socialism.
By the side of the "new middle-class," the old one, the
petty bourgeoisie, is still dragging on its existence. This
species of middle-class was formerly the backbone of all
Revolution; vigorous and militant, it readily, when circum-
stances were favourable, rose against any and every kind of
oppression and exploitation from above, against bureaucracy
and militarism, against feudal and priestly privileges. It
formed the advance-guard of the bourgeois democracy. Just
as a portion of the new middle-class to-day, too, the old one
was at various times inspired with sympathy for the proletariat,
co-operated with it, and gave to and received from it intel-
lectual inspiration and material support. But just as the new,
124 MODERN SOCIALISM
so the old one, too, always was an untrustworthy ally, precisely
because of its intermediate position between the exploited and
the exploiting classes. As already said by Marx, the petty
bourgeois is neither a thorough proletarian nor yet fully a
bourgeois, and feels himself, according to circumstances, now
the one, then the other.
From this double situation there arises a split in the ranks
of the petty bourgeoisie. One position of it identifies itself
with the proletariat, the other with its opponents.
The fate of the petty industry is sealed and its decay is
irresistible. But this shows itself but slowly in the reduction
of small undertakings, although very rapidly in their ruin.
Some of the petty owners become entirely dependent on the
large capital, and turn into mere home-workers, wage-slaves,
who instead of working in a factory, work for the employer at
home. Others, especially small dealers and small publicans,
remain independent, but find their only customers among the
working-class, so that their existence is entirely bound up with
the fortunes of the workers. These sections draw more and
more closely to the fighting proletariat.
Quite different it is with those sections of the petty bour-
geoisie which have not yet become completely subjected to
the large capital, but stand on the verge of ruin, as well as with
those who look for their customers in other than proletarian
circles. They doubt their ability to raise themselves by their
own efforts, and expect everything from above, from the upper
classes and the State. And, since all progress is a source of
danger to them, they are bitterly opposed to it in any and
every sphere of life. Servility and the need for reaction
makes them ready accomplices and fanatical defenders of the
Monarchy, the Church, and the nobility. With all that, they
remain democratic, because only under democratic forms of
Government can they exercise political influence and secure
through it the support of the State.
It is to this division in the ranks of the petty bourgeoisie
that the decline of the bourgeois democracy is due. A portion
KARL KAUTSKY 125
of it joins the proletarian Social Democracy, others the re-
actionary democracy, which, though flying different colours of
anti-Semitism, Nationalism, Christian Socialism, of certain
sections of the Conservative and Centre parties, are never-
theless always, essentially and socially, the same.
Many of their phrases and arguments this reactionary
democracy have borrowed from the Social-Democratic mode
of thinking, and some at the beginning believed that they
formed but a special transitional stage from Liberalism to
Social Democracy. To-$ay this view is manifestly no longer
tenable. Social Democracy has no more bitter enemy than
the reactionary democracy. If it has devolved on Social
Democracy to champion every and any kind of progress,
whether it directly advances the class interests of the pro-
letariat or not, the reactionary democracy is by its whole being
driven to oppose all progress, even where it does not directly
threaten to petty bourgeoisie. If Social Democracy is the
most progressive, the reactionary democracy is the most re-
actionary of all parties, since over and above the hatred which
all reactionary classes feel towards progress, it is yet inspired
by the recklessness which comes from crass ignorance of every-
thing lying outside its narrow mental horizon. To this must
be added that the petty bourgeoisie succeeds in dragging on
its existence, thanks only to the merciless exploitation of the
weaker and most defenceless human labour, that of women
and children. In this it naturally meets, first and foremost,
with the opposition of the Social Democracy, which tries by
organization and compulsory laws to prevent such a wastage of
human life.
Thus the petty bourgeoisie, so far as it does not come
over to Social Democracy, turns from an ally and an inter-
mediary element between the upper classes and the proletariat
into a bitter foe of the latter. Instead, therefore, of softening
down, the class antagonism becomes here as accentuated as
can be ; indeed, it increases very rapidly, since it is but recently
that it has become clearly noticeable at all.
I 2 6 MODERN SOCIALISM
What is true of the petty bourgeoisie, is also with but
a few qualifications true of the peasantry. This also splits
into two camps, one of proletarian (peasant owners of tiny
plots) and another of propertied elements. It is our task to
accelerate this process by enlightening the former as to the
solidarity of their interests with those of the proletariat, and by
thus winning them over for Social Democracy. We hinder it,
however, if we ignore it and appeal to the entire agricultural
population without distinction of class. The reactionary
democracy in the country, though, perhaps, not always fully
conscious of this antagonism, is, in its essence, just as hostile
to us as that in the towns. Those, therefore, who believed
that the peasant association movement is for the peasants but
a stage of transition from the old parties, viz. the Centre
(Clerical) party to the Social-Democratic party, were just as
mistaken as those who expected the same from anti-Semitism
in the towns. The middle and large peasant proprietors hate
the Social Democracy 3 if but for the reason that it champions
shorter hours and higher wages for the worker, and constitutes
thereby an important factor which draws the labourer from the
land and leaves the peasant in the lurch.
Thus, in the country districts, too, the class antagonisms
between the propertied class and the proletariat grow ever
more acute.
But even more than the antagonism between peasant and
wage-worker does this hold good of the antagonism between
the cotter and the large landed proprietor.
In the system of farming on a large scale the wage-labourer
plays a far more important part than in the small peasant
economy. At the same time high prices of the necessaries of
life are, too, of quite a different value to the former system
than to the peasant, who consumes the greater part of his pro-
duce himself. Of course, the opposition between the producer
and the consumer of the necessaries of life is not that between
the worker and his exploiter, but between town and country.
But in town the proletariat forms the most numerous, the
KARL KAUTSKY 127
best organized, and the most militant class ; and so the seller
of the necessaries of life comes here again into direct conflict
with the proletariat as his most energetic opponent.
No wonder the big ground landlord thinks of the industrial
worker nowadays differently to what he did formerly. In former
times the struggle between the industrial capitalist and his
workers left him indifferent nay, he watched often with an
unconcealed malicious pleasure, even with a certain sympathy
for the proletariat. It was not the latter who then stood in
his way, but the capitalist, who demanded protective tariffs
where he, the ground landlord, wanted free trade, and, vice versa,
looked on ground rent as reducing his profits, and wished to
snatch from him the monopoly of the better-class positions in
the army and bureaucracy.
To-day, all that has changed. The times when there were
friends of labour among the Tories and the Junkers, the
Disraelis, Rodbertus, Vogelsangs, are long gone. Like the
petty bourgeoisie and the class of the middle and large peasant
proprietors, the big ground landlords, too, have become more
and more hostile to the labour movement.
But the capitalist class? This is to-day the paramount
class. Does not it at least become more friendly to labour,
like the Intellectuals ?
I am sorry to say I have not noticed anything of the sort.
Certainly, even the capitalist class changes; it does not
remain always the same. But what are the most important of
its changes within the last decades ?
On one hand we find a softening down nay, sometimes
even a complete cessation of the competition in which the
capitalists of a single branch of industry are engaged throughout
their particular country, by means of employers' associations,
trusts, etc. On the other hand, we see the accentuation of
international competition through the rise of new capitalist
countries, especially of Germany and the United States.
The employers' associations abolish competition among
the masters, not only as against the buyers of their products,
iz8 MODERN SOCIALISM
but also as against their workers. Instead of being confronted
with numerous purchasers of their labour-power, the workers
have now only to deal with a single master. How much the
advantages of the employers are thereby increased, and also
to what extent their opposition to the workers is thus accen-
tuated, needs no further elucidation.
According to the last census of the United States, the
wages of the workers in American industry have, during the
decade 1890-1900, suffered an absolute decrease. If that is
so, we cannot be far wrong in attributing it to the work of the
syndicates and trusts.
In the same direction, moreover, works the growth of
foreign competition. Here, too, in addition to the consumers,
it is the workers against whose interests this development
proceeds. Over and above the raising of prices by means of
protective tariffs, which in their turn favour the formation
of employers' associations, it is the increased exploitation
of labour by which the capitalists seek to meet foreign com-
petition. Hence the accentuation of their struggle against
the militant organizations of the workers, political and trade-
union, which stand in their way.
Thus here, too, there is no softening down, but, on the
contrary, an intensification of the class war.
To this may be added, as a third factor, the increasing
fusion of the industrial capital with the money capital, with
the haute finance. The industrial capitalist is an employer in
the domain of production (this taken in the widest sense and
including transport) in which he exploits hired wage labour
and extracts a profit out of it. The money capitalist is, on
the other hand, the modern form of the ancient usurer. He
draws an income from his money, which he nowadays lends
on interest, not simply to needy private individuals as formerly,
but also to capitalist employers, local authorities, States, etc.
Between the industrial capitalist and the money capitalist
there is a great antagonism, similar to that between the former
and the landowner. Like the ground rent, the interest on
KARL KAUTSKY 129
borrowed capital is a deduction from the profit. The interests
of both kinds of capital are thus on that point antagonistic.
Nor do they agree politically. Just as the great landowners
are to-day in favour of a strong, preferably a monarchical form
of Government, because so far as they are a court nobility
they are in a position to bring personal influence to bear on
the monarch and thereby on the Government ; just as they,
further, are enthusiastic for militarism, which provides their
progeny with an officer's career, for which the bourgeois youth
is less fitted, and always therefore advocate a policy of brute
force at home and abroad, so in the same way is the high
finance enamoured of militarism and a strong spirited policy
both home and foreign. The lords of the money capital need
not fear a strong State power, independent of the people and
Parliament, since they can always dominate it as creditors
and often, too, through personal court influences. They have,
moreover, an interest in militarism, in wars and national debts,
both as creditors and Government contractors, because the
sphere of their influence, their power and wealth, is thereby
enhanced.
It is different with the industrial capitalist. Militarism,
wars, national debts imply increased taxation, in which it has
to bear a considerable share, or which increase for it the costs
of production. War implies over and above this a slump in
the production and sale of goods, business difficulties, often
bankruptcy. If the financier is rash, extravagant, and a
supporter of brute force, the industrial capitalist is, on the
contrary, economical, prudent, and peaceful. A strong
Government arouses his suspicions, all the more as he cannot
directly influence it. Not a strong Government, but a strong
Parliament, answers to his interests. In opposition to the big
landowners and the high finance he is inclined to Liberalism.
Its half-and-halfness is his too. Do ground rents, interest,
taxes, limit his profit on one hand, then the rise of the pro-
letariat threatens on the other the whole profit system. But
even in his relations to the proletariat, where the latter does
K
1 3 o MODERN SOCIALISM
not appear to him too menacing, he prefers the peaceful
methods of " divide and rule," of corruption and attraction
by means of philanthropic institutions, etc., to violent means
of suppression. Where the proletariat has not yet struck out
a line of political action of its own, there the industrial capital
is only too ready to use it as a battering-ram and as a voting
machine to increase its own political power. To the petty
bourgeois the opposition between the industrial capitalist and
the worker appears of less moment than that between the
employer's profit on the one hand and the ground rent as
well as the interest on capital on the other. The abolition of
interest and the ground rent he looks upon as the solution of
the social question.
The opposition, however, between finance and industry
ceases now more and more, since with the advance in the
concentration of capital finance gets an ever-increasing hold
of industry. An important means thereto is the increasing
supersession of the private employer by the joint stock
companies. Well-meaning optimists see in this a means to
" democratize " capital, and thus gradually, and in a peaceful
manner, without exciting attention, to change it into national
property. As a matter of fact, it is a means to transform all
the money of the middle and lower classes, which they do not
require for immediate consumption, into money capital, and
to place it as such at the disposal of the big financial money
capitalists in order to buy out the industrial capitalists. It
thus increases the means whereby finance can concentrate
industry in the hands of a few money lords. Without the
joint-stock company system the big financiers could only
control those businesses which they had bought with their
own money. Thanks to the company system, they can make
numerous businesses dependent on themselves, and thus acquire
such of them which they would not otherwise be able to
purchase for lack of cash. The whole fabulous power of
Pierpont Morgan and Co., who, within the space of a few
years, have concentrated railways, mines, the greater part of
KARL KAUTSKY 131
the ironworks, in one hand, and have already monopolized the
most important ocean lines of steamers this sudden capture
of supremacy in industry and transport of the most important
civilized nations would have been impossible without the
joint-stock company system.
According to the London Economist, five men, J. D. Rocke-
feller, E. H. Harriman, J. Pierpont Morgan, W. R. Vanderbilt,
and G. D. Gould, possess together over ^150,000,000. They,
however, control more than i, 500,000,000, while the entire
capital which is deposited in the banks, railways, and industrial
companies of the United States amounts to but ^3, 5 00,000,000.
Thus, thanks to the company system, they control nearly one-
half of this capital on which the entire economic life of the
United States depends.
Now, as always, moreover, the crisis which will not fail to
reach America will expropriate the small holders, and increase
and strengthen the property of the bigger ones.
The more, however, money capital gains control over
industry, the more does the industrial capital, too, take on
the methods of the money capital. To the private employer,
who lives side by side with his workers, the latter are still
human! beings, whose welfare or the reverse can hardly remain
quite a matter of indifference to him, if he is not totally
hardened. But to the shareholder there only exists the
dividend, The workers are to him nothing but so many
figures in a computation, in whose result, only, he is interested
to the highest degree, since it can bring him increased comfort,
increased power, or a diminution of them and social degrada-
tion. The rest of the consideration for the worker, which the
private employers could still preserve, is in his case non-
existent.
Money capital is that species of capital which is the most
favourably inclined towards the use of violent means ; that
which easiest combines into monopolies, and thereby acquires
unlimited power over the working class ; that which is farthest
removed from the workers : it is that which drives out the
i 3 a MODERN SOCIALISM
capital of the private industrial employer and gains an ever-
increasing control over the entire capitalist production.
The necessary consequence of all this is here, too, the
accentuation of the social conflict.
But England will be quoted against me. Do we not find
in England an increasing toning down of the class antagonisms ?
And has not Marx indeed said, England is the classic land of
the capitalist mode of production, which shows us our own
future? Is not, therefore, the present condition of England
the one to which we are coming ?
It is always England which the enthusiasts for social peace
point out to us, and, curious to say, it is the very same people
who make us, the "orthodox" Marxists, the loudest reproaches
for clinging blindly to Marx's formulas, that think of demolish-
ing us in the most decisive manner by the above formula of
Marx.
As a matter of fact, however, the circumstances since
Capital was written have altered enormously. England has
ceased to be the classic land of capitalism. Its development
approaches ever nearer and nearer its culmination ; it is being
overtaken by other nations, especially Germany and America,
and now the relation between them begins to change. England
ceases to give us a picture of our future, while our conditions
begin to show England's future as regards the capitalist mode
of production. This it is which an examination of the actual
circumstances shows to those " orthodox" Marxists, who do
not blindly repeat Marx, but apply his method in order to
understand the present.
England was the classic land of capitalism, that in which
individual capital first attained supremacy. It came to
supremacy, overpowering economically not only the other
classes of its own country, but also the foreign countries.
Thus it was able to develop those peculiarities which I have
described above as its own, in the freest way. It gave up the
holding down of the working class by force, and applied itself
far more to the task of "peaceably" dividing them, by bestowing
KARL KAUTSKY 133
on their stronger and better organized sections political
privileges, and seeking to buy and to corrupt their leaders by
friendly compromise a policy which too often succeeded.
It gave up force and violence abroad, and peace and free trade
became its motto. It lived peacefully with the Boers, and
even finally put on the air of wishing to expiate the centuries
of wrongs inflicted on Ireland by granting to it Home Rule.
But in the mean time foreign competition has become
stronger, in many ways too strong, and this forces the capitalists
to try to get rid of all resistance to their exploitation at home,
and at the same time to secure markets by force. Hand-in-
hand with this, the high finance steadily gets more and more
powerful in the domain of production. England has conse-
quently become of a different complexion. " The spirit of the
time," states Mr. and Mrs. Webb in the Soziak Praxis (March
20, 1902), "has in the last ten years become adverse to the
' collective self-help ; in the relations between employers and
employed, which distinguished a previous generation. Nay,
public opinion in the propertied and professional classes is,
in fact, more hostile to trade-unionism and strikes than was
the case a generation ago."
As a consequence of this change the trade-unions are now
most seriously limited in their efficiency by the English courts
of law. In place of free trade there is now a tendency to raise
the price of the necessaries of life by a customs tariff; the
policy of colonial conquest begins afresh, and with it coercion
in Ireland. Only the remodelling of the army on Prussian
lines remains to be done, and then England will follow in the
train of Germany in her Polish policy, her customs policy, her
social policy, her foreign policy, her military policy.
Does not that show clearly that it is possible to study the
future of England in Germany (and also in America), that
English conditions have ceased to paint our future? The
stage of the " softening down of the class antagonisms " and
of the opening of the era of " social peace " was confined to
England, and is even there a thing of the past. Gladstone
134 MODERN SOCIALISM
was the most prominent representative of that policy of con-
ciliating antagonisms by concessions, which corresponded to
the mode of thinking of the industrial capital of England then
dominating economically all other classes and countries. The
most prominent representative of the new methods of money
capital now fighting for supremacy is Mr. Chamberlain. It is
among the strangest ironies of history that the Gladstone
stage of social development is held up for our admiration in
Germany as our future and as England's achievement never
to be lost, at the very time when the Gladstone heritage
crumbles into dust, and Chamberlain is the hero of the
English people.
I will openly confess that I, too, formerly had laid great
hopes on England. Though I did not expect that the Glad-
stone era would ever pass to Germany, I did, however, hope
that in England, in consequence of its peculiar conditions, the
evolution from capitalism to Socialism would proceed not by
means of a social revolution, but peacefully by a series of
progressive concessions to the proletariat on the part of the
ruling classes. The experience of the last few years has
destroyed my hopes for England too. The English home
policy now commences to shape itself on the lines of their
German rivals. May this, also, have a corresponding effect
on the English proletariat.
We now see how far the assumption of a gradual softening
down of the class antagonism, of an approach between the
bourgeoisie and the proletariat, is justified. It turns out to
have been not wholly without foundation in fact, but its
mistake lay in that it generalized facts which were limited to
a narrow area. It substituted a small section of the Intel-
lectuals for the entire bourgeoisie, and represented a particular
social tendency of England, and that already belonging to the
past, as the general and ever-growing tendency of the entire
capitalist mode of production.
XI
SOCIAL REFORM IN GERMANY AND
IN FRANCE
BY G. VON VOLLMAR
An address delivered at Dresden, Feb. 7, 1901.
Georg von Vollmar is the leader of the reformist Socialists in
the German Reichstag, and of the Socialists generally in Bavaria.
He is by birth an aristocrat ; and is an ex-officer of cavalry. After
the dismissal of Bismarck, when the Imperial Government showed
signs of embracing reform, he exerted himself to render its co-opera-
tion with the Socialists easier. At the Erfurt Congress (1891) he
championed reformism against the Marxism of his colleagues in a
set of remarkable speeches.
Of Millerand's Ministerial activity, here outlined, a fully docu-
mented account, by an intimate friend, is given in L'CEuure de Millerand,
par A. Lavy (Paris, 1902).
IN political life few words are so much in use to-day as
the words "social policy" and "social reform." They are
on the lips of all ; Governments, Parliaments and Ppesent
parties, Science and the Church, acknowledge popularity
them. A regular rivalry goes on over the disin-
herited classes. No one desires anything but the
good of the workers. Industry, as only lately again a great head
of industry explained in the Reichstag, pursues its task not for
the sake of profit, but chiefly in the interests of its workmen.
The Agrarians assert that they demand higher duties on
bread-stuffs and other country products, not from ordinary
self-interest, but especially that they may pay the agricultural
135
136 MODERN SOCIALISM
labourers better wages. Societies are formed on a greater or
less scale, with a more or less mixed membership, which
indicate the furthering of social reform and social policy as
their particular object. With loud flourishes of trumpets upon
every occasion people proclaim the "social monarchy," and
remind us, that in Germany the princes, particularly the Kings
of Prussia, have always been princes of the poor, and have
treated the welfare of the destitute classes as the first object of
their rule.
All this has not always been so. When the Social
Democratic party arose at the beginning of the 'sixties and
Contrast ^ e g an ^ s activity, the words " social policy " and
with the " social reform " were as yet very little known and
little understood - Rather, with the exception of
this party arising out of the working-class, and of a
small number of far-sighted men of scientific or philanthropic
bent, people were then pretty generally of opinion that many
things in politics and economics might be altered, but certainly
the State had not to " socially reform " anything.
Liberalism in economics was then busy demolishing the
crumbling ruins of the older economic conditions, bursting the
bonds of long obsolete systems which cramped Germany's
economic life, and liberating the economic forces in order to
enlist them in the service of the wholesale production by
capitalists which was being developed. That new politico-
economic institutions and organizations had to replace the
old, that a new edifice had to replace the one which was
demolished, was such a flat contradiction of the then dominant
Manchester School, that, with the exception of the Social
Democracy, and the solitary wayfarers already mentioned}
hardly any one thought such a thing possible. According to
the conception of that time, the sole rule of economic life was
to be the "free play of forces," which must regulate the pro-
duction and consumption of goods, the relation between
capital and labour, and the distribution of the national wealth,
in the only way possible and the best way conceivable. The
G. VON VOLLMAR 137
economic sphere belonged exclusively to private activity, and
the State with its legislation and government had nothing, or
virtually nothing, to do with it nothing more than to get
rid of the obstacles checking the free development of eco-
nomic forces, to smooth the way for the unimpeded turning
to account of capital and labour, to promote transport and
trade, to safeguard acquired wealth and its enjoyment, and to
keep the masses of the working people nicely in order. In
this scheme the relation between employers and workers was
quite a private concern, ,. and the labour contract purely a
subject of private law. Buying and selling of labour was a
simple market proceeding, which, like the sale of any other
wares, was determined exclusively by the economic laws of
supply and demand. To wish to interfere and disturb this
proceeding on behalf of the State seemed then a wrong to the
national welfare, and just as senseless as resistance to any
other natural law so that at that time people treated the
Social Democrats much less as enemies of the civil and divine
order of things than as poor fools, who wished in their in-
fatuation to mutiny against the eternal laws of capitalistic
production.
Since then, in spite of all which we may otherwise deplore,
a far-reaching change has been accomplished in public
opinion. For, though plenty of relics and traces
of the conception I have sketched are still with us,
and continue operative under altered names and Germany by
shapes, yet to-day the actual Manchester doctrine a general
' * belie fin
is in principle vanquished. Under the pressure, state inter-
on the one hand, of the economic development, ferenee.
which, along with the gigantic rise of the capitalistic form of
production, exhibited more and more clearly those sides of it
which injure society ; and, on the other hand, under the rapidly
and unceasingly augmented influence of the Social Democracy,
which from a small sect developed into the largest party in
the Empire, and penetrated all relations legislation and
government, and political life as a whole have been impelled
138 MODERN SOCIALISM
upon quite another path. To-day, however far its execution
may lag behind in practice, in principle, at least, the Socialistic
conception has prevailed, that economic life is not a sacred
preserve for purely private interests, but rather the first, funda-
mental, and therefore most important factor in the life of
society, and that consequently the State, as the organ of
society, has the right and the duty to interfere and regulate
economic enterprises wherever the interest of society makes it
seem needful and requisite. People had with this to acknow-
ledge the principle, that the regulation of relations between
employers and workmen for the protection of the working
classes, who at once form the chief class in society and as
against the great power of capital are at a disadvantage, is
among the most essential objects of the State.
No doubt it has cost much work and severe struggles for
things to reach this point, for this conception to vindicate itself
in the face of the united opposition of the employers, the
The Anti- ruling classes, and the power of the State. When
Socialist the Social Democracy, in the later 'seventies, began,
LfLAV
contrary to their opponents' expectation, to grow
quickly and to assume a size which seemed to menace the
ruling classes, the well-known attempt was made to suppress
this party and its social and politico-economic doctrines by
force. The exceptional law was passed against the Social
Democracy. It burdened us twelve years, and demanded
numberless sacrifices, but effected the exact opposite of what
was desired. At its close the party had grown many times the
stronger for it. Certainly the authors of that law showed a
great amount of infatuation and shortsightedness. But its
prime author, the then Imperial Chancellor, Prince Bismarck,
by the side of his whole failure to understand the working-class,
its life and struggles, and the entire tendency of the economic
development, nevertheless grasped this much, that nothing
was to be accomplished by the use of violent suppression only
Accordingly he declared that certain "positive" measures of
social reform must go hand-in-hand with it.
G. VON VOLLMAR 139
Thus originated in Germany the Workmen's Insurance
legislation. The reproach has often been made against the
Social Democracy that it voted against the several Bismarck's
insurance laws; and even now there are anti-Socialist social policy,
orators of the lower sort, who, for want of better arguments, try
to make out the Social Democrats to be " workmen's enemies "
on account of this attitude. But for whoever considers this
matter thoughtfully, the necessity of our attitude at that period
is as clear as daylight. The Workmen's Insurance legislation
came in at the time of tfce most severe, reckless Attitude of
persecution of the Social Democracy ; that time of the Sociai-
the "white terror," when not merely the Social iststoit '
Democracy incurred the repression, but the burden ot the
exceptional law in the interest of the employers was applied
against every effort of the working-class, however organized;
when the smallest trade-union occupying itself with the
narrowest professional interests was dissolved; when no
workmen's newspaper was tolerated, however moderate ; when
the Government, in the words of the then Prussian Minister,
Von Puttkamer, saw "behind every strike the lowering hydra
of revolution " in brief, when there no longer existed a
public working-class movement. Against a Government pro-
ceeding in that way ours could only be war to the knife,
and everything must then resolve itself into the question of
strength. There was another thing besides. Bismarck in-
stituted workmen's insurance with the avowed intention, not
of satisfying urgent demands of the workers, but of furthering
the interests of his own domination. He thought that when
he converted millions of workmen into small income-receivers,
he would succeed in interesting them in the State as he
conceived it (i.e. in the State as it was at the moment, and
the Government then in power), in detaching them from the
life of their class, and in making them props of what is called
"civil and social order." The result could only be an un-
limited distrust on our side. And so the many and mis-
chievous defects in those laws, of which no small part are
HO MODERN SOCIALISM
still unremoved to-day, had all the greater weight, and
necessarily impelled us to vote against them.
Since then affairs have gradually altered. It is true there
is still a state of war between us and the Government and the
ruling parties. But even war has its degrees ; you may carry
it on in modern-European style somewhat as happened in
Possibility J ^7 between Germany and France or in the
of a less style which the English now adopt in South Africa,
tudenow" 1 " or that which, together with the other Powers,
Germany is at this moment adopting in China.
To-day, then, a state of war within rules has replaced the
purely barbaric war of annihilation. Moreover, thanks to the
force of economic facts and our own strength, we have
succeeded in frustrating the object pursued by the Govern-
ment in the insurance laws. The German working-class has
not let itself be tamed and made subservient by receiving
little insurance annuities, but asserts its just demands with all
the greater vigour and with growing certainty of success.
Thereby the Workmen's Insurance legislation has lost for us
the character of a question of strength. We can treat it
quite practically, and recognize the useful element which in
it is mixed up with the bad. Thus last year we were able,
though after much consideration, to vote for the latest
additional laws on insurance against accidents and disable-
ment; which, as it was, contained some not unreal ameliora-
tions for the workers, and if the parties of the majority had
been well disposed, might easily have contained more. We
did not, and do not, let ourselves be deterred by our opposi-
tion to the Government from examining quite practically such
measures affecting the life of the working-class. And just as
often enough already we have had to be the defenders and
special supporters of these laws, which are now so inseparably
bound up with our working-class life, against their supposed
inspired authors, so we shall always most decidedly insist on
this legislation securing increased benefits for the workers
through its necessary extension.
G. VON VOLLMAR 141
But even if one were willing to assign to the Workmen's
Insurance legislation more actual significance than in its
present defective state it possesses, only ignorance Genepal
or wilful deception can pronounce it the most attitude of
essential thing which the workers demand, and s ^ sm to
act therefore as if Germany's insurance laws reforms-
placed her in the front rank of social reform, insurance,
. ., j u housing.etc.
No, insurance against illness, accidents, and old
age, important as it is in itself, can as little be the main thing
as, for instance, can the provision for housing, latterly becoming
more and more urgent no matter how high the importance
of the housing question must rightly be appraised. Of late
people are recognizing, even in some quarters that are opposed
to us, how deplorable the housing conditions of the working-
class mostly are, so that the joy of life, the sense of family,
morality, health, and even existence are buried beneath them.
All the same, and although in this question also we are ready
to collaborate practically if it is seriously taken in hand, it
can never claim more than the significance of a question of
economic detail.
The essential, the core of the right social policy is and
thither the effort of every worthy social reform must tend to
enable the working-class increasingly to influence Socialistic
the shaping of the wage contract, and with it the essentials,
process of production itself. That is secured first by a genuine
State protection of the workers, and next, hand-in-hand with it,
by the organization of the working-class.
Among us, it must be admitted, protection of the workers
is talked about a wonderful deal. Any one willing to believe
the employers, who treat even the faintest State protection
interference as a theft of their hereditary rights, of workers,
or to believe the boasts of the Government, might perhaps
think already that nowhere in the whole world were the
workers as well off as with us. Recently in the Reichstag,
Herr von Kardorff who, of course, is the deputed repre-
sentative of Herr von Stumm stated in a somewhat exalted
1+2 MODERN SOCIALISM
metaphor, that in Germany the car of social reform is now
rushing on " at a frantic gallop," and the time when the
proletarians shall manage the world's business seems at
hand ! Unfortunately, things are really quite otherwise.
Eleven years ago there was once a time, when it seemed
as if in Germany, too, people wanted to take a full stride
The present forward. At that time thoughts like these were
Emperor's proclaimed by an influential personage : l " The
thusLsm workers have the natural right to improve their
for social position as far as they can, and to secure them-
selves the greatest possible gain out of the gain
accruing to industry from circumstances. The complaints
and wishes of the workers are to be examined from the
standpoint that it is the object of the State authority so to
regulate the times and types of work as to assure the
conservation of health, the requirements of morals, the
economic needs of the workers, and their claim to equality
with the employers before the law. The workers should
share in the regulation of the common interests of industry
through representatives who enjoy their confidence, and should
be made capable of safeguarding their interests against the
employers and the authorities. The State businesses should
be developed into model businesses genuinely solicitous for
their workers. International conferences should be promoted,
to discuss the protection of the workers," etc. Now, for us, of
course, these matters were nothing new ; for decades we Social
Democrats had proclaimed these and similar principles, and
were constantly denounced and resisted by the Government
and the employers for doing so. But it was given to be under-
stood that these principles were now at last acknowledged by
others, and we were ready obviously without in any way
renouncing our further aims loyally to help in the advance,
and to further it according to our power.
But it only too soon appeared how well founded were the
doubts, which had at once forced themselves on us in reference
1 The present Emperor, William II., is of course meant.
G. VON VOLLMAR 143
to the realization of these beautiful programme principles.
Prince Bismarck, when he shortly afterwards was dismissed
from office, and sat sulking in his Saxon forest,
j ., . . , . ' Change of
is known to have expressed the opinion that all theEm-
these announcements were only intended to
influence the votes of the electors. Others,
again, have maintained that the words were meant seriously
at the time of their utterance, but that the working-class was
expected to be unable to contain itself for rapture, and the
Social Democracy to wheel round a tempo into the ranks of
the parties of order. 1 However that may have been, this
much is certain, that the inspiration of the moment was soon
much diluted. When eventually the very employers, who
otherwise pose so strongly against the Social Democracy as
props of authority and the throne, mutinied in public, and did
not hesitate, in case some check was not put on the influen-
tial personage's leanings towards the Social Democracy, to
threaten point blank a " revision of the monarchical senti-
ment," then the taste for a serious social reform soon
perished. And when the travailing mountain at last gave
birth, quite a tiny little mouse came to light though a mouse
which even so was far too big for the employers. Once for
all to take from Government the liking for such
, Victory of
vagaries, the gentlemen who now knew themselves the reae-
to be completely uppermost in the way which tionap y em-
we have had strikingly illustrated these last few
weeks d-propos of the discussion of the famous 12,000 marks
affair 2 got rid of the extremely tame social-reform Minister,
Von Berlepsch. Then came in for Prussia Herr Von Brefeld,
and for the Empire, Count Posadowsky, and the latter made
1 Staatserhaltenden Parteien the phrase still regularly used to denote
the non-revolutionary parties, as opposed to the Social Democrats.
* Certain officials in the Imperial Department of the Interior accepted
1 2,000 marks (.600) from the Central Federation of German Manufacturers,
in order with it to promote agitation on behalf of the Labour Bill introduced
May 26, 1899.
1 44 MODERN SOCIALISM
a right-about declaration in his very first speech : that hence-
forward progress in social policy must be slow and con-
siderate, and that it did not do to institute social reforms
without first being assured of the assent of the employers, i.e.
the sheepfold should in future be " protected " in concert with
the wolves.
With that ensued a time of complete stagnation in social
policy. The coercionists of the great industry set the fashion ;
Consequent their interest was most completely impersonated
stagnation by Herr von Stumm; and the Junkers, always
reform in ready for any reactionary business, supported
Germany, them. By their open and occult lobby influence
in the Reichstag as well as with the Government and at the
Court they were able to impede every detail of progress.
Not content with that, they sought, in order to subjugate the
workers still further, to deprive them even of their few rights ;
this was the object of the " Revolution " Law, and later on,
of the " Prison-house " Law ; not forgetting the constantly
renewed demands for the removal of universal, direct, equal,
and secret suffrage which could only be carried through by
a direct violation of the constitution. Fortunately, the coer-
cionists of the great industry have at present not proved strong
enough to realize these plans. But, far as I am from wishing
to draw needless spectres on the wall, and to threaten dangers
without foundation, I must point out that the demands for
laws of coercion and exception are by no means silenced yet ;
only recently the old craving for them was again expressed in
the Prussian Lower House. Repression is the last resort of
the wise and the one help of the coercionists, Junkers, and
violent politicians of every sort, who have learned nothing
from the Anti-Socialist Law. The acts and impulses of these
people will, therefore, have to be watched, if we are not to be
taken by surprise some day.
After years of a complete standstill the protection of the
workers began gradually to be mooted again ; but only started
moving on the one-inch scale, under countless checks and
G. VON VOLLMAR 145
hindrances, by very tiny strides. The results were merely
petty work, details of execution. The best that we have got
from this period still is the slow extension of factory inspection
and the law on industrial tribunals., though there are great
defects in the latter which have since been accentuated by the
extension of the arbitration courts for corporations. Nothing
has been said of introducing new elements into social legisla-
tion. That effort of the workers which, next to organization, is
the most important of all, the regulation of the hours of labour
by law, has so far made no progress. As little have we
succeeded in obtaining our old demand, seemingly so obviously,
for the introduction of a legal representation of the working-
class in Chambers of Labour. So, again, as to parity of treatment
for manual and industrial workers; as to the extension of
workmen's protection to home-work, shop employment, inn
employment, domestic service, and other categories of work ;
more than all, as to the equalization before the law of public
employees and those of private businesses. As for the right
of combination, no doubt it exists on paper ; but of its effec-
tive realization and its urgently needed safeguarding against
capitalistic mastery nothing is yet said.
Things are no better, as regards the attitude of legislation
and Government towards the organization of the working-
class, which is primary and of such fundamental Hostility of
importance, that if needful it can make good a theGovern-
series of otherwise defective conditions, forming *^*
both the means of securing all sorts of protection tionofthe
for the workers, and the necessary preliminary wopkeps
for turning it to good account. For unless the working-class
acquires the framework of powerful organizations, and unless
these exercise vigilance, initiative, and active strength, even
relatively useful ordinances of law remain for their largest and
best part dead letters. Now that the opposition of interests
and the war between capital and labour are with us and are
no longer to be banished from the world, it is to the public
interest, over and above the aims of the working-class, that
1 46 MODERN SOCIALISM
this war should as far as possible assume regulated forms.
To enable economic and social struggles to be carried out
fruitfully and without needless expenditure of
Such organ- . _ . .
Izationisin strength and sacrifice, it is necessary to replace
inexperienced, incoherent masses blindly stagger-
ing from passion and excitement to despair, by an
aggregate of workers who know what they want, who have a
common mind, education, and self-discipline, as well as the
insight into the whole situation requisite in order to estimate
accurately the strain entailed upon their strength and the
prospects of gain from it. From this point of view an en-
lightened Government should itself further the trade-unionist
organization of the workers, or at least secure to it a minimum
of disturbance. Instead, our governing circles in Germany
regularly evince extreme distrust, and generally even public
hostility, towards the trade-unions. Every possible hindrance
is put in the way of their activity, while the quite inadequate
right of association and combination is worn out in opposing
them: juristic personality is withheld from them, and their
members are excluded from public employments.
To be fair, I will point out that the situation is not wholly
the same over the whole empire, but that in some of the allied
Greater States may be noticed definite, though modest,
social pro- beginnings for the better. While in Prussia, Saxonv,
gress in * '
South etc., the trade-unions are systematically ignored
Germany. ^y tne inspectors of industry, in South Germany
the inspecting officials are officially in touch with the workers'
organizations trade-unions, grievance committees,
an d especially workmen's secretariates ; they claim
inspectors their collaboration in carrying out the protection
of the workers, executing statistical work, etc.;
Baden and they attend workmen's meetings, sometimes even
address them, and testify publicly to the utility and
indispensability of organizations for the social elevation and
culture of the working-class. The remarkable activity of the
Baden inspector, Worrishofer, is known to you, and some other
I
G. VON VOLLMAR 147
inspecting officials display an activity in social policy which
deserves recognition ; in Bavaria we have now a disposition to
centralize the industrial inspectorate, and form a real depart-
ment of social policy in the Ministry. We have
further carried the point, that the appointment of c i ass
assistant inspectors out of the working-class, as assistant
well as the workmen's right to participate in the
inspection of building and mining, is at least recognized in
principle, though its execution still leaves much to be desired.
At any rate, in various larger cities a number of workmen are
already acting as official building-inspectors, among whom,
for instance, in Munich there are men enjoying the con-
fidence of the masons' organization ; and people seem willing
to let mining-inspectors be elected by the workmen's com-
mittees. Notoriously, the inferiority of workmen before the
law is shown with peculiar suggestiveness by the fact that,
while otherwise the introduction of drastic rules is preceded
by a consultation of all possibly interested parties Agrarians,
men on the Stock Exchange, heads of industry, consuita-
master mechanics only the workmen are regu- tionoftha
WOT*IC6PS
larly not invited. This bad custom we have at before
last succeeded in breaking through; both before legislation,
the issue of the new Bavarian building regulations and before
that of the new mining regulations, conferences were called by
the Ministry, to which, besides officials, representatives both of
workmen and employers were invited. We have formulated
the further demand, that they should proceed systematically
in this direction and establish a special ministerial department
for labour questions, which should not consist merely of
professional officials, but should have among its members an
equal number of workmen and employers, to take part in the
preparation of laws and ordinances. Although the Govern-
ment thought that this was too much all at once, and that they
could not proceed " so far," no contradiction of the principle
was advanced. In Hesse the demand mentioned has already in
part been granted, while a number of workmen's representatives
148 MODERN SOCIALISM
have for definite objects been called into the Ministry. In
Bavaria the hours of work in the workshops of the railway and
Hours of military department have been reduced to 9^ no
state doubt, I admit, an insufficient reduction, but any-
eraployees, how afc j east a beginning ; the eight hours' day for
miners, which was already voted by the Lower Chamber, was
unfortunately lost again through the opposition of the First
Chamber and the weakness of the Centre Party. The right of
state con- combination for workmen in firms in whose work
tracts the State is concerned, has (besides through resolu-
ciauses. tions of gtate p ar ii ame nts) obtained a practical
recognition in the fact, among others, that in Hesse and
Bavaria (I do not know whether elsewhere) the Government
gives out its printing only to firms which pay the Printers'
rates. Further, in regard to public gratuitous employment
Em lo - agencies something has been done; the labour
ment bureaux in Stuttgart and Munich :in connection
agencies. w j tn a committee of workmen's and employers'
representatives work for the removal of harmful private
employment agencies ; and latterly more attention is paid to
the extension and centralization of labour intelligence over the
country ; with cheap travelling tickets for men seeking work.
And there are other things of the same kind.
But in the greatest part of Germany, especially in the
leading country of Prussia, little or nothing is to be observed
of such dispositions for the better. And thereby those States,
which show more insight into social policy, and whose proceed-
ings are denounced as " a bad example," are hindered from
proceeding faster and more vigorously with their improvements.
At present that is, in the last few years in spite of all
opposing difficulties, trade-unionism has expanded
tion of in a powerful and extremely welcome way ; though
workers; one s h ou ici beware of exaggerating it, for there
growth in is still only a small percentage of workers pro-
spite of fessionally organized, and the division of their
hostility, forces through the introduction of party-political
G. V 7 ON VOLLMAR 149
and religious points of view robs the movement of a great
part of its strength. But to the improvements which trade-
unions have been able to secure in the situation of the
workers, not only has the State contributed absolutely nothing,
but every inch of progress has had to be wrung by constant
fighting from the political as well as the economic potentates.
We have not yet realized the legal equality of the workers,
which exists on paper, but is more or less openly disputed
by most employers. Employers great and small still regard
themselves as " bread-givers," and want to be " masters in
their own house," i.e. to settle conditions of labour dicta-
torially, and treat the workers as subjects, or rather as mere
chattels. The private rights of the employer still infringe
the public rights of the worker, who to keep his wage has
to sell the political rights which the laws of the State give
him ; people of the type of Herr von Stumm assume the right,
because they let " their " workmen live, of lecturing them on
their most private concerns, telling the worker what he may
read, what public-houses he is to visit, when he may marry,
and so on. In this respect we stand in Germany to-day where
the English workers stood many decades ago with, I admit,
one important exception, namely, that in spite of, perhaps
rather because of, these conditions, we have in the Social
Democracy a political organization of the working-class such
as no other land so far possesses, which forms for Germany
the first stimulus and the first starting-point for all economic,
social, and political improvement.
All this backwardness in social policy 'which I have
described occurred precisely while Germany stood beneath
the star of an unparalleled industrial prosperity, stagnation
while the great industry expanded on a really in social
gigantic scale, while Germany competed success- {^jJ5J t co "
fully with England in the world-market, and the with corn-
national wealth grew enormously. Moreover, our
backwardness occurred at the very time, when in
various countries, whose economic development is in some
150 MODERN SOCIALISM
ways behind ours, more or less considerable progress was
made in the sphere of social reform. I will not to-day
speak of Switzerland, or England, or North America and
the Australian colonies, interesting and instructive as some of
their steps in social reform are, and greatly as they
Social re- . *!
form in deserve our attention. I will confine myseli to
France one country, which, in size, is not far behind
compared. . . , ,
Germany, and in regard to industrial development
has only lately been overtaken by us, so that it forms a good
point of comparison.
In France the anti-Socialistic Manchester School of
hostility to State interference in the economic sphere exer-
cised longer a decisive influence, extending indeed to the
working-class. Political freedom did little with the excep-
tion of the trade-union law of 1884 to improve working-
class conditions. For this the traditional schism of the
Social Democracy into warring sects, and the consequently
desultory and erratic action of the trade-unions were respon-
sible. Then came the well-known movement for the revision
of the Dreyfus case, which gradually developed to a severe
crisis in the State. The stability of the Republic and its
The Dre fus ^eral institutions was (as I have elsewhere de-
ease, and scribed in detail) most gravely imperilled by the
MUilr 1 and 0f coalition of the generals, the Clericals, and the
into the Nationalists. In this situation the progressive
French bourgeois Republicans recognized that only an
Cabinet. . t . \ . . 1-1
alliance with the living force of the working-class
could save the country from the threatened coup d"ttat. And
so, for the first time in the history of modern Social Democracy,
the Socialists participated in the supreme government,
in the well-understood interest of the country and with
the special object; and Alexandre Millerand entered the
Waldeck-Rousseau Cabinet as Minister of Commerce and
Industry.
It is not to-day my intention to go into the important
political consequences of this event, which would require a
G. VON VOLLMAR 151
special treatment. I will confine myself entirely to the sphere
of social policy, and show you how France, previously back-
ward in this sphere, has, thanks to the activity of the repre-
sentative of Social Democracy in the Ministry, entered on an
era of energetic protection of the workers, and placed herself
quite at the head of social reform.
As to the legal regulation of the hours of labour, there
were several ordinances in France, but they remained dead
letters, and were not enforced. For this, not only
, . J Millerand's
the Government and the employers, but also the law upon
workers were to blame ; the latter were very badly hours f
f . , ,. , - labour,
educated in respect of social policy, and often
blindly co-operated with the employers in deceiving the
inspectors and hindering the enforcement of the laws on
hours of labour. Thus there was in France practically no
State-limitation of the working-day, which frequently was of
twelve, fourteen, sixteen, or more hours, not only for men,
but for women, and even children. This state of things the
Socialist Minister soon ended by elaborating a law which was
speedily adopted by the Chamber and came into force. This
law introduces a similar normal working-day for all businesses
in which men, women, and children are employed together ; a
day fixed at eleven hours for 1899-1901, sinking to ten and
a half in 1901, and remaining at ten from 1903 onwards.
Similarly, you know, we German Social Democrats have pro-
posed in the Reichstag, that the normal working-day be fixed
immediately at ten hours and then gradually shortened to eight.
Highly important as is every reduction in the hours of labour
in the workers' interest and in reference to culture generally,
opinions may vary as to what number of hours is fitted and
adapted as a universal standard for a particular country and a
particular time, in short, for a given stage of development.
The main thing is for a statutory regulation of the hours of
labour to gain its ground and be carried out in practice. In
the works of the post and telegraphs, which were under his
own department, the French Minister of Commerce at once
i$i MODERN SOCIALISM
introduced the eight hours' day ; and the miners have prospects
of obtaining it shortly. 1
Millerand took a not unimportant step in a decree about
the conditions under which in future contractors would be
Mm d' ass ig ne d public works or might purvey for State
public eon- purposes. According to these rules, which are
binding on the State and optional for departments
and communes, the contracting employers must
satisfy a series of conditions in favour of the workers whom
they employ. These are : guarantee of no work on Sunday ;
drawing up of a percentage of the foreign workmen to be
permitted; fixing of the normal working-day and the minimum
wage for every category of workers ; prohibition of piece-work.
The normal wage and working-day are agreed upon by the
organizations of workers and employers; where such do not
exist, a committee composed of workers and employers decides.
Conditions of work are altered according to locality ; and sup-
posing, for instance, the local rate of wages in the trade rises,
the conditions of contracting change correspondingly. If the
employer for any reason does not pay the wages agreed upon,
the State makes short work of it, and indemnifies the workers
by corresponding deductions from the payment due to the em-
ployer for the job. Further, the Minister has the right to exclude
contractors who do not observe the labour conditions from
taking any further part in public works and supplies.
Insurance of workmen against accidents has in France been
but lately introduced, and organized quite differently from
Millerand ours. Although the law expressly ordains that
and work- the cost of the insurance shall be borne by the
8 " '" employers, they have in great measure thrown this
against off upon the workmen by simply deducting the
insurance premium from wages. Millerand has
now provided by a circular to the authorities, that this mal-
1 The French Chamber voted the eight-hours' day for miners on
February 5, 1902, but it is not yet law. Under M. Combes' Cabinet the
eight-hours' day has been introduced by M, Pelletan in all dockyards and
naval arsenals.
G. VON VOLLMAR 153
practice shall cease, and the costs of the insurance, which
belong, like the wages of labour, to the cost of production,
shall be borne exclusively by the employers. In regard to
provision for old age, the Government have very recently
promised to propose a law securing this up to 600 or 700
francs. 1
Regarding industrial tribunals a law has for some time been
in preparation, through which a real constructive improvement
of these institutions should be effected. In future,
industrial tribunals are to^have a final jurisdiction andlndus-
up to 2000 francs, instead of 200 ; and their trial tribu-
jurisdiction is to be extended to shopkeepers' n
assistants, railway servants, and all workmen and employees
of the State, the departments, and the communes, excepting
the officials proper. The right to vote begins at twenty-one,
capacity to be elected at twenty-five; and they extend to
women. The law having been shaped thus in the Chamber,
the conclusion of the Senate is still awaited.
Millerand has given his especial care to the trade organiza-
tion of the workers. He has striven to further trade-unions
in every way, and to make them representatives of Milierand's
the working-class, recognized by the State, and encourage-
invested with administrative powers. While the trade-
already mentioned trade-union law of 1884 still unionism,
limited the proprietory and business capacity of trade-unions,
and completely withheld that of federations, a Bill now
before the Chamber gives full legal personality both to
trade-unions and to federations of them, and with it the
unrestricted right to acquire movable and immovable pro-
perty, and to carry on business; so that they are in a
position to initiate business undertakings, and above all to
tender for public contracts as independent firms. To diminish
a danger for the free exercise of the right of combination,
the dismissal of a workman for belonging to a trade-union
is made ground for damages at civil law ; as conversely
1 This problem is still unsolved (1903).
154 MODERN SOCIALISM
is the boycotting of an employer for employing non-union
men.
The French workers have long fought hard against private
employment-agencies, who mostly abuse their position, extor-
Miiie and . and otherwise, to the injury of those seek-
and employ- m g work. The Chamber has voted a law which,
ment however, still needs the assent of the Senate, who
agencies. . . .
are recalcitrant on this very question gradually
abolishing private employment-agencies for industry. After
the promulgation of the law no more licences will be granted
for setting up such agencies. Existing licences may be at
once called in by the communes, though in this case compen-
sation must be paid. After five years all private agencies are
closed without compensation. They are replaced by com-
munal labour bureaux, which make no charges, and must
be established by all communes of over 10,000 inhabitants;
smaller communes have at least to keep a register for entering
offers and applications. The labour registers of the trade-
unions and Bourses du Travail are to be on an equal footing
with the communal establishments. The Bourses du Travail
are a peculiar French institution, a species of local trade-
unionist alliances, which receive considerable support from
public funds ; thus the one in Paris, besides about 3,000,000
francs for its foundation, receives an annual subsidy of 115,000
francs, while the 57 existing to-day receive altogether 354,180
francs in subsidies from communes, and 20,400 francs from
departments. These Bourses du Travail, to which at least a
third of the organized workmen in France belong, already
exert quite a considerable influence on the labour market.
With the collaboration of the trade-union federations and the
Bourses du Travail a State labour bureau is at last to be
formed in Paris to centralize labour intelligence. All public
labour registers are to notify weekly their situations vacant;
these are then to be systematically collected in lists, and
placarded all over the country.
Over the protection of workers trade-unions have obtained
G. VON VOLLMAR 155
an immediate influence, in that Millerand has ministerially
recommended the inspectors to attend to every information
laid by a trade-union, and at once investigate the stlmulatl
alleged improper condition of labour. Through ofinspec-
this, and through the importance now attached to J? p ?' and
. their eon-
mspection, the inspectors get quite a new zeal and nection with
an authority as against employers which they never trad
had before. Previously the officials were often
hindered on entering works ; at night they mostly found them
closed. When recently something of this sort happened to an
inspector, he did not go into long explanations, but curtly
informed the head of the firm that he had freedom of access to
all places used industrially, at all hours of the day and night,
and that if necessary he would force an entrance.
A very important measure is the creation of a regular
legally recognized, economic representation of the working-
class on the new Labour Councils. This institu- Millerand's
tion, introduced by Millerand by way of an official creation of
decree, corresponds to what the Social Democratic coimeUs"
group in the German Reichstag has long been (Cotueasdn
vainly demanding in their well-known Bill for the
introduction of Chambers of Labour. The labour councils,
which are composed equally of representatives of employers
and workers, advise, at the request of those concerned or of
the Government, on all questions regarding conditions of
work, and take part in inquiries ordered into them. For
every district and the branches of industry that they represent,
they fix the standard of wages and hours, and this fixing at
once governs contracts of work or supplies for the State, or,
in certain cases, for other public authorities. They make
suggestions for the allotment and expenditure of the public
grants to trade organizations. They investigate the causes of
prevailing unemployment, and suggest remedies to the
authorities. They report annually on the state of the pro-
tection of workers, and the execution of laws, decrees, and
instructions concerning labour; and suggest improvements.
156 MODERN SOCIALISM
Lastly, the sections of the industrial councils, which are
formed according to trades, and in given cases are reinforced
by the industrial tribunals of the same trade, have, under
conditions to be mentioned later, to act as courts of arbitration
in disputes between workers and employers. A substantial
deviation from our German project is, that the French labour
councils are not elected by all workers or employers, but only
by those who are organized ; all French men and women over
twenty-five being capable of voting, without distinction of sex.
This limitation proceeded from the view, that workers or
employers, who have not yet recognized the need for organiza-
tion, lack intelligence for the fulfilment of rights and duties
presumed by the institution of the labour councils. Doubtless
it forms a strong stimulus to organization. Millerand's
opponents are really not so far wrong in talking of an " obliga-
tion to organize;" at least the present institution -paves the
way to one. Finally, be it expressly noted, that inside the
State's own concerns, the postal department, railways, etc.,
these labour councils are constituted; while these and all
public employees are subject, like the rest of the workers, to
industrial tribunals, and have full freedom of combination and
trade-union organization all the exact opposite of our
conditions in Germany.
An assistant council and advisory body in labour matters
to the Minister of Industry there is the Supreme Labour
Council, which dates from 1891. Hitherto it had
preme quite a minor importance, as its members were
Labour wholly the Minister's nominees and possessed no
Council. . , . TT . ,,.,1 ,
sort of authority. Here also Millerand made a
change. Now the larger part are elected directly by the
organizations of workers and employers, and a further part,
taken from the industrial tribunals, indirectly. To these are
added a number of members of Parliament, officials, econo-
mists, jurists, the presidents of the Communal Council, the
Chamber of Commerce, the Bourse du Travail, and the Work-
men's Co-operative Societies, of Paris, while the Minister only
G. VON VOLLMAR 157
retains four representatives, among whom Millerand nominated
a well-known woman Socialist. A standing committee has for
its function to disclose evils in social policy, to arrange
investigations, to report on necessary reforms, and to prepare
legislation accordingly.
None of Millerand's measures has attracted so much notice
as his Bill to regulate industrial disputes, generally called the
Strike Law for short. In whatever from this Bill Millerand's
becomes law, it is anyhow interesting enough Biiitoregu-
to deserve being examined and appraised in industrial
detail by the workers of Germany and of every disputes,
country. There is not time for more detail upon it to-day,
and I must confine myself to characterizing a few points
in it. The Bill describes its own object as the creation of
a " permanent organization of labour," the " establishment
of solidarity among all workers," and the development of
"industrial democracy;" others have described it as the
introduction of constitutionalism and the parliamentary
system into the workshop. The law is to apply to every
industrial and commercial concern with more than fifty work-
men or employees, so far as they contract to come HOW far
under the law. This limitation is a concession, optional,
which the Government thought it must make to that spirit of
hostility to all State interference in economic machinery,
which I have noted, and which is stronger in France than
elsewhere. It was expected to facilitate the acceptance of the
proposal by the Chamber. If, however, the law is once made
by contract to apply to a firm, from its own choice or in
consequence of the pressure of the workers, then this " contract "
is binding at law on the work and all engaged on it. How
anxious the Government is, that the law may be made
applicable as widely as possible, is shown not only by their
efforts at promoting the workers' organizations in every way,
and strengthening their influence, but also in the further fact,
that they at once put the State itself under the law as regards
its own works, contracts, and concessions. So though in
1 58 MODERN SOCIALISM
form the law is optional, the example of the State and the will
of the organized workers will force it more and more on the
employers.
The Bill is based on workshop-representation. Repre-
sentative bodies are elected by the universal, direct, and
New uasi secret suffrage of the workmen and employees in
Parliaments the firms subject to the law. They are to be in
of the em- constant touch with the employers, and in the
any one labour regulations definite times are fixed, at which
establish- tne WO rkers' representatives are to be received by
the employers. If a serious dispute breaks out, and
cannot be settled by oral negotiation, the representatives have
to formulate the demands of the workers in writing and
transmit them to the employer, who must reply in writing
within two days. If he does not accept the demands, the
two parties to the dispute choose their conciliators, who meet
and try to settle the affair. If the employer omits to appoint
his conciliators, or the assembled conciliators do not agree
within six days, the workers have the right to decide about
declaring work suspended. The workers or employees meet
Strike b and vote by secret ballot " yes " or "no." The
referen- decision of the majority prevails, and the minority
dum. must su bmit to it. If the strike is thus voted, no
more work may be done, and the place of work must be closed ;
in the contrary event work must be continued. The vote
must be repeated at least once a week. If there appears no
prospect of the strike being ended by the surrender of one
side or the other, then at the instance of one of those con-
The arbitra- cerned, or the authorities, the labour council, the
tion court, convened representation of the organized workers
and employers, takes action. The appropriate section of the
labour council forms the court of arbitration ; its decision is
valid for six months, and both sides must conform to it.
This Bill, whatever one's attitude to its proposals in detail,
means undoubtedly a bold step in social policy. 1 The scientific
1 The Bill's reception by the French trade-unions was, on the whole,
G. VON VOLLMAR 159
spokesman of the French Manchester School, Leroy-Beaulieu,
has called it " the most colossal revolution that France has
made since the great Revolution." That, I admit, is exag-
gerated ; but a Socialistic author has justly insisted, that
Millerand's work makes for fundamental and revolutionary
change, and denotes an infraction of the bourgeois idea of
law by Socialistic thought. In Europe there is nowhere
anything like it ; on the other hand, a law of the colony of
New Zealand, of 1894, served Millerand as a model in
many respects, while, generally, the social legislation of
Australia is very advanced, and deserves much more con-
sideration by the working-class than hitherto has been given
to it.
Every German reader will at once be led to compare the
Bill with our vanished "Prison-house" Law. Only, the
French Government pursues precisely the opposite
tendency. In the "Prison-house" Law the "free
labourers," the strike-breakers, were proclaimed German and
the ideal workmen, the " element of value " for covern-
the State and society, which should be efficaciously ments to
protected against the " revolutionaries." In France unionism,
they proceed from the opposite standpoint, that
the fights of the workers with capital have not an individual
but a collective character, and so cannot be decided by the
will of the single individual ; since the worker who disowns
or betrays solidarity and does not incorporate himself in an
organization is the less estimable for that, and it is therefore
the interest and object of the State in wage-conflicts to make
the majority decide and the minority obey. While the Bill
makes striking under some circumstances obligatory, it recog-
nizes and legalizes the strike as a very exceptional weapon,
to be used with all prudence, though not to be dispensed with
under the present system of production. Further, it recognizes
the workers' right to a voice in the determination of labour
distinctly hostile. It therefore has not been proceeded with, but remains
in suspense, as French Bills often do for long periods,
i6o MODERN SOCIALISM
conditions. The preamble of the Bill says expressly : u Labour
is the fellow-worker with Capital. But it is a fellow-worker
who cannot without injustice and unwisdom be treated as
under age. If its sudden onsets disturb the best-planned
business operations, because nothing has been done to initiate
it into the difficulties of enterprise, it is perverse to reproach
it with its ignorance of the situation." That signifies the
affirmation in principle of the practical legal equality of labour
with capital, of the workers' share in determining the process
of production.
Further, the effort towards furthering organization in every
way and thereby enabling the workers to introduce further
social improvements and innovations by themselves, comes
out clearly again in this Bill. I have already pointed out,
that in all its own relations to the workers the State submits
to the Strike Law and sets a good example; and also what
in France is regarded as a matter of course how the workmen
and employees of the State and other public undertakings
enjoy to their full extent the advantages of all other labour
laws, and in particular the right of combination. In the
preamble to Millerand's Bill the Government expressly indicate
as their aim : "To develop the natural community of interest
between the workers, to pave the way for trade organizations,
and so to found a strong organization of labour." And the
preamble closes with words which show so much social insight,
that we in Germany have a difficulty in imagining that they
proceed from a Government's lips. They run : " The Govern-
ment of the Republic in proposing the present Bill pursues,
as in the recent creation of labour councils, a task of social
education and organization. It proclaims its confidence in
the organized workers and the educative power of organiza-
tion. It shows that it finds the security for social progress
in reason, in loyal negotiations between representatives of the
mutually opposed interests, in the scientific method, and in
the realization of gradual advances. These are conditioned
by economic transformations, whose final end no one can
G. VON VOLLMAR 161
flatter himself that he foresees, but for which every far-sighted
man must open up peaceful and fruitful paths."
One further observation I should like to make, because it
best marks the spirit which inspires Millerand in his whole
activity. I have tried to show you, that the number Guldlng
of reforms carried by the Socialist Minister is an principle
imposing one, and that their importance for the JJ* 6 ^
workers is extreme. But Millerand himself is far workers
from exaggerating his achievements, and he knows "^^^
well enough that the mafn work must be done better
by the organized workers themselves. When themselves.
Millerand appeared last year before a meeting of workers at
Lille, he closed his speech with the following words : " No
doubt the measures I have introduced may secure for the
workers an improvement in their condition. But their moral
value is much greater. They appeal to the self-help of the
workers, they give to the organizations of the workers as well
as of the employers an influence on the fixing of wages, hours,
and other conditions of work. What I aimed at especially
was to stimulate the trade-unions to new activity and induce
workers not yet belonging to them to rally to them in short,
to strengthen the trade-unions. In this manner we help to
show the right way to workers willing to free themselves. We
cry aloud to them, ' Organize ! Singly, you are nothing ;
organized, you will be such an economic and moral force as
this country has never known.' "
What these words express is whatever be the special
demands of place and time the view of eveiy Socialist.
Organization is the essence of the workers' move-
. Identity of
ment, the bottom condition of the emancipation this prin-
of labour and of the new social order. Just Jj* 1 ^ 1 ^
for that reason, though a Government may think base of
itself, and be thought by its friends, ever so friendly Social
6 . * ' . J Democracy,
to the workers, though in detail it may even
pass this or that relatively useful measure of social policy,
yet it will always encounter the greatest distrust and the
M
1 62 MODERN SOCIALISM
keenest opposition from the workers, so long as it ignores
that truth and hinders the organization of the workers instead
of furthering it. Such a short-sighted proceeding can only
aggravate, and embitter, and complicate itself, without being
able to effect any real change. The irresistible rise of the
working-class, which characterizes our time, no force can
impede ; sooner or later it will succeed in acquiring the power
which is needed to carry out the economic, social, and spiritual
emancipation of humanity.
XII
THE REVOLUTIONARY AND REFORMIST
CONTROVERSY, AS ILLUSTRATED AT
THE BORDEAUX CONGRESS OF THE
FRENCH SOCIALIST PARTY
This Congress occurred on April 12-14, I 93 afl d w *s solely
occupied in discussing M. Millerand's Reformist policy.
Millerand was attacked for dissociating his vote from his party's
on three occasions : (i) on a resolution to abolish the State-grants for
public worship, (2) on a resolution to prosecute Socialists who had
issued a book held subversive of military discipline, (3) on a resolution
inviting the Foreign Minister to make proposals regarding inter-
national disarmament.
The following extracts omit the long controversies over these
votes, which Millerand defended, but promised not to repeat. The
text of the main debate was provided by two questions whether
Millerand should be censured, and whether he should be excluded.
FROM THE SPEECH OF M. HERVE (ANTI-MILLERAND).
IN the federation of the Yonne it is not our idea to take sides
as between the reformist method and the revolutionary. In
our federation there are partisans of both methods. But the
majority, like myself, are reformists and revolutionaries at the
same time. We are reformists in the sense that we do not
believe, with the old Marxists, that our societies are split
sharply into proletariate on one side, and great capitalists on
the other; and it is in this sense that I said at the Tours
Congress that the class-war does not seern to us as rigid a
1 64 MODERN SOCIALISM
dogma as it seemed to Karl Marx. I know that beside the
proletariate there are small country landowners who substantially
are much nearer to us than to the capitalist class. And I
believe, moreover, with the reformists, that we should endeavour,
by moderation of form and language, to bring over to our
side all the really democratic groups in the nation. Thus,
like all the Socialists of the Yonne, we applauded the defenders
of the Republic at the outset of the Dreyfus affair and at the
height of the crisis. That is the sense in which we are
reformers.
But we are, at the same time, revolutionaries, because we
are strongly imbued with the idea that the economic situation
does really create hostile and antagonistic classes in our
societies. We are revolutionaries, because we know that the
bourgeoisie possesses such powers, and the masses of capital
which it holds give it such means of falsifying universal suffrage,
that we are not at all sure, Citizen Millerand, of attaining our
desired solution by the reformist method. Our weapon has
two edges one the spirit of gradual reform, the other that of
revolution ; you wish, for your part, to blunt one edge of our
weapon, while we, for our part, wish loyally to join hands with
the group of the Radical party which resolves to go forward and
take the turn to the Left. Yet, should that group some day
turn its back on us, I want us not to emasculate the working-
class ; I want us, after having been able to join hands, to be
able on occasion to clench fists. We admit that by legal
methods radical reforms may be attained ; but we know, too,
that it is force that for long past has presided at the birth of a
new society j and probably, alas ! will preside again.
FROM THE SPEECH OF M. SARRAUTE (PRO-MILLERAND).
It is an entire policy which you are to judge. This policy
is the policy of democratic Socialism, which gains ground daily
on that of revolutionary Socialism I will ask you to let me
briefly explain why a policy which Citizen Millerand did not
J. SARRAUTE 165
start, which he has merely developed and defined, and which
forces itself upon us more and more in our Republican
country.
I say " in our Republican country," and I would not, indeed,
frame light-hearted generalizations or lay down fixed absolute
rules independent of time and place. Historical and social
environment does not square with these doctrinaire fancies,
and it is quite futile to try inferring rules of action and conduct
from a general idea or an absolute abstract principle. That
is, however, what has bee^n done, and is still done to-day, by
some Socialistic theorists, who, starting from the evident, irre-
futable, incontestable fact which is the very root and ground
of Socialism the class-war have, without taking environment
and institutions into account, given this fact a bearing and an
effect which cannot be unreservedly admitted. For them, in
fact, the class-war is not merely the conflict carried on through
the ages between the Haves and the Have-nots the conflict
which in our modern societies pits capitalists against pro-
letarians. For them the notion of the class-war is ampler and
more comprehensive. It absorbs the whole life of society;
administrative, political, and judicial institutions are merely
the swords and sceptres of the possessing class. The State is
a class-State.
From this conception, citizens, are derived in practice two
sets of consequences, all the importance of which you shall
grasp briefly. Firstly, the State and political institutions, being
by essence and definition an instrument subserving the possess-
ing class, cannot be expected to contribute anything to the
emancipation of the workers; they are not to be won over,
but to be broken in pieces, and the one issue open to the
proletariate labouring for emancipation is the revolutionary
issue. Secondly, as soon as the class-war absorbs the whole
life of society, and political and social institutions are only
different manifestations of this war, there cannot logically be
any interests in common between the capitalist and proletarian
classes, and the supposed general interests order, economic
1 66 MODERN SOCIALISM
prosperity, national independence are only private interests
in disguise, interests of the possessing class, which the pro-
letariate, therefore, should not take into account. That is how,
citizens, the principle of the class-war has been interpreted by
some Socialistic theorists, whose high moral and intellectual
worth I hasten to recognize. That is how, in abstraction
from the conditions of time and environment, there has been
developed this notion of the class-State, with the two conse-
quences which I have just emphasized: firstly, revolutionary
action; and secondly, the denial of the general interests of
society.
But, you quite understand, that was theory, abstract
theory; and as soon as the Socialist party came down from
the heights of speculation and took part directly in action ; as
soon as it clashed against the reality which it wished to trans-
form, its practice at once ceased to be anything but a perpetual
permanent violation of the rules of action laid down by that
uncompromising hard-and-fast doctrine. Fact avenged itself.
These deviations and compromises, for which some of our
comrades are so bitterly and passionately reproached, do not
date from to-day or from yesterday. They date from the first
contact of theory with facts ; they go back to the very origins
of the Socialist party, to the day when it took shape as a
political party and would fain exert a serious influence on the
course of events, the day when by its first most crying contra-
diction, having laid down as a principle, as an axiom beyond
discussion, the class character of the State and the impossibility
of reformist action, it elaborated the articles of a minimum
programme, a programme of immediate demands, and applied
to the public power, to the State, for its realization. The
explanation, citizens, of this deviation from the absolute
abstract principle of the class-war, of this rapid and decisive
evolution which leads to legal and reformist action, is not to
be found in the weakness of individuals, nor in the fascination
or the corrupting effect of power ; it is to be found entirely
in the great fact which dominates our modern society
J. JAURES 167
Democracy. Democracy is, indeed, the denial of the class-
State. The class-State only has a meaning so far as the possess-
ing class is by the very fact of possession the governing class,
and the monopoly of property is reinforced by the monopoly
of public power. On the contrary, as soon as the State is
democratized, and equal rights are admitted for all, whether
capitalists or proletarians, as soon as the regime of majorities
replaces class-oligarchy, and the regime of property qualifica-
tions, it becomes contradictory and meaningless to talk of a
class-State. Political and social institutions are no longer the
work and the instrument of the possessing class ; they become
the work of the majority ; they can be steered and guided in
the direction of the public interest.
This speech was followed by one from M. Millerand in which
he defended his votes, and substantially accepted M. Sarraute's
principles. (Cp. also infra, pp. 180-184.) After him spoke M. Jaures.
FROM THE FIRST SPEECH OF M. JAURES.
Citizens, I should like to reply, as shortly but as clearly as
possible, at once to Citizen Herve, to Citizen Sarraute, and to
Citizen Millerand, and particularly to the observations of
Citizen Sarraute and Citizen Millerand. For my part, I reject
absolutely the motion of exclusion proposed against Millerand.
I find it not only brutal, but unjust and impolitic. I add that
it would be extremely dangerous, if it should have the effect
of hampering the free, fair, and needful criticism, which I think
we should oppose to some unfortunate votes and a dangerous
tactic, formulated here in theory by Sarraute and in practice
by Millerand.
Yes, it is true, as Sarraute has said, that some of our
Socialist comrades, whether inside or outside this hall,
interpret the class- war in a sense much too simple, one-sided,
and abstract. It is true that it is not enough to note the
antagonism between the capitalist and wage-earning classes;
you must at once add and Sarraute is right in insisting on
1 68 MODERN SOCIALISM
it that this antagonism moves and develops inside demo-
cracy, that it undergoes the conditions of the democratic
regime, and that the struggle between the two opposed classes,
between the two groups of antagonistic interests, cannot have
either the same form, the same character, or the same means
in a republican democracy and in a despotic or oligarchic
state. That is true and incontestable.
But where Citizen Sarraute goes wrong in his turn, where
he falls into the over-simplification for which he blames his
opponents, is when he thinks it enough to lay down the
principle of democracy in order to resolve, in a sort of
automatic fashion, the antagonisms of society. Yes, we are
under a democratic regime^ but the enthronement of political
democracy and universal suffrage by no means suppresses the
profound antagonism of classes. Citizen Sarraute seems to
transport himself to the end of political evolution ; he seems to
think that political democracy has received its supreme formula
as if political democracy itself could receive its supreme
form while it is in contradiction with an economic form, not,
for its part, penetrated by democracy. Sarraute's mistake is
to consider political democracy in the abstract ; just as Guesde,
to my thinking, errs in positing the class-war apart from
democracy, Sarraute errs in positing democracy without noting
that it is modified, adulterated, thwarted by the antagonism of
classes and the economic predominance of one class.
Even universal suffrage and political democracy undergo
class-influence. Universal suffrage, in all its applications and
its political movement, undergoes the economic influence of
contemporary society in two ways. The most visible influence
of economic oligarchy on political democracy is the pressure
that employers controlling all the means of work, and there-
fore of existence, can exert on the workers by threatening
dismissals and lock-outs ; and daily the worker is injured in
his portion of political democracy, because he has not his
portion of social sovereignty. But there is another distorting
influence of our economic regime upon democracy what I
J. JAURES 169
will call the influence of habit. Not only does the proletariate
too often suffer violence directly from the economic power of
capitalists, but, if I may say so, its own mind is distorted by
the habit of the social regime, under which it lives. The
worst tyranny exerted by a social regime or form is, that in
absorbing all the strength of the workers and pouring them
into the mould of contemporary society, it renders a very great
number of workers whom it overwhelms incapable even of
conceiving another possible way of applying their strength.
Thus contemporary society weighs doubly on the workers in
the exercise of this political sovereignty; which is violated,
firstly, by the employers, and secondly, by the silent and
chronic capitalistic prejudice, stamped by habit on the very
class which suffers from its sway. It is to react against these
fatal effects this pressure, this distortion exerted by economic
inequality even on the political action of the wage-workers,
that we must affirm, always within the democracy, the
antagonism of classes and the need for the proletarian class
to organize; and always affirm the collectivist or communist
ideal in the definite, precise, vigorous form needed to dissipate
the capitalistic prejudice inoculated into the proletarian class
itself.
If Sarraute will allow me to say so, he too and I would
invite his philosophic attention to it has worked one-sidedly,
in too simple and abstract a fashion. When I heard him
speak of political democracy expressing itself above parties
and classes by the impartial and decisive law of majorities, he
seemed to me to imagine universal suffrage as a sort of extra-
ordinary, supra-mundane God, living outside mankind and
shaping the world No, universal suffrage is carried along
in the great current of economic action, influenced and
distorted by it; and just as under the level surface of the
sea subsist the unevennesses of the sea-floor, its hills and
its abysses, so the flood of democracy has not yet got rid of
social inequalities; they mingle with it, and it is for us to
achieve their destruction, for the proletariate to fill up the
170 MODERN SOCIALISM
abysses and realize equality. Consequently the relation of
the proletariate to the State is falsified by Sarraute in one
way, just as, I think, it is falsified by Guesde in the other.
Guesde is wrong in thinking to-day (I knew a time when
he did not think so) that the State is exclusively a class-State,
upon which the too feeble hand of the proletariate cannot yet
inscribe the smallest portion of its will. In a democracy, in a
Republic where there is universal suffrage, the State is not for
the proletarians a refractory, hard, absolutely impermeable and
impenetrable block. Penetration has begun already. In the
municipalities, in Parliament, in the central Government, there
has begun the penetration of Socialistic and proletarian in-
fluence; and, really, it is a strange conception of human
affairs which can imagine any institution whatever, any
political or social form whatever, capable of being closed
to the irradiation, the influence, the penetration of one of
the great social forces. To say that the State is the same
the same closed, impenetrable, rigid State, brazenly bourgeois
under an oligarchic rlghne, which refuses the proletarians
universal suffrage, and under a regime of universal suffrage,
which, after all, lets the workers transmit their will even to
Government by delegates with the same powers and rights as
the delegates of the bourgeoisie itself, is to contradict all the
laws of Nature. There is no one force in Nature impenetrable
to others ; all are moving and crossing, all act on each other ;
and henceforth the State is penetrated, in part, by the force of
Socialism and the proletariate.
If it is in part penetrated by this democratic, popular,
Socialistic force, and if we can reasonably hope (and I do hope,
as do Sarraute and Millerand) that by organization, education,
and propaganda this penetration will become so full, deep, and
decisive, that in time by accumulated efforts we shall find the
proletarian and Socialistic State to have replaced the oligarchic
and bourgeois State, I do not believe, either, that there will
necessarily be an abrupt leap, the crossing of the abyss;
perhaps we shall be aware of having entered the zone of the
J. JAURES I/ 1
Socialistic State, as navigators are aware of having crossed the
line of a hemisphere not that they have been able to see as
they crossed it a cord stretched over the ocean warning them
of their passage, but that little by little they have been led into
a new hemisphere by the progress of their ship. Possibly we
may thus gradually penetrate into the zone of the Socialistic
State ; but and this is what Sarraute omits in his theory, and
Millerand forgets 'too far in practice granted that the State
has been partially penetrated by the proletarian and Socialistic
force, granted that we carr and ought to hope, in reason, that
the democratic State can be entirely penetrated, assimilated,
and transformed by the force of Socialism and the people, it
remains true to-day in a proportion still vast and overwhelming,
that the State thanks to the power of the propertied bour-
geoisie, to the routine and narrow individualism of a vast mass
of peasants, to the Nationalist diversions and the short-sighted-
ness of part of the petty bourgeoisie of artisans and shop-keepers,
to the division of the proletarians weakening and fighting
against each other, and to the force of tradition is in fact a
bourgeois State, a State of capitalistic property ; which to-day
resists us less, and works with us in part ; but which to-morrow,
by the abrupt coalition of all our opponents or half-hearted
supporters, may again become against us a State of violence,
aggression, and systematic resistance : and if we should never
lose the chance of penetrating as fully as possible this demo-
cratic bourgeois State, we should never let the proletarians
forget that it is still but partially won over, that it is still
largely a hostile force. Against this hostile force subsisting in
the State we must pit the one force which can neutralize it
that of the complete Socialistic ideal, grouping and rallying the
proletarians, to add to their force of penetration.
What I say of the democracy of the State, I say no less of
the general interests which Sarraute mentioned. I admit that
henceforth Socialism must guard its part of the country's general
interests those of freedom, security, and prosperity; and
Socialism will not fail to do so. It defends, and has defended,
1 72 MODERN SOCIALISM
the political freedom of all classes political freedom con-
ceived at once as an instrument of emancipation for the
proletarian class, and a guarantee of dignity for the individuals
of the nation. Also it defends security : when we ask for the
transformation of the barrack-army into a popular and national
militia, it is not to disarm the country ; it is, pending the time
which we hasten of simultaneous European disarmament, to add
to the nation's defensive strength, by harmonizing its military
institutions with the principle of its political ones. And we
defend the economic prosperity of the country ; when conven-
tions like the Brussels Sugar Convention intervene to regulate
international economics, we see to it that France is not tricked ;
we think it the duty of our diplomacy, without violence or
colonial exactions, to insist, so far as France's productivity
entitles her to insist, that a share in distant markets, in China
or elsewhere, be assured to the pacific penetration of our
industry, which is a necessary condition for plentiful wages for
the proletarian class. We do not therefore ignore the general
prosperity, the general security, and the general freedom of the
country ; but I add, and the addition is needed, that in watch-
ing and guiding the course of general interests, we must do so
from the proletarian standpoint. It is our good fortune that the
general interest of France and of civilization is tied up with
the self-interest of a rising class, which is the proletariate. 1
Look at the health questions. Those diseases which come
and infect all society whence do they originate ? From the
squalor of the people, from the filth of the working-class dwell-
ings. And it is we, who want to compel a new housing regime in
the great cities and the rural districts, who are not hampered in
this by private-property prejudices, who put the health and life
1 Cp. the quotation from Mr. Frederic Harrison, prefixed to Gronlund's
Co-operative Commonwealth : " The working-class is the only class which
is not a class. It is the nation. It represents, so to speak, the body as
a whole, of which the other classes only represent special organs. These
organs, no doubt, have great and indispensable functions, but for most
purposes of government the State consists of the vast labouring majority.
Its welfare depends on what their lives are like."
J. JAURES 173
of men above a narrow interpretation of property rights ; it is
we alone who can here be the guardians of the general health,
precisely in being the champions of the proletariate in par-
ticular. What, again, can contribute more to the nation's
general forces, its productive forces, its power of economic
expansion, than the health of the race, the health and vigour
of the workers themselves ? And it is we, and we only, who
by a vigorous labour legislation can protect these working
forces, which are not only the proletariate's right, but the whole
nation's patrimony, and which capitalistic selfishness must not
be allowed to squander. Again, from the economic stand-
point the standpoint of prosperity of which Millerand spoke,
that of wealth of which Sarraute spoke of course we do not
want to set up Socialism in an impoverished nation ; of course
we do not want Socialism to be the effect of, or the signal for,
a sort of economic rarefaction in our country ; of course we
want activity, initiative, and production to make wealth
circulate in streams ; but we want the streams to take number-
less channels, to let their strength and their blessings reach all
the producers. Well, what is to-day the most decisive means
of augmenting these productive forces of France and of
Europe? Obviously it is to rid Europe of the crushing,
exhausting burden of old-fashioned armaments which not only
squander seven or eight milliards of francs, but squander the
strength of men in the season of youth and energy, when the
activities that are numbed later could yield their maximum
effort for the wholesale production. Well, and who can realize
this simultaneous disarmament of Europe ? Who is interested,
most urgently interested, in the relief of the budget from this
overwhelming burden? Is it the bourgeoisie? Yes, the
bourgeoisie has some interest; to obtain the simultaneous
disarmament of Europe we do not decline to appeal to its
interest, rightly understood. We do not decline to; and we
do not wish, by any sort of narrow, uncompromising prejudice,
to mutilate and sterilize our propaganda. But if the bourgeoisie,
too, has an interest in disarmament, the proletariate, it must be
174 MODERN SOCIALISM
agreed, has twice and thrice as much. It is interested because
it, too, shares in the general progress of production; it is
additionally interested, because while the bourgeoisie is already
provided for in the budget, by bounties, subsidies, and
millions of State interest, and, failing the national budget, by
the social budget of dividends and rents secured to it by the
capitalistic constitution of present society the proletariate can
only be provided for for the social work it needs, for relief,
and insurance against unemployment, disablement, and old
age if there is such a large free surplus in the budget as there
can only be when the millions squandered on works of inter-
national destruction are reserved for works of social solidarity.
Lastly, the proletariate has a still more direct and decisive
class interest in disarmament ; it is that while armaments go
on, while the spectre of war between nations remains on the
horizon, the people and the proletarians themselves have
necessarily a vital concern diverting to the care of external
defence a part of the energies which should be spent on
internal organization. In this way war, while it burdens the
bourgeoisie like the people, is also a possible diversion against
the proletariate ; and that is why the latter, besides sharing
the general interest of nations in the abolition of war, has,
further, a direct class interest in it. That is why it is to-day
not the only force, of course, but the deepest, most definite,
most decisive force for disarmament and peace ; and why we
should preserve in the affirmation of the proletariate's will and
policy, even inside democracy, the definiteness that ensures
its needful vigour.
Well, I say that in my view Millerand's mistake in the
votes which he gave, and which have been criticized, was in
reckoning, like Sarraute, with but one aspect of the problem.
He saw, quite rightly, that we were a democracy, a Republic ;
he understood, and had the courage to say, that this enclosure
of the proletariate by Republican democracy, this possibility
for the proletariate to move and progress within the democracy
and through the Republic, entailed special obligations as well
J. JAURES 175
as special opportunities on the proletariate and on the Socialist
party which expresses it in politics ; and to enable the Socialist
party to assist in the common task of limited reforms, of
strengthening public liberties, which can be realized in concert
with the other democratic groups, he consciously or un-
consciously abraded and blunted overmuch the sharpness
with which the proletariate should stamp its own force and
will even on the democracy. That is what I blame in his
policy; that is its danger. I was glad to hear him say
yesterday, that if he gave he votes criticized (of which I will
speak), he did not give them to remain faithful to the attitude
he had to take as a Minister in virtue of Cabinet solidarity. I
was glad to hear him say that, because if he had said, or let it
be understood, that the participation of a Socialist in the
Government obliged the Minister who had been through a
coalition to limit afterwards his Socialistic utterances to the
momentary compact concluded in view of Ministerial action,
Socialistic participation in the Government would be the
worst of dangers, for it would kill off by the way all the living
forces which our party might contain. Such a view is
impossible, and will be impossible for the proletariate. When
the proletariate wants, as I think force of circumstances will
impel it, to make it a normal and regular practice for Socialists
to take part in the central Government, the Socialist represen-
tative, while the Ministerial mandate which his party has
entrusted to him lasts, will be bound by the rules and obliga-
tions of Ministerial solidarity. The proletariate will recognize in
this a formal obligation which I will call, if you like, a passing
professional requirement which makes no inroad on the
representative programme; so that when the momentary
Ministerial compact is over, he recovers I will not say his
undiminished freedom of Socialistic action, for he has never,
save by a sort of purely formal stipulation, lost that he
recovers his entire freedom of speech. What would, I repeat,
be fatal, would be the notion that after this momentary
compact for Government action there survived a kind of
176 MODERN SOCIALISM
posthumous obligation ; for that would mean for ever limiting
the statement of Socialism to the limits of a business pro-
gramme necessarily full of the bourgeois spirit. I rejoice that
Millerand sets forth the problem otherwise. He says : " No,
but we must take account of the new conditions in which the
Socialist party must move ; and since it can aspire to govern
or in any case can henceforth exert a very strong influence on
Governments, it must set itself to make their work as easy as
possible, by not presenting to them, as I said just now, that
part of the Socialistic programme which too violently exceeds
the bounds of what is immediately realizable."
Ah, my friend Millerand, I acknowledge that your idea of
tactics would make things singularly easy. But, let me say, it
has, conversely, the same fault as Guesde's policy ; it is too
easy. We are no longer at the stage when politics are easy
for the Socialist party. Guesde has no difficulties with his :
" I for my part know nothing in society but the working-class ;
all that is not working-class I fight, and fight indiscriminately.
I make no distinction between groups that are retrograde,
violently retrograde, Caesarist or clerical, and the liberal,
democratic groups of the bourgeoisie ; I leave out the whole
revolutionary tradition of France, which at tragic periods has
forced the democratic bourgeoisie, in order to vanquish the Old
Regime, to make acting agreements with the revolutionary
population of the faubourgs, whose consequences extend into
contemporary history." Guesde ignores all that ; he is shut
up in an exclusive proletariate, as in a fortress surrounded
by a deep moat, and fights impartially against every party
encamped round it ; whether they come as friends or as foes,
he turns his weapons against all quarters of the horizon alike.
This is indeed the easy policy ; it is, if I may say so without
hurting any one, the supremely lazy policy, that which saves
the trouble of acting, adapting, reflecting, drawing distinctions.
But the essential function of the human understanding just is,
to find distinctions inside things which to the ignorant and the
simple appear uniform. It is a childish policy, the policy of
J. JAURES 177
childhood, of powerlessness ; it may have served for a passing
hour to preserve the scarce-born consciousness of the pro-
letariate from the troubling of outside influences; but now
that the proletariate is formed, and is clearly self-conscious, now
that the Socialistic idea is powerful, and it can and must act,
to return to this policy of false no-compromise is to go system-
atically back to childhood j and whereas childhood is lovable
and healthy when it is natural childhood, it is deplorable and
deadly when it is the relapse of a mind already developed, but
blinded by ignorance. Yes, this policy is easy to excess ; you
need only say, " Class-war/'
But your policy, Millerand, is too easy also. You need
only say, " We do not keep, or we keep chiefly for our state-
ments of Socialistic programmes, anything but what can be
immediately assimilated by the Governmental action of to-day."
I admit that, if so, our relations with Governments and with
other bourgeois groups are simplified remarkably. Only this
policy has a decisive danger ; it cuts the Socialistic programme
in two. You saw through the tree at a certain height, and
only the lower part of the programme remains assimilated to
reality : the rest is an apex detached from the root ; and the
part of our programme which we have thus ceased to assert,
which we have not incorporated by our assertions at least into
the daily life of the party this part ceasing to receive the sap
of action and vitality, will no longer be anything but a sort of
flourish, a dead survival.
I acknowledge, again, that this complicated policy which
I am trying to formulate before the party, a policy which
consists in at once collaborating with all democrats, yet
vigorously distinguishing one's self from them; penetrating
partially into the State of to-day, yet dominating the State of
to-day from the heights of our ideal I acknowledge that this
policy is complicated, that it is awkward, that it will create
serious difficulties for us at every turn; but am I to suppose
that you ever hoped, with your deep practical feeling and high
intelligence, that we could pass from the period of capitalism
N
178 MODERN SOCIALISM
to the organization of Socialism without coming across these
difficulties incessantly ?
The question was eventually referred to a Committee which sat
late on the isth, and reported to the Congress on the I4th. The
order of the day originally suggested by the federations desirous of
excluding Millerand ran thus :
The Congress,
Recognizing that Millerand has openly taken the responsibility
for his attitude and his acts ;
Without declining to pursue the policy of reforms capable of being
obtained in accordance with the law of the Republic;
Asserts that the Socialist party remains a party revolutionary in
its end the transformation of capitalist society into coflectiuist or
communist society, and in its means the general strike and recourse
to the force of the proletariate in case the bourgeoisie cannot be
expropriated by Parliamentary action ;
Declares that it only acknowledges the so-called practical policy J
so far as it entails on Socialism no violation of its programme and
principles, no abdication of its programme and principles, no abdica-
tion of its ideal ;
Decides that by his votes, which illustrate his personal tactics,
Citizen Millerand has placed himself outside the Socialist party, and
decides that within the Socialist party there is no room for the tactics
and the conception of Citizen Millerand.
During the discussion in the Committee, however, the anti-
Millerand representatives came to think that greater unanimity would
be obtained by a briefer declaration, and therefore substituted the
following :
The Congress decides that Citizen Millerand is excluded from the
Socialist party on account of his anti-Socialistic votes,
This was adopted in Committee by 19 federations, against 16
voting for an order of the day of M. Jaures, and two abstentions.
On the following morning it was submitted to the whole congress by
M. Renaudel ; after whom M. Jaures set forth his counter-proposal
in the following terms :
This is the text of the order of the day which in the name
J Lapolltiquc ditc dts realith %
J. JAURES 179
of sixteen federations I will briefly, as far as my strength allows
me, defend before the Congress :
The Congress,
Considering that the action of the Socialist party ought
to be constantly regulated by the idea of a complete transformation
of the social order ;
Considering that the necessary work of daily reform cannot
be separated from the constant assertion, in theory and practice,
of the Socialistic ideal defined by tJie national and international
congresses, particularly by the Congress of Tours ;
Declares that it is tJie strict duty of Socialist representatives
to uphold by their votes the tradition of the Socialist party regard"
ing the separation of the Churches and the State, and to insure
always the free development of the working-class organized for
tJie necessary struggle against the capitalist class ;
Declares, further, that the Socialist party is a party of free
thought and perpetual scientific inquiry, but that its duty towards
the proletariate is to exact from all its representatives the disciplined
observation of the collective decisions of the party in Congress
assembled ;
And takes note of the declarations made in this sense by
Citizen Millerand,
I say, citizens, that this order of the day answers to every
legitimate and reasonable anxiety of the Congress and of our
opponents themselves. What do you want what does the
Socialist party want ? It wants three things. Firstly, it wants
to assert that the work of reforms, of daily, Parliamentary
action in which it is engaged, will in no way curtail the assertion
of the ideal denned by the Congress. That is one of the essen-
tial parts of the declaration we submit. Secondly, it wants,
while recalling the need for representatives to uphold by their
votes the tradition regarding the separation of the Churches and
the State, to indicate to French Socialists and Frenchmen
generally that in certain individual votes Millerand had put
i8o MODERN SOCIALISM
upon the party's doctrines a misinterpretation for which it was
not responsible and which it forbade to be repeated. Thirdly,
the Congress, the Socialist party, is to point out, that in our
party there is full freedom of discussion and freedom of thought ;
that there are principles, but there is no dogma. And in
asserting this freedom of thought and inquiry, this perpetual
right of the Socialist mind to follow in its course the moving
world and to renew its thought as things renew themselves,
the party means to and must indicate the freedom of conscience,
of thought, of mind, without which we should be the most
miserable of churches claiming to set up an infallibility un-
sanctioned by divine intervention. And we had to indicate
while asserting this indefinite freedom, that in action (and for
representatives action takes the form of voting) there must be
a certain minimum of unity and discipline, which does not
bind the representative's tactics on this or that point, but which
harmonizes his external action and his visible vote with the
collective decisions of the organized party.
The orders of the day of MM. Renaudel and Jaures were then
discussed, the one expelling M. Millerand, the other censuring by
implication his disputed votes, and engaging him not to repeat them.
During the discussion Millerand made another speech, from which
portions are here extracted dealing with (i) M. Jaures' view of the
opposition between ultra-reformers and ultra-revolutionaries, (2) the
attitude of the party to participation in government.
I am only at this tribune to affirm my intention, my firm
desire, to-day as yesterday and as always, to speak not of
exclusion and infallibility, but of union, conciliation, and
concord. It is because I desire this conciliation and concord
intensely, that I ask you to let me briefly reply to that
interesting and moving portion of Jaures' speech where he
came to close quarters with the two conceptions which he
examined before you. 1 If he will let me say so in all friendli-
ness, he seems to me to have paralleled rather too easily what
he called the Guesde and the Sarraute conceptions. It is not
1 Cp, au/f, pp. 164-170, 176-178.
A. MILLERAND 18 1
for me to defend the Guesde conception I should be afraid
of being charged with a want of conviction if I did but
regarding the Sarraute conception you will let me say that
really perhaps it has not been considered as a whole ; there
has been the tendency, involuntary but arising naturally from
its comparison with Guesde's, to bring out what is possibly
its weak side. I have been told for they have done me the
honour, for which I am sincerely grateful to Jaures, of asso-
ciating me with the clear and striking demonstration of my
friend Sarraute I have t>een told, " Take care ! you have
blunted the sharpness (I quote Jaures' phrase) of the Socialist
proletariate." Do you think so, Jaures ? Our adversaries,
all the same, seemed to find it sharp enough, judging by their
outcries. No, we have not blunted the sharpness of the
proletariate so much ; nor is it perfectly accurate to say that
my whole policy is limited to retaining that portion of the
Socialistic conception which can be assimilated at once. I
think with you that it becomes our duty, I consider our
imperious duty, to intrude our ideas, bit by bit, into facts,
laws, and customs ; the more must we, while realizing peace-
fully and legally this work of necessarily partial and incomplete
construction, show the proletariate simultaneously the complete
Socialistic edifice as a whole, and never let it lose sight of the
end towards which we march. Let me say that the speaker
who addresses you cannot be charged with having ever for-
gotten the end for the sake of immediate reforms; and that
I made a point, even when in office, I would say especially
when in office, at the very time when I was naturally busy
realizing what partial reforms I could, of asserting in public
at Lille, at Lens, at Firminy, whenever I possibly could
that I was not only a faithful soldier of the Socialist party,
acknowledging my party's authority, but a Socialist who asserted
when in office our unimpaired doctrine, our entire ideal. But
really, when we fulfil this duty, we must meet the needs of
the day.
Just now Citizen Pierre Bertrand asked in this place,
1 82 MODERN SOCIALISM
" What is meant by the solidarity of classes ? " I did not
want to interrupt him, or I might have saved myself a speech
and said, " I will not refer you to my friend Sarraute's very
remarkable work on Socialism in opposition and in power
you might be prejudiced against it; I refer you to Jaures
himself. He showed this morning, in a lofty and precise
manner, that the Socialist party could take charge on its own
account of the general interests of the country, and that there
was none of them in which the proletariate itself was not
preponderatingly interested."
You, Jaures, said that we must look at these social interests
from the proletarian standpoint. But what does that mean
but to look at them from the standpoint, not of a narrow class,
but from the highest standpoint that one can take up? To
say that we look at them from the proletarian standpoint is
to say that we study them from the standpoint of those who
are the mass, the many, the crowd, the disinherited, to whom
we would fain give more light, justice, and well-being. Class-
solidarity, therefore, is patent to all; it forces itself on their
attention. It does not suppress class-antagonism ; they are
two standpoints, different but equally true. Society to-day
is such as to admit simultaneously both a class-antagonism
which our aim just is to abolish, by abolishing classes and
also, citizens, a class-solidarity, thanks to which we not only
can but must care for the general interests of the country,
since in working for all we work for the proletarians.
If that point is reached, do you not see we are at the end
we are agreed? It is understood for I heard no protest
anywhere against Jaures' words that the Socialist party,
serving and defending the interests of the proletariate, in no
way neglects the general interests of the country, but shares
in their burden. Is it not, then, clear that it must therefore
in every way, under every accessible form, serve those general
interests whose care is not separated in its thought from the
proletariate's interests ?
A. MILLERAND 183
What I here assert afresh is the need for the Socialist party
to unite clearly on common principles, accepted by all.
As for these principles, citizens, we have never all through
this long debate discussed them. One point has been dis-
cussed for three long years participation in Government ;
and on it you will allow me these few words. When it
presented itself, as I told you yesterday, those more particu-
larly called revolutionary Socialists, seeing themselves con-
fronted by this natural consequence of their own conduct,
were frightened. They s%w that it was the condemnation, not
of their conduct, but of a way of speaking which they declined
to give up. They withdrew; you remained; and what then
occurred in the portion of the Parti Socialiste Frangais which
you form ? A very natural thing. Before, during, and after
the split at least, in a few months which followed it while
not condemning participation in the Government, while accept-
ing it, even, you yet surrounded it with all sorts of restrictions
and reserves; just because you hoped, and would fain hope
even against hope, to keep united to you the Socialist comrades
who threatened to go off, and who in fact did separate;
secondly, because you feared and what scruples could do
you more honour? lest the wine of truth should be too
strong for your adherents' heads if you poured it out to them
without stint ; lest in wanting to fly at one stretch to the end
marked out for you, you should leave too many laggards and
separatists by the wayside. Besides, you were in no hurry
to settle it ; you had in the Government a comrade who was
there under his own responsibility; you had put him, as it
were, on furlough there, and the position was if he erred,
the party could lawfully disclaim all responsibility, but if he
did anything good and useful, he would, you knew, be the
first to refer the honour and profit of it to the party as a
whole.
But, citizens, that situation has ended. You have had to
take sides, and what should have happened has happened:
participation in the Government I may say after this present
184 MODERN SOCIALISM
debate, whose pivot and centre, openly or implicitly, it has
all the time been is no longer opposed in principle. On
that I must explain myself. You ask for clearness; you
cannot complain if I am clear. I say that in all the debate,
at which we have just been present, participation in the
Government has apparently aroused no opposition ; and if
it does arouse it, then we must take sides let me say no less
flatly and frankly about the principles as well as the direction
of the party, *>. about the essence of its methods. I think
we should be fully agreed ; I think we are ; and it is because
I think we are, because I am convinced that on participation
in the Government, as on our principles, there is between the
vast majority of this Congress and myself no opposition in
what I say no, there can be no split between us ; since, as
soon as we agree on the guiding ideas, you understand that
on questions of application, however important, divorce and
division cannot be.
I believe that on these questions I was right in acting as I
did ; I have given you my reasons ; I am confident that the
future will confirm them, and that the application of the
principles and tactics which I have indicated will lead you
rapidly on this fated path. But understand that on these
questions of application I only ask to go forward as a disciplined
soldier. I have faith in the future, in the goodness of my
cause, in your honesty, in the care which you have, as I have,
for the interests of the Socialist party and of the country itself;
and to-morrow, hand in hand, we pursue the same task, at
which for the ten years we have worked together for the
Republic and the social idea.
When the two resolutions were put to the Congress, that of M.
Jaures, censuring but not excluding M. Millerand, was carried by
109 votes to 89, with 15 abstentions.
XIII
THE THEORY OF INCREASING MISERY
The Verelendungstheorie has been so diversely understood that the
following 1 passages from the Bernstein debate at the German party's
Liibeck Congress, 1901, seem worth detaching. Kautsky and Bebel
are the leading Marxists, Dr. David a leading Revisionist.
FROM THE SPEECH OF KARL KAUTSKY.
How, then, do things stand with the Theory of Increasing
Misery? The theory asserts, that things must always get
worse before they can get better, that the proletariate sinks
into ever-increasing misery until it has grown quite irresistible,
and that only then does the great day of emancipation dawn.
Comrades, has that theory ever been held by any one in the
party with any claims to importance ? Certainly not. It has
long ago been refuted refuted by none other than Karl
Marx in his " Capital." " Increasing misery " is to be under-
stood only as a tendency and not as an unconditional truth ;
it means only that capital, in order to increase its surplus-value,
must tend to make the position of the workers ever more and
more miserable. That we know; but Marx himself has
indicated the counter-tendency. He himself was one of the
first champions of laws protecting the workers, one of the first
who drew attention to the importance of trade-unions, at a
time when other Socialists ignored them, as early as 1847.
He showed that this tendency is absolutely necessary, but not
that it leads of absolute necessity to the depression of the
worker. But we must distinguish ourselves from bourgeois
1 86 MODERN SOCIALISM
reformers, in that the latter think the tendency itself can be
overcome and a social peace be established, a state of things
in which capital does not tend to depress the workers. Capital
must so tend; and that is the basis of the class-war, which
must go on till we wrench from capital the instruments of its
political and economic power. Till that is done, social peace
cannot be restored ; and only in that sense have we held fast
to the Theory of Increasing Misery.
FROM THE SPEECH OF DR. EDUARD DAVID.
Again, there is the Theory of Increasing Misery. We talked
at Hanover about the miserable condition of this Theory of
Increasing Misery; and now back comes Kautsky with the
assertion that no one formerly conceived of it in the sense of a
progressive absolute increase of misery, but that it always was
only thought a tendency, with which counter-tendencies inter-
fered. At Hanover I answered Kautsky by simply quoting
the Communist Manifesto^ where nothing is said of a tendency
to depression, but where bourgeois society is described as
not even in a position to feed its slaves the worker turning
into the pauper. And that is not said of individuals, but of
the mass of the proletariate ; and the manifesto makes not the
smallest reference to counteraction by trade-unionist organiza-
tion. Marx did so later; but in the Communist Manifesto
he did not lay the smallest stress upon it. He did say some-
thing quite different; he said, "In the revolution closely
confronting us the working-class will break its chains, because
it has nothing to lose." And the Communist Manifesto
closes with the prospect of revolution, in the sense of violent
revolution close ahead. So there have been people who have
taken this standpoint; and if to-day the Communist Mani-
festo is still set up as a standard, as Kiesel l has set it up, it
is impossible to say, " What a crazy exposition of the Theory
1 A delegate who spoke earlier on the same afternoon,
BEBEL 187
of Increasing Misery that is ! No rational human being ever
held that ! " If one alters one's opinion, one should have the
courage and the strength to say, "We made a mistake."
FROM THE SPEECH OF BEBEL.
First of all, I intended not to go into differences of prin-
ciple between the two schools. I thought that the Hanover
Congress had settled that. To my surprise, Kautsky has
deviated from the proper ^course. He has gone into the so-
called Theory of Increasing Misery, and has thereby given
David opportunity for a polemic. It is bad to let things of
that sort go uncontradicted ; so I will say a few words. The
Communist Manifesto has been appealed to. I affirm that
already in 1872, Engels, in concert with Karl Marx, declared
that they wished to re-publish it only as a historical document.
Whoever has studied the works of Marx and Engels in detail
can have no doubt that they never set up the Theory of In-
creasing Misery in the sense explained by David. If anything
is characteristic, and refutes large passages in Bernstein's
" Presuppositions of Socialism," it is the passage from
" Capital," prefixed as a motto to Bernstein's book, in which
Karl Marx describes the Ten Hours' Bill as the victory of a
principle. Marx took the view that by organization the work-
ing-class can counteract the depressing tendencies of capital,
and if by the strength of their organization they succeeded in
inciting the State to take such steps, then it was not merely a
great moral advance, but the victory of a new principle. Even
a man like Lassalle, who took so decidedly the standpoint of
the Brazen Law of Wages, even he gives no occasion for his
being invoked as a witness on behalf of a false conception of
the Theory of Increasing Misery. In his " Open Letter in
Reply " he says : " People tell you workers you are to-day in
quite a different position from that of three or four hundred
years ago. No doubt you are better off than the Botokudians
or than cannibal savages." "Every human satisfaction," he
1 88 MODERN SOCIALISM
says further on, " depends always on the relation of the means
of satisfaction to what the custom of the period demands
already as bare necessaries for existence, or, which is the same
thing, upon the excess of the means of satisfaction over the
lowest limit of what the custom of the period demands as bare
necessaries for existence." " If you then compare," he suggests
further, " what the rich class has to-day with what the working-
class has to-day, then the gap between the working-class and
the rich class to-day is greater than ever before." That is the
pith of the Theory of Increasing Misery a thing so simple
and obvious that David, who is an important man in our
party, and well acquainted with its history, should have been
unprejudiced enough to recognize these conceptions of our
great theorists.
XIV
GERMAN SOCIALISTS AND THE GENERAL
STRIKE
Here are given (i) the celebrated Jena resolution passed by the
German Social Democratic party in 1905, (2) extracts from a speech
of August Bebel at the party's Mannheim Congress in 1906, (3) the
resolution passed by the Mannheim Congress. For August Bebel,
see p. i ; and for the subject see Introduction to the second edition,
pp. xiii-xv.
I. THE JENA RESOLUTION
IN view of the efforts made by the ruling classes and authori-
ties to withhold from the working-class a legitimate influence
upon the public ordering of affairs in the commonwealth, or, so
far as the workers have attained any such influence through
their representatives in Parliaments, to take this from them, and
so render the working-class politically and economically without
rights or power, the Congress thinks it right to declare that
it is the bounden duty of the entire working-class to assist with
every means at their disposal every attack on their rights as
men and citizens, and continually to demand complete equali-
zation of rights.
In particular, experience has shown that the governing
parties, even those far to the bourgeois Left, 1 are hostile to the
universal, equal, direct, and secret suffrage; that they merely
tolerate it, but at once try to abolish or impair it, as soon as they
think that it imperils their supremacy. Hence their opposition
1 i.e. Liberals.
189
1 9 o MODERN SOCIALISM
to an extension of universal, equal, direct, and secret suffrage
to the separate States (Prussia, etc.) ; and hence, too, they
even make worse existing and backward electoral laws, from
regret at the working-classes exercising any influence in the
Parliaments, however slight.
In this way, a bourgeoisie, greedy of power and unlimitedly
timid, and a narrow-minded lower middle-class, have taken
away the people's votes in Saxony and in the so-called Republics
of Hamburg and Liibeck, and have made worse the communal
elections in various German States (Saxony, Saxe-Meiningen,
etc.) and places (Kiel, Dresden, Chemnitz, etc.) ; acting through
the representatives of various bourgeois parties.
But considering that universal, equal, direct, and secret
suffrage is the starting-point for a normal political development
of the commonwealth, as is complete freedom of combination
for the economic uplifting of the working-class ; considering,
further, that the working-class by its ever-increasing numbers,
its intelligence, and its labour for the economic and social life
of the whole nation, as well as by the material and physical
sacrifices which it has to support for the military defence of the
country, is the most important element in modern society;
this class must demand not only the maintenance but the ex-
tension of universal, equal, direct, and secret suffrage for all
representative bodies, in the sense of the Social Democratic
programme, and the securing of full freedom of combination.
Accordingly, the Congress declares that in case of an
attack on universal, equal, direct, and secret suffrage, or on
the right of combination, it is the duty of the entire working-
class to employ vigorously every weapon of defence that seems
appropriate.
As one of the most effective weapons to repel such a
political crime against the working-class, or to capture an
important right as a basis for its emancipation, the Congress
recommends, in the case given
" the most comprehensive application of the general refusal to
work."
BEBEL 191
But in order to render the use of this weapon possible, and as
effective as possible, the greatest expansion of the political and
trade-union organization of the working-class, and the incessant
education and enlightenment of the masses, by the labour
journals and by agitation and literature, is indispensably
necessary.
This agitation must set forth the importance of, and neces-
sity for, the political rights of the working-class, especially
for universal, equal, direct, and secret suffrage and for com-
plete freedom of combination; with references to the class-
character of the State and society, and the daily misuse of
political power by the governing classes and authorities against
the working-class, in virtue of their monopoly of it.
Every member of the party is bound to join a trade-union,
if one exists or can be founded in his trade or calling, and he
is bound to support the aims and objects of the trade-unions.
But it is also the duty of every class-conscious member of a
trade-union to adhere to the political organization of his class,
the Social Democratic party, and to promote the circulation
of Social Democratic literature.
II. FROM A SPEECH OF AUGUST BEBEL AT THE
MANNHEIM CONGRESS.
Although at Jena I enthusiastically recommended the
general strike as a weapon in the last resort, no word of
mine can be taken to mean that I recommended _
General
one for the coming year. Just because we in strike
Germany, through the whole shaping of our poli- f[iess *
tical conditions, are concerned with perfectly weapon,
definite rights, on behalf of which in a given ^^ d be
event we should institute the general strike, and through
because we must wish in all our interests to hold * tr ! e ??
, . , discipline,
such a demonstration completely in hand, we
desire a still more thorough agitation and education, in order
that at the given moment our disciplined masses, which must
Sweep the undisciplined away, may be so held in hand that no
192 MODERN SOCIALISM
blunders occur. I tell you in the name of the party Council
and the Committee of Control, which we have consulted on
the subject, our position is, that on the one hand the general
strike may be necessary, but on the other hand we will not let
ourselves be hounded into it against our convictions by any-
body, no matter whom. I regard the general strike as the
ultima ratiOy the final, and, remember, the bloodless instrument
of our party, the weapon which we need all our strength and
discipline and self-restraint so to employ, as we think the
interests of the party and the people demand. That is a
hazard, which as yet, with our present organization, we cannot
entertain. I think it false to be optimistic at this point. In
every direction our activity needs to be developed. The
stimulus given at Jena has already in the short space of a
year yielded splendid successes. But agitation and organiza-
tion must develop much further yet ; and if they do, we will
see what we can do more.
The question now arises : What is the attitude of our trade-
unions to the general strike? You all know, that in our
Trade- debates last year at Jena reference was often made
thege S nepai to the Col g ne resolution, and the opinion was
strike. expressed, that it contradicted the Jena resolution.
I will not say more on this question here, but I might make
one point clear, and indeed am glad to, namely, that in spite
of the unpleasant references made to the party by individual
speakers at the conference of the trade-union committees, the
proceedings as a whole showed, that notwithstanding every-
thing, we had drawn considerably closer together than pre-
viously at Jena appeared to be the case. On that point no
doubt can exist. I was especially satisfied to read in the
speech of comrade Bomelburg at that conference his assertion,
that if once an issue were raised, which put in question the
right of combination, a right indispensable for the workers
and peculiarly so for the trade-unions, then the trade-unions
must not wait for the party to give the lead, but themselves
must come forward and set to work with the general strike. J
BEBEL 193
am glad we agree on that. I noticed, too, another remark in
the report of that conference. An outspoken adversary of the
general strike told the meeting that he had himself noticed
" people beginning by degrees to accustom themselves to the
thought of the general strike." That shows that the discussions
at Cologne and Jena, and subsequently in the press, have led
a great many comrades to reflect more deeply, and the result
of their reflections differs a good deal from their former line of
thought. To me it appears beyond question, that we must win
over the trade-unions to the-idea of the general strike. I think
so just because without the co-operation of the trade-unions
the general strike is impracticable. On the other hand I admit
that in trade-union circles, in consequence of a series of state-
ments in articles and speeches, and notably in the transactions
of the trade-union Congress this spring, the thought has been
expressed, that people in the Social Democratic party were
inclined to play fast and loose with the general strike. This
view, too, is that, for example, of the Nieder-Barnim resolu-
tion, which does the most extraordinary thing that can be
done in this connection. Comrades, does not the Nieder-
Earnim electoral district, which has adopted this resolution by
a majority, does it not know, what the Congress of the party
for Prussia decided about street demonstrations ? Does it not
know, that if (as the wording of the resolution says) we insti-
tuted street demonstrations, the result would be a massacre,
and yet we should have no certainty of emerging from the
massacre victorious ? The talk is not merely of demonstra-
tions, but in most cases also of general strikes. According to
that, they are represented as a means of agitation applicable at
any moment. To-day we start one general strike, to-morrow
another, and the day after to-morrow a third. Conceptions of
this kind we must reject with decision. I can only ask the
Congress to reject every resolution introduced under this head,
and adopt the resolution which we propose to you. I would
point out that the greater part of these resolutions has been
already dealt with now.
o
I 9 4 MODERN SOCIALISM
All I want to do further is briefly to oppose a resolution
adopted by our comrades at Miihlhausen. The resolution
Suggested r efers to a danger arising, that in the great struggle
strike to for Russian freedom the Prussian Government
Gerrnan in- niight want to march Prussian troops into Russia,
terferenee i n order to smother the revolution by the aid
in Russia. of German blood. Comrade Maurenbrecher ex-
pressed the same thought in an article. Abroad, too, it was
widely mooted. From most diverse groups of Russian Socialists
came questions asking me, whether it was true that Germany
would intervene, and how the German Social Democrats would
behave in that event. I have replied : German intervention
is unthinkable. One must admit that, however low one's
opinion of the conduct of our foreign affairs. The Imperial
Chancellor himself took the first opportunity of declaring in
the Reichstag, that these rumours were untrue, that in Prussian
Germany no one thought of espousing the cause of the Russian
Government. Doubtless the hearts of the German Emperor,
the Government, and the bourgeoisie, are on the Tsar's side.
It is natural that in all these circles people should desire
the successful repression of the Russian revolution ; but it is
a long step from that to the actual marching of German troops
into Russia. The events of 1792 have been cited as an
example. But the French Revolution in 1792 had the whole
of Europe for its enemy. At that time a coalition of Europe
could be formed ; at that time it was possible to hope to
smother the revolution in blood. Yet even so the attempt
miscarried.
The situations of 1792 and 1906, are entirely different.
To-day there is no European coalition ready to mobilize
against Russia, and Germany, thanks to her clumsy foreign
policy, is isolated. The Austrian press, of all parties, protested
most promptly and energetically against the idea of any such
interference. For Germany to interfere in Russia would mean
a European war. And care will be taken in Germany not to
invite such a gigantic peril. What else does the proposal of
BEBEL 195
the Miihlhausen comrades mean, but what Nieuwenhuis advo-
cated at the Zurich Congress, the general strike on behalf of
peace in the event of an outbreak of war ? Very Genepal
few of you, comrades, have experienced a great war. strike to
You have no notion of the situation which arose on Jpeak of "
the outbreak of war in 1870. Of course we have war not
grown much stronger since then, but the forces at practi al9 '
the disposal of the anti-Socialists have grown too. Above all,
the military armament has completely changed. Who then
believes, that at a moment, when a violent shock, a fever, is
stirring up the masses from their very deepest depths, when the
perils of a gigantic war and its appalling misery confront us
who believes, that at such a moment it is possible to institute
a general strike ? The idea is puerile. From the first day of
the outbreak of such a war there march under arms in Germany
five million men, with many hundreds of thousands of Socialists
included among them. The entire nation is in the ranks.
Frightful want, universal unemployment, starvation, stoppage
of factories, fall of paper securities, is it credible that at such
a moment, when each is thinking only of himself, one could
institute a general strike? If any leaders of the party were
so senseless as to institute a general strike on such a day,
martial law would at once be extended, along with the
mobilization, over the whole of Germany, and decisions then
pass from the hands of the civil courts into those of courts-
martial. I have often heard it said, and I think it probable,
because in governing circles it is supposed, that the Socialists
could be crazy enough to take such a course, I have often
heard it said, that exalted persons have long nursed the idea
of preparing the same fate for all the Socialist leaders as was
meted out in 1870 to the members of our party committee.
If you think that in such a case our adversaries will exercise
any clemency, you are mistaken ; I think it inconceivable that
in such a case any should be expected. Things are different
with us from things in other countries. Germany is a State
which no other State resembles. That may be taken as a
196 MODERN SOCIALISM
compliment, but it is the truth ; and this truth we must keep
in sight, and direct our affairs accordingly. I can only
emphatically ask you to reject the Miihlhausen resolution.
Adopt the resolution that we propose, for it offers you the
way along which the party may victoriously pursue its end.
III. THE MANNHEIM RESOLUTION (moved by Bebel).
1. The Congress confirms the resolution of the Jena
Congress upon the political general strike, and after declaring
that the resolution of the trade-union congress at Cologne 1
does not contradict the Jena resolution, regards all disputes
over the meaning of the Cologne resolution as settled.
The Congress again recommends specially urgent atten-
tion to the clauses calling for the strengthening and extension
of the party organization, the circulation of the party literature,
and the adherence of members of the party to trade-unions
and of trade-unionists to the party organization.
As soon as the Party Council deems a political general
strike to be necessary, it must put itself in communication
with the General Committee of the trade-unions, and take all
requisite measures to carry out its course successfully.
2. The trade-unions are indispensably necessary to uplift
the class-position of the workers inside bourgeois society;
they are not less necessary than the Social Democratic party,
which has to conduct in the political sphere the struggle to
uplift the working-class and to make its rights equal to those
of the other classes in society, but which further, and beyond
1 The Cologne resolution included the following expressions :
"The Congress therefore considers, that all attempts to set up a definite
line of tactics by preaching the political general strike should be repudiated ;
it recommends the organized workers to resist such attempts energetically.
"The Congress regards the general strike, as it is represented by
Anarchists and people without any experience in the sphere of economic
struggle, as beneath consideration ; it warns the workers not to let the
acceptance and circulation of such ideas distract them from the detailed
daily work of strengthening their trade organizations."
BEBEL 197
these immediate objects, strives for the emancipation of the
working-class from every oppression and exploitation, by
abolishing the wage-system and organizing a system of pro-
duction and exchange resting on the social equality of all,
organizing, that is, the Socialist society : an aim for which
the class-conscious workers of the trade-unions must also
necessarily strive. The two organizations are thus led to
mutual agreement and co-operation in their struggles.
To bring about harmonious procedure in affairs which
concern the interests of the trade-unions and the party equally,
the central executives of the two organizations must endeavour
to come to an understanding.
But in order to secure that harmony of thought and action
between the party and the trade-unions, which is indispensably
requisite for the victorious progress of the proletarian class-
struggle, it is absolutely necessary, that the trade-union move-
ment should be dominated by the spirit of the Social Democracy.
Therefore it is the duty of every member of the party to exert
himself in that sense.
XV
SOCIALISM AND THE CAPITALISTIC
TRANSFORMATION OF AGRICULTURE
BY E. VANDERVELDE
An address delivered to an audience of Belgian agricultural
experts in July, 1899.
Emile Vandervelde (born 1868) is the leader of the Belgian Labour
party in the Belgian Chamber. He is also among the most learned
of living Socialists. His most recent publications upon Agriculture
include L'Exode Rural et le Retour aux Champs (Paris, 1903), Essais
sur la Question Agraire en Belgique (Paris, 1903), La Propriete Fonciere
en Belgique (Paris, 1900), and five studies in the Annales de I'lnstitut
des Science Sociales (Brussels, 1898 and 1899).
From the following lecture a short introduction is omitted, in
which M. Vandervelde refers the institution of property to social
utility, and premisses that he will examine private property in land
from this standpoint. His account of the decay of peasant pro-
prietorship is the more interesting because drawn from the very
country which to J. S. Mill (Political Economy, b. ii., c. 6, 5) was
" the most decisive example in opposition to the English prejudice
against cultivation by peasant proprietors. "
AT the outset I must point out an underlying essential
distinction, which is at the very foundation of the collectivist
theories. I want to distinguish between peasant property
exploited immediately by the owner himself, and capitalistic
property leased out for exploitation because its owner is not
a cultivator. Clearly these are two different economic
categories, which cannot be confounded under one head
without causing a real confusion. Clearly peasant property,
198
E. VANDERVELDE 199
which is an instrument of labour for the cultivator, cannot
be assimilated to capitalistic property, which is a means of
exploiting this cultivator for the profit of a landed proprietor.
I must therefore place myself in turn at the point of view of
peasant property and at that of capitalistic property to examine
the question whether private property in land is in the interest
of society at large. So far as concerns peasant property, we
have to ask ourselves first of all, whether in our country there
still exist many cultivators who own the land which they
cultivate.
The most recent statistics bearing on this point are to be
found in the third volume of the agricultural census of 1895.
From them we learn, that there were then ownership
231,319 cases of ownership by the cultivator (the by the
owner cultivating all or more than half his land cultlvator<
in each case). Are we to infer that there are over 200,000
cultivators owning the soil that they till ? Statistically that is
so, but practically it is quite clear that those who cultivate a
"table-cloth," a "pocket-handkerchief" of ground of a few
ares x an estate of 2 hectares, for instance cannot as a rule
be regarded as peasant proprietors living in an independent way
on the products of the soil which they cultivate, and finding in
it a livelihood for themselves and their families. Except in
districts of intensive market-gardening, and in certain parts
of Flanders, they are really labourers, agricultural or industrial
proletarians, who only find in their tiny estate something to eke
oiit their wages, a more or less trifling resource to be added to
their daily earnings. As to those who really possess an
independent peasant estate, capable of furnishing the cultivator
and his family with a livelihood, we shall be more than
generous if we reckon as such all those in the whole country
who exploit as cultivating owners more than 2 hectares. The
last agricultural census gives their number as 66,452. From
this figure must be deducted a certain number of large estates,
some hundreds of farms of over 50 hectares (123-557 acres),
1 I are = 119-603 square yards ; 2 hectares = 4*942 acres.
200 MODERN SOCIALISM
which are cultivated by active owners with the assistance of
agricultural labourers. So there remain between 50,000 and
60,000 peasant estates cultivated by peasant proprietors,
who can, whether the season be good or bad, derive a more or
less sufficient livelihood from them.
You notice that in our population of over six millions the
peasant proprietor forms an extremely limited social category,
limited in respect of numbers, still more limited in respect of
the area exploited. In fact, as the statistics of 1895 go on to
inform us, out of every 100 hectares of land, about half (49*4
per cent.) are cultivated by their owners, and the other half
(50*6 per cent.) are rented; but it must be borne in mind
that the official figures include as cultivated by their owners
the woods, the waste lands, and the heaths, whether belonging
to private persons or to public bodies, so that there are villages
which seem to be the promised land of cultivating ownership
when really they belong to landlords whose property is wood
or waste. If we only take account of ordinary forms of
cultivation, which alone interest us at the moment, the propor-
tion owned by its cultivators out of every hundred hectares of
land exploited in Belgium is 31-6, against 68*4 which are
rented. And we should observe (for the observation has a
fundamental importance) that most of the land cultivated by
peasant proprietors is situated in the poorest and least-
endowed parts of the country. In Flanders or Hesbaye
ownership by the cultivator is exceptional in the Ostend
district, for instance, it has wholly disappeared ; on the other
hand, it still plays a great part in Campine, in the Ardennes
and also in the south of Hainaut, in the districts of Chimay,
Beaumont, etc. that is, in parts where peasant properties
are found in combination with common properties and often
also with accessory industries. A striking instance of such a
state of social affairs is that of the parishes situated along the
French frontier, in the Philippeville constituency, Olloy,
Oignies, Nismes, Petigny, Cerfontaine, etc. There are there
a fairly large number of small peasant proprietors ; the parish
E. VANDERVELDE aoi
has extensive common lands, which enable them to pasture
their cattle, and to obtain firewood, or litter for their beasts.
Besides this, the majority of these peasant proprietors spend
their days also on industrial work. That is the case, for
instance, with the slate- tilers of Oignies, the sabot-makers of
Nismes or of Cerfontaine; and under these conditions these
properties may be said to present considerable advantages for
the populations who benefit by them.
These conditions, essential not only to their prosperity, but
to their existence, may be summarized as follows :
(1) Property extensive enough to supply the cultivator's
family with a livelihood. Conditions
(2) Accessory industry supplying them with l^^ nee
supplementary means of subsistence. of peasant
(3) Rights over common lands sufficiently P ropepty -
considerable for the peasants to procure what they require, in
order to carry on the petty cultivation.
Under these conditions it comes about that a poor
population, living in a poorly endowed district, finds itself
really better off, socially speaking, than a population living in
the most fertile and richest districts in the country. One
cannot doubt, for instance, that the small farmer of the Waes
country, with its pretty white flower-hung houses and such well-
cultivated fields, but with such heavy rents to pay, has less
favourable conditions of life and is less substantially fed than
the peasant poor, no doubt, but freer and more independent
of the Upper Ardennes or of Condroz. The first scarcely
eats anything but churned milk and black bread; the latter
is always sure to have at least some bacon with his potatoes.
But in proportion as agricultural progresses, as agricultural
technique is perfected, as the capitalist regime takes hold
of industry and agriculture, we see the conditions for the
existence and prosperity of peasant property disappear one
after the other. It is idle, to prove it, to look for instances
in other countries ; it is enough to see what has happened
in our own. We shall note, in fact, that for a century the
202 MODERN SOCIALISM
development of industry has resulted in the upsetting, one
after the other, of what I shall call the props of peasant
property.
First fell the rights over common lands. As soon as ever
industry on the large scale begins to develop, and the industrial
Bights over proletariate grows, and the food-requirements of the
commons, population increase and as long as the competition
of foreign corn-stuffs does not make itself felt agriculturists
regard the working of waste lands as an advantageous operation,
and hurry by every means to divide up and alienate common
lands. That is what happened in Belgium during the first
half of this century. You know that to promote this transfor-
mation the Chamber voted the law of March 25, 1848, on
compulsory alienation of common lands. In the course of
twenty years the best part of the collective estate of the
parishes was alienated. What remains of it to-day scarcely
retains any importance except in Campine and the Ardennes
region.
On another side, at about the same period, other factors
intervened, and rendered the position of peasant property more
Home and more difficult. There were in Flanders small
industries, cultivators or small owners, whose use of the soil
was insufficient by itself to supply them with a livelihood, but
who found a supplementary resource in home industries carried
on by themselves, their wives, and their children. The women
and girls spun linen, the man wove it ; and in, so to say, every
house on the Flemish countrysides was a textile business.
But from 1847 onwards the potato disease and the introduction
of machines reduced to starvation the greater part of these
peasants who were literally expropriated by the conquering
competition of urban industry. From that date the Flemish
labourers especially those of the districts of Alost, Termonde,
Audenaerde, etc. as with the labourers of the district of Ath,
are to be seen on annual emigrations, going off into the Grand
Duchy, or into Northern or Central France, for harvesting and
beetroot-gathering.
E. VANDERVELDE 203
Lastly there comes in a third factor, tending to make the
position of peasant property harder still. Formerly it produced,
before all else, things of value for use, products p PO( j uctlon
consumed on the spot by the peasant himself; but for ex-
now it has to produce things of value for exchange, change<
products which find a sale on the market, to have the means of
paying the ever-increasing taxes, the ever-growing burden of
fiscal charges.
Destruction of rights over common lands, decay of home
industries, production of things valuable for exchange instead
of things valuable for use, and on top of these the action of
the law on inheritance, the influence of compulsory equal
partition such are the principal reasons for the diminution
of cultivating owners and the critical position of peasant
property.
But, some one will perhaps say, if you consult the official
figures, you find, in contradiction to what we have been saying,
that ownership on a small scale tends to spread, and that the
number of owners increases from year to year.
This is, in fact, what a superficial glance at the figures
seems to show. The documents supplied by the Finance
Department inform us, that in 1846 there were Muitipiica-
914,937 holdings of land in Belgium. In 1896 lion of
there were 1,187,000; and so it is often inferred Holdin ^ s -
that the number of owners has passed from 914,937 to
1,187,000. But it is important to notice some facts which
reduce this inference to its real value
(1) The population has increased faster than the number of
holdings of land. In 1830 there were 22 holdings to every
hundred inhabitants; in 1896 there are only 18.
(2) As every one is aware, many properties are only such
in name ; properties on which, as the Flemings put it, there
is " a little man on the roof," i.e. a burdening mortgage.
(3) You know, too, that the number of holdings of land
does not match the number of properties; that many pro-
prietors possess not one holding but very many, scattered in
204 MODERN SOCIALISM
different parishes. In Flanders there are some landowners
with 40, 50, and even 60 holdings scattered in as many
parishes.
(4) There are in existence a very great number of holdings
of land so small that they only represent a phantom of
property. Not long ago I was studying the land-register of
a little parish, Rixensart, situated beside the one in which I
live, and I found there proprietors like these : one with 40
centiares, income fivepence ; another, with income twopence-
halfpenny ; two others, designated suggestively, X. " blind" 2
hectares, Z. " beggar" 85 ares. It will be readily recognized
that it is hard to consider proprietors of this sort as independent
peasant proprietors capable of drawing from the soil which
belongs to them a livelihood for themselves and their families.
But after making this series of preliminary observations, we
must examine more closely the statistics concerning holdings
of land.
I have noted that the number of these holdings had
increased since the date when the land-register was com-
An invest!- piled; but the important point is, whether there
fiJ^Snd- nas rea Uy been an equalizing partition of property,
registers, whether the laws of the Revolution, which aim at
dividing up the soil among a constantly increasing number of
proprietors, have produced that result. And to settle this
question, which is of paramount importance, I have under-
taken, with the collaboration of several friends, an inquiry,
which has cost us long months of work, on the division of
landed property in Belgium. This inquiry was of the following
nature. 1 Possessing, thanks to the official statistics, the total
number of holdings of land, we picked out in the 15,000 or
20,000 land-registers deposited in the provincial registries
the holdings of over 100 hectares, which may be considered
in Belgium as large landed estates. We have the figure of
1 Monographs for each of the nine provinces, entitled " L'Influence des
villes dans les Campagnes," in the Annales de Plnstitut des Sciences Sociales
(n, Rue Ravenstein, Brussels).
E. VANDERVELDE
205
every province but one, that of Namur, in which, notoriously,
large estates are more general than anywhere else; for the
eight other provinces the following are the results given by a
comparison of the land-register in 1834 (when it was first
compiled) and in 1898 :
Holdings of over i
x> hectares of land.
Provinces.
Total (in hectares)
for 1834-1845.
j
Total (in hectares)
for 1898.
Brabant
Antwerp .
Limbourg .
Luxembourg
Hainaut
East Flanders
West Flanders
Liege .
38,963
34,184
15,298
55,9"
55,258
14,414
23,048
48,763
41,545
39,485
12,522
66,313
39,186
18,927
23,847
55,8n
Eight provinces l .
285,839
297,636
So in the last sixty years, taking the country as a whole
property on the large scale, far from being subdivided, has
rather gained ground. Partition has occurred in some pro-
vinces, e.g. Hainaut and Limbourg, but concentration on the
other hand, in provinces such as Antwerp, Lie'ge, Luxembourg,
Brabant, and the provinces of Flanders ; reckoning altogether,
there is an increase of 8000 hectares for the eight provinces.
On the other hand, property on the small scale has gained
ground since the number of holdings of land has increased ;
the partition has fallen, therefore, upon property on the
moderate scale, on the intermediate class in society, on the
family properties of which I was speaking just now. Evolution
has tended in two directions on the one side, the concentra-
tion of large properties; on the other, the breaking up of
1 The figures for Namur have since been obtained : 106,672 hectares in
1834 ; 100,276 hectares in 1898.
206 MODERN SOCIALISM
middle-sized ones and the creation of dwarf properties which
become too small to feed a family. What is the social effect
of this ? It is that peasant property becomes more and more
incapable of feeding a family, and that those who still possess
land worked by themselves as cultivating owners are obliged
to seek other means of subsistence. Some take a small shop
oftenest a public-house ; others are country artisans ; others,
again, take service as agricultural or industrial labourers ;
others go abroad to do harvesting, or even take the train each
morning to go and work in the centres of industry ; and after
all that, what is left of the 50,000 or 60,000 peasants of whom
I was speaking a moment ago ? Barely a few thousands, who
can still painfully, by a hard toil, by a real exploitation of
themselves and their families, make the two ends meet. The
rest have fallen into the proletariate, or cultivate for some one
else's profit ; and this diminution of cultivating ownership in
consequence of insufficient capital, of partition due to the
laws on inheritance, of the ever-growing aggravation of fiscal
and military charges, is to be found indicated in the official
statistics. Here are the figures given upon this subject by
the last census. Taking into account only the ordinary forms
of cultivation, there were in 1880 out of every 100 hectares
of arable land 36 worked by the owner himself and 64 rented
for working. In 1 895 ownership by the cultivator sank to 31 hec-
tares in every hundred, against 69 per cent, which were rented.
Let us ask now what inference is to be drawn from the
facts which I have just set before you. From the point of
Economic view of distribution, Socialism (which aims at
cf f peasant umtm m tne same hands property and labour)
property. has no fault to find with peasant property. In
this case there is a wedlock of Property and Labour. The
cultivator is joined to his instrument of labour what he
produces is the result of his labour ; and from that all Socialists
agree in saying, that there is no ground for bringing pressure
to make peasant property come into the collective domain.
But if Socialists are unwilling to touch peasant property
E. VANDERVELDE 207
because it is closely associated with labour, because it is
fertilized by the sweat of the peasant they note, and every-
body must note, that the development of capitalism, the
progress of industry, and the rise in the value of land, under
the influence of towns, necessarily result in diminishing peasant
property, in restricting the area of soil occupied by cultivating
owners, in developing more and more cultivation by farmers
who pay rent. It is capitalistic agriculture alone which
furnishes sufficient capital to work the land in an intensive
manner, with perfected appliances; it is it which allows
agriculture to struggle against foreign competition and to
become, in a word, an industry like other industries ; to crush
this development (supposing it were possible to do so) would
be, as Pecqueur put it, to decree mediocrity all round.
Thus peasant property, equitable from the distributive
point of view, is open to serious criticism from the point of
view of production. And that brings me to speak capitalistic
of the other form of property in land capitalistic property,
property, worked by the cultivator no longer on his own
account, but under obligation to pay a rent to the owner of
the soil. We said just now that the only form of property
which can appear justifiable is property founded on work.
Well, who works on a great estate ? Is it the owner himself ?
He is seldom to be seen, except perhaps in the shooting
season. I see a farmer directing the business, I see agricultural
labourers toiling from morning till night ; these are the workers,
but they are not the owners of the property. On the contrary,
we remark the divorce of property and work on the one side,
a toiling rural population ; on the other, town-dwellers, whose
part is most often confined to pocketing the rents.
I know that extenuating circumstances are pleaded; that
according to some economists the recipient of rent for land is
not a parasite, but is on the contrary the fellow- Papt played
worker, the banker, even (as was said once by byiand-
M. de Bruyn, the Minister for Agriculture) the owners -
"nursing father" of farmers and agricultural labourers, Possibly
208 MODERN SOCIALISM
there are exceptions of this sort, possibly there are petits man-
tcaux bleus who play Providence for some farmers ; but the official
documents themselves, which are not suspected of Socialistic
bias, violently contradict those who regard landowners as pro-
vidential beings, as bankers given by nature to farmers and
agricultural labourers. I will take only a few examples. This
is how, in the Agricultural Investigation of 1886, which though
very incomplete contains things of interest, the Governor of
West Flanders expresses himself about the landowners in his
province
" All, or nearly all, live in a doles far niente, ignorant of most
of the elements of estate management, scarcely taking the
trouble to ascertain whether their properties are cultivated in
their own best interests ; if their rents are paid regularly, all is
well." (Question 10, p. 314.)
In this same Agricultural Investigation we could gather a
series of depositions of the same sort, but I prefer db uno
disce omnes to quote to you another fact, related in an interest-
ing pamphlet by one of the founders of the agricultural co-
operative society of Borsbeke near Alost. The farmers of this
village had formed themselves into a society, and had written
to their landowners to ask them to take some shares. All
these landowners without exception live outside the parish.
There were twenty of them only three took the trouble to
answer the farmers ; the rest sent no answer. One of them
even sent back the circular without stamping it, so that the
first expense of the society was in paying the postal charge
incurred by this protector of agriculture !
There is no need for me to go on quoting facts, for you
know better than any one, that in proportion as the owner of
the soil ceases to be the squire living with his peasantry and
becomes the monied man, the rick man of the towns, who as a
rule scarcely knows where the farms that he buys are, personal
relations between farmer and landlord become rarer and rarer ;
the parasitic function of the latter becomes more and more
clearly apparent ; and the position is the more open to criticism,
E. VANDERVELDE 209
because normally, when a country's population and industry
develop, the rent of land tends to increase, without the
landowners having to do anything to increase it the point
which Henry George has well brought out in his celebrated
book Progress and Poverty, where he studies The rise of
especially the phenomenon of the increase of rents rents,
in a new country like the United States. A town is founded ;
it requires food-products ; the land gets more valuable year by
year, and if you have had the luck to acquire a piece of soil,
you can, as George puts it, "/sit down and smoke your pipe ;
you can lie down like the lazzaroni of Naples or the leperos of
Mexico ; you can go up in a balloon or dig a hole in the earth ;
and without doing anything, without increasing the wealth of
the community one iota, in ten years you will be rich." By
the development of industrial civilization, by the growth of
population, rent rises, farm-rents go up, the landowner becomes
wealthy. And so it was in our old European countries until the
agricultural crisis of these last years. It is interesting to carry
one's self fifty years back to see how far the presentment of the
agrarian question differed from that of to-day. In 1853 the
Minister of the Interior remarked in the Belgian Chamber that
the food requirements of the population went on growing and
the dearth of cereals became greater and greater, while the
increase of imports was hopelessly slow. " From 1830 to 1839,"
said he, " our imports of cereals (rye and wheat) averaged 41
million hectolitres a year; from 1840 to 1852 this average rose
annually to 102 millions. If in the shade of peace the popu-
lation of Belgium continues to grow in the same propor-
tion, before ten years are out the shortage in our supply of
cereals I hardly dare state the figure will be about two
million hectolitres. I keep below the truth, that it may be
impossible to dispute my figure." (Ann. Par I. Chambre des
Repr'esentantS) Nov. 25, 1853.) At that time, then, the agrarian
question meant the insufficient production of cereals and other
food-stuffs. There was not enough bread to go round; in-
dustrial wages were not rising, or even were falling ; agricultural
p
2io MODERN SOCIALISM
wages remained at a deplorably low level; but the demand
for agricultural products went on increasing constantly, and
the rents for farms went up, up, continually up, even during
the famine in Flanders, so that at that time one certainly might
have said of the Belgian landowners, what Ricardo said of land-
owners in general, that they formed the only class in society whose
interests were opposed to those of the rest of the population.
This rise of farm-rents under the influence of the develop-
ment of industry continues till the time when the progress of
The Agpicul- the transport industry entirely alters the situation,
turai crisis. an d the competition of foreign corn imported from
the United States, from India, and from Russia, effects in our
rural districts ravages more terrible than the Cossack invasions,
the Ganges epidemics, or the storms which come over the
Atlantic. Thenceforward farm-rents fall, rent of land goes
steadily down, the agricultural crisis becomes more and more
painful, and soon the development of land transport begins to
accentuate it still further. You know that since 1870 the
Belgian Government 1 has instituted special railway rates for
Workmen's workmen. In 1870 industrial prosperity was in
trains. full swing. Urban manufacturers and managers
of collieries were crying out for cheap labour. It was hoped
that trade-union opposition would be broken down, if rural
labourers were drawn in by a serious reduction in the passenger
rates such a reduction that to-day the Belgian State may be
said to carry workmen for almost nothing. Have you ever
had the curiosity to take up the railway guide and see what it
costs a workman to travel, for instance, 50 kilometres? For
a single journey there and back the ordinary traveller pays
3 francs 5 centimes, whilst a workman, for six journeys
there and back with his weekly ticket, only pays 2 francs 25
centimes. He pays less, therefore, for six journeys than the
ordinary traveller for a single journey. What is the result?
Thousands and thousands of labourers, not finding a sufficient
livelihood in the country, not having ready to hand local
1 The Belgian railways are State-owned and State-managed.
E. VANDERVELDE 211
industries or large farms which can employ them, not finding
work in winter since the introduction of threshing-machines,
have acquired the habit of going every day to work in towns or
industrial centres. I asked the Minister of Railways to supply me
with the statistics for workmen's tickets from year to year since
1870; here are the figures which he has kindly furnished :
Year. Number of weekly tickets.
1870 14,223
1875 I93>675
1880 335o56
1885 . . . x . . . 667,522
1890 1,018,383
1895 1,759,025
1897 l 2,699,594
There must be further added to these figures the workmen's
tickets issued by the North Belgian company, the local railways,
etc. ; add to that the 45,000 agricultural labourers who go off
every year to work in foreign countries ; and you will come
to conclude that over 100,000 Belgian proletarians, while
continuing to live in the country, have really become industrial
proletarians, manual workers, absent during half the year.
They have still a strip of land which they own, or, more
frequently, rent ; in the statistics they are counted as farmers.
In reality they are labourers, proletarians in every sense of
the term ; and we have to ask, what, from the point of view
of cultivation, have been the effects of such a change.
On the one hand, foreign competition comes in and lowers
rentals to some extent (although in many districts the lowering
of rent has not corresponded to the fall in prices), and on the
other hand, the labourers go off townwards and work in indus-
trial centres, and agricultural labour becomes increasingly rare,
and, in virtue of the laws of supply and demand, increasingly
dear. The results of this double phenomenon, changes in
from the point of view of culture, are strikingly cultivation,
apparent in the last agricultural census. But they are not the
same in all districts. If, for instance, we take the province of
1 In 1900 the figure reached was 4,515,214.
212
MODERN SOCIALISM
Luxembourg, the Ardennes district, we note that the number
of tiny plots of less than 2 hectares is diminishing, and the
number of large farms of over 50 hectares is diminishing no
less, while that of middle-sized areas of cultivation is on the
increase. What does this mean? Why do the tiny plots
diminish ? Because, the means of transport being little
developed in Luxembourg, the labourers, instead of going off
every day into the towns or industrial centres, are obliged to
reside there permanently and give up their bit of land. Why
do the large farms diminish ? Because agricultural labourers
are no longer to be had, because they are very expensive, and
because these conditions render it more advantageous to sub-
divide cultivation and to create farms of small or moderate
size, which are worked by the farmer with the help of his
family. Thus industrial capitalism more and more pumps the
living forces out of the country, and the result is that in certain
districts cultivation by families is developing ; but it is quite
otherwise in districts with developed transport facilities, where
labourers easily go off to the town and return home every
evening. In that case the opposite phenomenon shows itself.
In Hainaut, for instance, between 1889 and 1895 small and
middle-sized areas diminished, whereas there was an increase
of tiny plots cultivated by labourers, agricultural or industrial,
and also a very marked increase of large farms (those over 50
hectares). If we now consider the country as a whole, the
two censuses of 1880 and 1895 supply us with the following
figures for comparison :
1880.
1895.
Acres of cultivation under 50 ares .
,, ,, ,, from 50 ares to 2 hectares
,, ,, ,, 2 to IO hectares
10 to 50 hectares
,, ,, over 50 hectares
472,471
238,092
158,261
38,169
3,403
458,120
176,233
150,586
32,065
3>584
910,396
820,588
E. VANDERVELDE 213
So there is a diminution under every head except that of large
farms, of over 50 hectares. But if the statements of the
Minister of Agriculture are to be trusted, this diminution is
only apparent so far as concerns areas of less than two
hectares: in 1880 there were included in the list very many
infinitesimal plots which in 1895 were left out - Conversely,
there appears to be no doubt that the number of large areas
has perceptibly increased: 3,403 in 1880; 3,584 in 1895.
Thus we have reached in these last years a turning-point
in our agricultural evolution. Till now, the subdivision of
areas of cultivation was constantly on the increase. i n( i us t r iaii-
Belgium was becoming more and more the land zation of
of cultivation on a small, even a minute, scale. a e piculture -
For the last fifteen years we see cultivation on the large scale
gaining, and farms of over 50 hectares becoming more
numerous. This seems to me to result from the fact that
agriculture is coming more and more to be an industry like
the other industries, which, as a rule, it is advantageous to
exploit on a large scale. Certainly for all districts and all
kinds of cultivation this is not the case. I readily admit that
the question is infinitely more complicated when it is a matter of
cultivation than when it is one of industry, properly so called.
All the same, what cannot be disputed is the progressive
intensification of agriculture, the development of the use of
machinery in a word, the increase of fixed capital in com-
parison with fluctuating (i.e. in comparison with capital for
paying manual labour) ; agriculture is being industrialized ;
arable land is turned into pasture ; we see the multiplication
of agricultural industries distilling, sugar-making, the manu-
facture of butter, of chicory, of syrups, etc.; and in conse-
quence of this transformation, more and more the population
of the rural districts is splitting into two quite distinct classes.
You see there a growing proletariate, made up of agricultural
labourers, who are the minority ; industrial labourers, who go
off daily to work elsewhere ; and what may be called half-and-
half labourers, half agricultural, half industrial, working in the
214 MODERN SOCIALISM
sugar factories at certain periods, harvesting at others, going
to the collieries in winter, to resume work in the fields in
the spring. It is just because of the development of this
proletariate that we find in the country districts audiences
open to our ideas and favourable to our programme.
I should like, in conclusion, to point out to you the guiding
The Socialist principles of this programme, apologizing for my
programme, inroads upon your attention, while keenly regretting
that for lack of time I must confine myself to a few short
outlines.
Let me first summarize the considerations which I have
submitted to you thus far. Peasant property seems to us
Socialism inferior from the productive standpoint to capi-
pertyhT talistic property, while from the distributive stand-
land, point it is superior. The capitalistic evolution
tends to make it disappear, but Socialism has not to aim at
expropriating it. On the other hand, Socialism pronounces a
decidedly adverse verdict upon capitalistic property ; and in
all our congresses (notably at the International Congress in
London) we have agreed unanimously in demanding the
collective appropriation of the land, as well as of the other
means of production. But when we come to the means of
realizing this ideal, the question presents itself differently in
different countries. In a country like England, for instance,
and above all, like Scotland, where property in land is
otherwise concentrated, it is quite natural that theorists who
are not even Socialists bourgeois economists like H. George
or Wallace should demand at once the socialization, national-
ization, of the land. As to the means of realizing the change,
I will confine myself to outlining the solution suggested by
Colins and his school. They think that there are reasons
for bringing the land into collective ownership before the
instruments of labour are brought, and to indemnify the
capitalistic landowners they suggest a tax of 25 per cent,
on collateral inheritances and testamentary successions, plus a
tax (the percentage to be determined) on inheritances which
E. VANDERVELDE 215
descend in a direct line. The percentage, of course, is
immaterial to the theory : the question would need examining
in the light of circumstances of time and place ; all I retain at
this moment is the root idea of the Colins school, which is to
buy up the land with the yield from taxes on inheritance, and
to let it out by auction either to individuals or to associations.
The Colins system does not imply at this point any transforma-
tion of the capitalistic regime as a whole. Capital remains
private property ; only the land, the basis of all Land
industry and all agriculture, belongs to society col- national-
lectively, and the sections of it are let to individuals 2
or associations for the profit of all, instead of, as now, for that of
a few landowners. There would be only one alteration ; the
farmer, instead of paying rent for land to an individual, would
pay it to society as a whole, and this payment would help to
reduce all the burdens which weigh on the members of society.
The receipt of farm and other rents by the State would
correspondingly lower taxation.
According to Colins, this expropriation of the landowner
should come before the expropriation of capitalists properly
so-called; but most modern Socialists, and notably those of
Marx's school, think this procedure a mistake. Their view is
that landed property represents but a comparatively inconsider-
able part of social capital as a whole. In this opinion the
first steps should be taken against the great industries which
are ripe for collectivism those which already form a virtual
monopoly and, in a word, realize the maximum of capitalistic
concentration. Herr Kautsky, in the book which he has
recently published on the agrarian question (Die Agrar-
frage\ flatly condemns the resumption of the land by the
State under a capitalist regime. His standpoint is pre-eminently
German, and he thinks that in Germany the substitution of
the State for the landlords would be a permanent menace to
public liberty. Evidently the same danger does not exist, or
at least does not exist in the same degree, in countries with
liberal or democratic institutions like Switzerland or England ;
216 MODERN SOCIALISM
and therefore, wherever ownership is concentrated in a few
hands, we see many theorists and reformers declaring for the
immediate socialization of the soil and the agencies of Nature.
As for the particular case of Belgium, there are at any rate
some portions of the land which ought, without delay, to
become the property of society. Thus, for example, many
bourgeois economists themselves agree with us in recognizing
that the ownership of the forests ought to belong to the
State rather than to private persons. So, too, with the com-
mon lands, which many good thinkers who are not Socialists
would like to see conserved, extended, and put to good use.
Recently even our Minister of Agriculture has objected to the
squandering of common lands, and has declared that in future
the Government will no longer authorize parishes to alienate
them.
Lastly, what would, from the cultivator's point of view,
present very great advantages, would be the taking over of the
Socializa- great agricultural industries, and notably of the
Cultural* 14 " *hree wmcn are manifestly evolving in the collec-
industries. tivist direction dairying, distilling, and sugar-
making.
As for dairying, the evolution is quite marked. 1 Co-
operative societies are formed, grouped, federated ; recently
I Dair in ^^ ^ ave ^ oun( ^ e ^ tne Dairy Association, which
"" you all know ; and it may be foreseen that we shall
shortly witness the formation of a vast trust, the " Belgian
Dairies," which will be organized on co-operative, instead of
capitalistic foundations. If this evolution goes on in its
present form, and capitalism does not get possession of the
dairying industry, it will be an interesting example of spon-
taneous collectivism, of the socialization of industry realized
1 In 1899 there were 298 co-operative dairies in Belgium, with 34,205
members ; in 1900 the figures had risen to 356 and 40,706. In the latter
year the members per society averaged 114; the sales per member, 510
francs (20 8s.); the number of cows kept per member, 271 (showing
what small cultivators the co-operators are).
E. VANDERVELDE 217
by the people interested, with State advice and intervention.
If it is otherwise, and capitalism gets the better of co-operative
industry, we shall then be confronted by the problem of ex-
propriation, which confronts us in the case of the sugar
factories and distilleries.
I need not demonstrate to you what an advantage it
would be for country people to be delivered from the capi-
talistic monopoly, with which a small number of u ThQ
sugar manufacturers burden them. Further, the sugar
workers of the sugar factories will obtain the industry '
advantages which the State's employees secure. Nor can it
be doubted that, from the tax-payer's point of view, it would
be wholly an advantage that the profits of the sugar industry,
instead of belonging to a few, should be reaped by the whole
community. Perhaps it will be objected that the sugar in-
dustry's golden age is over, and that it needs, in order to hold
its ground, fiscal privileges, said to be conferred on it much
less on behalf of the capitalists interested than on behalf of
agriculturists. But if so, it is one more reason for entrusting
the guardianship of agricultural interests to the community
itself, rather than to private individuals, who too often take
advantage of it in order to exploit the cultivators.
In the case of the distilleries the question becomes still
more simple ; for, thanks to M. de Smet de Naeyer, the position
of the distilleries is such that for some months we m. The
have witnessed the extraordinary spectacle of the distilleries,
distillers themselves asking to be saved by being bought out.
In short, for agricultural as for all other industries, the
concentration of capital leads, we believe, to the need of
socializing the means of production.
But while that is our ideal, and we regard collectivism as
the final result, the logical outcome, of the industrial and
agricultural evolution, we at the same time take our stand for
immediate measures, and energetically demand that some-
thing be done to protect the agricultural labourer, who, in the
society of to-day, might be called "the man whom no one
218 MODERN SOCIALISM
remembers." Some time after the disturbances of March,
1886, the former deputy for Waremme, the late M. Cartuy-
Proteetion vels, said to the Chamber : " The industrial
cultural workmen obtain protection by law, and on all sides
labourers, suggestions are made for measures to better their
lot. Why? Because they show their teeth; because they
protest ; because they organize. But what has been done for
the agricultural labourers ? Nothing." These words, which
were only too true fifteen years ago, may be said again to-day.
We have in the Chamber an agricultural group which ener-
getically defends the interests of the large farmers and the
landowners. As a rule, the Conservatives neglect the interests
of the agricultural labourers ; but it is they to whom the
Socialists before all appeal, and whom they especially aspire
to win over. I know that among these workers, bowed
beneath the weight of immemorial domination, propaganda
will be difficult. They are not like the industrial workman,
the proletarian completely sundered from the instruments
with which he works, robbed of the prospect of ever getting
a share in the ownership of the means of production, con-
demned to remain a proletarian for ever, and for that very
reason making his ideal, not the acquisition of private property,
but the conquest of social property. On the contrary, in the
agricultural labourer there are, so to say, two contradictory
spirits : the spirit of the small peasant who has still his plot
of land, owned or rented, and the spirit of the proletarian
working on a capitalist's account. The first makes him a
Conservative, inclined to religion and resignation ; the second
makes him accessible to Socialism ; and the latter only over-
comes the former in so far as capitalism overcomes the
primitive forms of ownership and cultivation.
The driving force in this transformation is the development
Revolution ^ industry. ^ ls industry which has caused the
effected by common land to disappear, which has killed by
industry. i ts com p e tition the small industries of the home
and the farm, which has provoked the agricultural crisis
E. VANDERVELDE 219
by flooding our markets with foreign corn, which has drawn
off to the town (the " cuttle-fish town ") the great mass of rural
labourers ; but it is industry also which is rationalizing agricul-
ture, perfecting its methods in short, revolutionizing agricultural
technique. Bebel once said, " Wherever a factory chimney rises,
there you will see Socialists being made." In the same way
wherever agricultural capitalism develops and splits the popu-
lation of the countrysides into two classes, Socialism follows
capitalism like a shadow, and wins over, not only this rural pro-
letariate which bears the vrhole weight of our present society on its
shoulders, but also the small cultivators and landowners, whose
position is often more wretched than that of the labourers them-
selves. And lastly, just as industrial Socialism has won over
individuals in the bourgeois class who had no personal interest
in fighting the people's battle, so we strongly hope that agri-
cultural Socialism will enter the heads of many large farmers,
who will understand that parasitic ownership must disappear
and they themselves be set free when their labourers are.
XVI
SOCIALISM AND AGRICULTURE AS OFFICI-
ALLY REGARDED BY THE GERMAN
SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY
RESOLUTION ADOPTED BY THE FRANKFORT CONGRESS
(1894) ON THE AGRARIAN QUESTION
This resolution was moved by G. von Vollmar and Dr. Bruno
Schoenlank. Its notable feature is its idea that Socialism should
take sides with the peasant proprietor against the forces crushing
him.
THE agrarian question is the product of the modern economic
system. The more home agriculture becomes dependent on
the world-market and the international competition of all
agricultural countries, the more it enters the sphere of influence
of capitalistic production of commodities, banking, and usury,
the more quickly is the agrarian question aggravated into the
agrarian crisis.
In Prussian Germany the agricultural employing class, which
is not distinct in essence from the great industrial capitalists,
fights by the side of the rural nobility. This nobility is only
maintained artificially by bounties, protective duties, rebates
on exports, and privileges in respect of taxation. In spite of
all, the Junker-farming 1 east of the Elbe is largely over-
1 The Junkers are the Prussian squirearchy, who owe their dispro-
portionate political influence to the fact that they supply the Prussian army
with its officers.
220
THE GERMAN PARTY 221
indebted through bad agriculture, partition of inheritances, and
arrears of purchase-money, and its doom is sealed.
To this must be added the constantly accentuated cleavage
between the great landowners and the class of small peasants.
The latter is tottering, burdened with military service and
heavy taxes, hampered by mortgages and personal debts, and
oppressed on all sides. For it protective duties are only an
empty show. This fiscal policy cramps the purchasing power
of the labouring class, and restricts the peasant's market. The
peasant is becoming proletarized.
On the other hand, the class opposition between rural em-
ployers and rural workers is developed more and more clearly.
From this has resulted a rural working-class. It is bound by
feudal laws, which deny to its members the right of combination,
and place them under the " Ordinance of Servants," while they
no longer enjoy the old patriarchal relations, which gave them, as
belonging to their masters, a definitely assured existence. The
intermediate classes, day-labourers with small holdings, dwarf
peasants who are driven to wage-earning to supplement their
resources, sink, in spite of all apparent reforms, into the class
of the rural proletariate. With uncertainty of gain, wage-
pressure and bad management, and the increase of travelling
labourers, the cleavage between landed capital and rural
labour grows ; and the class-consciousness of the rural worker
awakens.
Hence the great need that the Social Democracy shall occupy
itself in the most serious manner with the agrarian question.
The preliminary for this is a detailed knowledge of the agri-
cultural situation. As in Germany this varies technically,
economically, and socially, our propaganda must match it
and be varied to suit the peculiarities of the country people.
The agrarian question, as a necessary ingredient of the
social question, will only be finally solved when the land, with
all the means of work, is given back to the producers, who now
as wage-workers or small peasantry cultivate it in the service
of capitalists. But at present the necessitous condition of the
222 MODERN SOCIALISM
rural worker must be alleviated by fundamental reforms. The
immediate object of the party is to formulate a special pro-
gramme of agrarian policy, explaining and completing the
immediate demands of the Erfurt Programme, which are very
advantageous for the peasants as well as for the country
labourers, in an exposition adapted to the comprehension of
the rural population.
The law protecting peasants ought to safeguard the peasant,
whether as taxpayer, debtor, or agriculturist.
The law protecting rural labourers should afford the rural
labourer the right of combination and of public meeting ;
should place him on a level with the industrial workers
(removal of the Ordinance of Servants); and by special
protective social legislation (as to work-time, conditions of
work and inspectorates) should safeguard him from unbridled
exploitation.
A special Agrarian Committee is to lay its proposals before
the next Congress.
The Committee appointed was a very strong and representative
one. It divided Germany into three areas, and itself into three sub-
committees, who drew up for the Breslau Congress (1895) the
following three draft programmes :
DRAFT PROGRAMME OF THE SUB-COMMITTEE FOR
NORTH GERMANY.
The sub-committee consisted of Bebel, Liebknecht, Molkenbuhr,
Schippel, and Schoenlank ; the area which they considered was that
east of the Elbe.
1. Organization by the (Imperial) State of loans on mort-
gage. Interest on loans to cover costs only.
2. Organization by the (Imperial) State of the insurance
of movable and immovable property against fire, hail, or
floods, and the insurance of cattle.
3. Construction and maintenance of public streets, roads,
and watercourses by the (Imperial) State.
THE GERMAN PARTY 223
4. The maintenance of common property (common lands),
and common rights over water, woods, and pasture.
5. Transformation of property in mortmain, of lands
belonging to institutions and churches, into public property.
Abolition of fideicommissa.
6. Founding of compulsory co-operative societies for
improvements, irrigation, and draining ; and support of these
co-operative societies by State loans.
7. The establishment of public technical agricultural
schools and experimental stations, and the holding of regular
lectures upon agriculture.' Teaching, school appliances, and
maintenance free.
8. Lowering of the rates for personal and goods traffic.
9. Transference to the public of all private forests. Free
sporting rights on lands owned or rented. Full compensation
for all damages done in hunting and by game.
10. Chambers of Agriculture, where all persons engaged
in agriculture shall be on an equal footing.
11. Agricultural arbitration courts for the settlement of
all disputes arising out of conditions of wages, work, or
service.
12. Compulsory insurance against sickness of workmen
and servants, and also of independent cultivators whose
income does not exceed 2000 marks (^100).
13. Veterinary attendance and medicines without charge.
DRAFT PROGRAMME OF THE SUB-COMMITTEE FOR
CENTRAL GERMANY.
The sub-committee was composed of Bock, Hug:, Katzenstein,
Schulze, and Dr. Quarck. The area examined included Saxony,
Thuringia, Oldenburg-, Brunswick, Westphalia, and Hanover.
After the concluding section of the Erfurt Programme the
following is to be added :
In the interest of the small peasants and rural labourers,
as well as to preserve and develop agricultural production :
224 MODERN SOCIALISM
1. Retention and increase of public property in land
(every kind of State and communal property municipal
lands, commons, common forest, etc.) under control of the
popularly elected bodies ; abolition of all laws and ordinances
promoting sub-division and alienation ; communes to be given
a right of pre-emption in respect of the lands of bankrupts sold
by auction.
2. Farming of their domains by the State and communes
on their own account ; or lease of them to co-operative asso-
ciations of agricultural labourers or peasants farming per-
sonally, under State and communal inspection ; clearing and
improvement of domains; creation of irrigation works;
encouragement of forestry, tillage, horticulture, and grass
culture ; improvement of cattle ; care of water-supply and
rural transport; establishment and support of agricultural
colleges ; compulsory continuation schools, and model farms,
with instruction and materials provided free of charge by the
State or the communes.
3. Nationalization of mortgages and landed debts.
4. Nationalization of every branch of agricultural insurance ;
maximum extension of this to all branches of work ; gratuitous
veterinary service ; and State grants to those impoverished by
devastating natural occurrences.
5. Maintenance and extension of the existing rights of
forestry and turbary, to be equally shared by all members of a
commune ; right of purchasing leafage, firewood, and timber
from State and communal woods at fixed prices; prevention
of or, as the case may be, full compensation for damage done
by game ; sport to be free, and harmful animals to be exter-
minated.
6. Restriction and gradual abolition of the dependence of
farm produce upon middlemen,, by support of the co-operative
system and purchase of produce needed for public purposes,
by preference from the producers.
7. Removal of the land-tax.
8. Right of the tenant farmer, if the net yield persistently
THE GERMAN PARTY 22$
deteriorates, or severe natural damages are incurred, to demand
the reduction of his rent by an agricultural arbitration court.
9. Extension of legislation protecting workmen, and the
right of combination, to agriculture; State supervision of all
agricultural businesses ; rural arbitration courts j investigation
and regulation of rural conditions of employment and work
by an imperial Agricultural Department, district agricultural
bureaux, and chambers of agriculture.
10. Abolition of all public privileges connected with
private possession of land, and suppression of property-
districts.
DRAFT PROGRAMME OF THE SUB-COMMITTEE FOR
SOUTH GERMANY.
The sub-committee consisted of Sassier, Birk, Eduard David,
Geek, and Von Vollmar ; the area which it examined included Baden,
Bavaria, the Palatinate, and Wiirtemberg.
In regard to the agrarian question, the Social Demo-
cratic party of Germany makes the following immediate
demands :
1. Systematic organization of national food-supply by the
State, which is progressively to increase its influence over
agricultural production and the marketing of its produce.
2. Prohibition of the sale of public property in land
(belonging to communes, corporations, or the State).
3. Owners of giant properties (latifundia) to be expro-
priated ; the larger estates to be subject to the rules of the law
protecting industrial workers, as well as to the State-inspection
of its machinery and working.
4. Abolition of all magisterial functions connected with
landed property and other privileges, such as independent pro-
perty districts, privileges on representative bodies, patronage,
fidei-com?nissa, etc.
5. Progressive nationalization of debts secured on land, and
the whole credit system, with a lowering of the rate of interest.
Q
226 MODERN SOCIALISM
The State to acquire rights over agricultural products. Peasant
properties sold by auction on bankruptcy to be purchased up
to the limit of their appraised value by the communes; the
procedure may be proposed by the debtor himself, to whom,
if solvent, the land may be leased.
6. Agricultural land owned by the State to be applied to
the establishment of model farms, to the enlargement of the
property of communes, and also to the leasing of land at its
economic rent to lessees cultivating it personally. Such allot-
ments are to be calculated to provide the cultivator's family
with their entire subsistence.
7. Establishment of extensive agricultural colleges in con-
nection with the model farms, for gratuitous technical education.
8. State loans to be given to communes to purchase and
manage estates of tenure, to reclaim wastes, to improve the
soil, the breed of cattle, and all other branches of farming, and
to encourage co-operation under State inspection.
9. Purchase of the agricultural products required for the
provisioning of public institutions, of suitable quality, direct
from the producers.
10. Regulation of private contracts of tenancy, according
to the value of the yield from time to time, and compensation
for outlay incurred by tenant farmers for the improvement of
the soil.
11. Nationalization of every branch of agricultural insur-
ance, and State intervention in cases of impoverishment through
devastating natural occurrences.
12. Uncurtailed maintenance of existing rights over forests
and heaths. Prevention of, or, as the case may be, full com-
pensation for damage done by game.
13. Complete legal equalization of agricultural labourers
with industrial wage-workers. Settlement of all disputes arising
out of conditions of work by arbitration courts, to be composed
in equal parts of workers and employers.
14. Bureaux and Chambers of Agriculture, in which pro-
prietors, tenants, and workers participate on an equal footing,
THE GERMAN PARTY 227
to investigate and regulate conditions of work, wages, tenancy,
and industry, and to represent all professional interests.
All these draft programmes, but especially the South German one
inspired by Von Vollmar, encountered extreme opposition as soon
as they were published, because of their attempt to prop the small
independent cultivators. At the Breslau Congress every compromise
or modification of this idea was rejected, and the following resolution,
moved by Kautsky, became the official expression of the party's
attitude.
The draft Agrarian Programme proposed by the Agrarian
Commission is to be rejected, because it sets before the eyes
of the peasantry the improvement of their position, that is, the
confirmation of their private ownership; it proclaims the
interest of agriculture in the modem social system to be an
interest of the proletariate ; and yet the interest of agriculture,
like that of industry, is, under the rule of private property in
the means of production, an interest of the possessor of the
means of production, who exploits the proletariate. Further,
the draft Agrarian Programme suggests new weapons for the
State of the exploiting class, and thereby renders the class-war
of the proletariate more difficult ; and, lastly, it sets before the
capitalistic State objects which can only be usefully carried
out by a State in which the proletariate has captured political
power.
The Congress recognizes that agriculture has its peculiar
laws, differing from those of industry, which must be studied
and considered if the Social Democracy is to develop an
extended operation in rural districts. It therefore suggests to
the Committee of the party that, having regard to the impetus
already given by the Agrarian Committee, it might entrust a
number of suitable persons with the task of undertaking a
fundamental study of the matter available concerning German
agrarian conditions, and publishing the results of this study in
a series of articles as a " Collection of works on agrarian policy
by the Social Democratic party of Germany."
The Committee of the party is fully empowered to make
228 MODERN SOCIALISM
the necessary expenditure to enable the comrades entrusted
with the work in question to complete their task. 1
1 Little has since been done officially ; but two important works have
appeared, Kautsky's Die Agrarfrage (1898), against peasant proprietorship,
and Dr. Eduard David's Socialismus und Landwirthschaft (1903), in favour
of it. Both writers have kept up, with others, a considerable debate in the
party's journals.
XVII
THE FREE TRADE CONTROVERSY IN RELA-
TION TO INDUSTRIAL PARASITISM AND
THE POLICY OF A NATIONAL MINIMUM
BY SIDNEY AND BEATRICE WEBB
This striking dissertation appeared as an appendix to Mr. and
Mrs. Webb's Industrial Democracy (1897). For the subject, cp.
Introduction, pp. xxix-xxxi ; and for the authors, cp. supra, p. 90.
THE existence of parasitic trades supplies the critic of inter-
national Free Trade with an argument which has not yet been
adequately met To the enlightened patriot, ambitious for
the utmost possible development of his country, it has always
seemed a drawback to Free Trade, that it tended, to a greater
or lesser extent, to limit his fellow-countrymen's choice of
occupation. Thus, one community, possessing great mineral
wealth, might presently find a large proportion of its population
driven underground ; another might see itself doomed to be-
come the mere stock-yard and slaughter-house of the world ;
whilst the destiny of a third might be to have its countryside de-
populated, and the bulk of its citizens engaged in the manufac-
ture, in the slum tenements of great cities, of cheap boots and
ready-made clothing for the whole habitable globe. To this
contention the answer has usually been that the specialization
of national function, whilst never likely to be carried to an
extreme, was economically advantageous all round. Such a
reply ignores the possibility of industrial parasitism. If
229
230 MODERN SOCIALISM
unfettered freedom of trade ensured that each nation would
retain the industry in which its efficiency was highest, and its
potentialities were greatest, this international "division of
labour " might be accepted as the price to be paid for getting
every commodity with the minimum of labour. But under
unfettered freedom of competition there is, as we have seen,
no such guarantee. Within a trade, one district may drive all
the rest out of the business, not by reason of any genuine
advantage in productive efficiency, but merely because the
workers in the successful district get some aid from the rates
or from other sources. Within a community, too, unless care
be taken to prevent any kind of parasitism, one trade or one
process may flourish and expand at the expense of all the rest,
not because it is favoured by natural advantages or acquired
capacity, but merely by reason of some sort of "bounty."
Under Free Trade the international pressure for cheapness is
always tending to select, as the speciality of each nation in
the world-market, those of its industries in which the employers
can produce most cheaply. If each trade were self-supporting,
the increased efficiency of the regulated trades would bring
these easily to the top, notwithstanding (or rather, in conse-
quence of) the relatively high wages, short hours, and good
sanitary conditions enjoyed by their operatives. If, however,
the employers in some trades can obtain labour partially
subsisted from other sources, or if they are free to use up in
their service not only the daily renewed energy, but also the
capital value of successive relays of deteriorating workers, they
may well be able to export more cheaply than the self-support-
ing trades, to the detriment of these, and of the community
itself. And this, as we have seen, is the direct result of the
very freedom of Individual Bargaining on which the Free
Traders rely. Indeed, if we follow out to its logical conclusion
the panacea of unlimited freedom of competitive industry both
within the country and without, we arrive at a state of things
in which, out of all the various trades that each community
pursues, those might be "selected" for indefinite expansion,
SIDNEY AND BEATRICE WEBB 231
and for the supply of the world-market, in which the employers
enjoyed the advantage of the greatest bounty; those, for
instance, which were carried on by operatives assisted from
other classes, or, still worse, those supplied with successive
relays of necessitous wage-earners standing at such a dis-
advantage in the sale of their labour that they obtained in return
wages so low and conditions so bad as to be positively insuffi-
cient to maintain them permanently in health and efficiency.
Instead of a world in which each community devoted itself
to what it could do best, we should get, with the " sweated
trades," a world in which each community did that which
reduced its people to the lowest degradation. Hence the
Protectionist is right when he asserts that, assuming unfettered
individual competition within each community, international
free trade may easily tend, not to a good, but to an exceedingly
vicious international division of labour.
The criticism is not dealt with, so far as we are aware, in
any of the publications of the Cobden Club, nor by the
economic defenders of the Free Trade position. Thus
Professor Bastable, in his lucid exposition of The Theory of
International Trade (2nd edition, London, 1897), assumes
throughout that the prices of commodities in the home
market, and thus their relative export, will vary according to
the actual " cost of production," instead of merely according
to their " expenses of production," to the capitalist entrepreneur.
Yet it is evidently not the sum of human efforts and sacrifices
involved in the production that affects the import or export
trade, but simply the expenses that production involves to the
capitalist. The absence of any reference to the possibility of
the cheapness being due to underpaid (because subsidized or
deteriorating) labour, enables Professor Bastable optimistically
to infer (p. 18) that " the rule is that each nation exports those
commodities for the production of which it is specially suited.''
Similarly Lord Farrer, in The State in its Relation to Trade
(London, 1883), when stating the argument against Protection,
simply assumes (p. 134) that the industry for which the country
232 MODERN SOCIALISM
is specially suited pays higher wages than others. " One
thing is certain, viz. that we cannot buy the French or Swiss
ribbons without making and selling something which we can
make better and cheaper than ribbons, and which consequently
brings more profit to our manufacturer, and better wages to our
workmen? And Mr. B. R. Wise, seeking in his Industrial
Freedom to revise and restate the Free Trade argument in the
light of practical experience, is driven to warn his readers that
" it cannot be too often repeated that the competition of
abstract political economy that competition through which
alone political economy has any pretension to the character
of a science is a competition between equal units," . . . and
nothing could be further from the truth than to suppose that
" free competition " in the labour market bore any resemblance
to the competition between equal units that the current
expositions of Free Trade theory required. 1
But though the existence of parasitic trades knocks the
bottom out of the argument for lai sser faire, it adcls no weight
to the case for a protective tariff. What the protectionist is
concerned about is the contraction of some of his country's
industries ; the evil revealed by our analysis is the expansion
of certain others. The advocate of a protective tariff aims at
excluding imports ; the opponent of " sweating," on the other
hand, sees with regret the rapid growth of particular exports,
which imply the extension within the country of its most highly
subsidized or most parasitic industries. Hence, whatever
ingenious arguments may be found in favour of a protective
tariff, 2 such a remedy fails altogether to cope with this
1 B. R. Wise, Industrial Freedom (London, 1882), pp. 13, 15.
* For any adequate presentment of the case against international free
trade, the student must turn to Germany or the United States, notably to
Friedrich List, The National System of Political Economy, published in
Germany in 1841, and translated by Sampson Lloyd (London, 1885), and
the works of H. C. Carey. The arguments of List and Carey were
popularized in America by such writers as Professor R. E. Thompson,
Politifal Economy with Especial Reference to the Industrial History of
Nations (Philadelphia, 1882) ; H. M. Hoyt, Protection and Free Trade
SIDNEY AND BEATRICE WEBB 233
particular evil. If the expansion of the industries which England
pursues to the greatest economic advantage say, for instance,
coal mining and shipbuilding, textile manufacture and machine-
making is being checked, this is not because coal and ships,
textiles and machinery are being imported into England from
abroad, but because other less advantageous industries, within
England itself, by reason of being favoured with some kind of
bounty, have secured the use of some of the nation's brains
and capital, and some of its export trade. This diversion
would clearly not be counteracted by putting an import duty
on the small and exceptional amounts of coal and shipping,
textiles and machinery that we actually import, for this would
leave unchecked the expansion of the subsidized trades, which
if the subsidy were only large enough, might go on absorbing
more and more of the nation's brains and capital, and more
and more of its export trade. To put it concretely, England
might find its manufactures and its exports composed, in
increasing proportions, of slop clothing, cheap furniture and
knives, and the whole range of products of the sweated trades,
to the detriment of its present staple industries of cotton and
coal, ships and machinery. In the same way, every other
country might find its own manufactures and its own exports
increasingly made up of the products of its own parasitic trades.
In short, the absolute exclusion by each country of the imports
competing with its own products would not, any more than
Free Trade itself, prevent the expansion within the country of
those industries which afforded to its wage-earners the worst
conditions of employment. 1
the Scientific Validity and Economic Operation of Defensive Duties in the
United States i 3rd edition (New York, 1886) ; whilst another line has been
taken by Francis Bowen, American Political Economy. The whole position
has been restated by Professor Patten, in The Economic Basis of Protection
(Philadelphia, 1890), and other suggestive works which deserve more
attention in England.
1 It is unnecessary to notice the despairing suggestion that a protective
duty should be placed on the products of the sweated trades themselves.
But these, as we have seen (if they are really parasitic industries like the
234 MODERN SOCIALISM
A dim inkling of this result of international competition is
at the back of recent proposals for the international application
of the Device of the Common Rule. During the past seven
years statesmen have begun to feel their way towards an
international uniformity of factory legislation, so as to make
all cotton mills, for instance, work identical hours, and work-
men are aspiring to an international Trade Unionism, by
means of which, for example, the coalminers, cotton-operatives,
glass-workers, or dock- labourers of the world might simul-
taneously move for better conditions. If, indeed, we could
arrive at an International Minimum of education and sanitation,
leisure and wages, below which no country would permit any
section of its manual workers to be employed in any trade
whatsoever, industrial parasitism would be a thing of the past.
But internationalism of this sort a " zollverein based on a
universal Factory Act and Fair Wages clause " is obviously
Utopian. What is not so generally understood, either by
statesmen or by Trade Unionists, is that international uni-
formity of conditions within a particular trade, which is all
that is ever contemplated, would do little or nothing to remedy
the evil of industrial parasitism. In this matter, as in others, a
man's worst foes are those of his own household. Let us
imagine, for instance, that, by an international Factory Act, all
the cotton mills in the world were placed upon a uniform basis
of hours and child-labour, sanitation, and precautions against
accidents. Let us carry the uniformity even a stage further,
and imagine what is impossible,, an international uniformity of
wage in all cotton mills. All this would in no way prevent a
wholesale clothing manufacture, and not merely self-supporting but un-
progressive industries like English agriculture), will usually be exporting
trades, not subject to the competition of foreign imports. Merely to put an
import duty on the odds and ends of foreign-made clothing or cheap knives
that England imports would in no way strengthen the strategic position, as
against the employer, of the sweated outworkers of East London or Sheffield,
or render the respectable young women of Leeds less eager to be taken on
at a pocket-money wage in the well-appointed clothing factories of that
city.
SIDNEY AND BEATRICE WEBB 235
diversion of the nation's brains and capital away from cotton
manufacture to some other industry, in which, by reason of a
subsidy or bounty y the employer stood at a greater relative
advantage towards the home or foreign consumer. The
country having the greatest natural advantages and technical
capacity for cotton manufacture would doubtless satisfy the
great bulk of the world's demand for cotton goods. But, if
there existed within that same country any trades carried on
by parasitic labour, or assisted by any kind of bounty, it would
obtain less of the cotton trade of the world than would other-
wise be the case ; the marginal business in cotton would tend
to be abandoned to the next most efficient country, in order
that some brains and capital might, to the economic loss of
the nation and of the world, take advantage of the subsidy
or bounty. 1 We see, therefore, that even an international
uniformity of conditions within a particular trade would not,
in face of industrial parasitism at home, prevent the advan-
tageously situated country from losing a portion of this uniformly
regulated trade. The parasitic trades have, in fact, upon the
international distribution of industry, an effect strictly analo-
gous to that which they have upon the home trade. By ceding
as a bribe to the consumer the bounty or subsidy which they
receive, they cause the capital, brains, and labour of the world
to be distributed, in the aggregate, in a less productive way
than would otherwise have been the case. 1
We can now see that the economists of the middle of the
century only taught, and the Free Trade statesmen only
learnt, one -half of their lesson. They were so much taken up
with the idea of removing the fiscal barriers between nations
that they failed to follow up the other part of their own con-
ception, the desirability of getting rid of bounties of every
kind. M'Culloch and Nassau Senior, Cobden and Bright,
realized clearly enough that the grant of money aid to a
1 This hypothetical case is, we believe, not unlike the actual condition
of the cotton manufacture in the United Kingdom at the present time, in
spite of the absence of international uniformity.
236 MODERN SOCIALISM
particular industry out of the rates or taxes enabled that
industry to secure more of the nation's brains and capital, and
more of the world's trade, than was economically advan-
tageous. They even understood that the use of unpaid slave
labour constituted just such a bounty as a rate in aid of wages.
But they never clearly recognized that the employment of
children, the overwork of women, or the payment of wages
insufficient for the maintenance of the operative in full indus-
trial efficiency stood, economically, on the same footing. If
the object of " Free Trade " is to promote such a distribution
of capital, brains, and labour among countries and among
industries, as will result in the greatest possible production,
with the least expenditure of human efforts and sacrifices, the
factory legislation of Robert Owen and Lord Shaftesbury
formed as indispensable a part of the Free Trade movement
as the tariff reforms of Cobden and Bright. " During that
period," wrote the Duke of Argyll of the nineteenth century, 1
" two great discoveries have been made in the Science of
Government : the one is the immense advantage of abolishing
restrictions upon Trade ; the other is the absolute necessity
of imposing restrictions on labour. . . . And so the Factory
Acts, instead of being excused as exceptional, and pleaded
for as justified only under extraordinary conditions, ought
to be recognized as in truth the first legislative recognition of
a great Natural Law, quite as important as Freedom of Trade,
and which, like this last, was yet destined to claim for itself
wider and wider application."
Seen in this light, the proposal for the systematic enforce-
ment, throughout each country, of its own National Minimum
of education, sanitation, leisure, and wages, becomes a neces-
sary completion of the Free Trade policy. Only by enforcing
such a minimum on all its industries can a nation prevent the
evil expansion of its parasitic trades being enormously aggra-
vated by its international trade. And there is no advantage in
this National Minimum.being identical or uniform throughout
1 Th: Reign of Law (London, 1867), pp. 367, 399.
SIDNEY AND BEATRICE WEBB 237
the world. Paradoxical as it may seem to the practical man, a "1
country enforcing a relatively high National Minimum would
not lose its export trade to other countries having lower con-
ditions, any more,, indeed, than a country in which a high
Standard of Life, spontaneously exists, loses its trade to others
in which a standard is lower. If the relatively high National
Minimum caused a proportionate increase in the productive
efficiency in the community, it would obviously positively
strengthen its command of the world market. But even if
the level of the National Minimum were, by democratic
pressure, forced up further or more rapidly than was com-
pensated for by an equivalent increase in national efficiency, so
that the expenses of production to the capitalist employer
became actually higher than those in other countries, this
would not stop (or even restrict the total of) our exports.
" General low wages," emphatically declare the economists,
"never caused any country to undersell its rivals, nor did
general high wages ever hinder it from doing so." * So long
as we continued to desire foreign products, and therefore to
import them in undiminished quantity, enough exports would
continue to be sent abroad to discharge our international
indebtedness. We should, it is true, not get our tea and
foodstuffs, or whatever else we imported, so cheaply as we
now do ; the consumer of foreign goods would find, indeed,
that these had risen in price, just as English goods had. If
we ignore the intervention of currency, and imagine foreign
trade to be actually conducted, as it is virtually, by a system
of barter, we shall understand both this rise of price of foreign
goods, and the continued export of English goods, even when
they are all dearer than the corresponding foreign products.
For the English importing firms, having somehow to discharge
their international indebtedness, and finding no English products
which they can export at a profit, will be driven to export some
even at a loss a loss which, like the item of freight or any
1 J. S. Mill, Principles of Political Economy, Book III. chap. xxv. 4,
p. 414 of 1865 edition.
2 3 3 MODERN SOCIALISM
other expense of carrying on their business, they will add to
the price charged to the consumer of foreign imports. They
will, of course, select for export those English products on
which the loss is least that is to say, those in which England
stands at relatively the greatest advantage, or, what comes
to the same thing, the least disadvantage. Therefore, if the
rise in the expense of English production were uniform, not
only the total, but also the distribution of our exports would
remain unaffected. The foreign consumer, by reason of the
cheapness of production of his own goods, will then be getting
English-made goods at a lower price than would otherwise be
the case it may be, even a lower price than the Englishman
is buying them at in his own country just as the Englishman
at the present time buys American products in London at the
comparatively low level of English prices, and sometimes
actually cheaper than they are sold at in New York. For
this process of exporting at an apparent loss, as a set-off
against a profitable import trade, actually takes place, now in
one country, now in another. 1 It sometimes happens that the
same firm of merchants both exports and imports : more
usually, however, the compensatory process is performed
through the banking-houses, and manifests itself in those
fluctuations of the foreign exchanges, which, though clear
enough to the eye of the practical financier and economist,
shroud all the processes of international exchange from the
ordinary man by a dense veil of paradox.
The practical check to a rise in the National Minimum
comes, indeed, not from the side of international trade, but, as
we have already explained, from the home taxpayer and the
home consumer. Every rise in the National Minimum not
compensated for by some corresponding increase in the
efficiency with which the national industry was carried on
1 When, for instance, the export of gold is prohibited, or when all the
gold has already been sent away ; or when, for any reason, less expensive
ways of discharging a balance of indebtedness do not exist. See Goschen's
Theory of the Foreign Exchanges > or Clare's A. B.C. of the Foreign Exchanges.
SIDNEY AND BEATRICE WEBB 239
would imply an increase in the number of the unemployable,
and thus in the Poor Rate or other provision for their mainte-
nance ; and every increase in the expenses of production would
be resented as a rise in the price by the bulk of the popula-
tion. The lowlier grades of labour, employing a majority of
the citizens, would clearly benefit by the improvement which
the rise would cause in their own conditions. Other grades
of producers, including the brain- working directors of industry,
would find their own " rent " of specialized or otherwise
exceptional faculty undiminished, even if they had to pay away
more of it in taxes and higher prices. The great and growing
army of officials on fixed incomes would loudly complain of
the increased cost of living, which would presently be met by
a rise in salaries. But the real sufferers would be the rentier
class, existing unproductively on their investments. These
persons would be hit both ways : they would find themselves,
by increased taxation, saddled with most of the cost of the un-
employable, and by higher prices, charged with at least their
share of the increase in the nation's wage-bill. Such a prac-
tical diminution in the net income of the dividend-receiving
classes would, from Ricardo down to Cairnes, have been sup-
posed to correct itself by a falling off in their rate of saving,
and therefore, as it was supposed, in the rate of accumulation
of additional capital. This, as we have seen, can no longer be
predicted, even if we cannot yet bring ourselves to believe,
with Sir Josiah Child and Adam Smith, that the shrinking of
incomes from investments would actually quicken production
and stimulate increased accumulation. What it might con-
ceivably do would be to drive the rentier class to live increas-
ingly abroad, with indirect consequences which have to be
considered.
We have hitherto left on one side the possible migration of
capital from a country, in which the National Minimum had
been unduly raised, to others in which labour could be hired
more cheaply. This is hindered, to an extent which we do
not think is sufficiently appreciated, by the superior amenity
240 MODERN SOCIALISM
of English life to the able business man. So long as our
captains of industry prefer to live in England, go abroad with
reluctance even for high salaries, and return to their own
country as soon as they possibly can, it will pay the owners of
capital to employ it where this high business talent is found.
The danger to English industrial supremacy would seem to us,
therefore, to lie in any diminution of the attractiveness of life in
England to the able brain-working Englishman. An increase in
the taxation of this class, or a rise in the price of the commodities
they consume, is not of great moment, provided that facilities
exist for them to make adequate incomes ; and these rewards
of exceptional talent are, it will be remembered, in no way
diminished by the Device of the Common Rule. But any
loss of public consideration, or any migration of their rentier
friends or relations, might conceivably weaken their tie to
England, and might, therefore, need to be counteracted by
some increase in their amenities or rewards. 1 Our own opinion
is that this increased amenity, and also this increased reward
of exceptional ability, would actually be the result of a high
National Minimum. It is difficult for the Englishman of to-day
to form any adequate idea of how much pleasanter English life
would be if we were, once for all, rid of the slum and sweating
den, and no class of workers found itself condemned to grinding
poverty; if science had so transformed our unhealthy trades
that no section of the population suffered unnecessarily from
accident or disease ; and if every grade of citizens was rapidly
rising in health, intelligence, and character.
It follows that each community is economically free, with-
out fear of losing its foreign trade, to fix its own National
Minimum, according to its own ideas of what is desirable, its
own stage of industrial development, and its own customs of
life. The course and extent of International trade if we
1 It would be interesting to inquire how far the fatal " absenteeism " of
Ireland's men of genius has been caused or increased by the reduction of
Dublin from the position of a wealthy and intellectual capital to that of a
second-rate provincial town.
SIDNEY AND BEATRICE WEBB 241
imagine all fiscal barriers to be removed, and all bounties
to be prevented is, in fact, determined exclusively by the
desires of the world of consumers, and the actual faculties and
opportunities of the producers in the different countries ; not
by the proportion in which each nation chooses to share its
National Dividend between producers and property-owners.
Each community may, therefore, work out its own salvation in
the way it thinks best. The nation eager for progress, con-
stantly raising its National Minimum, will increase in produc-
tive efficiency, and steadily rise in health and wealth. But
it will not thereby interfere with the course chosen by others.
The country which honours Individual Bargaining may reject
all regulation whatsoever, and let trade after trade become
parasitic; but it will not, by its settling down into degradation,
gain any aggregate increase in international trade, or really
undermine its rivals. 1 Finally, the nation which prefers to
be unprogressive, but which yet keeps all its industries self-
supporting, may, if circumstances permit its stagnation, retain
its customary organization, and yet continue to enjoy the same
share in international commerce that it formerly possessed.
1 Let us suppose, for instance, that the capitalists of the United States
so far strengthen their position as to put down all combinations of the
wage-earners, annul all attempts at factory legislation, and, in fact, prohibit
every restriction on Individual Bargaining as a violation of the Constitution.
The result would doubtless be a proletarian revolution. But assuming this
not to occur, or to be suppressed, and the rule of the Trusts to be unchecked,
we should expect to see the conditions of employment in each trade fall to
subsistence level, and with the advance of population, stimulated by this
hopeless poverty, even below the standard necessary for continued efficiency.
The entire continent of America might thus become parasitic, and successive
generations of capitalists, served by a hierarchy of brain-working agents,
might use up for their profit successive generations of degenerated manual
toilers, until these were reduced to the level of civilization of the French
peasants described by La Bruyere. But the total international trade of
America would not be thereby increased ; on the contrary, it would
certainly be diminished as the faculties of the nation declined.
XVIII
THE ECONOMICS OF DIRECT EMPLOYMENT
BY THE FABIAN SOCIETY
This is Fabian Tract, No. 84, the basis of which was a paper
read at the British Association's Oxford meeting, 1894, by Mr.
Sidney Webb. It includes an account of the Fair Wages policy,
which is possibly the greatest success achieved by the Fabian
method.
DURING the last twelve years there has gradually been
developed, among the various Town and County Councils
and other public authorities, a definite economic policy with
regard to the employment of labour. This policy, initiated by
the School Board for London in January, 1889,* has been
adopted, to a greater or lesser degree, by several hundred
local governing bodies throughout the United Kingdom. It
has, perhaps, been most completely carried out by the London
County Council, where it has been successfully maintained for
over ten years, and where it has lately been endorsed and
confirmed by a decisive majority at the election of 1898.
THE LABOUR POLICY OF THE LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL.
The Labour Policy of the London County Council has been
intelligently criticized, from the point of view of economic
1 The London School Board was, in January, 1889, the first public
body to adopt the principle of insisting that not less than the recognized
standard rates of wages should be paid. See The History of Trade
Unionism, and also Industrial Democracy, by Sidney and Beatrice Webb,
24Z
THE FABIAN SOCIETY 243
science, mainly under three heads. Instead of "buying its
labour in the cheapest market," as it was termed, it has, from
the first, striven to adopt as its standard, the trade-union rate
of wages, and to assert a " moral minimum " of earnings below
which it was inexpedient that any London citizen should be
allowed to sink. Moreover, not content with proceeding on
these lines as regards the workmen whom it directly employs,
it has sought throughout to secure that all contractors execut-
ing its work should adopt the same principle. Finally, it has
endeavoured, wherever possible, to dispense with the middle-
man entrepreneur^ and to substitute salaried supervision and
management directly under public control,
THE FAIR WAGES MOVEMENT.
Let us take first what is known as the Fair Wages Move-
ment. After prolonged discussions, repeated at intervals
during nine years, it has become the settled policy, (a) to pay,
in each trade, the recognized standard rate of wages, (b) to
give no adult male workman less than 6d. per hour, and no
adult woman less than i8s. per week. 1 Those unfamiliar with
the actual practice of industrial life at first imagined that
the trade-union rate of wages meant just whatever rate the
trade-union might choose to claim. As a matter of fact, the
trade-union rate of wages is, in every organized trade, a well-
understood expression, denoting the actual rate which has
been agreed to, more or less explicitly, by representative
employers and the trade-union executives. What the Council
has done has been merely to insert in its own standard list of
wages the rate proved, on inquiry, to be actually recognized
and adopted by the leading employers in the particular trade
1 " The Standing Orders of the L.C.C.," containing the Fair Wages
Clauses, is sold at is. by P. S. King & Son, Great Smith Street, West-
minster. For other places see House of Commons Return, " Urban
Sanitary Districts (Conditions of Contracts)," No. 47, Ilth February,
1898 ; i\d. (P. S. King & Son.)
244 MODERN SOCIALISM
within the London district. In the whole of the building
trades, for instance, which include seven-eighths of the work
done for the Council, the trade-union rate of wages has been
solemnly agreed to in a formal treaty between the London-
Building Trades Federation and the London Master Builders
Association. So far as the organized skilled trades are
concerned, the Council has not attempted to do more than
place itself on a line with the common average of decent
employers.
With regard to unskilled labour, the case is more difficult.
Here, in most cases, no generally recognized trade-union rate
exists. The Council has accordingly taken the position that
it is undesirable, whatever the competition, that any of its
employees should receive less than the minimum required
for efficient and decent existence. Seeing that Mr. Charles
Booth places the actual "poverty line" in London at regular
earnings of 2is. per week, it cannot be said the Council's
"moral minimum" of 2^s. for men and iSs. for women errs
on the side of luxury or extravagance. But, unlike the
Council's wage for skilled workmen, it is more than is actually
paid by many conscientious employers ; and it is undoubtedly
above the rate at which the Council could obtain such labourers,
if it chose to disregard all other considerations.
The labour policy of the London County Council, whether
with regard to skilled or unskilled labour, may be explained as
the deliberate choice of that form of competition which secures
the greatest possible efficiency, as compared with the form
which secures the greatest apparent cheapness. Public offices
may be filled in one of two ways. We may, on the one hand,
practically put the places up to auction, taking those candi-
dates who offer to do the work for the lowest wage ; or, on the
other hand, we may first fix the emoluments, and then pick the
best of the candidates coming forward on those terms. When
we want brain-workers of any kind, every one agrees that the
latter policy is the only safe one. We do not appoint as a
judge the lawyer who offers to take the place at the lowest
THE FABIAN SOCIETY 245
rate. No one would think of inviting competitive tenders
from clergymen as to the price at which they would fill a
vacant bishopric. And a Town or County Council which
bought its engineer or its medical officer in the cheapest
market would, by common consent, make a very bad bargain.
In all these cases we have learnt, by long and painful expe-
rience, that there is so much difference between competence
and incompetence, that we do not dream of seeking to save
money by taking the candidate who offers his services at the
lowest rate. Unfortunately, many worthy people who realize
this aspect of brainwork, because they belong themselves to
the brainworking class, are unconscious that it applies no less
forcibly to mechanical labour. They will pay any price for a
good architect, but are apt to regard bricklayers and masons
as all equally " common workmen." The consequence is that,
owing to the extraordinary ignorance of the middle and upper
classes about the actual life of the handicraft trades, it has
gradually become accepted as good business that, though you
must take all possible trouble in choosing your manager, it is
safe and right to buy wage labour at the lowest market rates.
But, as a matter of fact, there is as great a relative difference
between one painter or plasterer and another, as there is
between one architect or manager and another. If the
pressure of competition is shifted from the plane of quality
to the plane of cheapness, all economic experience tells us
that the result is incompetency, scamped work, the steady
demoralization of the craftsman, and all the degradation of
sweating. When a man engages a coachman or a gardener he
understands this well enough, and never for a moment thinks
of hiring the cheapest who presents himself. Even the
sharpest-pressed employer does not entrust expensive
machinery to the mechanic who offers to take the least wages.
The London County Council, realizing it more vividly than
some bodies less in touch with the actual facts of industrial
life, applies the principle all round. Whether the post to be
filled be that of an architect or a carpenter, the wage to be
246 MODERN SOCIALISM
paid is first fixed at a rate sufficient to attract the best class of
men in the particular occupation. Then the most competent
candidate that can be found is chosen. Competition among
the candidates works no less keenly than before; but
it is competition tending not to reduce the price, thereby
lowering the standard of life throughout the nation, but
to enhance efficiency, and thus really to reduce the cost of
production.
With regard to the lowlier grades of labour a further con-
sideration enters in. It may be economically permissible,
under the present organization of industry, for a private
employer to pay wages upon which, as he perfectly well
knows, it is impossible for the worker to maintain himself or
herself in efficiency. But when a Board of Poor Law
Guardians finds itself rescuing from starvation, out of the
poor rate, women actually employed by one of its own
contractors to make up workhouse clothing, at wages in-
sufficient to keep body and soul together, even the most
rigorous economist would admit that something was wrong. 1
The London County Council, responsible as it is for the
health of the people of London, declines to use its position as
an employer deliberately to degrade that health by paying
wages obviously and flagrantly insufficient for maintenance,
even if competition drives down wages to that pitch. The
economic heretics, in fact, are not the Council, but those who,
in flat defiance of Adam Smith, McCulloch, Mill, and Marshall,
alike, persist in assuming that there is some obligatory " law "
that the pressure of competition ought, without interference
from man, to be allowed so to act as to degrade the standard
of life of the whole community.
1 The Chelsea Board of Guardians was, in 1894, paying its scrubbers
is. 6d. a day, without food, which amounts to a weekly wage of 9.?. A
day's illness is sufficient to force such a worker to seek relief from the
rates, and the Board then finds itself rescuing from starvation its own
underpaid workpeople.
THE FABIAN SOCIETY 247
TlIE MORALIZATION OF THE CONTRACTOR.
Some critics, however, who do not object to the Council,
like a prudent housekeeper or an experienced employer, fixing
the wages of its servants at an adequate sum, demur to any
interference with the freedom of contractors, and denounce as
economically heretical the Council's standing order confining
the Council's work to such firms as adopt the standard rate of
wages. It is, say such critics, no concern of the Council how
a contractor manages his business; and if he can get his
workmen at less than the' ordinary price of the best men, so
much the better for him, and, in the long run, for his customers.
The very object of industrial competition, they would add, is to
keep the cost of production down to the lowest possible point,
and any interference with the contractor's freedom to do his
business in his own way tends to increase that cost.
It will, however, be obvious to the economist that these
criticisms confuse cost of production with expenses of produc-
tion. What the community has at heart is a reduction of the
cost of production that is, of the efforts and sacrifices involved
in getting the object desired. This is of no concern to the
contractor. What he wants is to diminish the expenses of
production to himself that is, the sum which he has to pay
for materials and labour. This object he may effect in one of
two ways. He may, by skilful management, ingenious inven-
tion, or adroit manipulation of business, get the work accom-
plished with less effort and sacrifice on the part of those
concerned, allowing of a reduction of the out-of-pocket pay-
ments by himself; or he may, on the other hand, without
diminishing the effort and sacrifices, induce those concerned to
accept a smaller remuneration for their labour. Either way
will equally serve his profit, but either way will not equally
serve the community. If the first case, a real economy in the
cost of production has been effected, to the gain of all con-
cerned. In the second case, no economy in the cost of pro-
duction has taken place ; but the pressure of competition has
248 MODERN SOCIALISM
been used to depress the standard of life of some of the
workers. The one result is a real and permanent advantage
to the community ; the other is a serious economic calamity,
bringing far-reaching secondary evils in its train.
Now, many large fortunes have been made by contractors
pursuing each of these methods, and the " good business man "
doubtless resorts to both of them as opportunity serves. Un-
fortunately it is much more difficult and toilsome to be per-
petually making new inventions, devising fresh labour-saving
expedients, or discovering unsuspected economies, than to pare
down wages, even at the risk of producing a slight falling-off
in quality, provided that the deterioration is not so gross as to
cause the actual rejection of the work. It is so hard to spend
laborious nights and days in improving processes. It is so
easy to find workmen eager for a job at 10 per cent, below
the standard rate. " Mankind," says Emerson, " is as lazy as
it dares to be," and contractors are no exception. It is safe to
say that the more you leave it open to a contractor to make a
profit, by reducing the expenses of production, the less he will
trouble about lowering the cost. So much is this the case
that, under a prolonged rtgime of free and unrestricted com-
petition, the very existence of the alternative has often been
forgotten. " Profits," said one capitalist, " are the shavings of
wages."
It was in order to put a stop to the constant tendency of
contractors to nibble at the current standard wages that the
London County Council inserted its celebrated fair wages
clauses. These clauses, it will be observed, leave open to con-
tractors every chance of profit which comes from reduction of
the cost of production. By concentrating the contractor's
energy and attention on this point they presumably increase
the fierceness of that part of the competitive struggle which
promotes the public good. But, just as the Factory Acts,
the Mines Regulation Acts, and the Education Acts, "rule
out" of industrial competition the cheapness brought about by
the overwork of women and children, or the neglect of sanitary
THE FABIAN SOCIETY 249
precautions, so the London County Council, representing the
people of London, declines to take advantage of any cheapness
that is got by merely beating down the standard of life of
particular sections of the wage-earners. Here, the key-note of
the Council's policy is, not the abolition of competition, but the
shifting of its plane from mere cheapness to that of industrial
efficiency. The speeding up of machinery, the better organi-
zation of labour, the greater competency of manager, clerk, or
craftsman, are all stimulated and encouraged by the deliberate
closing up to the contractor of other means of making profit. 1
And just as the Factory Acts have won their way to econo-
mic approval, not merely on humanitarian grounds, but as
positively conducive to industrial efficiency, so, too, it may
confidently be predicted, will the now widely adopted fair
wages clauses. 2
MUNICIPAL INDUSTRY.
We come to an altogether different range of criticism when
we consider the Council's determination to dispense, wherever
possible, with the contractor, and execute its works by engag-
ing a staff of workmen under the supervision of its own salaried
officers. This has been fiercely attacked as being palpably
and obviously opposed to political economy and business
experience. It is worth while to place on record the facts.
Constructive work was not undertaken at first, but labour
1 The economist will recall the analogous effect which labour legislation
and strong trade unions have had in increasing the efficiency of the Lan-
cashire cotton industry. Compare, too, Mr. Mather's testimony to the
beneficent effect upon employers of trade-union action in the engineering
trades (see Contemporary Review^ vol. Ixii., 1892, and S. and B. Webb's
Industrial Democracy].
9 Many local governing bodies have adopted some kind of fair wages
clause in their contracts. Particulars of regulations in 218 places are given
in Parliamentary Return H. C. 47 of Feb. II, 1898, "Urban Sanitary
Districts (Conditions of Contracts)," 2\d. Compare also the House of
Commons' unanimous resolutions of Feb. 13, 1891, and March 6, 1893,
imposing the principle for Government contracts.
250 MODERN SOCIALISM
was hired to clean the bridges 1 and to repair the Council
offices, 2 at a considerable saving compared with contract prices.
The first piece of building work was executed by the Main
Drainage Committee at $$& below the lowest tender of
^2188. But the case which finally convinced three out of
every four members of the Council of the desirability of execu-
ting their own works was the York Road Sewer. The engineer
estimated the cost at ^7000, and tenders were invited in the
usual manner. Only two were sent in, one for ;i 1,588, and
the other for ^11,608. The Council determined to do the
work itself, with the result that a net saving of ^"4477 was
made. 3
This remarkable result naturally created a sensation in the
contracting world, and attempts were made to impugn the
engineer's figures. In his crushing reply he pointed out that
the contractors had reckoned out their tenders at absurdly high
prices in nearly^ every detail, charging, for instance, 6oj. and
705-. respectively per cubic yard of brickwork and cement,
whereas the work was done at 39^. It is clear from the other
particulars given, and from facts notorious at the time, that
an agreement had been come to among contractors not to
compete with one another for this job, in order to induce the
Council to abandon its fair wages clause. The Council
preferred to abandon the contractor. 4
The outcome was the establishment, in the spring of 1893,
of a Works Department to execute works required by the other
committees in precisely the same manner as a contractor. The
Works Department stands to the other committees of the
Council exactly in the same relation as if it were an indepen-
dent contractor. When a committee has any work to execute,
the Council's architect and engineer prepare the plans and
make an estimate, without any reference to the Works
1 Minutes, October 18, 1892, pp. 900, 901
2 Minutes, June 27, 1893, p. 683.
* Minutes, October 17, 1893.
1 See the fuller particulars in Minutes of October 31, 1893, pp. 1063-5.
THE FABIAN SOCIETY 251
Department. Then the Council decides whether the work shall
be done with or without a contractor. Sometimes it decides to
put the work up to tender, a course which enables it to see
whether the estimates of the architect and engineer are trust-
worthy guides. The Works Department may say that it is
not prepared to do the work, either because it is not satisfied
with the specifications and estimates, or because it has no con-
venience for doing work at that particular site, or of that
particular kind. In that case the job is put up to tender and
done by a contractor.
The accounts of the Works Department are kept distinct
from those of other departments of the Council. The Finance
Committee sees that it is debited with the interest and sinking
fund on all the capital it uses ; that full allowance is made to
cover depreciation and renewals that a complete stocktaking
is regularly carried out by independent officers ; and that all
outgoings and maintenance charges are properly spread over
the various works done. The accounts are elaborately checked
by the Council's Controller, as well as by the Local Govern-
ment Board's Auditor.
The Works Department has now been at work for over six
years, during which it has executed over ^1,000,000 worth of
work of the most varied character sewer construction, the
making of roads, building houses of every kind, erecting
bridges, carrying out of every sort of repairing and decorating
jobs, and an innumerable array of miscellaneous operations.
Whether, and to what extent, this work has been done cheaper
than it would have been done by contractors is a matter of hot
controversy. 1 The Progressives assert that, even with all the
disadvantages of starting a new business, and struggling with
"wreckers" inside the Council, the whole ;i, 000,000 worth
of work has, taken as a whole, and including the "jobbing
1 See The Truth about the Works Department of the London County
Council. (London Reform Union.) The year ended September 30, 1899,
shows a "profit" of ^10,365 on completed works estimated at 79,270
(Minutes, Nov. 1899).
2$2 MODERN SOCIALISM
work," been executed at just about what the contractors would
have charged. The Moderates declare that it has cost more ;
but even they do not put the excess at more than about 5 per
cent, on the whole of the architect's estimate an excess which
any one accustomed to builders' bills will think amazingly low.
But no sound judgment on the policy of dispensing with the
contractor can be formed on statistics of this kind, extending
over so brief a period. We must take a wider sweep, and see
what inferences can be drawn from other experience.
It is usually assumed by the Council's critics, that its policy
of eliminating the contractor is an unparalleled innovation,
unknown outside London. A little knowledge of the action of
local governing bodies elsewhere would prevent this mistake.
It is, of course, unnecessary to remind the reader that
Birmingham, 1 dominated by the strictest sect of the Individual-
ists, has municipalized its water and its gas, which are in
London still left to private enterprise. What is not so well
known is that the Town Council dispenses with the contractor
whenever it can, each committee getting much of its own work
done by its own directly employed staff. The Public Works
Committee, which looks after the thoroughfares, and the
Health Committee, which is responsible for sanitation, have
not only entirely eliminated the contractor from the cleaning
and repairing of the streets and the removal of refuse, but even
from the laying down of granite paving and flagging, once a
most profitable item of his business. The Gas Committee is
not content with employing hundreds of men to make gas, but
also keeps its own staff of carpenters, bricklayers, blacksmiths,
tinmen, painters, fitters, etc., to execute its numerous works.
The Improvements Committee, like the Estates Committee, has
its own carpenters, fitters, bricklayers, paperhangers, plasterers,
and zincworkers, whilst the Water Committee, besides a
regular staff of mechanics of all kinds, is now actually engaged
1 Return of Hours of Labour, Wages, etc. (Appendix to Birmingham
General Purposes Committee's Report, July 25, 1893.) See Appendix II.,
p. 18.
THE FABIAN SOCIETY 253
in constructing several huge dams and reservoirs near Rhayader,
two tunnels and various water towers and syphons, together
with workmen's dwellings to accommodate a thousand people,
stables, stores, workshops, a public hall and recreation room, a
school, two hospitals, and a public-house all without the
intervention of a contractor. The construction of all the build-
ings on the works is being carried out by the workmen of
the Corporation, under the superintendence of the resident
engineer and his assistant. The timber and other material is
being purchased by tender. "This method/' reports the
Water Committee, " of using material supplied by contract, and
constructing by the direct employees of the Corporation, the
Committee consider, under the circumstances of the case, to be
the most economical, as well as calculated to secure the best
results." But this is not all. The Water Committee, finding
that the village would have beer, has decided also in this
matter to dispense with any entrepreneur, and has " resolved
that a canteen shall be established in the village," out of the
capital of the Birmingham citizens, and "that the person
managing it shall have no interest whatever in the quantity
sold." l
And if we turn to Liverpool we learn that " almost all the
city engineer's work is done by men directly employed by the
Corporation. . . . The construction of sewers is now done
entirely by the Corporation themselves. . . . They had such a
cruel experience of doing the work of sewering by contractors
that they have given it up." 3 It appears that in the old days,
when the contractors agreed and charged for two courses of
brickwork, no amount of inspection sufficed to prevent them
putting in one only. " What happened was this : that whenever
the Inspector came round, or the Clerk of Works, to watch
the contractors, they found the two rings of brickwork going
1 Report of the Birmingham Water Committee, presented February 6,
1894.
* Evidence of the Deputy Town Clerk of Liverpool before the Unifi-
cation of London Commission, p. 328 of C 7493~I
254 MODERN SOCIALISM
on very well; as soon as the Inspector went away . . . the
second ring of brickwork was left out . . . and so the sewer
got weak. . . . You could trace the visits of the Inspector by
the double rings " which were found here and there at intervals
when the sewers were subsequently uncovered for repairs. 1
This evidence from Liverpool is especially interesting in
connection with what has recently been discovered at Man-
chester. The auditor's report, published in 1896, exposes
a precisely similar fraud in connection with the thirty-five miles
of new sewers now under construction. This work was let to
thirty-four different contractors, who had already received
over ;6oo,ooo for their work. The new city surveyor,
finding that the work had been scamped, had "street after
street taken up at great expense, and such an exposure was
made of fraud and deceit as I," writes the auditor, "have
never before seen. The men who built these sewers in
a tunnel never dreamed that their rascality would be dis-
covered." The chief method adopted was, as at Liverpool,
leaving out one ring of brickwork, except when the Corporation
Inspector was signalled as being about to descend the shaft.
Then the workmen hastily put on a second row of bricks at
that spot The frequency of the Inspector's visits to each bit
of work were found marked by this extra ring of bricks, here
and there, instead of along the whole length of -the sewer. 3
Nor are these Councils in any way exceptional in their
steady progress towards the elimination of the contractor. In
the early days of municipal activity practically everything was
let out to a contractor. Nowadays every large municipality,
even if it does not possess any separate Works Department,
has a staff of mechanics and artisans in regular municipal
employment, and every day executes many important works
and services by its own workmen, which were formerly let by
tender to the lowest bidder.
1 Evidence of the Deputy Town Clerk of Liverpool before the Unifi-
cation of London Commission, p. 328.
2 Report of the Citizens' Auditor of the City of Manchester for 1895.
THE FABIAN SOCIETY 255
Nor is it in municipal boroughs alone that we see the
change in policy. Nothing was more common a few years
ago than for highway authorities to get their roads kept in
order by contractors. An interesting return obtained in 1892
by the County Surveyors' Society shows that this practice has
been almost entirely abandoned in favour of direct employ-
ment of labour by the county surveyor. Only in one or two
counties out of thirty-five furnishing particulars does the old
custom linger. The county surveyor for Gloucestershire
indignantly denied an allegation that he favoured the contract
system. " It does not commend itself to me in any way," he
writes, "and encourages a low form of sweating. My own
experience of road-contracting is that it does very well for five
years, then the roads go to pieces, and you have to spend all
your previous savings to put them to rights." l
When we thus find even the County Councils in rural districts
giving up the contractor, it ceases to be surprising that the
Town Council of Manchester, in the city of Cob den and Bright,
now manufactures its own bass-brooms, or even that the ultra-
conservative Commissioners of Sewers of the City of London,
actually set the County Council an example by manufacturing
their own carts. 2 The superiority of direct municipal employ-
ment, under salaried supervision, to the system of letting out
works to contractors has, in fact, been slowly borne in on the
best municipal authorities all over the country by their own
administrative experience, quite irrespective of social or
political theories.
INTEGRATION OF PROCESSES.
Business men, not so very long ago, would have argued
that this policy of including all kinds of industrial processes
1 Particulars of Management cf Alain Roads in England and Wales, a
report compiled for the County Surveyors' Society, by Mr. Heslop, County
Surveyor for Norfolk. See Builder^ March 19 and 26, 1892.
2 Statement of the Commissioners of Sewers, presented to the Royal
Commission on London Unification.
256 MODERN SOCIALISM
under one administration was contrary to the lessons of
business experience. The last generation of captains of
industry believed in each undertaking sticking closely to its
own special trade, and contracting with similarly specialized
undertakings for all subsidiary parts of the business. " Never
make anything yourself that you can buy elsewhere" was a
common industrial maxim. The last thirty years have changed
it to " Never buy from any one else what you can manufacture
for yourself."
The most familiar instance of this revolution of policy is
seen in the English railway companies. Once a railway com-
pany was an association for getting a railway made, and running
trains on it. An able essay written by Mr. Herbert Spencer
forty years ago, protested strongly against any extension of
a railway company's scope. Nowadays an up-to-date railway
company runs docks, canals, ferries, steamships, and hotels
of its own, and carries on, besides, innumerable subsidiary
businesses, and manufactures every conceivable kind of article,
entirely by its own operatives, working under its own salaried
staff. The directors of the London and North- Western Railway
Company, for instance, with a comprehensiveness that would
have staggered George Stephenson, lay it down as an axiom
that the company " should be dependent on the outside world
for as few as possible of the necessaries of life." The manager
at the company's great workshop-town of Crewe, " can think of
nothing of importance that is imported in a manufactured state,
except copper tubes for locomotive boilers." "As we pass from
shop to shop, here may be seen a steel canal boat in process of
construction (for the company, it must be remembered, is a
great canal proprietor) ; there, a lattice-work bridge is being
fitted together. Further on, hydraulic pumps, cranes, and
capstans crowd a huge shed. In another place, chains of all
sorts and sizes, from cables to harness traces, are being forged
by the ton ; close by, coal-scuttles and lamps are being turned
out by the hundred. In all the works there is no stranger
sight than a corner in the carpenters' shop, where two men are
THE FABIAN SOCIETY 257
constantly employed making artificial limbs. Some two years
back (that is, about 1885) the company embarked on this
branch of manufacture, and undertook to supply legs and
arms of the most finished workmanship to any man who lost
his own in their service." l
Nothing indeed is too small or too great for the North-
Western to manufacture for itself. Crewe turns out a new
locomotive engine every five days, and you may watch the
company's own rails being rolled in its own steel works. At
Wolverton, Mr. Acworth recounts how he " came upon a man
engaged in etching designs upon the plates of ground glass
that were to form the windows of lavatory compartments, and
was told that the company had recently found that it could
do this work for itself at half the price it had formerly paid n
(pp. 60, 61). Since 1881 the North-Western has been steadily
eliminating the privately owned waggon. For over twenty
years the companies have managed their own collection and
delivery business. Nearly every company, too, now builds its
own carriages. The Midland Railway prints its own tickets ;
whilst the Great Eastern goes a step further, and executes
in its Stratford works nearly the whole of its own printing,
including its gorgeous coloured posters and pictorial advertise-
ments. "In the printing works the company keeps about no
persons constantly employed, and is understood to save a good
deal of money by doing so." 2
But the Midland has tried another experiment. At the
great Trent stores are between three and four hundred
thousand empty corn sacks, which the company furnishes
for the conveyance of the corn from the farmer to the
miller. Here, too, the contractor formerly existed and made
a profit, until, a few years ago, the business was undertaken by
the company itself.
In every branch of railway management, in short, the
1 The Railways of England , by \V. M. Acworth. London: 1889,
P- 59.
* Ibid t p. 416,
I
258 MODERN SOCIALISM
elimination of the independent entrepreneur or contractor is
being rapidly effected. It was impossible that this example,
set by undertakings in many respects analogous to municipal
departments, should have no influence on the business men
who rule our Town Councils.
But although railway directors cannot be supposed to have
been bitten by the tarantula of Collectivism, every one will not
be convinced by their remarkable change of policy. They
resemble the members of a Town Council in not working for
their own personal profit, and may, it is urged, therefore be
indifferent whether their ambitious excursions into manu-
facturing industry actually pay their way. It is, therefore,
interesting to find exactly the same revolution of business
policy in large private undertakings. No better instance
could be adduced than the history of a certain world-renowned
firm of shipbuilders, whose rapid and continued expansion is
one of the marvels of modern industry.
Twenty years ago this firm constructed in their own yard
little more than the hulls of the vessels, contracting for all the
thousand and one articles of equipment with numerous other
manufacturing firms which specialized in these directions.
Nowadays, this same shipbuilding firm manufactures every
one of these articles from triple-expansion engines down to
the brass handles of the cabin lockers in its own works;
and turns out its vessels from keel to topmast entirely of its
own construction. Instead of employing only shipwrights
and platers, that firm now engages men of several hundred
separate trades, who work under the salaried management of
different heads of departments.
The following letter gives some of the dates and particulars
of this industrial evolution :
LETTER FROM AN EMINENT SHIPBUILDING FIRM AS TO DATES
OF PROGRESSIVE ABSORPTION OF SUBSIDIARY PROCESSES.
I have yours of nth inst., and have much pleasure in giving
you the information you ask for respecting certain subsidiary work
THE FABIAN SOCIETY 259
previously done for us by sub-contractors but now carried out within
our own works.
In 1879 we began to rig the ships built by us.
In the same year we began to build lifeboats.
In 1880 we commenced plumbing work on board our ships, and
to make our own sails.
In 1 88 1 we opened an upholstery department to carry out that
branch of work ourselves.
In 1882 we opened an electric light department.
It was in 1880 that we started our engine works, all the engines
for vessels constructed by us up till then having been made in
outside engine works. .And" even after we opened the engine works
certain subsidiary machinery was obtained from outside which we
now construct ourselves.
For instance, in 1885, we first built crank shafts for main engines.
In 1887 we began to manufacture manganese bronze propeller
blades. In 1890 we began to make circulating pumps and engines,
duplex pumps, steam steering engines, and brass sidelights for
ships, and in the same year our smith work gradually merged into
general forge work.
The history of great engineering establishments shows the
same tendency. The progress of the largest firm in the United
Kingdom shows how, during the present generation, business
has been added to business, until the firm has become one of
the largest in the world, mining its own ore, making its own
pig-iron, smelting its own steel, building its own ships, erecting
its own engines, constructing its own tools, and executing
innumerable subsidiary works in every direction.
And, turning to quite another industry, we may cite the
experience of a Birmingham manufacturer of metal goods,
whose business has distanced all his rivals, and is now the
largest and most prosperous in the trade. Thirty years ago
he was completely under the dominion of the then prevalent
idea of specialization. Everything required in his business
which did not come strictly within the limited sphere of his
own specialties he obtained by contract from other firms.
Gradually his ideas changed, more and more of the subsidiary
work was done in his own factory. He began to make his own
260 MODERN SOCIALISM
tools and machines. He commenced to repair, and then to
construct his own engines. When additions to his works were
required, he picked his own clerk of the works, bought his own
bricks, and engaged his own artisans. Year by year he has
found himself becoming less and less dependent on outside
contractors, until the other day he started making in his own
essentially metal factory even the wooden hogsheads and paper
boxes in which his goods were packed. And he himself
attributes the continued profitableness of his business, and
its very rapid expansion during times when his competitors
have often been working at a loss, mainly to this progressive
elimination of the contractor and subsidiary entrepreneur.
The following memorandum describes these changes in his
business.
MEMORANDUM BY A HARDWARE MANUFACTURER, DESCRIBING
THE SUBSIDIARY OPERATIONS NOW UNDERTAKEN BY HIS
FIRM.
I find that some time at the latter end of 1870 we first began to
manufacture goods that we had previously bought from other
manufacturers. These goods were chiefly unfinished work that
was required to complete the various articles that we sold. In
some cases I made the change because I thought I could make a
better article, and possibly a cheaper one. But the important
advantage was in obtaining quick deliveries, and, therefore, prompt
execution of orders. Since that date we have bought less and less
outside, and at the present time we make almost everything that we
require.
About 1868 we began to do all our own repairs to machinery,
plant, and buildings, and employed carpenters, fitters, machinemen,
bricklayers, slaters, and painters.
In 1879 we began to make and design machinery that we
required, and to erect new buildings. For some eight years earlier
than this I had designed all machinery, and had it made either in
Birmingham or Manchester. This alteration was made chiefly
because the machines were special, and I did not want them used
by competitors in my trade.
In 1884 we built large carpenters' fitting and erecting shops, to
THE FABIAN SOCIETY 261
enable Us to equip ourselves a large factory we were then putting
up. These shops employed some 100 hands, who for the last ten
years have been fully employed.
In 1886 we began to make all the hogsheads (used for packing),
packing cases, paper boxes, and everything that is required for the
delivery of goods to our customers. We even make what is called
wood wool, a substitute for straw. This department is a very large
one, and uses up small forests of timber. This development has
greatly facilitated the quick delivery of our goods, and has prevented
a great waste caused by breakage in transit.
s
Space forbids any further multiplication of instances, or we
might recount how one of the leading London publishers has
lately become his own bookbinder, whilst another well-known
firm combines in a single undertaking every stage of book-
production, from the hiring of the author at fixed wages down
to the sale of the volume by travelling pedlars. Or we might
cite the colossal manufacturer of boots, buying his own hides
in America, or his own gutta-percha in Borneo, and vending
his wares, on the other hand, in his own retail shops all over
the kingdom.
Economic criticism of the London County Council has
perhaps suffered by the fact that this integration of processes, or
union, under a single management, of many separate businesses,
has hitherto scarcely attracted economic attention. It is, of
course, by no means the same as the oft-described elimination
of the small business in competition with the large. The
tendency, in fact, is frequently the other way a large spe-
cialized business becomes superseded because its customers
begin to do the work for themselves, each of them in a much
smaller way than the single separate factory. Thus an old-
established firm of " finishers " of certain textile manufactures
have described how, during the past thirty years, they have
one by one lost their best customers, not to any rivals in the
"finishing" trade, but because the manufacturers were steadily
tending to do their own " finishing." The essential feature of
the change is the substitution of salaried work and management
262 MODERN SOCIALISM
for the entrepreneur labouring for his own profit. Business
men have apparently discovered, contrary to ordinary economic
opinion, that the economically most advantageous form of
industrial organization is that in which the stimulus and temp-
tation of profit is confined to as few of the actual workers as
possible. So far is it, indeed, from being true that the hope
of profit-making is the best or the chief stimulus to industrial
efficiency that, from the mediaeval master craftsman down
to the modern captain of industry, the proportion of the
population who work for profit has been steadily diminish-
ing. The remarkable growth in the numbers of men
directly employed by municipalities and other public bodies
is, in fact, paralleled by an exactly similar growth in the
numbers of men directly employed at salaries and wages by
private establishments. The elimination of the contractor
or subsidiary entrepreneur is the dominant fact in modern
industry.
It is also to be noticed that the tendency is to shift the
direction of industry from the producer to the consumer. The
manufacturer whose business requires a steady supply of raw
material, particular kinds of tools, engines and buildings
adapted to his processes, or packages ready at the very moment
his wares are finished, finds that it is more convenient, less
liable to mistake or delay, and, in the truest sense, more
economical for him, as the consumer, to obtain all these
things by his own directly employed staff, than to rely upon
the competition of producing entrepreneurs of specialized firms.
And thus, as the manufacturer absorbs the separate producers
of the wares he consumes, he must not be surprised when the
public, the ultimate consumers of the 'wares he produces,
themselves apply the lesson, and, through their elected repre-
sentatives, finally absorb him. 1
1 Compare the steady expansion of co-operation by associations of con-
sumers see The Co-operative Movement in Great Britain. By Beatrice
Potter (London, 1891). The substitution, as the director of industry, of
THE FABIAN SOCIETY 263
Why is the elimination of the subsidiary entrepreneur more
practical now than it was in the last generation? It would
take too long to examine the fundamental causes and con-
ditions of this change in industrial organization. Most changes
in social structure depend, in the long run, upon individual
character ; possibly there has been a growth in the number of
men who can be trusted to work efficiently and honestly as
salaried managers instead of for their own personal profit.
Possibly, too, as industrial organization becomes more complex,
the advantage to the consumer in directly controlling the pro-
duction of every article he requires, becomes more apparent.
All improvements in social organization, too steam, telegraph,
the free use of the printing-press, and now the telephone
facilitate the massing of workmen under single generals of
industry, able efficiently to control larger and more heteroge-
neous and more complex industrial armies than could be
managed by the captains of the past generation. Finally, as
regards the substitution of the collective for the individual
management of industry, it is evident that this will have been
rendered increasingly practicable by the perfecting of demo-
cratic organization.
All these and other influences are but fragmentary sugges-
tions towards the explanation of a change in industry of which
the policy of public authorities in getting rid of the contractor
is but one out of many manifestations. Formerly the best
business management was that which itself managed least.
Nowadays the best business management is that which can
the consumer for the producer usually implies a clear economic gain in
saving one of the processes of checking or examining. Mr. Herbert
Spencer has himself described how the Admiralty was driven to set up its
own flour-mills, because it cost too much to maintain the necessary scrutiny
of every sack of flour delivered by the contractors. The London County
Council found that it involved no more of the time and attention of their
architect and engineer actually to supervise work done by the Council's
own foreman and mechanics than to keep the necessary close watch upon
the contractor and his manager, who were anxious, not to make their men
build well, but only quickly.
264 MODERN SOCIALISM
safely and efficiently administer most. The integration of
productive processes under direct control of the consumers
may or may not be economic heresy ; the business history of
England for the past thirty years indicates that it is industrial
orthodoxy.
XIX
MUNICIPAL SOCIALISM
.
BY THE RIGHT HON. JOHN BURNS, M,P.
The following letter was written for the purposes of an ephemeral
controversy ; but beyond its ephemeral references thereto, it contains
a singularly strong presentation of the Socialistic view of citizenship,
which seems the vitally Socialistic element in the new phases of
English municipal life.
John Burns (born 1858) worked as a boy in a candle factory, then
as a rivet-boy, and finally was apprenticed as an engineer. He
worked twelve months on the Niger, and in 1878 toured Europe ;
about 1880 the centre of his political work became Battersea. He
was early a member of the Social Democratic Federation ; in 1885 he
contested West Nottingham for it ; and in 1886 was twice prosecuted
for the "West End Riot" and for the " Bloody Sunday" episode
in Trafalgar Square. He left the Social Democratic Federation ; but
in 1889 conducted a great agitation in connection with the London
Dock strike. Battersea returned him in 1889 to the London County
Council, and in 1892 to the House of Commons ; and after 1895 he
drew closer to the Liberal party. He was unfriendly to the growth
of the independent Labour Representation Committee; and in
December, 1905, entered the Liberal Cabinet as President of the
Local Government Board. His policy at the Local Government
Board has been recognized by friends and foes alike as in the main
decidedly anti- Socialistic.
To THE EDITOR OF "THE TIMES."
SIR, When a great newspaper arraigns the best, the most
ancient, and the most remunerative form of British institutions,
it should at least undertake that task with a sense of fitness,
accuracy, fairness, and proportion.
265 S
266 MODERN SOCIALISM
In its articles on Municipal Socialism the Times has dis-
played none of the qualities which, properly applied, would have
checked occasional abuse in local life, restrained raw haste in
municipal experiment, stimulated the best men of all classes
to give increasingly their unpaid services to improve their
towns, beautify their cities, and ameliorate by civic means the
communal lot of their poorer neighbours. On the contrary,
out of the welter of irrelevancy, pettiness, and prejudiced
support of vested interests which these articles disclose, there
is nothing to elevate an indispensable phase of public life,
reform its minority of erring councillors, instruct the rate-
payers, or inspire its capable municipal civil service. If the
allegations made in " Municipal Socialism " were a true reflex
of civic life in Britain, if " this is the government of Britain's
Isle," then Britain is undone. If popular representation,
Labour, Socialism, and municipal workmen were not capable
of better conduct than the Times imputes, Democracy is a stilted
make-believe, popular administration a sham, and municipal
service is but a pretext for patronage, corruption, gluttony,
and vanity. Fortunately for all, these allegations are generally
untrue ; municipal life in Britain is much purer than the Times
alleges, and if its efficiency is not yet ideal it still is better than
private enterprise and the contract system, which it is rapidly
supplanting by its innate superiority, and is still the constant
envy of all the foreign countries who sedulously copy what the
Times so much condemns.
That there are a few failures, that some experiments have
not achieved financial success not always the best criterion
in human affairs may be true ; that here and there the
transient blunders of undisciplined zealots are caused by lack
of business capacity, only proves that the sphere of municipal
activity is no more infallible than is that of Parliament itself,
and every human institution, especially criticism, and even
the Times. As for personal corruption, there is little, if any,
alleged, and less is proved. That there is too much feasting
and journeying for insufficient reason by some councillors at
JOHN BURNS 267
the public expense but in the public interest is true, but not
new ; but this is confined to a few men in few places, and this
folly is, fortunately, diminishing. Curiously, there is less of
this vulgar conduct amongst Labour councillors than other
classes.
But even in this respect the most flagrant sinner is the
City of London Corporation, against which, so far, the Times
has failed to say a single word, notwithstanding that its official,
i.e. public, gluttony is as notorious as it is costly, and if the
character of the personnel' of Labour councillors is to be con-
sidered, and where defective properly condemned, it must not
be forgotten that several of the Corporation members and some
of its Lord Mayors have been censured by the Judiciary for
private trafficking and public nepotism, a vice relatively unknown
amongst the Municipal Socialists.
The authors of the articles are directing almost solely their
attacks on poor men, on Labour parties, and attribute to new
views and popular principles errors and mistakes that 20 years
ago would have been unnoticed under the old regime of Tory
aldermen, jerry-building domination, company wire-pulling, and
reactionary rule.
The fierce light of criticism is to beat only upon the West
Ham labourer, the Battersea bricklayer, and the Wolverhampton
engineer, whose entry into public office is due too often to
the abdication of municipal service by men of " superior " (?)
classes and greater business knowledge for the leisure that
rusts, the pleasures that defile, the search for money that rarely
exalts.
Worse even than that, the Times practically lays it down
that richness of personal character and wealth of public spirit
are incompatible with slender means a fallacy that is refuted
by the degradations of public life in South Africa and America
almost exclusively by rich men.
And because some poor Labour councillors have attempted
too much in a short time, and in the face of unscrupulous
opposition, often by officials, always by the publicans, house
268 MODERN SOCIALISM
agents, slum owners, food adulterators, and others, who make
up the ratepayers' alliances and are the nucleus of anti-pro-
gressive municipal life then they are to be pilloried on small
errors for great crimes.
The authors of the articles seek, as in their Crisis in
British Industry less to reform what exists, than to destroy
popular effort either in industrial organization or municipal
life, and in this they will inevitably fail. I suspect that their
real and greater object is to divert public attention from the
blunders of the governing caste at home and abroad, and so
divert criticism and punishment from their political allies, so
that the South African blunder can be covered up by the
" horrible doings of the West Ham Socialists " or " the awful
crimes of the Battersea Labour League" in starting a self-
supporting club and gymnasium for the diversion of potential
hooligans into comely youths and decent citizens.
The pitiably sordid defence of the railway companies
against paying their proper share of local burdens discloses
the class bias of the attack on Municipal Socialism. These
increased rates in nearly every case have been caused through
the lack of foresight by the companies themselves, whose
blunders in approaches, railway arches, and other conveniences
have been a curse to many localities, some of which in London,
particularly Battersea, have been heavily burdened in con-
sequence.
The gross misrepresentation of municipal electric lighting,
gas, water, and tramway ownership, when one year's figures
are taken as a sample, stamps the authors as mere fuglemen of
monopoly, the mouthpiece of trust and company rule. What
is more, it proves their ignorance of the subjects of which they
try to treat. A casual reading only of the technical papers
like the Electrical Times or Municipal Journal would demon-
strate that the municipalities generally, as compared with
companies, sell cheaper, generate cheaper, for kilowatt of plant
have less capital, serve the public better, and all the time are
piling up a public asset which is not only good Socialism, but
JOHN BURNS 269
first-rate business for the ratepayers, and ultimate wealth for
the community.
The answer to all their charges against municipal trading,
its costs and results , is best given in the words of Mr. Maltbie,
in 1900, after an inquiry of great care and exhaustiveness into
municipal gasworks, as compared with company exploitation :
" Summarizing the results of municipal ownership as com-
pared with private operation under public control, it is to be
said that under the former system, prices for gas, meters, and
fittings are lower ; that the quality of gas is better, that it is
much more extensively us'ed, that wages are higher, that the
treatment of labourers is better, that profits are nearly as large,
that works are not as highly capitalized, that sinking funds are
adequate, that productivity per unit of raw material is almost
as great, and that the management is fully as progressive ; all
in all, municipal operation has been more successful than
private operation."
Practically the same, or better, can be said of the 930
authorities who supply water, the 240 owning gasworks, the
100 owning tramways, and the 180 supplying electricity. Cer-
tainly tramways more than justify expectations from all points
of view, especially that of housing.
Electric light, measured by the standard of cost, service,
price, and regularity, tells the same tale, as a perusal of the
electric manuals will prove. Markets do the same ; and
measured by quality of work, at less or the same price as
contract, direct employment in public building operations
comes out well. The financial aspect and monetary success
of the whole ramifications of municipal trading is proved con-
clusively by Sir Henry Fowler's return made in 1899. This
official report proved that of .88,379,931 of capital invested
in waterworks, gasworks, tramways, electric lighting, markets,
baths, cemeteries, dwellings, piers, and miscellaneous, there
was a net profit of ^3,613,668. This business-like result
could not be secured if labour-loafing and municipal malinger-
ing prevailed to the extent alleged by the Times articles,
2/o MODERN SOCIALISM
Similar results are shown in Reports 343 and 347, 1901,
and 1899 for Scotland. Apart from these satisfactory results,
the capacity and adaptability of municipalities to manage well
is undoubted. The Glasgow tramways have run off a rival
parallel steamboat service, and actually caused a great Scotch
railway to abandon its dearer and slower suburban services
because the directors thereof have given to political lobbying
and extraneous work what should have been devoted to better
management for the public, and dividends for their share-
holders.
Truly the directors, when they see with envious eyes the
superiority and greater cheapness of municipal traction, can
say, " Not in our (municipal) stars, but in ourselves, that we
are underlings."
I venture to predict something similar in London for omni-
buses, railways, and even tubes, when London owns a complete
electrical surface tramway service with a universal penny fare,
but which is at present being obstructed and crippled in its
development by a small knot of Parliamentary capitalists who
find mischievous allies in the House of Lords.
What the Times really fears is not municipal mismanage-
ment, because that does not prevail. In the interest of private
enterprise it really dreads State and municipal absorption, and
more efficient working thereby, of monopolies that in service
have become intolerable, and in slowness and cost unendurable,
either for civic expansion, social needs, or commercial develop-
ment.
The Times apprehends, without cause shown, that muni-
cipal trading may fail. I do not share that fear. Social odium
and displacement can always be relied upon to stimulate
officials to do " the utmost for the highest." Greater powers
to committees and officers to dismiss lazy or incompetent
workmen will correct any abuse from this quarter. And if
sectional aims go too far, as often they do, particularly at the
War Office, the mass of the public can be relied upon to
administer the necessary corrective in a summary way.
JOHN BURNS 271
Where that has not been done, experience will teach, and
the necessity for success will compel.
In the latter process, labour leaders, as in the past and
present, will deprecate and resist the sectional aims of a class
or trade unless these can be reconciled with the instalment
process of improving the mass of the community step by step.
In fact, signs are not wanting that already the sensible
servants of the State, and the equitably-minded of the muni-
cipal workmen, are conscious of the danger that disproportionate
demands may bring to the commonwealth. And, with a few
exceptions, amongst leaders and men there is asserting itself
a belief that all for each means also each for all. The ever-
widening sphere of municipal employment, of course, presents
social, political, moral, and ethical difficulties. But the same
problem is greater in the trust, the combine, and the public
monopoly, as the " Car Barn Vote " of companies' employes
proves.
The greater difficulty about the latter is that a few persons,
often a single individual, such as a Pierpont Morgan or a
Penrhyn, can only be dealt with when an industrial crisis is
reached, and from behind the wall of uncontrolled possession
either cripple industry by a corner in commodities, or by rail-
way rates, or crush out human sympathy and combination by
a feudal edict that municipal ownership would avoid.
In a word, the rapidity of growth of towns, the productivity
of labour and machinery, the aggregations of populations, the
increase thereby of complex civic problems, brush aside all the
doctrinaire theories of individual as against collective owner-
ship. The average Briton, to his credit, cares neither for the
cast-iron formulae of Marx, or the belated wails of individualists ;
what he cares for, votes for, and pays for is the best that any
system will produce, and the answer to the allegations of the
Times, as to the dangers of municipal enterprise, is that con-
currently with keener criticism municipal trading dispropor-
tionately grows, and will so continue to prosper.
What is needed for its guidance, development, and full
272 MODERN SOCIALISM
fruition for the ratepayers is greater tolerance and more sympa-
thetic relations between all classes of people in matters that
affect the common interests of the newer and the higher
citizenship. Fortunately this is coming, as is evidenced by
the excellent work, apart from their political differences, that
the London County Councillors have generally displayed at
Spring Gardens for the betterment of London. In this work
none have shown better judgment, tact, and self-denial than
the Labour members.
It would have done the Times more credit if it had en-
couraged this process from its higher vantage-ground, instead
of turning on a cock-and-bull story about an officer sending a
map to be repaired to the Works Department the cheapest
and best way of getting it done, by the way or of a painter
refusing to unscrew a door-plate because it was a carpenter's
work.
I could retort by saying that because my trade union and
the plumbers spent foolishly about ; 100,000 over a demar-
cation of work dispute some years ago on the Tyne, that
therefore the employer on whose works this collective folly
occurred should be pilloried for an act he was not responsible
for. The fault rested with the respective trades, not with the
council or employer. Similarly the Times distorts, exaggerates,
omits, and misinterprets the greatest movement of the century
which it wishes to destroy, but has not the fairness to
understand.
Its charges about direct employment of labour are as
ridiculous as they are untrue.
The L.C.C. only asks contractors to grant their workpeople
" the rate of wages, hours, and conditions in practice
obtained " by the trade unions from associations of employers,
and in practice obtained. The L.C.C. itself only pays to its
workpeople what the same workmen could get on similar work
elsewhere. Its other clauses as to payment, arbitration, re-
tention moneys, and other conditions are much more favour-
able to contractors than those enforced by the Metropolitan
JOHN BURNS 273
Board of Works. The Council insists upon, and generally
secures, the same amount of work as contractors, and certainly
gets a better quality of work from those it employs.
With regard to its Works Department, the inception of
this policy was due to the contractors themselves by their high
prices and their mysteriously similar tenders, and the desire to
remove from L.C.C. officials a sphere of temptation to which
I am not anxious any public servants should be subjected, and
to which some of their predecessors' servants succumbed, as
recent magisterial and other significant facts disclose.
Whether the Times cares for it or not, the elimination of
the middleman, the abolition of the contractor, is a rapidly
growing process not only for all public bodies, but for Govern-
ments and even large private manufacturers. It is in that way
that profit, concentration, and economy are to be found, and
is the only weapon of the community against the tyranny of
the trust. What is more, if there is any defect in the direct
employment of labour by the L.C.C. , the primary responsibility
for this rests upon those who, for political or trade reasons,
have prevented the proper equipment, administration, and
work of the department.
Where similar work is done by the City of London, the
London School Board, or even by the Government, at same
cost and no batter quality, there is a studious silence; but
" what in the City captain is but a choleric word, in the
County Council soldier is rank blasphemy." But the facts
about the Works Department are these :
Since its inception it has done, under the old management,
.793,990 5-f. id. of estimated work at a cost of .865,244
gs. 10^., or .71,334 above estimate, by no means the
absolute standard, and that on 12 jobs taken too cheaply in
the early stages.
Under the new management it has completed "466,102
Ss. zd. estimated, at a cost of ,473,713, or "7610 above.
From the latter alleged loss .7233 is to be deducted for
profits on jobbing works, or a net loss of "400. As a set-off
T
274 MODERN SOCIALISM
against this, over the whole period, 97,000 has been incurred
for excessive establishment charges, 34,000 for general
charges, including interest on capital, .12,377 ^ or repayment
of capital, or a total of 144,000. If any ratepayer wishes to
see whether he has value for the money, a visit to New Cross,
Whitefriars, Battersea River, and other fire-stations will
reassure him ; whilst a visit to the new Lots Road Pumping
Station, Heathwall, and other works, will dispel the " wild
and whirling " words of the authors of Municipal Socialism in
the Times as to the capacity, cost, and quality of the depart-
ment's work.
If contract comparisons are needed : Parliament Street
contract paving, the annual cost of 35,000 a year on
scamped Board School buildings, the Victoria Embankment
repairs, and the enormous extras on the works by other
London bodies that can be named. These bodies are being
tardily driven to follow the policy of the L.C.C. in defence of
the ratepayer, independently of the interest of the workman,
the protection of the contractor, or the aims of the theorist.
The wise municipal statesman says, with the poet Pope
" For forms of government let fools contest,
Whate'er is best administered is best."
The growth of municipal trading is only the recognition,
and the profitable application to municipal affairs, of the
sensible couplet that is never quoted by the present Govern-
ment of the country, which on all counts is worse managed
than any borough council I know of, including, with all its
difficulties, overburdened, undermanned West Ham.
The Times } in its quixotic crusade against municipal trading,
descends from the criticism of municipal life in general to the
particular in several instances, and of course, not unexpectedly,
Battersea, with which I am associated. Is this a premonition
of an imminent general election, as I notice that invariably in
London a wholesale onslaught is made either on the L.C.C. or
the Battersea local governing body a few weeks before either
JOHN BURNS 275
of the two elections occurs ? Of Battersea, the first charges
are that the representatives of the masses make pilgrimages to
Battersea, with the view not of studying municipal efficiency,
" but of getting nice, soft, and comfortable jobs." This quite
unfounded statement is disposed of by the fact that the over-
whelming majority of the staff now engaged by the Battersea
Borough Council have been transferred from the old local
Board of Works, the defunct vestry, or as vacancies have
occurred from the best qualified, whether from Liverpool,
Manchester, or elsewhere, irrespective of politics, creed, or class.
Borough Councillors can truly say, " None of my relations
are (local) Government contractors." Whilst in the matter of
relationships, Downing Street could do worse than emulate the
Spartan self-denial of Battersea.
It is true that the majority of councillors are of the working
classes, but so are their constituents. Better this than the
creatures of contractors, as too many members of the old
London vestries were, and in so being causing their belated
disappearance in favour of the existing bodies, who are
extending municipal enterprise as fast as they can to undo the
heritage of neglect and jobbery the vestries bequeathed to
them. The allegation that this Labour representation has
operated to the detriment of the district is disposed of by
comparing its roads and the cost per mile thereof, streets,
sanitation, libraries, baths, electric light, its sterilized milk
depot, its gymnasia, gardens, and other amenities, with Tory,
middle-class, company-ridden Wandsworth, or with the aristo-
cratic Westminster City Council, which, in my opinion, is the
worst and most costly district in London, with its paving
scandals and its mania for advertizing itself in costly street
name-plates.
It is true that Battersea has a works department, but so
has the Times office for its limited work.
That works department from 1895 to March, 1902, did
-"266,000 of estimated works at a cost of ,256,000, or
; 1 0,000 below estimate, and which, allowing for office and
276 MODERN SOCIALISM
establishment charges, still yields a profit to ratepayers for
admittedly superior work, the abolition of tips, secret com-
missions, and high maintenance charges that bad contract
work always means.
The instance of the excessive cost on the Albert Bridge
Road sewer is only partially true. This was a difficult job.
A new sewer had to be placed under another, which had
collapsed long before its proper time, because it was badly
built by a contractor; there were difficulties through land
water getting in ; but there is less to blame the council for in
this than in the system of cheap and nasty work that rendered
this job necessary at all.
What the " Municipal Alliance " want is to get back to
power to revive this condition of things ; hence their rage and
disappointment through the medium of the Times.
The silly stories of five men to drive a nail, the fiction
about York Road chalet, which could not be put elsewhere
except at treble the cost, and could not be altered as to level
because of main sewer, my unfounded visits to certain works,
and my purely imaginative rebuke of workmen on these jobs,
are but the irresponsible clatter of defeated jerrybuilders in
their cups, or the fictions of a few dismissed employes who
were sent about their business.
The statement about " local government in Battersea being
carried on far more in the interests of municipal employes than
in those of the general body of the ratepayers " is as unfair as
untrue. This statement is the invention of the local Municipal
Alliance, that on several occasions have failed to make their
charges true, and, what is more, do not make them on the
council itself, where they can be refuted.
The numerical answer is that in November, 1899, the
council had in its employ 570 when work to be done justified
this number. It has now 242 doing its necessary public work,
and of these I should say half were without votes, spread over
two L.C.C. and Parliamentary constituencies, and the majority
of these people often are Tory in their views,
JOHN BURNS 277
It is true that Battersea has a debt of 5 15,000, but what
of that ? Its assets in electric light, libraries, baths, wharves,
works, and other properties, counterbalance this. It is also
true that its rates have been seriously increased, but this is not
altogether the fault of the borough council. It is due to causes
general to all parts of the metropolis, partly to outside bodies,
who out of a total rate levied by the borough council of
383,000, leave the borough council only .136,000 for its
manifold duties; and this cannot be specially attributed to
Battersea workmen. One,, of the chief reasons is due to the
eviction of the very poor from low-rated West End parishes,
who bundle their poor and their burdens over the bridges from
Belgravia to Battersea. The way out is to further equalize the
cost of Poor Law maintenance, but not to cut down the
standard of sanitary efficiency.
The Times then makes a great fuss about what Battersea
spent upon free concerts, now disallowed by Local Govern-
ment Board auditor. The cost of giving 76 concerts to 84,000
people in three years, delightful counter-attractions to the
street and the public-house, cost the parish up to date less
than 900, or not a farthing rate for the year, and less than a
foolish person in the West End recently spent on a dinner for
ten persons that fitly ended in a street row. If, however, there
had been more tact and judgment displayed in this matter
by those responsible, this venture could have proceeded as
originally intended," but raw haste was ever half-sister to delay."
The facts about the boys' club and gymnasium are not as
stated. The truth about the matter is, that the Latchmere
Baths in the winter were lying idle ; youths were lounging
about the streets, with nowhere to go but the public-house or
other undesirable places, sucking at cigarettes.
The council fitted up a gymnasium at a cost of 496, in-
cluding appliances, wages, expenses, and salary of instructor,
and charged a small fee for admission and use; 31,000 youths
paid this fee, or a sum of 403, leaving a deficit of 93, a
set-off against which is the improvement of physique, manners,
278 MODERN SOCIALISM
and habits of the lads frequenting the place, which would have
pleased Colonel Fox, of Aldershot Gymnasium, and the Royal
Commission on Physical Education.
As to the club, where they can play bagatelle and other
innocent games, 16,000 boys paid in fees the sum of ^65 for
the use of recreative pleasures that saved them from the streets
and yielded ^3 above cost and working expenses. In all,
47,000 youths for less than ;ioo had opened out to them
something better than the streets and their consequent hooli-
ganism ; and this useful work is described as a scandal.
It is not true, as stated, that the Latchmere Baths are a
loss of nearly ^4000 a year to the parish. The working
expenses, including repayment of principal, are ^4843 for
230,000 bathers; the receipts are ^2183, an ^> m s pi te f l w
charges, are rapidly improving.
The Times man forgets to mention,, whilst on Latchmere
Baths, that these dreadful Battersea workmen have dared to
dispense with a water company bill of ;6oo per annum by
sinking a well, the property of the council, that gives them the
necessary supply for less than .100. He forgot also to
mention that its sterilized milk depot is becoming self-support-
ing in a short time, and has been blessed by the Coroner,
approved by the doctors and the Lancet and has certainly
reduced the infantile death-rate, which the dreadful Labour
Leaguers are determined to still further diminish.
The statement about Nine Elms Baths is equally misleading.
The Times investigator, if he had inquired further, would have
ascertained that the loss on this bath could have been wiped
out if the ^4000 a year, or id. rate, which the council now
spends in repairing defective private combined drainage out of
the public funds, had not been saddled upon the parish by
the house-agents who run the Municipal Alliance, and wish to
ruin the parish; It is true there is a loss upon the Morden
Cemetery, which is a new burial-ground of enormous size and
with low fees; but Battersea prefers to make a dividend of
better health out of the living rather than a profit out of the
JOHN BURNS 279
prematurely dead. The Labour Leaguers actually had the
audacity to ask the railway company for cheaper railway fares
for the mourners, and, as with nearly all its attempts, it really
succeeded. The borough would, however, bury the Municipal
Alliance at a loss, to prevent their emissaries from misleading
a great paper like the Times, that might, before publishing these
libels, have seen the responsible officials and members of the
borough council. If not too late, I will give the authors of
the articles a few days to correct their mis-statements by view-
ing the parish with them,and displaying its attractions and un-
folding its well-kept accounts.
The greatest inaccuracy of all is that the borough loses
over ^"3000 a year over the men's sick club. The fact is, the
borough council gave ^250 last year for a fund to which the
men contribute 4^. per week. Of the 624 average membership
this year, 21 only at this moment are on the fund. Consider-
ing the character of occupation and age of men, none under 40
being engaged on roads, this is not bad. This is allowed and
approved by the Local Government Board. This is a sample
of the allegation that passes for criticism in the Times, which
seems to me very much " out of joint." Here and there in
the Times articles on Battersea is disclosed the source from
which the inspiration is derived. I have to meet it at every
L.C.C. and borough council election, and presumably this
last criticism is intended for local use by the dispossessed
Moderates at the next Parliamentary election.
I have not the least fear as to the result, because con-
currently with refuting the Times' attacks on democratic govern-
ment in this district, in the main prejudiced, partial, or untrue,
I intend to advise those with whom I work to legislate for the
parish as a whole, and if, as on one or two occasions, this is
not done in the general interest of the community, I will with-
hold what support I can command, and, if necessary, actively
oppose any party or candidate who could act or would attempt
to defend the purely imaginary condition of misgovernment
which the Times has fabricated.
280 MODERN SOCIALISM
The fact is a great paper has been befooled by a few
discredited and defeated people, who have stuffed the ears of
the Times' correspondents with fables, filled their mouths with
libels of a district that, with all its shortcomings, as competent
observers can see, is a model to the west and an exemplar to
the east.
In all that Battersea and its Labour majority does for the
improvement of its community by the money its generous rate-
payers place at their disposal, I believe that better value is
given in return by officers, workmen, and councillors than in
any district in London.
I say that deliberately after having given five weeks of my
Parliamentary vacation to visiting all the districts, parks, works,
and other public institutions all over London.
In spite of a few blunders that have been checked, a few
errors of judgment, curiously by the very section the Times
picks out for special distinction, the borough council still
enjoys the confidence of the electors; but has earned the
curses of the opponents of all that is good for the parish and
for London.
The attack of the Times has failed to impress the district,
because it is but a rechauffe of flat, stale, and unprofitable
mendacity that failed at the last elections for L.C.C. and the
borough council, and is mainly directed, politically and person-
ally, against myself. From the collection of house-agents,
slum-owners, publicans, and others that compose the declining
Municipal Alliance we expected nothing better. But from a
great newspaper that is still a power when it dares to rise to its
great traditions we had expected dignified correction when
proved to be wrong, sensible advice when doubtful policies
were under discussion, and cultivated instruction when inex-
perience prompted a wayward policy.
But instead of a dignified and well-informed reminder of
duty, obligations, and the responsibilities of Labour to the
community, which we could have respected, and where true
and applicable sincerely adopted, we have had a wanton
JOHN BURNS 281
attack, inspired by local malignants, prompted by political
faction, in the interests of private monopoly that too long
has dominated the life of our great city. In the movement
called by the Times "Municipal Socialism," it suspects that
this is an attempt of a class to capture power, fill offices, spend
other people's money in the interest of a special class to the
detriment of the community as a whole. This is what the
contractor, the trust, the syndicate, the resultant " Boss " and
"spoils" system have produced in many American cities.
Municipal Socialism will avoid that danger in Britain, be-
cause the incentive for company franchises, the fruitful source
of corruption everywhere, even in Parliament, will not exist;
because the town will own the trust, instead of the trust
owning the town.
In so far as Battersea has secured the ownership by its own
ratepayers of what is left to inefficient and costly private enter-
prise elsewhere, Battersea has done well.
The movement amongst workmen for a greater share of
the blessings that municipal life confers on society as a whole
is not a disordered scramble for office, patronage, or largesse
under the guise of dawdling service or perfunctory labour. For
Labour there must be no " Miching Mallecho ; " for the com-
munity none but loyal and strenuous service.
It is a revival of the old-time enthusiasm for a richer,
fuller civic life as a means of lifting themselves from the pit of
Tophet into which past neglect consigned them, private enter-
prise enthralled them; and from which in raising themselves
they deserve better than the gibes and jeers of the "Joe
Millers " of the Liberty and Property Defence League in the
columns of the Times. If in this upward movement of a
people, for the benefit of the race, for something better than
hovels to live in, drink as a diversion, monotonous toil as a
livelihood, there has been, as at West Ham and elsewhere,
strong language, in some cases provoked by the present
snobbery and past jobbery of Tory Bumbledom, it is but a
rough incident, a mere stumble, in the stride of a people from
282 MODERN SOCIALISM
the cringing, dependent period of monopoly tutelage, to the
higher life of the craftsman citizen of a free community.
In that general movement for a brighter, better London,
Battersea deservedly stands in the forefront of municipal
progress ; and for that worthy cause Battersea Labour honestly
works, and its workmen, without patronage or corruption, will
ever honourably and fairly strive to lead.
Yours truly,
JOHN BURNS.
September 23, 1902.
The following was the municipal programme given in Mr. Burns'
election address for the London County Council election of 1898.
If elected, I will, as heretofore, devote my time to the
Council's work, and am in favour of
1. The extension of the powers of the Council, so that the
City, with all its funds and endowments, be included in and
used by a real Municipality for London.
2. That all monopolies, such as gas, water, tramways,
omnibuses, markets, docks, river steamboats, and electric
lighting, should be municipalized, and the profits, amounting
to ^4,000,000 annually, or three times the Council's revenue,
devoted to public purposes.
3. Establishment of municipal hospitals in every district,
and control by the Council of those which already exist.
4. Artisans' dwellings, as now, to be constructed and owned
by the Council.
5. Enlargement of powers so as to enable the County
Council to undertake the organization of industry and distri-
bution, especially in those departments dealing with the neces-
saries of life.
6. Rigorous enforcement of Public Health Acts, and
efficient sanitary and structural inspection of dwellings and
workshops.
7. The organization of unemployed labour on useful work
at trade-union wages.
JOHN BURNS 283
8. The direct employment of all labour by the Council at
eight hours per day at trade-union rates, women and men
receiving equal pay for equal work. Nine years' experience
has proved that contract work, however well supervised, does
not produce such good buildings and workmanship as the
Council has secured by its own workmen.
9. Direct control by the Council of the five millions of
money now spent, and too often squandered, on useless
officialism and feasting by charitable institutions and City
companies.
10. The police of the City and Greater London to be
controlled by the County Council.
11. Cumulative rating, the taxation of ground landlords for
the relief of the occupier, and the provision of new sources of
revenue. Sevenpence half our present rate now goes to pay
the old debt left by our predecessors, thus depriving London
of many necessary improvements.
Besides these measures, I will work and vote for any plan
that will enable London to reduce its poverty and brighten the
lives and increase the comfort of its people.
The following is Mr. Burns' Parliamentary programme as given
in his election address of 1900.
As a candidate, dealing with immediate questions, and
asking your votes, I am in favour of the following :
Home Rule for Ireland, and such measures of legislative
independence as the Irish people may demand for their
political, social, and industrial emancipation.
Payment of members and election expenses.
Adult Man and Woman's Suffrage, and drastic amendment
of Registration Laws, Second Ballot, and Referendum.
Triennial Parliaments.
Abolition of the House of Lords and all Hereditary
Authorities.
Conferring upon the London County Council all the
powers enjoyed by other municipalities, and giving to London
284 MODERN SOCIALISM
a unification of complete municipal self-government, with power
to acquire all existing monopolies.
Wider powers to Local Authorities to deal with Housing
of the Poor, and the creation of Fair Rent Courts.
Alteration of the incidence of taxation, so that the ground
landlord, the owner, and the rich, shall pay their just propor-
tion of taxation.
Disestablishment of the Church.
The Legal Eight Hours' Day as the best means of securing
work for all, overwork for none, the avoidance of strikes,
reduction of the rates, and giving permanent employment
where demoralizing casual labour now prevails.
Raising the age of child labour, and placing all trades
within the scope of the existing and future Factory and
Sanitary Acts.
Alteration of existing Poor Law, and diversion of its funds
to some scheme of Old Age Pensions that, by cumulative or
graduated income-tax on the rich, would give sustenance to old
people without pauperization.
Giving to localities absolute and complete power in decid-
ing upon all questions relating to the drink traffic by Direct
Veto and Local Option.
The recognition of Trades Unions, the abolition of sweating
and subletting, the payment of union wages in all Government
Departments, and the checking of waste, jobbery, and extrava-
gance wherever found.
XX
SOCIALISM AND CO-OPERATION
BY E. ANSEELE
An address delivered to a meeting of French Socialists in Paris
in 1900.
Edouard Anseele is the son of a working bootmaker, and began
life as a compositor at Ghent. He started in 1873, with a handful
of friends, the Ghent Socialist Co-operative Society, "Vooruit;"
which from the smallest beginnings has come to have nearly 10,000
members and over ,25,000 capital, with premises which are the finest
in Ghent. There is now a Socialist co-operative in Brussels on an
even larger scale, and of the 1700 co-operative societies in Belgium
most are Socialist All Belgian Socialist activity centres now
around its " Maisons du Peuple."
The following address gives some idea of the all-round manner
in which these Socialist co-operatives try to benefit their members,
providing entertainment, education, medical care, funds for the
Socialist press and party, and premises for trade-union meetings.
I COME to plead before you for the marriage of two ideas,
which some years ago were thought incapable of uniting
Co-operation and Socialism.
In a meeting at Brussels some time back, I made a com-
parison. The Co-operative Socialist movement which we
my friends and I have created in Belgium might The a m ance
be likened to the union of a sempstress and an of Socialism
artist. She, the sempstress, wants a larger life
than her shop and her trade ; he, the artist, wants
his soup served to the minute and his cooking done reliably
and regularly on a plentiful scale, to enable him to fling himself
285
286 MODERN SOCIALISM
into the world of the most daring creations. She has had her
trials, the poor sempstress. She was looking after her little
household with a prudence which not many ministers of finance
display in many countries ; while he took it into his head to
consort with wrong people, or rather people with wrong ideas
revolutionists and Utopians and to spend the money so
hardly earned in meetings and. manifestations and for under-
takings which, after all, yield no income. She was annoyed,
and now and then she would say, " I'll stop payment." And
then he explained things ; talked of the new world, of the nobler
ideal, of a great revolution in ideas, of universal changes, of
things which she understood very little but felt very much ; and
she would say, " I love you more than ever ; I'll go on paying,
only don't ask for too much ! "
In Belgium the cause is won. They are married, and from
their marriage lots of children have been born lots more
even than in Zola's novel Fecondite. But the case is far from
being won here in France. No more is it in Germany, much
less in England. On the one hand, people blame Co-operation
for being Socialist ; on the other, they blame Socialism for
being Co-operative. And yet in Belgium the marriage is such
a success, its offspring is so sturdy and numerous, that we have
even (again as in Zola's novel) reached the colonizing stage
which has brought me here.
Co-operators who are only co-operators say : No Socialism
in Co-operation; Co-operation and nothing else; grocery, bread-
Theanti- baking, drug-selling that's all; soup at a penny-
Socialist co- halfpenny, bread at twopence-halfpenny beyond
operator. ^^ no thing. We say : You are wrong. And, my
bourgeois friends, note that we can discuss the subject with
you ; we are as good men of business as you lovers of pure
Co-operation. Look at our bread-factories, just as successful as
yours, and perhaps more so, because people can be thorough-
going reformers and remain good men of business. Well, I say
you are doubly wrong, from the moral standpoint and from
the material. Co-operation has to be Socialist. And why go
E. ANSEELE 287
wrong ? Take the moral standpoint first. What is Co-opera-
tion, unless it is a struggle, not merely for the immediate
bettering of one's lot, but for the transformation of society
in a higher sense? Otherwise, we should have simply to
endeavour, by competition, to get our wares as cheap as yours.
But Co-operation is a great work of reform; and to create,
maintain, and enlarge a great work of reform, you want the
sacred fire among those who take part in it. Socialism
supplies that sacred fire. And if with us that union of which
I spoke just now is so strong and indestructible, if with us our
enthusiasm is as great as our daring, it is, thanks to the sacred
fire, that Socialism has put into our hearts and minds. Secondly,
you are wrong from the material standpoint. Do you want a
striking example ? Here is one. Suppose all the French co-
operative societies, Socialist and non-Socialist, joined; suppose
them as rich and strong as all the co-operative societies in the
world put together; they never, never, never not if they had
the greatest business men, the greatest financiers, the greatest
accountants at their head they never could, of themselves
alone and without exerting pressure in the political sphere,
lower the price of bread in the same proportion as the protec-
tive tariff law in France has increased it by putting a seven-franc
duty on the import of foreign grain. In vain, you co-operators
pure and simple, in vain you may want to cut a farthing into
two; of all your saving, of all your initiative, half or three-
quarters or the whole will be annihilated by a single bad law
which will raise the price of an article more than by your
intelligence and your efforts you can lower it.
That is how the co-operators pure and simple err, both from
the moral and the material standpoint.
Next there are our friends (and when our friends give it
us they do give it us !) our friends the anti-co-operative
Socialists. What do they say, our friends? They Theantl _
fear, it seerns, for our work. I like and respect co-operative
this sentiment, if it is sincere. But what do they Socialists '
fear ? Do they fear that Co-operation, which tends to give a
288 MODERN SOCIALISM
gentler character to the Socialist movement, may check the
generous hearts and the broad minds of the other class, and
prevent them from coming to Socialism in greater numbers?
I think they are mistaken : for precisely through the incite-
ment to gentleness and the practical spirit, which Co-operation
gives to Socialism, do I think that the generous hearts and
broad minds of the other class will come in greater numbers
than before. Do they fear their coming in too great numbers ?
Are they afraid of the flood of "intellectuals," of generous
hearts and broad minds from the other class, pouring into our
class ? Do they fear that ? I do not. I am not afraid either
of the wealth in their brains or that in their coffers; and if
their ideas help us to find our way, and their coffers help us to
travel along it with fewer victims and less suffering, I do not
fear the advent of as many " intellectuals " as possible in the
ranks of the working-class. In Belgium we have with us
" intellectuals " full of talent, you know about them, and I
need not mention names, fine fellows who in the Belgian
Chamber can give some nasty knocks to the champions of their
former class. Well, these "intellectuals," full of talent and
enthusiasm, and sincere in their faith, can only do good in
our midst. And if they wanted to do harm, the conscience
of the organized working-class would prevent them in twenty-
four hours.
Do they fear, our friends who criticize us, that the petty
bourgeoisie may not join us or may leave us? For that
Socialist co- matter, let it leave us; it is no great loss. It is
operation; not on our s [^ e even jf we are not CO -operators.
and the .
petty bour- Certainly I would not go out of my way to scare
geoisie. fa e petty bourgeoisie, nor any part of a class which
is not my class. But if to set my own class free I am con-
vinced that I must adopt certain tactics, and if it happens that
in consequence of these tactics the petty bourgeoisie is in-
duced to leave me or not to join me, I would stick to my
tactics, come what may. I have the interests of my class to
defend, and it is these and no others that guide my conscience.
E. ANSEELE 289
Besides, what can we do ? What can the little co-operative
societies little compared with the Louvre, or Bon Marche,
or Dufayel, like tiny cockleshells beside big transatlantic
liners, what addition by themselves can the little co-operative
societies make to the vast economic process which is tending
to stamp out the petty bourgeoisie ? The great industry has
resulted in a lessening of the cost of production ; it is logical
that the cost of exchange should be lessened as far as possible
also. If in this new economic transformation things must
happen which hurt a par^ of a certain class, well, I pity it
from the bottom of my heart. But if its elimination leads
us to an order better, juster, and more generous for the vast
mass of men, well, I throw into the balance the welfare of
the majority against the misfortune of a few. Besides, in
the development of production have not we, we also, been
stamped out ? Has not the artisan been displaced by the
machine, dispossessed of his technical knowledge, of his trade,
to be swallowed up in the factory, which has grown large
enough to hold a whole village's population within its walls ?
To this precarioussituation, caused by the economic develop-
ment I, the workman, have, willy-nilly, to make up my mind.
And in the conditions in which I live, I have none too
much of my wretched wage by the end of the week. I must
be a very sober workman ; my wife must be a very thrifty
woman; my children cannot be ill twice a year; or else
I get into debt. Suppose, then, I am a workman whose duty
as father of a family, is to take good care of the household
interests, and suppose, by a system of buying and selling
different from that of the bourgeoisie, I can lower the price
of the articles of food on which my family and I subsist, am
I to be prevented from doing so by a feeling of solidarity with
the petty bourgeoisie ? I could understand it, were this class
always at our side in all our struggles, sustaining us, encou-
raging us, if it were with us heart and soul. But no ; a very
great part of the petty bourgeoisie is at heart with the enemy,
and with us for its pocket. Mind you, I do not say tha|
290 MODERN SOCIALISM
systematically. People tell us : " You frighten the petty
bourgeoisie." I reply : " I cannot help it ; if it wants to join us,
it can. What is more, it ought ; for after all, I reckon, the life
of the petty bourgeois, from the spiritual point of view (I do not
speak here of the material standpoint), is an unhappy one.
He must always be of his customer's way of thinking, or else
he loses him ; and if he loses three, four, five customers, his
trade is doomed. His whole existence hangs by a silken
thread. And it is this miserable life that he wants to keep ;
he wants to tighten the chains, to stick yet faster in the mud,
of the capitalist society, which leaves him this shame of the
spirit to earn his bread with. Well, let him endure it.
Our friends (those who give it us so often and give it us so
hard) say too : " By your co-operative societies you excite the
, selfishness of the working-class." Well, those who
The fear of
making the say so are not acquainted with the Socialist co-
working- operative societies. Had they been ever members
class selfish. ... :
of one, they would have a different knowledge of
what goes on in them. In the Socialist co-operative societies,
as in all others, bonuses are divided out quarterly, half-yearly,
or annually. Well, I can assure you, not one of these divisions
occurs where members receive five, ten, or fifty francs, without
there being by the side of the man who pays them out one, two,
or three boxes " For the Socialist propaganda, please ! " " For
the weavers on strike, for the spinners on strike, please ! "
" For the Socialist children, please ! "and it is " please " this
and " please " that, and of the money meant for the woman's
purse or the man's waistcoat only three-quarters goes there. So
a quarter of the bonuses goes of the co-operator's own accord,
through the Socialistic impulse which inspires the man, makes
him better, warms his heart to the noble ideas, the large
aspirations, which make men not egoists but altruists. That
reproach is so false, the truth is so contrary to what our friends
the anti-co-operative Socialists say, that do you know what we
are obliged to do ? With us at Ghent it goes so far that some
of our members are how should I put it ? it is perhaps harsh
E. ANSEELE 291
bothered by all these kinds of collections, till we have been
obliged to make it a condition for every collection in the
" Vooruit," that the Central Committee's leave be obtained first.
See how selfish Socialist co-operation makes people !
But beyond that, if these friends (whose friendship I may
have misunderstood), if these Socialist anti-co-operative friends
mean that the ameliorations we secure, the bit of good we do
to the workman's family, do harm to the movement, then I
lose patience, and tell them that this time they err grossly.
What ! they say we do a disservice to the working-class ? To
increase the working-class's comfort is to endanger its cause
and ours? Are, then, the poorest the most intelligent and
brave, and deserving? Is it the wretchedest who know best
how to sacrifice themselves for the cause of all? No; the
poorer people are, the more they are liable to be brutalized ;
and if there is anything which raises a man, it is not misery,
it is comfort. Wealth makes men bad ; poverty makes them
brutish : comfort makes them independent. What does in-
creased comfort effect ? It not only enriches the man who
gains by it, it gives him weapons, for him to go higher and get
more; and it gives him besides that ferment, that leaven,
which makes revolutionaries, new needs.
The objectors go on : " Yes, that may be so ; but selling
syrup or putting half-soles on boots isn't, after all, a Socialist's
work." Of course not. But if that groups men, what does it
matter whether I group them by syrup or by vinegar, provided
that I group them ? And I shall group them more easily with
syrup than with vinegar. Besides, there is another point.
Did any one ever think he could ennoble trade ? Surely, a
thankless, quasi-impossible task. Yet we have ennobled trade.
Trade, says Dumas, is other people's money. It is not so
with us. There is no overcharge, or, if there is, it comes back
to the purchaser of the article, that is, to all the class who
suffer and fight for new ideas. We ennobled commerce when
I proposed that the " Vooruit " should establish free pensions
for all its members, I said: "That seems almost chimerical;
292 MODERN SOCIALISM
it is not easy ; but aren't we accustomed to doing things far
from easy ? " And I said again to my comrades : " But did
you ever think it possible, ever conceive it humanly possible,
to get a pension while having one's old boots mended, or
buying a litre of milk or a kilo of bread ? " " No/' they replied,
" that's a new thing." " Well," added I, " you'll see it." And
at the " Vooruit " there are pensions for all members aged sixty
after twenty years' participation in the Society ; after having
bought at the Society's shops 3000 francs' worth during twenty
years, you get a free pension ranging from 120 to 300 francs
per member per year, which a man's wife can inherit from him.
So in buying syrup or vinegar, in having one's boots mended,
in buying a present for wife or husband, the New Year's gift
for the grandmother, or the St. Nicholas 1 toy for the little one,
one is working for the father's pension. But that means en-
nobling trade ; it is one of Co-operation's noble sides ; one of
its great moralizing sides.
" But," say our friends the anti-co-operative Socialists,
" you give the working-class petty-bourgeois ideas." Wrong
Co-opera- again. I ask those of you who have paid our
tionneed co-operative societies a visit, whether you can
not lower *
Socialist be inspired with petty-bourgeois ideas on entering
ideals. their fine premises, as fine as museums, their halls
and shops, as spacious as cathedrals. I ask them, can the
workman who goes in there and says, "There is something
of me here, / am part of the class which has made these
great things " I ask you, does that man feel a petty bourgeois ?
No j he feels himself one of the new Grand Army, which will
not go to plant eagles across Europe, but to plant the land-
marks of the new world across the universe. Petty bourgeois ?
No, no ; " petty " people do not do these things. And recol-
lect how we started at Ghent : a handful of the poor weavers,
whose misery Heinrich Heine has sung, whose life of sorrow
and whose outbursts of revolt the German playwright Haupt-
mann has displayed. Recollect what poor wretches we were,
1 St. Nicholas is a Belgian counterpart of the English Santa Claus.
E. ANSEELE 293
without money, without premises; for it was to be without
money to have but 85 francs 93 centimes l subscribed capital,
and it was to be without premises to have a cellar ; with an
old kneading-trough, an old shovel, an old baker, not even a
cart a big basket some few loaves in it ; and, tally-ho ! off
we started. Well, when with those resources, that beginning,
those rudiments, you do what has been done at Ghent what,
also, under similar conditions the Brussels workmen have done,
I think you can say, that a work which has created all that,
which has thus transformed wretched weavers into apostles of
the new cause, that this co-operative work does not inspire
petty-bourgeois ideas. Really, how our friends do give it us,
and give it us hard !
And what, after all, is the aim of these friends, the anti-
co-operative Socialists, and what, really, is ours? It is the
organization of the working-class, to do with it what Archi-
medes was unable to do. You know, that old Syracusan
architect said one day, " Give me a fulcrum, and I will find
a lever to lift the world." Well, Socialism has found the
fulcrum and the lever. The fulcrum is equal rights ; the lever
is the organized and conscious strength of the workers, which
will lift the world and bring a new order out of it. That is
our aim. Then I ask my friends, how can Socialism, allied
with Co-operation the artist married to the sempstress how
can it hurt the organization of the workers ?
Suppose I have a working-class audience, purely working-
class, the sort of people we are to organize, and suppose I speak
as well as I can, and that in his turn Jaures with co-opera-
all his heart and eloquence addresses you, and g^i^to
that between us we send our respective audiences ge t at once
to the seventh heaven. We finish speaking; the to work,
audience goes out; we have preached organization, trade-
unions, mankind, everything. The audience has gone ; follow
it. " Ah, how well Jaures spoke ! What an orator ! Anseele,
too, was tolerable." So they talk and debate, happy, warmed,
294 MODERN SOCIALISM
convinced. Afterwards they each go home ; and if we take
the worker whom I addressed, and who applauded me just
before, what does he find ? A sick wife, or a sulky mother ;
or, next day, the master before whom he is isolated weak in
his isolation, before whom he is nothing, like the pigmy David
without his sling before Goliath. Of all the enthusiasm, of all
the fine sentiments, of the aspirations, which one has created in
these hearts and heads, there will only remain here and there
a single man who is willing to sacrifice himself for the idea,
who will continue the struggle without hope of reward, even
with the certainty of receiving from his friends more ingratitude
than gratitude. He will have the minority with him, and the
majority wall remain just as it has been for generations.
The minority will remain isolated and without cohesion
and why? Because the groups formed by our warmth, our
fire, our enthusiasm, give but little or no immediate advantage.
The masses, with their great needs, ask for palpable benefits,
which they can, as it were, weigh in their hands, as the gold-
merchant weighs his gold in the balance.
This is the weak side of trade-unions. What is necessary
for the success of a trade-union, in order that one may reap its
immediate benefits ? It is necessary : that in each trade at
least the majority of the members shall be organized ; to be
strong against the employers you must have most of the trade's
workers, there must be plenty of money, lots of gold pieces in
the strong box. To obtain these lots of yellow-boys needs
weeks, months, years of saving and suffering, or else the
struggle is lost before it begins ; and, later, when the crisis
comes, there is possibly but half a victory, possibly a defeat ;
and if, favoured as one may be by the unparalleled prosperity
of industry hitherto, one may by a sufficiently strong trade-
union, and by the cohesion of the members of the trade-union
snatch some advantages from the employers, yet at the very
first crisis we risk the loss of all we have gained.
You must not misunderstand me. I don't want here to
run down trade-unions ; I am a trade-union maker. I do not
E. ANSEELE 295
wish to put despair into the souls of those who take part in
the trade-union movement. Far be it from me. But I wish
to speak of things as they are and as I know them. With
friendly societies and trade-unions, their future is always at the
mercy of their financial position ; how, then, can these friendly
societies and trade-unions, which have to stand such severe
struggles, put aside funds to build large premises, large rooms
for recreation, for all the necessary organizations, and for the
Socialist education which the working-class needs, to attain the
end towards which it marches? Whereas, when you create
a co-operative society like your " Avenir de Plaisance," for
example, in any quarter, it is not necessary that the majority
of the people in that quarter should become members in
order that the society shall succeed. Let us suppose that we
are in a city like Paris, where there are 600,000 workmen.
One could create a co-operative society in a quarter with
6000 workmen, even with 1000, which, if well administered,
gives immediate advantages : the workmen at once receive
money, after the first six or twelve months, and their wives
receive with them their wives, that is to say, the other half,
the most backward half, of our movement, the part of the
working-class most dominated by priest and capitalist. And
this you count as nothing ? To find a means of organization
which, instead of frightening the women, instead of alienating
them, attracts them, reconciles them with your opinion, your
ideal, your party, you count that as nothing ? I look upon it
as more than the half, because woman is, in fact, for man,
more than the half.
Trade-unions and friendly societies cannot build large pre-
mises, it is the exception ; but larger co-operative societies,
like the Ghent " Vooruit," the Brussels " Maison Through Co-
du Peuple," or the Paris " Avenir de Plaisance " gociTiism
and " Egalitaire," can easily do so ; and if they can envelop
have wise managers, they can build their premises, fjj, ^[
as, for example, has been done with the " Avenir workers,
de Plaisance," like the ancient churches, where side by
^6 MODERN SOCIALISM
side the praises of God were sung and the butcher and the
grocer trafficked. They can put the altar in the middle of the
grocery-shop ; and thus the complete union of Socialism and
Co-operation is really achieved. Understand me ; later, as
things progress, that must change. The temple must not be
in the grocery-shop, but outside ; and between the two there
must be assembly-rooms for the trade-unions, large reading-
rooms for every one, and libraries. We require more; we
require Co-operation, as we regard it, to be like the Roman
Church. It must lay hold of its man as soon as he comes
into the world, and say, " Welcome, little one ; " then lead him
on to the end of his life, till the moment when he leaves it for
ever. From the cradle to the grave Co-operation and Socialism
must never leave him. All his material, his moral, and his
intellectual needs, his needs as a man, or hers as a woman,
this new church of the proletariate must supply in full ; that
the child of the people may be dedicated from his mother's
womb to the sole defence of interests which are his own.
To-day we have the great misfortune of being nearly all our
lives in the hands of those whose interests are opposed to the
interests of our class. Suppose I am born a workman my
father a miner, a tailor, an artisan, or an agricultural labourer.
Scarcely have I left my mother's breast when I am sent to the
creche established that my mother may go working, and sweat
to supplement my father's too low wage established that the
whole of the working-class family may be exploited for the
gain of the capitalist family. From the creche I go to the school,
whose programmes have been drawn up by the hostile class,
not to make a man of me, but to knead my brains as a baker
kneads his dough, to make a slave of me. From the school I
go to the workshop, where my whole mind, my whole producing
strength, is let and sold down to my last drop of sweat to the
class which is living upon my class. At twenty I leave the
workshop, and they send me to the barracks, that some
day I may die on a battlefield for thrones which are not
mine.
E. ANSEELE 2 97
That must be changed (A voice : " Let us hope so "). I do
hope so. And why am I calm and hopeful ? Because, you see,
there we are, in poor manufacturing towns with Co-opera-
wages of black bread, workers of the great, the JJjf
middle-sized, or the small industry, and we know to be
well enough, that if the whole mass of workers is P ati3nt -
not yet conscious of its rights and its duties, and has not the
indispensable managing capacity to direct production and
exchange, to rule the world, to eliminate wholly the ruling
class and put our own in its place, that vast task of transform-
ing the workers' minds will take a long time. And then, like
all men or bodies of men who have given themselves heart and
soul to a great cause, we have the virtues indispensable for pre-
serving our enthusiasm patience and faith. I am not ashamed
to say I am patient. Things do not move so quickly in this
world. I know we want patience ; I have patience ; I have grown
up in the patience that misery has forced upon me. The
patience, which the bourgeoisie has given to me, I keep for our
battle against it and for our future victory. The world must
be ours we workers with brain or with hand ; and we say to
the bourgeois, "You shall labour, or there shall be no room
for you." They talk of revolution ; we are not such radical
revolutionaries. We want but to change one word, one single
qualifying one ; to change the system of the bourgeoisie into
the system of the workers. That is all we want to do. And
you cry out at a single word ! Yes, we want the system of the
workers those who labour put in the place of those who are
paid but do not labour. Our demand is as plain as " Good-
morning ; " it is that in all factories and farms, on every ship,
in every management, it should everywhere be the workers
who through their delegates give the orders, the workers
who make the law of nations and the law of workshops.
For our attaining that, bless Co-operation. For the more I
think of it, the more I see that Co-operation is forwarding
the long-looked-for hour, when the kingdom of Socialism shall
come.
298 MODERN SOCIALISM
See to-day : a church in every village, the people nowhere.
There is a priest inside every church, but very often there is
no school opposite. Well, beside every church, in every
village, and in the quarters of the large towns, must rise a
House of the People. 1 I should like to show our friends the
anti-co-operative Socialists of France, who give it us so often
and so hard, I should like to show them in prospect the photo-
graphs of all those Houses of the People in the thousands
and thousands of French villages. Do you know what would
happen ? There would be no more contentions ; they would
fall into each other's arms, ready to do battle once more. We
saw that in Belgium. Yes, at Ghent, a town with 165,000
inhabitants, we have five large premises. There are, I believe,
twenty-five Catholic churches. And opposite them already,
since 1873, nve Socialist churches. In twenty-seven years
(the Catholics have been there centuries) we have done that.
You see, we shall soon catch them up.
Would it not be admirable to have in every quarter of
Paris a beautiful large House of the People ; and one, too, in
Thepossi- every commune in every department of France?
bilities You would depend no longer on a cafe'-keeper, on
thpcmgh 16 a proprietor, who thinks the right of lording it
"Houses of ^ exists in every constitution, because his right of
the People." p rO p ertv SU pp re sses all rights and all constitutions.
Would it not be fine to organize in every co-operative society
workmen's education a trade school for workmen, a trade
school preparing the managers of production, distribution,
and exchange in the future, when the bourgeois management
of to-day shall have disappeared ? And what excellent results
will be obtained in Houses of the People, where every hour,
every minute, every second, all the vices and weaknesses of
the poor are driven out, as some day all their enemies shall
be. War on alcohol ! War on the spiritlessness of our own
class ! War on all that makes us less good, less great, less
1 The name given by the Belgian Socialists to their co-operative estab-
lishments.
E. ANSEELE 299
human, that robust virtues may grow in the heart and head of
every man and every woman.
Yet another thing must be looked for from these trade
schools. I will explain. Working for a master is sometimes
very difficult, especially to satisfy him, because he Learnln
stipulates for so many things. You remember to work
Figaro's saying : " For the virtues which masters
require in a servant, very few masters would be
worthy of being one." Working for a master, then, is difficult.
But for many workmen working without a master is still more
difficult ; and that is what we must teach the workers how to
work without a master. That is one of the reasons why in
many trades co-operative production cannot succeed ; that is
what we must get the proletarians to learn to master them-
selves, to work of themselves, without having forced on them
the will of an authority.
What I am going on to say will, perhaps, draw down an
uproar on my head. I shall say it all the same. I say there
must be order in industry, order in the factory, discipline in
labour ; the labourers must know that it is their duty to push
on the production of all for the gain of all. If only every one
had a character of intellectual and moral strength, strongly
equipped with professional skill and abounding in energy !
But find me such a rare bird. Find the manager who can be
employed in a productive co-operative society. Moral qualities
and knowledge of the trade are his only means of influence
there. Find me this paragon of a manager, and find a hundred
of them combining all the superior qualities which make a
man superior in his own place, which make him one of the
smiths who shall hammer out the new world. Find me that
in every village, every quarter, every trade. Alas, no; the
working-class, we must say it out loud, has not yet reached
that point as regards either personal qualities, technical know-
ledge, or professional knowledge of trades. That is why the
distributive co-operative societies, which help to form and
support the productive ones, are of immense benefit and
300 MODERN SOCIALISM
service to the working-class education, which should impel
the worker to work for himself, without a master and without
fear. That is the great practical end of distributive co-opera-
tion and of productive co-operation.
And now they keep saying to us, " You will fail." That
depends on what you are asking for. If you think I want by
distributive and productive co-operation to solve
Limits to
possibilities the social question, you are strangely mistaken. I
of Co-opera- know, my friends the anti-co-operative Socialists
tion alone. , . . . r
(who give it us so often and so cheerfully), that
the co-operative societies will in vain realize all imagined
advantages ; they will never have enough capital to buy out the
whole fortune of the capitalists of to-day, to-morrow, and the
day after. I know as well as you that the complete emanci-
pation of the toilers is only possible by the expropriation
(qualified or unqualified peaceful or violent with or without
compensation) of all the means of production and exchange.
I know all that. But it is irrelevant. Will your trade-unions
alone conduct you to this end ? Will your political party alone,
Great ad- w ^ out trade-unions or friendly societies, do so ?
vantage of The real question is : Do Co-operation allied with
Socialism and Socialism allied with Co-operation
work for the hurt of the working-class or for its
victory ? To that question I answer, " Yes," fully and boldly.
" Yes, Co-operation is working for its victory." I say yes,
because in Belgium Co-operation and Socialism combined have
achieved wonders. I say yes, because there, where Co-opera-
tion is so strong, you may say regarding purity of principles
that the Belgian Labour party, to its honour, is as pure as the
purest Labour party in the world. I say yes, because there in
Belgium Co-operation does so well and presents no danger, and
because there is no reason why it should not do as well
amongst you.
I do not want, you know, to force my tactics on you.
Tactics depend on a thousand different conditions, which must
be carefully looked at. All the same, my method has caught
E. ANSEELE 301
on in North France; and it pays for propaganda work. How
would our comrades in the North get on without their co-opera-
tive societies, especially at election times? I wish some day
one of our friends, the anti-co-operative Socialists, would be
present at one of our general meetings at Ghent. We had a
few weeks ago ten thousand strikers among us, thousands of
flax-spinners, and the carpenters' lock-out, and there was a
general meeting at the " Vooruit." I was then, as you are now,
sitting listening, and they were there in the hall, thousands
upon thousands. They said : " You know, there's the strike"
" Yes, yes " " That means money " " Of course it means
money" "The Society will give something" "All you
want," was the reply j " you have free course, you can use the
chest as largely as you wish, according to circumstances."
And after results like that, people come and say that Co-opera-
tion lessens the Socialist spirit, the class-consciousness, the
class-war, the spirit of revolution in the proletariate. How un-
true ! And it is the same at Brussels, the same at Jolimont, at
Lie'ge, at Bouvy ; go north, south, east, or west, you will every-
where see big bakeries topped by the red flag.
I am glad to be at Paris, this incomparable city, where I
have enjoyed visiting your rich exhibition ; but above all the
splendours I have seen something finer I have seen Socialists
who, after a debate at the Co-operative Congress, have joined
hands, embraced, and united in the sacred cause of the prole-
tariate. That is finer than the exhibition. I saw when our friend
Leonard, of Charleroi, had shown all that Socialist Co-operation
in Belgium had achieved from the standpoint of our great
ideal, I saw when Jaures contributed the keen insight of his
deeply philosophic mind and the stirrings of his warm soul, 1
saw the entire hall rise like one man, every arm meeting, in
unity. Unity in the workers' cause ; unity for its triumph.
And now go to work, my co-operative friends. Men will
throw stones at you. Never mind ; they threw mud at me.
A shake, and it falls off you. I believe, I am sure, that you
are very much on the right road. Try to have practical
302 MODERN SOCIALISM
assemblies, family meetings like that which I have attended for
the past few days at Paris. Try to let these meetings of com-
rades shed the balm of brotherhood over the sore places of
recent disputes, that at last unity may be brought among you ;
and then the France of past ages will be once more what
she should be the vanguard of the proletariate marching to
win the world.
XXI
THE POLICY OF INDEPENDENT LABOUR
BY J. KEI& HARDIE, M.P.
These two articles illustrate the particular work in the Socialist
movement which Mr. Keir Hardie has especially done. That of
1894 seems worth reprinting, as showing the consistency with which
he has advocated a view which is now far commoner among work-
men than it was then.
J. Keir Hardie was born in Scotland of working-class parents.
He worked in the mines from his seventh to his twenty-fourth year,
and in 1880 became Secretary of the Lanarkshire Miners' Union.
He entered Parliament for West Ham in 1892, and in 1892-3 played
a chief part in the birth of the Independent Labour party. He was
defeated in West Ham in 1895, but in 1900 re-entered Parliament for
Merthyr Tydvil. He took a chief part in forming the Labour
Representation Committee, now the Labour Party, and in 1906 was
chosen as its Leader in the House of Commons.
I. CLEARING THE WAY.
(Labour Leader, June 16, 1894.)
THE question is frequently put to the Independent Labour
party, why don't you unite your forces with the Radical
party? It is pointed out that I.L.P. ism and Radicalism
should make common cause against Whiggism; and that
were this done, these two advanced sections would be
practically masters of the situation. On the face of it there
seems something to be said for this view of the matter. But
it is double-sided. At present Radicals win elections for
Liberalism, whereupon the Whig element in the party sets itself
303
304 MODERN SOCIALISM
to exploit Radicalism for all it is worth. When Liberal
Cabinets are being formed, the Whig party insists upon being
the dominant party therein. If the Radicals attempt to
dispute the supremacy of Whiggism, the Whigs threaten to
go over to the Tories, and thus place Liberalism in a hopeless
minority. This has gone on for a quarter of a century at least,
and, so far as we can see at present, will go on for a long time
again, unless something happens to bring it to an end. Now,
the Radical party wish to use Labour men, as the Whigs
hitherto have used the Radicals. The Whig cry to the
Radicals has been, "Join with us to beat the Tories," and
the Radicals, having accepted the invitation, found that they
did the fighting, whilst the Whigs raked in the spoils of victory.
Were the Independent Labour party to accept the invitations
so plentifully showered upon it by the Radical party, a similar
state of things would prevail. A much better way is that which
the Independent Labour party has adopted to go straight on
its own course, gathering strength as it goes, until men who pose
as Radicals will be compelled to decide between Whiggism and
I. L. P. ism.
Besides, there is another aspect of the question. We are
asked to come into the Radical ranks, and we may use the
Radical party to further the objects we have in view. Much
has been said and written in defence of this method ; and it is
on this assumption that many men, who are as much in earnest
as the most advanced I.L.P. er, still remain within the ranks
of Liberalism. It does not seem to occur to those men that
two can play at the game of having a party. And whilst
they fondly believe that they are making use of Liberalism
in the interests of Labour, the managers of the Liberal party
are under the equally comfortable belief that they are using
Liberalism in the interests of themselves.
The struggle for supremacy between these two forces is
very unequal. The minds of the workers are so engrossed in
the struggle for a bare existence, that they have neither time
nor opportunity for cultivating the commercial instincts. They
J. KEIR HARDIE 305
have no wealth wherewith to hire cunning lawyers to scheme
and plan for them. They cannot offer posts of honour or
emoluments to those who are their friends. At best, all they
can say is, that those who are with them are serving humanity
by their devotion to principle. On the other hand, there is
wealth in abundance ever to command all the unscrupulous-
ness which lays itself out for sale in the political as in the
commercial world. Men whose whole life has been applied
to develop their commercial instincts cunning lawyers, versed
in the art of quibbling and making black appear white social
position, and distinction as reward for those who serve the
party faithfully, and above and beyond all, a pecuniary interest
in preventing the people seeing that the private ownership of the
wealth possessed by the privileged class is at the root of every
social injustice. It is not difficult to foresee the outcome when
these two sections are endeavouring each to best the other.
And it makes one incredulous when one hears Labour men
boast that they are using, or are going to use, Liberalism to
achieve Labour reforms. The spectacle of a small community
of kids in the midst of a horde of wolves, comforting them-
selves with the belief that they were about to use the wolves
for their own advantage, would not be more absurd.
II. FEDERATED LABOUR AS A NEW FACTOR IN BRITISH
POLITICS.
(North American Review, August, 1903.)
The Independent Labour party is a Socialist, and not, as its
title might seem to imply, a purely working-class organization.
It aims at the creation of a Co-operative Commonwealth,
founded upon the socialization of land and capital. Its methods
of realizing its objects are, to educate the community in the
principles of Socialism and to secure the return to Parliament
and to all elected bodies of members representative of its
principles, Since its formation in 1893, it has been regarded
X
306 MODERN SOCIALISM
as the stormy petrel of politics, and has kept itself well in
evidence mainly by running its own candidates and by
missionary zeal and activity. The actual paying membership
of the party is returned at 13,000, including a fair proportion
of the educated and well-to-do classes who see in Socialism the
only hope for solving the social problem. The yearly income
of the party averages ^25,000. As the bulk of this comes
from the wage-earning classes, and as the payments are purely
voluntary, this sum argues a considerable degree of sincerity.
In addition to the regular membership named above, the party
commands the active political support of that very large and
rapidly growing section of the community which has lost faith
in the Liberal party as an effective instrument of reform. The
energies of its members are tireless, and its political ' resources
are apparently inexhaustible. It is a standing illustration of
the truth of John Stuart Mill's axiom, that in politics one man
with convictions is equal to ninety-nine men who have only
interests.
Prior to 1893 there had been no sustained effort to create
a Labour party in Britain. In the early sixties the old
International Working Men's Association promised for a time
to become a power, but it went down under the Continental
influence by which it was dominated. During the seven
years ending 1874 there was great political activity among
trade-unionists, who were at that time endeavouring to secure
full legal recognition for their organizations. The effort
culminated with the running of seventeen Labour candidates
at the General Election in the year named and the defeat of
the Liberal party. The year following saw the passing
of the Bills which secured full recognition to the trade-
union movement; and, the object aimed at having thus
been gained, the leaders of the movement lapsed back into
the ranks of their ordinary political allegiance, and there the
matter ended.
Nothing more was done until 1887, when the Labour
Electoral Association came into being. It succeeded in
J. KEIR HARDIE 307
existing, in struggling fashion, for a few short years, and then
collapsed, without leaving any indication of its ever having
been. At that time there was considerable ferment in the
Labour world, and the Labour Electoral Association, with its
half-hearted policy, alienated the support of the active spirits
by its feverish anxiety not to offend orthodox political opinion.
Somewhere about 1880, William Morris and H. M.
Hyndman commenced their Socialist propaganda; and the
Social Democratic Federation, modelled largely on the lines of
' the German organization of that name, was formed, and for
a time enlisted in its ranks most of the men who have since
become powerful in connection with Labour politics. But it
failed to hold them. William Morris withdrew and formed the
Socialist League, and John Burns and others of equal standing
left, owing to disagreement with the tactics which were being
pursued.
The great Dock Strike of 1888 may be taken as the
starting-point of the new Labour movement, as, with the single
exception of John Burns, all the men who came to the surface,
during that conclusive period were subsequently identified with,
the inception and propaganda work of the Independent Labour
party. At the General Elections of 1892 a number of Labour
candidates were run by local organizations in various parts
of the country ; and, the year following, at a conference held
in Bradford in Yorkshire, at which one hundred and twenty
representatives of various Labour and Socialist organizations
attended, the Independent Labour party was definitely launched,
>and entered upon its career.
At that time the Liberal party was in office, with a small
and precarious majority. Trade was much depressed, and tens
of thousands of workmen were roaming the country in fruitless
search for employment. As is usual at elections, great hopes
and expectations had been formed as to what would happen if
the Liberals were returned. In the very nature of things, it
was impossible that these hopes could be realized ; and as the
months slipped into years, enthusiastic Radicals, finding that
3 o8 MODERN SOCIALISM
their party in office was apparently as unable or as unwilling
to do anything effective for Labour as their Conservative
opponents had been, deserted in thousands and cast in their
lot with the newly formed Independent Labour party. At
every by-election in an industrial centre the Independent
Labour party ran a candidate, with results which surprised
friends and opponents alike. In only one case did the Labour
candidate come within measurable distance of winning ; but in
every case the number of votes polled showed the strength of
the feeling of discontent which existed in the constituencies.
In those days the hand of every man was against the Indepen-
dent Labour party, which had dared to set itself in opposition
to the cherished political traditions of the nation. The press,
the pulpit, and the platform fulminated and stormed against
the new movement ; whilst the usual misrepresentations and
silly inventions were freely indulged in, and, of course, as freely
believed. The party, however, held on its way unswerving.
Its members were enthusiasts, but not mere theorists ; there was
always a method behind their apparent madness. Inspired by
a Socialist ideal, they yet managed to keep their feet firm on
solid earth ; and the politicians learned that the British work-
man, despite his well-known proclivities, could be a practical
kind of idealist when properly led. At the General Election of
1895 the party ran twenty-eight candidates of its own, every one
of whom, including the present writer, was defeated. As showing
the state of feeling at that time, I may remark, in passing, that
the return of my Conservative opponent was announced, at
the National Liberal Club, as a Liberal triumph. The In-
dependent Labour party vote represented just under thirty
per cent, of the electoral strength in those constituencies which
its candidates had contested. In 1900 we had the Khaki
election, when, despite the fact that all its candidates were
Pro-Boers, and as such anathema to every " patriotic " voter,
the party vote showed a largely increased following, and in one
case my own won a seat from a Liberal who had given an
enthusiastic support to the war in South Africa.
J. KEIR HARDIE 309
Up to this stage, 1900, the idea of seeking to create a
Labour party had, in the main, been confined to the ranks of
the Independent Labour party. Where a trade-union had
sought representation in Parliament, the candidate was put
forward as a working-man Liberal or Conservative, as the case
might be. Recent events, however, chiefly the decisions of
the law courts in trade-union cases, have led to a new and
startling development. The trade-unions have practically cut
themselves adrift from their old political moorings, and they
are heading direct for the open sea of Labour representation
and a Labour party. I have already indicated how the Houses
of Parliament gave full recognition and legal standing to the
trade-unions. For close upon thirty years the law was
assumed to regard trade-unions as voluntary organizations, in
the nature of clubs, which could neither sue nor be sued, and
as not being entities known to the law, since they were not
an individual, a corporation, or a company. Picketing, it was
assumed, had also been fully legalized, including the power to
"peacefully persuade" men to abstain from working. The
strike in all its phases, it was supposed, had been legalized.
The decisions of the law courts in recent cases have upset
these suppositions. Employers of labour have been able to sue
trade-unions as such and obtain damages from the funds, in
one case amounting to ,23,000 for the alleged illegal acts of
the union officials. Peaceful persuasion whilst picketing has
been held to be clearly illegal, rendering the pickets liable to
imprisonment ; whilst the sympathetic strike has been once
again brought within the definition of the common law of
conspiracy. These facts have naturally alarmed the trade-
unionists and forced them into the political arena. With the
very existence of trade-unions imperilled, they instinctively
feel that they cannot trust either of the political parties to see
justice done them.
For years past the feeling in favour of a direct Labour
party has been making steady headway within the trade-union
movement, but it was held in check by the fact that the ranks
3 io MODERN SOCIALISM
were about equally divided in their allegiance to the Liberal
and Conservative parties. Many of the leaders of the unions,
on the other hand, had been brought into political conflict
with the militant spirits of the Independent Labour party,
and, as a consequence, were none too well disposed towards
that movement. To the onlooker, the result seemed to be a
tangle, escape from which was almost hopeless. Where the
will exists, however, the way will usually be found ; and so,
when legal necessity compelled the trade-unionists to face
the situation, they resolved, at their annual congress in 1889, to
call an open conference of representatives of Trade-Unionism,
Socialism, and Co-operation, to consider what means could be
devised for securing more adequate representation of Labour
interests in the House of Commons. The conference was held,
and what has since been known as the Labour Representa-
tion Committee 1 came into existence. Perhaps its objects will
best be denned by quoting from its constitution, as amended
by the annual meeting this year :
" i. The Labour Representation Committee is a Federation of
Trades-Unions, Trades- Councils, the Independent Labour party,
and the Fabian Society. Co-operative Societies are also eligible
for membership.
" Object 2. To secure, by united action, the election to Parlia-
ment of candidates promoted, in the first instance, by an Affiliated
Society or Societies in the constituency, who undertake to form or
join a distinct group in Parliament, with its own whips and its own
policy on Labour questions, to abstain strictly from identifying
themselves with or promoting the interests of any section of the
Liberal or Conservative party, and not to oppose any other candi-
date recognized by this Committee. All such candidates shall
pledge themselves to accept this constitution, to abide by the
decisions of the Group in carrying out the aims of this constitu-
tion or to resign, and to appear before their constituencies under
the title of Labour candidates only.
The Labour Representation Committee is financed by each
affiliated organization, paying ten shillings for each thousand
1 In 1906 its name was altered to *' The Labour Party."
J. KEIR HARDIE 311
members. This is for working expenses. In addition, there
is a Payment of Members fund, to which each affiliated
organization contributes one penny per member per annum^
and from which it is expected each member returned to Parlia-
ment, under the auspices of the Committee, will be paid ^"200
a year.
That the time was ripe for this new movement is fully
evidenced by the fact, that in England and Wales Scotland
having a separate organization over 900,000 trade-unionists
are now affiliated. The movement, as stated above, is a
federation, the basis of which is, that each affiliated organization
shall finance its own candidates and become responsible for
their maintenance if returned to Parliament, each, however, com-
bining with the others to secure the return of their respective
nominees. Thus far, a considerable amount of success has
attended the new movement. Since the General Election, it
has fought four Parliamentary vacancies, two of its candidates
being successful and the other two just missing success. From
the outset it has assumed an attitude of rigid independence
towards the orthodox parties, with surprising results. The
Conservative working-men and their liberal fellows are finding
in the new movement a platform upon which they stand whilst
working for the realization of an object common to both the
protection of their unions and the promotion of their interests
as wage-earners. The financial difficulty, which at one time
bulked so large when the question of Labour representation
was being considered, has been solved by a contribution of
one shilling per member per annum to a Labour Representation
Fund. By this means an annual income of not less than
^"50,000 has been secured. All the principal trade-unions
have selected candidates, and these are being eagerly sought
after by industrial constituencies. The National Liberal
Federation, at its annual meeting a few weeks ago, fully
recognized the strength and importance of this new develop-
ment in Labour politics, and practically advised Liberal Associa-
tions in industrial constituencies to stand aside in favour of
3 i2 MODERN SOCIALISM
Labour nominees when these were put forward. Unless the
election be rushed, it is a safe estimate that not less than fifty
Labour candidates will enter the lists at the next General
Election, under the auspices of the Labour Representation
Committee, a fair proportion of whom are certain to be re-
turned. They will not all be Socialists, but they will all be
Labour members pledged to the formation of a Labour
party in the House of Commons, and to the raising of
the Condition of the People question as a distinct political
issue.
Circumstances are favourable to the development of the
new movement. Apart from the trade-union demands,
already referred to, wider issues of greater importance are
being opened up daily. The questions of the hour are no
longer political, but industrial and economic. The growth of
the trusts, the precariousness of employment, the increased
cost of living, and the growing desire on the part of the work-
ing-class for a larger share in the prosperity of the nation, are
all tending to foment a spirit of unrest. Nor is this to be
wondered at. On every hand there is evidence of a surplus-
age of wealth, in which the worker has little share. If there
has been a slight increase in wages, there has also been an
increase in house-rent and in certain articles of food, which
has more than redressed the balance. In the staple industries
of the country broken time has become almost chronic ; and,
whilst this does not diminish the nominal weekly wage, it plays
sad havoc with the actual income. Even for the well-to-do
artisan, therefore, there is much in his lot of which he has
good reason to complain. It does not help him at all to be
told that the wealth of the nation is growing at an unprece-
dented rate ; that last year the income of the rich, as shown by
the income-tax returns, was ^40,000,000 in excess of the
previous year; or that in five years the revenue brought to
the exchequer from a penny rate on incomes of .160 and
upwards has gone up by ^600,000, or from ^2,000,000 to
,2,600,000. This may be evidence of national prosperity;
J. KEIR HARDIE 313
but, as an individual, the wage-earner does not feel any the
richer, nor is his lot in life made any the more easy.
When we leave the skilled artisan, however, we begin to
sound an unfathomable depth of poverty. Wages of agricul-
tural labourers are returned by the Government as averaging,
for the whole of England and Wales, thirteen shillings and
eightpence per week. Out of this miserable pittance house-
rent has to be paid and a family maintained. Only in very
rare instances is the agricultural labourer permitted to eke out
this sum by the cultivation of a little plot of land. The farmers,
who have the control of the machinery by which the Allotments
Act could be put into operation, are strangely averse to giving
their labourers opportunities for improving their condition.
There are those who argue in favour of a protective duty on
corn, as a means of enabling the farmer to pay his labourer
better wages; but these are forgetful of the fact that, in the
days of high protection in England, the agricultural wages
were little over half what they are now, and that, in common
with other workers, the labourer's lot, in so far as it has im-
proved, has done so under the operation of Free Trade. It is
not alone the agricultural labourer who is living on the verge
of starvation all the year round. Recent investigations, con-
ducted by merchant princes like Mr. Charles Booth in London,
and Mr. Seebohm Rowntree in York, the results of which have
been since given to the world with a wealth of detailed evidence
which permits of no dubiety as to the conclusions, prove that
close upon thirty per cent, of the working-class are not in
receipt of sufficient income to enable them to obtain, for
themselves and their dependents, the standard of comfort
which they would receive as paupers in the poor-house or as
criminals in gaol. This fact has startled and alarmed people.
The comfortable theory that formerly existed, that, but for
drunkenness and want of thrift, the working-class would all
be contented, prosperous, and happy, has been shivered to
atoms; and, for the first time in her long career of self-
delusion, England has been brought face to face with the fact
3H MODERN SOCIALISM
that, despite her world-wide trade, her unparalleled wealth and
prosperity, her growing bounds of empire and her political,
mechanical, and intellectual progress, there is at the foundation
of her society an amount of misery and destitution, due to low
wages, which casts a dark shadow over the whole national life,
and shows how insecure are the foundations upon which the
whole structure of her wealth has been raised. Sir Henry
Campbell-Bannerman, the leader of the Liberal party, in a recent
speech, declared his belief that twelve millions of our population
were always living at or under the poverty line. In plain lan-
guage, this means that twelve millions of the British people are
improperly fed, insufficiently clothed, and inadequately housed.
The Census returns tells us that 480,277 houses of one room
are registered in England, Scotland, and Wales, and that these
contain a living population of 1,571,504. From one , to two
rooms is a very short step in the social scale ; but, on the same
authority from which we have just quoted, we learn that forty-
four per cent, of the people in Scotland are accommodated in
houses of one or two rooms. Speaking with a good deal of
practical experience, I assert that, in three cases out of five,
the householder of two rooms will be found to be indulging in
one or two lodgers, from which it follows that a worse form of
overcrowding occurs than when there is only one apartment
With this condition of things staring them in the face, with
no hope perceivable of any improvement, there is little wonder
that the more thoughtful leaders of the working-class have
made up their minds to see how far a Labour party can be
instrumental in securing reform. Many of them, although
not all, accept Socialism as being not only inevitable but
desirable. They reason that, if commercialism, in the hey-
day of its prosperity, and with the markets of the world at
its unchallenged disposal, has produced such results as those
indicated above, it has little chance, now that it has passed
its zenith and is being faced with the ever-increasing compe-
tition from other countries, to succeed in the future where
it has failed in the past. To men who are Socialists, an
J. KEIR HARDIE 315
Independent Labour party is a logical outcome of their
economic faith.
But even those trades-union readers who are not Socialists
and there are many are equally convinced of the necessity
of the new departure. The break-up of the Liberal party has
been an important influence in leading them to this position.
Free Trade, despite Mr. Chamberlain, is at present the
accepted creed of both great parties. On the subject of
Imperial expansion, there is little to choose between the two
sides; and it is doubtful whether, even with the Liberals in
office, the military and naval expenditure, which in a dozen
years has gone up from ^28,000,000 to ^70,000,000 a year,
would be materially lessened. There is no evidence whatever
that either party has the remotest idea of how to grapple with
the social problem and remove poverty from the land. Added
to all this, there is a growing feeling that the interests of Labour
cannot be adequately safeguarded or protected until there is
a Labour party charged with that particular responsibility.
Therefore it is that all true trades-union leaders who are not
Socialists are equally determined to wean Labour from its
political dependence on some other party, and to place it in a
position where it can formulate its own demands. These men
see how, in twenty years, an Independent Irish party has
succeeded in convincing, not merely the Liberals, but also the
Conservatives, of the justice of their claims. The Irish Land
Bill now before the House of Commons, pledging the credit
of the State to the extent of hundreds of millions of money to
enable the Irish farmer to buy out his landlord, is a standing
evidence of what can be done by an independent and resolute
party, knowing its own mind and acting entirely in the interests
of the classes it represents, and Labour leaders are determined
to make an effort to copy this example.
To conclude, the British working-man is for the movement,
thoroughly in earnest about the formation of a Labour
party, and he will not be easily turned aside from his purpose.
He is realizing as he has never done before, that, with
316 MODERN SOCIALISM
seven-tenths of the voting power in his hands, he is master of
the political situation. With a party of his own, he will play
an ever-increasing part in the great drama of politics, and
be less easily led than heretofore by the charlatan and the
office-seeker.
XXII
PROGRAMME OF THE GERMAN SOCIAL
DEMOCRATIC PARTY
Voted at the Erfurt Conference, 1891.
THE economic development of bourgeois society leads by
natural necessity to the downfall of the small industry, whose
foundation is formed by the workers' private ownership of his
means of production. It separates the worker from his means
of production, and converts him into a propertyless proletarian,
while the means of production become the monopoly of a
relatively small number of capitalists and large landowners.
Hand-in-hand with this monopolization of the means of
production goes the displacement of the dispersed small
industries by colossal great industries, the development of the
tool into the machine, and a gigantic growth in the productivity
of human labour. But all the advantages of this transforma-
tion are monopolized by capitalists and large landowners. For
the proletariate and the declining intermediate classes petty
bourgeoisie and peasants it means a growing augmentation
of the insecurity of their existence, of misery, oppression,
enslavement, debasement, and exploitation.
Ever greater grows the number of proletarians, ever more
enormous the army of surplus workers, ever sharper the oppo-
sition between exploiters and exploited, ever bitter the class-
war between bourgeoisie and proletariate, which divides modern
317
318 MODERN SOCIALISM
society into two hostile camps, and is the common hall-mark
of all industrial countries.
The gulf between the propertied and the propertyless is
further widened through the crises, founded in the essence of
the capitalistic method of production, which constantly become
more comprehensive and more devastating, which elevate
general insecurity to the normal condition of society, and
which prove that the powers of production of contemporary
society have grown beyond measure, and that private owner-
ship of the means of production has become incompatible
with their application to their objects and their full develop-
ment.
Private ownership of the means of production, which was
formerly the means of securing to the producer the ownership
of his product, has to-day become the means of expropriating
peasants, manual workers, and small traders, and enabling the
non-workers capitalists and large landowners to own the
product of the workers. Only the transformation of capitalistic
private ownership of the means of production the soil, mines,
raw materials, tools, machines, and means of transport into
social ownership, and the transformation of production of goods
for sale into Socialistic production managed for and through
society, can bring it about, that the great industry and the
steadily growing productive capacity of social labour shall for
the hitherto exploited classes be changed from a source of
misery and oppression to a source of the highest welfare and
of all-round harmonious perfection.
This social transformation means the emancipation not
only of the proletariate, but of the whole human race which
suffers under the conditions of to-day. But it can only be
the work of the working-class, because all the other classes, in
spite of mutually conflicting interests, take their stand on the
basis of private ownership of the means of production, and
have as their common object the preservation of the principles
of contemporary society.
The battle of the working-class against capitalistic exploitation
GERMAN SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC PROGRAMME 319
is necessarily a political battle. The working-class cannot
carry on its economic battles or develop its economic organiza-
tion without political rights. It cannot effect the passing of
the means of production into the ownership of the community
without acquiring political power.
To shape this battle of the working-class into a conscious
and united effort, and to show it its naturally necessary end, is
the object of the Social Democratic party.
The interests of the working-class are the same in all lands
with capitalistic methods of production. With the expansion
of world-transport and production for the world-market the
state of the workers in any one country becomes constantly
more dependent on the state of the workers in other countries.
The emancipation of the working-class is thus a task in which
the workers of all civilized countries are concerned in a like
degree. Conscious of this, the Social Democratic party of
Germany feels and declares itself one with the class-conscious
workers of all other lands.
The Social Democratic party of Germany fights thus not
for new class-privileges and exceptional rights, but for the
abolition of class-domination and of the classes themselves, and
for the equal rights and equal obligations of all, without dis-
tinction of sex and parentage. Setting out from these views, it
combats in contemporary society not merely the exploitation
and oppression of the wage-workers, but every kind of exploita-
tion and oppression, whether directed against a class, a party,
a sex, or a race.
Setting out from these principles, the Social Democratic
party of Germany demands immediately
i. Universal equal direct suffrage and franchise, with direct
ballot, for all members of the Empire over twenty years of age,
without distinction of sex, for all elections and acts of voting.
Proportional representation ; and until this is introduced, re-
division of the constituencies by law according to the numbers
of population. A new Legislature every two years. Fixing of
elections and acts of voting for a legal holiday. Indemnity
320 MODERN SOCIALISM
for the elected representatives. Removal of every curtailmen
of political rights except in case of tutelage.
2. Direct legislation by the people by means of the initia-
tive and referendum. Self-determination and self-government
of the people in empire, state, province, and commune.
Authorities to be elected by the people ; to be responsible and
bound. Taxes to be voted annually.
3. Education of all to be capable of bearing arms. Armed
nation instead of standing army. Decision of war and peace
by the representatives of the people. Settlement of all inter-
national disputes by the method of arbitration.
4. Abolition of all laws which curtail or suppress the free
expression of opinion and the right of association and assembly.
5. Abolition of all laws which are prejudicial to women in
their relations to men in public or private law.
6. Declaration that religion is a private matter. Abolition
of all contributions from public funds to ecclesiastical and
religious objects. Ecclesiastical and religious communities are
to be treated as private associations, which manage their affairs
quite independently.
7. Secularization of education. Compulsory attendance of
public primary schools. No charges to be made for instruc-
tion, school requisites, and maintenance, in the public primary
schools ; nor in the higher educational institutions for those
students, male and female, who in virtue of their capacities are
considered fit for further training.
8. No charges to be made for the administration of the
law, or for legal assistance. Judgment by popularly elected
judges. Appeal in criminal cases. Indemnification of inno-
cent persons prosecuted, arrested, or condemned. Abolition
of the death-penalty.
9. No charges to be made for medical attendance, includ-
ing midwifery and medicine. No charges to be made for
death certificates.
10. Graduated taxes on income and property, to meet all
public expenses as far as these are to be covered by taxation,
GERMAN SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC PROGRAMME 321
Obligatory self-assessment. A tax on inheritance, graduated
according to the size of the inheritance and the degree of
kinship. Abolition of all indirect taxes, customs, and other
politico-economic measures which sacrifice the interests of the
whole community to the interests of a favoured minority.
For the protection of the working-class the Social Demo-
cratic party of Germany demands immediately
1. An effective national and international legislation for the
protection of workmen on the following basis :
(a) Fixing of a normal working- day with a maximum of
eight hours.
(b) Prohibition of industrial work for children under
fourteen years.
(c) Prohibition of night-work, except for such branches of
industry as, in accordance with their nature, require night- work,
for technical reasons, or reasons of public welfare.
(d) An uninterrupted rest of at least thirty-six hours in
every week for every worker.
(e) Prohibition of the truck system.
2. Inspection of all industrial businesses, investigation and
regulation of labour relations in town and country by an
Imperial Department of Labour, district labour departments,
and chambers of labour. Thorough industrial hygiene.
3. Legal equalization of agricultural labourers and domestic
servants with industrial workers ; removal of the special regula-
tions affecting servants.
4. Assurance of the right of combination.
5. Workmen's insurance to be taken over bodily by the
Empire; and the workers to have an influential share in its
administration.
6. Separation of the Churches and the State.
(a) Suppression of the grant for public worship.
(b) Philosophic or religious associations to be civil persons
at law.
7. Revision of sections in the Civil Code concerning
marriage and the paternal authority.
322 MODERN SOCIALISM
(a) Civil equality of the sexes, and of children, whether
natural or legitimate.
(b) Revision of the divorce laws, maintaining the husband's
liability to support the wife or the children.
(c) Inquiry into paternity to be legalized.
(d) Protective measures in favour of children materially or
morally abandoned.
XXIII
PROGRAMME OF THE BELGIAN LABOUR
PARTY
Voted at Brussels, 1893, this programme is two years later than
that of the German Social Democrats. The Declaration of Principles
is, perhaps, the most perfect in form and moderate in statement to
be found among those of the last century. The three programmes
following it are notable for their superior arrangement, their inclusion
of what amounts to an agrarian programme, and many minor points
of originality, e.g. Political Programme 2b and 3C.
Cesar de Paepe, the first great apostle and theorist of Socialism
in Belgium, died in 1890. The Belgian Labour party was founded
under his auspices in 1885. A revision of the franchise in 1893,
following a general strike, enabled it to send 30 deputies to the
Chamber. After the partial election of May, 1906, its deputies
numbered 31 out of 160*.
DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES.
i. THE constituents of wealth in general, and in particular
the means of production, are either natural agencies or the fruit
of the labour manual and mental of previous generations
besides the present ; consequently they must be considered the
common heritage of mankind.
2. The right of individuals or groups to enjoy this heritage
can be based only on social utility, and aimed only at securing
for every human being the greatest possible sum of freedom
and well-being.
3. The realization of this ideal is incompatible with the
maintenance of the capitalistic regime ', which divides society
323
324 MODERN SOCIALISM
into two necessarily antagonistic classes the one able to enjoy
property without working, the other obliged to relinquish a
part of its product to the possessing class.
4. The workers can only expect their complete emancipa-
tion from the suppression of classes and a radical transforma-
tion of existing society.
This transformation will be in favour, not only of the pro-
letariate, but of mankind as a whole ; nevertheless, as it is
contrary to the immediate interests of the possessing class, the
emancipation of the workers will be essentially the work of the
workers themselves.
5. In economic matters their aim must be to secure the free
use, without charge, of all the means of production. This
result can only be attained, in a society where collective
labour is more and more replacing individual labour, by the
collective appropriation of natural agencies and the instruments
of labour.
6. The transformation of the capitalistic regime into a
collectivist rtgime must necessarily be accompanied by corre-
lative transformations
(a) In morals, by the development of altruistic feelings and
the practice of solidarity.
(b) In politics^ by the transformation of the State into a
business management (administration des choses).
7. Socialism must, therefore, pursue simultaneously the
economic, moral, and political emancipation of the proletariate.
Nevertheless, the economic point of view must be paramount,
for the concentration of capital in the hands of a single class
forms the basis of all the other forms of domination.
To realize its principles the Labour party declares
(1) That it considers itself as the representative, not only of
the working-class, but of all the oppressed, without distinction
of nationality, worship, race, or sex. s
(2) That the Socialists of all countries must make common
cause (etre solidaires}^ the emancipation of the workers being
not a national, but an international work.
PROGRAMME OF BELGIAN LABOUR PARTY 325
(3) That in their struggle against the capitalist class the
workers must fight by every means in their power, and par-
ticularly by political action, by the development of free
associations, and by the ceaseless propagation of Socialistic
principles.
I. POLITICAL PROGRAMME.
1. Electoral reform.
(a) Universal suffrage without distinction of sex for all ranks
(age-limit, twenty-one ; residence, six months).
(b) Proportional representation. 1
(c) Election expenses to be charged on the public
authorities.
(d) Payment of elected persons.
(<?) Elected persons to be bound by pledges, according to
law.
(/) Electorates to have the right of unseating elected
persons.
2. Decentralization of political power,
(a) Suppression of the Senate.
(b) Creation of Legislative Councils, representing the
different functions of society (industry, commerce, agriculture,
education, etc.) ; such Councils to be autonomous, within the
limits of their competence and excepting the veto of Parlia-
ment ; such Councils to be federated, for the study and defence
of their common interests.
3. Communal autonomy.
(a) Mayors to be appointed by the electorate.
(b) Small communes to be fused or federated.
(c) Creation of elected committees corresponding to the
different branches of communal administration.
4. Direct legislation.
Right of popular initiative and referendum in legislative
provincial, and communal matters.
1 Secured in 1899 by popular pressure on the Government.
326 MODERN SOCIALISM
5. Reform of education.
(a) Primary, all-round, free, secular, compulsory instruction
at the expense of the State. Maintenance of children attending
the schools by the public authorities. Intermediate and higher
instruction to be free, secular, and at the expense of the State.
(b) Administration of the schools by the public authorities,
under the control of School Committees elected by universal
suffrage of both sexes, with representatives of the teaching staff
and the State.
(c) Assimilation of communal teachers to the State's
educational officials.
(d) Creation of a Superior Council of Education, elected by
the School Committees, who are to organize the inspection and
control of free schools and of official schools.
(<?) Organization of trade education, and obligation of all
children to learn manual work.
(f) Autonomy of the State Universities, and legal recogni-
tion of the Free Universities. University Extension to be
organized at the expense of the public authorities.
6. Separation of the Churches and the State.
(a) Suppression of the grant for public worship.
(b) Philosophic or religious associations to be civil persons
at law.
7. Revision of Sec f ions in the Civil Code concerning marriage
and the paternal authority.
(a) Civil equality of the sexes, and of children, whether
natural or legitimate.
(b) Revision of the divorce laws, maintaining the husband's
liability to support the wife or the children.
(c) Inquiry into paternity to be legalized.
(d) Protective measures in favour of children materially or
morally abandoned.
8. Extension of liberties. 1
Suppression of measures restricting any of the liberties.
i The liberties referred to are freedom of the person, of speech, of the
press, of public meeting, etc.
PROGRAMME OF BELGIAN LABOUR PARTY 327
9. Judicial reform.
(a) Application of the elective principle to all jurisdictions.
Reduction of the number of magistrates.
(b) Justice without fees; State-payment of advocates and
officials of the Courts.
(c) Magisterial examination in penal cases to be public.
Persons prosecuted to be medically examined. Victims of
judicial errors to be indemnified.
10. Suppression of armies.
Provisionally ; organization of a national militia.
11. Suppression of Iiereditary offices ; and establishment of a
Republic,
II. ECONOMIC PROGRAMME.
A. General Measures.
1. Organization of statistics.
(a) Creation of a Ministry of Labour.
(b) Pecuniary aid from the public authorities for the
organization of labour secretariates by workmen and
employers.
2. Legal recognition of associations, especially
(a) Legal recognition of trade-unions. 1
(b) Reform of the law on friendly societies and co-opera-
tive societies and subsidy from the public authorities.
(c) Repression of infringements of the right of combina
tion.
3. Legal regulation of the contract of employment.
Extension of laws protecting labour to all industries, and
specially to agriculture, shipping, and fishing. Fixing of a
minimum wage and maximum of hours of labour for workers,
industrial or agricultural, employed by the State, the Com-
munes, the Provinces, or the contractors for public works.
Intervention of workers, and especially of workers' unions,
1 Syndicats professionnds^ including unions of employers as well as of
employed.
328 MODERN SOCIALISM
in the framing of rules. Suppression of fines. Suppression
of savings-banks and benefit clubs in workshops. Fixing
of a maximum of 6000 francs for public servants and
managers.
4. Transformation of public charity into a general insurance
of all citizens
(a) against unemployment ;
(b) against disablement (sickness, accident, old age) ;
(c) against death (widows and orphans).
5. Reorganization of public finances.
(a) Abolition of indirect taxes, especially taxes on food
and customs tariffs.
(If) Monopoly of alcohol and tobacco.
(c) Progressive income-tax. Taxes on legacies and gifts
between the living (excepting gifts to works of public
utility).
(d) Suppression of intestate succession, except in the
direct line and within limits to be determined by law.
6. Progressive extension of public proper fy.
The State to take over the National Bank. Social organi-
zation of loans, at interest to cover costs only, to individuals
and to associations of workers,
i. Industrial property.
Abolition, on grounds of public utility, of private
ownership in mines, quarries, the subsoil generally,
and of the great means of production and trans-
port,
ii. Agricultural property.
(a) Nationalization of forests.
(b) Reconstitution or development of common lands.
(c) Progressive taking over of the land by the State
or the communes.
7. Autonomy of public services.
(a) Administration of the public services by special
autonomous commissions, under the control of the State.
(b) Creation of committees elected by the workmen and
PROGRAMME OF BELGIAN LABOUR PARTY 329
employes of the public services to debate with the central
administration the conditions of the remuneration and organi-
zation of labour.
B. Particular Measures for Industrial Workers.
1. Abolition of all laws restricting the right of combina-
tion.
2. Regulation of industrial labour.
(a) Prohibition of employment of children under fourteen.
(b) Half-time system between the ages of fourteen and
eighteen.
(c) Prohibition of employment of women in all industries
where it is incompatible with morals or health.
(d) Reduction of working-day to a maximum of eight
hours for adults of both sexes, and minimum wage.
(e) Prohibition of night-work for all categories of workers
and in all industries, where this mode of working is not abso-
lutely necessary.
(f) One day's rest per week, so far as possible on
Sunday.
(l?) Responsibility of employers in case of accidents, and
appointment of doctors to attend persons wounded.
(//) Workmen's memorandum-books and certificates to be
abolished, and their use prohibited.
3. Inspection of work.
(a) Employment of paid medical authorities, in the interests
of labour hygiene.
(b) Appointment of inspectors by the Councils of Industry
and Labour.
4. Reorganization of the Industrial Tribunals (Conseils de
Prud'hommes) and the Councils^of Industry and Labour.
(a) Working women to have votes and be eligible.
(b) Submission to the Courts to be compulsory.
5. Regulation of work in prisons and convents.
330 MODERN SOCIALISM
C. Particular Measures for Agricultural Workers.
1. Reorganization of the Agricultural Courts.
(a) Nomination of delegates in equal numbers by the land-
owners, farmers, and labourers.
(b) Intervention of the Chambers in individual or col-
lective disputes between landowners, farmers, and agricultural
workers.
(c) Fixing of a minimum wage by the public authorities on
the proposition of the Agricultural Courts.
2. Regulation of contracts to pay farm-rents.
(a) Fixing of the rate of farm-rents by Committees of
Arbitration or by the reformed Agricultural Courts.
(b) Compensation to the outgoing farmer for enhanced
value of property.
(c) Participation of landowners, to a wider extent than that
fixed by the Civil Code, in losses incurred by farmers.
(d) Suppression of the landowner's privilege.
3. Insurance by the provinces ', and reinsurance by the State ^
against epizootic diseases ^ diseases of plants , hail^ floods^ and other
agricultural risks.
4. Organization by the public authorities of a free agricultural
education.
Creation or development of experimental fields, model
farms, agricultural laboratories.
5. Purchase by the communes of agricultural implements to be
at the disposal of tJicir inhabitants.
Assignment of common lands to groups of labourers
engaging not to employ wage-labour.
6. Organization of a free medical service in the country.
7. Reform of the Game Laws.
(a) Suppression of gun licences.
(b) Suppression of game preserves.
(c) Right of cultivators to destroy all the year round animals
which injure crops.
PROGRAMME OF BELGIAN LABOUR PARTY 331
8. Intervention of public authorities in the creation of agri-
cultural co-operative societies
(a) For buying seed and manure.
(b) For making butter.
(c) For the purchase and use in common of agricultural
machines.
(d) For the sale of produce ;
(e) For the working of land by groups.
9. Organization of agricultural credit.
III. COMMUNAL PROGRAMME.
1. Educational reforms.
(a) Free scientific instruction for children up to fourteen.
Special courses for older children and adults.
(b) Organization of education in trades and industries, in
co-operation with workmen's organizations.
(c) Maintenance of children; except where the public
authorities intervene to do so.
(d) Institution of school refreshment-rooms. Periodic
distribution of boots and clothing.
(e) Orphanages. Establishments for children abandoned
or cruelly ill-treated.
2. Judicial reforms.
Office for consultations free of charge in cases coming before
the law-courts, the industrial courts, etc.
3. Regulation of work.
1 Under this head will be found the programme for local governing
bodies. The three units of government in Belgium are the State, the nine
provinces, and the communes. The communal councils correspond to our
borough, district, and parish councils. Rural communes, however, though
small, are not as small as English parishes j and urban communes, though
large, are not allowed to reach the size of the great municipalities in
England and America. The city of Brussels is divided between six com-
munes. Hence the provision, in 7 below, for federations of communes.
332 MODERN SOCIALISM
(a) Minimum wage and maximum working-day to be made
a clause in contracts for communal works.
(b) Intervention of trade associations in the fixing of rates
of wages, and general regulation of industry. The Echevin
of Public Works to supervise the execution of these clauses in
contracts.
(c) Appointment by the workmen's associations of inspectors
to supervise the clauses in contracts.
(d) Rigorous application of the principle of tenders open
to all, for all services which, during a transition-period, are not
managed directly.
(e) Permission to trade-unions to tender, 1 and abolition
of security-deposit.
(/) Creation of Bourses dti Travail? or at least offices
for the demand and supply of employment, whose administra-
tion shall be entrusted to trade-unions or labour associations.
(g) Fixing of a minimum wage for the workmen and
employes of a commune.
4. Public charity?
(a) Admission of workmen to the administration of the
councils of hospitals and of public charity
(b) Transformation of public charity and the hospitals into
a system of insurance against old age. Organization of a
medical service and drug supply. Establishment of public free
baths and wash-houses.
(c) Establishment of refuges for the aged and disabled.
Night-shelter and food-distribution for workmen wandering in
search of work.
1 For this cp. Millerand's Bill of Nov. 14, 1899 ; as also his depart-
mental efforts to stimulate trade-unions to co-operative production by
certain preferences in the assignment of contracts, especially in connection
with the Paris Exhibition, 1900.
2 For Bourses du Travail > cp. p. 154. They were originally suggested
by the Belgian, De Paepe, in 1868, in connection with the International
Working Men's Association.
* Includes matters dealt with under the English poor law.
PROGRAMME OF BELGIAN LABOUR PARTY 333
5. Complete neutrality of all communal seivices from ttie
philosophical point of view?
6. Finance.
(a) Saving to be effected on present cost of administration.
Maximum allowance of 6000 francs for mayors and other
officials. Costs of entertainment for mayors who must incur
certain private expenses.
(b) Income-tax.
(c) Special tax on sites not built over and houses not let.
7. Public services. ,
(a) The commune, or a federation of communes com-
posing one agglomeration, is to work the means of transport
tramways, omnibuses, cabs, district railways, etc.
(b) The commune, or federation of communes, is to work
directly the services of general interest at present conceded to
companies lighting, water-supply, markets, highways, heating,
security, health.
(c) Compulsory insurance of the inhabitants against fire ;
except where the State intervenes to do so.
(^) Construction of cheap dwellings by the commune, the
hospices, and the charity offices.
1 No preference for employment of persons with any special creed,
XXIV
PROGRAMME OF THE AUSTRIAN SOCIAL
DEMOCRATIC PARTY
Voted at Brunn, 1901.
THE Social Democratic Labour party in Austria strives on behalf
of the whole people, without distinction of nation, race, and sex,
for emancipation from the fetters of economic dependence,
political oppression, and intellectual confinement. The cause
of these unsatisfactory conditions lies, not in particular political
arrangements, but in the fact essentially conditioning and
dominating the whole state of society, that the means of working
are monopolized in the hands of individual possessors. The
possessors of the power to work, the working-class, fall there-
fore into the most oppressive dependence upon the possessors
of the means of working, which include land that is, upon
the great land-owning and capitalist classes, whose political
and economic domination is expressed in the class-State of
to-day.
Technical progress, the growing concentration of production
and property, the union of every economic force in the hands
of capitalists and capitalistic groups, have the effect of depriving
ever- widening circles of small industrial employers and peasants,
formerly independent, of their means of production, and
bringing them as wage-workers, employes, or debtors, into
direct or indirect dependence on the capitalists. The mass of
proletarians grows ; the degree of their exploitation also rises ;
334
AUSTRIAN SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC PROGRAMME 335
and, in consequence, the standard of life of ever-deepening
strata of the working people contrasts more and more with
the rapidly rising productivity of their own work and the
expansion of the wealth which they themselves create. The
crises resulting from the want of design in the capitalistic
method of production, with the unemployment and misery
resulting from them, precipitate and accentuate this develop-
ment.
But the more the development of capitalism increases the
proletariate, the more is the proletariate compelled and enabled
to take up the battle against it. The suppression of individual
production makes individual property ever more superfluous
and harmful, while at the same time the necessary mental and
material conditions are afforded for new forms of co-operative
production on the basis of social ownership of the means of
production. Simultaneously the proletariate becomes conscious
that it must advance and precipitate this development, and
that the transfer of the means of work to the communal owner-
ship of the whole people must be the end, and the capture of
political power the means, in its fight for the emancipation of
the working-class. Only the proletariate aroused to class-
consciousness, and organized for the class-war, can carry out
this necessary development. To organize the proletariate, to
Jill it with tJie consciousness of its position and its object, to make
and keep it mentally and physically fit for the battle, is therefore
the real programme of the Social Democratic Labour party in
Austria, towards which it will avail itself of all means which
subserve its aim and correspond to the people's natural sense
of justice.
The Social Democratic Labour party in Austria will in all
political and economic questions always represent the class-
interest of the proletariate, and energetically oppose any
attempt to obscure and conceal the class-antagonisms, as well
as any attempt to wear out the workers on behalf of the
bourgeois party.
The Social Democratic Labour party in Austria is an
356 MODERN SOCIALISM
international party; it condemns the privileges of nations as
well as those of birth and sex, property and lineage, and
declares that the war against exploitation must be international
like the exploitation itself. It condemns and combats all
restrictions upon the free expression of opinion, and all State
and ecclesiastical tutelage. It strives for legal protection of
the standard of life of the working-classes, and fights to give
the proletariate a maximum influence upon every sphere of
public life.
Setting out from these principles, the Austrian Social
Democracy demands immediately
1. Universal, equal, direct, and secret suffrage in State,
province, and commune for all members of the State, without
distinction of sex, from the age of twenty upwards ; propor-
tional representation ; fixing of elections for a legal holiday ;
triennial legislative periods ; maintenance-grant for elected
persons.
2. Direct legislation by the people by means of the initiative
and referendum ; self-determination and self-government of the
people in State, province, and commune.
3. Abolition of all laws which limit the right to free expres-
sion of opinions ; in particular, provision of full freedom of the
press by the removal of outside management and the restriction
upon colportage of printed matter ; removal of all laws restrict-
ing the right of association and assembly.
4. Removal of all restrictions upon free locomotion; in
particular, of all vagrancy laws.
5. A law to be passed and carried out subjecting officials
who infringe the political rights of individuals or associations
to a severe penalty.
6. Independence of the law-courts to be guaranteed. No
charges to be made for the administration of the law, or for
legal assistance. Indemnification of innocent persons arrested
and condemned. Election of jurors on the basis of universal,
equal, and secret suffrage. Subjection of all State-servants to
the ordinary laws and courts. Abolition of the death penalty.
AUSTRIAN SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC PROGRAMME 337
7. State and communal organization of the public health
service. Provision of medical attendance and medicine without
charge.
8. Declaration that religion is a private matter. Separa-
tion of the Church from the State, and declaration that eccle-
siastical and religious communities are private associations,
which manage their affairs quite independently. Compulsory
civil marriage.
9. Compulsory, free, secular education, in complete corre-
spondence with the needs nd development of the several
nationalities. No charges to be made for school requisites and
maintenance in the primary schools for all children, and for
those pupils of higher educational institutions who are capable
of further training.
10. Substitution for all indirect taxes and duties of graduated
taxes upon income, property, and inheritance.
IT. Substitution of the armed nation for the standing army.
Education of all to be capable of bearing arms. Arming of the
whole nation. Decision of war and peace by the representatives
of the people.
12. Removal of all laws whereby women are prejudicially
affected as against men in public or private law.
13. Liberation of workmen's co-operative societies from all
burdens and limitations impeding their activity.
As a minimum of protection for workers, the Austrian
Social Democracy demands
1. Full freedom of combination ; legal recognition of trade-
union organizations; legal equalization of agricultural labourers ;
abolition of the regulations affecting servants.
2. Eight hours' maximum working-day, without clauses and
without exceptions.
3. Prohibition of night-work except in businesses whose
technical nature does not permit of an interruption ; night- work
for women and non-adult workers is to be prohibited without
exception.
4. Complete rest of at least thirty-six hours on Sunday.
z
338 MODERN SOCIALISM
5. Prohibition of work for profit by children under fourteen
to be thoroughly enforced. Comprehensive laws to protect
apprentices and non-adult workers.
6. Exclusion of women workers from industries especially
injurious to women's physique.
All these regulations are to apply to industries of every
kind and degree (great industry, transport industry, handicraft,
trade, home industry).
Development of the industrial inspectorate. Increase of
inspectors, to whom executive powers are to be given. Partici-
pation of the workers' organizations in the control of the
enforcement of workmen's protection, through the inspectors,
male and female, whom they select.
Employers who transgress the laws for the protection of
workers are to be liable to severe penalties, which may not be
converted into money fines.
Workmen's insurance is to be subjected to a radical reform^
to be completed by the introduction of a universal insurance
against old age and disablement, as well as a provision for
widows and orphans, and to be uniformly organized with a
thorough autonomy for the insured.
XXV
A FRENCH PROGRAMME OF 1902
This was voted at Tours <by the " French Socialist Party," the
less revolutionary wing of French Socialism, led by M. Jaures and
comprising about three-quarters of the Socialist deputies. In 1905
this wing fused itself with the more revolutionary ''Socialist Party
of France," under MM. Guesde and Vaillant, and the result was the
present United Socialist Party (les Unifies). The principles of the
latter appear in its election address (1906"), which will be found on
P- 378.
I. DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES.
SOCIALISM proceeds simultaneously from the movement of
democracy and from the new forms of production. In history,
from the very morrow of the French Revolution, the proletarians
perceived that the Declaration of the Rights of Man would
remain an illusion unless society transformed ownership.
How, indeed, could freedom, ownership, security, be
guaranteed to all, in a society where millions of workers have
no property but their muscles, and are obliged, in order to live,
to sell their power of work to the propertied minority ?
To extend, therefore, to every citizen the guarantees in-
scribed in the Declaration of Rights, our great Babeuf demanded
ownership in common, as a guarantee of welfare in common.
Communism was for the boldest proletarians the supreme
expression of the Revolution.
Between the political rtgime, the outcome of the revolu-
tionary movement, and the economic rlgime of society, there
is an intolerable contradiction.
In the political order democracy is realized : all citizens
339
340 MODERN SOCIALISM
share equally, at least by right, in the sovereignty ; universal
suffrage is communism in political power.
In the economic order, on the other hand, a minority is
sovereign. It is the oligarchy of capital which possesses,
directs, administers, and exploits.
Proletarians are acknowledged fit as citizens to manage
the milliards of the national and communal budgets; as
labourers, in the workshop, they are only a passive multitude,
which has no share in the direction ot enterprises, and they
endure the domination of a class which makes them pay
dearly for a tutelage whose utility ceases and whose prolonga-
tion is arbitrary.
The irresistible tendency of the proletarians, therefore, is
to transfer into the economic order the democracy partially
realized in the political order. Just as all the citizens have
and handle in common, democratically, the political power, so
they must have and handle in common the economic power,
the means of production.
They must themselves appoint the heads of work in the
workshops, as they appoint the heads of government in the
city, and reserve for those who work, for the community,
the whole product of work.
This tendency of political democracy to enlarge itself into
social democracy has been strengthened and defined by the
whole economic evolution.
In proportion as the capitalistic regime developed its
effects, the proletariate became conscious of the irreducible
opposition between its essential interests and the interests of
the class dominant in society, and to the bourgeois form of
democracy it opposed more and more the complete and
thorough communistic democracy.
All hope of universalizing ownership and independence by
multiplying small autonomous producers has disappeared.
The great industry is more and more the rule in modern
production.
By the enlargement of the world's markets, by the growing
PROGRAMME OF FRENCH SOCIALIST PARTY 341
facility of transport, by the division of labour, by the increasing
application of machinery, by the concentration of capitals,
immense concentrated production is gradually ruining or sub-
ordinating the small or middling producers.
Even where the number of small craftsmen, small traders,
small peasant proprietors, does not diminish, their relative
importance in the totality of production grows less unceasingly.
They fall under the sway of the great capitalists.
Even the peasant proprietors, who seem to have retained
a little independence, are <rnore and more exposed to the
crushing forces of the universal market, which capitalism
directs without their concurrence and against their interests.
For the sale of their wheat, wine, beetroot, and milk,
they are more and more at the mercy of great middlemen or
great industries of milling, distilling, and sugar-refining, which
dominate and despoil peasant labour.
The industrial proletarians, having lost nearly all chance
of individually rising to be employers, and being thus doomed
to eternal dependence, are further subject to incessant crises of
unemployment and misery, let loose by the unregulated com-
petition of the great capitalist forces.
The immense progress of production and wealth, largely
usurped by parasitic classes, has not led to an equivalent
progress in well-being and security for the workers, the pro-
letarians. Whole categories of wage-earners are abruptly
thrown into extreme misery by the constant introduction of
new mechanisms and by the abrupt movements and trans-
formations of industry.
Capitalism itself admits the disorder of the present regime
of production, since it tries to regulate it for its gain by
capitalistic syndicates, by trusts.
Even if it succeeded in actually disciplining all the forces
of production, it would only do so while consummating the
domination and the monopoly of capital.
There is only one way of assuring the continued order and
progress of production, the freedom of every individual, and
342 MODERN SOCIALISM
the growing well-being of the workers ; it is to transfer to the
collectivity, to the social community, the ownership of the
capitalistic means of production.
The proletariate, daily more numerous, ever better prepared
for combined action by the great industry itself, understands
that in collectiveness or communism lie the necessary means of
salvation for it
As an oppressed and exploited class, it opposes all the
forces of oppression and exploitation, the whole system of
ownership, which debases it to be a mere instrument. It does
not expect its emancipation from the good will of rulers or
the spontaneous generosity of the propertied classes, but from
the continual and methodical pressure which it exerts upon the
privileged class and the government.
It sets before itself as its final aim, not a partial ameliora-
tion, but the total transformation of society. And since it
acknowledges no right as belonging to capitalistic ownership,
it feels bound to it by no contract. It is determined to fight
it, thoroughly, and to the end ; and it is in this sense that the
proletariate, even while using the legal means which democracy
puts into its hands, is and must remain a revolutionary class.
Already by winning universal suffrage, by winning and
exercising the right of combining to strike and of forming
trade-unions, by the first laws regulating labour and causing
society to insure its members, the proletariate has begun to
react against the fatal effects of capitalism ; it will continue
this great and unceasing effort, but it will only end the struggle
when all capitalist property has been reabsorbed by the com-
munity, and when the antagonism of classes has been ended
by the disappearance of the classes themselves, reconciled, or
rather made one, in common production and common owner-
ship.
How will be accomplished the supreme transformation of
the capitalist r'egime into the collectivist or communist ? The
human mind cannot determine beforehand the mode in which
history will be accomplished,
PROGRAMME OF FRENCH SOCIALIST PARTY 343
The democratic and bourgeois revolution, which originated
in the great movement of France in 1789, has come about in
different countries in the most different ways. The old feudal
system has yielded in one case to force, in another to peaceful
and slow evolution. The revolutionary bourgeoisie has at one
place and time proceeded to brutal expropriation without com-
pensation, at another to the buying out of feudal servitudes.
No one can know in what way the capitalist servitude will
be abolished. The essential thing is that the proletariate
should be always ready for the most vigorous and effective
action. It would be dangerous to dismiss the possibility of
revolutionary events occasioned either by the resistance or by
the criminal aggression of the privileged class.
It would be fatal, trusting in the one word revolution, to
neglect the great forces which the conscious, organized pro-
letariate can employ within democracy.
These legal means, often won by revolution, represent an
accumulation of revolutionary force, a revolutionary capital, of
which it would be madness not to take advantage.
Too often the workers neglect to profit by the means of
action, which democracy and the republic put into their hands.
They do not demand from trade-unionist action, co-operative
action, or universal suffrage, all that those forms of action can
give.
No formula, no machinery, can enable the working-class to
dispense with the constant effort of organization and education.
The idea of the general strike, of general strikes, is in-
vincibly suggested to proletarians by the growing magnitude of
working-class organization. They do not desire violence,
which is very often the result of an insufficient organization
and a rudimentary education of the proletariate; but they
would make a great mistake if they did not employ the power-
ful means of action, which co-ordinates working-class forces to
subserve the great interests of the workers or of society ; they
must group and organize themselves to be in a position to
make the privileged class more and more emphatically aware
344 MODERN SOCIALISM
of the gulf, which may suddenly be cleft open in the economic
life of societies by the abrupt stoppage of the worn-out and
interminably exploited workers. They can thereby snatch
from the selfishness of the privileged class great reforms
interesting the working-class in general, and hasten the com-
plete transformation of an unjust society. But the formula
of the general strike, like the partial strike, like political action,
is only valuable through the progress of the education, the
thought, and the will of the working-class.
The Socialist party defends the Republic as a necessary
means of liberation and education. Socialism is essentially
republican. It might be even said to be the Republic itself,
since it is the extension of the Republic to the regime of
property and labour.
The Socialist party needs, to organize the new world, free
minds, emancipated from superstitions and prejudices. It
asks for and guarantees every human being, every individual,
absolute freedom of thinking, and writing, and affirming their
beliefs. Over against all religions, dogmas, and churches, as
well as over against the class conceptions of the bourgeoisie, it
sets the unlimited right of free thought, the scientific conception
of the universe, and a system of public education based ex-
clusively on science and reason.
Thus accustomed to free thought and reflection, citizens
will be protected against the sophistries of the capitalistic
and clerical reaction. The small craftsmen, small traders, and
small peasant proprietors will cease to think that it is Socialism
which wishes to expropriate them. The Socialist party will
hasten the hour when these small peasant proprietors, ruined
by the underselling of their produce, riddled with mortgage
debts, and always liable to judicial expropriation, will eventually
understand the advantages of generalized and systematized
association, and will claim themselves, as a benefit, the socializa-
tion of their plots of land.
But it would be useless to prepare inside each nation an
organization of justice and peace, if the relations of the nations
PROGRAMME OF FRENCH SOCIALIST PARTY 345
to one another remained exposed to every enterprise of force,
every suggestion of capitalist greed.
The Socialist party desires peace among nations; it con-
demns every policy of aggression and war, whether continental
or colonial. It constantly keeps on the order of the day for
civilized countries simultaneous disarmament. While waiting
for the day of definite peace among nations, it combats the
militarist spirit by doing its utmost to approximate the system of
permanent armies to that of national militias. It wishes to pro-
tect the territory and the independence of the nation against
any surprise ; but every offensive policy and offensive weapon
is utterly condemned by it.
The close understanding of the workers, of the proletarians
of every country, is necessary as well to beat back the forces of
aggression and war as to prepare by a concerted action the
general triumph of Socialism. The international agreement of
the militant proletarians of every country will prepare the
triumph of a free humanity, where the differences of classes
will have disappeared, and the difference of nations, instead
of being a principle of strife and hatred, will be a prin-
ciple of brotherly emulation in the universal progress of
mankind.
It is in this sense and for these reasons that the Socialist
party has formulated in its congresses the rule and aim of its
action international understanding of the workers; political
and economic organization of the proletariate as a class party
for the conquest of government and the socialization of the
means of production and exchange ; that is to say, the trans-
formation of capitalist society into a collectivist or communist
society.
II. PROGRAMME OF REFORMS.
The Socialist party, rejecting the policy of all or nothing,
has a programme of reforms whose realization it pursues
forthwith.
346 MODERN SOCIALISM
(i) Democratization of Public Authorities.
1. Universal direct suffrage, without distinction of sex, in
every election.
2. Reduction of time of residence. Votes to be cast for
lists, with proportional representation, in every election.
3. Legislative measures to secure the freedom and secrecy
of the vote.
4. Popular right of initiative and referendum.
5. Abolition of the Senate and Presidency of the Republic.
The powers at present belonging to the President of the
Republic and the Cabinet to devolve on an executive council
appointed by the Parliament.
6. Legal regulation of the legislator's mandate, to be
revocable by the vote of any absolute majority of his con-
stituents on the register.
7. Admission of women to all public functions.
8. Absolute freedom of the press, and of assembly guaran-
teed only by the common law. Abrogation of all exceptional
laws on the press. Freedom of civil associations.
9. Full administrative autonomy of the depaitments and
communes, under no reservations but that of the laws
guaranteeing the republican, democratic, and secular character
of the State.
(2) Complete Secularization of the State.
1. Separation of the Churches and the State; abolition of
the Budget of Public Worship ; freedom of public worship ;
prohibition of the political and collective action of the Churches
against the civil laws and republican liberties.
2. Abolition of the congregations j nationalization of the
property in mortmain, of every kind, belonging to them, and
appropriation of it for works of social insurance and solidarity ;
in the interval, all industrial, agricultural, and commercial
undertakings are to be forbidden to the congregations.
PROGRAMME OF FRENCH SOCIALIST PARTY 347
(3) Democratic and Humane Organization of Justice.
1. Substitution for all the present courts, whether civil or
criminal, of courts composed of a jury taken from the electoral
register and judges elected under guarantees of competence ;
the jury to be formed by drawing lots from lists drawn up by
universal suffrage.
2. Justice to be without fee. Transformation of ministerial
offices into public functions. Abolition of the monopoly of
the bar.
3. Examination from opposite sides at every stage and on
every point.
4. Substitution for the vindictive character of the present
punishments, of a system for the safe keeping and the ameliora-
tion of convicts.
5. Abolition of the death penalty.
6. Abolition of the military and naval courts.
(4) Constitution of the Family in conformity with Individual
Rights.
1. Abrogation of every law establishing the civil inferiority
of women and natural or adulterine children.
2. Most liberal legislation on divorce. A law sanctioning
inquiry into paternity.
(5) Civic and Technical Education.
1. Education to be free of charge at every stage.
2. Maintenance of the children in elementary schools at
the expense of the public bodies.
3. For secondary and higher education, the community
to pay for those of the children who on examination are
pronounced fit usefully to continue their studies.
4. Creation of a popular higher education.
5. State monopoly of education at the three stages; as a
means towards this, all members of the regular and secular
clergy to be forbidden to open and teach in a school.
3+8 MODERN SOCIALISM
(6) General recasting of the System of Taxation upon
Principles of Social Solidarity.
1. Abolition of every tax on articles of consumption which
are primary necessaries, and of the four direct contributions ; l
accessorily, relief from taxation of all small plots of land and
small professional businesses. 2
2. Progressive income-tax, levied on each person's income
as a whole, in all cases where it exceeds 3000 francs (^"120).
3. Progressive tax on inheritances, the scale of progression
being calculated with reference both to the amount of the
inheritance and the degree of remoteness of the relationship.
4. The State to be empowered to seek a part of the
revenue which it requires from certain monopolies.
(7) Legal Protection and Regulation of Labour in Industry ',
Commerce^ and Agriculture.
1. One day's rest per week, or prohibition of employers to
exact work more than six days in seven.
2. Limitation of the working-day to eight hours; as a
means towards this, vote of every regulation diminishing the
length of the working-day.
3. Prohibition of the employment of children under four-
teen ; half-time system for young persons, productive labour
being combined with instruction and education.
4. Prohibition of night-work for women and young persons.
Prohibition of night-work for adult workers of all categories
and in all industries where night-work is not absolutely neces-
sary.
5. Legislation to protect home-workers.
6. Prohibition of piece-work and of truck. Legal recog-
nition of black-listing.
7. Scales of rates forming a minimum wage to be fixed
by agreement between municipalities and the working-class
corporations of industry, commerce, and agriculture.
1 Personal tax ; tax on movables ; tax on land ; door and window tax.
8 A licence to trade is required for many businesses in France.
PROGRAMME OF FRENCH SOCIALIST PARTY 349
8. Employers to be forbidden to make deductions from
wages, as fines or otherwise. Workers to assist in framing
special rules for workshops.
9. Inspection of workshops, mills, factories, mines, yards,
public services, shops, etc., shall be carried out with reference
to the conditions of work, hygiene, and safety, by inspectors
elected by the workmen's unions, in concurrence with the
State inspectors.
10. Extension of the industrial arbitration courts to all
wage-workers of industry, commerce, and agriculture.
11. Convict labour to be treated as a State monopoly ; the
charge for all work done shall be the wage normally paid to
trade-unionist workers.
12. Women to be forbidden by law to work for six weeks
before confinement and for six weeks after.
(8) Social Insurance against all Natural and Economic Risks.
1. Organization by the nation of a system of social insur-
ance, applying to the whole mass of industrial, commercial,
and agricultural workers, against the risks of sickness, accident,
disability, old age, and unemployment.
2. The insurance funds to be found without drawing on
wages ; as a means towards this, limitation of the contribution
drawn from the wage- workers to a third of the total contri-
bution, the two other thirds to be provided by the State and
the employers.
3. The law on workmen's accidents to be improved and
applied without distinction or nationality.
4. The workers to take part in the control and administra-
tion of the insurance system.
(9) Extension of the Domain and Public Services, Industrial
and Agricultural^ of State, Department, and Commune.
i. Nationalization of railways, mines, the Bank of France,
insurance, the sugar refineries and sugar factories, the dis-
tilleries, and the great milling establishments.
350 MODERN SOCIALISM
2. Organization of public employment-registries for the
workers, with the assistance of the Bourses du Travail, 1 and the
workmen's organizations; and abolition of the private registries.
3. State organization of agricultural banks.
4. Grants to rural communes to assist them to purchase
agricultural machinery collectively, to acquire communal
domains, worked under the control of the communes by unions
of rural labourers, and to establish depots and entrepots.
5. Organization of communal services for lighting, water,
common transport, construction, and public management of
cheap dwellings.
6. Democratic administration of the public services,
national and communal; organizations of workers to take
part in their administration and control ; all wage-earners in
all public services to have the right of forming trade-unions.
7. National and communal service of public health, and
strengthening of the laws which protect it those on unhealthy
dwellings, etc.
(10) Policy of International Peace and Adaptation of the
Military Organization to the Defence of tJie Country.
1. Substitution of a militia for the standing Army, and
adoption of every measure, such as reductions of military
service, leading up to it.
2. Remodelling and mitigation of the military penal code;
abolition of disciplinary corps, and prohibition of the pro-
longation of military service by way of penalty.
3. Renunciation of all offensive war, no matter what its
pretext.
4. Renunciation of every alliance not aimed exclusively at
the maintenance of peace.
5. Renunciation of Colonial military expeditions; and in
the present Colonies or Protectorates, withdrawn from the
influence of missionaries and the military regime, development
of institutions to protect the natives.
1 For the Bourses dn Travail^ cp. p. 154.
XXVI
PROGRAMMES OF T^E ENGLISH SOCIALIST
ORGANIZATIONS
I. THE PROGRAMME OF THE SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC
PARTY
[Revised up to 1909]
The Social Democratic Party (S.D.F.) is the oldest English
Socialist body. Various Radical clubs in London formed in 1881 the
Democratic Federation, and in 1883 this body declared for Socialism
and took its Socialist title. Most of the leading English Socialists
were for a short while in its ranks.
OBJECTS
THE Socialization of the Great Means of Production and
Distribution, under a Co-operative Commonwealth, the com-
plete Emancipation of Labour from the Domination of
Capitalism and Landlordism, with the establishment of Social
and Economic Equality between the Sexes.
The economic development of modern society is charac-
terized by the more or less complete domination of the
capitalistic mode of production over all branches of human
labour.
The capitalistic mode of production, because it has
the creation of profit for its sole object, therefore favours
the larger capital, and is based upon the divorcement of the
majority of the people from the instruments of production
351
352 MODERN SOCIALISM
and the concentration of these instruments in the hands of
a minority. Society is thus divided into two opposite classes :
one, the capitalists and their sleeping partners, the landlords
and loanmongers, holding in their hands the means of produc-
tion, distribution, and exchange, and being, therefore, able to
command the labour of others ; the other, the working-class,
the wage-earners, the proletariat, possessing nothing but their
labour-power, and being consequently forced by necessity to
work for the former.
The social division thus produced becomes wider and
deeper with every new advance in the application of labour-
saving machinery. It is most clearly recognizable, however, in
the times of industrial and commercial crises, when, in conse-
quence of the present chaotic conditions of carrying on
national and international industry, production periodically
comes to a standstill, and a number of the few remaining inde-
pendent producers are thrown into the ranks of the proletariat.
Thus, while on one hand there is incessantly going on an
accumulation of capital, wealth, and power into a steadily
diminishing number of hands, there is, on the other hand, a
constantly growing insecurity of livelihood for the mass of
wage-earners, an increasing disparity between human wants
and the opportunity of acquiring the means for their satisfaction,
and a steady physical and mental deterioration among the more
poverty-stricken of the population.
But the more this social division widens, the stronger grows
the revolt more conscious abroad than here of the prole-
tariat against the capitalist system of society in which this
division and all that accompanies it have originated, and find
such fruitful soil. The capitalist mode of production, by massing
the workers in large factories, and creating an interdependence,
not only between various trades and branches of industries,
but even national industries, prepares the ground and furnishes
material for a universal class war. That class war may at first
' as in this country be directed against the abuses of the system,
and not against the system itself; but sooner or later the
ENGLISH S.D.F. PROGRAMME 353
workers must come to recognize that nothing short of the
expropriation of the capitalist class, the ownership by the com-
munity of the means of production, distribution, and exchange,
can put an end to their abject economic condition j and then
the class war will become conscious instead ot unconscious on
the part of the working-classes, and they will have for their
ultimate object the overthrow of the capitalist system. At the
same time, since the capitalist class holds and uses the power
of the State to safeguard its position and beat off any attack,
the class war must assume a* political character, and become a
struggle on the part of the workers for the possession of the
political machinery.
It is this struggle for the conquest of the political power
of the State, in order to effect a social transformation, which
International Social Democracy carries on in the name and
on behalf of the working-class. Social Democracy, therefore,
is the only possible political party of the proletariat. The
Social Democratic Party is a part of this International Social
Democracy. It, therefore, takes its stand on the above prin-
ciples, and believes
1. That the emancipation of the working-class can only be
achieved through the socialization of the means of production,
distribution, and exchange, and their subsequent control by
the organized community in the interests of the whole people.
2. That, as the proletariat is the last class to ach'evj free-
dom, its emancipation will mean the emancipation of the
whole of mankind, without distinction of race, nationality,
creed, or sex.
3. That this emancipation can only be the work of the
working-class itself, organized nationally and internationally
into a distinct political party, consciously striving after the
realization of its ideals ; and, finally,
4. That, in order to ensure greater material and moral
facilities for the working-class to organize itself and to carry
on the class war, the following reforms must immediately be
carried through :
2 A
354 MODERN SOCIALISM
TRANSITIONAL PROGRAMME
Democratization of all public functions by payment of
members of legislative and administrative bodies and of
official election expenses out of the public funds; adult
suffrage; proportional representation; triennial Parliaments
with the Initiative and Referendum.
Abolition of the Monarchy and all other hereditary
authority.
Repudiation of the National Debt
Abolition of all indirect taxation and the institution of a
cumulative tax on all incomes exceeding ^300 a year.
All education to be free, secular, physical, industrial, and
compulsory for all classes. The age of school attendance to
be raised to 16.
State maintenance for all school children. Abolition of
school rates, the cost of education and maintenance in all
schools to be borne by the National Exchequer.
A legislative eight hours working day, or 48 hours per
week, to be the maximum for all trades and industries.
No child to be employed in any trade or occupation until
1 6 years of age.
The legislative enactment of a minimum wage for all
workers, with equal pay for both sexes for the performance of
equal work.
Public ownership of the land and all other monopolies
and public services, with the organization of labour in
agriculture and industry on co-operative principles.
The public ownership of electricity, water power, and
new inventions.
Public provision of useful work for the unemployed at not
less than trade union rates of wages.
Free state insurance against sickness and accident, and
free and adequate state pensions or provision for aged and
disabled workers. Public assistance not to entail forfeiture of
political rights.
ENGLISH S.D.F. PROGRAMME 355
Administration of the Poor Law on the basis of national
co-operation.
Compulsory construction by public bodies of healthy
dwellings for the people ; such dwellings to be let at rents to
cover the cost of construction and maintenance alone.
The administration of justice and legal advice to be free
to all; justice to be administered by judges and magistrates
chosen by the people; compensation for those innocently
accused, condemned, and imprisoned ; entire abolition of
imprisonment for debt; abolition of capital punishment.
The disestablishment and disendowment of all State
churches.
The abolition of standing armies, and the establishment of
a national citizen force. The abolition of courts-martial ; all
offences against discipline to be transferred to the jurisdiction
of civil courts in times of peace. The people to decide on
peace and war.
The establishment of international courts of arbitration.
356 MODERN SOCIALISM
II. THE PROGRAMME OF THE INDEPENDENT
LABOUR PARTY (1906-7)
The Independent Labour Party was founded in 1892-3, mainly by
Socialists in close touch with the trade-union movement. It held its
first congress on January 13 and 14, 1893. It must be carefully dis-
tinguished from the Labour Party (see p. 364), the federal body to
which since 1901 it has been affiliated and which it has done so much
to inspire.
Name.
" The Independent Labour Party."
Membership.
Open to all Socialists who endorse the principles and
policy of the Party, are not members of either the Liberal or
Conservative Party, and whose application for membership is
accepted by a Branch.
Any member expelled from membership of a Branch of the
I.L.P. shall not be eligible for membership of any other Branch
without having first submitted his or her case for adjudication
of the N.A.C.
Object,
The object of the Party is to establish the Socialist
State, when land and capital will be held by the community
and used for the well-being of the community, and when
the exchange of commodities will be organized also by the
community, so as to secure the highest possible standard
of life for the individual. In giving effect to this object it
shall work as part of the International Socialist movement.
Method.
The Party, to secure its objects, adopts
i. EDUCATIONAL METHODS, including the publication of
Socialist literature, the holding of meetings, etc.
ENGLISH I.L.P. PROGRAMME 357
2. POLITICAL METHODS, including the election of its
members to local and national administrative and
legislative bodies.
Programme.
The true object of industry being the production of the
requirements of life, the responsibility should rest with the
community collectively, therefore
The land, being the storehouse of all the necessaries of life,
should be declared and treated as public property.
The capital necessary for industrial operations should be
owned and used collectively.
Work, and wealth resulting therefrom, should be equitably
distributed over the population.
As a means to this end, we demand the enactment of the
following measures :
T. A maximum forty-eight hours' working-week, with the
retention of all existing holidays, and Labour Day, May i,
secured by law.
2. The provision of work to all capable adult applicants at
recognized trade-union rates, with a statutory minimum of
sixpence per hour.
In order to remuneratively employ the applicants, parish,
district, borough, and county councils to be invested with
power to
(a) Organize and undertake such industries as they may
consider desirable.
(b) Compulsorily acquire land ; purchase, erect, or manu-
facture, buildings, stock, or other articles for carrying on such
industries.
(c) Levy rates on the rental values of the district, and
borrow money on the security of such rates for any of the
above purposes.
3. State pensions for every person over fifty years of age,
and adequate provision for all widows, orphans, sick and dis-
abled workers.
358 MODERN SOCIALISM
4. Free, secular, moral, primary, secondary and university
education, with free maintenance while at school or university.
5. The raising of the age of child labour, with a view of its
ultimate extinction.
6. Municipalization and public control of the drink traffic.
7. Municipalization and public control of all hospitals and
infirmaries.
8. Abolition of indirect taxation, and the gradual trans-
ference of all public burdens on to unearned incomes, with a
view to their ultimate extinction.
The Independent Labour Party is in favour of adult
suffrage, with full political rights and privileges for women,
and the immediate extension of the franchise to women on
the same terms as granted to men ; also triennial parliaments
and second ballot.
ENGLISH FABIAN PROGRAMME
III. THE PROGRAMME OF THE FABIAN SOCIETY
The Fabian Society dates from January 4, 1884. It differs from
other Socialist bodies in not trying to enlist the mass of its converts in
its ranks, and in encouraging its members to join and permeate other
organizations. It exists for purposes of co-operation in research,
internal discussion, and external propaganda. It does not bind its
members to a programme, but only to a basis ; this is, however, here
supplemented by one of the lists of questions, which it has formulated
to meet every variety of popular election.
Basis of the Fabian Society.
The Fabian Society consists of Socialists.
It therefore aims at the reorganization of society by the
emancipation of land and industrial capital from individual and
class ownership, and the vesting of them in the community for
the general benefit. In this way only can the natural and
acquired advantages of the country be equitably shared by the
whole people.
The Society accordingly works for the extinction of private
property in land and of the consequent individual appropria-
tion, in the form of rent, of the price paid for permission to
use the earth, as well as for the advantages of superior soils
and sites.
The Society, further, works for the transfer to the com-
munity of the administration of such industrial capital as can
conveniently be managed socially. For, owing to the monopoly
of the means of production in the past, industrial inventions
and the transformation of surplus income into capital have
mainly enriched the proprietary class, the worker being now
dependent on that class for leave to earn a living.
If these measures be carried out, without compensation
(though not without such relief to expropriated individuals as
$6o MODERN SOCIALISM
may seem fit to the community), rent and interest will be
added to the reward of labour, the idle class now living on the
labour of others will necessarily disappear, and practical equality
of opportunity will be maintained by the spontaneous action
of economic forces with much less interference with personal
liberty than the present system entails.
For the attainment of these ends the Fabian Society looks
to the spread of Socialist opinions, and the social and political
changes consequent thereon. It seeks to promote these by the
general dissemination of knowledge as to the relation between
the individual and society in its economic, ethical and political
aspects.
QUESTIONS FOR PARLIAMENTARY
CANDIDATES
(Revised September, 1900.)
Will you press at the first opportunity for the following
reforms ;
I. A Labour Programme.
1. The extension of the Workmen's Compensation Act to
seamen, and to all other classes of wage earners ?
2. Compulsory arbitration, as in New Zealand, to prevent
strikes and lock-outs ?
3. A statutory minimum wage, as in Victoria, especially for
sweated trades ?
4. The fixing of " an eight-hours' day " as the maximum
for all public servants ; and the abolition, wherever possible,
of overtime ?
5. An Eight-Hours' Bill, without an option clause, for
miners ; and, for railway servants, a forty-eight hours' week ?
6. The drastic amendment of the Factory Acts, to secure
(a) a safe and healthy work-place for every worker, (b) the
prevention of overwork for all women and young persons,
(c) the abolition of all wage-labour by children under 14,
ENGLISH FABIAN PROGRAMME 361
(d) compulsory technical instruction by extension of the half-
time arrangements to all workers under 1 8 ?
7. The direct employment of labour by all public authorities
whenever possible ; and, whenever it is not possible, employ-
ment only of fair houses, prohibition of sub-contracting, and
payment of trade-union rates of wages ?
8. The amendment of the Merchant Shipping Acts so as
(a) to secure healthy sleeping and living accommodation, (b) to
protect the seaman against withholding of his wages or return
passage, (c) to insure him against loss by shipwreck ?
II. A Democratic Budget.
9. The further taxation of unearned incomes by means of
a graduated and differentiated income-tax ?
10. The abolition of all duties on tea, cocoa, coffee, currants
and other dried fruits ?
11. An increase of the scale of graduation of the death
duties, so as to fall more heavily on large inheritances ?
12. The appropriation of the unearned increment by the
taxation and rating of ground values ?
13. The nationalization of mining rents and royalties?
14. Transfer of the railways to the State under the Act
of 1844 ?
III. Social Reform in Town and Country.
15. The extension of full powers to parish, town, and
county councils for the collective organization of the (a)
water, (b) gas and (c) electric lighting supplies, (d) hydraulic
power, (e) tramways and light railways, (/) public slaughter-
houses, (g) pawnshops, (h) sale of milk, (i) bread, (j) coal,
and such other public services as may be desired by the
inhabitants ?
1 6. Reform of the drink traffic by (a) reduction of the
number of licences to a proper ratio to the population of each
362 MODERN SOCIALISM
locality, (b) transfer to public purposes of the special value of
licences, created by the existing monopoly, by means of high
licence or a licence rate, (c) grant of power to local authorities
to carry on municipal public houses, directly or on the Gothen-
burg system ?
17. Amendment of the Housing of the Working Classes
Act by (a) extension of period of loans to one hundred years,
treatment of land as an asset, and removal of statutory limitation
of borrowing powers for housing, (b) removal of restrictions on
rural district councils in adopting Part III. of the Act, (c)
grant of power to parish councils to adopt Part III. of the
Act, (d) power to all local authorities to buy land compulsorily
under the allotments clauses of the Local Government Act,
1894, or in any other effective manner?
1 8. The grant of power to all local bodies to retain the
freehold of any land that may come into their possession
without obligation to sell, or to use for particular purposes ?
19. The relief of the existing taxpayer by (a) imposing, for
local purposes, a municipal death duty on local real estate,
collected in the same way as the existing death duties, (b)
collecting rates from the owners of empty houses and vacant
land, (c) power to assess land and houses at four per cent, on
the capital value, (d) securing special contributions by way
of " betterment" from the owners of property benefited by
public improvements ?
20. The further equalization of the rates in London?
21. The compulsory provision by every local authority of
adequate hospital accommodation for all diseases and accidents?
IV. The Children and the Poor.
22. The prohibition of the industrial or wage-earning
employment of children during school terms prior to the age
of 14?
23. The provision of meals, out of public funds, for
necessitous children in public elementary schools ?
ENGLISH FABIAN PROGRAMME 363
24. The training of teachers under public control and free
from sectarian influences ?
25. The creation of a complete system of public secondary
education genuinely available to the children of the poor ?
26. State pensions for the support of the aged or chronic-
ally infirm ?
V. Democratic Political Machinery.
27. An amendment of^ the registration laws, with the aim
of giving every adult man a vote, and no one more than one
vote ?
28. A redistribution of seats in accordance with population ?
29. The grant of the franchise to women on the same
terms as to men ?
30. The admission of women to seats in the House of
Commons and on borough and county councils ?
31. The second ballot at Parliamentary and other elections?
32. The payment of all members of Parliament and of
Parliamentary election expenses, out of public funds ?
33. Triennial Parliaments ?
34. All Parliamentary elections to be held on the same
day?
XXVII
CONSTITUTION OF THE LABOUR PARTY
As REVISED UNDER THE AUTHORITY OF THE
LONDON CONFERENCE, 1906
The Labour Party arose (under the name of "Labour Repre-
sentation Committee ") out of a conference held in 1900, and held its
first annual conference in February, 1901. In succeeding years it
won several by-elections, and at the general election of 1906 it
captured 29 Parliamentary seats, to which 2 were added on the
morrow of the election. In that year it adopted its present name. It
must be carefully distinguished from the Independent Labour Party
(see p. 356), a purely Socialist organization which is affiliated to it.
ORGANIZATION.
I. AFFILIATION.
1. The Labour Party is a Federation consisting of Trade-
Unions, Trades-Councils, Socialist Societies, and Local Labour
Parties.
2. A Local Labour Party in any constituency is eligible
for affiliation, provided it accepts the constitution and policy
of the Party, and that there is no affiliated Trades Council
covering the constituency, or that, if there be such council, it
has been consulted in the first instance.
3. Co-operative Societies are also eligible.
4. A National Organization of Women, accepting the basis
of this Constitution and the policy of the Party, and formed
for the purpose of assisting the Party, shall be eligible for
affiliation as though it were a Trades Council without having
the right to vote in the election of the Executive.
364
CONSTITUTION OF THE LABOUR PARTY 365
II. OBJECT.
To secure the election of Candidates to Parliament and
organize and maintain a Parliamentary Labour Party, with its
own whips and policy.
III. CANDIDATES AND MEMBERS.
1. Candidates and members must accept this constitution ;
agree to abide by the decisions of the Parliamentary Party in
carrying out the aims of thjs constitution ; appear before their
constituencies under the title of Labour candidates only ;
abstain strictly from identifying themselves with or promoting
the interests of any Parliamentary Party not affiliated, or its
candidates ; and they must not oppose any candidate recognized
by the Executive Committee of the party.
2. Candidates must undertake to join the Parliamentary
Labour Party, if elected.
IV. THE NATIONAL EXECUTIVE. '
The National executive shall consist of fifteen members,
eleven representing the Trade-Unions, one the Trades-Councils
and Local Labour Parties, and three the Socialist Societies, and
shall be elected by ballot at the annual conference by their
respective sections.
V. DUTIES OF THE NATIONAL EXECUTIVE.
The National Executive Committee shall
1. Appoint a chairman, vice-chairman, and treasurer, and
shall transact the general business of the party \
2. Issue a list of its candidates from time to time, and
recommend them for the support of the electors ;
3. Report to the affiliated organization concerned any
Labour member, candidate, or chief official who opposes a
candidate of the party, or who acts contrary to the spirit of
this constitution ;
4. And its members shall strictly abstain from identifying
366 MODERN SOCIALISM
themselves with or promoting the interests of any Parliamentary
party not affiliated, or its candidates.
VI. THE SECRETARY.
The secretary shall be elected by the annual conference,
and shall be under the direction of the National Executive.
VII. AFFILIATION FEES AND DELEGATES,
i. Trade-Unions and Socialist Societies shall pay 15,$-. per
annum for every 1000 members or fraction thereof, and may
send to the annual conference one delegate for each thousand
members.
2. Trades-Councils and Local Labour Parties with 5000
members or under shall be affiliated on annual payment of 15^.
similar organizations with a membership of over 5000 shall pay
i io^.,the former Councils to be entitled to send one delegate
with one vote to the annual conference, the latter to be entitled
to send two delegates and have two votes.
3. In addition to these payments a delegate's fee to the
annual conference may be charged.
VIII. ANNUAL CONFERENCE.
The National Executive shall convene a conference of its
affiliated societies in the month of January each year.
Notice of resolutions for the conference and all amend-
ments to the constitution shall be sent to the secretary by
November ist, and shall be forthwith forwarded to all affiliated
organizations.
Notice of amendments and nominations for secretary and
National Executive shall be sent to the secretary by December
1 5th, and shall be printed on the agenda.
IX. VOTING AT ANNUAL CONFERENCE.
There shall be issued to affiliated societies represented at
the annual conference voting cards as follows :
i. Trade-Unions and Socialist Societies shall receive one
CONSTITUTION OF THE LABOUR PARTY 367
voting card for each thousand members, or fraction thereof
paid for.
2. Trades-Councils and Local Labour Parties shall receive
one card for each delegate they are entitled to send.
Any delegate may claim to have a vote taken by card.
PARLIAMENTARY FUND.
I. OBJECT.
To assist in paying the election expenses of candidates
adopted in accordance with this constitution, and in main-
taining them when elected, and to provide the salary and
expenses of a national party agent.
II. AMOUNT OF CONTRIBUTION.
Affiliated societies, except Trades-Councils and Local
Labour Parties, shall pay a contribution to this fund at the
rate of 2d. per member per annum, not later than the last
day of each financial year.
On all matters affecting the financial side of the Parlia-
mentary Fund only contributing societies shall be allowed to
vote at the annual conference.
III. TRUSTEES.
The National Executive of the Party shall, from its number,
select three to act as trustees, any two of whom, with the
secretary, shall sign cheques.
IV. EXPENDITURE.
i. Maintenance. All members elected under the auspices
of the Labour Party shall be paid from the fund equal sums
not to exceed ^200 per annum, provided that this payment
shall only be made to members whose candidatures have been
promoted by societies which have contributed to this fund :
provided further that no payment from this fund shall be made
368 MODERN SOCIALISM
to a member or candidate of any society which has not con-
tributed to this fund for one year, and that any society over
three months in arrears shall forfeit all claim to the fund on
behalf of its members or candidates, for twelve months from
the date of payment.
2. Returning Officers' Expenses. Twenty-five per cent, of
the returning officers' net expenses shall be paid to the
candidates, subject to the provisions of the preceding clause,
so long as the total sum so expended does not exceed twenty-
five per cent, of the fund.
3. Administration. Five per cent, of the annual income
of the fund shall be transferred to the general funds of the
party to pay for administrative expenses of the fund.
XXVIII
ELECTION ADDRESSES OF 1906
I. OF THE GERMAN SOCIAL DEMOCRATS FOR THE
REICHSTAG ELECTIONS, 1907.
Published in the Voriuarts, December 16, 1906, and signed by 78
Social Democratic members of the dissolved Reichstag. Observe
that while the full Socialist programme is only briefly alluded to at
the close, the general struggle of the party against class-government,
militarism, Imperialism overseas, Protectionism, and irresponsible
bureaucracy is presented vividly and with argument. This is a
regular characteristic of the German party's manifestoes, but too
much stress should not be laid on it, for the assertion of Socialist
formula by the party may be considered a matter of common know-
ledge, of which few German electors need now to be reminded.
ELECTORS,
As you are aware, the Reichstag was dissolved on
December 13. Fresh elections are in prospect, and are to
take place on January 25, 1907.
Why was the Reichstag dissolved ? Because there was
not a majority willing to vote the additional expenditure in-
curred in the budget-year 1906 over the disastrous revolt in
South-West Africa, at the figure demanded by the federated
Governments, the figure of nearly ij millions sterling in
addition to that of nearly 4 millions already voted this year for
suppressing the revolt. While part of the Reichstag (the
Conservatives, the anti-Semites, the National Liberals, the
Radicals, and the People's party) was ready to vote for the
369 2 B
370 MODERN SOCIALISM
Government's demands, the Centre 1 preferred a resolution
granting only i million sterling, and demanding also the speedy
withdrawal of the greater part of the troops, reducing their
numbers by March 31, 1907, from the 8,000, men contemplated,
down to 2,500, men. As neither the resolution of the Radicals
nor the proposals of the Government secured a majority, the
dissolution resulted.
You have now to choose new deputies at the polls, in
accordance with your opinions, not merely upon the position
German * n South- West Africa, but upon our entire policy at
Militarist home and abroad. The situation is serious, very
serious. After a thirty-five years' existence the
German Empire finds itself in almost complete isolation. For
the last fifteen years there has been no lack of speeches and
trips made in many potentates' countries, no lack of presents
made to the most diverse nations. But the result of all these
unsought assurances of love and affection is, that to-day
German policy is regarded with distrust by almost every
foreigner, and Germany instead of friends has scarcely any but
covert or overt enemies. Consequently the world-situation is
such, that despite all the peace-loving assurances, which ruling
sovereigns give on occasion after occasion, armaments by land
and sea are continually reinforced, the debts of the nations
and their loads of taxes are continually mounting up, and a
feeling of anxiety, as at the advent of an immense catastrophe,
continually strengthens its hold on the civilized peoples, and
forbids their peacefully enjoying the fruits of their labour.
We Social Democrats resisted from the beginning the policy
which was bound to lead to such results. We demanded that
instead of these incessant armaments, which only excite the
mutual distrust of the different States, and stimulate them to
more and more rivalry in these armaments, and cannot but end
with a world-wide catastrophe, those in power should invite
the civilized nations to a common conference, to set a limit to
this perilous state of things. We have incessantly demanded,
1 The Roman Catholic clerical party of Germany.
ELECTION ADDRESS FOR GERMAN REICHSTAG 371
and we once more demand, that the civilized nations should be
rivals, not in the building up of great armies and fleets and the
discovery and establishment of the most perfect man-slaying
machines, but in works of peace and civilization. The earth is
large and rich enough to make happiness and well-being
possible for all, and establish them on a footing of peaceful
emulation in the works of civilization and culture.
Instead of this we see the ruling classes, and their solution
11 If you want peace, you must be armed for war," with which
they carry on their policy ^f embittering nations in order to
maintain their own class-rule in domestic affairs. The military
and naval armaments serve to enrich them. Besides, they
cherish the thought on the sly, that nations kept in constant
anxiety about a grasping and warlike foreign neighbour, do not
apply themselves to improve their social conditions, as they
otherwise could and would. This policy of international ruin,
in which Germany to-day sets the pace, we have hitherto most
decidedly opposed, and we shall continue to oppose it.
The dissolution of the Reichstag has, in the first instance,
preserved the nation from coming to know the fresh sacrifices
which await it. It is our duty to acquaint it with The cost of
them, that at the polls it may decide about them, militarism.
The Budget for 1907, which in consequence of the dissolution
could not be introduced, requires a very considerable increase
of the financial burdens corresponding to the policy described
above. The Army estimates, including extraordinary and
capital expenditure, amount to about 40 millions sterling, or
over 2\ millions in excess of last year's. It is an open
secret, that the War Office asked the Treasury for even more,
because it thought, that in view of the deplorable financial
position of the Empire it had been too modest in recent years.
The Admiralty is demanding altogether about 14^ millions,
i J millions more than for 1906. The public Pensions List
requires .5,175,000, which, excepting some 130,000 for
civil servants, is spent exclusively on the pensioners of the
army and navy. The Imperial Debt requires for interest in
372 MODERN SOCIALISM
the year 1907 ^6,825,000, nearly half a million more than in
1906. Over three-quarters of this interest is paid upon debt
incurred for military and naval objects. Since 1888, the year
when the present Kaiser ascended the throne, the Imperial
Debt has risen from 36 millions to 200 millions, and neverthe-
less the Budget for 1907 requires a loan of ^13,200,000, so
that we shall soon reach 250 millions of debt. This burden of
debt grows in spite of the great increase effected by the 1902
Customs Tariff in the duties upon the barest necessaries, and
in spite of the new excise duties voted in the current year.
The latter include the increased beer-duty, the stamps on
freightage and deeds, the duty on cigarettes, the duty on
railway-tickets (to which will be added next spring the abolition
of return tickets and of free baggage), the motor-car tax, the
board of inspection's rates and the death duties, the increase
of district postage for cards and printed matter. In spite of
all, the Empire remains, as it was, in the greatest embarrass-
ment for money. Moreover, the capitation assessments, that
is, the contributions which the separate States have to pay
proportionately per head of population to the Imperial Ex-
chequer to supplement the Empire's own receipts from taxes
and loans, have been fixed far higher than the so-called
financial reform contemplated. For this wretched state of
Imperial finance all the bourgeois parties in the Reichstag
must bear the blame, for they all assented to the Imperial
Budget.
There cannot be the least doubt, that the new Reichstag
must concern itself to find new sources of revenue. We are
Reform of firmly convinced that this bad financial manage-
taxation. ment can only be rectified, if those classes which
must be regarded as the mainstays of the prevailing system,
are in future made to contribute according to their property
and income towards bearing the burdens of the Empire.
Hitherto the comfortable method pursued has been to devolve
the burdens of the Empire principally upon indirect taxation
by way of excise and customs on the bare necessaries of life of
ELECTION ADDRESS FOR GERMAN REICHSTAG 373
the masses. The masses have hitherto borne the chief part of
these burdens. Our representatives in the Reichstag will
reiterate our old demand for the burdens to be imposed on
those who most easily can bear them, and whose professed
patriotism induces them constantly to vote fresh additional
estimates for armaments and unproductive objects, while
keeping a close fist on their own spoils. We demand the
introduction of an Imperial progressive income-tax on all
incomes over .250, and a progressive property-tax on all who
possess over 2,500 property. Further we demand the
raising of the Imperial death duties, which instead of the
.1, 8oo ; ooo in the Budget for 1907, can easily yield more
than six times that amount. If those who hitherto have been
the mainstays of the Empire's policy are compelled to make
sacrifices corresponding to their tall patriotic talk, we are
convinced that they will harp on a new string.
Electors, it is for you, by your votes on January 25, 1907,
to see that those hitherto responsible for German policy
disappear from the Reichstag.
As we have hitherto opposed the foreign policy of the
Empire, so we have opposed its Imperialist policy beyond the
seas. 1 The German colonies (with one quite overseas
isolated exception) neither repay the money imperiai-
sacrificed upon them, nor afford a subsistence for ism *
any number of German emigrants worth mentioning. The
sums, which the Empire sacrifices annually for the colonies,
are in no sort of accord with the profits to be drawn from
them. The trade with the colonies, after they had belonged
to us for twenty years, reached in 1905 the inconsiderable
figure of .3,200,000 for imports and exports combined. Of
this .2,325,000 was for exports to the colonies, which chiefly
went in the form of supplies for the German officials and
garrisons. For this trifling trade we pay in Imperial subsidies
alone to the colonies, including Kiao-chow, but without
reckoning the expenditure on native risings, some ij millions
1 Koknialpolitik.
374 MODERN SOCIALISM
annually. The world-commerce of Germany in 1905 reached
the colossal sum of ^663, 900,000. Therefore the trade with
the colonies amounts to less than one-half per cent, of it.
To the sums regularly thus sacrificed on the colonies must
be added the special sacrifices occasioned in the last ten years
by native risings, and particularly by the rising in South-West
Africa, which has already lasted nearly three years. Electors,
no honourable man can deny, that the cause of these risings
is the treatment, which the natives have experienced from
most of the colonists and from the policy of very many of the
officials administering the colonies. In particular that can be
proved with chapter and verse as regards the rising in South-
West Africa. Robbed of their property, often ill-treated,
almost without rights, given over to be despised and exploited,
the natives have eventually resorted to their very last shift,
and attacked their oppressors. Already the sums expended
on the revolt in South-West Africa, including that by which
the 1905 estimates were exceeded, and including the supple-
mentary estimates eventually laid before the Reichstag, amount
to twenty millions. Nevertheless, the Budget for 1907
requires over ,3, 300,000 to suppress the revolt; and even
after its complete suppression large financial sacrifices are
demanded for unnumbered years. We are threatened in so
many words with the establishment of a colonial army.
We regard a campaign so foolish and, on General Von
Trotha's own admission, so cruel, as a serious blow to the
national prosperity and honour. We distinguish between an
Imperialism, which comes to foreign and less civilized peoples
in order honourably to educate them, to teach them to take
advantage of and enjoy, for themselves and for all mankind,
the resources of their soil, and to introduce to them all the
achievements of civilization in a manner corresponding to
their lives ; and on the other hand an Imperialism, which aims
at the oppression, the spoliation, or even the extirpation of
the natives, natives in whom for all their far lower civilization
we still see human beings, who must be treated as such, The
ELECTION ADDRESS FOR GERMAN REICHSTAG 375
colonial scandals and risings have been showing us for the
past fifteen years, that our pretended work of Christian
civilization is often in harshest contradiction to everything that
is Christian or humane. 1 Lastly, we see in the German
colonies not a strengthening but a weakening of Germany.
Prince Biilow himself said in the Reichstag on November i4th
of this year : " Our situation would to-day be securer and
easier than it was in the 'eighties if we had not in the interval
started our overseas policy. . . . What to-day renders our
situation complex and difficult, are our relations and interests
overseas. If we were not engaged in this direction, if we
were not vulnerable in this respect, we should not have
much to fear on the continent. Then, too, it would be
easier than it is to-day to avoid clashing and friction with
England."
The questions which we have discussed so far, are however
not the only ones, which occupy the future Reichstag. The
Governmental policy of taxing and excluding protection
foreign imports, supported hitherto by an Agrarian and dear
majority in the Reichstag, has induced an unpre- (
cedented rise in the cost of necessaries, especially of meat.
This policy throws over fifty millions a year into the laps of
our Agrarians at the expense of the non-agrarian population.
This policy means not only continual dear food, but
increasingly dearer food, because the population of Ger-
many grows by about a million annually, and the pro-
duction of food within the Empire cannot keep pace with
it. While thus the Agrarian chiefs reap gigantic profits,
and are in the seventh heaven of delight, want and misery
come into millions of German families, the pieces of meat on
the tables of our workmen, our lower middle-class, and our
lower official class grow smaller and smaller, and hundreds of
thousands cease to eat meat at all. The result is chronic
underfeeding of millions of human beings, with all that it
implies, diminution of physical strength and capacity for
effort, multiplication of illnesses, and shortening of lives, At
376 MODERN SOCIALISM
the same time the budgets of ths State and the local authorities
are rapidly swollen by increased expenditure on poor relief, on
hospitals, infirmaries, and prisons of all kinds, on maintaining
soldiers and sailors, etc. And that in turn means a further
rise in the duties. Not only meat, but also bread, butter, eggs,
and above all milk, the principal food for our children, have
risen greatly in price already, and the leaders of Agrarian
organizations are already considering how they can further
take advantage of the situation, in order to make life still
harder for the poor and the very poor in town and country.
If another great crisis comes, the misery of the masses, that
proceeds from the maintenance of our Agrarian and Pro-
tectionist policy, will be beyond all computation. If you do
not wish the hunger-whip of the Agrarian chiefs swung yet
further over your heads and the heads of your families, elect
representatives who will make an end of this starvation policy,
elect Social Democrats. Away with the food-taxers.
Social Reform in the sessions of the Reichstag from 1903
to 1906 has fared piteously. The one " great undertaking,"
for which the Government has roused itself, has
been the Bill on the legal capacity of trade-unions, unions,
and this Bill offers stones instead of bread to our
workers. It is inspired by the most reactionary labour-policy
imaginable. To see that in the next session of the Reichstag
neither this Bill nor any Bill like it becomes law, is one of the
first objects which the German working-class has to secure by
its votes at this election. A legally fixed working- social
day ; the protection of home-workers ; the assurance reforms
of the right of combination; a law of free public
meeting and assembly, worthy of a civilized State and
recognizing at last the equal right of agricultural labourers
and women; the extension of the franchise to women; the
extension, simplification, and amplification of the State
Insurance legislation ; these and many others are the demands,
for whose realization the Social Democratic representatives
in the next Reichstag will have to fight.
ELECTION ADDRESS FOR GERMAN REICHSTAG 377
The liberties of the subject and the political rights of the
citizen, freedom of speech and freedom of opinion, are quite
insufficiently secured in Germany. Excesses on poetical and
the part of the police and their inadequate punish- Judicial
ment are constantly arousing fresh indignation. Refo
More and more frequent are judicial sentences, which the
people resent as class-judgments, because they see in them
the ideas and prejudices of the bureaucracy and the governing
classes prevailing over the popular sense of justice. So far as
these conditions can be improved by unvarnished criticism
and by motions regarding criminal law, criminal trials, and
the liability of officials to punishment for illegal acts, the
Social Democratic representatives in the Reichstag have
thoroughly done their duty ; and the more of them you elect
to the Reichstag, the more vigorously will they be able to
do it.
Electors of Germany, we know that everything which we
can attain to-day is mere patch-work compared to what ought
to be attained. We know, that a fundamental
reform requires a thorough revolution of our Revolution! 1
economic and social conditions, that complete
human freedom and equality in the State and in society,
complete participation in the fruits of civilization for even
the last among us, can only be achieved by the steadfast
will and clear intelligence of the great majority of the nation.
But we know, too, that the conditions, which prevail to-day
and grow daily more acute, are bringing to pass, thanks to the
unintelligence of the governing classes, the revolution in men's
heads; that is, are creating the intelligence and the will to
transform society on Socialist principles. The stress of the
times is teaching men to think. Relying on this revolutionary
influence of things, we go with a good courage into the
electoral battle. We ask you, so far as your social, your
economic, and your political interests, or your idealism, impel
you to the side of the Social Democrats, and the great
majority must be so impelled, to adhere to us, and on
378 MODERN SOCIALISM
January 25, 1907, to vote every man for the Social Democratic
candidates.
Our watchword, and yours, for the election is : Down with
our bungling gaolers ; down with everything that opposes the
march of mankind towards the full noonday of civilization.
Up with Social Democracy.
BERLIN,
December 14, 1906.
II. OF THE FRENCH UNITED SOCIALISTS, 1906.
This (published in the Humanity, April 16, 1906) was issued for
the whole metropolitan department of the Seine for the general
elections to the French Chamber in May, at which the United
Socialists secured 54 seats. The candidates, whose names follow it,
include such various types as Paul Brousse, G. Rouanet, E. Vaillant,
P. Lafargue, and Marcel Sernbat.
CITIZENS,
For the first time all the Socialists in France are going
into the political fray closely united, arrayed against the
many-labelled bourgeoisie and asserting all the claims of the
proletarian class. The international congress at Amsterdam
decided that, as there was only one proletariate, so there should
be only one Socialist party ; and our recent national congresses
have added, that whoever was not with us should be fought as
a foe. Therefore in every constituency of the Seine, as every-
where in the provinces, there is only one candidate, in voting
for whom you are invited to express your desire to set men
wholly free through the realization of the Socialist ideal.
Keener and harsher than ever you see the struggle on foot
in the society of to-day between the idle class of propertied
capitalists and the toiling class of propertyless wage-earners.
On the one side misery, despair, and disease thin the ranks of
the workers, who create all the wealth; on the other, the
FRENCH ELECTION ADDRESS, 1906 379
profits and the claims of capital are growing under our eyes.
The more the workers produce, the more miserable they make
their position. Anarchy reigns supreme in the economic
system of to-day, and leads fatally to crises of cruel unemploy-
ment. Thus the wage-earners are exposed to every uncer-
tainty in life, and it is they who suffer from the system of free
competition so dear to bourgeois economists. Nor does
freedom exist for the proletarian enslaved in factories, work-
shops, or great shops ; for property, the fruit of toil, the
guarantee of independence, Ms the privilege of a class which
uses it as an instrument of tyranny. The laws of to-day,
accumulated in the bourgeois codes, aim only at securing for
those who detain the nation's wealth the supremacy over those
who produce it, and the political and economic power which
settles how these laws shall be applied.
This state of things cannot last much longer. You have
only to make up your minds. Already you are the many, and
every day the agglomerations of capital increase the multitude
of those left without property. Moreover, you have on your
side science ; you have on your side the observation of facts
in history, and the progress of capitalistic production, which is
collectivizing labour.
The Socialist party, to which you will come, proclaims that
all have the right to live, and all who are able to be producers
have the duty to work. With us you will wish to give every
man his dignity and freedom, in enabling him to own his
means of work ; and thus you will create the economic and
social equality, without which the pretended equality before
the law and political equality are shams. With us you will say
that you want peace, in which to seek and win your com-
plete emancipation; you will say that you have sacrificed
yourselves enough, and that the day is over when " the rich
get the poor to fight their wars for them." You will protest
against a militarism which squanders so much money and
so many lives. In a word you will pin your faith to
the principles of Socialism ; the workers to agree and act
38o MODERN SOCIALISM
internationally; the proletariat to organize, politically and
economically, as a class party to capture the Government and
to socialize the means of production and exchange, that is to
transform capitalistic society into a collectivist or communist
society.
With us you will stand to realize the society of harmonious
production, fair distribution, and brotherly solidarity ; and you
will say so if you vote for the candidates which the Federation
of the Seine puts forward.
III. OF J. R. CLYNES, M.P., AND G. D. KELLEY,
M.P., 1906.
This address is interesting for a special reason. In Manchester
the Labour Representation Committee ran two candidates : Mr.
Clynes, a Socialist nominated by the Independent Labour Party, and
Mr. Kelley, a decidedly old-fashioned trade-unionist, nominated by
the Lithographic Printers. They both subscribed the following
address, which may be taken therefore as embodying the points
of agreement between the newer and the older schools. It will be
seen how distinctively Socialist the thought throughout is, despite
the absence of revolutionary phrases.
Having accepted an invitation from the representatives of
organized Labour to come forward as a candidate in this
election, I now appeal for your votes for the principles and
policy which I support. These principles aim at removing
conditions which at present give the greater part of Labour's
produce to a few privileged landowners and capitalists.
The total wealth of the country increases yearly, but the
mass of the people who make it remain poor. The load of
Labour becomes heavier, and the dread of being
Principles. . , . T
unemployed is greater than ever. Increasing trade
and greater power to produce should mean greater comforts
and better pay for the industrial classes. Unfortunately, the
landlords and syndicates have reaped the rewards, and kept
the wage-earners dependent on them for daily bread. Improved
MR. CLYNES, M.P., AND MR. KELLEY, M.P. 381
conditions for workers mean better conditions for shopkeepers,
traders, and other business people, whilst high rents, charged
by the landlords for the liberty to live, to trade and work
on the land, hinder the trade and commerce of the country and
injure the whole community.
Better conditions can only be attained by great changes in
the law, and to effect these changes different men must be sent
to make them. In justice, I place the rights of the
people before the claims of party, and believe the P(
interests of a community c?*\ best be served by a new force in
politics, which will act on independent lines and be free to
oppose or support any Government just as the good of the
people, and not the interests of a section, may require.
I support Free Trade, because trading is better if free from
the tariffs which Protectionist countries impose. Protection in
other lands has not given better conditions to the Free Tpade
workers. It would not keep goods out of this
countiy, but would make them dearer, increase our cost of
living, and further hamper the trades of the country, particularly
the cotton and machine trades of Lancashire. The protection
the trades of this country require is protection against trusts and
monopolies, a crushing of landlordism, and the burdens of
heavy railway rates, mining rents and royalties.
I support the principle of useful employment being found
for willing workers whom other employers do not engage.
All waste labour is lost wealth, and all persons Un-
should have not merely a chance of receiving
charity when destitute, but the certainty of earning an honest
living.
I support the claim of Trade Unions for legislation which
wiil place them on an equal legal footing with employers. The
present law prevents workmen doing what employers Tpade Union
are free to do, and it permits employers to secure Law -
damages from unions who act only in persuit of their members'
interests, whilst unions are unable to obtain damages for losses
sustained by them.
382 MODERN SOCIALISM
I believe iir Ireland being governed according to Irish
ideas. Other ideas have been the means of driving Irishmen
from their own country, and have given neither
prosperity nor satisfaction to it. We prize the
right to rule at home, and our colonies are a good example
of the loyalty and contentment which follow Home Rule.
I am prepared to support measures to end the disgraceful
use of cheap Chinese labour in South Africa. The heavy
Chinese price paid in men and money for that territory
labour. should cause us to seek the natural development
of its agriculture and industries by white labour, instead of
permitting a few mineowners to make fortunes rapidly at the
cost of enduring harm to the country.
I believe in a system of education maintained by the State
which will give equal opportunities to all, free from
Education.
sectarian bias, controlled by the directly-elected
representatives of the people, and making provision to prevent
children from starving.
Pensions are now given to the rich. I am in favour of
Pensions. extending this principle to the poor, and increasing
the national income by readjustment of taxation,
so as to obtain for the community all land and other values
created by the public themselves.
I am against existing taxes on the common necessaries of
life, and believe that, without the loss of any needful safe-
Taxes guards, National Expenditure can be reduced. I
am in favour of enlarging the powers of Municipal
bodies, so that the Housing question and other important
domestic subjects can be better dealt with.
I will support an eight-hours' working-day in our various
trades, believing it to be equally right for the law to restrict
working hours as it is for employers to fix prices
General. ... r
and conditions. I am in favour of making the
land of this country the people's land, and extending and
improving the Workmen's Compensation Act. I will support
electoral reform which will ensure votes for persons and not
MR. WILL THORNE, M.P. 383
for property, and also a reform of the Corrupt Practices Act
which will prevent men from buying seats in Parliament by
means of big donations and grants of money.
Should you return me to Parliament, I shall do my utmost
to justify your confidence and to serve the best interests of
the division and that of the community in general.
IV. OF WILL, THORNE, M.P., 1906.
Mr. Thorne, who captured South- West Ham by a majority of
5237, is the only member of the Social Democratic Federation to
obtain a seat in Parliament. He was elected under the auspices of
the Labour Representation Committee, being nominated by the Gas-
workers' Union, of which he is general secretary.
At the unanimous request of the West Ham and District
Trades and LaDour Council and of the Socialist and Labour
organizations of the borough, and that request having been
endorsed at a number of public meetings held in all parts of
the division, I venture to again appeal for your support and
suffrages in the interest of Labour and Social Democracy. I am
a resident in your constituency, and I have now for a good
many years lived and worked in your midst, and I claim to
understand something of your wants and aspirations. For the
past 15 years I have been a member of the town council of West
Ham, and during that time I have assisted in every public
movement which had for its object the uplifting and improve-
ment of the great working-class population of this borough.
My sympathies are with the mass of the people, and I feel
keenly the hardships and sufferings which the majority of my
fellow-workers have to endure in their struggle for the means
of existence.
During my lifetime I have worked hard to reduce the hours
of labour, to raise wages, to improve conditions, and to place
within the reach of all, more of the social comforts and
enjoyments to which their labour entitles them.
384 MODERN SOCIALISM
As a Social Democrat, I am convinced that that question
which Thomas Carlyk once called " the condition of England
question " is the most important problem which is before us to-day ',
and that the final emancipation of the people will never be achieved
until the means and instruments of production, distribution, and
exchange are taken over and worked collectively for the common
good of all.
As one who has taken an active part in every advanced
Social and Labour movement for the past twenty-two years, I
am amazed at the depth of industrial and economic misery
brought about by the reactionary legislation of the late Govern-
ment, especially in the direction of curtailing the rights of the
people in the control of Education, in the absolute disregard
of public opinion, as expressed in the Chinese Labour Ordin-
ance, which again introduces the principle of chattel slavery
into British administration, and finally by their obvious attempt
to cover all this infamy by juggling with the Fiscal arrange-
ments of the country. Needless for me to say, I am a
determined opponent of all attempts to curtail the rights and
liberties of the people, in Education, Colonial Administration,
and the imposition of any Tariff burdens on the food of the
people.
Whilst declaring myself against all reactionary legislation, I
also suggest that a mere policy of negation will not carry us
very far in the direction of social progress, therefore :
I am a strong advocate for a Legal Eight-Hours' Day ; State
Maintenance of all children in our public schools, thereby pre-
venting the physical deterioration now so evident in our large
towns and cities ; extended powers being given to local
authorities to deal with the Housing of the working classes in
a more efficient manner than is possible to-day. I am also
strongly in favour of altering the present system of distraining
for rent rent debts should be collected in the same manner
as other debts, in order to take from the landlord the powers
he now possesses to sell up the workers' homes ; Nationalization
of the land, canals, railways, mine rents, and mineral royalties^
MR. WILL THORNE, M.P. 385
the private ownership of which acts as the real barrier to British
industry in the markets of the world ; the strict enforcement
and extension of the Cheap Trains Act, in order to prevent
the overcrowding and general inconvenience to the workers
of this and all other districts. As a member of the Trades
Union Congress Parliamentary Committee, I am conversant
with the defects of the present Workman's Compensation Act,
the Factory Acts, and the law affecting trade-unions, and
will support every effort to amend such Acts, in order to make
them of more benefit to the workers as a whole.
The unsatisfactory conclusion of the Committee on Old
Age Pensions shows how reluctant the politicians of both
parties are to do anything for the workers, and I pledge myself
if elected to support pensions for all those who, through
eld age, mental or physical infirmity, are unable to maintain
tJiemselves.
The most pressing problem of the present day is un-
doubtedly the question of Unemployment, and in common with
all Socialist and Labour representatives , I shall endeavour to
secure the amendment of the present Unemployed Workmen
Act in such manner as will ensure that the Government shall
provide all moneys necessary for wages, etc., which at the
present time depend entirely upon voluntary contributions, and
to remove the obnoxious and degrading clauses contained in
the orders of the Local Government Board.
So far as political questions are concerned, I stand for the
most advanced programme : Universal adult suffrage, shorter
parliaments, second ballot, payment of members and election
expenses out of the national exchequer, graduated taxation of all
incomes over ^300 per annum, taxation of land values, extension
of the principle of graduated death duties, nationalization of the
poor and education rates, free, secular, and compulsory education,
and the abolition of all hereditary authority. I have always been
an advocate of the legislative independence of Ireland, and should
give my hearty support to any proposal for complete Home
Rule that may be brought forward.
2 c
386 MODERN SOCIALISM
On the question of temperance reform, I advocate the
municipal ownership and control of the liquor traffic.
I am entirely opposed to compulsory vaccination, and
regard the present state of the law as illogical and absurd.
In foreign politics, the policy of the late Government has
been one of bluster and bolt where the great Powers have been
concerned, and of arrogant aggression towards the weaker
nationalities. It is to the interest of our class that British
foreign policy should be firmly and definitely in the direction
of international peace, and against all aggressive wars and
expeditions.
It is impossible within the limits of this address to deal at
length with all matters of pressing interest at this time, but I
hope during the course of the election to have the opportunity
of explaining my programme more fully. My past work on
behalf of my class is a guarantee of my bona-fides in this
election, and I can only assure you that, whatever party may
be in power, my support will be given to any measures, no
matter by whom brought forward, which make for the benefit
of the people, and my strenuous opposition will be offered to
anything which is against their interests.
In this election, you, the working-men of South-West Ham,
have your own cause, your own interests in your own hands.
You are the arbiters, you have to decide whether you will
elect one who, during the whole of his active life, has been a
strenuous advocate of your interests, or one of those who, by
upholding the present system, help to keep you in poverty and
misery.
I only ask you to remember that a vote given to me is a
vote on behalf of the down-trodden and oppressed, a vote on
behalf of the famished children in our schools, and of the dis-
inherited in our pauper bastilles. It is a word of hope to the
struggling masses in all parts of Great Britain, and of encourage-
ment to all who suffer under the iron heel of Capitalism ; a
blow struck for the workers in that war between Capitalism and
Labour, which must be waged relentlessly until the emandpatio?i
MR. WILL THORNE, M.P. 387
of the workers is achieved by the abolition of the Capitalist
system.
In the hope that these things will be remembered by you
in this election, I leave the matter in your hands, confident in
the result if you do your duty to yourselves and your class.
XXIX
THE FUTURE
BY ANATOLE FRANCE
From the novel : " M. Bergeret a Paris." The adhesion of Anatole
France to Socialism is remarkable, because he is the lineal successor
of Voltaire and Diderot, and represents a linking of the old revolu-
tionary criticism to the new. His visions may also be suggestively
compared with those in William Morris's Hews from Nowhere.
" WE shall all be happy, papa."
" No. Divine pity, which is the beauty of souls, would
come to an end when suffering ended. That will never be.
Moral evil and physical evil, unceasingly resisted, will un-
ceasingly share with happiness and joy the empire of the world,
as the nights follow the days. Evil is necessary. Like good, it
has its spring deep in nature ; the one could not be dried up
without the other. We are only happy because we are unhappy.
Suffering is the sister of joy ; the breath of these twins passes
over our harp-strings and makes them sound in harmony. If
happiness alone blew on them, they would give out a monotonous,
tedious sound, like silence. But to the inevitable evils, to those
evils at once common and august which result from the state of
mankind, there shall no more be added the artificial evils, which
result from the state of our society. Men will no more be
deformed by an unfair labour by which they rather die than live.
The slave will come out of the ergastulum, and the factory
no longer eat up men's bodies by millions.
388
ANATOLE FRANCE 389
" For this deliverance I look to machinery itself. Machi-
nery, which has crushed so many men, will come gently and
generously to succour soft human flesh. Machinery, first
cruel and harsh, will grow kindly propitious, friendly. How
will it change its spirit? Listen. The spark which sprang
from the Leyden jar, the little subtle star which manifested
itself last century to the wondering physicist, will work this
marvel. The unknown which has let itself be conquered
without letting itself be known, the mysterious captive force,
the intangible of which our hands take hold, the tame thunder-
bolt bottled and discharged upon the innumerable wires which
cover the world with their network electricity, will carry its
strength, its succour, wherever it is needed, into the houses
and rooms, to the home where father, mother, and children
will be separated no more. It is no dream. The stern
machinery, which shatters body and soul in the factory, will
become domesticated, homely, familiar. But it is nothing
no, it is nothing that pulleys, cogs, connecting-rods, cranks,
grooves, and flywheels should be humanized, if men remain
iron-hearted.
" We look for, we call for, a change more wonderful still.
What does the employer say to-day ? That he is the thinking
spirit, and that without him his army of workers would be like a
body deprived of understanding. Well, if he is the mind, let this
honour and joy be enough for him. Need a man glut himself
with wealth because he is the mind that thinks ? When the
great Donatello cast a bronze statue with his companions, he
was the soul of the work. The price which he received from
prince or citizen he used to put in a basket which was slung
up by a pulley to a beam of the workshop. Every companion
untied the rope in his turn, and took from the basket according
to his needs. Is there not joy enough in producing through
one's understanding, and does this advantage dispense the
master-worker from sharing the profit with his lowly fellow-
workers ? But in my republic there will no longer be profits
or wages, and everything will belong to us."
2 c 3
390 MODERN SOCIALISM
" Papa, that's collectivism," said Pauline, quietly.
" The most valuable things," replied M. Bergeret, " are
common to all mankind, and were always so. Air and light
belong in common to everything that breathes and sees daylight.
After selfishness and greed have toiled for centuries, in spite
the violent efforts which individuals have made to seize and keep
treasures, the private wealth which even the richest among us
enjoy is trifling in comparison with what belongs to all men
without distinction. Even in our own society do you not see that
the pleasantest or the most splendid properties roads, rivers,
forests that once were the king's, libraries, museums belong
to every one ? No rich man possesses any more than I do this
ancient oak of Fontainebleau or that picture of the Louvre.
And they are more mine than the rich man's, if I know better
how to enjoy them. Collective ownership, which people fear
as a distant monster, surrounds us already under a thousand
familiar forms. It is alarming, when you announce it ; whereas
the advantages which it procures are already in use."
INDEX
Agrarianism, Socialism and, xxv,'
xli, xlii ; Vandervelde's views,
198 et seq. ; German views, 220
et seq.
America, North. See United States
Anseele, biographical note, 285 ;
on Socialism and Co-operation,
285 et seq.
Arbitration, compulsory industrial,
xxv, xxvi, 1 02, 360 ; cp. 60, 61 ;
Millerand's "Strike Bill," 157-
160. See Industrial tribunals
Archimedes, 293
Argyll, late Duke of, 236
Armaments, Socialist opposition to,
173,370-372. See International-
ism
Asquith, Right Hon. H. H., 93
Australia, Socialistic legislation and
parties, xxv, xxvi ; "Victorian
wage-boards, 102, 360 ; studied
on the Continent, 159
Austria, position of Socialism, xiii ;
xxiii ; party's programme, 334
et seq.
Avenir de Plaisance, at Paris, 295
Babeuf, 339
Bakunin, Michael, xvi
Bastable, Professor C. F., 231
Bebel, August, biography, I ; on j
Utopianism, 1-3 ; on Theory of
Increasing Misery, 189 ; on the
General Strike, 191-197; 219,
222
Belgium, character of Labour Party,
xxiv ; its check superficial, xiv ;
its programme, 323 et seq. ;
general strikes in, xxxiv n. ;
agriculture in, 198 et seq. ; union
of Socialism with Co-operation
in, 285 et seq.
Bernstein, Eduard, xlvi, 189
Bismarck, \T$ et $eq u
Blanc, Louis, xxxi
Bomelburg, 192
Booth, Charles, 313
Bordeaux Congress, 163-184
Bowley, Professor A. L. , 116-118
Briand, Aristide, xiii
Brousse, Paul, 378
Burns, John, biographical note,
265 j on municipal Socialism,
265 et seq. ; his L.C.C. pro-
gramme, 282 ; his Parliamentary
programme, 283, 307
Campbell-Bannerman, Right lion.
Sir H., 314
Capital, concentration of, xxvii n. ;
effect of private ownership of,
xxviii ; two methods of expropri-
ating, xxviii. See passim^ es-
pecially 14 et seq.) 90 et se</. t
378-379
Capitalist class, Morris on, 76-79
et seq. ; Kautsky on, 127 et seq. ;
risks from its emigration, 239, 240;
money capitalists, 128 et seq.
Capitalist system, 15 et siq.> 50,
71-80
Carlyle, Thomas, 384
Chamberlain, Right Hon. J., 134,
315
Chambers of Labour, 145. See
Labour Councils
Chelsea Board of Guardians, 246 n.
39 1
39 2
INDEX
Classes, abolition of. See Pro-
letariate, rdle of
Class-State, Sarraute on, 165-167 ;
Jaures on, 168-170 ; cp. 379
Class-war, economic basis, xxviii,
xxix ; first seen by St. Simon,
xxxi ; as basis of a party, xxxiii,
xxxv ; Liebknecht on, 4-8, 10 ;
Kautsky on, 115 et seq. ; Jaures
on, 167 etseq. See Revolutionary
Socialists, Historical Process,
Proletariate
Clemenceau, Georges, xii, xiii, 56
Clericalism, Socialism and, xxv,
xxviii
Cobden, Richard, 235, 236
Colins, 214, 215
Collective bargaining, private, xliv-
xlvi, 99, 100
Collectivism, contrasted with Com-
munism, 83 -88 ; its growth to-
day, 50, 249 etseq.; cp. 399
Combination, right of, 145 ; general
strike, might be employed to
secure, 190, 192
Commune, the Parisian, 35
Communism contrasted with Col-
lectivism, 83-88
"Communist Manifesto," origin
of, 35 ; programme suggested in,
36, 186, 187
Companies, joint-stock, 27, 130-132
Conseils du Travail. See Labour
Councils
Constitutionalism, xxxiii, xxxiv, 49,
54,63
Contracts, wage-clauses in public,
xlvi, 148, 152, 246 et seq.; cp.
Fair Wages Movement
Crises, commercial, Marx's theory
of, 25
David, Dr. Eduard, 186, 225, 228 n.
Democracy, its effect on Socialism,
xx, xxi, 165, 1 68 et seq.; cp. 61-62
Denmark, xiv, xxii, xlii
Direct employment, 241 et s(q.
Donatello, 389
Drink traffic
Local option, 284
Public ownership and control,
328,355,358,362,386
I Gothenburg system, 362
High licence, 362
Education, xxix, 58 et seq. See
Minimum, policy of national. In
programmes German, 320 ; Bel-
gian, 326, 331 ; Austrian, 337 ;
French, 347 ; English S.D.F.,
354, 355J I.L.P., 358; Fabian,
362-363 ; in Mr. Clynes's ad-
dress, 382
Emerson, 248
Employment agencies, 148, 154
Engels, F. f biographical note, 14 ;
doctrine, 14-37 ; 187
England, her evolution following
the German, 132, 133 ; compared
with the United States, 90 et seq.
Entrepreneur ', elimination of private,
261-264
Erfurt Programme, 317-322
Expansion of markets, why de-
manded, 24
Exploitation of proletariate, 15
et seq. ,71 et seq. ; still increasing,
II5-H9
Fabian Society, note on, 359 ; basis,
359 J questions for Parliamentary
candidates, 360 ; on direct employ-
ment, 242 et seq.; xi, 90
I Factory regulation, why need for,
95-98 ; conduces to efficiency,
249 ; less important to regulate a
given industry for all nations
than to regulate all industries for
a given nation, 234-235 ; 59, 146,
155. See all programmes
Fair Wages movement, 243-249.
See Wage-clauses in public con-
tracts ; Wages, regulation of
Farrer, late Lord, 231
Fatalism, alleged Marxian, IO
i Ferri, Enrico, xvi, xliii n.
I Financiers. See Money capitalists
INDEX
393
France, position of Socialism, xii,
xxi, xxxvi ., 48; "French
Socialist Party," its Tours pro-
gramme, 338 et seq. ; its Bordeaux
debate, 163 et seq. ; the " United
Socialists," 337, their election
address, 378 et seq. ; social reform
in France, 150 et seq.
France, Anatole, 388-391
Franchise, general strike might be
employed to defend the, 190 et
seq. ; universal adult, see all pro-
grammes ; immediate extension
to women on same terms as to
men, 358, 363
Free Trade, Socialism and, xxxix-
xli, 22<)ets(q. y 375, 381, 384
General strike, the recent preaching
of the, xv-xvii j previous recent
history, xliv n. ; Jena resolution
on, 189 et seq. ; Bebel on, 191
et seq. ; cp. in French programme,
343-344
George, Henry, 209, 214
Germany, position of Socialism,
xxii, xxiii ; the Anti-Socialist
Law, 138 ; history since, 140 et
seq. f compared with England,
I 3 2 ~ I 33 ; agrarian question,
220-228 ; party's programme,
317 ; election address, 369 ; atti-
tude on general strike, 189 et
seq. ; on militarism, 370 et seq. ;
on Protective tariffs, 372, 375 ;
on Imperialism overseas, 373-
375
German Emperor, the present, 142,
H3
Ghent, Co-operation at, 298. See
"Vooruit," Anseele
Gladstone, 133, 134
Great Eastern Railway Company,
2 57
"Great Industry." See Industrial
revolution
Guesde, Jules, 48, 170, 176, 181,
339
II
Hardware trade, integration of
industries in, 260, 261
Health, public, 90, 172. See
Minimum, policy of national
Hegel, influence of, xxxii
, Heine, 120
j Herve, G., speech of, 163
j Higgling of the market, 94
i Historical process, Marxian view
j of the, 4-1 1, 15 et seq. ; cp. 50,
68 ft seq. ; affirmed in pro-
grammes, 317, 324, 334, 339, 352
History, "materialist conception"
of, 14
Holland, xxxiv n.
Hours of labour, no, in, 145, 148,
151. See the programmes
Housing, in, 141, 172, 282, 283,
362, 382, 384
Hyndman, H. M., 307
Hypothesis, Collectivism as a, 52,
S3, 57, 5S
Imperialism (overseas), xxxviii, 308,
373-375
Independent Labour Party, genesis
and history, 305-308 ; programme,
357-358
Industrial revolution, xxix, xxx, 15
et seq.
Industrial tribunals, 145, 153, 329
Inspection of factories and mines,
59, 97 J 45 et se< l- j workmen
inspectors, 147
Insurance, workmen's, 138, 152
Integration of industries, 255 etseq.;
cp. 27
"Intellectuals," 77, 121-123, 288
Internationalism and Socialism, in
St. Simon, xxxi ; in Marx, and
since, xxxvii, xxxviii, n, 55; in
German programme, 319 ; Bel-
gian, 324 ; Austrian, 336 ; French,
345 ; S.D.F., 353
Italy, position of Socialism, xiv,
xxi ; recent party split, xvii
INDEX
I
Jaures,Jean, his point of view, 167-
180; debate withM. Clemenceau, |
xii ; leadership of the " French j
Socialist Party " (reformist), 339 ; '
formation of the " United Social- ;
isfs," xv, 339 ; the " poet of ;
Socialism," 53 ; xx.xvi, xxxviii, ;
48, 293, 301
lefferson, Thomas, 91, 98
Joint-stock companies, 27, 130-132 i
junkers, the Prussian, 144, 220 n>
Kn.utsky, Karl, 114 ft s?q., 187 et
seq., 215, 227, 228 .
Keir Hardie. J., biographical note,
303; far-seeing views in 1894...
303 et seq. ; in 1 903... 305 et seq.
Labour bureaux, 148, 154
Labour Councils, 155. See Cham-
bers of Labour
Labour Electoral Association, 306,
37
Labour P^rty (formerly Labour
Representation Committee), con-
stitution ind objects, 364; history
till 1903, xliv/xlvi, 310 e.t seq. ;
position in 19071 xi-xii ; election
addresses, 380-387
Labrioia, xvi
Lai 'sser-J Intire, 99, 136 et seq,
Land. See Agrarianism. Land
nationalization, 214-216 ; see all
programmes
Lassalie, Ferdinand, biographical
note, 38 ; his "brazen law," 38
et rcq. ; view of working-class
"misery," 42 ei seg., 187; uni-
versal suffrage as instrument, 44-
47 ; xix, xxxi, xx.vii, xxxix .
Liberty and property, 49
Liebknecht, Vv'ilhdm, on trade
unions, xliii ; on political prin-
ciples, 4-13 ; 53, 222. Se-c Inter-
nationalism
London County Council, 242 et ?eq.
London School Board, 242
London and North-Western Rail-
way Company, 256, 257
Lu'beck Congress, 185-188
Luxemburg, Rosa, xvi
M
Markets, expansion of, 24
Marshall, Professor Alfred, 246
Marx, Karl, theory, 14-34 ; cp. 4-
13 ; early programme, 35~37 ;
xix, xxxii, xxxix ., xli, 115, 124,
132, 164, 185, 187, 271
Marxists. Sec Revolutionary So-
cialists
" Materialist conception " of his-
tory, 14
Midland Railway Company, 2^7
Mill, J. S., 198, 237, 246, 306"
Millerand, Alexandre, account of
his measures, 150-162 ; views in
1896.. .48; in 1903.. .56; hi>
policy in first Ministry discussed,
164 et seq. ; entrance into Cle-
mencean Ministry, xiii j xxi, xlvi,
I35 33 2
Minimum, policy of the national,
109 et seq., 236 et seq. ; need not
be international, 237
Misery, theory of increasing, 114,
115' 185-188
Money capitalists distinguished from
industrial, 128 et tfq.
Morris, William, 65 et scq.^ 307,
388
Municipalization, xxi ., xlvi, 27,
51, 249 et seq., 282, 283. See the
programmes
Municipalized industry, in London,
249 et seq. ; Birmingham, 252,
253 ; Liverpool, 253 ; Manchester,
253, 254 ; Battersea, 274-282
N
Nationalism. See Internationalism
Nationalization of industries, 27 ;
of land, 214 et seq. See programmes
National minimum. See Minimum
New Zealand, xxv, xxvijiO2, 159,360
Norway, xiv
Insor, 1. 6.
Modern socialism.
39
