The revolt of democracy

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
AT LOS ANGELES

THE REVOLT OF
DEMOCRACY

BY

ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE

O.M., D.C.L.Oxon., F.R.S., Etc.

Author of "Social Environment and Moral Progress,
"Natural Selection," "Man's Place in the
Universe," "Darwinism," Etc.

WITH THE

LIFE STORY OF THE AUTHOR

By JAMES MARCHANT. F.R.S.Edin.

FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY

NEW YORK and LONDON
1914

I

^■. i

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

207040

PAGE

Life Story of the Author . . vii

TER

1. Introductory ..... i

2. The Dawn of a New Era . . 7

3. The Lesson of the Strikes . . 11

\ 4. What the Workers Claim and Must

^ Have ' 14

5. A Government's Duty ... 22

6. Popular Objections, and Replies to

Them 35

7. The Problem of Wages ... 40

\ 8. Self-Supporting Work the Remedy

J^ FOR Unemployment ... 53

9. The Economies of Co-ordinated

Labour ..... 60

10. The Effect of High Wages upon

Foreign Trade .... 68

11. The Rational Solution of the

Labour Problem .... 74

The Life Story of the Author

Like a watchman on a lonely tower, with keen
vision and responsive mind and heart, Alfred
Russel Wallace has observed more change and
development of scientific and social opinion
and a higher advance of the tide of knowledge
across the shores of human speculation and
ignorance than any living scientist. Yet, unlike
that solitary watchman, he himself has been,
and is, an active pioneer of scientific revelation.
For a long time he was the voice of a system of
truths so far ahead of the attainments of his
generation that to his contemporaries much of
his teaching seemed rank heresy and almost
blasphemy ; but, like a true prophet, he has
had not only the patience but the opportunity
given him to see most of his discoveries and his
teachings incorporated into the stately palace of
truth.

When he was born in 1823, our world, as
we know it to-day (a composite thing of
multitudinous energies thirled to the service
and utility of mankind) had scarcely come
into existence. He has seen the formidable

The Life Story of the Author

and mysterious powers of electricity en-
slaved to the service of the ordinary affairs
of daily life, and has watched with glowing
interest the coming of the motor-car and the
flying machine. He has lived under five British
sovereigns, has witnessed the spread and deve-
lopment of railways, and the adoption of steam
for navigation, the supersession of the wooden
walls by the steel bulwarks of Britannia, and
other changes beyond record in the practical
application of scientific discoveries, "When he
was a boy, photography was a plaything, the
electric telegraph a mere experiment, the penny
post unknown, the newspaper a luxury of the
few, the material world, as a whole, a vast and
impenetrable wilderness, continent separated
from continent by wide-stretching seas, traversed
only by daring spirits.

He has seen the material world of mere
geography shrink till now it can be girdled by the
commonest message in a matter of minutes ; he
has seen the newspaper in every home, the
simplest word of love carried the whole empire
over for one penny, the criminal and the out-
cast treated more like sinners to be redeemed
who are often " more sinned against than
sinning."

To have seen so much is to make any man
a centre of human interest. To hear the now
aged naturalist tell of what his life has been
awakens vivid response even in the heart of the

The Life Story of the Author

most apathetic. But to know that all the while
he was no shirker in life's upward march, but
himself a profound thinker, a ceaseless searcher,
a sagacious discoverer, and that most of his
theories and opinions, which had been scouted
by thinkers for many years, are now sound
and current coin in the treasure-house of true
science, is gratefully to acknowledge him as
one of the greatest sons of his age and a shining
benefactor for all time.

His father, Thomas Vere Wallace, a briefless
lawyer, was also an experimenter. He had a
family of nine children. It was little satisfac-
tion that the number of the Muses was the same,
for the Muses were not confronted by the prob-
lem of bread-and-butter which perturbs a human
family. He was not of a practical turn of mind,
and his private income was not sufficient to
provide for the necessities of his children. But
he was a man of literary taste, and he embarked
upon a venture of a very speculative nature,
namely the publication of an Art Magazine,
which wellnigh exhausted what means he still
possessed. He therefore had to leave London,
and transferred his household goods and gods
to the town of Usk in Monmouthshire, where
he tried the new experiment of economy. Here
Alfred, the last but one of the nine, was born,
and here he spent the first four years of his life,
with no need to go outside of his own house for
a plentiful supply of playmates. In 1828 the

The Life Story of the Author

family made another move — to Hertford — and
there they remained for about nine years. At
the grammar school of that provincial town
young Wallace received the only regular edu-
cation, in the popular acceptance of the term,
which was to be the basis of his wider intel-
lectual development.

With him it is different than with most men
of note, for his contemporaries, having all now
passed into the greater silence, there is no source
of anecdotal reminiscence and estimate of his
boyhood left, except his own memory. It is
always of pleasing interest to know what a
boy's comrades thought of him, what he did or
said to make the keen critics of the schoolroom
or the playground take note of him, and wherein,
if anywhere, he differed from his fellows. One
thing, at any rate, is certain : the mode of formal
instruction under the shadow of which he passed,
in those swift enough years at the Hertford
Grammar School, was not of a sort to benefit
deeply such a mind as his. Geography was a
list of towns and rivers ; history little more
than tables of dates, all to be learned by rote,
without regard to the causal origins of such a
thing as a country, a kingdom, a river, or
the achievement of human effort which gave
memorableness to the figures of a calendar. To
such a youth, who no doubt from the first
looked over the shoulder of to-day back into the
misty yesterdays out of which to-day emerges.

The Life Story of the Author

asking the Why as anxiously as the What
of things, this schooling must have been very
unsatisfying. As he himself says, " The labour
and mental effort to one who, like myself, has
little verbal memory was very painful ; and
though the result has been a somewhat useful
acquisition during life, I cannot but think that
the same amount of mental exertion, wisely
directed, might have produced far greater and
more generally useful results." It was also most
natural that the eclectic method of historical
study should have most strongly appealed to
him, so that he can say, " Whatever little know-
ledge of history I have ever acquired has been
derived more from Shakespeare's plays and from
good historical novels than from anything I
learned at school,"

To watch men and women who thought, toiled,
and achieved, rough-hewing life's obstacles into
instruments of life's victories, is of greater
moment than reading tombstone records or having
one's name written up on a schoolroom slate.
The method of visualised humanities, breath-
ing, living and doing, is ages in advance of that
which thinks of history as being mainly great
men sitting in their bones in an anatomical
museum, labelled " History." Latin grammar,
and, in the higher classes, Latin translation —
these were the subjects chiefly taught.

But Wallace's life was, fortunately, inde-
pendent of, and lifted out of such a cramping

The Life Story of the Author

environment by other circumstances, which such
narrow schemes could not control. His father was
a book-lover and belonged to a book club, and
the soul of the lad was enriched by a constantly
flowing stream of suggestive and elevating litera-
ture. A bookman's home is the best of universi-
ties. His father frequently read aloud in the
evenings from such books as Mungo Park's
" African Travels," along with those of Denham
and Clapperton. Then there was the sunshine
that scintillates through Hood's " Comic Annual,"
and the grave and gay of " Gulliver's Travels "
and of " Robinson Crusoe," and the deep-toned
gravity and humour, with knowledge of the
human heart unparalleled, in " The Pilgrim's
Progress." Thus the companionship and wisdom
of such creations of human genius enlightened
the ready mind of the growing youth by the
evening fire of that Hertford home. His father
for some part of his residence in Hertford was
librarian of the town library, and there, in the
quickening presence of books, young Wallace
spent many of his leisure hours.

When he left school, at the age of fourteen,
he stayed for a short time with his elder brother
John, who was at that time apprenticed to a
builder in London. It was at this period that
he first came in contact with people of advanced
political and religious opinions, and read such
works as Paine's " Age of Reason." He also
met followers of Robert Owen, the founder of

The Life Story of the Author

the Socialist movement in England. Robert
Owen's fundamental principle was that the
character of every individual was formed for
him, and not hy himself : first, by heredity,
which gives him his mental disposition with all
its powers and tendencies, its good and bad
qualities ; and, secondly, by environment, includ-
ing education and surroundings from earliest
infancy, which always modify the original
character for better or for worse.

Young Wallace, whose upbringing had been
strictly orthodox, was greatly impressed by these
doctrines ; and the ideas they inspired, though
latent for fifty years, no doubt largely influ-
enced his thoughts and his writings when he
ultimately turned his attention from purely
scientific to social and political subjects.

After a stay of a few months in London he
joined his eldest brother William, who was a
surveyor ; and for the next four years (1837 to
1841) they were occupied together in surveying
in the counties of Bedfordshire, Herefordshire,
Radnorshire, and Brecknockshire. Some of this
work was in connection with the various Enclo-
sure Acts, by which the landlords obtained powers
to enclose waste lands and commons, under the
pretext of bringing them into cultivation. The
result of these measures was that the cottagers
were deprived of the means of keeping their few
cattle, pigs, or ponies, while the enclosed land
was often not cultivated at all, or, in the course

The Life Story of the Author

of time was converted into building land or into
game preserves, so that the intention of the
Acts of Parliament was ignored, and the poor
people were driven to the towns, where, unfit to
compete, they sank into the deeper poverty
of slumdom.

Some of the surveys had to do with new
railways which were being projected all over
the country at that time, many of them doomed
never to come into being, and many being mere
clap - trap schemes of money - sucking adven-
turers.

It was owing to this open-air life, with plenty
of leisure amidst beautiful country, that Wallace's
observant mind was drawn into loving observa-
tion, which developed into more than companion-
ship with the flowers and insects which every-
where abounded in such vast variety.

From such close interest he soon passed on to
a serious study, in pursuit of which he com-
menced to form a scientific collection of the
wild flowers and the insects he met with.

During his residence in Neath in 1841 he
began to extend his knowledge in physics, astro-
nomy, and phrenology, that half-blind groping
after a greater science, taking advantage of
popular lectures on those subjects and of such
books as he could obtain.

In 1843 his father died, and in the following
year there being then little in the way of surveying
to do, Wallace obtained a situation as drawing-

The Life Story of the Author

master at the Collegiate School at Leicester, His
two years' residence in this town was to have
an important influence upon his future career,
for it was here that he first met Henry Walter
Bates, with whom he commenced his tropical
travels four years later — so momentous not only
for himself, but for the world. It was here also
that he read Malthus's " Principles of Popula-
tion." This pioneer work, after his long study
and observation of tropical fauna, supplied the
inspiration which clinched the theory of evolution
he originated in 1858.

At this time one other important event hap-
pened which was to influence his ideas in later
years, namely, a demonstration of the pheno-
menon of mesmerism, which interested him so
much that he practised, and eventually suc-
ceeded in mesmerising some of his pupils.

After remaining in Leicester for two years,
Wallace returned to Neath, where he and his
brother John started in business as architects
and builders. Hither they brought their mother
and sister to live with them.

He was now twenty-three years of age, and
over six feet tall. He had acquired a large store
of varied knowledge, and made his first appearance
as a lecturer. He delivered a series of expositions
of scientific subjects, dealing mainly with physics,
at the Neath Mechanics' Institute, the building
which he and his brother had designed and
supervised. He also made his first essays at

The Life Story of the Author

literature, and wrote papers on botany and on
the Welsh peasantry.

His letters of this period throw an interesting
light not only upon his own thoughts but upon
the problems which were occupying the minds
of scientific thinkers. He refers to the writings
of Lyell, and to Darwin's " Journal of a
Naturalist," Humboldt's " Personal Narrative,"
" The Vestiges of Creation," and Lawrence's
" Lectures on Man." In a letter to Mr. Bates,
dated 1847, he writes :

" I begin to feel rather dissatisfied with a
mere local collection ; little is to be learnt by it.
I should like to take one family, to study tho-
roughly, principally with a view to the theory of
the origin of species. By that means I am strongly
of opinion that some definite results might be
arrived at." Eleven years later he gave to the
world those " definite results " of his study in
the theory of " Evolution by the Survival of the
Fittest."

Bates and Wallace finally decided to go to
the tropics to study the birds and insects, and
to support themselves by their collections. They,
therefore, sailed from Liverpool in April, 1848,
in a barque of one hundred and ninety-two tons,
and arrived in Para after a voyage of twenty-nine
days.

The four-and-a-half years which Wallace spent
in South America have been fully described in his
" Travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro." In

The Life Story of the Author

a letter describing his impressions of the tropics
he wrote :

" There is one natural feature of this country
the interest and grandeur of which may be fully
appreciated in a single walk ; it is the ' virgin
forest.' Here no one who has any feeling of the
magnificent and the sublime can be disappointed ;
the sombre shade scarce illumined by a single
direct ray even of the tropical sun, the enormous
size and height of the trees, most of which rise
like huge columns a hundred feet or more without
throwing out a single branch, the strange buttresses
around the base of some, the spiney or furrowed
stems of others, the curious and even extra-
ordinary creepers and climbers which wind around
them, hanging in long festoons from branch to
branch, sometimes curling and twisting on the
ground like great serpents, then mounting to the
very tops of the trees, thence throwing down
roots and fibres which hang waving in the air or,
twisting round each other, form ropes and cables
of every variety of size and often of most perfect
regularity. These and many other novel features
— the parasitic plants growing on the trunks and
branches, the wonderful variety of foliage, the
strange fruits and seeds that lie rotting on the
ground — taken altogether surpass description and
produce feelings in the beholder of admiration and
awe. It is here, too, that the rarest birds, the
most lovely insects and the most interesting
mammals and reptiles are to be found. Here

The Life Story of the Author

lurk the jaguar and the boa-constrictor, and here
amidst the densest shade the bell-bird tolls his
peal."

He also relates his " unexpected sensation of
surprise and delight " when he first met and lived
with man in a state of nature — ^with absolutely
uncontaminated savages. The wild Indians of
the Uaupes were different from any he had
previously met during two years' wanderings.

" They had nothing that we call clothes ;
they had peculiar ornaments, tribal marks, etc.,
they all carried weapons or tools of their own
manufacture ; they were living in a large house,
many families together, quite unlike the hut of
the tame Indians ; but more than all their whole
aspect and manner were different — they were all
going about their own work or pleasure which had
nothing to do with white men or their ways, they
walked with the free step of the forest dweller,
and except the few who were known to my com-
panions, paid no attention whatever to us, mere
strangers of an alien race. In every detail they
were original and self-sustaining, as are the wild
animals of the forests, absolutely independent of
civilisation, and who could and did live their own
lives in their own way as they had done for
countless generations before America was dis-
covered. I could not have believed there could
be so much difference in the aspect of the same
people in their native state and when living under
European supervision. The true denizens of the

The Life Story of the Author

Amazonian forest, like the forest itself, are unique
and not to be forgotten."

Amidst such scenes and among such people
Wallace spent four-and-a-half years, often under-
going many hardships, exploring regions not
before visited by white men ; all the time collect-
ing and studying the varied forms of life with
which the forest glades and river banks abounded.
He journeyed for many thousand miles in canoes
on the great rivers, taking observations with
sextant and compass of the courses of the Rio
Negro and of the Uaupes which formed the basis
for the first reliable map of those hitherto little
known waterways.

His voyage home from Para in 1852 was both
adventurous and disastrous. After having been
at sea a week, the ship caught fire, and all hands
had to take to the boats. The vessel, with all
its cargo — including Wallace's collections, and
most of his notes and journals — ^was completely
destroyed, and the crew, with only their clothes
and a small quantity of provisions, were tossed
about in the middle of the Atlantic in two small
boats for ten days. And when at last they were
picked up by a passing vessel their danger and
troubles were not yet over, for the ship on
which they found themselves was very unsea-
worthy, and they encountered such violent storms
that no one expected to reach land. His com-
panions often wished themselves back in their
open boats as being safer than the rotten and

The Life Story of the Author

overloaded vessel they were on. To add to their
discomfort the ship was short of provisions, so
that they had to endure semi-starvation during
the rest of their tedious journey.

After eighty-two days at sea Wallace at last
landed at Deal, with only the clothes he stood
in, and a few sketches of palm trees and of fishes
which he had saved out of the wreckage of so
many hopes and labours. The valuable collec-
tion of four years' toil, the immediate results of
patiently acquired knowledge, with the notes and
journals of the greater part of his wanderings,
were irretrievably lost. One can, without much
imagination, picture his feelings under such a
crushing blow. Luckily, through the foresight
of his agent in London, his collections had been
insured for a small amount, so that his losses
financially were not so complete as he at first had
feared ; yet no monetary recompense could ever
make up for the loss of the material and the
records of his arduous exploration and research.
Soon after his return, with the aid of such
scanty notes as he had saved, and the letters
which he had sent home, he commenced to write
the story of his travels, which was published in
1853. He also published an account of the palm
trees of the Amazon, with illustrations from his
own sketches.

In 1854 he again left Britain, and, travelling east-
wards, arrived in Singapore, where he was to begin
his eight years' wanderings amongst the islands

The Life Story of the Author

of the Malay Archipelago, an account of which
is recorded in his most popular work of that name.

It was while staying in Sarawak, in 1855 —
where he became intimately acquainted with the
celebrated Rajah Brooke — that he wrote his first
article on the question of the Origin of Species. At
that time, however, he had not grasped the com-
plete solution of the problem. It was not till 1858,
when at Ternate, suffering from an attack of fever,
that, pondering over the subject, and recollecting
Malthus's writings, the modus operandi of evolu-
tion flashed with creative vividness upon his
mind, resulting in the paper which, together with
Darwin's contribution, was to startle the scientific
and religious worlds, and set ablaze the fires of a
controversy which burned fbr many years, ere
the doctrine of " survival of the fittest " was
finally accepted by the world at large.

Wallace sent his paper to Charles Darwin,
with whom he had corresponded about the
previous article. Darwin, as the result of long
and laborious study, had already arrived at the
same conclusions, and had even taken his friends
Lyell and Hooker into his confidence ; but in
spite of their advice and their fears that he might
be forestalled, he wished to collect still more
evidence to support his theory before making it
public. On receiving Wallace's paper he wrote
to Sir Charles Lyell : " Your words have come
true with a vengeance — that I should be fore-
stalled. I never saw a more striking coincidence."

The Life Story of the Author

Darwin who had already written a large part
of a book dealing with his conclusions, was natur-
ally much troubled as to what he should do. In
another letter to Lyell he wrote : "I would far
rather burn my whole book than that Wallace or
any other man should think that I had behaved
in a paltry spirit."

Ultimately, however, as a result of the
advice of friends, who acted on their own respon-
sibility, Mr. Wallace's essay and extracts from
Darwin's manuscript were sent to the Linnean
Society and read together before that Society
in July, 1858.

The interest excited by the papers was
intense. Many lingered after the meeting and
discussed the subject with bated breath ; but it
was meanwhile too novel and too ominous to
provoke that immediate opposition with which
it met when its significance and effect were
subsequently realised.

Wallace spent another eight adventurous
and arduous years amidst scenes of tropical lux-
uriance and among the various savage and civi-
lised races of mankind which inhabit the Malay
Archipelago, before he returned home in 1862.

The collections he had sent home, comprising
many thousands of insects, birds, and other
forms of life, many of them previously un-
known, together with the scientific papers already
mentioned, had made him famous, and secured
for him on his return not only his admit-

The Life Story of the Author

tance to many of the great learned societies, but
the acquaintance and friendship of the scientific
leaders of the day with whom he was soon to
rank in undisputed parity. Amongst those with
whom his intimacy deepened most fruitfully
were Sir Charles Lyell and Charles Darwin.

With the former, Wallace had a long, amic-
able, but controversial discussion on the subject
of the glacial origin of Alpine lakes, which Lyell
was not then inclined to accept. At Sir Charles's
house, where he was a frequent visitor, Wallace
met many interesting people, amongst them
being Professor Tyndall, Sir Charles Wheat-
stone, Mr. Lecky, and the Duke of Argyll, with
all of whom he became on friendly terms.

With Charles Darwin, Wallace's relations
were still more intimate and friendly, and their
rivalry in their great discovery rather enhanced
their friendship instead of producing that an-
tagonism which, on smaller minds, would have
been the result. Darwin frequently asked Wal-
lace's help on points of difficulty in the appli-
cation of the new theory, and though on several
questions they disagreed, they always maintained
the warmest admiration for each other.

In a letter to Wallace written in 1870, Darwin
says :

" I hope it is a satisfaction to you to reflect
— and very few things in my life have been more
satisfactory to me — that we have never felt
any jealousy towards each other, though in

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some senses rivals. I believe I can say this of
myself with truth, and I am absolutely sure that
it is true of you."

In commenting on this letter Dr. Wallace
writes :

" To have thus inspired and retained this
friendly feeling, notwithstanding our many
differences of opinion, I feel to be one of the
greatest honours of my life."

The relations existing between Darwin and
Wallace, to which we have already referred, are
further exemplified by the affectionate love and
warm admiration expressed in their letters to
each other, and to mutual friends.

Referring to the proposal by Lyell and
Hooker that Wallace's paper and an abstract of
his own MS. should be read together before
the Linnean Society, Darwin, in his autobio-
graphy writes :

" I was at first very unwilling to consent, as
I thought Mr. Wallace might consider my doing
so unjustifiable, for I did not then know how
generous and noble was his disposition " (" Life
and Letters," i. 85.)

While Wallace was still abroad, and before
Darwin and he had met, Darwin wrote to Lyell
of having received a letter from Wallace, "very
just in his remarks, though too laudatory and
too modest ; and how admirably free from
envy and jealousy. He must be a good fellow."

And in replying to Wallace, Darwin says :

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" Before telling you about the progress of
opinion on the subject (of ' The Origin of
Species ') you must let me say how I admire
the generous manner in which you speak of
my book. Most persons would, in your position,
have felt some envy or jealousy. How nobly
free you seem to be of this common failing of
mankind ! But you speak far too modestly of
yourself. You would, if you had my leisure,
have done the work just as well — perhaps better
than I have done it." He ends " with sincere
thanks for your letter and with most deeply felt
wishes for your success in science, and in every
way, believe me, your sincere well wisher."

And in writing to H. W. Bates, Darwin said :
" What a fine philosophical mind your friend
Mr. Wallace has, and he has acted in relation to
me like a true man with a noble spirit."

Mr. Wallace differed from Darwin in believ-
ing that something more than Natural Selection
was necessary to produce the higher intellec-
tual qualities of man. This was the " heresy "
to which he refers in a note to Darwin relating
to an article by the latter, where he says :

" I have also to thank you for the great
tenderness with which you have treated me and
my heresies . . . " ; to which Darwin replied,
" Your note has given me very great pleasure,
chiefly because I was so anxious not to treat
you with the least disrespect, and it is so dif-
ficult to speak fairly when differing from

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anyone. If I had offended you it would have
grieved me more than you will readily believe."
(" Life and Letters," iii. 134).

When Darwin heard from Mr. Gladstone
that a Government pension had been given to
Wallace — in which matter Darwin himself had
been largely instrumental — ^he wrote to a friend,
" Good heavens ! how pleased I am."

This admirable desire to give each other the
credit for the theory of Natural Selection is
shown again and again in their letters, and it
should be emphasised here.

" You ought not," Darwin wrote, "to speak
of the theory as mine ; it is just as much yours
as mine. One correspondent has already noticed
to me your ' high-minded ' conduct on this
head." (" More Letters," ii. 32.)

And Wallace, in a long letter, replied :

"As to the theory of Natural Selection
itself I shall always maintain it to be actually
yours, and yours only. You had worked it out
in details I had never thought of years before
I had a ray of light on the subject. . . . All
the merit I claim is the having been the means
of inducing you to write and publish at once."

Again in a letter referring to colouring of
mammals and kindred subjects, Darwin wrote :

" I am surprised at my own stupidity, but
I have long recognised how much clearer and
deeper your insight into matters is than mine."
(" More Letters," ii. 61.) And, when they dif-

The Life Story of the Author

fered over Sexual Selection, Darwin wrote : " I
grieve to differ from you, and it actually terri-
fies me, and makes me constantly distrust
myself. I fear we shall never quite understand
each other." (" More Letters," ii. 85.)

'Although Darwin and Wallace worked to-
gether so long and assiduously to develop and
elucidate the theory they had originated, there
were several points in its application in which
they differed, and as these, though not in any
way affecting the main principles of Natural Selec-
tion (on which they entirely agreed), have
been seized upon and have been magnified by
those who objected to the theory, we should
dwell a moment upon them.

The principal differences may be stated thus :
Darwin thought that Natural Selection alone
was sufficient to explain the development of
man, in all his aspects, from some lower form.
Wallace, while believing that man, as an animal,
was so developed, thought that as an intellec-
tual and moral being some other influence — some
spiritual influx — ^was required to account for his
special mental and psychic nature. With regard
to many cases of coloration, scent, or power of
producing sounds, exhibited by the males of
numerous animals, Darwin thought they were
developed by the choice of the females for the
males which were endowed by these qualities in
the greatest degree, while those which had them
in a less degree were not chosen, and so did

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not so often produce offspring. Wallace, on the
other hand, could find little or no evidence for
this form of Sexual Selection. He maintained
that all such colours, scents, etc., were produced
by some operation of Natural Selection ; that with
insects a bright colour was often a warning to
insect-eating animals that its possessor was
distasteful ; that the females required more
protection, and therefore became coloured to
harmonise with their surroundings. The males,
owing to their habits and organisation, require
less protection, and would therefore be modified
no further than was sufficient to ensure the
maintenance of the speciesA

Darwin explained the presence of Arctic plants
in the Southern hemisphere and upon moun-
tain tops in the tropics, by assuming that the
tropical lowlands of the whole earth were cooled
during the glacial epoch, so that these plants
could spread to the localities where they are now
found isolated. Wallace, from his study of the
floras of oceanic islands, concluded that all these
plants were introduced by means of aerial trans-
mission of seeds or by birds, those seeds which
were deposited in a suitable soil and climate
germinating and in turn producing seeds by which
the plant would spread over its new habitat.

The only other important matter on which
these two great scientists differed was the ques-
tion of the inheritance of acquired characters.
Darwin always believed that the effects of use

The Life Story of the Author

or disuse, of climate, food, etc., on the indivi-
dual were transmitted to the offspring ; and
Wallace himself accepted this theory for many
years. But later, after Dr. Weismann * had
shown how little evidence there was for such
inheritance, he became convinced that acquired
characters were not inherited.

All this shows in a very clear light the un-
selfish characters and singleness of purpose of
two great minds, who set the dissemination of
truth and the illumination of intellect above
considerations of personal profit or reputation.

Amongst the celebrities with whom Wallace
had frequent intercourse were Herbert Spencer,
Thomas Huxley, Sir John Lubbock (after-
wards Lord Avebury), Dr. W. B. Carpenter, Sir
William Crookes, Sir Joseph Hooker, Sir Francis
Galton, and many others not less famous.

In 1865 he married the eldest daughter of
Mr. William Mitten, of Hurstpierpoint, the
greatest living authority on mosses ; and for the
next five years lived in St. Mark's Crescent,

* Dr. Weismann writes (" Cambridge Comm.
Essays ") : " Everyone knows that Darwin was not
alone in discovering the principle of selection, and
that the same idea occurred . . . independently to
Alfred Russel Wallace. ... It is a splendid proof
of the magnanimity of these two investigators that
they thus, in all friendliness, and without envy, united
in laying their ideas before a scientific tribunal ; their
names will always shine side by side as two of the
brightest stars in the scientific sky."

The Life Story of the Author

Regent's Park. Becoming, however, tired of
town life, and wishing to return to more con-
genial rural surroundings, he moved to Grays, in
Essex, where he built a house close to an old over-
grown chalk pit, which formed part of the garden.

During his residence here he wrote an impor-
tant book, in two large volumes, with elaborate
maps and illustrations, dealing with a subject on
which he has always been admitted to be the lead-
ing authority, viz. " The Geographical Distribu-
tion of Animals." It was published in 1876, and
still remains the standard work in the English
language on that branch of science. From this
time onwards he devoted most of his energies
to writing — at first on purely scientific subjects,
but later on more general topics, and especially
on social and political questions, which gradu-
ally assumed a leading place in his thought.

Amongst other scientific works which he pro-
duced at this period were " Tropical Nature "
and " Australasia " in 1878 ; " Island Life " in
1880. His most popular book, " The Malay
Archipelago," was written while he still lived in
London in 1869, and gave an account of his
travels and adventures in the East.

In 1876 he found it necessary to give up his
house at Grays, and, after living a few years at
Dorking and at Croydon, he built a cottage at
Godalming, where he remained from 188 1 till 1889.

In 188 1 a society was formed for advocating
the Nationalisation of the Land, a subject in

The Life Story of the Author

which he took a deep interest, and he was elected
president, retaining that office until the present
time. There is no doubt that his early ex-
periences while surveying, and his observations of
the life and customs of many civilised and savage
races, had left upon his mind those impressions
which were to be developed into definite principles
and beliefs when he devoted close attention to
this and kindred subjects, at the time we are
dealing with. With the exception of about eight
years, he has spent the whole of his long life in
the country, and his powers of keen observation
have shown him the inconveniences, the hardship
and the injustice often suffered by our rural
population on account of the existing system of
the private ownership of land, with the privileges
which have grown up along with it.

In order to justify the formation of this
society, and as a kind of programme of the
work it had to do, he wrote a brochure
entitled " Land Nationalisation : Its Necessity
and Its Aims." This formed the starting-point of
those political writings of his which have caused
such mixed feelings amongst his scientific friends,
many of whom deplore his views as unscien-
tific and revolutionary, while others are no less
unstinted in their praise and satisfaction.

The beginning of his social views he himself
traces to Herbert Spencer's " Social Statics,"
which he read soon after his return from the
Amazon. That part on The Right to Use the Earth

The Life Story of the Author

especially interested him, but under the influence
of Mill and Spencer himself, he could not see how
to work it out without an excess of bureaucracy.
It was twenty-seven years later that the idea
suddenly came to him that this difficulty " could
be overcome by State tenancy of the bare land,
with ownership by the tenant of all that was
added to the bare land, so that the State was
only ground landlord, and need not interfere
at all with the tenant who held a perpetual
lease." ("My Life," ii. 34.)

In the book on " Land Nationalisation," he
dealt at length with these subjects. But his
objection to Socialism remained for about ten
years later, because he could not see the way out
of existing things and relations into the practical
operation of socialistic principles. Bellamy's
book gave him the final impact, and, he says,
" I have been an absolutely convinced Socialist
ever since." He was supported in his step by
Spencer's teaching that all classes of society were
almost equal morally and intellectually, in com-
bination with Weissman's proof of the non-
heredity of results of education, habit, use of
organs, etc. Dr. Wallace has briefly defined
Socialism as " the organisation of the labour of
all for the equal benefit of all." This implies " the
duty of everyone to work for the common good,
and the right of each to share equally in the benefits
so produced, and in those which Nature provides."

An address which he gave at Davos in 1896

xxxii

The Life Story of the Author

on the invitation of Dr. Lunn, was the starting-
point of the three last important works which he
has written.

The first of these was " The Wonderful
Century," which was an account of the marvellous
advances in scientific knowledge and in invention
which had taken place during the nineteenth
century, of most of which he had been an eye-
witness. The astronomical chapters of this book
suggested the second, namely, " Man's Place in
the Universe," which appeared in 1903. This
latter work gave a most interesting study of the
latest theories and facts with regard to the stellar
universe, and the solar system and our position
therein.

Dr. Russel Wallace arrives at the conclusion
that this earth is the only inhabited planet in
our solar system — probably, indeed, the only one
inhabited by beings of a high order in the whole
vast universal scheme ; and that it is legitimate
to suppose that the purpose of the universe was
the production of man as a spiritual being. He
showed that man's position, with regard to both
the solar system and the whole universe, was
unique, pointing to the probability of design and
intention on the part of some Controlling Mind.

This idea was further developed and extended
in his last scientific book " The World of Life,"
which appeared in 191 1, its germ being the lecture
which he delivered at the Royal Institution in
the previous year. It was the act of collecting

The Life Story of the Author

the evidence of this work and " Man's Place in the
Universe," from all the best scientific sources to
which he had access, that forced upon him " the
wonderful combination of conditions necessary
for the possible development of life ; and the still
more marvellous and ever present manifestations
of foreseeing, directing and organising forces,
resulting in a World of Life culminating in Man,
and in every detail adapted for the development
of man's highest mental and moral powers."

" Thus," as he himself writes (letter to the
present writer), " the completely materialistic
mind of my youth and early manhood has been
slowly moulded into the socialistic, spiritualistic,
and theistic mind I now exhibit — a mind which
is, as my scientific friends think, so weak and
credulous in its declining years, as to believe that
fruits and flowers, domestic animals, glorious
birds and insects, wool, cotton, sugar and rubber,
metals and gems, were all foreseen and fore-
ordained for the education and enjoyment of
man."

At a later date, in May, 1913, in another
letter to the writer. Dr. Russel Wallace writes
upon the possibility of a living organism being
some day produced in the laboratory of the chemist
from inorganic matter. He declares it to be im-
possible, because unthinkable, while even were it
supposable that it should happen, it could not in
anyway explain Life, with all its inherent forces,
powers and laws, which necessitate " a constantly

The Life Story of the Author

acting mind power of almost unimaginable
grandeur and prescience, in the co-ordinated
motions, action and forces of the myriad
millions of cells, each cell consisting of myriad
atoms and ions, which cannot be supposed to be
all acting in harmonious co-ordination without
some superior co-ordinating power.

" Recent discoveries demonstrate the need of
co-ordinating power even in the very nature and
origin of matter ; and something far more than
this in the origin and development of mind.
The whole cumulative argument of my ' World
of Life ' is that, in its every detail it calls for the
agency of a mind or minds so enormously above
and beyond any human minds, as to compel us
to look upon it, or them, as ' God or Gods,' and
so-called ' Laws of Nature ' as the action by will-
power or otherwise of such superhuman or
infinite beings. ' Laws of Nature ' apart from
the existence and agency of some such Being or
Beings, are mere words, that explain nothing
— are, in fact, unthinkable. That is my
position !

" Whether this ' Unknown Reality ' is a single
Being, and acts everywhere in the universe as
direct creator, organiser and director of every
minutest motion in the whole of our universe,
and of all possible universes, or whether it acts
through variously conditioned modes, as H.
Spencer suggested, or through ' infinite grades
of beings ' as I suggest, comes to much the same

The Life Story of the Author

thing. Mine seems a more clear and intelligible
supposition as stated in the last paragraph of
my ' World of Life,' and it is the teaching of the
Bible, of Swedenborg, and of Milton ! "

But in the very last paragraph of his " World
of Life " he puts it as " a speculative suggestion,"
not as a definite scientific conclusion — " though
it does seem to me to be one."

He concludes (in the letter to the writer)
with this definite declaration :

" I write all this to show that, to me, if the
chemist does some day show that living, developing
' life ' was, and is now produced from inorganic
elements, by and through ' natural laws,' it would
not alter my argument one iota. * Natural Laws '
of such range and power are unthinkable, except
as the manifestation of Universal Mind"

" The World of Life " moved the whole
thinking world. It awoke as with the whip crack
of a prophet's word the theological sleepers who
had been drowsing in dogmatic ease, and that
other loud boasting company of the blind who
confidently thought they were wide awake when
they denied the possibility of the very existence
of a spiritual world and believed that " matter
and force " were sufficient for all things, from
cosmic dust to the writing of Hamlet.

This book was a revelation of the making
of humanity, not starting from any basis of
dogmatic preconception, but reasoned out by the
clear mind of the trained natural observer, who.

The Life Story of the Author

turning his searchlight upon the footprints of the
long-departed revealed, as the skilled hand drew
aside the curtain, the picture of the actual
world in process of evolution, thus, by a master-
stroke, involving the exercise of all his powers,
displaying eternal Providence, and " justifying
the ways of God to man." The earliest result of
the evolution theory seemed to be that earth
was filled, not with the knowledge but with the
terrors of God, and the human heart heard, if
it could listen to their agonies and groans, of
a struggling and suffering humanity punished for
its own blindness and ignorance.

With Wallace, however, pain is the birth-cry
of a soul's advance. " The stamp of rank in Nature
is capacity for pain." Pain, he holds, is always
strictly subordinated to the law of utility, and is
never developed beyond what is actually needed
for the protection and advance of life. This brings
the sensitive soul immense relief. Our suscepti-
bility to the higher agonies is a condition of our
advance in life's pageant.

In this volume he summed up and completed
his fifty years of brooding thought and long
and patient labour on behalf of the Darwinian
theory of evolution, extending the scope and
application of that theory so as to show that it
can and does explain many of the phenomena of
living things hitherto considered to be outside its
range.

Thus Dr. Wallace now believes that to explain

/ xxxvii

The Life Story of the Author

life and its manifestations God is a necessary
postulate. And he here declares :

" The absolute necessity for an organising
and directive Life Principle in order to account
for the very possibility of these complex out-
growths. I argue that they imply, first, a Creative
Power, which so constituted matter as to render
these marvels possible ; next, a Directive Mind,
which is demanded at every step of what we term
growth, and often look upon as so simple and
natural a process as to require no explanation ;
and, lastly, an Ultimate Purpose, in the very
existence of the whole vast life-world, in all its
long course of evolution through the aeons of geo-
logical time. This Purpose, which alone throws
light on many of the mysteries of its modes of
evolution, I hold to be the Development of Man,
the one crowning product of the whole cosmic
process of life-development ; the only being which
can to some extent comprehend Nature ; which
can perceive and trace out her modes of action ;
which can appreciate the hidden forces and
motions everywhere at work, and can deduce
from them a supreme over-ruling Mind as their
necessary Cause."

The result of his investigation into spiritual-
istic manifestations led him to believe in the
genuineness of their spiritual origin, and he
embodied them in his book " Miracles and
Modern Spiritualism." If his political works
produced feelings of regret amongst many of his

The Life Story of the Author

scientific friends, his advocacy of spiritualism
caused them (as Tyndall said) " feeHngs of deep
disappointment." He was not, however, without
able supporters in his " heresy," amongst them
being Sir W. Crookes, Sir William Barrett, Lord
Lindsay, Robert Chambers, and others.

Through his spiritualistic experience — of the
actuality of which he was entirely convinced —
he deduced a system of spiritual media, an
angelology whereby the vast Divine Mind operates
upon and communicates with " every cell of every
living thing that is, or ever has been, upon the
earth . . . through many descending grades of
intelligence and power." He makes therefore
his own, that which is, in effect, a summary of
his teaching : —

" All nature is but art, unknown to thee,
All chance, direction which thou canst not see ;
All discord, harmony not understood ;
All partial evil, universal good,"

And therein he stands to-day the Grand Old
Man of British Science, a true Revealer and
Prophet, in the real sense of being a forthteller
of the truth spoken to him.

Dr. Wallace has written many articles and
smaller books on diverse subjects, the latest,
which has aroused deep and widespread interest,
being his " Social Environment and Moral
Progress," which was written in his ninety-first
year. In it he shows that there is no evidence

The Life Story of the Author

of any advancement in man's intellectual or
ethical manifestation during the whole historical
period, and he states his belief that no real im-
provement is possible until we reorganise society
on a rational basis of mutual help, instead of our
present system of mutual antagonism and de-
grading competition.

As has been well said — in a review of this
work : —

" The author's position as co-discoverer with
Darwin of one of the most momentous theories
in the history of thought, his venerable age, his
wide scientific knowledge and deep philosophic
insight, lend to his utterances an authority
such as could be claimed by no living writer."

His indictment of the present social environ-
ment as the worst in history constitutes a chal-
lenge to civilisation, and demands the closest
scrutiny of the most impartial minds. He shows
that it is well established that the essential
character of man — intellectual, emotional, and
moral — is inherent in him from birth ; that it
is subject to great variation from individual to
individual, and that its manifestations in con-
duct can be modified in a very high degree by the
influence of public opinion and by education.
These latter changes, however, are not here-
ditary, and it follows that no definite advance
in morals can occur in any race unless there is
some selective or segregative agency at work. He
declares that history shows that the increase of

xl

The Life Story of the Author

wealth and luxury has been distributed with
gross injustice, no provision having been made
for the overflow of these being utilised for the
greater happiness and comfort of the producers,
or the improvement of the condition of the
struggling millions.

He finds the " selective agency " which is to
work for the amelioration which he desires, in
sexual selection, which will be the prerogative
of ■ woman ; and therefore woman's position in
the not distant future " will be far higher and
more important than any which has been claimed
for or by her in the past." When political and
social rights are conceded to her on equality
with men, her free choice in marriage, no longer
influenced by economic and social considera-
tions, will guide the future moral progress of
the race, restore the lost equality of opportunity
to every child born in our country, and secure
the balance between the sexes. " It will be their
(women's) special duty so to mould public opinion,
through home training and social influence, as to
render the women of the future the regenerators
of the entire human race."

But before this can effectively operate much
has to be faced, and Dr. Wallace summarises
the matter into one general conclusion, namely,
that a civilised government must, as its prime
duty, " organise the labour of the whole com-
munity for the equal good of all," but it is also
bound immediately to take steps to " abolish

xli

The Life Story of the Author

death by starvation and by preventable disease due
to insanitary dwellings and dangerous employ-
ments, while carefully elaborating the permanent
remedy for want in the midst of wealth." The
laws of evolution are all in favour of such a
revolution, but the present system of competi-
tion must become one of brotherly co-operation
and co-ordination for the equal good of all.
Apart from this there is no hope for advance
towards true, living freedom, and this present
volume on " The Revolt of Democracy " empha-
sises and illustrates this tremendous indictment.

And now we must bring to a close this very
imperfect sketch, in the writing of which we
have received great assistance, which we grate-
fully acknowledge, from Dr. Wallace himself, his
son, Mr. W. G. Wallace, and a generous friend
who desires to remain unknown.

In 1889 Dr. Wallace removed to Parkstone,
Dorset, where he resided till 1902, when he again
built himself a house — this time at Broadstone,
overlooking Poole Harbour and the Purbeck
Hills. Here he still lives and finds real interest
and delight in his greenhouse and garden, which
have always been such a pleasurable source of
recreation in his times of leisure.

He has always been an omnivorous reader,
and his mind is stored with facts in relation to
a very wide range of knowledge, while he is
seldom without a novel by his side for his
hours of relaxation.

^£ft*^li

aa

The Life Story of the Author

Dr. Wallace's optimism is one of his most
striking traits, and he looks back upon what-
ever misfortunes and hardships have fallen to
his lot as blessings in disguise, which have
strengthened his character and stimulated him
to fresh endeavour.

At the memorable meeting of the British
Association at Cambridge, in 1894, Lord Salis-
bury, recalling the historic reception of the
Darwinian hypothesis in the same place half a
century previously, and in paying a just tribute
to Charles Darwin, said that " The equity of his
judgment, the single-minded love of truth, and
patient devotion to the pursuit of it through
years of toil and of other conditions the most
unpropitious — these things endeared to numbers of
men everything that came from Charles Darwin,
apart from his scientific merit and literary
charm ; and whatever final value may be assigned
to his doctrine, nothing can ever detract from the
lustre shed upon it by the wealth of his know-
ledge and the infinite ingenuity of his resource."

This tribute might be, with equal justice,
applied to Wallace. In his charming modesty,
his unselfishness, his instinct for truth — ^which,
said Darwin to Henslow, " was something of the
same nature as the instinct for virtue " — in his
constant and singularly patient consideration of
every opinion which differed from his own, and in
his inventive imagination, Wallace is the worthy
companion of Darwin.

xliii

The Life Story of the Author

But, as we have seen, he has other claims to
be remembered by posterity. He is also a fearless
social reformer who vigorously lays the axe to
the root of great evils which flourish in our
midst, some of which present-day society
cherishes. He has struck what he believes to be
a hard blow at vaccination — still an almost
heaven-sent weapon against smallpox in the
armoury of many doctors ; and he has dared
boldly to accept a spiritualistic interpretation
of Nature, which is still treated as charlatanism.

He has not been the recluse calmly spin-
ning theories from a bewildering chaos of
observations, and building up isolated facts
into the unity of a great and illuminating
conception in the silence and solitude of
his library, unmindful of the great world of
sin and sorrow without. He could say with
Darwin, " I was born a naturalist," but we can
also add, his heart is on fire with love for the
toiling masses. He has felt the intense joy of
discovering a vast and splendid generalisation,
which not only worked a complete revolution in
biological science, but has also illuminated the
vast field of human knowledge. Yet his greatest
ambition has been to improve the cruel con-
ditions under which thousands of his fellow-
creatures suffer and die, and to make their lives
sweeter and happier. His mind is great enough
to encompass all that lies between the visible
horizons of human thought and activity, and

xliv

The Life Story of the Author

now in his old age he lives upon the topmost
peaks, eagerly looking for the horizon beyond.
In the words of the late Mr. Gladstone's own
precept, " He has been inspired with the belief
that life is a great and noble calling, not a mean
and grovelling thing that we are to shuffle through
as we can, but an elevated and lofty destiny."

James Marchant.

Xlv

THE REVOLT OF
DEMOCRACY

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY

As President of the Land Nationalisation
Society for thirty years, I have given
much attention to the various inquiries
by Royal Commissions, by Parliamentary
Committees, or by private philanthropists,
into Irish evictions and Highland clear-
ances, sweating, unemployment, low wages,
unhealthy trades, bad and overcrowded
dwellings, and the depopulation of the
rural districts. These inquiries have suc-
ceeded each other in a melancholy proces-
sion during the last sixty years ; they have
made known the almost incredible condi-
tions of life of great numbers of our workers ;

The Revolt of Democracy [ch.

and they have suggested more or less in-
effective remedies, but their proposals have
been followed by even less effective legisla-
tion when any palliative has been at-
tempted. ^ ^

During the whole of the nineteenth
century there was a continuous advance
in the application of scientific discovery
to the arts, and especially in the inven-
tion and application of labour-saving
machinery ; and our wealth has increased
to an equally marvellous extent. Various
estimates which have been made of the
increase in our wealth-producing power
show that, roughly speaking, the use of
mechanical power has increased more than
a hundredfold during the century ; yet
the result has been to create a limited
upper class, living in unexampled luxury,
while about one-fourth of our whole popu-
lation exists in a state of fluctuating penury,
often sinking below what has been termed

I] Introductory

'* the margin of poyerty." Of these, many
thousands are annually drawn into the
gulf of absolute destitution, dying either
from direct starvation, or from diseases
produced by their employment, and ren-
dered fatal by want of the necessaries and
comforts of a healthy existence.

But during this long period, while wealth
and want were alike increasing side by side,
, public opinion w^s not sufficiently educated
to permit of any effectual remedy being
applied for the extirpation of this terrible
social disease. The workers themselves had
not visualised its fundamental causes — land
monopoly and the competitive system of
industry, giving rise to an ever-increasing
private capitalism which, to a very large
extent, controlled the legislature. This
rapid growth of wealth through the increase
of the various kinds of manufacturing
industry led to a still greater increase of
aniddlemen engaged in the distribution of

The Revolt of Democracy [ch.

its products, from wealthy merchants,
through various grades of tradesmen and
petty shopkeepers who supplied the daily
wants of the whole community. To these
must be added the innumerable parasites
of the ever-increasing wealthy classes ; the
builders of their mansions and their fac-
tories ; the makers of their furniture and
clothing, of their costly ornaments and
their children's toys ; the vast body of
their immediate dependents, from their
managers, their agents, commercial travel-
lers and clerks, through various grades of
domestic servants, grooms and game-
keepers, butlers and housekeepers, down
to stable-boys and kitchen-maids, all de-
riving their means of existence from the
wealth daily produced in mines, factories
and workshops. This was apparently due
primarily, if not exclusively, to the capi-
talists themselves as the employers of
labour, without whose agency and super-

I] Introductory

vision it was believed that all productive
labour would cease, bringing ruin and star-
vation to the whole population. Thus, a
vast mass of public opinion was created,
all in favour of the capitalists as the em-
ployers of labour and the true source of
the creation of wealth.

To those who lived in the midst of this
vast industrial system, or were a part of
it, it seemed natural and inevitable that
there should be rich and poor ; and this
belief was enforced on the one hand by
the clergy, and on the other by the political
economists, so that religion and science
agreed in upholding the competitive and
capitalistic system of society as being the
only rational and possible one. Hence,
till quite recently, it was believed that
the abolition of poverty was entirely out-
side the true sphere of governmental
action. It was, in fact, openly declared
and believed that poverty was due to

The Revolt of Democracy

economic causes over which governments
had no power ; that wages were kept
down by the " iron law " of supply and
demand ; and that any attempts to find
a remedy by Acts of Parliament only
aggravated the disease. This was the
doctrine held, even by such great men as
W. E. Gladstone and Sir William Harcourt,
together with the dogma that it was a
government's duty to buy in the cheapest
market, in order to protect the taxpayer.
It was the doctrine also which converted
the misnamed " guardians " of the poor
into guardians of the ratepayers' interests,
and led to that rigid and unsympathetic
treatment of the very poor which made
the workhouse more dreaded than the jail,
and which to this very day leads many of
the most destitute to die of lingering star-
vation, or to commit suicide, rather than
apply for relief or enter the gloomy portals
of the workhouse.

CHAPTER II

THE DAWN OF A NEW ERA

It was, I believe, Sir Henry Campbell-
Bannerman, when he became Prime
Minister in 1905, who changed this atti-
tude of negation of all his predecessors.
He boldly declared in numerous speeches,
both in and out of Parliament, that he
held it to be the duty of a government
to deal with the great problems of un-
employment and poverty, and especially
to attack the increasingly injurious land-
monopoly, and so to legislate as to make
our native soil ever more and more ** a
treasure-house for the poor rather than a
mere pleasure-house for the rich." And
as an earnest of his determination to carry
out these views, he brought into his

The Revolt of Democracy [ch.

Ministry John Burns and David Lloyd
George, the former for his knowledge of
the conditions and aspirations of skilled
labour, and his administrative experience
both in the County Council and in Parlia-
ment, and the latter for his energy as
an advanced thinker, his powers of public
speaking, and his enthusiasm for social
reform.

When Mr. Asquith became Prime
Minister in 1908, he made Mr. Lloyd
George his successor as Chancellor of the
Exchequer, and never was the wisdom of
an appointment more fully justified. The
new Chancellor, in the memorable Budget
thrown out by the House of Lords, made
provision not only for our ever-increasing
Navy, but also for Old-Age Pensions and
for far-reaching measures calculated to
benefit the working classes.

It is, in my opinion, largely due to this
attitude of Liberal Governments, without

"] Dawn of a New Era

adequate remedial legislation, during the
last seven years, with a corresponding
change in public opinion, that has led to
the recent effort of the workers to bring
about better conditions by means of com-
bined strikes. The three great strikes in
rapid succession, of the Railway and
other transport Unions, of the Miners, and
of the London Dock Labourers, must have
brought home to the middle and upper
classes and to the Government how com-
pletely they are all dependent on the often
despised working classes, not only for
every comfort and luxury which they
enjoy, for the means of rapid locomotion
and of carrying on their respective busi-
nesses and pleasures, but also for obtain-
ing the daily food essential for life itself.
The experience now gained shows us that
when the organisation of the trade unions
is rendered more complete, and the accu-
mulated funds of a dozen or twenty years

The Revolt of Democracy

are devoted to this one purpose, the bulk of
the inhabitants of London, or of any other
of our great cities, could be made to suffer
a degree of famine comparable with that of
Paris when besieged by the German army
in 1870.

It is to be hoped that such a disaster
will not happen, but it can only be pre-
vented by much more effective action
than has yet been taken to improve the
social status of the great body of indus-
trial and other workers, and to abolish
completely the conditions which compel
a large proportion of those workers to
exist on or below the margin of poverty,
often culminating in actual death from,
want of the bare necessaries of existence.

CHAPTER III

THE LESSON OF THE STRIKES

The serious position which these succes-
sive strikes have brought about has led
to much discussion in the newspapers and
other periodicals, in which a number of well-
known literary men have taken part, and,
what is much more important, in which
several of the most able and intelligent of
the workers themselves have clearly stated
their determination to obtain certain funda-
mental reforms. Month by month it has
become more clear and certain that what
has been termed " The Labour Unrest "
will certainly continue with ever-increasing
determination and effective power till some
such reforms as they demand are conceded
by the Government.

The Revolt of Democracy [ch

A careful study of the more important
of these various pronouncements shows us
that two things stand out clearly, as to
which there is almost universal agreement.
These are, first, that the condition of the
workers as a whole is absolutely unbear-
able, is a disgrace to civilisation, and fully
justifies the most extreme demands of the
workers ; and, secondly, that among the
whole of the writers — whether statesmen
or thinkers, capitalists or workmen — there
is not one who has proposed any definite
and workable plan by which the desired
change of conditions will be brought about.
Yet one such plan was carefully worked
out more than twenty years ago, and
though the book had a considerable sale
and a cheap edition of it was issued, not
the slightest effect was produced on public
opinion or on the Government.* The time
had not yet come for such radical reforms

♦ See Rev. H. V. Mills' Poverty and the State.

"I] The Lesson of the Strikes

to be seriously considered. But conditions
have changed, and some definite action
is now imperatively demanded if this
" unrest " is to cease, and if the reason-
able claims of the workers are to be
satisfied. Let us see, then, what these
claims are, and why none of the various
palhatives hinted at by a few of those
who have taken part in the discussion
can do any real good, while they will
certainly not satisfy the workers or allay
their quite justifiable " unrest."

CHAPTER IV

WHAT THE WORKERS CLAIM AND MUST
HAVE

The workers' claim is put forward by Mr.
Vernon Hartshorn in the following clear
and terse statement :

" What is that demand ? It is, that the com-
munity shall guarantee to the men and women who
perform services essential to the existence or happi-
ness of the community, a reasonably comfortable
and civilised livelihood — a decent minimum of food
and clothing, leisure and recreation, and houses fit
for human beings."

Then he proceeds to ask :

" How do the workers propose that the com-
munity shall give them that guarantee ? By the
estabhshment of a legally guaranteed eight-hours
day. By the establishment of a national housing

standard at a rent within the reach of the workers.

14

The Workers' Claim

And also by the power of the trade unions to check
the exploitation of Labour by competitive methods
which tend to force down the average standard of
living among the working classes."

Then, after a reference to the recent
claim of the doctors to what they consider
a living wage under the National Insur-
ance Act, and also to the many luxuries
of the rich which the workers do not want,
he again states the workers' claim thus :

" It is not an extravagant demand. It is just the
plain blunt demand that might be expected from
British working-men. . . . It is a demand by those
who, either by hand or brain, make the wealth of
the nation, that the first charge upon that wealth
shall be the maintenance of themselves in reasonable
comfort."

Then he concludes with this important
declaration of policy : —

" Democracy must be its own emancipator. But

institutions hke the Church, Parliament, and the

Press, and even the rich, have to make up their minds

15

The Revolt of Democracy [ch.

as to what shall be their attitude toward it. They
must decide for themselves whether the demand of
the workers for a fairer share of the good things of
life is just or unjust. The working classes have
already made up their minds. They are convinced
that their demand is just, and with a highly intelli-
gent, vigorous working class, stung by a sense of
injustice, the future of this country will be full of
danger. The stupid attitude of hostility or superior
patronage which has been adopted towards the work-
ing classes in the past by powerful elements in
society has helped to generate the present revolu-
tionary upheaval. . . . The worker does not want
charity to redress the balance. He knows that
charity robs him of his manhood. He feels that he
is entitled to a man's share of the wealth he has
produced, and he wants it assured to him, not as a
charity, but as a citizen's right."

Then, after describing how neither
Parhament nor the present Government can
or will secure this for him, and that their
methods of " conciliation" or "arbitration"
are useless or inadequate, he concludes :

i6

IV] The Workers' Claim

"There is only one way to industrial peace.
There is only one way to stave off a class war which
may shake civilisation to its foundations. It is by a
full and frank acknowledgement by society that the
claim of the worker to a sufficiency of food and clothing
and a fuller life is just, and that it must be made the
first charge upon the wealth produced. ... It is
the present order of society which is upon its trial.
Can it do justice to the worker ? If it can, and if
it does, then it will have justified its existence. But
if it cannot, then its ultimate doom is sealed."

Quotations from other Labour leaders
could be made to the same effect, show-
ing that the workers now know their
rights and are determined to obtain them.
But they do not see exactly how that is
to be done, and it is for their friends and
well-wishers to assist them in finding out
a way.

A few useful indications of how we
must approach the problem may be
quoted.

Mr. Seebohm Rowntree, one of the

E 17

The Revolt of Democracy [ch.

best and most sympathetic employers of
labour in the country, tells us that —

" The capitalists should entirely shake off the
idea that wage-earners are inferior beings to them-
selves, and should learn to regard them as valued
and necessary partners in the great work of wealth-
production — partners with whose accredited repre-
sentatives they may honourably discuss the propor-
tions in which the wealth jointly produced should
be divided."

He also sees clearly, and declares that —

" The poverty at one end of the social scale will
not be removed except by encroaching heavily upon
the great riches at the other end."

But this, apparently, is the last thing
capitalist employers want or will submit
to.

Mr. Frederic Harrison urges that labour
cannot be in a settled and healthy state

" till seven hours is made the normal standard of a
day's labour,"

i8

IV] The Workers' Claim

and that —

" a fixed living wage is merely the irreducible part of
the remuneration, the rest being proportioned to the
profits on the work done."

And he concludes his most interesting
and suggestive article with the dictum
that—

"The unrest is come to stay, and will not be
ended by petty devices."

Mr. Sidney Low tells us that there are
many young men among the workers who
read Carlyle and Ruskin, and believe that
if our society were rightly organised the
life of cultivated leisure would not be the
privilege of the Few, but the possession
of the Many. Mr. Geoffrey Drage con-
firms this statement, and declares that —

" the worker sees that the time for cries is past, the
time for action is come."

But he, too, like all the others, gives
19

The Revolt of Democracy [ch.
no clue as to how the great change is to
be brought about, not sporadically here
and there, but universally — not by slightly
improving the condition of skilled labour
only, but by such means as will imme-
diately begin to act upon the lowest
stratum of the social fabric, and in a
measurable space of time abolish want,
culminating in actual starvation, in this
land of ever-increasing wealth, and ever
more and more extravagant luxury.

Before laying before my readers what
I conceive to be, at the present juncture,
the best and, indeed, the only mode of
successfully attacking this great and press-
ing problem, I will give the statement of
Mr. Anderson, the Chairman of the Con-
ference of the Independent Labour Party,
in the autumn of 191 2. In reply to a
Press representative, he said :

" The whole upheaval is a revolt against poverty ;
against, that is, Social Injustice ; and it involves

V] The Workers' Claim

the Right to Live . . . Strikes are disintegrating .
they are no real and permanent remedy. We have
to find the solution in some new basis for industrial
reform, and my view is, that if reform is to do any
good it must contain in itself the germ of a better
social organisation. Palliatives are no cure."

And then, when he was urged to say,
" What do you actually propose ? " his
reply was :

" We are determined that destitution must he
stamped out ; and our remedy resolves itself into
this : A national minimum of Wages, Housing, Leisure,
and Education. That is Labour's battle-cry for the
future."

CHAPTER V
A government's duty

Now, in all the foregoing views of the
leaders and the friends of Labour, there
is a very close agreement as to the pre-
sent position of the whole body of workers,
and as to the nature and amount of
the reforms they insist upon, without
which they will not be satisfied, and will
not cease from agitation, culminating in
more extensive and more determined and
better-organised strikes. This will be the
only method left open to them if their
admittedly moderate and just claims are
not fully and honestly recognised by the
party in power, and at once translated
into adequate direct action.

It is a very strange thing to me, and

A Government's Duty

must be so to many others, that in this
most wealthy country a powerful Govern-
ment, long pledged to social reform, cannot
or will not take any immediate and
direct steps to abolish the pitiable extremes
of destitution which are ever present in all
its great cities, its towns, and even its
villages ! The old, complex and harsh
machinery of its Poor Laws has become
less and less efhcient. Enormous sums
spent in various forms of charity do not
prevent starvation, do not appear to
diminish it. The cause of this almost
universal apathy is the very persistence of
destitution and its obscurity. The various
forms of charity aie more conspicuous and
more obtrusive, so that most people are
quite unable to realise that starvation is
still rampant to a most terrible and most
disgraceful extent all over our land.

In 1898 I published in my volume on

The Wonderful Century an appendix on

23

The Revolt of Democracy [ch

"The Remedy for Want in the Midst of
Wealth," but, thinking that the general
scheme I proposed was too advanced for
immediate adoption, I also gave a plan,
headed " How to Stop Starvation," which
began with these words :

" But till some such method is demanded by
public opinion, and its adoption forced upon our
legislators, the horrible scandal and crime of men,
women, and little children, by thousands and millions,
living in the most wretched want, dying of actual
starvation, or driven to suicide by the dread of it,
must be stopped ! "

The Chairman of the Independent
Labour Party now also declares that
*' Destitution must be stamped out."

Since the above passage was written

nothing effective has been done, the

horrors of our slums are as bad as ever,

our cumbrous and unsympathetic systems

of poor relief are utter failures. I,

therefore, again submit my simple and

24

V] A Government's Duty

practical suggestion, which is as much
needed to-day as it was then. It is as
follows :

" The only certain way to abolish starvation, not

when it is too late, but in its very earhest stages,

is free bread. I imagine the outcry against this •

' Fraud ! Loafing ! Pauperisation ! ' etc., etc. Perhaps

so ; perhaps not. But even if it must be so, better

give bread to a hundred loafers than refuse it to a

hundred who are starving. All who want it, all who

have not money enough to buy wholesome food and

other necessaries, must be able to g^t this bread with

the minimum of trouble. There must be no tests like

those for Poor Law relief. A decent home, with good

furniture and good clothes, must be no bar ; neither

must the possession of money if that money is needed

for rent, for coals, or for other absolute necessaries

of life. The bread must be given to prevent injurious

destitution, not merely to alleviate it. The bread is

not to be charity, not poor relief, but a rightful claim

upon society for its neglect to organise itself so that

all, without exception, who have worked, and are

willing to work, or are unable to work, may at the

very least have food to support life.

25

The Revolt of Democracy [ch

" Now for the mode of obtaining this bread. All
local authorities shall be required to prepare bread-
tickets duly stamped and numbered with coupons
to be detached, each representing a 2-lb. or 4-lb.
loaf. These tickets to be issued in suitable quanti-
ties to every poUceman, to all the clergy of every
denomination, and to all medical men. Any person
in want of food, by applying to any of these distri-
butors is to be given a coupon for one loaf, without
any question whatever.

" If the person wants more than one loaf, or
wishes to have one or more such loaves for a week,
a name and address must be given. The distributor,
or some deputy, will then pay a visit during the
day, ascertain the bare facts, give a suitable number
of tickets, and, as in cases of sickness or of young
children, obtain such other relief as may be needed,"

The cost of dealing with this wide-
spread destitution should be borne by
the National Exchequer, both because it
is due to deep-seated causes in our social
economy, and also because its distribution

is very unequal, so that the cost would

26

v] A Government's Duty

be heaviest in the poorer and lightest in
the richer areas. It must, however, be
treated as essentially of a temporary nature,
only needed till the fundamental causes of
poverty are properly dealt with by some
such method as that to be explained later
on, when any such expedient will become
a thing of the past.

When we consider that during the last
fourteen years our national expenditure
has increased by about £80,000,000, and
that it has now reached the vast amount
of £185,000,000, it is almost incredible
that we should have made no serious
attempt to discover the causes and apply
the remedy to this terrible social canker
in our civilisation. Now, however, that
the Labour Party insists upon an imme-
diate remedy being applied, and also claims
for the sufferers and for the whole body
of workers full social equality with all

other citizens — a claim recognised by many

27

The Revolt of Democracy [ch.

of our best and greatest writers to be a
just one — perennial starvation of our very
poor must no longer be ignored, and our
Government must grapple with it without
further delay.

Government and its Employees

We will now proceed to consider how
the Government can itself lead the way
towards that new organisation of society
which will afford a permanent remedy for
labour unrest, and satisfy the just demands
of some considerable portion of the workers
of our country.

The Prime Minister has quite recently
declared his invincible objection to fixing
even a minimum wage by Act of Parlia-
ment, but no positive objection has been
made to raising the wages of all Govern-
ment employees above such a minimum.
This has been asked for again and again
by the workers themselves, as well as by

their representatives in Parliament, but

28

V] A Government's Duty

has only been acted upon partially, and
any proposal for giving higher wages than
are paid by private capitalists has been
objected to for various reasons. It is said
to be unfair to thus compete with private
enterprise ; that more men at present
wages can always be had than are re-
quired ; and other reasons of the usual
type of the old school of economists.
These objections are also upheld for poli-
tical reasons, since the large number of
capitalists and wealthy employers of labour
in the House of Commons would violently
oppose any such unprecedented expendi-
ture, and endanger the very existence of
the Government.

But all these objections may now,
perhaps, be much weakened, or even dis-
regarded, in view of the recent strikes and
the future possibilities they suggest. The
workers are now steadily becoming better
organised and more conscious of their own

2y

The Revolt of Democracy [ch

power at the polls, and they will no longer
support a Government which confesses
itself impotent to lift them out of the
terrible quagmire of misery and degra-
dation into which the present economic
system is steadily forcing them. The time
for conferences and discussions and for
petty alleviations which are wholly use-
less is gone by. What the workers now
demand is that the Government shall begin
to act so far as it possesses the power to
act ; that it must raise the wages, provide
decent houses, establish shorter hours of
work, give suitable holidays, and establish
liberal retiring pensions, for every one of
its own employees.

It is true that something has been
done in this direction, but many Govern-
ment workers are still said to be as badly
off as under the lower class of private
capitalists. Whether or not this is due
to the old idea that the taxpayers must

V] A Government's Duty

be protected though the children of the
workers suffer want, I do not know ; but
unless this economy in the wrong place is
changed, and the very reverse principle
acted upon, the present Government will
bring upon itself the united opposition of
the workers.

What then must our rulers do in the
present crisis ? To use the forcible expres-
sion of the late W. T. Stead, what we
insist upon now is, that we declare war
against every form of want, poverty, and
industrial discontent, and that the Govern-
ment must lead the way and set the pace.
It must do this because it is the greatest
employer of labour in the kingdom : its
Civil Service alone — the receivers of annual
salaries instead of weekly wages — compris-
ing 136,000 persons ; and because it has the
power of influencing all other employers
of labour through the force of its example,

as well as by the action of economic laws.

31

The Revolt of Democracy [ch.

In order to give confidence to the
Labour Party, a proclamation should be
at once issued establishing for the entire
Government Service a liberal scale of
wages, based upon the inquiries of Mr. C.
Booth, Mr. S. Rowntree and others, so
that adult workers shall receive at next
pay-day an ample " living wage," to be
increased each year by (say) 2s. a week
till it reaches the estimate of these dis-
interested and capable inquirers. Let it
be declared also that, except for gross bad
conduct, no man shall be dismissed the
public service till he reaches the age when
he will receive a liberal retiring pension.

As the avowed object must be to make

Government employment at once an honour

and an advantage, and also that it may

serve as a model for all other employers

of labour, everything must be done to

promote the health and contentment of

the whole body of public workers. In

32

V] A Government's Duty

order to give effect to this declared pur-
pose, a considerable proportion of them
should be gradually trained in some alter-
native employment, especially in those that
give healthy outdoor occupation, such as
the various building trades, and, pre-
eminently, in some kind of agricultural
work. It will thus be rendered possible,
whenever we cease to expend so many
millions annually on purely destructive
ships and weapons, that the surplus men
engaged in our dockyards and various
factories of war-material need not be dis-
charged and create a new army of the
unemployed, but be gradually drafted into
an army of true wealth-producers.

Another important feature of this new
departure in the organisation of the ex-
tended Civil Service would be the gradual
removal of all factories and workshops
from towns and cities into the open and
healthy country, where large areas of land

33

The Revolt of Democracy

can be obtained sufficient to produce most
of the food and clothing for its inhabitants.
Large estates of several thousand acres are
constantly in the market, and are often
sold at from £io to £20 an acre. An
additional means of obtaining such estates
would be a short Act giving the Govern-
ment power to take death-duties and land-
taxes in land at the taxation value when-
ever it is suitable for the purpose. Of
course, acting on the general principle of
making its own employees and labourers
the best and most contented of all the
working classes, the Government must at
once make arrangements for giving up its
contract work, especially in the clothing
and provision departments, replacing it
by farms and factories of its own.

CHAPTER VI

POPULAR OBJECTIONS, AND REPLIES TO THEM

The scheme of improved Government em-
ployment now briefly explained will, of
course, give rise to a host of objections
of various degrees of futility, but I know
of none of the least real weight. The first
of these objections will, of course, be the
great expense ; and that it will neces-
sitate more taxes, which will ruin those
who only just manage to live now. To
this I reply, that the cost to the poor
need really be almost nothing ; first, be-
cause every pound paid extra in wages is
a pound more expended in food, clothing,
furniture, houses, and other necessaries of
life. It will, therefore, benefit the makers,
growers and retailers of those commodities

35

The Revolt of Democracy [ch.

by the increase of their trade, and it is a
maxim of pohtical economy that the home
trade is the best trade for the prosperity
of a country. In the second place, even
with our present system of taxation the
workers will largely benefit, because, though
they will secure almost all the immediate
good results of the expenditure, they will
pay less than half the increased taxa-
tion.

But, fortunately, we have a Chancellor
of the Exchequer who will know how to
raise the money required for the salvation
of the destitute from the excessive and
harmful accumulations of the very rich.
The lower and middle classes, therefore,
will ultimately pay either nothing at all
or a very small fraction of the amount
required for the increased wages, while
they are the classes which will most largely
benefit by the general prosperity caused

by its expenditure. It must surely be

36

VI] Replies to Objections

better for the country to preserve the very
poor in health and strength, and to give
them the training which will enable them
to do productive work as soon as we pro-
vide it for them, than to allow them to
die of want, and its resulting diseases, as
we do now. It is simply irrational to say,
as many do, that these people are con-
stitutionally unable to support themselves.
They belong to the very same class as
those who, both here and in the Colonies,
and throughout the whole civilised world,
not only do support themselves, but, in
addition, support everybody else, and at
the same time produce all the luxuries
and costly amusements of the wealthy. It is
clear, therefore, that it is not the fault
of the poor that so many of them are
compulsorily idle or starving, but of the
Government which proclaims itself unable
to give them productive work. There can-
not possibly be such a difference in nature

37

207'

The Revolt of Democracy [ch.

between the same class when employed
and when unemployed.

Another objection, a little less obviously
irrational, is, that if the Government itself
were to provide all its Army and Navy
clothing and other necessary stores, wea-
pons, etc., some of the former contractors
will be ruined. But they will only suffer
if they have hitherto sweated their workers,
and you cannot abolish sweating without
some temporary suffering to the sweaters.
But even such employers will get compen-
sation. The high wages paid for all Govern-
ment work will be almost wholly spent in
the neighbourhood of the public factories
and offices, and benefit everybody by the
increase of trade. A further benefit will
accrue through the increased expenditure
of the many thousands of Custom House,
Excise, Post Office, and other employees,
whose higher wages and salaries would be

immediately distributed among the various

18

VI] Replies to Objections

producers and retailers of the necessaries
and comforts of life — that is, among those
constituting what we term generally " the
middle classes," who may be said to
constitute the very backbone of the
country.

CHAPTER VII

THE PROBLEM OF WAGES

High Wages are Good for Everybody

If we look at the great problem of wages,
as affecting the entire life and well-being
of about three-fourths of the whole popu-
lation, and try and divest ourselves of
our ideas of what wages a particular kind
of worker is worth, without any regard
to the material and mental well-being of
his wife and children, we shall be forced
to the conclusion that nothing is so hurtful
to the community at large, especially to
the middle classes, as for the wages or
earnings of all kinds of workers to be low ;
and nothing is so beneficial as for them

to be high.

40

The Problem of Wages

A Government cannot benefit its people
at large more surely than by establishing
a very high minimum wage for really
necessary or useful work. Every thinker
agrees (as they did at the Industrial
Remuneration Conference held twenty-five
years ago) that our aim and object should
be *' to cause wealth to he more equally
distributed." Yet, during the whole period
that has elapsed since that Conference was
held, successive Governments have acted
as if their object was the very reverse ;
with the natural result of increasing the
number both of millionaires at one end of
the scale, and of the excessively poor and
destitute at the other. And they actually
claim this as a merit ; for their supporters
always refer to the increase of great for-
tunes made mostly by foreign trade as a
proof of general prosperity, and have
always resisted giving their own employees
more than a bare competition wage, on the

41

The Revolt of Democracy [ch

ground that it was their chief duty to save
the pockets of the taxpayers !

The Just Basis of Taxation
Till quite recently our various Govern-
ments, whatever party has been in power,
have claimed it as a merit that they have
distributed taxation as equally as possible
over the whole community, on the ground
that the very poorest ought to contribute
something towards the Government of
which they are said to receive the benefits
of law and order at home, and protection
from invasion by foreign armies. We are
now seeing the results of this policy in
labour unrest, chronic strikes, and terrible
destitution. The beginning of a juster and
wiser policy has been made in the differen-
tial taxation of very large incomes, but
only a very small beginning. Justice and
humanity alike should lead us to see that
those who, by their hard and life-long toil,
have created and still create the whole of

VII] The Problem of Wages

the national wealth, should not be taxed
on the very small portion of that wealth
which they have been allowed to retain —
a bare sufficiency to support life. Justice
and public policy alike demand that every
penny of taxation should be taken from
the superfluously wealthy at or near the
other end of the scale. Thus, and thus
only, could we cause the present insuffi-
cient minimum wage to rise, first above
the bare subsistence rate, and then by a
steady increase to an amount sufficient
to procure for all our workers the essentials
for a full and enjoyable existence. Thus,
and thus only, can we solve the crucial
problem of our day, that of the long
expected and perfectly justifiable revolt of
the workers, euphemistically termed the
" Labour Unrest."

The Class-Prejudice against High Wages
Perhaps more difficult to overcome than

43

The Revolt of Democracy [ch.

the supposed economical dangers of high
wages is the class-prejudice. This is really
due to differences of education, of forms
of speech and of manners, rather than to
any real difference either in physical or
mental powers. As human beings the
workers with their hands, commonly called
the '* working class," know themselves to
be fully equal to those who look down
upon them as inferiors ; and they are
beginning to resent this claim to superiority.
They know, too, that their work is really
more important than that of many pro-
fessional men, such as lawyers and the
mass of Government officials, and that the
scale of remuneration of the two classes
should be more nearly alike. The idea that
the work of a carpenter or engineer, of a
bricklayer or of a ploughman is intrinsically
worth less than that of a Member of Parlia-
ment, an officer in the Army, or the owner
of a cotton-mill they no longer accept.

44

vn] The Problem of Wages

They have read history, and they know
that these class-ideas are derived from
feudal times, when all manual labour was
done by serfs, or by peasants only one
degree higher in the scale. They see
many of their own class becoming rich,
and then being received as equals by
those who term themselves " Society " ;
and they see, too, that these upstarts, as
they are sometimes termed, are often not
even the best examples of their own class.

It is this widespread belief in there
being a '' lower class " among us — hewers
of wood and drawers of water — whose
intrinsic worth as human beings is measured
by the small wages they receive, that
causes the proposal to raise their earnings
to what we now term " a living wage " to
be widely resented, as if it were something
dangerous, unnecessary, or even immoral.

Most liberal thinkers now agree that
wages ought to be much higher than they

45

The Revolt of Democracy [ch

are ; but unless they rise automatically
in obedience to some mysterious eco-
nomic law, not even the most advanced
Government in the most advanced country
in the world has yet dared to make the
attempt to improve the condition of its
vast army of employees by raising them,
on principle, well above " the margin of
poverty." So great and so widespread is
this objection that there are, perhaps, not
more than two or three members of our
present Government who would welcome
with any approach to enthusiasm such a
proposal as I have outlined here. When
it was recently stated that certain classes
of men in the Navy were to receive an
increase of pay it was at first denied,
as if it were too extravagant to be
thought of by an economical Liberal
Government.

It is, however, certain that we have
now reached a point in our political history

46

VII] The Problem of Wages

which will necessitate much more direct
and radical measures than have yet been
taken to ensure the immediate abolition
of that disgrace of our civilisation — starva-
tion, and suicide from dread of starvation.

It is for this reason that I have now
placed before the public the simplest and
most direct method of doing this, with-
out any special legislation ; and I most
earnestly urge the Labour Party, as well
as advanced thinkers of all parties in
Parliament, to use their influence with the
present Government to give it effect.

The wages of the lower classes of
Government clerks, etc., are, I believe,
being frequently modified by the various
heads of departments without any special
sanction from Parliament ; and as I have
now shown how every step of the process
of more equal wealth-distribution by a
steady rise of wages will injure few or
none, but will in various ways benefit us

47

The Revolt of Democracy [ch

all, there can be no sufficiently serious
objection to its being immediately begun.

I would also with equal earnestness
urge upon the Government itself to press
forward this matter — the abolition of desti-
tution— without a single day's further delay.
Every day sees numerous deaths by starv-
ation at our very doors. Yet these have
come to be looked upon as due to " natural
causes," implying that it is quite a natural
and inevitable thing that, in this super-
wealthy country, thousands of men, women,
and children should be continually starv-
ing ! Were not the position so terribly, so
disgracefully pathetic, it would be ludic-
rous. It reminds one of David Copper-
field's arrival at his aunt's house at Dover
in a dreadfully dilapidated condition after
a six days' walk from London, having
slept every night in the fields. Mr. Dick
was called to hear his story ; and on being
asked by Miss Betsy Trotwood what she

VII] The Problem of Wages

should do with him, looked him all over
very carefully, and said without hesita-
tion : " If I were you, I should wash him."
On which Miss Betsy ordered a hot bath
to be got ready, declaring that Mr. Dick
sets us all right !

But the most advanced and Liberal
Government we have ever had, has for
the last seven years looked on tens of
thousands of destitute humanity far worse
off than was David Copperfield, without
arriving at the practical wisdom of first
feeding and clothing them, and afterwards
inquiring and discussing how to prevent
them from getting into the same trouble
again. I, therefore, take the place of poor
Mr. Dick as an adviser, and venture to
assure them that the problem is not really
insoluble, and that the common idea, that
the pitiable condition of the starving
population is " their own fault,'' is not the
correct diagnosis of this social disease.

49

The Revolt of Democracy [ch

Popular Errors as to the Effects of High
Wages on Prices

One of the most common objections to
a general increase of wages, and one of the
most difficult to reply to, is, that it would
inevitably lead to a general rise of prices,
equal to, and sometimes greater than, the
increase of wages. The reason why it is
difhcult to reply to this supposed fact is
because the retail prices of the necessaries
of life depend upon a variety of causes, of
which a rise or fall in the wages of those
who produce them is sometimes an import-
ant and at other times a very unimportant
item ; and also because, as a matter of
fact, wages and prices have, sometimes,
risen or fallen together as if they were
directly connected.

This whole question of the well-being
of the wage-receiving classes is often
obscured by considering wages alone, or
hours of working, or prices of food, which

5°

vu] The Problem of Wages

may all vary in different degrees, and be
due to quite different causes. The result
thus reached is often largely modified by
an increase of rents, of rates, or in the
price of such a necessary as coals, while a
still further complication is introduced by
local causes, such as the time, labour, or
cost of reaching his place of work, which
may seriously reduce a workman's net
earnings, as well as his hours of actual
labour. Personal observation during the
last fifty years leads me to conclude that,
amid constant fluctuations in wages and
in food prices, and constant rise in the
rental of houses and of land, the average
wage-earner has continued to live in much
the same low condition as regards the
necessaries and comforts of life.

But during this whole period there has
been a continuous increase in the numbers
of the very poor, the destitute, and the
actually starving ; serving as a balance to

5»

The Revolt of Democracy

a similar increase in the numbers of those
who Uve in great or superfluous luxury.
Let us then endeavour to see how this
long-continued process and baneful result
can be changed in the future.

CHAPTER VIII

SELF-SUPPORTING WORK THE REMEDY
FOR UNEMPLOYMENT.

As a matter of public policy, no less than
of common humanity, it is essential that
all Government and municipal employees,
including labourers of all kinds, be paid
a full and sufficient living wage as a mini-
mum, rising to at least the highest trades
union wages at the time. To prevent any
lowering of the latter, by increase of
population, fluctuations in trade, new
labour-saving machinery and other causes
of unemployment, it is equally essential
that those who have hitherto been dis-
charged when no longer wanted should be
provided with self-supporting work.

This can best be done in connection

53

The Revolt of Democracy [ch

with the re-occupation of the land, which
is now seen to be of vital importance by
most social reformers. No more blind and
disastrous policy has ever been pursued by
a civilised community than that of our
wealthy and money-making classes, who
have during half-a-century, in pursuit of
wealth, discouraged the cultivation of land,
and forced the inhabitants of our once
numerous self-supporting villages, and
especially our half-starved agricultural
labourers, into the cities and towns, to be
exploited by manufacturers and landlords.
The result to-day is a vast mass of unem-
ployed, keeping down wages to the starving
point, together with an infant mortality that
is a disgrace to a civilised community.

Having thus destroyed the old rural
populations which were for centuries the
pride and strength of Britain, it now be-
comes the duty of the Government to
build up a new and a better form of rural

54

VIII] The Remedy for Unemployment

society to replace it. To do this we require
far stronger measures than the miserable
red-tapism of our Small Holdings Acts,
which are ludicrously ineffective and even
harmful. We have examples in Denmark,
in Italy, and even in Ireland, of admirable
results of co-operative cultivation, where
extensive areas of land are dealt with, and
either private or municipal associations
help on the work.

For this purpose a large portion of the
agricultural land of England, which has
been so misused by its owners, must be
acquired by the Government in trust for
the nation. This can be best done by a
further increase of the death duties and
land taxes ; to be paid in land itself
instead of in money : while, wherever
there are no direct heirs who may have
a sentimental affection for their ancestral
home, large landed estates of suitable
character and position should be purchased

55

The Revolt of Democracy [ch

at the official valuation and utilised at
once either by the State, the municipality,
trade unions, or co-operative societies, to
establish self-supporting colonies, on the
plan fiist clearly described by Mr. Herbert
V. Mills in his Poverty and the State, and
further developed by myself in the second
volume of my Studies, Scientific and Social.
The great essentials in starting such
methods of dealing with the problems of
poverty and unemployment are liberality
and sympathy. Ample funds should be
provided for supporting each colony for
the first two or three years ; the land
should be rent-free for at least the same
period ; and the greatest amount of liberty
should be given to all the workers com-
patible with the success of the experiments.
No expense can be too great to establish
a system of land re-occupation which will
abolish poverty ; and just as certainly

as a continuous rise in wages wdll

56

vm] The Remedy for Unemployment

repay its cost in the general well-being of
the lower and middle classes, so, with
equal certainty, will the still greater ex-
penditure necessary for the productive
re-occupation of our uncultivated or half-
cultivated soil complete the regeneration,
the power, and the safety of the British
nation.

Everyone interested in the subject here
discussed should read Our National Food
Supply, by James Lumsden : perhaps the
most original, suggestive, and vitally im-
portant work on the subject that has yet
appeared.

One of the injurious results of our
competitive system, having its roots, how-
ever, in the valuable " guilds " of a past
epoch, is the almost universal restriction
of our workers to one kind of labour only.
The result is a dreadful monotony in almost
all kinds of work, the extreme unhealthi-
ness of many, and a much larger amount

57

The Revolt of Democracy [ch

of unemployment than if each man or
woman were regularly trained in two or
more occupations. In addition to two of
what are commonly called trades, every
youth should be trained for one day a
week or one week in a month, according
to demand for labour, in some of the
various operations of farming or gardening.
Not only would this improve the general
health of the workers, but also add much
to the interest and enjoyment of their
lives. This is a matter of great national
importance, because it would supply in
every locality a body of trained workers
ready to assist the farmers at all critical
periods, and thus save valuable crops from
almost total loss during unfavourable
seasons. The gain to the whole nation by
such a supply of labour, whenever needed,
would be enormous, and it would
also lead to pleasant social meetings like

those of the " bees " in the early years

5S

viii] The Remedy for Unemployment

of American colonisation. Such gatherings
would combine a holiday with national
service, when the whole strength of the
population would be put forth to save
the national food.

This form of multiple industrial train-
ing should be commenced at once in con-
nection with all Government employment ;
and it should be further developed as a
part of our system of education, in the
various colonies or villages established for
the absorption of the unemployed. Its
advantages would be so great both to the
workers and to the nation, that the various
trade unions may be expected to adopt
it ; and they should be assisted to do so
by ample Government grants, or by the
free provision of the land and buildings
required, so long as they were used for this
great national service.

CHAPTER IX

THE ECONOMIES OF CO-ORDINATED LABOUR

It may be well here to consider what
would be the economic result if the
labour of the whole country were com-
pletely organised and its various depart-
ments co-ordinated, so that production and
consumption should be as nearly as possible
balanced in the various local communities.
This local co-ordination of production and
distribution has never, hitherto, been at-
tempted on an adequate scale, yet it is
through such co-ordination alone that co-
operative labour can produce its most
beneficial results, by means of a number of
hitherto unknown and apparently almost
unsuspected economies, to the enormous

gain of the whole community. The more im-

60

Co-ordinated Labour

portant of these may be briefly enumerated.
The first of these great economies would
arise from the absence of surplus crops or
manufactured goods beyond the ascer-
tained monthly or yearly amount required
for the use of the local population. From
this approximate balance of production
with consumption the proportional cost of
each article in labour-power would be
calculated, and their several exchange-
values or true economic prices be ascer-
tained. The use of a more expensive
article when a less costly one would be
equally serviceable would then be easily
checked, and the great loss incurred by the
forced sale of such articles would cease.

Far more important than this, however,
would be the entire abolition of every
form of advertisement, such as those in
our newspapers and placards, in costly
shop-windows, in high rents, and in the
employment of a whole army of agents

6i

The Revolt of Democracy [ch.
and commercial travellers, whose business
is to puff and exaggerate the qualities of
their respective goods, so as to induce
retailers and private purchasers to buy
things that are of little or no use to them,
and often, as in the case of foods and
medicines, positively injurious.

It has been estimated that, on the
average, these costly processes of com-
petitive sale lead to the consumer paying
about double, and in some cases much
more than double, the real cost of produc-
tion. Here, then, we have an economy
which would enable wages to be largely
increased, and sometimes even doubled,
without adding to the retail price of the
various necessaries or comforts of life. But
even this would not be the whole of the
economy that would follow such a mode of
truly co-ordinated production for use and
not for profit. It is well known that in all

manufactured goods a large economy results

62

K] Co-ordinated Labour

from an increased demand, enabling
the whole of the machinery to be almost
continuously employed at its full power.
In addition to this, another economy
of the same nature, but perhaps of still
greater extent, would arise from there
being no such necessity for the manu-
facture of new articles or new patterns
or colours every year, as the competition
of numerous manufacturers now compels
them to seek for. These new things or pat-
terns are often very inferior to the older
ones, which the purchaser is assured " are
quite gone out now."

As a concomitant of the competitive
system, two almost world-wide immoralities
are created : one is the universal practice of
adulteration and the accompanying false
descriptions of things sold ; the other is
the equally vast system of false weights and
measures, which, though of small amount

to each purchaser, secures an unfair profit

63

The Revolt of Democracy [ch

at his expense. Our present competitive
social system is, therefore, necessarily im-
moral, as well as extremely wasteful ; yet,
strange to say, it is almost universally held
to be a necessary and a right system,
founded on natural and unchangeable laws
of social life. Those who see most clearly
its evil results, and trace them to their
root causes, monopoly and competition,
are almost alwa3^s condemned as unprac-
tical idealists or dangerous revolutionists.
Another proof of the fundamental error
of this system of society which is held to
be so good and sacred as to be essentially
unalterable is equally conducive. For more
than a century this system has been slowly
elaborated by a body of able men who are
so admired by us, that we term them our
"Merchant princes" and our "Captains
of industry." Many of them are enormously
wealthy and are supposed to be especially

qualified as Members of Parliament, and

64

IX] Co-ordinated Labour

they possess great influence in directing the
course of legislation. Yet this wealth and
power were obtained by means of a system
of industry which soon became a byword
for all that was vile and degrading to the
workers who were employed. Everything
was arranged so as to get the most profit
out of the " hands," as the factory- workers
were termed. The mills were unhealthy,
the wages low, and the hours of labour
long. In the early part of the nineteenth
century, children of five or six years old
were kept in the mills thirteen or fourteen
hours a day, and were often flogged by the
overseers to keep them awake ; and it
needed a long succession of Factory Laws,
all bitterly opposed by the employers, to
mitigate the evils which till recently existed,
and which were only got rid of by the
continued efforts of a few determined
humanitarians. An army of inspectors
had to be appointed to see that these laws

H 65

The Revolt of Democracy [ch
were obeyed. Yet even now the net result
of our strictly supervised manufacturing
system is that whole districts are defaced
by dense palls of smoke, and the vegeta-
tion is often destroyed by poisonous
vapours ; that our great cities are dis-
figured by hideous and filthy slums ; that
a large proportion of our manufactures are
carried on under such conditions as to
produce painful disabling or fatal diseases ;
while the infant mortality in all these areas
of wealth-production, of which we are so
proud, is about double what it is in other
parts of the same towns or cities.

The various facts and considerations
now adduced demonstrate that a well-
arranged system of co-operative production
and co-ordinated distribution, whether
carried out by the Government, muni-
cipality, or private associations of the
workers, which the trade unions them-

66

IX] Co-ordinated Labour

selves might combine to establish, would
result in so many economies in various
directions as to render it possible in a few
years to double, or more than double, the
effective wages the workers now receive,
but which, under existing conditions, they
can only hope to raise by the slow and
costly process of recurrent strikes. This
sketch of the economics of the problem is
now brought before the Labour Party in.
order that it may have a definite pro-
gramme to work for, and may be able to
enforce its claims upon the Government
with all the weight of its combined and
determined action. I

CHAPTER X

THE EFFECT OF HIGH WAGES UPON FOREIGN
TRADE

I HAVE now shown that an increase in the
rate of wages does not necessarily raise
prices in a proportionate degree, but, on
the contrary, that, under conditions not
difficult to obtain, such enormous econo-
mies both in production and distribution
may be effected as to result in a very large
balance in favour both of the producer
and the consumer. This, however, relates
to our home trade only, and it will be said,
and has often been said, that as regards
our foreign trade the case is quite different.
In such goods as minerals, metal-work, and
most textile fabrics, wages form a large
portion of the cost, and it is argued that a

6S

High Wages and Foreign Trade

considerable rise will render us quite un-
able to compete with Germany, France, or
America in the chief markets of the world.
Now, it is a remarkable circumstance
that the Labour Party and their friends in
and out of Parliament seem to be quite
unaware of the fallacy of this statement.
It is quite true that if wages rose in one
industry only, our foreign trade might be
injured or even ruined in those special
goods. But if, as is here supposed to be
the case, there was a general rise of wages
in all industries, such as would be caused
by bringing about a high " living wage,"
sufficient at its lowest to keep every work-
man and his family in health and comfort
with a reasonable amount of the enjoy-
ments of life, then our foreign trade in
the markets of the world would not
in any way be diminished or become less
profitable.

This results from the fact admitted by
69

The Revolt of Democracy [ch

all political economists, that foreign trade
is essentially barter, since we send abroad
those goods which we produce at the
lowest cost proportionately, and import
those only which no other country pro-
duces at a lower proportionate cost than
we do. In this set of transactions, as a
whole, the part played by money is merely
to enable both parties to keep their ac-
counts and determine what goods it is
advantageous to them to export and what
to import. Hence money has been defined
as the " tool of exchange." If, therefore,
our wages bill were doubled by the adop-
tion of a high " minimum wage," that
would not make any alteration (or very
little) in the proportionate cost of the things
we export and those we import.

This question is discussed with great
care and thoroughness by J. S. Mill, in
his great work, The Principles of Political

Economy ; but as the subject is referred

70

X] High Wages and Foreign Trade

to more than once, and for different pur-
poses, it requires very close attention to
realise its full importance. It is discussed
most fully in his Book III., Chap. XVII.,
"Of International Trade," where he says :

" It is not a difference in the absolute cost of pro-
duction which determines the interchange, but a
difference in the comparative cost " ;

and this is illustrated by an account of
many actual cases of our dealings with
other countries, in which he shows that —

" We may often by trading with foreigners obtain
their commodities at a smaller expense of labour and
capital than they coad to the foreigners themselves.
The bargain is still advantageous to the foreigner,
because the commodity which he receives in ex-
change, though it has cost us less, would have cost
him more."

Then, later on, in Chap. XXV. of the

same Book, dealing with " Competition of

Countries in the same Market " (page 414

of The People's Edition), he says, as a

71

The Revolt of Democracy [ch.

terse summary of the facts and arguments
he has set forth :

" General low wages never caused any country
to undersell its rivals, nor did general high wages
ever hinder it from doing so."

I venture to hope that, in future, the
speakers among the Labour Party in Par-
liament will not allow the bugbear of
" ruin to our foreign trade " to deter
them from claiming their admitted right
to a " living wage" throughout the whole
country. Such wage must be determined
by what is needed to supply an average
working-man's family with all the neces-
saries of life in ample abundance, together
with all such modest comforts as are
beneficial to health of mind and body.
It must be estimated as payment for five
or five and a half days of eight hours
each at the utmost, any overtime neces-
sitated by the nature of the employment

72

xj High Wages and Foreign Trade

or by exceptional events to be paid at
double the normal rates.

I have now shown that a general rise
of wages, if accompanied by the absorp-
tion of all the unemployed in duly co-
ordinated productive labour, so far from
raising prices in the open market, will
result in so many and such great econo-
mies as to allow of a considerable lowering
of price of the chief necessaries and com-
forts of Hfe, and will, therefore, add still
further to the well-being of the whole of
the workers, whether skilled or unskilled,
whether receiving wages from capitalist
employers, or working in co-operative and
self-supporting village communities.

H*

CHAPTER XI

THE RATIONAL SOLUTION OF THE LABOUR
PROBLEM

I HAVE now endeavoured to place before
my readers, and especially before the
Labour Party, the series of economic
fallacies which alone prevent them from
claiming and obtaining, for the workers
of the whole country, a continuously in-
creasing share of the entire product of
their labour.

The chief of these fallacies is, that there
is any necessary connection between wages
and prices, so that the former cannot be
raised without the latter increasing also
to an equal amount. Of course, in such
a fundamentally unjust social system as
that in which we live, we cannot abolish

74

A Rational Solution

all the wrongs and evils of low wages,
unemployment, and starvation, by a more
just and rational system without partial
and temporary losses to a few individuals ;
but by adopting the course here advo-
cated, these losses will be small in amount
and quickly remedied. This will be es-
pecially the case with our foreign trade,
as to which it has been again and
again asserted that higher wages will
lead to ruin. But, as has been clearly
shown in the preceding chapter, no such
loss would occur if high wages were
universal, such as would result from a
general minimum of 30s. or £2 a week
for every adult worker in the kingdom,
while a large maj ority would receive much
more than this. Even in such an extreme
case as this our merchants might continue
to export and import the same products
in the same quantities as before, and

with the same average amount of profit.

75

The Revolt of Democracy [ch.

Recurring to the statements of Mr.
Vernon Hartshorn and Mr. Anderson as
to what the workers insist upon as the
very lowest living wage, but which it is
clear they will never obtain by negotiation
with their employers, I again urge upon
them to concentrate their rapidly increas-
ing influence and voting power upon the
Government, compelling it to use the full
resources of the National Credit to abolish
starvation at once, and simultaneously
to organise the vast body of Government
employees in such a manner as to be able
to absorb into its ranks the whole of the
unemployed workers as they arise. These
may be looked upon as the waste product
of our disorganised and inhuman com-
petitive system, indicating the fermenta-
tion and disease ever going on in its lower
depths.

The principle of competition — a life

and death struggle for bare existence —

76

XI] A Rational Solution

has had more than a century's unbroken
trial under conditions created by its up-
holders, and it has absolutely failed. The
workers, now for the first time, know why
it is that with ever-increasing production
of wealth so many of them still suffer the
most terrible extremes of want and of
preventable disease. There must, there-
fore, be no further compromise, no mere
talking. To allow the present state of
things to continue is a crime against
humanity. Any Government that will not
abolish starvation in this land of super-
fluous wealth must be driven from power.
The forces of Labour, if united in the
demand for this one primary object, must
and will succeed. Then will easily follow
the general rise of wages at the cost of
our unprecedented individual wealth, and
the absorption of the unemployed in self-
supporting communities, re-occupying our
deserted land, and bringing about a more

77

The Revolt of Democracy

general and more beneficial prosperity than
our country has ever before enjoyed.

This must be the great and noble
work of our statesmen of to-day and of
to-morrow. May they prove themselves
equal to the great opportunity which the
justifiable revolt of Labour has now
afforded them.

INDEX

Acts of Parliament, aggravation

of social disease by, 6
Adulteration, immorality of, 63
Advertisement, abolition of, 61
Anderson, Mr., on the labour

problem, 20, 76
Asquith, Mr., 8
— and minimum wage, 28

" Bees," American, 58
Booth, Mr. C, 32
Bread, free, advocated, 24
Budget of 1909, 8
Burns, Mr. John, 8

CampbeItL-Bannerman, Sir H.,
on the duty of a govern-
ment, 7
Capitalism, private, 3
Capitahsts, 4
Charity, sufficiency of, 23
Children, employment of, 65
Civil Service, Government and,

31
Civilisation, conditions of work-
ers disgrace to, 12
Class ideas, 44
— , parasites of wealthy, 4
— , upper, creation of an, 2
Colonies, self-supporting, 56
Competitive system, aboUtion of,
by co-ordinated labour, 60

, creators of, 64

, evils of, 5

, failiure of, 76

, immoralities of, 63

, outhne of, 3

, results of, on workers, 5 7

. wastefulness of, 63

Contract work, Government and,

34, 38
Co-operative agriculture, 55

— distribution, 66

— economies, 60

— labour, effects of, on wages,

66

Death Duties, 34, 55
Democracy its own emancipator,

15

Denmark, co-operative cultiva-
tion in, 55

Destitution, 2, 7

— , co-operative, 66

— , Government and, 23, 26, 47

— , increase of, 51 (see also
Poverty, Starvation)

Disease, social, 3

Diseases, industrial, 66

Drage, Mr. G., on the labour
problem, 19

Education 21

— and class- prejudice, 44

— , industrial, as a remedy for

unemployment, 58
Eight hours day, 14
Employment, Government,

scheme of, 28

, objections to, 35

Era, dawn of a new, 7
Exchange, money simply the

tool of, 70

Factories, removal of, to coun-
try, 34
Factory laws, 65

79

Index

Farming, need for education in,

58
Foreign trade, 75
, effects of high wages on,

68

, increase of, 41

is barter, 70

, J. Stuart Mill on, 70

Gardening, need for education

in, 58
George, Mr. D. Lloyd, 8, 36
Gladstone, W. K., and the social

disease, 6
Government and agricultural

land, 55

— and Civil Service, 31

— and contract work, 34, 38

— and destitution, 23, 26, 47
— , duty of, 7, 22

— employment, minimum wage

for, 76

, objection to, 35

, scheme of, 28

wages, 47

— and industrial education, 59
Guardians of the Poor, 6

Harcourt, Sir \Vm., and the

social disease, 6
Harrison, Mr. F., on the labour

problem, 1 8
Hartshorn, Mr. V., on the

workers' claims, 14, 76
Housing, 21

Industrial conditions in nine-
teenth century, 64

— disease, 3

— diseases, 66

— education as a remedy for

unemployment, 58

— peace, path to, 17

— Remuneration Conference, 41
Infant mortality, 54, 66
Inquiries, Parliamentary, inef-
fectiveness of, I

Invention of machinery, 2
Ireland, co-operative cultivation

in, 5 5
Italy, co-operative cultivation

in, 5 5

Labour, battle cry of, 21
— , co-ordinated, economies of,
60

— Party, and theory of wages,

69.

, demand of, for remedy for

social disease, 27

— problem, economics of, 66
, fallacies concerning, 74

— — , restriction of workers, 57
, solution of, 74

— unrest, 1 1

, labour leaders on the, 1 7

, no definite plan to settle,

12

, W. T. Stead on, 31

Land, agricultural, should be

acquired by Government,

55
— , co-operative cultivation of.

5 5

— monopoly, 3

— Nationalisation Societies, i
— , re-occupation of, as remedy

for unemployment, 53
— , — , scheme for, 55

— taxes, 34

Law, Mr. S., on the labour

problem, 1 9
Legislation designed to solve

social problems, 2
Leisure, 21
Lumsden, James, " Qui National

Food Supply," 57
Luxtury, increase of, 52

Machinery, invention of, 2
Mechanical power and effect on

wealth, 2
Middlemen, increase of, 3
Mill, J . Stuart, on wages, 7 1
Mills, Mr. H. V., 12, 56

80

Index

Minimum wage, 28, 41, 43, 53

for Governm.ent employees,

76

, national, 21

Money, in foreign trade, 70

National expenditure, 27

— insurance, 15
Nineteenth century, industrial

conditions in, 64

Old-AGE pensions, 8

" Oiir National Food Supply," 57

Poor Laws, inefficiency of, 23
Poverty, 27, 51

— abolition of, 5

— Government and, 23, 26, 47
— , re-occupation of land as

remedy for, 53
— , self-supporting colonies a

remedy for, 56
— , starting points in dealing

with, 56
" Poverty and the State," 12, 56

— (See also Destitution, Starva-

tion)
Prices, Isalance of production
and, 60

— and wages, 68, 74

— , effects of high wages on, 50
" Principles of PoUtical

Economy," 70
Production, balance of, 60

Religion, upholder of competi-
tive system, 5

Rowntree, Mr. S., on the labour
problem, 18, 32

Rural populations, destruction
of. 54

, necessity for building up,

54

Science, upholder of competitive

system, 5
Scientific discovery, appUca-

tion of, 2

Slums, 65 .

Small Holdings Acts, inefficiency

.of, 55
Social disease, 3, 27

— problems, legislation designed

to solve, 2
Starvation, 3, 6, ^7
— , aboUtion of, 7;^
— , deaths from, 48
— , disgrace of civiUsation, 47
" Starvation, How to Stop," 24
— , responsibility of Govern-
ment for, 77

— (See also Destitution, Poverty)
Stead, W. T., on industrial dis-
content, 31

Strikes, cause of, 8

— effect of, on agitation for

minimum wage, 29

— effects of, 9

— , lessons of the, 1 1

— , no remedy, 21

" Studies, Scientific and Social,"

56
Suicide, 47

Taxation, 36

— , effect of, present system of,

42
— , just, 42

— of large incomes, 42
Trade descriptions, false, 63

— Foreign (see Foreign,

— Unions, organisation of, 9

Unemployment, 7, 53

— , cause of, 5 7 a

— , industrial education as a

remedy for, 58
— , productive work essential

for, 53
— , re-occupation of land as a

remedy for, 53
— , self-supporting colonies as a

remedy for, 56
— , starting points in dealing

with, 56

81

Index

Wage, minimum, 28, 41, 43, 53

for Government employees,

76

national minimum, 21

Wages, false law of, 6

— , Government employees, 47

— , high, errors regarding, 50

, class prejudice against, 43

— , effects of, 35, 73

, foreign trade and, 68

, need for, 46

— , J. Stuart MiU on, 70
— prices and, 68, 74
— , problem of, 40
" Want, Remedy for," 24

Want (See Destitution. Poverty,

Starvation)
Wealth, increase of, 2
Weights and measures, false,

63
" Wonderful Century," 24
Work, productive, essential for

unemployed, 53
— , two classes of, 44
Workers, claim of the, 14
— , condition of, a disgrace to

civilisation, 1 2
— , stationary condition of aver-
age, 51
Workhouses, 6

82

Prikted by

Cassell & Company, Limited, La Belle Sauvage,

London. E.C.

This book is DUE on the last date stamped below

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