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THE LIBRARY

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THE UNIVERSITY

OF CALIFORNIA

RIVERSIDE

GIFT OF

Dr. Gordon Mat kins

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THE BRITISH REVOLUTION

AND

THE AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

THE BRITISH REVOLUTION

AND

THE AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

AN INTERPRETATION OF BRITISH LABOUR PROGRAMMES

BY

NORMAN ANGELL

NEW YORK B. W. HUEBSCH

MCMXIX

COPYRIGHT. 1919, BY B, W. HUEBSOH

PRINTED IN U. S. A.

Published March, 1919 Second printing, April, 1919 Tbdrd printing, June. 1919

" The old party slogans have lost their significance and will mean nothing to the voter of the future. For the war is certain to change the mind of Europe, as well as the mind of America. . . .

" The men in the trenches, who have been freed from the economic serfdom to which some of them have been accus- tomed, will, it is likely, return to their homes with a new view and a new impatience of all mere political phrases, and will demand real thinking and sincere action." ^

" For a long time this country has lacked one of the insti- tutions which freemen have always and everywhere held fundamental. For a long time there has been no sufficient opportunity of counsels among the people. ... I conceive it to be one of the needs of the hour to restore the processes of common counsel. . . .

What are the right methods of politics? Why, the right methods are those of public discussion. . . . We have been told that it is unpatriotic to criticize public opinion. Well, if it is, there is a deep disgrace resting upon the origins of this nation. This nation originated in the sharpest sort of criticism of public policy. . . . The whole purpose of democ- racy is that we may hold counsel with one another, so as not to depend on the understanding of one man, but to depend upon the common counsel of all." ^

" Every man should have the privilege, unmolested and un- criticized to utter the real convictions of his mind. ... I believe that the weakness of the American character is that there are so few growlers and kickers amongst us. . . . Dif- ference of opinion is a sort of mandate of conscience. . . . We have forgotten the very principle of our origin if we have forgotten how to object, how to resist, how to agitate, how to pull down and build up, even to the extent of revo- lutionary practices, if it be necessary to re-adjust matters." '

WooDRow Wilson.

* Letter to Democratic Banquet at Newark, N. J., March 20, 1918.

2 The Nev) Freedom.

■ " Spurious vs. Real Patriotism," School Review, Vol. 7, p. 604.

^

INTRODUCTION A Plea for Facing Facts

To know what a book is not, and does not profess to be, is often as indispensable to its due understand- ing as to know its positive purpose.

This little book is not primarily a defence or justification of the social programmes it discusses. It is an attempt to explain the outstanding moral forces which have brought those programmes into being, and with which the world will have to reckon in facing its problem of reconstruction. The author does not regard those forces as all necessarily benefi- cent: indeed, he is at pains to explain why he re- gards some of them as particularly dangerous and menacing. In fact, what is attempted in these pages is not so much advocacy as explanation.

Nor is any attempt made to analyse exhaustively, in economic and sociological terms, each detail of the programmes. For, more important than the precise measures proposed, are the forces — social, economic, moral and intellectual — that have pro- voked those measures and stand behind them, and may extend them in the future. We have had ex- treme socialist, or socialistic programmes before. Socialism has indeed been the creed of large par-

[vii]

ties In European states for three-quarters of a cen- tury, but we have not been very greatly disturbed. Certain moral and psychological factors were neces- sary to give the essential features of socialist pro- grammes even a chance of trial, still less of success. An attempt is here made to show to what extent the war has brought into operation social and moral factors that previously were absent, has set up con- ditions which make programmes or movements here- tofore of no particular importance, now of the very greatest importance. For although it is common enough to talk of the great spiritual changes and developments which the war must bring, one may doubt whether it is as common to enquire very care- fully into the nature and extent of those changes, and to examine the fashion in which they are expressing themselves among peoples subject more completely, and for a longer period, than have been the Ameri- can to the influence of war legislation.

By a combination of events no man could have fore- seen, the real question which presents itself to west- ern civilization on the morrow of its victory over the Central Empires, is not the future of Prussian mili- tarism or even of political democracy. It is the future of the institution of private property, and the degree and kind of industrial democracy which we intend in future to permit. The political, historical and geographical questions which have absorbed so much expert attention during the war, are likely to be subsidiary to much wider general questions, social, economic, moral in their nature.

By w'hat process does a war, arising out of conflicts [viii]

of nationality and the political ambitions of great military states, draw to its close with those questions pushed relatively into the background while others so different in their nature are rapidly emerging? The answer to that question is to be found in an examina- tion of the problem which the Russian Revolution has presented to Western civilization. Soviet Russia is demanding the right, not alone to repudiate its for- eign indebtedness, but to regard those who do not subscribe to its communistic principles as without title to participate in the government of the state. The Dictatorship of the Proletariat is employing against the educated and property-owning classes the same ferocious repressions which Czardom has used against popular movements in the past.

The Bolshevists today are refusing to admit to par- ticipation In their communistic state those who repu- diate Its moral foundations. They plead that bourgeois practice justifies them. In most states the man who will not give his life to the purposes of the government — who resists, for instance, military conscription for the political ends of his government — is shot. Those who persist in encouraging that kind of resistance are imprisoned. Bolshevism has taken the ground that those who refuse to surrender their property, and encourage others in that refusal, should be deprived at least of their citizenship.

One need not subscribe to Bolshevist logic-chop- ping to admit the real difficulty of the issues involved, their searching and far-reaching implications.

The proletarian autocracy is as aggressive in its way as was the military autocracy of Prussia. Wc

[«]

may see It spread tomorrow to a revolutionary Ger- many also adopting a confiscatory socialism and in sympathetic co-operation with Russia and certain of the lesser Slavic states.

Shall we permit this? Can this be regarded as democracy? American public opinion — if the newspaper attitude towards the Bolsheviks is any in- dication thereof at all — seems disposed to answer those questions with a violent negative. But the British public curiously enough is not so certain by any means. This little book attempts to explain why.

The truth is that the difference between the Amer- ican and the European democracies in this matter is a profound one : it is a difference as to the meaning of democracy. In America that word means political democracy — control by the people over the political acts of their state. To the peoples of Europe — or to very large masses of them — the word is already beginning to take on a very much larger meaning: the right of the people to control, not only their polit- ical, but their industrial life and government; the right of the workers themselves to determine the con- ditions of their daily lives, by controlling the eco- nomic basis of the community, the means of produc- tion, distribution, exchange. And by that fact the problem of democracy has become intimately related to the problems, ethical and economic, which gather around the institution of private property. Our pol- icy towards communistic Russia will define our atti- tude to those issues.

w

It is thus that towards the close of this war waged to make the world safe for democracy, the question which most paradoxically overshadows all others, is whether our victory will be used for the purpose of forbidding a large part of the human race to try a great social experiment, the experiment of industrial, as distinct from political democracy, based upon the abolition of private property. For three quarters of a century schools of Socialistic thought, both French and German (for we are apt to forget that the Socialism which we regard as " made in Ger- many " came originally from France), have promul- gated the doctrine that *' property is theft." Bol- shevist Russia has put that doctrine into practice, and declared that none participating in that theft can share in the government of the Russian state. At present writing we are showing a disposition to take the line that this exclusion of the property-owning classes from any share in the government must be regarded as the repudiation of democracy. It may well be so. (The present writer happens to think so.) We seem (for no one is clear at present just why our troops are fighting the Russians) to have taken the ground that we shall wage war as relent- lessly upon these attempts to put the older French Socialist doctrines into practice, as upon Kaiserism itself.

Again that may be entirely wise. But we must admit that it is a very large question: as deep and fundamental as any which can affect the future of human society. It is indeed a decision as to the kinds of human society which will be permitted on

[xi]

this earth. Two questions stand out with reference to it.

Was this decision — as great and vital a one as any that has been put before men since the Reforma- tion, or the winning of political rights — arrived at by democratic processes? Did the peoples come to it after full discussion, with a full knowledge of the facts and issues involved? Or was it decided for them, without their knowledge, by their govern- ments? Mr. Wilson has declared "that this is a people's war, not a statesmen's. Statesmen must fol- low the clarified common thought or be broken." " Assemblies and associations of many kinds," he continued, " made up of plain workaday people have demanded, almost every time they came together, and are still demanding, that the leaders of their Govern- ments declare to them plainly what it is, exactly what it is, that they are seeking in this war, and what they think the items of the final settlement should be."

Has the necessary democratic condition here indi- cated been adhered to in the matter of vast decisions involved in the Russian policy?

There can be no doubt as to the answer. The Allied democracies awoke one morning to find that they were at war with Russia and that their armies were invading that country. The decision had been made and carried out in the profoundest secrecy by the governments, without reference to democratic sanc- tion. President Wilson at an earlier period had — so we were given semi-officially to understand — strongly opposed the policy of intervention, but was later overruled by the pressure of certain European

[xii]

associates. That statement has been freely made In the English press ; but no one really knows the truth. We are not permitted to know. Three persons In America have, since the invasion of Russia, been sen- tenced to twenty years' Imprisonment for urging resistance to American participation therein.

The Bolshevist rulers are traitors and assassins. Possibly; It does not dispose of the question which Bolshevism puts to our generation, any more than the crimes of the Terror disposed of the question which the French revolution raised for mankind. The League of Nations, formed after the last great world war a century ago decided that political experi- ments like that tried by France should be forbidden in the name of humanity and public order. As a matter of fact, political republicanism had proven itself at the first French experiment a cruel and blood-thirsty monster, and but for the fact that the game of high politics happened to make maritime England an opponent of the Holy Alliance, the ex- periment of republicanism in Europe and in the Spanish colonies of this continent — which covered the greater part of it — would not have been per- mitted. For about a century those experiments stood the test of order, peace, security, freedom and democracy about as successfully as Russian Bolshev- ism stood it during one year. From Mexico, through the Caribbean to Patagonia, revolution after revolution. Interspersed with military dictatorship, " tyranny tempered by assassination," was until yes- terday the rule. Only now, after many generations, is order and democracy emerging. Certainly, dur-

[xiii]

Ing those early struggles for independence against Spain revolting colonies would have regarded as comic the suggestion that parties openly defending the old royal order should be allowed political participation in the state. Even in the revolting American colonies, now the United States, the loyal- ists were driven out, expropriated and defranchised.

These considerations are no more an attempt to excuse, still less justify, the abominable crimes of Bolshevism, than a protest against lynching and its abominations is an excuse for negro rape. Are we lynching Bolshevism or giving it a fair hearing?

The Bolshevists themselves are proof of the in- effectiveness of repression. A great part of the power of the state during generations in Czarist Russia was devoted to stamping out revolutionary, socialist and communist doctrines. With the result that Russia is finally given into the hands of its ex- tremest revolutionary elements, infected with a virus that could only have developed in the dark of cellars and prisons. Had Bolshevism been openly discussed in Russia during a generation; had the Bolshevists been obliged to submit their measures to the discus- sions of a free Duma, had a literate people been able to see in detail just what those measures meant, Bol- shevism would not today occupy in Russia the place that it undoubtedly does. And if a similar terror arises in Germany, it will be because in that country also, despite — perhaps on account of — the drilling and discipline, there has been absent any really free discussion, or training of the people In the making of sane decisions in political matters.

[xiv]

Are we to learn nothing from this? Are we our- selves to adopt the very methods of repression and violence which have produced these evils in Russia and in Germany? That repression and violence need not be governmental. The self-imposed cen- sorship which the unconscious impulse of partisan- ship imposes suffices to deprive a great public of the capacity for balanced decision.

It is today at least disturbing, to read in the par- ticularly sober and moderate New York Nation ^ the following :

For several weeks the American public was kept in a state of agitation by reports of a " general massacre of all the upper classes" of Russia on the night of November lO. " It will be another Saint Bartholomew's night," said the dispatches; and the innocent bourgeois population of un- happy Russia was reported to be " in a panic of indescrib- able proportions." The hideous affair was pre-described, commented upon editorially, and, save for the practical de- tails of execution, carried through by the press before the fateful day arrived. On November 7, it was announced that the " Russian Ambassador " at Washington had com- municated with the State Department " proposing that the Bolsheviki and the German agents be held personally re- sponsible for the massacre before an international court." On November 11, the day after the " massacre," an obscure note appeared in one New York paper, the World announc- ing in its headline that the " threat of massacre seems to have been a fake." Saint Bartholomew's night apparently passed without incident, and the only action of the Bolsheviki which might mark the occasion was a general order " giving am- nesty to all arrested hostages and persons alleged to be in- volved in plots against the Soviets except those whose deten-

1 Nov. 24, 1918.

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tion is deemed necessary as a guarantee for the security of the Bolsheviki who have fallen into enemy hands." Not one newspaper copied this report. Having accomplished the massacre it might have seemed inconsistent to bring the dead to life, as well as weakening to the lavishly-documented case against the Bolsheviki.

Our neighbour the New Republic asks who is respon- sible for the lies about Russia which are being so system- atically disseminated in this country. We should like to amplify the question and ask who is responsible for all the particular lies about particular countries which appear in our press with such astonishing frequency. It would seem as if a master hand managed the lighting effects of the vast international stage. At a moment's notice any country in any part of the world, from Greenland to Patagonia, may appear upon our front pages as a paragon of virtue or a demon of wickedness.

When data are presented in that way what are the public judgments based upon them worth?

Consider the foregoing in the light of an appeal, addressed to Americans not long since by a cultivated Englishman, who for years has known Russia, and who has sympathetically tried to understand the Russian people. Arthur Ransome, in his " Open Letter to America " on the Russian Revolution, writes as follows :

It may be, that, knowing so little about America, I let my- self think too well of it. Perhaps there too men go about repeating easy lies, poisoning the wells of truth from simple lack of attention to the hygiene of the mind. I do not know. I only know that, from the point of view of the Russian Revolution, England seems to be a vast nightmare of blind folly, separated from the continent, indeed from the world,

[xvi]

by the sea, and beyond that by the trenches, and deprived, by some fairy godmother who was not invited to her chris- tening, of the imagination to realize what is happening be- yond. Shouting in daily telegrams across the wires from Russia I feel I am shouting at a drunken man asleep in the road in front of a steam roller. And then the newspapers of six weeks ago arrive, and I seem to see that drunk, sleep- ing fool make a motion as if to brush a fly from his nose, and take no further notice of the monstrous thing bearing steadily towards him. I love the real England, but I hate, more than I hate anything on earth (except cowardice in looking at the truth) the intellectual sloth, the gross mental indolence that prevents the English from making an effort of imagina- tion and realizing how shameful will be their position in his- tory when the story of this last year in the biography of demotracy comes to be written. How shameful, and how foolish . . . for they will one day be forced to realize how appalling are the mistakes they committed, even from the mere bestial standpoint of self-interest and expediency. Shameful, foolish and tragic beyond tears . . . for the toll will be paid in English blood. English lads will die and English lads have died, not one or two, but hundreds of thousands, because their elders listen to men who think little things, and tell them little things, which are so terribly easy to repeat. At least half our worst mistakes have been due to the underestimation of some person or force outside Eng- land, and disturbing to little men who will not realize that chaos has come again and that giants are waking in the world. They look across Europe and see huge things, mons- trous figures, and, to save themselves, and from respect for other little lazy minds, they leap for the easiest tawdry ex- planation, and say, " Ah yes, bogies made in Germany with candles inside turnip heads ! " And having found their miserable little atheistical explanation they din it into every- body, so that other people shall make the same mistakes, and they have company in folly, and so be excused. And in the end it becomes difficult for even honestminded, sturdy folk in England to look those bogies squarely in their turnip faces

(^xvii]

and to see that they are not bogies at all, but the real article, giants, whose movements in the mist are of greater import for the future of the world than anything else that is hap- pening in our day.^

The forces with which we are dealing cannot be destroyed. They can be rendered ferocious by re- pression, turned to the service of evil; but in essence they remain. The impulses behind Communism and Socialism, like those behind freedom and the polit- ical equality of men, are perpetually recurrent in man's attempt to organize his society. It serves no purpose to dismiss these socialist and communistic projects as mere chimera due to madness. Those most apt to take that view, the staunchest Tory de- fenders of the old order, themselves unintentionally adopt the most far-reaching socialistic principles in the measures which they take for the prosecution of war. It is the war itself which has pushed forward communistic policies further than half a century of mere socialistic propaganda could have done. It is the war which, in giving such supreme power to the state, has raised once more all the issues involved in this discussion. Those issues are not new. They are part of the problem of the relation of the individ- ual to society, of the conflict between individual rights and social obligation which is older than man himself, since the instinct we inherit from the herd and the flock enters into it.

These issues involve differences as profound as those which marked phases of human development

1 From the pamphlet, On Behalf of Russia, published by The Nenu Republic.

[xviii]

like the wars of religion ; difficulties as great as those which had to be overcome before we could achieve the establishment of religious toleration. Will de- mocracy, facing a new form of the old questions, re- peat the errors which led us so far astray in the prof oundest thing that touches us — religion ? Men mistook the passion of partisanship for the passion of righteousness. Not only did they refuse to hear two sides in rehgious matters, but they made it a crime so to do. They demanded that the state com- pel unquestioning acceptance of their rehgious creed. Shall we now insist that it is a crime to differ from the political creed of the state? Can democracy achieve wisdom, maintain self-discipline sufficient to be its own master and its own guide, if the old pas- sions of religious differences are transferred to the political field?

Any writer who has attempted to deal with the issues discussed in this book knows the need of asking those questions. The first impulse is to re- fuse consideration for the revolutionary point of view. That point of view may be wrong, but behind it are forces which, though they may be rationally directed, cannot be suppressed. To throw some light on the nature of those forces is the object of these pages.

[xix]

CONTENTS

Introduction: A Plea for Facing the Facts . vii

PART I THE CONCERN OF AMERICA

CHAPTER I The Relation to the Peace Settlement ... 3

The scant interest shown by the American people as a whole in the recent social movements of Europe. Yet the force of those movements will deeply influence the character of the peace settlement and the accomplishment •f those political ends for which America entered the war. The fashion in which the social revolution is pushing the political and national issues into the background, and how the issue of a social system based on private property versus one based on communism is determining the align- ment of forces in Europe. For what kind of democracy will the world be made safe?

CHAPTER II The Arrival of the Problem in America ... 36

The growth of radically socializing policies throughout the world is not due to socialist propaganda, or the in- fluence of socialists, but to the war measures of govern- ments often anti-socialist in opinion and intention. Thuf the introduction of extremely radical policies into America is not the work of the Socialist Party, or the I. W. W., but results from the actual measures of the government for war purposes. These revolutionary measures, which could never have been introduced by Socialist influence, have actually been put into effect, and the question which will shortly present itself to the American public is "Which of these measures shall be undone?" and out of that question may arise, with the changes wrought by war conditions, a re-alignment of political forces, as in England. The British problems are already here.

PART II

BRITISH LABOUR PROGRAMMES AND THE FORCES BEHIND THEM

CHAPTER I What Is the British Labour Party? .... 53

Historical outline of the Party; its constituent elements. Its position in the ebb and flow of present party reorgan- ization in England. The general question of political action by trade-union forces in England. The gradual disappearance of " abtolute " socialism in Europe, and the substitution for cast iron dogmas a general socializing tendency in radical political programmes. Socialism and Democracy; "Socialism versus the State." French syn- dicalism, British guild socialism, Bolshevism, and im- possibilism in Labour politics. The English Parliamen- tary system and comparison with the American Constitu- tion.

:hapter II

The Proposed Measures 92

The outstanding measures proposed by the sub-commit- tee of the British Labour Party in their report on Recon- struction. The means to the end. Features iu a pro- gramme of the L»Dshury-H erald group.

CHAPTER III Is It Possible? 105

Most of the measures proposed are actually now in op- eration for the purposes of the war, and hLve given mate- rial results far in excess of anything which would have been thought possible in August, 1914. The feasibility of Collectivism, tested in material ^erms, has been demon- strated. What is now demanded is that that which can be done for purposes of war shall also be done for the purposes of peace. The political training and scientific spirit of the new Labour Party.

CHAPTER IV

The Ideal of a Real Democracy and "A New Social Order " 127

What is the feeling behind the declaration that the old order is done with, and that there will be no attempts to

patch it up, and that an entirely " New Social Order " must replace it? Mainly that mere improvement of the material condition of the workers, leaving unchanged their moral status as a servile class, will not suffice. The re- assertion of egalitarian ideas. The imponderabilia in the motive forces of Labour Politics. Why are some Social- ists lukewarm towards or hostile to the war? The emer- gence of reactionary forces in war time. State Socialism not synonymous with Freedom: nor with Peace. Will a more socialized order necessarily make for a warless world? The relation of Socialiiim to internationalism^

CHAPTER V

Military Conscription and the Institution of

Private Property 159

The fashion in which the needs of war have prompted a reassertion of the absolute rights of the state over the person — his life and mind — is modifying age-long con- ceptions of private property. Confiscation, conscription of wealth and the Eighth Commandment. Not repudia- tion, but a progressive income tax. The virtual bank- ruptcy of some of the belligerent states and its effect on fu- ture legislation. Necessitas. . . .

CHAPTER VI The Spirit of Adventure in Social Change . .178

The end of the old fatalism which implies that we must " take the world as we find it," and that we cannot re- make it Some of the results that we may expect from the cheapening of life, the contempt of danger, the re-cast- ing of moral standards, and the spirit of revolution which the war has produced. The " strenuous life " in times of peace, and its social and political implications.

PART III THE DANGERS

CHAPTER I A Society of Free Men or the Servile State? . 189

The greater the degree of socialization, the more de- pendent does the individual become upon the community. Unless this increased power of the community is used with

restraint and wisdom, the new order may be wrecked by the crushing of the individual personality on which in the long run society depends. A social order which comes into being as the result of war measures is likely to be strongly marked by coercive tendencies. If it is not to be in truth the Servile State, the indulgence of present tendencies must be checked by a clear recognition of their danger. Do we love oppression and coercion for their own sake? What present methods might mean, if employed by a Labour government.

CHAPTER II The Herd and Its Hatred of Freedom .... 236

The deep-seated hatred of those who have the insuffer- able impudence to disagree with us is one of the strong- est and most constant motives in history, often ruthlessly over-riding economic and other considerations, yet sel- dom taken into account. The motive has strong biological justification, but like other instincts of self-preservation may destroy us if yielded to indiscriminately without fore- sight of consequences. How the social machinery of mod- ern society tends to develop this herd feeling. Two essays for war time: "The Problem of Northcliffe "; and " De Haeretico Comburiendo, or ' Now is not the time.* "

CHAPTER III Why Freedom Matters 263

Our age long failures to grasp the real justification of freedom: Society's need. The self-same debate in Ath- ens two thousand five hundred years ago. The oppres- sions from which the mass have suffered have always been imposed by themselves. The idea that a tiny mi- nority, by means of physical force, can impose tyranny upon the mass, is obviously an illusion. Tha. tyranny must be imposed by capturing the mind of the mass. The quality of any Society depends upon the ideas of the indi- viduals who compose it, and those ideas upon Freedom and independence of judgment. The Political Heretic as the Saviour of Society.

APPENDICES

Text of the Report of the British Labour Party

ON Reconstruction 297

Text of " Lansbury-Herald " Proposal . . .315

PART I THE CONCERN OF AMERICA

THE BRITISH REVOLUTION

AND

THE AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

CHAPTER I

THE RELATION TO THE PEACE SETTLEMENT

The scant interest shown by the American people as a whole in the recent social movements of Europe. Yet the force of those move- ments will deeply influence the character of the peace settlement and the accomplishment of those political ends for which America entered the war. The fashion in which the social revolution is pushing the political and national issues into the Background, and how the issue of a social system based on private property versus one based on communism is determining the alignment of forces in Europe. For what kind of democracy will the world be made safe?

How much space have the great American dally papers devoted to the Report on Reconstruction adopted by the British Labour Party? Has even one at this moment of writing, six months after Its publi- cation, reproduced it in full, or analyzed it with any care? Has it been noticed at all in the American Press outside of special radical weekly publications? However that may be, it is pretty certain that not one hundredth part of the space has been devoted to it that has been devoted to such world shaking questions as the retention of Dr. Muck as the con- ductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, or Mr.

[3]

Creel's remarks concerning certain Congressmen. Yet in the minds of very many who have followed most closely the social and political developments of recent years in Europe, this document may very well prove to be what it professes to be, the charter of an entirely new social order; the proclamation of a revolution. By " revolution " be it noted, is not meant machine guns at street corners, nor anything resembling a military movement against the govern- ment.^ The word is used in the sense in which we speak of the industrial revolution — the coming of " the New Social Order " as the Labour Party Com- mittee themselves term it. It is not likely to come by violence, but it will be none the less revolutionary — a " turn over " — for all that. For it will affect

1 As long ago, however, as the summer of 1917 the London Times, through the articles of its " special commissioner," begaa to speak of "the ferment of Revolution." Its commissioner (Sep- tember 25) wrote:

"There exists at the present moment a revolutionary movement in this country which has gathered considerable momentum; it has long passed the stage of mere talk, and has realized itself in formidable action. There has been no attack on the Throne, no rioting in the streets, no destruction of visible property; but changes have been already brought about which are thwarting the efforts of Government to conduct the war with efficiency, and if these changes go further they will bring the country into confusion."

The paper comments editorially:

" The facts set out in these articles are no news to the Govern- ment or to the official heads of trade unionism, but their cue has always been to turn a blind eye, and, when that is impossible, to minimize the extent of the mischief and soothe the public with ' optimistic ' assurances, which the public are always ready to swallow. That policy is natural, and up to a point defensible; but when the result is a continued and rapid increase of the evil on lines that promise no decline but certain development into a national danger, then it is time to adopt a different policy.

"The central fact is that behind the meaningless and stupid term 'labour unrest' lies a conscious revolutionary movement which aims at the complete overthrow of the existing economic and social order, not in some uncertain future, but here and now."

[4]

our most fundamental conceptions, touching such things as the institution of private property, the real nature of democracy, the rights of the individual and the power of the community, — the character of hu- man society in fact.

" The war of Nations," * writes Frederic Har- rison, " is being entangled with, is merging into, the war of Class : about sovereignty, ranks, upper and lower Orders ; but essentially, between those who hold Capital and those who Work with their hands. Na- tional wars, as we see, unite men in nations: class wars suppress the spirit of nationality, for they her- ald what Socialists promise as the grander form of Patriotism, the brotherhood of labourers. At the opening of the great European War Democracy was appealed to, and nobly it answered the call in the name of the Nation. But now, in this fourth year of war, we see all over Europe how democratic pa- triotism is expanding into the new Industrial Order which dreamers for two generations have imagined as the Social Revolution."

That Social Revolution will determine the polit- ical issues. Yet its nature and underlying forces are left all but undiscussed and unrepresented in the American press.

There are several causes contributing to that neglect. We get in the American press long quota- tions every day from the daily papers of Britain as representing " British " opinion. But for reasons of an economic order the British Labour Party, and the groups composing it, although they represent

^Fortnightly Reviev!, Jan., 1918.

[5]

perhaps the majority of the British population, do not possess a single daily paper. It thus happens that day after day during serious crises, we get voluminous expressions of " British opinion " from which possibly the largest section of all is excluded.

Let us note the relation of this Social Revolution of which Mr. Harrison speaks, to the accomplish- ment of the specific objects for which America en- tered this war.

What are those objects?

The President has repeatedly, both explicitly and implicitly, emphasized this fact: The establishment of a new international order is not for America, as it is for the other belligerents, something over and above special national objects. It Is in itself the ma- jor American purpose, since it is the condition sine qua non of the prevention of the particular abuses which caused her to enter the war; the condition of achieving any result whatsoever. Even though no League of Nations were established, France would secure the righting of the wrong of 1872; Italy would redeem her unredeemed fatherland, and so down the whole list of the European belligerents. But what would America get? Her belligerency on behalf of the freedom of future generations of Americans, the preservation of democracy In the world, is related in a more Intimate way than in the case of her European associates to the ending of an international order based upon competitive militarism.

A new international order as the outcome of the war might take one of three possible forms :

(i) A close alliance of the four chief allied

r6]

governments: America, Britain, France and Italy, imposing a general settlement arranged privately among themselves, that settlement covering such questions as the kind of govern- ment which shall be recognized (that Is, permit- ted) not only in Germany but In Russia, Poland, Ukrainia, Roumania, Bohemia, Serbia, etc. Such an Alliance would be an organ of coercion for securing the observance of the settlement, territorial and other, which it might make, using perhaps its military forces in such cases as Russia, but more frequently Its power through control of food, shipping and raw material.

(2) A Socialist International definitely aligned against the League of Governments just described. The International would stand for the Soviets, for complete industrial democracy in Russia or Germany, or anywhere else that such experiments might be tried.

(3) A Liberal League of Nations of the Wilson type, embracing not only the four chief Allied belligerents but the lesser states, the enemy states, and the neutrals as well. Its main activities would be, not repressive and co- ercive, aimed at compelling observance of an imposed status quo, but legislative. It would aim not so much at enforcing peace through the power of a few great governments, as at making constitutional provision for changes in the conditions which lead to war, creating for that purpose democratic machinery in the shape of an international legislature as truly reprc-

[7]

sentative as possible of the peoples. It would provide for change and development by constitutional means, removing the need for war as an instrument of change or growth. It would thus provide in the international field what every nation provides as a matter of course within its own borders. Its first task would be not so much that of policemen compelling ob- servance of ancient international laws, as of democratic law-makers devising better rules. The questions involved in these political alterna- tives cannot be answered without raising the funda- mental issue of the Social Revolution. Let us note how the development of governmental policy with reference to a certain political decision is now tend- ing to raise that issue.

After fairly definite declarations to the effect that there should be no military intervention in Russia for the purpose of interfering with the internal affairs of that country, we have intervened. The first justifica- tion was that the country was falling under the mili- tary domination of Germany. Russia's forces were aiding our enemy in war. But that enemy is now dis- armed. We still intervene. On what ground? It has not so far been stated. But there are several perfectly arguable grounds. It is undeniable that the Russian Revolutionary government has robbed milHons of honest Frenchmen of their savings. That money was not lent to Czardom for the pur- poses of oppression. With it, Russia has built rail- roads and docks — and steals them. More, the eco- nomic penetration of Russia by individual Germans

[8]

may place It dangerously under German influence. The possible creation of a new menace to western democracy may demand that that process of penetra- tion shall stop. Certain groups — monarchist, Cadet — which recently were turning to Germany for aid, are now believed to favour our intervention. It will, therefore, be far better for the future of de- mocracy — and Russian bonds — that the early steps of Russians in self-government and self-deter- mination should be guided by their elder brothers; the practical means to that end being the partition of the country between the great Allied powers for a prolonged military occupation. Japan, who has been to the forefront In the policy of Intervention, will of course shoulder her part of the White Man's Burden in its latest form, and In fitting the Slav race for democracy upon Western models.

That decision. If carried out, will of course neces- sarily mean that the future League of Nations will be of the Holy Alliance type. Just as the Congress of Peace which settled the last world war ended In a League of Nations (the phrase was current, by the way, at the Congress of Vienna) which decided to forbid experiments in political democracy as the enemy of public order (which In a sense they cer- tainly were) so the new Peace Congress may forbid experiments in new forms of democracy, based, as we regard it, upon theft, and threatening the peace and security of that form of political organization which we have developed during the nineteenth century. The Holy Alliance which followed the Congress of Vienna was initiated by a sincere, religious enthusi-

[9]

ast, for the declared purpose of maintaining world peace, which was presumed (rightly) to be incom- patible with political democracy as we now know it. The Peace of Vienna was broken, less by the dynasts who were honestly in favour of a peace which should crystallize the order in which they were the ruling element, than by revolting American colonies, pop- ular revolutions, and assertions of nationality.

But we know that that interpretation of " making the world safe for democracy " will not be accepted by great masses of the folk in Western Europe.

In the pages that follow some attempt is made to show why so many among the European peoples have ceased to attach much value to mere political democ- racy — control of their political government and destiny — and, as already noted, are insisting that democracy means the right to control their in- dustrial life and government, to determine their workaday conditions by control of the economic basis of the community's life — the means of production, distribution, exchange. This involves the right of the state to take private property and capital for social ends, as absolutely as it now, for instance, takes the life of the worker for its military purposes. Soviet Russia, in the application of this principle to practice, has asserted the right to exclude from its government all those who do not subscribe to its com- munistic principles. Just as England refuses to ac- cord the vote to those who will not fight for the state (conscientious objectors to the conscription of life), so Russia refuses to give the vote to those who resist the conscription of their wealth.

[lO]

That Interpretation of democracy we are for the time being resisting, and this issue has on both sides overridden the original causes of conflict. Note to what degree. The Nationalist parties in Russia, those whose sentiment of Slav national solidarity were such as to throw the protection of Russia over small Slav states endangered by the aggression of Germany, are the very parties who, in the border states, were the first to call in German aid to repel rival Russian parties who would upset the existing economic order. As between the Russian Bolshevik and the enemy German bourgeois, they chose the German bourgeois. The " Whites " of Ukrainia, like those of Finland, very readily allied themselves with Germans to fight Russians. The son of Leo Tolstoy begins an article in an American paper with these words: "I shall be glad for Russia when the Germans take Petrograd. It w'ill finish the Bolsheviki." Professor Miliukoff himself went to Kieff to come to an alliance with the Germans. The parties whom we are now supporting in Ukraine and in Finland are those which have been notable for their readiness to co-operate with the Germans in resistance to the Russian Bolsheviks. But the most striking illustration of all is of course the clause in the armistice conditions which demands that the Ger- man troops shall remain in the border states " until the internal conditions permit of their withdrawal." Their withdrawal now would be the signal for Bol- shevik capture of power. As these lines are be- ing written the American newspapers contain dis- patches rejoicing at the defeat of Bolsheviks by

[11]

troops commanded by German officers. We are allied with Germans against Russians. The orig- inal alignment of forces by nations — Germany versus Russia — has disappeared and has been re- placed by an alignment based on class and party. To make the demonstration complete is the fact men- tioned in one of the dispatches that the Soviet troops are largely officered by German ex-prisoners — pri- vates made officers by the Russian Soviets. These Germans, leading Russians, are now fighting their own ex-officers leading Russians. We are in alli- ance with Russo-German bourgeois and imperialists against Russo-German republicans and Socialists.

The situation may be unavoidable, and wise poli- tics. I am not discussing the merits of the thing, only calling attention to the facts, which we do not sufficiently face.

The suppression of Soviet government in Russia and establishment of order will not be a simple mat- ter ; obviously it will be extremely difficult. And we shall have to deal not only with Russia, but with con- flicts in most of the small independencies which we have created — in Poland, Ukrainia, Jugo-Slavia. Already Poland is at war with Ukrainia, and Jugo- Slavia in violent disagreement with Italy. And in addition to controlling these numerous small inde- pendencies there is the problem of controlling So- cialist Germany.

The German problem has also entirely changed in character. It is no longer a problem of suppressing autocratic militarism, but of dealing with an auto- cratic Socialism. Germany has omitted the phase of

[12]

political democracy In her development, and jumped in a day from political autocracy to what may well prove to be a proletarian dictatorship of socialist principles. Germany may well so develop as to become the natural ally of Soviet Russia. We face a Russo-German Socialist alliance.

It may be part of the German evil which has cursed the world that the German people have shown three qualities in highly developed degree : discipline, pushed to the point of docility, in submission to the constituted order whatever it may happen to be (Hin- denburg seemed to obey a German Soviet as readily as, a week previously, he had obeyed his mediaeval emperor) ; cohesion as a racial and national group, and capacity for organization.

We have thus a solid Germanic block soon to number a hundred million, influencing a Russian block as large, and thrust into the midst of smaller and often mutually antagonistic states. In fact, one result of the break-up of Russia and Austria may be to make Germany (plus German Austria) the most powerful racially-unified group on the Continent. More than one military critic has expressed the opin- ion that Germany will be relatively stronger after the war than she was before ! Such a Germany would be able to manipulate the mutual antagonisms of her lesser neighbours in order to secure for herself the aid of one against another. That game has been played endlessly In history.

What then is the political outlook?

Suppose we manage to repress Bolshevism in our states. It will be by means of increasing the central

[13]

authority and the repressive character of our govern- ments, making them military, " Prussian." That means bringing into power everywhere in the west- ern states those parties that are Nationalistic in tem- per and outlook. We need not stop now to examine why parties that support militarist and repressive forms of government should also be Nationalist, Chauvinist. It suffices for the moment that it hap- pens to be the case. Between Nationalism, Militar- ism and Chauvinism there Is a close casual relation- ship. Note where the fact lands us.

There seems a possibility that Germany may break Into several states. As the result of what forces? Of the coming of Bolshevism to power In Berlin and other northern cities. But assume Bol- shevism Is suppressed. It will be by virtue of the coming to power of a strong National government, resting on the appeal of the National tradition. And then the German solidarity — and German menace — will remain. If we have to deal with Bolshevism by repression exercised through strongly centralized nationalistic governments we have not destroyed the specific danger It was the object of the war to dispose of.

A large number of lesser states endowed with military, Nationalist and Chauvinist governments means the perpetuation of the old rivalries and an- tagonisms. What situation does that leave In Europe?

It has taken four years of war fully to push home to our consciousness — if indeed it can be said to

[14]

have done it yet — the almost self-evident truth that in the case of a war fought by a large alliance made up of all sorts and conditions of nations, success de- pends, not alone upon the possession of ample mili- tary force by each separate state (although that is ab- solutely necessary) but also upon the capacity to com- bine those forces to a common purpose, to employ them to a common end. If incompatibility of aim splits the Alliance, or even prevents complete co- operation, the very power created to give us victory may be used to make it impossible.

Mere military preparedness could not improve the situation to our advantage. The defection of Rus- sia from the Alliance and her political collapse, would not have been prevented by the fact of pos- sessing more military power. That might have made the consequences worse. If, for instance, the stores of military material which were ready for shipment had actually reached Russia in 19 17, American troops might have been killed by Ameri- can guns and shells. (It may well now be happen- ing.) In the same way it will serve Httle purpose to resuscitate the military power of Russia, if her politi- cal development results in her becoming a future ally of Germany.

The forces behind the military disasters we have actually had to face as the result of the Russian collapse, and the dangers we may have to face as the result of pro-Prussian development of Russian pol- icy, are moral, social, economic. Those forces will determine the policy which will direct the military

[15]

power. It is not alone the gun which mutters but the direction in which it shoots. And that is determined by policy.

It is of the utmost importance to get clearly in our minds the outstanding difference between our- selves and the enemy. During the war he managed to achieve unity of a kind by virtue of historical and geographical circumstances. His alliance was com- posed of a group of states geographically contiguous with one member of it so predominant in power — military, political and economic — as to be able to impose so long as the alliance lasted at least unity of policy and direction. Our alliance was made up of a much larger number of states, not grouped together, but scattered over the face of the world, sepa- rated by great differences of national character and interest, and not dominated by the preponderant power of one member able by simple virtue of that power, autocratically to impose a single policy and aim. And If we are to achieve a unification as ef- fective as that of the enemy It must be by virtue of voluntary co-operation — a democratic internation- alism. Such a process is much more difficult and cumbrous than the autocratic method, and apt to be much less Immediately efficient. But it is all that is left to us, and whatever its difficulty we must em- bark on It. It is our failure to do this in sufficient degree which in the past has given, and will in the future give, the enemy his one great chance of suc- cess.^

^ Lord Robert Cecil, the British Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, in a public address said : " We have got to pool

[i6]

Now the prevailing idea seems to be that unity will be maintained if we don't speak rudely of one another or recriminate over reverses. But unity is not achieved merely by good intention. No one of the Allies wanted to quarrel with Russia, and we were very scrupulous early in the war about not say- ing rude things concerning the Czar. But we see now that we should have had a better chance of un- derstanding the Revolution, and of guiding its course, if we had reconciled ourselves to a few home truths about the Czarist regime. So with Italy. A little frank counsel about the conditions of the treaty of April, 19 1 5, might have very greatly accelerated the line taken three years later. No one wants to offend either Russia or Japan at this juncture. We have the best of feelings towards both. Yet a fatal dis- unity, resulting in a permanent Russo-German Alli- ance may come out of the best intentions; it may result equally from our action or our want of action in the matter of intervention. So with Anglo-Ameri- can relations today. How many Americans realize that just as Russian Socialism was unwittingly

all our resources. ... In this and many other matters we are fighting under a certain disadvantage. Our enemies have been content to enslave themselves to the German general staff. That gives* them a certain unity of control, a certain perfection of ma- chinery, which it is difficult for us to imitate. For, after all, the essential part of our struggle is that we are free nations, that we claim the right to decide, each for ourselves, what is necessary in the interests of the general cause. ... I do not myself wish it otherwise. I am satisfied that with all its inconveniences it give* us a spiritual strength which ultimately will secure victory for us over the enemy. But if we are to succeed despite our freedom we must be prepared to scrap national prejudice, national sentiment, and even I would say, national interests. That is essential if we really propose to make the best use of the strength we have." (Reported in New York Times, Sept. 3, 1918.)

[17]

alienated by the Western democracies in 1917, large sections of European Radicalism, particularly Brit- ish, French and Belgian, have come to regard Ameri- can organized labour with, to say the least, a certain coolness and that (as the American Delegation which visited the British Labour Leaders in May of this year admitted on their return) a very considerable gulf has revealed itself as existing between the or- ganized Labour forces of America and Western Europe. Certainly that was not intended. It is not by disregarding divergences of aim that they are reconciled. If it be true that Russia is deeply suspici- ous of Japan, we shall not dispel that suspicion or escape its consequences by pretending it does not ex- ist. Just in that way did our government deal with certain facts of the Russian situation before the Revolution.

A month or so before the Czar was deposed a British government commission, including promi- nent members of the government, was in Russia in- vestigating conditions. They came to the conclu- sion— and reported — that nothing in the way of a serious uprising was to be expected, a conclusion from which, it is rumoured, only one member of the party — a young and obscure attache — seems to have dissented. Members of the mission, rather ostentatiously, went out of their way to approve the Czarist regime. We now know indeed that the Rus- sian government itself did not believe in the pos- sibility of wide-spread action against it. This also is in keeping with precedent. The French King

D8]

wrote in his diary on the night of the fall of the Bastille: " Rien." Nothing had really happened in his opinion. And when the Russian revolution finally did come, the Western Allies adopted the gen- eral method of preventing contact with those ele- ments in their own states most sympathetic to it. If the Revolutionists desired to meet the Socialists of the more thorough-going type they were offered Lord Milner. Aggressive American Radicalism was represented by Mr. Elihu Root. And we seemed to imagine that this kind of policy would in some way attach the Revolutionary parties in Rus- sia to the general cause of the Alliance. When the Revolution began to follow the course that most such upheavals have followed, we merely shouted that the extremists were selling out to the Germans. Lenine and Trotsky were enemy agents. Possibly. In that case we should have examined more carefully the forces which they would be likely to use. We did not have the patience to examine those forces. In our attitude towards international socialism we seem to follow the familiar curve of conduct toward heretical theories or principles. First we deride them as silly or unpracticable, then we declare fehem to be dangerous, shameful, or immoral. Then we at- tempt suppression. That suppression renders vio- lent and anti-social, emotions which a little wisdom might have made socially useful and fertile. Finally, after sterile conflicts and much avoidable damage we pretend that we always more or less held these views, proceed to give some recognition to them and to or-

[19]

ganize them for our purposeis. It is the story of all heresies from early Christianity to modern feminism. The part of wisdom is to see how we can accelerate the process, short-circuit it, and come as soon as possible to the stage of organization.

The unity of our scattered democracies cannot be based upon the sheer suppression — or misrepre- sentation — of the moral forces represented in the social revolution. There is but one way to handle them : to try and understand them and to give them constitutionally organized expression, by deliberately endowing our international institutions with organs for such expression. Because of the very lack of docility in our democracies, the policy of repression as a means of insuring unity must fail. If we cannot allow Stockholm conferences of socialists then our official conferences must duly provide for the expres- sion of the opinion of all parties, just as our national legislatures do.

The British Labour Party is relatively a vastly more powerful body today than were the revolution- ary parties of Russia in 191 6. It is in close co-opera- tion with hardly less powerful labour and socialist bodies in France and Italy. These inter-Allied forces stand in common for a certain programme. They desire to come into contact with American labour and socialist forces. And not only is every- thing done to prevent real contact between the radical elements in the various countries (which are not pro-German or anti-war elements, as the programme of the Inter-Allied Labour and Socialist Conference :n London proves) but we indulge in what is, in fact,

[20]

reciprocal misrepresentation and deception. The delegation expressly chosen by the Conference (of February 25th, 191 8) representing the immense pre- ponderance of the labour and socialist parties in Britain, France, Belgium and Italy is discour- aged or prevented from visiting America. But there is sent to America, as representative of Brit- ish Labour, a delegation which the British Labour Party repudiates. There goes from America a dele- gation from which is carefully excluded just those elements in American radical opinion that favour the European Labour attitude. The attempt is thus made to keep from both European and American public opinion a knowledge of the real nature of the European movement — just as was done in the case of the Russian Revolution. American Labour as represented by the American Federation of Labour, is led to intervene in British politics by supporting one particular party in British Labour politics as against another — but to support the party which most certainly is not destined to come to power.

We are creating, by such methods, just the kind of misunderstanding and conflict which detached the Russian democracy from the cause of the war. Thus we find the Chairman of the American Labour Mis- sion which visited England in May last, giving on his return, interviews to the Press, in which he is reported as saying:

" There are In England, certain classes of people who term themselves ' leaders of labour ' who are, in reality, not working men, but members of a labour political party "...

[21]

[He referred, he said, to Mr. Arthur Henderson and his as- sociates]. " We had opportunities to speak to thousands of working men in shipyards, munition plants, and railroad shops. We found that in all cases the policy of the Ameri- can Federation of Labour, that no representative of Ameri- can labour should meet in conference with representative workers of enemy countries so long as the war lasts, was received with cheers and practically unanimous approval. . . . The labourers of Great Britain are organizing a new political party. A convention is scheduled for sometime in June and under the terms of the call none but workers will be permitted to be affiliated with this new body. The French workingmen are bothered, as are the British, by politicians connected with the Socialist party. The majority of the French Socialists are in accord with the policy of the Amer- ican Federation of Labour. . . ."

The newspaper report adds : " The chairman of the Mission said he believed that many of the French agitators who bothered labour were tools of Ger- man propagandists, and that some had been dis- covered to be in the pay of the Germans." ^

1 Professor Arthur O. Lovejoy of Johns Hopkins University, who accompanied the mission, writes: "In one important particular, the activities of the American labour delegates in England and France are open to some legitimate criticism. Their tone and manner, or at least the tone and manner of their chairman, in dealing with those with whom they differed were often needlessly brusque, harsh and unconciliatory. The suaviter in modo is ap- parently not considered an essential in American trade union diplomacy. And they seemed to me in their public utterances to give too little specific emphasis to the more constructive parts of President Wilson's programme of war aims, to which, however, in general terms, they gave unqualified support. Concerning the hope of preventing future wars and future acts of international injustice by the establishment of a genuine Society of Nations, the spokesmen abroad of the American Federation of Labor had ap- parently little to say. Yet this, surely, is the supreme hope and object of America in the war. It is also the only hope which can in the long run be relied upon to keep the labouring masses of the Allied countries steadfast through the immeasurable sacrifices

[22]

The meaning of the interview can hardly be mis- i.i::erpreted: British Labour is not represented by the British Labour Party, nor French Socialism by the party of which men like Albert Thomas were the leaders. This of course, is in accordance with the known views — many times expressed — of Mr. Gompers, the President of the American Federation of Labour who nominated the Mission.

Now the American Labour Leaders may have, as the result of three weeks passed in England, a very penetrating vision into the future of British politics. Their judgment as to which party in Brit- ish Labour politics is likely to come to power may be very much better than that of men like Arthur Henderson who have passed a long life in British Labour organization, and the British Parliament, and have been members of a British War Cabinet. But imagine for the sake of argument that these Ameri- can Labour representatives, standing, in the eyes of

which the war imposes upon them. It is not by an endless reitera- tion of the phrases ' German autocracy ' and ' making the world safe for democracy ' that the plain man can be steeled to endure all things for the sake of defeating the German military power. His very hatred and weariness of the war must be made into motives for continuing it until mankind can win adequate guar- anties against the recurrence of these abominations. ' Never again!' is the battle cry that touches most deeply the general heart. And such a cry, while it directs attention to the urgent political task of organizing an effective League of Nations — and of beginning its organization no^r — does not tend to direct at- tention from the hard military necessities of the moment. For there is no argument easier to make clear to the man of plain common sense than that which shows it to be the first pre-condition to the establishment of a secure, just and peaceful international order, that the arch-enemies of such an order shall be defeated, discredited by disaster, and rendered powerless to convert human society a second time into the thing of horror that it now is." — Se<w Republic, June 15, 1918.

[23]

the British working classes for the American govern- ment, have misjudged forces and that in the near future some of the men so bluntly criticized by the Chairman of the American Mission as politicians and theorists become once more (what they were just re- cently) members or supporters of the British govern- ment, and perhaps this time, its predominant ele- ment.

And imagine, on the other hand, a situation in which that party in British Labour politics, particu- larly lauded by the American mission, are the de- feated party, in opposition to the British government. It would hardly make for the solidarity of the Anglo- American democracy.

It Is not here a mere question of whether British and French Socialists shall confer with German So- cialists, directly in a Stockholm Conference, or do so through a Swedish or Dutch Socialist. An Ameri- can commentator puts It in these terms:

" The British Labour Party, In their magnani- mous effort to rise to the challenge of the new world, not unreasonably counted upon the sympathetic un- derstanding and encouragement of the organized labour movement of democratic America. But their hopes in this quarter have been disappointed. Their programme was Implicitly repudiated by the Thirty- eighth Annual Convention of the American Federa- tion of Labour which adjourned in St. Paul last week. Its authors were denounced as theorists and poli- ticians, more Interested In maintaining their political positions than In solving trade union problems. The Convention decided to adhere to Its traditional al-

[24]

legiance to pure and simple trade unionism on the apparent theory that the interests of organized la- bour are essentially distinct from the larger demo- cratic interests of the nation, and that the responsi- bility of American labour leaders properly begins and ends with the vested interests of the present and prospective dues-paying membership of the trade unions. If this theory were sound, if the interests of labour were separate and distinct from the larger in- terests of our democracy, the decisions of the Ameri- can Federation would be nobody's legitimate con- cern but its own. But the theory is not sound. I^ the new world that is to follow in the wake of the war is to be a democratic world, it is inevitable that the labour movement should be at its very heart and driving centre. If the leadership of the labour movement is caste-bound and untouched by the larger democratic idealism that is stirring in the world today, it will be a drag upon democracy and an effective ally of the forces of Tory reaction." ^

Speaking of recent tendencies in the elections of officials in the American Federation of Labour, the same paper declares that:

" If the election of these labour Tories means any- thing it means that the policy of pure and simple trade unionism is rapidly going to seed. Worse than this, it means that at the end of the war, when the support of the radical minority will in all like- lihood be withdrawn from Mr. Gompers, not the earnest and sincere conservatives who under Mr. Gompers' able leadership have built up the American

1 The New Republic.

trade union movement, but the office-seeking labour politicians, men without idealism or social vision of any kind, will be in the ascendant. The prospect of this possibility is a matter of grave and legitimate concern, not only to the dues-paying membership of the Federation, but equally to all forward-looking and sincere democrats. By standing pat on their out- worn policy of pure and simple trade unionism the present leaders of American labour are not only jeopardizing their leadership within the organized labour movement, but are also forswearing that larger leadership to which the new world beyond the war is calling them."

The matter goes very much deeper than differences of this kind. The Radical of the Allied Democra- cies has come to the conclusion that the changing of the existing social system is part of the object of the war itself; that a change in the status of the French and British peoples is as much a " war aim " as a change in the status of the Alsatians, Czecho-Slovaks or Dalmatians, and that that part of the settlement will greatly affect the future alignment of the States and peoples. This aim was not, it is true, among the original objects of the war, but it is now recog- nized that it has become the indispensable condition of the complete achievement of the original objects: real freedom and lasting peace.

A popular, possibly preponderant, American view of the scope and objects of the war, is that when the kaiser has been " canned " and Germany thoroughly licked, we shall all go back to the old world which we knew roughly in 19 14. It is an erroneous and

[26]

naTve conception. The European Is fully aware that if the war is to give results commensurate with the price that has been paid for it, it must result in a great deal more than the " canning of the Kaiser," and the Hcking of Germany. We might secure those things and yet have failed utterly to make the world safe for democracy, or our children secure from war and mihtary tyranny. The Western Democracies of Europe know too well how fatuous is the op- timism which would regard the defeat of Germany as synonymous with a free and warless world.

" War," writes Mr. Lowes Dickinson, " pro- ceeds from wrong ideas and wrong policies; in these ideas and policies all nations have been implicated; and this war will have been fought in vain unless it leads to a change of attitude in all governments and all peoples. This change, I agree, is most required in Germany, and may be most difficult to effect there. But there are, in all countries, traditions, prejudices, and illusions making for war." And it is these that must be destroyed.

These passions and illusions have their roots pene- trating deeply into the soil of an old social system. So long as that system remains as we have known it in Europe, dominated by the privileged position of a small economic autocracy possessing an influence and authority, which cause it to nurse pride of place, instincts of mastery, belief in force and successful rivalry — so long as this remains, the British democ- racy have come to feel, war will always threaten us. Vaguely and dimly it is being increasingly real- ized that many of the qualities developed by the old

[27]

competitive social system render war ultimately in- evitable. " Our institutions rest upon injustice and authority: it is only by closing our hearts against sympathy and our minds against truth that we can endure the oppression and unfairness by which we profit." ^ No secure world can be built on such foundations, however Germany be defeated.

The supreme paradox of our time is that this war fought for the purpose of giving us secure democ- racy and permanent peace, has developed forces which endanger those things, and which, unless rad- ically dealt with might well destroy them. If our economic system is to be based largely upon the com- petitive scramble for profits; our states to be under the influence of huge industrial and financial cor- porations seeking profits through foreign investment and the exploitation of foreign undeveloped terri- tory; if these corporations are to be grouped into a series of separate national organizations, drifting, through lack of agreement into competition the one with the other; if the individual self-assertion that is a necessary part of success in such an order is to be regarded as the prime social virtue, and if, together with all this, there are to be rival military organiza- tions on a vast scale — then further collective homi- cide is a certainty.

And forces rooted in the old social and economic system are already pushing us in that direction. Protectionist schemes, embodied in grandiose plans of a closed empire, or Imperial preference, and the State exploitation of the raw material of the de-

ifiertrand Russell, Why Men Fight.

[28]

pendencies, have already won great favour. With them are associated schemes of more complete mih- tarization than in the past. Already, both in Eng- land and the United States, we have demands for the introduction of a permanent system of compul- sory and universal military training, the advocacy of which is already accompanied with a disparagement of the very ideals of internationalism which both America and England proclaimed as their chief aim when they first entered the war.

In so far as this is a war for the destruction of militarism, it must be a war for the destruction of that part of the old social system in which militar- ism inheres. The very first paragraphs of the British Labour Party Report on Reconstruction makes this evident.

" The view of the Labour Party," says this report, " is that what has to be reconstructed after the war is not this or that Government Department, or this or that piece of social.machinery; but, so far as Brit- ain is concerned, society itself. The individual worker, or for that matter the individual statesman, immersed in daily routine — like the individual sol- dier in a battle — easily fails to understand the mag- nitude and far-reaching importance of what is taking place around him. How does it fit together as a whole? How does it look from a distance? Count Okuma, one of the oldest, most experienced and ablest of the statesmen of Japan, watching the present conflict from the other side of the globe, declares it to be nothing less than' the death of Euro- pean civilization. Just as in the past the civilizations

[29]

of Babylon, Egypt, Greece, Carthage, and the great Roman Empire have been successively destroyed, so, in the judgment of this detached observer, the civil- ization of all Europe is even now receiving its death- blow. We of the Labour Party can so far agree in this estimate as to recognize, in the present world catastrophe, if not the death in Europe of civiliza- tion itself, at any rate the culmination and collapse of a distinctive industrial civilization, which the workers will not seek to reconstruct. At such times of crisis it is easier to slip into ruin than to progress into higher forms of organization." That is the problem as it presents itself to the Labour Party to- day.

" What this war is consuming is not merely the security, the homes, the livelihood and the lives of millions of innocent families, and an enormous proportion of all the accumulated wealth of the world, but also the very basis of the peculiar social order in which it has arisen. The individualist system of capitalist produc- tion, based on the private ownership and com- petitive administration of land and capital, with its reckless 'profiteering' and wage-slavery; with its glorification of the unhampered struggle for the means of life and its hypocritical pre- tence of the ' survival of the fittest ' ; with the monstrous inequality of circumstances which it produces and the degradation and brutalization, both moral and spiritual, resulting therefrom, may, we hope, indeed have received a death- blow. With it must go the political system and [30]

ideas in which it naturally found expression. We of the Labour Party, whether in opposition or in due time called upon to form an Admin- istration, will certainly lend no hand to its re- vival. On the contrary, we shall do our utmost to see that it is buried with the millions whom it has done to death. If we in Britain are to escape from the decay of civilization itself, which the Japanese statesman foresees, we must ensure that what is presently to be built up is a new social order, based not on fighting, but on fraternity — not on the competitive struggle for the means of bare life, but on a deliberately planned co-operation in production and distri- bution for the benefit of all who participate by hand or by brain — not on the utmost possible inequality of riches, but on a systematic ap- proach towards a healthy equality of material circumstances for every person born into the world — not on an enforced dominion over sub- ject races, subject Colonies, subject classes or a subject sex, but, in industry as well as in gov- ernment, on that equal freedom, that general consciousness of consent, and that widest pos- sible participation in power, both economic and political, which is characteristic of democracy."

It is realized that this new world will not come of itself; that the democracies of Europe will have to fight for it against powerfully entrenched interests. Where will the American democracy stand in that fight? Will it join hands with the European dc-

[31]

mocracles in giving battle to the forces of the old order, or will it, through ignorance, or the blindness of war emotions, compound with these forces?

We must face the fact that there is a subtle yet deep division between the post-war psychology of the American and European peoples, due in part at least to the differing degrees of their sacrifice.

Mrs. Margaret Deland, writing from France of those who have " opened their windows towards the East," says:

" Their ' state of mind ' bids them look beyond the gathering darkness toward a Dawn. But they do not deny the terrors of the dark. During the hours before day- break may come — God knows what ! But whatever comes, it will be part of a process which will bring about an adjustment of the social order. It is probable, they say, that Gaston, with his hideous little gesture, will have a hand in it. This is their hope — a new Heaven and a new Earth; Chaos dragged from the throat of Civilization; our code of morals saved from the assault of an efficiency which would reinforce itself by polygamy ; the Idealism of Jesus preserved for our children's children! All this through Gaston's sur- gery. He accomplished, they say, a good deal in 1789. * But that which is coming,' said a Frenchman smiling, ' will be, for thoroughness, to 1789, as a Sunday picnic, as you call it.' Another of the Intellectuals put it in a way which would, I think, have appealed to Gaston:

" ' It will come,' said he, * the new world ! But first will come the world revolution. It has already begun in Russia. -After the Peace, Germany will explode, then England, then France, and then you people — with your imitation Democ- racy!'"

Perhaps the French leaning to the dramatic has a little to do with this. It is not necessary to

[32]

imagine a duplication of the Russian phantasmagoria in the Western Democracies. The point that con- cerns us is that this deep moral disturbance to which so many witnesses testify, will profoundly affect the character of the world after the war, its social com- position, as well as the changes on the map. If we would realize whither we are tending we must enter with some understanding Into the feeling of those who have suffered. If, as we proclaim so often, the fact of war, and the consecration of the youth of the world to death — to suffering it and to inflicting It — is certain to bring in its train a great moral revolution, that revolution must deeply affect the Reconstruction, the life that is to come after the war. If our easy generalizations on the moral im- plications of the soldier's life have any value at all, then that reconstruction will be the work of a trans- formed generation of men.

This relation of the temper created by the long years of war to the problems of the reconstruction, as well as the civilian refusal or failure to face it, Is sketched with bitter pessimism by an English of- ficer.

" It is very nice to be home again. Yet am I at home? One sometimes doubts it. There are occasions when I feel like a visitor among strangers whose intentions are kindly, but whose modes of thoyght I neither altogether understand nor altogether approve. You speak lightly, you assume that we shall speak lightly of things, emotions, states of mind, human relationships, and affairs which are to us solemn or terrible.

" I cannot dismiss as trivial the picture which 5^ou make to yourselves of war and the mood in which you contem- plate that work of art. They are an index of the temper

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in which you will approach the problems of peace. You are anxious to have a truthful account of the life of a soldier at the front. You would wish to enter, as far as human beings can enter, into his internal life, to know how he re- gards the tasks imposed upon him, how he conceives his relation to the enemy and to yourselves, from what sources he derives encouragement and comfort. You would wish to know these things; we should wish you to know them. Yet between you and us there hangs a veil. It is mainly of your own unconscious creation. It is not a negative, but a positive thing. It is not intellectual, it is moral. It is not ignorance, it is falsehood. I read your papers and listen to your conversation, and I see clearly that you have chosen to make to yourselves an image of war, not as it is, but of a kind which, being picturesque, flatters your appetite for novelty, for excitement, for easy admiration without troubling you with masterful emotions. You have chosen, I say, to make an image, because you do not like, or cannot bear the truth; because j'ou are afraid of what may happen to your souls if you expose them to the inconsistencies and contradictions, the doubts and bewilderments, which lie be- neath the surface of things. You are not deceived as to the facts; for facts of this order are not worth official lying. You are deceived as to the Fact.

" Perhaps I do you an injustice. But that intimation does seem to me to peep through some of your respectable para- graphs. As I read them, I reflect upon the friends who, after suffering various degrees of torture, died in the illusion that war was not the last word of Christian wisdom. And I have a sensation as of pointed ears and hairy paws and a hideous ape-face grinning into mine — sin upon sin, misery upon misery, to the end of the world.

" O gentle public, — for you were once gentle and may be so again, — put all these delusions from your mind. The reality is horrible, but it is not so horrible as the grimacing phantom which you have imagined. Your soldiers are neither so foolish, nor so brave, nor so wicked, as the me- chanical dolls who grin and kill and grin in the columns of

[34]

your newspapers. The war ... is a burden they carry with aching bones, hating it, hoping dimly that, by shoulder- ing it now, they will save others from it in the future. They carry their burden with little help from you. For an army does not live by munitions alone, but also by fellowship in a moral idea or purpose. And that you cannot give us."

That was addressed to the English public in the spring of 19 17. Perhaps the last eighteen months have narrowed a little in England that gulf between the army and the civil public about which he wrote.

It is true, of course, that some of the moral crises of Europe will not be duplicated in America. It is quite unlikely that Americans will ever be called upon to face the degree of sacrifice that has been de- manded of France, of Belgium, and even of Eng- land; and unlikely, in consequence, that a certain group of moral forces will operate in this country as they have operated in Europe. But many cir- cumstances of war time which have played so large a part in the production of the British Labour Party and its programme are the circumstances of Amer- ica ; the very war measures which have given rise to the Labour Programme, are being enacted In this country; the very problems which it attempts to solve are arising here; the very selfsame questions which face the English electorate will sooner or later, be- cause of steps already taken by the American gov- ernment, inevitably be presented to the American electorate. Possibly that electorate is not yet po- litically conscious in sufficient degree to realize the issue. In that case the conflict will be deferred. But the issue will remain.

[35]

CHAPTER II

THE ARRIVAL OF THE PROBLEM LN AMERICA

The growth of radically socializing policies throughout the world is not due to socialist propaganda, or the influence of socialists, but to the war measures of governments often anti- socialist in opinion and intention. Thus the introduction of extremely radical policies into America is not the work of the Socialist Party, or the I. W. W. but results from the actual measures of the government for war purposes. These revo- lutionary measures, which could never have been introduced by Socialist influence, have actually been put into effect, and the question which will shortly present itself to the American public is " Which of these measures shall be undone ? " and out of that question may arise, with the changes wrought by war conditions, a re-alignment of political forces, as in England. The British problems are already here.

The following is from a long article running to several columns which appears in The New York Times : ^

It seems a profound thing to say that at the close of the war we shall not go back to old conditions; that all of our time-honoured institutions have been shaken up; that we are going forward to revolutionary conditions; that labour, which has been " pressed down," is going to come into its own — in fact, is going to control our industrial institutions ; and that the " brotherhood of man " and the " democratiza- tion of industry " are going to be realized. . . .

*June 2, 1918.

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Just what is it that labour is likely to demand at the close of the war that it is not demanding now and did not demand before the war? What part of labour has ideas at all in common with the American Bolsheviki ? . . .

It goes without saying that after the war, as now, the I. W. W. and Socialist Party will be urging their respective philosophies — for it is hardly conceivable that these two groups can demand any more after the war than they are demanding now. . . .

And also, I feel sure that the real labour movement of the country, consisting of the American Federation of Labour and the Railway Brotherhoods . . . will not be demanding anything different from what it is demanding today, viz; better wages, shorter hours, more humane working and living conditions, and the right to organize the workers and be heard collectively. While it is true that there is a small percentage, less than lO per cent, of these trade unionists who are members of the Socialist and I. W. W. movements, the 90 per cent, have passed on all the theories of these revo- lutionary movements and have rejected them. . . .

A joint committee . . . composed of an equal number of representatives of the American Federation of Labour, repre- senting 135 national crafts, and of the National Industrial Conference Board, made up of fifteen national employers' or- ganizations, whose members employ millions of men . . . has unanimously issued a programme that is in effect a crushing blow to the Hillquits, the Hay woods, the Bergers, the Emma Goldmans, the revolutionary preachers and college professors, the New Republic and the Survey editors, and all other Arthur Hendersons and Sidney Webbs of this country. . . .

Changes after the war? Yes! A better and higher civi- lization? Yes! Socialism, I. W. W., Bolshevism, anarchy? No ! That is my firm conviction.

The writer is Mr. Ralph M. Easley, the Chairman of the Executive Council of the National Civic Fed- eration, and, consequently an authority of weight,

[37]

whose opinion is likely to be a representative one In the world of American industry. He expresses what is very probably a wide-spread view in this country.

It will be noted that Mr. Easley ventures into prophecy. The present writer will not follow him into that region. The object of these pages is to call attention to actual events ; to forces brought into being by the war, and to their influence and tendency, not as the basis for " prophecy " or as matters of mere academic interest, but for the bearing that they have upon certain definite decisions that Americans will shortly be called upon to make, answers to ques- tions which cannot be shunned or avoided, answers which will determine in large part the character of future Am.erican society.

The article from which the quotations given at the head of this chapter are taken, goes into figures to show how small numerically has been the propor- tion of Socialists and Radicals in the American la- bour movements of the past, and implies that the de- mands of " the real labour movement " will be of the same character after the war that they have been in the past, because American labour as a whole can be reckoned as immune from the blandishments of Socialists, LW.W.'s, " Arthur Hendersons and Sidney Webbs " — which may well be the case.

Emphasis on such a point would indicate that Mr. Easley has altogether failed to take cognizance of the forces which have brought into politics the Col- lectivist programmes of Europe. The growth of radically socializing policies throughout the world is not due mainly to socialist propaganda or the influ-

[38]

ence of Socialists, but to the war-measures oi govern- ments, often anti-socialist in opinion and intention.

The main factors of change in America are most unlikely to be Socialist or I.W.W. doctrines or propaganda. At best these last would merely be the expression of deeper and very different forces — effects rather than causes. Changes such as those which have already come in England, and the tenden- cies expressed in the programme of the Labour Party, are in no direct sense the result of Socialist advocacy, or the influence of the relatively tiny Socialist groups in English Labour. The strength of this new move- ment is due to the unintended momentum of events; a change made for one definite purpose is found to necessitate other changes and those other further ones, until the nation is carried far beyond its original purpose. It is the case of the mountain climber whose foot releases one pebble, which releases a boulder which releases others, and brings about an avalanche, carrying away half the mountain side.

The American government, in taking over the control of the railroads, had in mind simply and purely a war need. So with the building of ships in vast numbers ; with the control of the distribution of coal, and the fixing of its price ; with the price fix- ing of other commodities, and with such measures as an income tax that goes as high as fifty per cent. But though these are war measures, can anyone doubt that the question as to what is to be done with the merchant ships built by the government in such quantity as to make this country the greatest ocean carrier in the world, the future scope of the income

[39]

tax and the public control of coal prices — that such questions will raise problems that will change the whole character of political programmes in the fu- ture, and that " socialistic " demands will occupy in that future a place very different to that which they have occupied in the past?

Keeping this not very elusive fact in mind, the reader will find it perhaps a little difficult to credit the fact that in forecasting the nature of the demands to be made by American labour after the war, and the circumstances that will bear upon it, Mr, Easley has not one word to say about such things as the fu- ture of the railroads. Not one word. Presumably the question of whether the roads shall return to private ownership or not, will not particularly con- cern between two and three million railway work- ers; the powerful farmers' Leagues, non-partisan and others, nor their political affiliations, nor the programmes of the political parties of the future.

I have said that the measures prompted by the needs of war have already brought into being in America certain forces or tendencies which will have the very greatest bearing upon definite decisions that Americans will shortly be called upon to make, answers to questions which cannot be shunned or avoided. Those questions include the following:

(i) Shall the railroads, telegraphs and canals be returned to private ownership and control, or retained by the government? Shall the ships now being manufactured by the gov- ernment become private property and the in- struments of private profit-making, or be re- [40]

tained as a commercial enterprise of the nation?

(2) Shall government control of the distri- bution of coal and the fixing of its price, to- gether with a measure of control and price fix- ing in such things as wheat and certain raw ma- terials be retained, or relinquished?

(3) Shall war time government insurance be continued and carried over from military to civilian occupations? Shall insurance, in fact, be nationalized?

(4) What shall be the method of paying the cost of the war? Shall the income and excess profit tax be retained and extended for that pur- pose?

(5) In the future use of ships, control of raw material, and the use of pohtical power in undeveloped countries, shall American policy be protectionist, and nationalist, looking to the special advantage of American commercial con- cerns, or shall it aim at establishing equality of economic opportunity among the community of nations?

(6) Shall conscription be retained and the country look for its future security to large naval and military forces, supporting a policy under purely national control; or to smaller forces making part of those of a Society of Nations supporting a policy in some measure under in- ternational control?

The more that these questions are examined, the more will it be realized that they are very closely inter-related; that wise decision of any one involves

[41]

some degree of consideration of all the others; and that the answers given will determine the economic, social and political future in America.

I will anticipate at this point in some degree, and ask the reader to consider, in the light of these questions shortly to be presented to the American electorate, the proposals which constitute the es- sence of the British Labour Party Programme ; and beg him to ask himself whether, just because those questions will arise, it is not inevitable that a na- tional movement in America should sooner or later base its demands upon a practically similar platform, and whether such a platform would not gather to itself forces which are at bottom as strong in Ameri- can as they are in British life.

The definite measures of the British programme can be summarized thus :

The immediate national ownership of rail- ways, canals, lines of steamships, mines and the production of electrical power; a united na- tional service of communication and transport with a steadily increasing participation of the organized workers in the management both cen- tral and local; the whole business of the retail distribution of household coal being undertaken as a local public service by the elected municipal or county councils; prices to be stabilized as much as they are in the case of railroad fares.

Expropriation of profit-making industrial in- surance companies.

The present system of the centralized pur- chase of raw material and of " rationing " by [42]

joint committees of the trades concerned; of the present fixing, for standardized products, of maximum prices at the factory, at the ware- house of the wholesale trader and in the retail shop, to be retained.

For raising the greater part of the revenue required, the Party demands the direct taxation of incomes above the necessary cost of family maintenance ; and, for the requisite effort to pay off the national debt, the direct taxation of pri- vate fortunes both during life and at death. . . . The income tax on large incomes to rise to six- teen and even nineteen shillings in the pound, (that is to say from eighty to ninety-five cents on the dollar) . . . The Labour Party stands for special capital levy to pay off, if not the whole, a very substantial part of the entire na- tional debt. That is indeed an extremely radical programme, and represents a most thorough-going collectivism. But when we remember that the American people are already in collective control of their railroads and telegraphs; owners of what may shortly be the larg- est mercantile fleet under one flag; control the dis- tribution of coal and other necessaries, and fix their prices, are associated in the largest insurance opera- tions ever undertaken, have put into operation an income tax rising already to over fifty per cent, in the case of large incomes; and when we remember that America's war effort is not yet at an end; that problems of demobilization and reconstruction will occupy the country certainly for several years after

[43]

the close of the war, and that young men who have been for several years in contact with European con- ditions will form an influential part of the electorate, it is obvious that there is no inherent impossibility in America's duplicating broadly the experience of Great Britain.

One point particularly should be clarified: We are dealing here, not with rival prophecies, with an academic speculation as to " what will take place," as we might speculate whether it will be a wet or dry summer, but with the very practical question of what we are going to do in a matter in which we must do either one thing or the other. The question which Americans have to answer is not "What do you think will happen?" but "What are you going to make happen? What are you go- ing to DO? Are you going to keep the ships or sell them? Return the roads or retain them? " Either involves far reaching consequences. We are faced, not with the question of choosing between rival dog- mas, but of deciding between alternative courses of action.

Moreover the decisions will be forced upon us however much we might wish to avoid them. The greatest obstacle of the social innovator or reformer usually is inertia. There has been a movement, for instance, for years in America for the nationalization of the railroads. The promoters of that idea might have agitated for generations and failed to get suf- ficient momentum behind their movement to over- come the inertia of the established and familiar. But the step of temporary nationalization in America

[44]

as In England, was taken over night. The body is now in motion. To " leave it alone " means leav- ing it, not at rest, but unguided. The decision to make no change, now means accepting enormous changes. This is the kind of problem that cannot be solved by leaving it alone; we cannot escape the decision.^

And the decisions when they come must be na- tional, not state or local. Action, whatever it is, will have to be taken by the Federal Government. The national parties must therefore concern them- selves with them. And that itself will involve a revolutionary change. It will involve in some de- gree a change in American character, the temper of American politics.

Heretofore a movement like Socialism has been alien in America ; an importation. The passion of political discussion which has characterized the po- litical history of some European countries will no longer be so foreign to American soil.

For the first time since the civil war, political prin- ciples of fundamental import will be presented to the American democracy.

In passing upon the question as to whether the government shall retain or return the roads, hand over the ships to private ownership or not, abandon

^ It is true that the law calls for the return of the railroads automatically eighteen months after the cessation of the war. But the conditions of that return — rolling stock, common use of ter- minals— will raise questions involving the whole problem of nationalization. Mr. McAdoo has recently announced that the Gov- ernment is studying a great national plan for the electrification of all the American railroads: the supply of power from Federal hydro-electric stations. It is a further link in the chain of nation- alization.

[45]

the coal control, or not, retain the Income tax, and extend it as the method of paying for the war, or resort to further bonding, perpetuate conscription on the present scale or not, Americans will be de- ciding not merely a detached detail of legislation but principles far more important in their effect upon the daily lives of the majority of the people than would be a decision as between, say, a monarchy and a republic. For the control of the railroads, for in- stance, involves the control, through rates, of the whole industrial life of the country; the future method of financing the war in its whole financial framework; the question of continued price-control in such things as coal and wheat, the economic stand- ard of life among the people; the future of the ships now being built, its foreign commercial policy, and, taken in conjunction with such things as the future military force of the country its whole re- lationship to the world at large, — the choice be- tween a future of nationalist commercial imperial- ism or international co-partnery in a Society of Nations. These questions are all in large degree inter-related and involve nothing less than the ques- tion of the socialization of wealth; the social revolu- tion which must now follow the industrial revolution; the future of the institution of private property, and of the old sovereign and independent state. Will America stand for the perpetuation of economic in- dividualism and the old world of rival nationalisms, tending, in the case of great states to imperialisms? Or will she set about that re-shaping of the industrial system at home and the international system abroad,

[46]

which the Labour Parties in Europe are already de- manding?

For nearly fifty years now — as Lord Bryce has pointed out — American parties, unlike most Euro- pean political parties, have not been divided on questions of principle, if we except possibly Free Trade, and Bi-metallism. The contests have been over persons, or spoils, or mere inherited prefer- ences for rival organizations. A man belonged to one party rather than to the other as he might join the Independent Order of Foresters instead of the Masons; or be an Elk instead of a Buffalo. And he would have a sense of good-natured triumph if his Order instead of a rival Order captured the gov- ernment. But as to deep principles for which a man would die. . . . Sometimes the Republicans have been the Conservatives as against the Reforming Democrats; sometimes the roles have been changed. At bottom there is no distinction of political prin- ciple. Nobody could tell you which Party stands for the estabhshed order, and which against. Of recent years the Republicans are supposed to have stood for " big business " but that is accidental.

The tendency has been fortified by the position of the State Legislature. Industrial legislation — fac- tory regulation, for instance — has been in the past generally the affair of the separate states. And that has made such questions local and geographical. And so complex is the machine that political action for social or industrial ends is mainly a matter of elaborate caucus organization.

Under the influence of alLthese forces the political [47]

parties have tended to become, in part purely pro- fessional organizations, in part semi-social, semi- charitable clubs or friendly societies, which can hope, during at least half the time, to support their officials at the public expense.

The whole has resulted in making the American elector little interested in political principles — in what Mr. Easley would probably call " theories." That sort of discussion has been left to the for- eigners. It is one reason why the " Political " Trade Unions in America have been mainly foreign.

It was a happy circumstance for America ; it was part of the general prosperity and success of this country — one of the things which marked her off from the old world, this fact that she did not have to take politics very seriously and that her people did not get excited over pohtical philosophies.

But the day has gone when she can consider her- self above and beyond concern with the pohtical pas- sions that disturb the rest of the world. She too, has become part of them. Who could have fore- told five years ago that an assassination by an ob- scure Serbian agitator in a remote Bosnian town would result in raising the question of the future of American railroads, the income tax which Ameri- cans shall pay, the drinks which they shall drink? Would cause vast American armies to cross the seas and thousands of young Americans to give up their lives? There is not an American mother uncon- cerned with the future of Serbia and Bohemia; the happiness of their populations will directly affect the live3 of her children — Serbian unhappiness indeed

^48]

has cost the lives of very many American citizens. It may be that there will continue to operate in American society, factors militating against the de- velopment of political mindedness. In that case the effective solution of American problems will be retarded. A more hopeful anticipation is that the necessity will stimulate the development of the needed qualities. In that case the time will come when political philosophies, problems of socialism, syndicalism, of nationality, will be as earnestly de- bated here as in Europe; when Americans will take their politics as seriously as do Europeans. To assume that the American workman will consent to leave these political questions to the " high brows," Is not only to disparage his Intelligence as a self-gov- erning citizen, but to deny the reality of America's democracy. And this keener and more vivid Interest and concern of the American workman in large po- litical principles will mark the end of " pure and simple trade unionism " as similar forces marked its end In Europe.

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PART II

BRITISH LABOUR PROGRAMMES AND THE FORCES BEHIND THEM

CHAPTER I

WHAT IS THE BRITISH LABOUR PARTY?

Historical outline of the Party; its constituent elements. Its position in the ebb and flow of present party reorganiza- tion in England. The general question of political action by trade-union forces in England. The gradual disappear- ance of " absolute " socialism in Europe, and the substitution for cast iron dogmas a general socializing tendency in radical political programmes. Socialism and Democracy; "Social- ism versus the State." French syndicalism, British guild socialism, Bolshevism, and impossibilism in Labour politics. The English Parliamentary system and comparison with the American Constitution.

The British Labour Party was, until just recently a Federation, consisting of Trade Unions, the " In- dependent Labour Party," the Fabian Society, the Woman's Labour League, a few co-operative soci- eties and a number of Trades Councils and local Labour Parties. It was an outgrowth of the non- political Trade Union movement, and was brought into existence as the result of a resolution of the Trade Union Congress of 1899 which directed a committee to " devise ways and means of securing an increased number of Labour members In Parlia- ment." ^ A year later a distinct Labour Group came

1 As early as 1868, which year saw the passing of the Reform Act which enfranchised the workmen in the Boroughs, a movement

[53]

into existence in Parliament, on independent lines, with its own whips and its own policy.

The group steadily increased in numbers. After the general election of 19 lo the Labour Group num- bered forty-two in the House of Commons, and were consequently on a narrow division by no means a negligible quantity. But it was not yet a national political party capable of challenging the two great historic parties on their own ground. Not a party at all in the accepted sense of the word. It was still a mere Federation of Labour and Socialist Societies. " As the war wore on," writes Mr. Arthur Hender- son, its present Secretary and virtual political leader, in recounting its most recent developments, " we were led to see that if Labour is to take its part in creating the new order of Society, it must address itself to the task, of transforming its political organization from a federation of societies into a national popular party, rooted in the life of the democracy, and de- riving its principles and its policy from the new political consciousness."

That task of reconstruction and re-organization is not yet completed, but its main principles are already pretty clearly indicated. Mr. Henderson says:

" The outline of the new party constitution is now familiar to every attentive reader of the newspapers. It contemplates the creation of a national democratic party, founded upon the organized working-class

was started to secure the return of Trade Union members to Parliament. In 1874 fourteen candidates went to the poll, but only two were returned. In 1895 the number had reached twelve- It was not until 1903 that the candidates of the Labor Represen- tation Committee obtained any notable success at the polls.

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movement, and open to every worker who labours by hand or brain. Under this scheme the Labour Party will be transformed, quickly and quietly from a federation of societies, national and local, into a nation-wide political organization with branches in every parliamentary constituency, in which members will be enrolled both as workers and as citizens, whether they be men or women, and whether they belong to any trade union or socialist society or are unattached democrats with no acknowledged al^ legiance to any industrial or political movement We are casting the net wide because we realize that real political democracy cannot be organized on the basis of class interest. Retaining the support of the affiliated societies, both national and local, from which it derives its weight and its fighting funds, the Labour Party leaves them with their voting power and right of representation in its councils unimt paired; but in order that the party may more faith- fully reflect constituency opinion it is also proposed to create in every constituency something more than the existing trades council or local labour party. It is proposed to multiply the local organizations and to open them to individual men and women, both hand-workers and brain-workers, who accept the party constitution and agree with its aims. The Individually enrolled members will have, like the national societies, their own representatives in the party's councils, and we confidently believe that year by year their influence will deepen and extend. The weakness of the old constitution was that it placed the centre of gravity in the national society and

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not In the constituency organization: It did not en- able the individual voter to get into touch with the party (except in one or two isolated cases, like that of Woolwich or Barnard Castle) except through the trade union, the socialist society or the co-operative society. The new constitution emphasizes the im- portance of the individual voter. It says to the man and woman who have lost or never had sympathy with the orthodox parties, * You have the oppor- tunity now not merely of voting for Labour repre- sentatives in Parliament, but of joining the party and helping to mould its policy and shape its future.' "

The British Labour movement in Its industrial, political and co-operative aspects, is an exceedingly complex group of organizations, and might seem to the outsider a bewildering tangle of interlocking groups. But although it has grown haphazardly and experimentally it has far more cohesion than appears on the surface, and certain tendencies are constant and unmistakable. And perhaps the most constant and unmistakable of all Is the development away from " pure Trade Unionism " to wider so- cial and political activities, a development towards what, for want of a better term, must be called a Socialist policy — though the characteristic of the party is its absence of doctrinal emphasis and Its reliance instead, upon a wise eclecticism and the ap- peal of measures rather than doctrines. Yet the growth of the Socialist inspiration is unmistakable. In the twenty years which elapsed between the elec- tion of the first labour candidate to Parliament (1874) and the creation of the Independent La-

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hour Party (a definitely Socialist organization) the Social propagandists seemed to be condemned po- litically to utter futility.^ No one today can ques- tion the immense influence in British Labour politics of the work that has been carried on by the Fabian Society ^ and the I. L. P. — and the influence of the personalities that have come out of those organiza- tions.

It must not be assumed that the Labour Party represents the entire Trades Union movement of Great Britain.^ It is possible indeed that that move-

1 In 1885 the old Social Democratic Federation ran two parlia- mentary candidates; one received twenty-nine votes, and the other, thirty-two !

2 The Fabian Society consists of so-called middle-class intellectual Socialists, among its distingushed members past and present being George Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells (since resigned), Sidney Webb, Annie Besant, Sir Sidney Olivier and Graham Wallas. The " basis " of this society defines its aim as " the reorganization of Society by the emancipation of land and industrial capital from individual and class ownership and the vesting of them in the community for the general benefit. . . . Industrial inventions and the transformation of surplus income into capital have mainly enriched the proprietary class, the working class being now de- pendent upon that class for leave to earn a living." The Fabian Society's method has been called " the policy of permeation," be- cause it urges its members to use whatever influence they possess in any circles whatsoever to promote Socialist opinions and to induce action in the direction of Socialism. The work of the society has been more in the direction of research and dissemina- tion of exact knowledge than of widespread propaganda.

3 The total number of separate trade unions in the United King- dom at the end of 1914 was 1,123 vvith a total membership of 3,959,863. The growth of membership has been very steady. In 1899 the number was 1,860,913; in 1907 it had increased to 2,- 425,153; and in 1911 to 3,081,903. Apart from the Trade Union Congress and the Labour Party which is a mixed federation com- posed of trade unions and socialist bodies, united for a special political purpose, and those locaJ labour parties and trade coun- cils, which, though federal in structure, have special functions of their own, there are about 119 federations, of which one-third are local, and in addition numerous joint committees and working agreements serving to link up the sections of the industrial move- ment. The General Federation of Trade Unions is one of the

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ment will split over certain planks in tlie recently sanctioned programme. All English parties are in. a molten state and it is too early yet to see what, in the way of permanent organization, will come from the new casting.

" If the war has almost abolished Liberalism and changed the face of Toryism, it has split the old Labour Party into fragments," says one observer.^ A portion has followed Mr. George. Another part has been absorbed into the work of war administra- tion. A third has formed what is known as " The British Workers' League." At present writing this last can hardly be taken seriously and it is regarded with avowed suspicion by the mass of the workmen. " Who finds the funds for its ample propaganda ? " asks the London Nation. "The Trade Unions? Hardly. And what explains the ready hospitality of the Times and the support which the League clearly obtains in powerful circles of capitalism?^ The motive is avowed. The British Workers'

119 federations mentioned above, as well as such organizations as the Miners Federation of Great Britain, the Federation of En- gineering and Shipbuilding Trades, the Textile Federations, the General Laborers National Council, and the National Joint Com- mittee of Postal Telegraph Associations. Trades Councils are local federations of trade union branches. They number 273 with 1,523,274 members. Their activities are political as well as in- dustrial and they work in close association with the local labour parties. In certain counties and groups of counties there are federations of trade councils.

1 London Nation, July 6, 1918.

2 See a series of extracts published in The Herald (London) of November 17, 1917, from the secret suggestions of a body of em- ployers who asked their friends to give their support, among other "outside bodies," to "The British Workers' League" and the " Women's Social and Political Union," on the ground that they were organizing " counter propaganda, from various points of view, against the revolutionary tendencies in British industry."

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League is regarded as a counter-revolutionary body. Its merit in the eyes of the powerful men who watch and would mould the new order in the interests of capital is that it rejects Free Trade, and adopts the programme of the Paris Conference. A further reason for treating it as a friend is that it proposes to replace the class-war by a minimum wage and the abolition of restriction of output. Here, then, the driving power of the new capitalism has been found. In exchange for a guarantee of high wages, the workmen's leaders are expected to take their hand off the regulator. The industrial problem will thus have been solved. For the rest, the League and its affinity, the Merchant Seamen's League, are for the war after war. The latter calls for the boycott of German goods and German ships."

The observation is cited for what it is worth. The same authority regards the Labour Party proper — "the medium party of Mr. Webb and Mr. Henderson " as virtually " the old trade union- ism, coupled with a formal admission of the brain- worker into its councils and candidatures, a definite Parliamentary policy, and a somewhat less definite programme of Webbian * reconstruction.' Its chief novelty is the development of the old Fabian tactic of permeating the middle-classes with moderate col- lectivism."

In order to appreciate the relation of the new party to such forces as the older non-political Trade Unionism, the older Socialism and the newer Syndi- calism, and to estimate its probable political scope, American observers should keep in mind particularly

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certain essential differences between the political

systems of the United States and of England, and

certain recent developments of Socialist theory and

practice. Particularly is that necessary in view of

the character of criticism voiced quite frankly by

Mr. Samuel Gompers and his associates.^ Their

chief criticism might perhaps be summarized thus:

( I ) The effective action of labour in the

future will be through economic and industrial,

not political means. (This is ground upon

which a narrow capitalism, " pure and simple "

^ Mr. Gompers writes of the Reconstruction Report of the Labor Party Sub-Committee in The American Federationist for April, 1918:

" The first striking contrast of fundamental importance is that -he British proposal deals with Labor's achievements in the future wholly in political terms. The problems are formulated as politi- cal issues and the agency designated is the political party. In England the Labor Party seeks a wider field of activity, even domination of the labour movement. In the United States condi- tions are different. Labor's welfare and protection is regarded as fundamentally an economic problem to be dealt with by eco- nomic agencies."

Mr. Gompers goes on to point out that the American labour movement has always rejected all attempts by the "intellectuals" to dominate the movement, and asserts that " American labour resents the invidious distinction implied in the phrase used in the British document, ' hand or brain workers.' " And in conclusion he finds " little practical help for real achievements. In the future, as in the past, we must trust to the economic organization of the workers. Whatever glorious reconstruction ideal may be painted by any word-brush, it can have reality only through achievements by those who with hands and brains do the actual work of pro- duction."

One commentator points out that an uninformed person might conclude from this that Mr. Gompers was one of those Radical Laborites who shunned association with any but wage earners and who placed all his reliance on the strike — a labour leader, in fact, of the syndicalist school. Yet Mr. Gompers' legislative agents work actively for Workmen's Compensation Acts, eight-hour bills, and anti-child-labour bills, and against prohibition. And several powerful State Federations belonging to the American Federation are working actively for health insurance by the State, although in this he withholds his approval.

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trade unionism, and a type of dogmatic syndi- calism can meet.)

(2) "Intellectuals," brain workers, are not of the working class properly speaking, and they do not understand its spirit; they are mis- representative politicians, not working men.

(3) In the social field the pursuit of Uto- pias defeats the efforts at real improvement; as witness Bolshevism in Russia. The chaos which always follows the attempt to put Utopian programmes into effect will destroy confidence in such organizations as the British Labour Party.

Those points will be dealt with seriatim in due course.

To understand in any due degree the significance of the recent European movements, we must note the developments of Socialist theory in recent years.

It is indicative of a good deal that in six books dealing with the Labour problem and published in America during the last two years, to which the present writer happened to turn for light on the American attitude towards Guild Socialism and Syn- dicalism, there is not one word about either move- ment — at least the indices do not contain a hint of the discussion of either — although industrial unionism, and a powerful movement hardly distin- guishable from continental syndicalism, have been for several years an important part of the problem of labour in the United States, and although technical Socialist literature in America has dealt with the matter at some length.

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Would it be an exaggeration to say that perhaps nine Americans out of ten, outside of certain labour unions and the Socialist Party, would today be unable to say what Syndicalism is; how it differs from Marxian Socialism, or from Guild Socialism? The fact gives a hint of the extent to which great masses in a country like the United States may be completely ignorant of movements going on in their midst, movements destined perhaps to have most revolu- tionary results. It indicates the extent of the truth already touched upon, that the discussion of political and social principles in the United States is not a general interest of the population. In America So- cialism and its growth and development is an affair of the Socialists. In Europe it has become the affair of the whole people — even though the policies and measures discussed may not be called Socialism.

" Socialism " to most non-Socialist Americans still connotes, perhaps, what Mr. Walter Weyl, in his illuminating treatise on " The New Democracy " ^ calls " absolute socialism " — the Socialism of eco- nomic fatalism, the class struggle, the " inevitable crisis " and " surplus value " of Karl Marx. That " absolute Socialism " is not the Socialism which ex- ercises political influence in Europe, (save in Rus- sia). It is not the Socialism of the British Labour Party Programme. It is not, in fact, the Socialism of the German Social Democracy, and incidentally, perhaps it is not the Socialism of the American So- cialist Party, which in recent years has shown an in- creasing Fabianism and a tendency to leave " abso-

^ Macmillans, 1912.

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lute " Socialism to the much less considerable Social- ist Labour Party. ^

Just because of the fact that discussion of political theory is not widespread among the people of the United States, general public opinion in such matters is likely to be " behind the times " and still thinks of Socialism in the terms of the iron-clad doctrine of Marx — or his older interpreters. That doctrine included not only an economic fatalism which re- garded the destruction of the capitalist system as in- evitable, apart from the human will, but a theory of a '* crisis " and " class struggle " by which the great revolution was to come. The outstanding characteristic of the " hard shell " Socialist of that earlier type was his opposition to bourgeois reform as tending to postpone the " inevitable " cataclysm. All attempts at economic legislation were to be post- poned until a Socialist majority should have given the proletariat complete control. Thus " the plat- form of the Socialist Labour Party contains no im- mediate demands, and in the Socialist Party a member of the National Committee has declared ' We can shove the whole reform sentiment out of the party and be the better for it.' " ^

1 In his introduction to Miss Jessie Hughan's " American Social- ism of the Present Day," Mr. John Spargo says the book " brings into bold relief the fact that . . . the movement is undoubtedly losing its dogmatic and sectarian character — imposed upon it quite naturally and unintentionally, by the German exiles who first propagated the teachings of Marx in this country."

2 Quoted by Miss Hughan in " American Socialism of the Present Day" (p. 172), as indicative of the older t>^pe. She says: "The extreme interpretation has never characterized Marxism, Marx and Engels declaring as far back as the Manifesto that ' the social scum' is less fit to take part in the social revolution than to become the tool of reactionary intrigue." It would perhaps be truer to

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That earlier doctrine of " absolute Socialism " claimed for the working man the full product of Labour. " Anything less, however little less," says Mr. Weyl, interpreting this doctrine, " was exploita- tion. Exploitation, however, could not be little. The share of capital tended to absorb the whole product of labour above a despicable subsistence wage. It was not the employer's fault, — he was as much in the grip of a system as the least of his employes."

For the sake of his profits the manufacturer must allow his workmen to survive. For the overturn of capitalism nothing but this survival was necessary. " Since private ownership of the means of production led automatically to increasing misery, oppression, servitude, degradation, and exploitation, it followed, even without other assumptions, that private prop- erty must be expropriated and converted into public property." Such a philosophy of wholesale ex- propriation would, it was foreseen, antagonize all property owners, including traders, and farmers or peasants. But, it was assumed, the automatic prog- ress of industry would expropriate these " rapidly sinking " middle classes, who would then, instinc- tively, join hands with other proletarians. " Finally the proletariat would come to represent practically all of society, and would be aligned against a ' com- paratively small number of capitalists and great landowners.' When that time came the capitalistic system with all its exploitations and disharmonies

say that while it may not have characterized Marx it has char- acterized much Marxism.

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would cease, and a new era would be born, In which economic, political and social organization could be based on the common ownership of the means of production, and economic justice and human dignity would be attained."

Such broadly was the theory of the class war, and the crisis. It was simple, absolute, and had all the appeal of a religious doctrine.

But it is no longer accepted in Europe by any powerful group, outside the Russian Bolsheviks,^ if even by them. The Socialists of the country that nursed it have rallied to the " Revisionists " and the " Opportunists." " Today," says Mr. Weyl, " men who were formerly convinced are escaping from the obsession of this imposing theory . . . learning to interpret otherwise the vast democratic re-organization of society which Marx foresaw." The theory that Socialists should not co-operate in any preliminary betterment of the workman's lot which involved any temporary recognition of the " capitalistic order " has been all but universally abandoned by organized Socialism in England, France, Germany, Italy, and the lesser European states. Almost everywhere Socialist parties have co-operated in legislation, looking to the regulation of factory conditions, to the limitation of the la- bour of women and children, to the protection of life, limb and the health of workers : to facilitating the recovery of damages in case of injury or death;

1 " Some of our socialist comrades," said Jauris, in 1912, " inter- pret the class war in a sense much too simple, one-sided and abstract." According to Sarraute the class war is not " an abso- lute abstract principle absorbing the whole life of Society."

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to compulsory state Insurance against old age, sick- ness, accident, invalidity, and even unemployment; to improved educational facilities, housing reform, enlarged franchise, protection of trade union rights.

" Socialists," says Mr. Hillquit, " attach the greatest importance to all reforms of this character. They realize that the task of transforming the mod- ern capitalist society into a Socialist commonwealth, can be accomplished only by the conscious, systematic, and persevering efforts of working class physically, mentally and morally fit for the assumption of the reins of government, and not by a blind revolt of a furious and desperate rabble." ^

But " absolute socialism " has been modified in re- cent years in another way. Most modern socialist writers realize that not all wealth used in the pro- duction of other wealth is capital, subject to collec- tive ownership. Working Socialism does not pro- pose, even ultimately, the expropriation of such " means of production " as the needle or the spade. Even Kautsky, pure Marxian though he be, assures the small farmer that he is not to be molested in the independent working, and even ownership of his land.* And agriculture is not the only field in which

1 " Socialism in Theory and Practice," p. 124.

* The division of thought in Socialist rants may be gathered from the following bit of the history of Socialism in America recorded by Miss Hughan: "The 1908 programme of the Socialist Party included no specific agricultural reforms, devoting only a phrase to the present exploited condition of the small farmer, and embraced in its immediate demands the collective ownership of all land. Within a year, however, an amendment to the platform was passed by national referendum which marks a turning point in American Socialism. By this amendment the words, ' and all land,' ■were struck out from the demands and the following inserted in the sections on General Principles:

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modern socialism expects the continuance of much private production. " Marxians are agreed upon the needlessness of interference with the non-exploit- ing mechanic or tradesman, and the only dispute in the matter between the orthodox and the Revision- ist is as to the prospect of the automatic disappear- ance of these small industries under the pressure of centralized competition, be the latter capitalist or socialist in nature. The divergence of present-day Socialism on this point from the complete collectiv- ization of Bellamy is indicated by the fact that a party speaker stated recently to a large gathering of the rank and file his belief that in the coming com- monwealth only 50 or 60 per cent, of the means of production would be socialized." ^

But not only has the movement represented by the British Labour Party given no sanction to the narrow political theologies which marked certain phases of

" ' There can be no absolute private title to land. All private titles, whether called fee simple or otherwise, are and must be subordinate to the public title. The Socialist Party strives to prevent land from being used for the purpose of exploitation and speculation. It demands the collective possession, control, or man- agement of land to whatever extent may be necessary to attain that end. It is not opposed to the occupation and possession of land by those using it in a useful and bona fide manner without exploitation.' "

Needless to say, the passing of this declaration has aroused great antagonism among those party members who cling to the inter- pretation of the class struggle as excluding the independent worker, and to the expectation of automatic concentration in all industry. The rival Socialist Labor Party, which still demands in its plat- form the public ownership of the land and all means of production, hailed with joy this proof of the " middle-class " character of the Socialist Party, and gave great publicity to the secession of a ward branch in Denver on the ground of the part}' decision " to drop Socialism from its platform and adopt in its stead an emasculated form of the late lamented Single Tax."

1 Miss Hughaa, " American Socialism," p. 135.

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Marxian Socialism. It Is realized that the mere ab- sorption of industries by the state — the institution of state monopolies — is not Socialism; that a bureaucratic State Socialism such as is conceived by some members of the English Fabian Society might well produce a servile community in which the worker would be the wage slave of a state official instead of a capitalist. This has recently been emphatically voiced by M. Emile Vandervelde, the distinguished Belgian Socialist and President of the International Socialist Bureau, in a book which he has entitled " Le Soclalisme contre I'fitat," the object of which is to combat the fallacy, shared, as he says by many So- cialists, or persons claiming that title, that Socialism is identical with " fitatisme." He has no difficulty in showing that even the Socialism of Marx and Engels was far from being etatiste in the accepted sense, since it aimed at the abolition of the state as we know it. They never supposed that a state monopoly was Socialism. Many of their followers have even opposed all state monopolies as dangerous to the proletariat, on the ground that they paralyse the action of the working class and strengthen the bourgeoisie. M. Vandervelde points out the danger, for instance, which would arise if the employes of the state are prevented from organizing themselves and are deprived of the right to strike. The notion that Socialism can be brought about by the gradual absorption of production by the state or the muni- cipalities — that, for instance, the municipalization of the gas or water is a step toward State Socialism

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— Is a delusion.* To this conception, that of the organization of labour by the state, Socialism prop- erly so-called opposes that of the organization of labour by the workers themselves, grouped in vast associations independent of government. Vander- velde points out that State control of industry for the purposes of the war has greatly diminished the liberty of the workmen and hampered their collective

1 State Socialism has no necessary connection either with de- mocracy or with Socialism. It is true that if a so-called State Socialist policy is so undemocratic as that of Bismarck, we may decide, on strict examination, that it is not State Socialism at all, but merely the ancient use of the State for the purpose of the ruling classes. On the other hand, if those ruling classes feel sufficiently secure in the control of the State they may systematically increase its industrial functions and its control over industry with- out demanding any direct or immediate profit to their private in- dustrial enterprises, i. e., the)' may adopt a genuine State Socialist policy. They may feel sufficiently secure in other special privileges offered to them by the State, such as subsidized educational oppor- tunities beyond the economic reach of the masses or even of lower middle class (except in relatively rare instances), followed by ad- mission to the enormous and varied Civil Service, which is open to those who have secured such educational privileges. Educa- tional privileges may automatically be granted, the most expensive being practically open only to the well-to-do classes, while the next most expensive are almost exclusively open to the upper middle classes, etc.

On the other hand, a so-called State Socialist policy under the control of a democratic government consisting of small private producers, such as that of New Zealand, may be used chiefly as a means of subsidizing these small producers at the expense of the State and other social classes; this, of course, would mean that this " State Socialism " was being used in order to increase the relative strength of private as compared with governmental in- dustry. But again, the same policy of extending the economic functions of the government carried out by the same State Socialism, for the small producers might feel that they were in sufficiently secure control of the government and that their economic status was sufficiently certain so that a satisfactory major share in the benefits of government industry would come to them automatically without any subsidy, even in the most indirect form, for it might be their belief that the offices and other emoluments of the State would fall largelv into their hands. "State Socialism," Walling and Laidler, pp. XXIV-XXV.

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action and it might easily be used to reduce them to complete subserviency and to make efforts at economic emancipation more difficult than ever. In- deed M. Vandervelde seems to go so far as to leave the impression that the workers should aim at the con- quest of political power, so as to obtain control of the state in order to get rid of it. For the " gov- ernment of men " Socialism would substitute the " administration of things." But M. Vandervelde shows that the conquest of political power alone will not be sufficient. He devotes much space in his work to exposing the failure of political democracy and of the parliamentary system. It is, perhaps, as one critic points out, a wholesome corrective to the notion that if Germany would only adopt the system of a government responsible to a parliament, all would be well. In fact, as Id. Vandervelde shows, the people have very little more effective influence on the government in the countries called democratic than in the others. Perhaps, as M. Vandervelde says, no country in the world is so completely dom- inated by the financial interests as France, which has, in form, the institutions most nearly democratic of all the great nations, not excepting the United States.^

^ It is significant in this connection that the French labour union movement is distinguished from those of all other nations in that it is mainly syndicalistic. This kind of labour union, which was created in France, and found active support in the southern nations of Europe, Italy, Spain and Portugal, has in the past minimized the importance of a strongly disciplined and centralized organi- zation, and placed its main emphasis on the readiness to strike. It avoids centralization wherever possible, discourages great union funds and sees in the general strike the real weapon of the work- ing-class. It either directly opposes or at least neglects political

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It is altogether outside the scope of this book to give anything like an exhaustive analysis of the newer sociahst development as embodied in Syndicalism and Guild Socialism, if only because the proposals for which they stand are still fluid and Indefinite — as indeed are the principles upon which the proposals are based.

The reader may be referred to the already con- siderable literature of Industrial Unionism and Guild Socialism. The theories of both movements have contributed to the forces that have helped to give the Labour Party its programme. They have this much in common : The belief that the main unit of government should be, not that organization of the whole community which we have known in the past as *' the state," but the workers' organizations, the Unions. Syndicalism ("Syndicat" is merely the French word for Trade Union) says in effect: " Let the Trade Unions run the country." Guild Socialism says more nearly: "Let the Unions run the industry of the country," recognizing that a country is made up not only of producers but consumers, not only of carpenters and bankers, railroad men and dentists, but also of men and women.

Industrial unionism Is familiar to readers in the

action as unimportant. The central organization of the French labour unions is the General Confederation of Labor with 600,000 members who are grouped into a number of national Federations, for the most part almost entirely in organizations based upon the industrial form of organization. Just before the war there was a tendency toward greater centralization, toward higher dues and systematic support of the strikers. More and more, the desire to emulate, to a degree at least, the German form of organization had found expression.

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United States, mainly as represented by the I. W. W.^ Its doctrine generally is strictly proletarian, preach- ing Marxian economics and the class-war and de- manding the complete abolition of the state, which it regards as a capitalist institution destined to dis- appear with the capitalist system. " All power to the Soviets " represents not only its method but its ideal. " Here it is sharply differentiated from the guild socialist view," says Mr. G. D. H. Cole, the

1 Miss Jessie Wallace Hughan, the well-known authority on the history of American Socialism, points out very truly that Industrial Unionism, the narrower activities of the I. W. W. and Syndicalism, are all often confused in the public mind, owing partly to the frankly indefinite membership of the American syndicalist organi- zations, partly to the vagueness attached to any new movement, and partly to the almost synonymous character of the words them- selves. " It may be borne in mind, however, that industrial union- ism embraces all upholders of the industrial as against the craft union, whether revolutionists or otherwise, and includes the ma- jority of Socialists as well as certain branches of the A. F. of L., such as the United Mine W^orkers. Syndicalism refers to the con- tinental movement, founded indeed upon the industrial union, but making this the basis of a complete revolutionary philosophy and tactics directed toward the overthrow of capitalism. The I. W. V^., prominently before the American public as representing the in- dustrial union and the more radical Syndicalist movement, is a somewhat loosely organized national union, whose leaders are deeply impregnated with Syndicalist ideals, but whose rank and file consist largely of unskilled and alien workers brought together by the industrial union policies of low fees, short strikes, and welcome to all workers."

Syndicalism, as has been said, is based upon the industrial union, with its accompanying features of local groups, mass action and the inclusion of both skilled and unskilled workers. It is revolu- tionary not alone in demanding the abolition of the wage system, but also in constituting itself the instrument for its overthrow. Where the old style union works for fair treatment by the capi- talist, and the Socialist strives for the ousting of the capitalist by political means, the Syndicalist expects the union itself to conquer industry and inaugurate the new commonwealth unaided. In this coming society, according to the Syndicalist ideal, the political state will have disappeared, and the sole government will be that of the industrial unions themselves, conducting production in their several fields according to the will of the workers, and loosely subordinate only to the general industrial organization.

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recognized authority on Guild Socialism. " The national guildmen agree with the industrial union- ists in demanding the direct management of Industry by the workers — by hand or brain — who are em- ployed In it; and they agree further in regarding the possession of economic power as the essential key to the possession of political power. They seek, however, not the abolition but the democratization of the state." Both represent attempts to arrive at a more real democracy. More important to the worker than the right to determine those things in- cluded in " politics " are the conditions of his own daily occupation, his right to have a part In the government of that phase of his life connected with his work. He knows little, it may be, of the " high politics" of his national government; and half the time he must vote blindly, without real knowledge. But he knows a great deal about the conditions in his workshop; he can vote on questions of wages, hours, management, supervision, workshop rights, with the knowledge of an expert. He is near to all that. The national government Is far away. Un- der political democracy he Is permitted to meddle with the things that are remote from him. In- dustrial democracy as expressed In Syndicalism or Guild Socialism would give him control in the things that are near to him, by a machinery which he him- self has In large part created, and with which he is familiar.

Not only Is this sound democracy, it is sound psy- chology as applied to the problem of labour. Some such device may help to satisfy what we have now

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come to realize as one of the necessaries of a full life: the worker's interest in his task, and his satis- faction of the creative instinct. To make the factory or the Union truly the worker's, by giving him re- sponsibility therein, to make it his, to give him the interest of creation and control, is to satisfy a real human need.

Miss Helen Marot, who has written so sugges- tively on " The Creative Impulse in Industry," points out very truly that it was never more appar- ent than it is now, that an increase in a wage rate is a temporary expedient and that wage rewards are not efficient media for securing sustained interest in productive enterprise. *' It is becoming obvious that the wage system has not the qualifications for the co-ordination of industrial life. As the needs of the nations under the pressure of war have brought out the inefficiencies of the economic institution, it has become sufficiently clear to those responsible for the conduct of the war and to large sections of the civil population, that wealth exploitation and wealth creation are not synonymous; that the production of wealth must rest on other motives than the desire of individuals to get as much and give as little as par- ticular situations will stand."

The shop-steward movement in England is, as the title suggests, an evidence of the trend of things towards the self-government of the workers. This movement is essentially an effort of the men In the workshops to assume responsibility In industrial re-- construction after the war, a responsibility which they have heretofore delegated to representatives

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not connected directly with the shop production. Miss Marot's view as to the general American at- titude to similar tendencies on the part of Labour in this country, is worth parenthetical quotation in this connection. She says :

The evidence of the desire on the part of the labour force to participate in the development of production is the factor we should keep in mind in any plans for democratic indus- trial reconstruction. It is inevitable that an effort to open up and cultivate this desire of labour will be regarded by the present governing forces with apprehension. The move- ment of labour in this direction is now looked upon with suspicion even by people who are not in a position of con- trol. The general run of people in fact outside of those who recognize labour as a fundamental force in industrial reconstruction, conceive of the labour people as an irrespon- sible mass of men and view their movements as expressions of an irresponsible desire to seize responsibility. They are the men who are not experienced in business affairs and there- fore cannot, it is believed, be trusted. The arguments against trusting them are the same old arguments advanced for many centuries against inroads on the established order of over-lordship. But over-lordship has flourished at all times, and in the present scheme of industry it flourishes as it always has, in proportion to the reluctance of the people to partici- pate as responsible factors in matters of common concern. Corruption and exploitation of governments and of industry are dependent upon the broadest possible participation of a whole people in the experience and responsibilities of their common life. It is for this reason that we need to foster and develop the opportunity as well as the desire for respon- sibility among the common people.

After the war, it is to be hoped that America will under- take to realize through its schemes for reconstruction its present ideals of self-government. As it does this, we shall discover that the issues which are of significance to

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democracy are of significance to education; for democracy and education are processes concerned with the people's abil- ity to solve their problems through their experience in solving them. If America is ever to realize its concept of political democracy, it can accept neither the autocratic method of business management nor the bureaucratic schemes of state socialism. It cannot realize political democracy until it realizes in a large measure the democratic administration of industry.^

But it will be noted that the British Labour Party both implicitly and explicitly gives no sanction to the revolutionary theories which would discard alto- gether the " bourgeois " method of political action through existing machinery. One may doubt indeed whether Syndicalism, a la Sorel, has ever had much influence in England. It is true that the emergence of the Labour party as a real force in 1906 was shortly followed by a period of political disillusion- ment. Finding that forty Labour Members in the House of Commons could not change the situation materially In a few years, the opinion of Labour swung back towards industrial action, and the strike weapon, almost discarded by many unions In the early years of the century, was resumed with new vigour. This tendency was greatly stimulated from 19 10 onwards by the growing hostility of Labour to the Industrial policy of the Liberal government, par- ticularly as expressed In the Insurance act and the personality of Mr. Lloyd George. The shipyard movement of 19 10, the transport strikes of 191 1,

i"The Creative Impulse in Industry," E. P. Dutton & Co. It may be pointed out that Miss Marot seems rather to ignore the proposals of political socialism which profess to avoid the dangers of inefficiency on the one hand and State Socialism on the other.

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the miners* strike of 19 12, the famous Dublin dis- pute of 1913-14, followed in quick succession; and, on the outbreak of war, not only was a great struggle in the building industry just drawing to a close, but still more serious trouble was threatened in the mines, on the railways, and in the engineering and other industries. Out of that situation arose a new spirit. National guilds, or guild socialism, on the one hand, and industrial unionism on the other, are both bodies expressing it in different ways and attempting to give to it a more definite direction and a more conscious ideal. " Both command only a very limited num- ber of absolute adherents " declares Mr. Cole. " There is a growing mass of opinion in the trade union world which is neither Guild Socialist, nor in- dustrial unionist in the strict sense, but is solving many of the same problems in the same way."

We see that here too, the popular forces which constitute the power of the British Labour Party, show the same discerning pragmatism and eclecti- cism which they have shown, in reference to earlier socialist doctrine. Just as the disregard of the dogma of absolute socialism by the Labour Party as a party did not prevent co-operation of British So- cialists therewith, and just as the latter have realized that the mere absorption of industries by the state is not socialism, so also have they realized that though, as the Syndicalists claim, the conquest of political power will not of itself suffice to give a real economic freedom to the mass, neither will the mere grouping of labour in vast associations independent of government or aiming at the destruction of the

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political state prove anything but futile. A work- able policy, here, as so often, depends upon making the due distinction between what is necessary, and what is enough, between the indispensable and the sufficient. Because the organization of labour by the workers themselves apart from mere political democracy is indispensable, it has by some theorists been regarded as the sole means of effective working class action. Because political action of itself is in- effective, it has been concluded that it may safely be dispensed with.^

1 The disparagement of political action seems to have led certain French Socialists to violent opposition to democracy itself. Thus M. Sorel (not perhaps illogically) has recently developed into an advocate of the restoration of the monarchy in France, and has joined in the establishment of a royalist newspaper.

Sorel is bitter in his criticism of democracy; it is, in his view, the regime par excellence in which men are governed " by the magical power of high-sounding words rather than by ideas; by formulas rather than by reasons ; by dogmas the origin of which nobody cares to find out, rather than by doctrines based on obser- vation." It is the kingdom of the professionals of politics, over whom the people can have no control. Sorel thinks that even the spread of knowledge does not render the masses more capable of choosing and of supervising their so-called representatives and that the further society advances in the path of democracy, the less effective does control by the people become.

Mr. Levine, in his "Labor Movement in France" (pp. 141-6), writes: " M. Sorel having started out with Marx winds up with Bergson. The attempt to connect his views with the philosophy of Bergson has been made by M. Sorel in all his later works. But all along M. Sorel claims to be 'true to the spirit of Marx' and tries to prove this by various quotations from the works of Marx. It is doubtful, however, whether there is an affinity between the 'spirit' of Marx and that of Professor Bergson. It appears rather that M. Sorel has tacitly assumed this affinity because he interprets the ' spirit ' of Marx in a peculiar and arbitrary way."

M. Sorel is expressly not "true to the spirit" of Marx in this point. " Science has no way of foreseeing," says he. His works are full of diatribes against the pretension of science to explain everything. He attributes a large role to the unclear, to the sub- conscious and to the mystical in all social phenomena. A sentence like the following may serve to illustrate this point. Says M. Sorel : " Socialism is necessarily a very obscure thing, because it

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It is true that there has been of late, in certain schools of political thought in Europe, much dispar- agement of Parliamentary government, which is de- clared to have had its day in France if not in Eng- land. In this condemnation the Syndicalist joins hands with the reactionary Royalist. (Sometimes, the two are combined in the same person as in the case of M. Sorel).

That parliamentarism has become a very inef- fective political instrument is true, but the alterna- tive is neither a return to royal autocracy nor the substitution of a new kind of " class " government for the older one. Trade Unions, as the representa- tives of the special interests of producers, without reference to the interest of the whole as consumers, cannot of themselves constitute a workable state. But their role in the state is indispensable, and the genesis of Parliamentary government and its devel- opment gives a hint as to what that role should be.

Parliamentary government arose and was per- petuated in England as an attempt to balance powers in the state: the power of the barons as against the king; and, later, of the burghers as against the landed interest. When the social and economic organism was relatively simple — when a country gentleman of decent feelings, really could speak com- petently for the interests of his county — the device

treats of production — that is, of what is most mysterious in human activity — and because it proposes to realize a radical transfor- mation in this region which it is impossible to describe with the clearness which is found in the superficial regions of the world. No effort of thought, no progress of knowledge, no reasonable in- duction will ever be able to dispel the mystery which envelops Socialism."

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worked fairly well. But the industrial revolution with its elaboration of railroad regulations, banking and currency laws, factory and insurance acts, has made legislation an infinitely complex business, and a Parliament as developed in England has become an " incompetent " body in both the English and the French sense of that term. The fox-hunting country gentleman trying conscientiously to find his way through the intricacies of banking and currency laws, railroad and insurance regulation, is simply a pa- thetic spectacle. The need is not mainly now for a balance of powers in the state, but for technical com- petence, for knowledge of how to make the complex machine of society work efficiently. The possession of mere power by any party will not suffice. The Russian Soviets may possess the power in Russia, but not the knowledge to start the industrial machine to work once more. You may have " power " over your automobile or your watch in the sense that with a crow-bar you could smash them utterly to pieces. But the power to do that will not make them work. That is a fact too much neglected by those who strive for the capture of power in the modern state.

The line of advance is not to abolish parliaments or deliberative or representative assemblies in favour of autocratic or bureaucratic organs, but to see that those assemblies are more truly representative and competent. This they cannot be until they include technical and occupational representation. The rep- resentative basis of our assemblies must not only be geographical areas, but trades, industries, profes-

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slons; we must vote not only as men and women but also as farmers, railway men, teachers, doctors. This fact, it will be noted, is recognized in the pro- gramme described later in these pages.

It is not intended to imply that the re-organized Labour Party will not meet opposition in its pro- gramme of re-organization. Most assuredly it will. Changes of this character are bound to meet, within the ranks of an organization like the British Labour movement, the resistance of both inertia and vested interest. Every old and well established organiza- tion tends to come under the control of elderly men, guided above all by long habit; of a fixed and some- what inflexible outlook, instinctively resenting the intrusion of new blood and new methods — and younger men.

It happened once to the present writer to hear a very influential and powerful American Labour leader of the older school make an elaborate plea for opposition to the newer tendencies. Most obvi- ously, however, the avowed motives were not the real motives. Just here and there in a moment of irritation the deeper impulse revealed itself. If he could have discarded the more rationalized case for his opposition and come to the real ground, I think his speech would have run something like this:

I and my colleagues have been for thirty years leaders of great Trade Union organizations — working men, leaders of working men. We have fought for better wages and shorter hours and we have got them. We belong to your class and we know your feelings. We have not given you

[8i]

high brow stuff about a new social order; we have given you more money and better conditions. You have given us great authority and we have used it to your advantage. We have understood one another and we have built up great organiza- tions which are yours, and belong to your class. Now along come college bred socialists that don't belong to the working class order, talking about a new heaven and a new earth — education, marriage reform, the endowment of motherhood, old age pensions, heaven knows what. And we have got to become politicians and intellectuals, instead of sticking to the old well tried lines. That is all unfamiliar ground to us, and, if we enter on it, it will be the end of the old system which has given us autocratic power in great organizations and you high wages. Have no truck with such new fangled notions, but stick to the leaders who have served you so well during a generation and to the organizations that you have built up from your own class — of working men, jor work- ing men.

Such was in fact the essence of a very frank ap- peal. The heads of powerful, wealthy, well-organ- ized and successful bodies would be more than hu- man if they were not actuated in some degree at least by the motive which such appeals reveal.

But they cannot in the long run be successful. Every day narrows the gulf between the " intellec- tual " and the labourer, between the hand worker and the brain worker. The professions are as much the proletariat as the Trades. The school teachers in England have long possessed a powerful union; shop assistants (store clerks), clerks in offices, are certainly not less proletarian. In fact, as Trade Union organizations themselves gain in scope and complexity, they will demand the participation of trained administrators, accountants, managers, be-

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longing far more to the " middle class " than to the hand workers.

It is pretty safe indeed to say that the issue of po- litical action on behalf of working class interests has long since been settled in practically every country in Europe. The mass of ameliorative social legisla- tion, as already noted, has in recent years become enormous. For the workers to have no systematized representation in the making of laws which affect pro- foundly their daily lives — hours of work, employers' liability, child labour, health insurance, to say noth- ing of such things as taxation, and education — is to renounce democracy. Nor would it better the case to leave the representation of the workers in such matters as employers' liability to political parties drawn overwhelmingly from the employer class or its defenders. Indeed the democracies of western Eu- rope have reached a stage of development in which Trade Unionists who object to the political activities of Labour groups are themselves obliged to resort to political action in order to defeat those activities. When " non-political " Trade Unionists in England are faced by the problem of defeating the policy of the " politicians," what action do those Trade Union- ists take? They form another political party; be- come politicians, in fact.

There is one very considerable " new fact," by the way, which will affect the question of political action by Trade Union bodies, and that is the emer- gence of the woman voter. The enfranchisement of women in England has virtually doubled the elec- torate. The women of the working classes are gen-

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erally the keepers of the family budget, and they will have a livelier sense than the men, not only of such things as the future laws concerning marriage, the position of women and children in the institution of the family, the endowment of maternity, the feed- ing of school children, the care of their health, the character and cost of their education, but also of such things as the increased cost of living, the distribution and price of coal and milk. It is extremely doubt- ful whether they will be content to await the full flowering of the class triumph in the Marxian sense before dealing with these things by legislation. The women are likely to demand action as and when pressing need arises. In most cases that action must be political, on behalf, that is, of the whole of the nation as consumers, not of some industrial part of it organized into a Union as producers. The women will stand much more in the position of the con- sumer, and much less in the position of the producer than the men. And the interest of the consumer can- not be organized on a syndicalist basis; it must be organized on a universal, political basis.

So far as action taken by Unions against the present British Labour Party is concerned, it is to be noted that not only is that action itself political, but that it is not based mainly upon the domestic programme of the party. It centres upon one item of its foreign policy — the proposal to meet enemy Socialists in Conference. The ground of opposi- tion will disappear automatically with the end of the war. Mr. Havelock Wilson and Captain Tupper, or the British Workers' League, will not then be

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able to call a seaman's strike for the purpose of preventing Englishmen from meeting Germans, since Englishmen of the ruling class, the government and army, will necessarily be in Conference with Ger- mans of the same classes. (As a matter of simple fact they have been in conference during the war, and not alone over questions of exchange of pris- oners, as we now know. Mr. Havelock Wilson is quite prepared to allow Lords Newton or Curzon or Milner, or General Smuts to meet German Princes and bureaucrats; it is only the working men of the two countries that he will not allow to meet.) Even Mr. Gompers is prepared to meet German working men after the war. So the present most effective ground of opposition to the Labour Party proposals will have disappeared. On what ground then will the other Labour Party make its appeal to the elec- torate ? ^

It may well be — It is almost certain indeed — that effective political action by the mass of the workers will be immensely more difficult in America, than, in fact, it is proving in England. That may forecast some constitutional change in America.

What is the crucial difference between the British and American political machinery of government? That America is a Federation of States and a Repub- lic, while Great Britain Is a unitary state and a mon- archy, is less vital than external appearances would

^ since the above was written objection has been taken to the Free Trade and general internationalist proposals of the Labour Party. The appeal of the new group is likely to be fiercely na- tionalist in tone: a working class support for imperialism in foreign affairs. It will be interesting to see how this is to be reconciled to future co-operation with America, France and Russia,

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indicate. The powers of the Federal government in America have so grown under the influences of war conditions, (though the trend was aheady strong before the war) ; the tendency to diminish state rights seems to be so little opposed, and is so strongly reinforced by such economic needs as that of unifi- cation in railroad legislation, that America can cer- tainly no longer be described as a Federation of sepa- rate States in the sense in which even Hamilton would have understood the term. Nor is a Repub- lican form of government a vital differentiation. The British monarchy is an important fact in Eng- lish life, but not as a check upon popular right. Its influence is social, ornamental, psychological, not political in the ordinary sense of the term.

The essential difference between the two forms of government should be sought elsewhere. It resides in the fact that in Britain the government — the ex- ecutive, that is — is the direct creation of the popu- lar representative body (the House of Commons), is absolutely controlled thereby, being daily de- pendent upon its support and good will; and in the fact that that Chamber is itself in effect the sovereign organ of the state.

In America, on the other hand, the government is not responsible to the popularly elected Chamber, is not controlled thereby, and that Chamber is not a truly sovereign body. Disregarding the minor quali- fications and subsidiary mechanisms, how does the apparatus of government In Britain " work " ?

The people (which now includes most of the women) elect a House of Commons; a committee,

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in the selection of which the approval of that House is the predominant consideration, is formed; that committee is the government so long as it has the confidence of the House, and no longer. Any mem^ bar of the government can at any moment (by the method of Questions to the Government) be sum- moned to give an account of his stewardship to the popular chamber, and any obvious failure may cost him at any moment his official life. Any obscure voter in any remote constituency, discovering what he believes to be a failure or dereliction of duty on the part of a government department, can, through his member have a question asked of the Minister concerned. Failure to explain the matter may in- volve the whole government; the thing is in the hands of the popularly elected House. Or, by means of dissolution and general election the government may appeal over the heads of the House to the country. The relation between the vote and its effect on legis- lation and government is as simple and direct as by any means of government now actually at work in any great state. ^

The foregoing is not a complete account of the working of the British constitution; it indicates only the controlling factor of its main mechanism.

But note how different is the American method. The popular body is not elected all at once, but one portion at one time and one at another. It does not select or control the executive body of the govern- ment, which is, in fact, completely divorced from it.

1 President Woodrow Wilson is always understood to have favoured the British system of Parliamentary respoosibility. As a professor of political science he certainly did so.

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The executive head is hy a Separate process elected for a fixed period, removable only by the impossibly cumbrous process of impeachment. He appoints a cabinet responsible, not to the people's representa- tives, but to himself. The popular Chamber has no control over the Cabinet, which possesses, in fact, ir- responsible power. Parliamentary responsibility of the executive does not exist under the American Con- stitution. The whole machinery is so complex that the relation between the vote of the common man and its effect on legislation is about as remote as it well could be. It is extremely doubtful indeed whether the Constitution was ever devised to give the mass real control. It was devised at a time when popular government in the modern sense had not yet been evolved in the English speaking world, and when the great need was deemed to be the arrange- ment of " checks " and " balances." Being a written Constitution, hedged around with provisions against change, it has remained practically unaltered. The British Constitution, not being a code or written document at all, but a loose and elastic group of prec- edents, has adapted itself more or less to the develop- ment that has gone on in the mass.

Professor William E. Dodd of Chicago Univer- sity has described the social and economic back- ground of the Constitutional Convention of 1787. " This convention," he says, " was plainly undemo- cratic and its members made no pretence of any deep or abiding faith in the common man. The great document, which was drawn, submitted to the people in conventions, and finally adopted against the most

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violent protest in our history, set up anything but a simple democracy. It created a government of checks and balances so complex that only a small proportion of our people have ever yet understood its workings. A House of Representatives, elected biennially, was balanced by a senate which never went out of existence and whose members held office for six years. And all three, house, senate, and executive, were balanced by a supreme court which might veto laws that seemed unconstitutional. Thus a governmental machine was wound up like a clock and set going. At no time could the people inter- vene and change Its policy unless they could work up such a commotion that house, senate, president and court would all be changed at the same time — a feat which has never been performed." ^

Serious checks and balances to 111 considered legis- lation there are indeed In England, but they are not of the mechanical nature of those which the Ameri- can constitution provides. They arise from the moral conditions created by the working of the Eng- lish system. Close relation between the vote and its effect gives the voter responsibility; the English- man is notoriously more politically minded than the American, he takes his politics more seriously because they are more serious, and makes them more matters of principle because the principles have effect in legislation. He has a keener and more critical eye on the action of the central government because he can affect it; the debates in Parliament are part of his daily reading. They are important items in the

^ The International Journal of Ethics, July, 1918. [89]

day's news, and he is educated politically by them.

Then Parliament itself subjects the personnel of government to a sifting process. The men who hold power must be men commanding a certain influence in the House of Commons, which has generally had opportunities, of judging of their capacity. The conditions of political warfare compel each party to put its best men forward. A relatively — or com- pletely— unknown man may be nominated and elected President of the United States (Mr. Bryan was practically unknown at the time of his first nomination) . The popular assembly in America in any case have had no means of judging of his capac- ity. But the Prime Minister of England must be a political leader in a real sense, and have established his capacity as such among those who have had an opportunity of knowing him.^

There are here a group of factors, elusive of meas- urement in some degree perhaps, but none the less real, which operate against anarchy and impossibil- ism in political life.

I have touched upon this matter at some length because it bears upon the question of the effective- ness of political action by labour forces in Britain and America respectively. Very great change through political action Is obviously, for the reasons just indi- cated, a much simpler and easier matter in England than in America. This may be urged as a reason

* In practice of course the system is not by any means so couleur de rose. Collusion between the two parties, nepotism and scandals of a bad order mark the system in actual practice. But I am indi- cating nevertheless the theory of the thing and the broad facts of its modus operandi.

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why America will not follow England along that particular road. But what is likely to be the effect upon popular movement in America if a great eco- nomic democratization and emancipation is brought about in Britain, through an ease of political action which is denied Americans by that Constitution which they have been taught to believe the last word in political wisdom? If the contrast is striking, which it might well be, it cannot leave the mass of the American workers unaffected in their attitude to- wards existing political institutions.

As to Utopianism and Impossibilism in social re- form, which some American critics anticipate as the result of " political " Labour Parties, it is certain that actual participation of working class organization in definite legislation would be a corrective of such tendencies. If the Bolsheviks had been for a gener- ation represented in a free parliament, if they had been obliged to submit their proposals to discussion, compelled publicly to meet objections; and if the public as a whole had been witnesses of that debate during a generation, one of two things would have happened: either the Bolsheviks would have lost all practical influence with the public, or they would have been compelled to eliminate the impracticable fea- tures of their programme.

If we recall the outstanding feature of that English Parliamentary mechanism which has already been in- dicated, we shall see that participation of Labour leaders in parliamentary life will be a corrective of " impossibilism " in social legislation. That correct- ing influence is indeed likely to be all too strong.

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CHAPTER II

THE PROPOSED MEASURES

The outstanding measures proposed by the sub-committee of the British Labour Party in their report on Reconstruc- tion.^ The means to the end. Features in a programme of the Lansbury-//^rfl/^ group.

Although American public opinion as a whole, especially as exemplified in the daily press, has shown little interest in the British Labour Party programme, that programme has interested very keenly the more forward looking elements in American Labour and Liberalism. One American Labour leader explained the interest of certain American Labour circles in these terms :

" The Programme constitutes a proposal for actual measures to be taken, and is not the formulation of an abstract economic theory. Socialism has remained exotic in America in part because its jargon of ' sur- plus value,' ' class struggle,' and the rest has passed over the heads of the average American workman. It has not conveyed any clear meaning to him, and it did not seem to be concerned with actual measures to be passed. The memorandum of the British Labour Party's Sub-committee does, on the contrary,

1 And since the writing of these pages, adopted by the Party at its annual Congress.

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deal with measures which are at least understandable and explainable, if not immediately practicable. Even so, the language of the memorandum is at times too academic and abstract."

What follows Is an attempt to summarize and simplify the actual proposals of the programme; to Indicate In subsequent chapters very briefly the spirit which underlies it, and which differentiates it from American Industrial movements.

The chief measures proposed in the Programme are these :

" The Immediate national ownership of rail- ways, canals, lines of steamships, mines and the production of electrical power; a united national service of communication and transport with a steadily Increasing participation of the organ- ized workers In the management both central and local; the whole business of the retail distri- bution of household coal being undertaken as a local public service by the elected municipal or county councils; prices to be stabilized as much as they are In the case of railroad fares."

" The expropriation of profit-making indus- trial Insurance companies."

" The present system of centralized purchase of raw material and of ' rationing ' by joint committees of the trades concerned; of the present fixing, for standardized products, of maximum prices at the factory, at the warehouse of the wholesale trader and in the retail shop, to be retained." All the foregoing aiming, as a first result, at: [93]

" The enforcement of a minimum standard of

life in wages, housing, education, leisure, health,

provision for maternity, and conditions of life

generally affording a complete security against

destitution, in sickness and health, in good times

and in bad alike."

The Programme itself indicates as the " Four

Pillars of the House " that the Party proposes to

erect, the following:

(a) The Universal Enforcement of the Na-

tional Minimum.

(b) The Democratic Control of Industry.

(c) The Revolution in National Finance.

(d) The Surplus Wealth for the Common

Good.

The means to be employed for the attainment of these ends, are themselves part of the ends; for the ends are the quality of human society, and the means employed will largely determine that quality.

The Programme does not postulate any exclusive theory or method. The fact that the Party is pre- pared to employ political means when available does not lead it to the conclusion that political means will always suffice. The implication of the whole is that the industrial organization of the workers must stand behind and reinforce any legislative measure secured by political action. The two methods must be combined.

In the same way brain workers must be regarded as an integral part of the " Labour " movement, and their co-operation obtained. It is hoped through the proposed financial measures to identify the inter-

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ests of large classes heretofore outside labour organ- izations with the new movement:

" It is over the issue of how the financial bur- den of the war is to be borne, and how the neces- sary revenue is to be raised, the greatest political battles will be fought. In this matter the labour party claims the support of four fifths of the whole nation, for the interests of the clerk, the teacher, the doctor, the minister of religion, the average retail shop-keeper and trader, and all the mass of those living on small incomes are identical with those of the artisans." How radical are the financial measures involved may be gathered from the following:

" For raising the greater part of the revenue required, the Party demands the direct taxation of incomes above the necessary cost of family maintenance; and, for the requisite effort to pay off the national debt, the direct taxation of pri- vate fortunes both during life and at death. . . . The income tax on large incomes to rise to sixteen and even nineteen shillings in the pound, (that is to say from eighty to ninety five cents on the dollar). . . . The Labour Party stands for a special capital levy to pay off, if not the whole, a very substantial part of the entire national debt." The method generally governing the means which it is proposed to employ to secure the ends in view, is the extension of the principle of legislation already in force. The various acts already passed and de- signed to secure either minimum wage or maximum

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hours are to be extended in scope. To this effort Is to be added a definite legislative attempt, not to ameliorate unemployment, but to prevent it.

" It has always been a fundamental principle of the Labour party (a point on which, significantly enough, it has not been followed by either of the other political parties) that, in a modern industrial community, it is one of the foremost obligations of the government to find, for every willing worker, whether by hand or by brain, productive work at standard rates.

" It is accordingly the duty of the government to adopt a policy of deliberately and systematically preventing the occurrence of unemployment, instead of, as heretofore, letting unemployment occur, and then seeking, vainly and expensively, to relieve the unemployed. It is now known that the government can, if it chooses, arrange the public works and the orders of national departments and local authorities in such a way as to maintain the aggregate demand for labour in the whole kingdom (including that of capitalist employers) approximately at a uniform level from year to year; and it Is therefore a pri- mary obligation of the government to prevent any considerable or widespread fluctuations in the total numbers employed in times of good or bad trade."

Here are the unemployment measures forecast:

" In order to prepare for the possibility of there being any unemployment, either in the course of demobilization or in the first years of peace, it is essential that the government should make all necessary preparations for putting instantly in hand, directly or through the local authorities, such ur-

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gently needed public works as (a) the rehousing of the popu- lation alike in rural districts, mining villages, and town slums, to the extent, possibly, of a million new cottages and an outlay of three hundred millions sterling; (b) the imme- diate making good of the shortage of schools, training col- leges, technical colleges, etc., and the engagement of the neces- sary additional teaching, clerical, and administrative staffs; (c) new roads; (d) light railways; (e) the unification and reorganization of the railway and canal system; (f ) afforesta- tion; (g) the reclamation of land; (h) the development and better equipment of our ports and harbours; (i) the opening up of access to land by co-operative small holdings and in other practicable ways. Moreover, in order to relieve any pressure of an overstocked labour market, the opportunity should be taken, if unemployment should threaten to become wide spread, (a) immediately to raise the school-leaving age to sixteen; (b) greatly to increase the number of scholarships and bursaries for secondary and higher education; and (c) substantially to shorten the hours of labour of all young persons, even to a greater extent than the eight hours per week contemplated in the new Education bill, in order to enable them to attend technical and other classes in the day- time. Finally, wherever practicable, the hours of adult la- bour should be reduced to not more than forty -eight per week, without reduction of the standard rates of wages. There can be no economic or other justification for keeping any man or woman to work for long hours, or at overtime, whilst others are unemployed."

The reflection is likely to occur to the American reader: " Such proposals represent, of course, the extreme of all programmes of social reform; to get the middle and moderate course one must find a point half way between this extreme and the strongly con- servative position."

But the historical background of the Programme just summarized does not confirm that view.

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Some eighteen months before the elaboration and publication of the Labour Party Programme, the group of which Mr. George Lansbury is the leader, published in the London Herald a tentative pro- gramme of Social Reconstruction which may have had the effect in some measure of " setting the pace " to the Labour Party Programme of eighteen months later. Almost every measure and principle forecast by Mr. Lansbury's group has been embodied on the Labour Party Programme. If this latter was not in- spired by the earlier one, then both have drawn upon a common source represented by the general feeling of the Labour world. And that of itself is a por- tent. Mr. Lansbury as a Labour leader Is neither " wild " nor irresponsible. He has very great influ- ence in England, due perhaps to a character and per- sonality that possesses the quality of securing respect from those who disagree with his political and social views. The young men who surround him are among the ablest of the younger labour leaders In England, as the paper which he controls possesses some of the keenest and most stimulating of social publicists and critics. The programme which that paper published in the spring of 19 17 Is almost un- known in this country, owing perhaps to the fact that the Herald, like the London Nation, was for long prevented by fhe Censorship authorities In Britain from reaching this country.

Here, textually, are the outstanding economic pro- posals of the \^2inshuvy-H erald Programme :

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CONSCRIPTION OF WEALTH AND EQUALITY OF INCOME

(a) Expropriation of private landowners and capitalists. No compensation beyond an ample provision against individual hardship.

(b) All men and women willing to work to be paid, even when their work happens to be not needed, just as soldiers are paid when they are not fighting. Equal payment for all to be the result at which re-organization shall aim,

(c) Instead of the present capitalistic meth- ods of production ownership by the state:

MANAGEMENT BY THE WORKERS.

This shall be applied immediately to the case of Mines, Railways, Shipping, Shipbuilding, and Engineering, Electric Light and Power, Gas and Water.

(d) The National properties in Mines, Railways, Shipping, Land so created to be leased to the Unions on conditions which will ensure every member at present money value a

MINIMUM REAL INCOME OF ONE POUND A DAY.

ECONOMIC INDEPENDENCE OF ALL MEN AND WOMEN

Until such time as the whole industry of the country can be organized upon the basis indi- cated above, the workers in industries not em- braced in the above list — including those whose work is that of the household and the bringing up of children — shall be assured a similar [99]

standard of life by one, or a combination of the following means :

(a) A high minimum wage guaranteed by the State through a levy upon the profits of un- expropriated capitalists.

(b) Continuation and increase of present war allowances to the women and children of soldiers' families.

(c) Increase of maternity benefits and main- tenance of children during school age.

(d) Great increase of old-age pensions be- ginning at an earlier age than at present.

(e) Revision of war and other pensions peri- odically in accordance with the increased cost of living.

(f) Increase of soldiers' pay to Australian, Canadian and New Zealand standards.

This programme definitely enunciates and sup- ports three principles to which the attention of the American reader is very especially directed, for they will play a part in all future discussions of the new social order. They are (i) the social right of the community to confiscate — " conscribe " — private wealth for the common good, just as the state con- scribes the individual life for the common good;

(2) the social desirability of equality of wealth and the economic independence of all men and women irrespective of difference in capacity for production;

(3) the need for the management and control of in- dustry by the workers most directly concerned, and not by a great centralized body, the state: " Own- ership by the State, management by the Workers."

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The implications of these principles are more fully discussed in the pages which follow. But ac- companying the programme itself is an outline of argument so briefly explanatory of the reasons for the last-mentioned principle that it may be intro- duced here. The hanshury-H er aid Programme says:

" Not only must we assure to all our workers an income on which a reasonable life can be led: we must also create conditions in which work ceases to be mere drudgery under a ruling class, whether of bureaucrats or of capitalists. By taking over the management of industry the " workers will be realizing freedom and democ- racy in their daily labour.

" The nationalization of industry will not subject the workers to the discipline of a bureau- cratic machine, but enable them through the Unions to organize production in the interest of all. State ownership of the means of pro- duction, balanced by the control of industry by organized Labour, offers the best, and indeed the only guarantee of individual freedom in an industrial society.

" In the case of the Post Office we already have the first half of the principle — ownership by the State — and there is now a powerful movement towards the second half — manage- ment by the workers." This earlier programme is more definite in its political proposals than is that of the Labour Party. Like the latter it calls for the complete abolition of

[lOl]

the House of Lords, but puts forward an alternative which is not only interesting in itself but is indica- tive of a trend of thought already touched upon in these pages. The programme calls, in substitution for the House of Lords, for a " Chamber based on the representation, not of geographical areas, but of occupations, industrial, professional, and domestic, Labour and Professional bodies thus becoming a constituent part of the country's government." The reasons for the proposals are given in these terms:

" Political and industrial reconstruction cannot be considered in complete abstraction from each other, and it is essential to any plan, even of political recon- struction, that the workers should have their own industrial Chamber — representative not of geo- graphical areas, like the House of Commons, but of occupations, industries and professions. This body must sit, not for a few days in every year, but con- tinuously.^ It must not merely pass resolutions and indicate policies, but have definite powers of initiative and control. It will represent the people in their capacity of producers, just as the present House of Commons is supposed to represent them, and as a reformed House of Commons will really represent them in the capacity of consumers."

Incidentally, also, the Lansbury Programme calls for the " Abolition of all titles and State-granted hon- ours," because " The traffic in titles has become a

^This clause has reference to the fact that the "Trade Union Congress," generally known as "The Parliament of Labour," meets only once a year or so, and sits for only a few days. The plan of an Industrial Chamber was evidently, in the minds of the draughtsmen of this programme, related to the Trade Union Congress.

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financial and moral premium upon reactionary poll- tics, as well as a subtle form of State bribery."

Finally, it relates certain demands in foreign policy agreed by negotiation (" Equal access by all peoples to the trade and raw materials of the world " ; " the government of non-European races in Africa to be regarded as an international trust, with no exclusive advantages to the sovereign state; such populations not to be trained for war or subject to conscription or servile labours " ; " disarmament by international agreement") to domestic policy, in these terms:

" If democracy is to be a reality in the future, the competition for preponderant military power, which necessarily militarizes all the nations taking part in it, must be brought to an end. But the attempt on the part of one nation to create over vast areas of the world special reserves for its own trade and industry or to block therein the access of other na- tions to necessary raw materials, will be certain, sooner or later, to be resisted -by military means. These conflicts, though the workers as a whole never benefit from them, are the main source of modern wars. The price of peace is equality of economic opportunity for all nations big and little. If the arming of the black millions of Africa for the pur- pose of fighting the white man's quarrels is permitted, a new danger as well as a new horror will be added to civilization. If a people Is not fit to share the privileges of the British Empire in the shape of self- government it should not be asked to share its bur- dens by fighting Its wars. Forced fighting, like forced labour, is in such case, whatever it may be

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elsewhere, undisguised slavery. The only certain cure for war is disarmament. If the nations are not loaded they will not explode."

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CHAPTER III

IS IT POSSIBLE?

Most of the measures proposed are actually now in opera- tion for the purposes of the war, and have given material re- sults far in excess of anything which would have been thought possible in August, 1914. The feasibility of Collectivism, tested in material terms, has been demonstrated. What is now demanded is that that which can be done for purposes of war shall also be done for the purposes of peace. The political training and scientific spirit of the new Labour Party.

Are the programmes of social reform outlined in the preceding chapter feasible in the modern state?

In considering that question certain main facts have to be kept in mind. They are these:

( 1 ) Almost all the collectlvist measures proposed are now In operation In Great Britain and In most of the European belligerent countries; and after some four years of experience they are being applied in America. They are more successful in their results than any one In August, 19 14, thought they could be. The only question Is whether what has been demonstrated to be feasible enough as a war measure can be made workable as a normal peace device.

(2) The condition which has made possible under the impulse of war-needs, measures which might not be possible in peace, is the psychological element: the

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awakened will and determination of the community, in peace time relatively slothful and inert.

(3) If the mass of the workers find that collectiv- ist measures — government control of railroads, ships, mines, coal distribution, price fixing — do not give the results in peace which have been given in war, they are not likely to hesitate to apply compul- sions which, unheard of and impossible of applica- tion before the war, have now been made entirely familiar as war measures. Men have seen the State, for the country's protection, compel its citizens to surrender or hazard their very lives. Those who have submitted to the operation of this rule are not likely to hesitate to demand, if circumstances are suf- ficiently pressing, that for the country's welfare, the rich shall surrender property. Military conscrip- tion is likely to be the forerunner of more complete and thorough-going conscription of wealth. The re- sort to virtual confiscation may render possible meas- ures which peace time inertia might otherwise render unworkable.

(4) Millions of young men who have for years risked their lives; women who have had to give their husbands or lovers, are not likely to be deterred in the demands for social reform by the consideration that radical measures may prove " disturbing " to commerce, or the peace of mind, and social quiet of well-to-do folk. The after-the-war psychology of the new electorate is likely to favour boldness and adventure in social experimentation.

It is the first of these facts — the fact that the war [106]

itself has been an economic miracle in its revelation of the extent to which state action can secure vastly productive economic results — that will be consid- ered in this chapter.

For three generations or so before the war, col- lectivism — " the ownership or control by the com- munity of the means of production, distribution and exchange " — had been a theory advocated by con- siderable parties in every civilized country of the western world. There had been certain timid and piecemeal application of it: gas, water-works, street- car lines had become state or municipal enterprises in many parts of Europe. In certain countries rail- roads had become State concerns; in Australia and New Zealand state control of public utilities had been pushed further than elsewhere and become generally accepted as a principle. But there had been no gen- eral application of the principle that profits, and the disposal of the surplus above the accepted standard of life, belong first to the community and not to the individual. Nor had the tentative approaches to collectivism in Australia and elsewhere converted the world generally to any very lively faith in socialism, or any very general recognition of the social principle underlying it. Scepticism as to its feasibility was predominant. The power of capital and the insti- tution of private property were virtually unshaken. Years of agitation in England failed to secure the expenditure by the State of a hundred million dollars for a national scheme of rehousing for the rural pop- ulation, the need for which was crying. A pre-war

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government fought for months over an expenditure of a million sterling on the medical needs of the Insurance Act — an expenditure which the war de- mands every two or three hours. Collectivist tend- encies were fought as subversive, demoralizing, im- practicable.

Then came the war. Instantly without any sort of hesitation, apparently, all the arguments as to the impracticability of collectivism were thrown to the winds. Within twenty-four hours of the declaration of war the British government had done what most of the " sober and experienced business men " of the country had for years been declaring would be fatal to the Nation's efficiency and welfare: the railroads had been taken over by the State. But the national- ization of the railroads for the time being was a mere beginning. The government stepped in and guar- anteed vast quantities of Bills of Exchange which otherwise would have been worthless and would have brought the world's centre of credit to unimaginable chaos. The greatest marine insurance system of the world was transformed from a private to a national enterprise. That too was saved from what, but for governmental action, would soon have been hopeless bankruptcy. But if the private capitalist was saved, so also was he controlled. Capital could no longer be invested save as the government should sanc- tion investment. The stabilization of foreign ex- change became a government concern, and private property in foreign securities was ruthlessly " con- scribed " for the purpose. The government vir- tually took over the coal supply and the shipping.

[io8]

It became the sole importer of sugar, wheat, certain metals and raw materials. It fixed prices and con- trolled distribution; the direction of the woolen, leather, clothing, boot and shoe, milling, baking and butchering industry passed into its hands. The dis- tribution of food and the prevention of waste, on the one hand, and want, on the other, became the nation's concern. And for all these purposes profits were searchingly enquired into. An eighty per cent, tax on profits, a tax which, before the war, every business man in the country would have declared to be sheer robbery, was swallowed " without turning a hair." And it all " worked." Not smoothly, yet suflUciently well to prevent a collapse of credit and paralysis of industry. The city of London, with untold millions of worthless commercial paper on its hands, Lanca- shire with foreign debts it could not hope to collect, were not only tided over; in a few months trade was brisker, profits were bigger, than ever.

Do we yet realize what has happened?

Here are a series of measures of Nationalization, of Collectivism, which for a generation all the " ex- perienced business men " had been declaring would prove unworkable and disastrous, even when applied at leisure in times of profound peace, with due pre- meditation and preparation, and the nation able to devote itself to the one purpose of rendering the new social order workable. The measures are applied, not when there is ample time to make proper exami- nation and preparation, and when the social and industrial functions are working normally, but in a period of immense upheaval; when industry is disor-

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ganlzed by the withdrawal of men for the army and by the sudden demand for unusual materials; when transport is choked, and congested; when credit is exposed to unprecedented strain. Yet even so, this collectivism proves unexpectedly successful.

We must realize to what extent it was successful; at least in a material sense.

Suppose that in July, 19 14, most of the eminent European economists had been collected into a room, and some one had addressed them thus :

" During the next four years Britain will en- gage in a war which will withdraw eight to ten millions of her workers from active production of consumable wealth. That is to say, between five and six million soldiers will be called to the colors, and between two and three million other workers, including a large proportion of the women, will be engaged in the manufacture of munitions and war material. Yet what re- mains of the workers will be able to maintain themselves, the country at large and the army in food, clothing, fuel and other necessaries at a standard of living which will not be on the whole below, and will In many cases rise much above, the standard they have known in peace time. The country as a whole will be more prosperous, and wages — real wages — better, when It has to keep going a war costing over two thousand mlUIon sterling a year and de- manding an army of six or seven millions, than it has been In many periods of the past when public expenditure was less than two hundred [no]

millions a year, and when the world was at peace and trade booming." If that roomful of eminent economists had been addressed thus, we know, as a matter of simple fact, that every one of them to the last man would have said that such a forecast was simply rubbish; that economically, the thing was not possible. Yet that impossible thing has happened.

Sir Albert Stanley, speaking in the House of Com- mons, and giving on behalf of the government certain figures in relation to the nation's production under war conditions, said this;

" In spite of the fact that over five million men are now in the army, and consequently have changed over from being producers to being solely consumers, in spite of this, the total industrial output is very little less today than it was before the war." It is true that any reliable quantitative analysis of the present economic situation is extremely difficult and unreliable — and that is one reason why it is not here attempted. But more compelling reasons for not attempting it are these : The most impor- tant social conclusions to be drawn from the economic experience of the war will be based by the mass of the British democracy upon the broad facts as they have experienced them in their daily lives, which are patent to the world, and not upon complex statistics concerning which experts will disagree. In estimat- ing the social and political forces which will arise, and the legislative experiments which are likely to be tried as the result of .war experience, we must con-

[III]

sider, not so much what the ultimate facts of the situation are, as the facts which will most strike the imagination of the mass and dictate the opinions which they will translate into political action. " Not the facts, but men's opinions about the facts are what matter," as someone has said. And the impressive and striking fact which stands out is the relative suc- cess, so far, of these collectivist measures.

Evidence as to the influence of that demonstration on the minds of the great mass of English workers is of course implicit in the programme of the Labour Party. But the very arguments just presented may be found outlined in the ha-nshury-Herald Pro- gramme from which quotation has already been made, and which ante-dated the Labour Party Pro- gramme by some eighteen months. The former pro- gramme centred round two chief items : a demand for the complete " conscription of Wealth," which, of course, is a synonym for expropriation, and for equality of income, the first step to which is a demand for a national minimum wage of a pound (five dol- lars) a day.

The authors of the programme evidently realized that the feasibility of such a figure demanded some explanation, which they furnished in these terms:

As to the practicability of the minimum in- come indicated above, the economic facts of the war prove conclusively that a minimum real in- come of a pound a day, present value, for every worker is quite attainable. The country is spending eight millions a day on the war alone. Very nearly the whole of the wealth necessary

[112]

for the support of the civilian population, Is created by the labour of not much more than eight million workers. In peace times there are not more than fifteen million available workers, including men, women and children. More than half of this number is now with- drawn for the army or unproductive army work, like munitions. Making every allowance for such of the army as do productive work, the support of the army and the country now falls upon half the usual available workers, the half which includes the older people and the children. This calculation is not seriously affected by the argument that we are " living on credit." It is not true, in the sense that we are consuming wealth that we are not now creating, save to a very small extent. Although the Government may pay for its purchases by money borrowed from the capitalist, that is merely in order to preserve the capitalist system. The actual material — munitions, clothing, etc., — is made by the workers now, not taken by some magic from past or future stores. And while it may be true that we are making war material instead of renewing necessary plant, we have official assurance that that is only to a small extent. The experience of the war shows that, given a large and insistent demand — ensured during the last three years by the immense consumption of war — the wealth necessary to satisfy it can be produced far more easily than was generally supposed. The high consumption ensured dur- [113]

ing the last three years by war, must after the war, be ensured by the high standard of hving of the workers. Those now busy destroying good houses in France and Belgium must after the war be kept busy building better ones; and in all the work of readjustment and reconstruc- tion necessary to ensure food and raw materials and a continually increasing productivity in order to meet the continually increasing con- sumption of the workers. Some of the above figures are open to challenge, but not very seriously. There remains for the time being unshaken the general conclusion, namely : that the degree to which it is possible to increase produc- tion by widespread co-ordination of the national re- sources in material and energy, even in existing con- ditions of education and training, is immensely greater than anyone has heretofore thought possi- ble. The fact is that with over five millions with- drawn from production altogether (soldiers) ; with over two millions employed in the manufacture of goods (munitions) which are destroyed (do not add, that is, to the standard of life) ; the remaining work- ers can, by their labour, supply, not only a vast quan- tity of rapidly destroyed material (other than muni- tions) needed in modern war, but maintain for the above six or seven millions, for themselves, and for the remainder of the population, a standard of living higher on the whole than that which was obtained when millions were available for productive labour. It is, of course, true that many now work at a tension and for hours that would not be possible

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normally. But it is also true that much of the la- bour from which the country's wealth is now being derived is " amateur," and that the national organ- ization, owing to the rapidity with which adjustments had to be made, is muddled; so that the deduction in the matter of hours which should be made in at- tempting to arrive at a possible normal standard may be offset by the increased efficiency which would come with time by the development of amateurs into " efficients," and by the elimination of present fric- tion and waste.

It is true, also, as the argument quoted admits, that we are now consuming wealth, which would — and must — in ordinary times go to replace ex- hausted or to furnish new capital; that is to say, to make good depreciation and create new machinery and material for future production.

It is true, also, that a small proportion of the goods consumed are not either made by the country or obtained in exchange for goods it is now making, but are obtained (or were for a period obtained) in return for the surrender of past accumulated savings in the shape of foreign securities.

Making every allowance for these items the great and astounding fact remains that with something like half of the workers of the country withdrawn from any work which contributes to their own support, they and the whole country are maintained at a higher standard of living than before^ while there is

1 It may be true that now, in the summer of 1918, the English population is beginning to suffer physically for lack of food. But certainly that has not been true during the preceding four years.

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furnished, in addition, the immense amount of mate- rial daily needed for destruction in war.

It is obvious that if the two million munition work- ers were producing consumable goods, instead of war material, and the soldiers were also working instead of fighting, the amount of total wealth produced could be enormously increased — probably about doubled — and the standard of living correspond- ingly still further raised.

Perhaps the commonest confusion in judging of the economic miracle of the war is that touched upon in the programme just quoted from. We are told that the people are still well fed and clothed, and the general standard of living is as high as, or higher than, it was before the vast waste of war began, because we are " living on credit "; we are not pay- ing for the food we are consuming.

A moment's reflection will show one that a whole country, except in respect of the things that it gets abroad and pays for by selling securities or creating new foreign loans, cannot " live on credit."

All the vast stores, shells, munitions needed by our soldiers, as well as the materials for our own sustenance, have not been collected in some wonder- ful way from the future. They have been made,

" now.'

What the complicated system of loans and credit really means is that, though we have been quite pre- pared for the purposes of the war to destroy many things — life, freedom. Parliamentary government — we preserve capitalism.

When we borrow the money of the capitalist, in- [ii6]

stead of taking It, as we do the lives of the people, it merely means that the possessors of money have agreed not to call at the time upon the country to provide the things which the surplus wealth would otherwise call for — provided that the country will give an undertaking to provide those things in still larger degree at some later period.

It is curious that in the discussion of after-the-war problems the indisputable facts above indicated are not merely overlooked, but disguised. One of the most distinguished authorities on the problem of poverty in England devoted a series of articles dur- ing 1 9 17 to urging the crying need of increased pro- duction if the wherewithal Is to be found to feed and clothe the men when they come back from the war.

But if we can clothe and feed and doctor and amuse, an agricultural labourer, say, while he is a soldier, at the rate of something like three hundred pounds a year per head, when he and his fellow- soldiers are doing nothing towards their own sup- port, why should it not be possible to do so still more effectually when they themselves — normally the chief producers of our wealth — are once more by their productive labour adding to the common stock?

The economist just mentioned writes on the need of grappling with the question of preventable dis- ease, which of itself, he points out, cuts the possible production of the working classes nearly In half; he adumbrates new plans of more economical distribu- tion, the recasting of our means, of transport, and much else.

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All this, of course, is very true and important, but surely the emphasis on it has the effect of with- drawing attention from the lesson that, with our existing means of transport and existing loss from preventable disease — without any reformation in such matters as these — we have managed, with something like half the workers that we had before the war, to secure, not merely a higher standard of living, but to provide as well all the vast material needed for the armies at the front.

The fact shows that productivity was not main- tained at anything like its highest point, or that its benefits were not reaching the general population; that the very imperfect means we did possess — with all the deductions made on the score of bad health, defective education and training, and the rest of it — ought to have given much better results than they did; were somewhere so ill-adjusted that they were not giving perhaps more than half the output, in terms of national benefit, which the stimulus of the war has produced.

This question will remain: If the collectivist sys- tem can succeed even relatively when applied amidst the strain and stress of a war of unparalleled dimen- sions, shall we be able, when the old system has been more or less restored, and when the workers suffer — as under the old system millions did suffer — from hard times, unemployment, anxiety, privation, to per- suade post-bellum generations that betterment by state adoption of socialist, collectivist measures is unrealizable?

The main argument of the situation is already bc- [ii8]

ing conceded in previously hostile quarters. So con- servative an exponent of public opinion as the London Times published in 19 16 a series of articles called " The Elements of Reconstruction " — articles later reprinted with an endorsement of Viscount Milner, one of the five war " dictators " of England — which definitely acknowledged the trend towards State So- cialism. " The bulk of reasonable men in the Em- pire," says the Times expert, whom Lord Milner blesses, " have come over to the primary SociaHst assertion that food production, transport, all the big industrial enterprises, are matters, not for the profit- seeking of private ownership, but for public adminis- tration."

Nor do all American experts miss the portent. One of the leading spokesmen for American finance is Mr. Frank Vanderlip, President of the National City Bank. Speaking before the National Bankers' Association at the Chicago Bankers' Club even as early as 19 16, Mr. Vanderlip said:

*' State Socialism in Europe may develop problems the like of which have never entered our minds. We may have to meet collective buying, state-aided industries, forms of government control of ocean-borne commerce, and novel fac- tors in international finance. There may come out of the war changes in the forms of government that will have profound and worldwide influence."

The situation is likely to work In men's minds by calling attention to collectivist experiments which but for the war would have affected opinion only slowly and to small extent. Thus we find Mr. Elwood

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Mead calling attention in the Metropolitan Maga- zine to Australian State Socialism in these terms :

" We have only to compare the limited governmental ac- tivities of this country with those of democratic Australia and New Zealand to realize that it is not political freedom, but our crude and unworkable legislative methods and organ- ization that are most at fault. Popular control in those countries is more direct than here, but there the political side of government has been subordinated to its industrial and social activities.

" In those countries the Government (State or National) owns and operates the railways, the telegraph and telephone systems. It owns and operates nearly all street-car systems, all express lines and the letter and parcel posts. It owns and operates nearly all irrigation works and a large number of water works which supply cities and towns. It exercises control over and finances water works operated by the State or by municipalities — almost none are privately owned. The State also owns and operates coal mines, and saw-mills in State forests. This is a recent extension of State activity, arising out of the need of placing a check on the prices charged by coal and timber monopolies. The State owns many of the wharves and docks of the seaports. It owns and operates ship-building yards and cold storage warehouses, thus placing the small producer of fruit, meat, and butter on an equality with the great shippers. It makes contracts with the steam- ship lines for the transportation of perishable products to Europe. It inspects all shipments of butter and meat and fresh fruit and requires them to conform to certain stand- ards. This is done so that the unscrupulous shipper may not destroy the market of the reputable one. As a result of this activity, freights have been lowered and service improved until now the Australian producer ships butter 12,000 miles for one cent per pound and fresh meat the same distance for three-quarters of a cent, and the owner of a dozen eggs living miles in the interior can transfer them to government cold

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storage, have them sold in London, and get the proceeds. Australia is three times the distance from London that Eureka, California, is from New York, but the Australian dairyman can ship his butter to London for one-third what it costs the one in California to get his to New York.

** One of the fields where the credit and co-ordinating influence of our government ought to be exercised, is in the planning and financing of works for municipal water sup- plies. A study of the Australian system and its results would leave no doubt about this. Here each little town has to plan and finance its system. There the State maintains a body of expert engineers who help to prepare plans and estimates of cost and of revenues needed to meet expenses and sinking fund requirements, and when these plans are per- fected a State bond issue provides the money needed by all the towns and cities of the State. As a result, there are no com- missions to bond brokers, no discounts on bonds, and the interest rate has for many years been only 4 per cent. Only those who have financed water works bond issues of towns with from 2,500 to 5,000 people can fully realize how much the people of Australia save and how much the people of American towns pay as a result of this difference in govern- mental policy.

" State forest areas are numerous and widely distributed. New areas are being planted. Coal mines are leased, not sold. Thrift is encouraged by a State Savings Bank, where, in addition to the interest paid, depositors share in the profits. What this means to wage-earners is shown by the fact that nearly one-half of all the people in the Commonwealth are depositors. Out of a total population of 1,400,000 in the State of Victoria, 735,000 are depositors in the State Savings Bank. Each State has a comprehensive, generous, and suc- cessful system for aiding poor men to buy farms and clerks and mechanics in cities to pay for homes. In the city of Victoria, 4,000 families have been able to secure farms in the country, and 6,000 workmen their homes in the city who could never have attempted this without State aid and direc- tion.

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"The best part of this State activity is that it has not been handed down from above like that of socialized Ger- many ; it has been created and is maintained by the free vote of the people. They have incurred this great responsibility and heavy expense in the belief that there can be no really free society, no genuine democracy so long as want and misery exist in the midst of abundance." *

But more significant than newspaper or magazine writing as an admission of the trend of events is the character of American war legislation itself. A previous chapter has indicated how narrowly it is paralleling British war legislation in all that relates to railways, ships, coal, wheat, price-control and taxation. The Revenue Bill now ^ before Congress, if it passes in its present form, which seems likely, will be a very big step towards enforcement of the principle outlined by the British Labour Party that the taxation of inheritance should start from the point of asking " what is the maximum amount that any rich man at death should be permitted to divert, by his will, from the national exchequer, which should normally be the heir to all private riches in excess of a quite moderate amount by way of family provi- sion." The bill is described as forecasting " the vir- tual confiscation of big estates." Estates of over ten million dollars pay forty per cent, and one may doubt whether that will be the final figure.^ In the

1 Quoted in "State Socialism," pp. XXII-XXIII, by Walling and Laidler.

2 August, 1918.

' The rates on inheritance taxes agreed upon after an exemption of $50,000 are:

$ 50,000 to $ 150,000, 6 per cent. 150,000 to 250,000, 9 per cent.

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case of the income tax, Incomes between one hun- dred thousand and two hundred thousand dollars pay fifty per cent.; and Incomes above five million dollars seventy-five per cent. And this In the case of a country which for long resisted any income tax whatever as Inquisitorial and intolerable!

It is necessary at this point again to warn the reader against a misapprehension. As pointed out at some length In the first chapter of this section, these triumphs of state control are not Socialism. Still less do they constitute of themselves a social condition which the workers In Britain regard as de- sirable or even normally tolerable. British workers are under no illusions on that point. They are per- fectly aware that what Mr. J. A. Hobson calls " Aus- tralian Prussianism " might well become a system of State Capitalism (as distinguished from State So- cialism) in which the individual employer whom the worker knew under the old system, emerges as a State official with powers even enlarged. Books like Mr. Vandervelde's " Soclallsme' Contre i'fitat " show a similar trend on the Continent. It suffices

250,000 to 450,000, 12 per cent

450,000 to 1,000,000, 15 per cent. 1,000,000 to 2,000,000, 18 per cent. 2,000,000 to 3,000,000, 21 per cent. 3,000,000 to 4,000,000, 24 per cent. 4,000,000 to 5,000,000, 27 per cent. 5,000,000 to 8,000,000, 30 per cent. 8,000,000 to 10,000,000, 35 per cent. Above $10,000,000, 40 per cent. Life insurance policies above $40,000 are included in the in- heritance tax for the first time. The Bill of course may be modi- fied in the Senate. But even so, these figures agreed upon in the House, mark a tendency.

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here to register the fact that the British workers for the most part fully realize that these increases of " fitatisme " might be used either as a means to- wards a truly socialized self-governing community, or a State in which individual freedom has disap- peared and self-rule become a fiction.

The ultimate outcome depends upon the fashion in which the demonstrated possibility of employing the community's power for the co-ordination of pro- duction and distribution, is used. The war has ac- complished the necessary preliminary to any form of Socialism : it has demonstrated in material terms the economic feasibility of the method of common owner- ship or control of the means of production and dis- tribution.

The danger that the power gained by the State In war may be used to the ends of enslavement is a very real one ; and the fight between those who hope to use collectivism as an instrument of real liberation, and those who hope to make of it a means whereby the Nation-State may assume still greater powers of coercion and repression, will be a bitter one. Even with every good will and vigilance the way will not always be clear. But quite fully does the Labour Party realize that knowledge and science are essen- tial, even where good will Is present; still more when there Is Interested opposition :

" The Labour Party has no belief In any of the problems of the world being solved by Good Will alone. Good Will without Knowl- edge is Warmth without Light. Especially In all the complexities of politics, In the still unde- [124]

veloped Science of Society, the Labour Party stands for increased study, for the scientific investigation of each succeeding problem, for the deliberate organization of research, and for a much more rapid dissemination among the whole people of all the science th?t exists. And it is perhaps specially the Labour Party that has the duty of placing this Advancement of Science in the forefront of its political programme. What the Labour Party stands for in all fields of life, is, essentially. Democratic Co-operation; and Co-operation involves a common purpose which can be agreed to; a common plan which can be explained and discussed, and such a measure of success in the adaptation of means to ends as will ensure a common satisfaction. An autocratic Sultan may govern without science if his whim is law. A Plutocratic Party may choose to ignore science, if it is heedless whether its pretended solutions of social problems that may win political triumphs ultimately succeed or fail. But no Labour Party can hope to main- tain its position unless its proposals are, in fact, the outcome of the best Political Science of its time; or to fulfil its purpose unless that science is continually wresting new fields from human ignorance. Hence, although the purpose of the Labour Party must, by the law of its being, re- main for all time unchanged, its Policy and its Programme will, we hope, undergo a perpetual development, as knowledge grows, and as new phases of the social problem present themselves, [125]

In a continually finer adjustment of our meas- ures to our ends. If Law is the Mother of Freedom, Science, to the Labour Party, must be the Parent of Law."

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CHAPTER IV

THE IDEAL OF A REAL DEMOCRACY AND "A NEW SOCIAL ORDER "

What is the feeling behind the declaration that the old order is done with, and that there will be no attempts to patch it up, and that an entirely " New Social Order " must replace it? Mainly that mere improvement of the material condition of the workers, leaving unchanged their moral status as a servile class, will not suffice. The re-assertion of egalitarian ideas. The imponderabilia in the motive forces of Labour Politics. Why are some Socialists lukewarm to- wards or hostile to the war? The emergence of reactionary forces in war time. State Socialism not synonymous with Freedom: nor with Peace. Will a more socialized order necessarily make for a warless world? The relation of Socialism to internationalism.

The Programme of the British Labour Party says:

'* The view of the Labour Party is that what has to be reconstructed after the war is not this or that government department, or this or that piece of social machinery; but so far as Britain is concerned, Society itself. . . . We of the Labour Party recog- nize, in the present world catastrophe . . . the cul- mination and collapse of a distinctive industrial civil- ization, which the workers will not seek to recon- struct. . . . On the contrary we shall do our utmost to see that it is buried with the millions whom it has

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done to death. . . . We must ensure that what Is presently to be built up is a new social order based, not on fighting, but on fraternity — not on the com- petitive struggle for the means of bare life, but on deliberately planned co-operation in production and distribution for the benefit of all who participate by hand or brain — not on the utmost possible inequality of riches, but on a systematic approach towards a healthy equality of material circumstances. . . .

" What marks off this party most distinctly from any of the other political parties is its demand for the full and genuine adoption of the principle of democ- racy. ... It demands the progressive elimination from the control of industry of the private capitalist, individual, or joint stock; and the setting free of all who work, whether by hand or brain, for the service of the community, and the community only. . . ."

The hsLnshury-Herald Programme of an earlier date says :

" Not only must we assure to all our workers an income on which a reasonable life can be led; we must also create conditions in which work ceases to be mere drudgery under a ruling class, whether of bureaucrats or of capitalists. By taking over the management of industry the workers will be realizing freedom and democracy in their daily labour. The nationaliza- tion of industry will not subject the workers to the dis- cipline of a bureaucratic machine, but will enable them through the Trade Unions to organize production

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In the Interest of all. State ownership of the means of production, balanced by the control of industry by organized labour, offers the best, and, indeed, the only guarantee of individual freedom in an industrial society."

This programme classifies the demand for certain reforms in education and for a " free social life " under the general sub-heading of " The Opportunity to Enjoy Life," and explains:

" We put education under * enjoyment of life * be- cause it is clear that the proper end of education is the proper enjoyment of life. The present outcry for better scientific and technical training, for the endow- ment of research in processes which may be adapted to commercial ends, and for similar so-called ' edu- cational ' developments, will miss the real educa- tional end if, by centring exclusively upon mechani- cal or industrial efliciency, it disregards the necessity for leisure and enjoyment. The problem of educa- tion is not how to contribute to the production of greater material wealth, but how to nourish in every individual, the desire for a full free life (since with- out that desire there is no hope of social progress) and the capacity for enjoying a full free life (since without that capacity social progress is unmeaning). That part of education in this country which is known as ' higher ' has, in spite of its narrowness, at least one good point : it aims at being a liberal education — an education which is an end in itself, and not a mere means to ' efficiency.' This aim must be kept in view by education of all trades and all kinds."

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The first chapter of this section described the na- ture of the movement in England for the introduction of democracy into industry, into the daily lives of the workmen, that is; the growing demand that " self- government " shall mean, not merely the right to have a part in determining who the political rulers of the state shall be — a matter which, when all is said and done, is often one of complete indifference to the worker — but, much more important, who his economic rulers shall be ; who shall control his work- a-day world, the right to have a part in the govern- ment of his occupation and its conditions. How the various projects of Syndicalism and Guild Socialism propose to give effect to that has already been briefly indicated.

What is here considered is the great moral impetus given to this general movement towards industrial democracy by certain forces which the war itself has brought into being In England, and which, since they are the outcome of war measures and objects now occupying a large place in American life, are likely sooner or later to operate in this country as well.

Let us note first the declared aims of the war, in this connection.

The justification of the war Is that It Is necessary for the preservation of democracy, the right of men to rule themselves, to determine their own fate, and not be the obedient puppets of a special autocratic class governing by right of Inherited authority.

But certain circumstances of this war have shown that a return to the old social order which existed in 1 9 14 would mean that very thing, however com-

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pletely Germany might be beaten. Modern Indus- trial conditions deliver the great mass of the people into the power of a small class, an industrial autoc- racy who wield that power, not by virtue of any right which has been democratically conferred upon them by the governed, but by a privilege held by inherit- ance, the result of accident, or even chicanery and anti-social fraud.

Indiscriminate rhetoric has robbed the statement of this undoubted fact of its power to strike our imagination. But it is, nevertheless, a fact, the dra- matic importance of which has been brought home by the war. Mere political democracy had so failed to give to the millions who worked in our factories, mines, and fields, any real control over their own daily lives as to make the parade of political free- dom often a cruel irony. The miner or mill hand, supporting a family on the edge of poverty, in terror of illness or unemployment, subject to dismissal by a bad-tempered overseer, compelled to go humbly to the manager or employer who held over him in such circumstances, the power of life and death almost, found no redress in the fact that he could at election times vote for the Liberal Candidate as against the Conservative — or the Republican as against the Democratic. Throughout great provinces a few men by their control of industrial conditions had a power over the daily lives of millions, immeasurably greater than that which, in fact, the Kaiser exercises over the lives of Polish or Alsatian peasants.

The question arose: Is the aim of "A World Safe for Democracy " compatible with a social order

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in which real control in the things that often matter most — the conditions of work-a-day life — is given into the hands of a little class of favoured individ- uals, an industrial autocracy, as truly as pohtical power is held by the political autocracy of Prussia? Does government of the people by the people mean a condition in which the very means of sustenance are controlled by a tiny minority holding irresponsi- ble power? In which power, prestige, leisure, cul- ture, social deference is given to a small economic autocracy; while the much larger class are to be con- tent to accept narrow and cramping conditions of life, and the stigma of social inferiority? Can de- mocracy, self-government, mean anything when the real power in the community is held by a small class outside the great mass of workers?

Just recently the American Federation of Labour, in its Thirty-eighth Annual Convention, virtually re- pudiated the Programme of the British Labour Party, denouncing its authors as theorists and poli- ticians, and re-affirmed the Federation's intention to adhere to " pure and simple Trade Unionism." The action furnishes additional evidence of the diver- gence of temper between European and American labour, and, it is to be feared, of a grave failure on the part of many American Trade Unionists to under- stand the spirit, the motives, the real nature of the forces animating the newer movement in Great Britain.

The divergence arises perhaps from the difficulty which American unionists seem to experience in giv- ing due weight to certain non-material motives in the

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European movement, motives not directly related to questions of hours and wages. The charges of " theorizing " and highbrowism seem to be the ex- pression of impatience at the introduction of policies not easily defensible in terms of immediate advan- tage in wages and conditions. The plain implication of the St. Paul decision is that the one object of the workers is a progressive improvement of material conditions, and that if the largest immediate result in that respect is to be obtained by a form of Trade Unionism which limits itself strictly to piece-meal ac- tion on points of wages and hours and by renouncing any attempt at wider social changes, then that renun- ciation is fully justified. The assumption is, that pro- vided the material condition of the workers is good enough, there is no moral objection to the retention of the existing social and economic order, of the workers' position as a separate class therein, and its relationship to present political and social institutions. But the chief impulse behind the development of the last year or two in British labour politics does not come, merely or mainly perhaps, from a desire for improvement in material conditions. That de- velopment has followed a steady rise in wages, and the promise of automatic improvement in conditions. The main motive force of the latest development, is the impulse to a real democracy — self-government, not alone in the political but in the industrial and social sphere; equality, not only political but social and cultural; and, for the great mass of the people, a degree of control over the conditions of their daily lives which no mere Trade Union stipulations con-

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cerning hours and wages can give. Into the words " democracy and self-government " have been poured a content — in part as a by-product of the war it- self — which a few years ago in England they did not have, and which the American Trade Unionist seems hardly to suspect.^

It is, of course, fatally easy to overlook the force of a motive in others which cannot be measured or even expressed in material terms. The difficulty of giving weight to these moral values is precisely what makes Irish, and certain other nationalisms, so in- comprehensible to many Englishmen (and Ameri- cans) and has so far made the Irish problem insolu- ble ; and which, to the German, makes certain motives of his enemies incomprehensible.^

Yet the war itself is inexplicable and meaningless unless we give a large place in its underlying causes to certain moral imponderabilia : the struggle of Ser- bians for nationality, of Belgians for the respect of their independence, things we cannot evaluate simply in economic terms. And the curious thing is that

^ " The new Labour movement has gone beyond bread-and-butter problems. ... It is working for something other than increased wages, shortened hours, or improved sanitary conditions. It wants to control its own destiny. It is working for a share in manage- ment. . . . The worker begins to suspect that there will be less liberty for him under mere State control. ... As it is self-direction that he wants, he looks for it to direct co-operation with his own mates. He is harking back to the self-governed industry. He wants to substitute Industrial Unionism for Trade Unionism, and hankers after a Guild which is to supersede the Trade Union proper alto- gether by amalgamating employer and employed." — Editorial, Manchester Guardian, June 27, 1917.

2 It is necessary to explain that this does not justify every sen- timental manifestation of Nationalism, which is sometimes as anti- social, especially in its chauvinistic developments, as competitive industrialism itself?

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the reality of a motive which the American Trade Unionist will admit in the case of a Belgian or semi- barbarian Serbian, he boggles at In the case of Eng- lish working men with a thousand years of bitter social and political struggle behind them. The average American would repel with indignation the plea that Belgian resistance was " highbrow " or high falutin', or based on foolish dreams and theories, because, once settled down under German rule, Bel- gium would be as well administered as under King Albert; that wages would be as high as in Germany; that the workers would benefit by all the German labour legislation and Brussels be as clean and well kept as Munich. As little would a New Yorker — even an antl-Tammanylte — listen to the argument that New York would be better governed by one of the famous trained professional mayors from Ger- many than by Judge Hylan. In such cases we recog- nize readily enough that good government can never be a substitute for self government, nor efficiency for democracy.

But the American Trade Unionist is shutting his eyes to this truth when he disparages the demand of workers in Europe for wide reaching social changes that do not bear Immediately upon the Improvement of wages and hours, and describes them as " high- brow fancies." The European worker is merely do- ing what the American worker — if the war makes any equivalent demand upon him — will ultimately do; attempt to translate into terms of his own daily intimate life, the proclaimed objects of the war. The western democracies are fighting, and hundreds

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of thousands of Americans will give their lives, in order that Belgians, Serbians, Russians may con- serve the right to rule themselves ; in order that they — and we — may be secure from the power of an autocracy constituting itself virtual master of the world and depriving the mass of freedom.

If we really take that objective seriously, we must all, in the Western Democracies sooner or later, be led, as the British workers have been led, to ask with deepening insistence: Are not we too within the hands of an autocracy of our own, with a power in our state as real, though exercised in a different way, as that of the military autocracy of Prussia?

What really was the position of the mass of our workers in respect of freedom and self government under the old economic order, and what will it be after the war, if working class organization con- fines its activities within the limits of the older Trade Unionism?

The workers have learned that the mere right to vote for one political party as against another is no real guarantee of freedom when both parties, even when sincerely anxious to execute the will of the mass, are helpless in the grip of a social and economic system really controlled by a power outside politics. But not only does merely political democracy, acting within the limits of the old social and economic order, give the workman no real control over that power, but in grappling with all its ramifications Trade Unionism of the older type is almost as helpless; it is powerless to enable the workers really to deter- mine the quality and form of the society of which

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they are the greater part. The old Unionism can give them greater comfort, attenuate isolated tyr- annies; it cannot make them aught but a special servile class, socially and culturally inferior to a small, privileged, and normally, immensely powerful caste.

What are the facts? The present position of private property and capital, and their relationship to our political, industrial, legal, social, educational (in which is included, of course, such elements as the newspaper, the "movie" and the drama) religious and eleemosynary institutions, gives real control in the things that often matter most, into the hands of this little class of favoured individuals — an eco- nomic autocracy — as truly as political control is given to the political autocracy of Prussia. This economic autocracy has power, prestige, leisure, cul- ture, self-development, social deference, while the great mass must be content with an entirely different quality of life, as inferior culture, to train their chil- dren to be the mere servants and handmaidens of that autocracy. Does it alter the condition for the better that it should be open for an infinitesimal production of the great mass, (the system itself precludes any general movement) usually by the exercise of excep- tional self-assertiveness, a capacity ruthlessly to push aside weaker competitors, to exchange a servile con- dition for one in which they will profit by social injustice?

The workers in Britain have decided that this it not democracy; that no mere improvement in material condition can purchase acquiescence in it, or be ac-

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ceptcd as a substitute for a more real division of power — for self-government, as desirable in Itself apart from any material test; that moral helotry can- not be made acceptable by making it comfortable.

Perhaps we can summarize the situation by saying that the demand of the British democracy Is that the mass shall be partners Instead of servants, even though as partners their material condition Is not better than It would be as servants. We know as a matter of simple fact that In the case of nine in- dividuals out of ten in our society just that kind of motive Is often the predominant one. To ignore It, is to ignore the most powerful social force around us. It Is destined perhaps to be In the Industrial field, what nationalism has been In the field of In- ternational politics. It may be " unpractical." So was the determination of the Belgians to defend their national Independence.

In this problem of the relation of the war and its objects to the aims of democracy certain questions must suggest themselves to the American observer of democratic movements in England and France. The Impression Is certainly general In America that the number of those in the labour movement whom Americans would probably describe as lukewarm to the war. Is very much larger than In labour circles in this country. Why should the Radical, the thorough- going social reformer, the protagonist of popular right and of democracy be anti-war at all? Why should these of all people be less alive than others to the danger of the domination of a power which

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is the most anti-popular, anti-Radical and autocratic in the world, and the triumph of which would render the success of the Radical millennium impossible? On the face of it it would seem that it is precisely the revolutionary socialist who should be most con- cerned in the destruction of the most anti-revolu- tionary force of Christendom. Usually such a question is not answered by either party to the dis- cussion in any way that is at all convincing.

The explanation, implicit in the prevailing atti- tude towards English and French Labour opinion, that these anti-militarists and radicals definitely de- sire the triumph of German militarism and autocracy and are facing popular hostility — to say nothing of legal penalties — in order to work for the subjuga- tion of their country to the Prussian conqueror, is so silly that it would never be advanced if it had to be clearly formulated. Yet that, and nothing else, is the plain implication of most of the denuncia- tion of British and French minority opinion now current in the American press. On the other hand the socialist proposition that the war is a capitalist plot engineered by Wall Street for the special inter- ests of a little group of financiers, will hardly bear more examination. It belongs to the order of those social "myths" of which M. Sorel wrote: one of those fantasies necessary for the purpose of creating a group of motives with a basis in pugnacity and hostility to another group, and of providing a simple and stirring battle cry. But never so much as in the case of the entrance of the United States into the war did it have less basis in fact. American capitalism

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with uncontrolled profits would have done Immensely better out of the war with America as a neutral than with America as a belligerent fixing prices and — introducing state Socialism.

For, as we have seen, it is one of the contradictions of the situation that this war towards which certain socialists are so cold, has accomplished over-night, as it were, a development of state socialism and col- lective actions towards social reform which mere agi- tation would not have accomplished in half a century. And — a further contradiction — towards that State Socialism neither capitalism nor imperialism has shown itself particularly hostile. Yet in the country whose government since the war has gone farther than any other along the road of socialism the revolutionary movement among socialists is grow- ing apace. Such a situation shows very clearly how the old lines of cleavage, putting individualist capital- ism as representing the bourgeois or privileged classes on the one hand and on the other state socialism as representing popular aspiration and democratic reform, has all but completely broken down.

That such is an altogether false demarcation of the rival forces Germany herself before the war had taught. State Socialism, a widespread " nationaliza- tion " of the means of production and distribution, are not measures which Prussian autocracy resisted as inimical to their order or likely to strengthen German democracy. State Socialism was made in many ways a means of buttressing the Prussian ideal of the State as an all-powerful omnipresent authority disposing alike of the minds and bodies of those

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from whom It exacted unqualified allegiance; a very powerful means of resisting the political and moral democratization of the German people.^ And now also in Great Britain State Socialism — a devel- opment of " nationalization " which would for in- stance vest in the imperial government the title to all land in certain of the African colonies to be worked as an imperial property — has become one of the objects of the most reactionary groups of British Imperialists. They have quickly realized the natural affinity between military imperialism and a certain form of socialism.

One may still occasionally hear a public orator refer to the industrial and social triumphs which the workers owe to the war. But those who know something of the spirit which has been so rife In British and French workshops under governmental control during the last two or three years realize that great bodies of workers accept such " triumphs " with very serious qualifications, despite the increase of wages which in some cases, has taken place. The very grave unrest which the utmost efforts of the governments and the most urgent appeals to the patriotism of the workers barely manage to subdue, tell more nearly the true story.

That story might have been different, of course, If the habituation to state control, to workshop regi- mentation on military lines, to the system of leav- ing certificates and factory tribunals and the like, had been more gradual, If it had been spread over

1 See the summary ff the discussions of this point in Chapter I of this part.

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thirty instead of three years. As It Is, there has grown up, side by side with the resentment against capitalism as represented by the " profiteer," per- haps an equal resentment against the bureaucratic state which has replaced the individual employer, or rather (in many cases) made a government official out of him and given him greater powers than ever. The worker still finds himself a "wage slave"; he still has to barter his life for sustenance. But whereas before he had at least some choice of em- ployers, some freedom of movement, could leave one job and go to another, could resent the tyranny of a foreman by downing tools, he finds — or has found in many cases — that under the State he can- not leave, that this is an employer who can punish insubordination with death, by sending or returning a man to the army, and is one against whom it is treason to strike. The self-same " master " for whom he worked originally has now become a gov- ernment official, backed with all the forces of the government. And yet he was led to believe — his own Socialist philosophers had told him — that un- der such a system the workers would at last be them- selves the masters and come into their own!

By tens and hundreds of thousands he has ceased to believe it. And all the contrivances so far de- vised by his Unions or the government to give him some measure of control in the workshops have failed to remove his feeling that more and more he is be- coming the helpless puppet of forces outside his control; that he is practically powerless in the grip of a machine too vast, too distant, too all-embracing

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for him to check or deflect; that the erstwhile em- ployer is close to it, while he himself is remote from it. And the growth of powers in the State has synchronized with a decline in the moral authority of its government. He has seen It attacked vio- lently for incompetence, and even deliberate decep- tion and corruption, and its personnel changed and changed again at the instigation of the very Nation- alists and patriots who tell him that it is his duty to submit to it and accept its decisions and dictates without question.

There has grown up, naturally, therefore, in the minds of very many, a divided sovereignty and a divided loyalty. The worker has undoubtedly come to feel that the sovereignty of the government should be limited by the power of other organizations nearer to himself — an attitude analogous to that which prompted the Russian workman to create a co-ordinate authority in his Soldiers and Workmen's Councils and which has given such power to the Soviet government as it possesses. From this feel- ing has come undoubtedly the growth of Guild So- cialism to which so many observers of working class opinion in England have recently testified.

But the question remains why these people, fired with the vision of a complete democracy in the fu- ture, should be cold or hostile to the war that must be won if the world is to be safe for democracy. Many — most in England and France — would of course deny either coldness or hostility to the aim of defeating German militarism and would point out that their detestation of militarism and attachment

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to democratic institutions do not date from August, 19 14, and that what they want is not a relaxing of the efforts to win the war, but an increase of the efforts to ensure its democratic outcome. They point to certain tendencies as proof that the democ- racies may find themselves at the end of a long war, having destroyed militarism and autocracy in Ger- many, but having firmly established both at home; that even complete military victory may result in exchanging the pre-bellum condition in which those things were a menace for one in which they have be- come an established fact by virtue of the firm poli- tical arrival to power of reactionary elements and that elimination of more liberal ones which war so often produces.

Now the monstrous suggestion that the complete victory of the Allies will result in the Allied countries in a grave setback of liberal and democratic tenden- cies, does not come merely, or mainly, from the Labourites or Radicals, but from the exceedingly pa- triotic and pro-war Conservatives, Imperialists, Pro- tectionists, Clericals and reactionaries generally of Britain, France and Italy. The reactionary ele- ments in those countries openly rejoice that the war has temporarily at least put an end to the doctrines of democracy and internationalism which they have in the past opposed; and the reactionary parties have now a power to which they could not aspire before the war. No peace time Cabinet of the last fifteen years in England could have included a Curzon, a Milner, a Carson, a Northcliffe, a Bal- four and a Robert Cecil.

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There are of course perfectly arguable explana- tions of this phenomenon which do not imply an abandonment of the hope that the restoration of peace will see the restoration of more democratic parties and influences. But for the moment the fact is that the democratic influences have declined; war has brought to the front parties so anti-demo- cratic as to be excluded in times of peace. Can we wonder that there are some misgivings among demo- crats? Some fear that we may, while intending a temporary arrangement, plant growths that will push their roots very deep. There is no intention here to suggest even that these misgivings are justified. But they explain an attitude which must be taken into account.

But a further point remains to be examined. If, as we have seen, Socialism is by no means necessarily synonymous either with democracy or with freedom, we must also ask why it should be synonymous with peace, and an internationally organized world. It is, at bottom, part of the same question. A world of states in a perpetual condition of latent or actual conflict, will necessarily be a militarized world, in which all efforts within the nations towards freedom and democracy will be made subsidiary to military needs. The process which brings the reactionary to the fore in war time will go on after the war, be- cause " war " in the form of a contest in military efficiency, will be the normal condition of life in the world.

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^ The ultimate question here then Is, Why should a more socialized world be one less given to war? What reason have we to suppose that it will handle that problem more successfully than the order which preceded it?

Some two years before the war the Independent Labour Party published a little book of the present writer which opened with these paragraphs:

" Do the workers of Europe want to get rid of war? Do they think that It matters very much whether we get rid of it or not? Is It a thing about which they are disposed to take any particular trouble ?

*' Personally, I would answer all these questions In the negative. I do not believe that at present the democracies of the world are particularly interested In the question, that they see any very direct rela- tion between the war system and the problems of poverty and social progress with which they are grappling, or that the thing seems to them worth more than a merely passing attention.

" One can even go a bit farther, and say that there is a very general impression among workers that If the world abandoned armaments they might have surrendered a weapon which could be used against capitalist oppression; or that the building of ships is not bad for the wage earners in that it creates large expenditure in the form of wages; that the armies relieve unemployment, that armament ex- penditure is 'good for trade' generally; or that after all, war Is a pretty fine thing, and that we need

*What follows is reprinted from the Manchester Labour Leader. [146]

its discipline. Or, if we don't subscribe to any of these things, and are reasonably sure that war is an oppression, we are apt to shirl^ any action by the general plea that it is made by the capitalist in the interests of capitalism, and will only be got rid of when we have got rid of the capitalists; or that the only effective way of stopping war is by means of a general strike."

The misgiving there expressed has been tragically justified in almost all sections of labour.

It is not the fact of war having taken place which condemns Labour. Labour Parties might have ham- mered at the international problem as insistently as, for the most part, they neglected it, and still, in spite of their best efforts, war might have come.

The thing which should disturb us, and cause us to take stock of our past failures, is that when the war did come it found Labour in England — as else- where — morally and politically bankrupt, in the sense that it had not, and has not yet, any policy which differs from that of the capitalist parties with which it professes to be utterly and fundamentally at variance. In the very gravest crises of our society we find Labour men and Socialists the world over accepting en bloc the policies of the very order whose political conceptions and scheme of life they had heretofore resisted as pernicious and anti-social, and had been engaged in attempting to destroy.

Not only had organized Socialism in the crisis no real alternative to offer, but all over the world it has, in large part, sanctioned the political morals of the capitalist majorities, displayed the same order

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of political emotions, been moved apparently by the same instincts. Can a creed which stands the fiery test so poorly as this inspire very much hope?

I have put the criticism in that severe form for this reason : Some of us who were not Socialists be- fore the war, and who are most conscious of the failure of Socialism in the sense just indicated, are nevertheless turning to some form of Socialism as the best hope of saving the world from that madness which threatens to send whole nations down the steep places to destruction.

How comes it that with a deep sense of the failure just indicated strong upon them, so many internation- alists are, nevertheless, thus looking more than in the past to the Socialist solution?

It is rather important to make clear that very often, at least, their reasons are not those most fre- quently cited as identifying Socialism and pacifism. The little book from which quotation has just been made, is devoted, in no small part, to combating the proposition that war is a " capitalist plot," engi- neered over the heads of the people by little groups of interested individuals for purely individual ends. Not only is it true that but for the ready acquiescence of the peoples, as a whole, the intrigues of little groups of capitalists would necessarily remain sterile, but the whole notion of the special responsibility of capitalist cliques implies a helplessness on the part of the mass which would indeed make one despair of humanity. It is not possible to enter into that particular controversy here, but I see no reason to alter, in the slightest degree, past criticism of the

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conception of war as " capitalist plot." I would, indeed, go further. If the Socialism of the future is merely to mean a transfer of ownership in land and capital from the individual to the State pre- serving the type of mind and feeling which we now know in western society, the Socialist organization of nations is likely to give us a condition even more susceptible to bitter military conflicts than is the capitalist and individualist economy.

The matter is worth a little examination. In- dividualist capitalism and trade is " naturally " in- ternationalist, rather than nationahst. Much of the internationalism of Socialist parties In the past has been fortuitous. The British capitalist, after all, did exploit the Transvaal mines long before the Boer War, and the ownership of those mines was not changed by the war itself. If the capitalists who finally quarrelled over Morocco had been left to themselves they would have managed to divide the spoils quite amicably, as the history of the downfall of M. Caillaux before the war clearly proves. What made it impossible for M. Caillaux to settle the Franco-German conflicts in Africa was not the cap- italists, but the peoples, the democracies, or their Chauvinistic elements; not individualist and capital- ist conceptions of trade and industry, but National- ist conceptions.

The first fruits of the nationalization of wealth Is to diminish, not to increase, that economic inter- dependence of nations which, of itself, would con- stitute, in some measure, a mechanical check to war. And if our Socialism after the war is to be of the

type which the war has produced so far, we shall be confronted in the immediate future with a deliberate attempt to break down the international basis of in- dustry, and to replace it by a nationalist one, giving rise to a competition in self-sufficingness and a scramble for the separate national control of the raw materials of the world in undeveloped territories, out of which would inevitably come more wars.

Under the individualist system of ownership of land there was no change in ownership by conquest. A victorious State which captured territory captured in fact nothing, because it also captured the owners of the territory and confirmed them in their owner- ship, as when Germany conquered Asace-Lorraine. But if we could imagine the ownership of the mines and land of Alsace vested in the French State, Ger- many would, in fact, have effected a change in actual ownership, as well as a change in political adminis- tration. State ownership of itself, far from dimin- ishing the direct economic motive to warfare, will increase it.

It is quite possible to imagine Equatorial Africa divided among two or three European Socialist States, the ownership of the land vested in those States, the territories being worked like human cattle ranches, and the " owners " quarrelling desperately over their respective " estates," and all of them " working " those estates to the last limit of nigger endurance. We might get a Europe of Sociahst- government slave-owners.

The reader will note that it is not here denied in the least that, under the present individualist and

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capitalistic system, certain groups In a State like Germany may have an interest in retaining, for in- stance, the coal and iron mines of Alsace-Lorraine (although the economic interest of the German peo- ple, as a whole therein, is very questionable). The point I am making is that under State Socialism, the case for the economic interest of the people as a whole in conquest would be far more plausible than under the old system. The case may be summarized thus:

The pacifism of Socialism is not the outcome of the methods and mechanism of Socialist economics, but arises from the state of mind which the Social- ist organization of society engenders. War in capi- talist society does not arise from the mechanism of capitalism, but from the state of mind which a capital- ist society engenders, quite as much among the workers as among the capitalists, and which may lead both to support policies obviously to their ma- terial disadvantage.

One of the most fundamental differences between the socialistic outlook of the twentieth century and the individualist laissez-faire attitude, of the nine- teenth, is the social fatalism which marked the latter, and is so largely absent from the former. The older assumptions implied that, as societies grew by virtue of immutable laws and were not made, man's collective effort could have little effect thereon. The attitude of the Socialist (despite the economic deter- minism of the Marxian school) comes nearer to the assumption that societies are made by men, who can consequently alter them. It is this assumption which

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comes nearest to explaining the natural afilnity bt;- tween socialism and internationalism, and pacifism, not otherwise always explainable. The underlying fatalism of the older doctrine was perhaps the great- est single obstacle before the war to any common effort towards a new international order that might help to obviate war. War was regarded as some- thing which descended upon man like the earthquake and the rain, the result of forces which he could not control. It was fate, or part of our nature, and to hope that we could change it was to " create an un- real world of our imagination which ignores the deep- est forces of human nature." Anyone at all fa- miliar with the literature of war and peace will recognize immediately this attitude. " As long as human nature remains what it is," " As long as men are men " — " Practical men accept the world as they find it" — what internationalist does not know the weary formulas by which the average man seemed positively to rejoice in his helplessness, re- joiced in proclaiming himself the puppet of some vague outside forces which he could not direct? The sophisticated attempted to give a scientific explana- tion of this alleged inevitability of war; the religi- ously minded drifted into a military mysticism con- cerning it; but there was no military writer of any eminence who did not sound loudly this fatalistic note.

Against that blank wall of fatalism, some of the most needed reforms, especially in the international field, smote in vain. The great mass in Europe were ineradicably convinced that efforts towards the pre-

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vention of war were futile. This feeling of the helplessness was ingrained, going down to profound depths. The individual citizen, however uneasy about the international situation, felt himself within the grip of forces he did not know how to manage. And so, at the last, we had this monstrous paradox : in July, 19 14, a whole world (including the great mass of the German and Austrian peoples) wanting peace, and a whole world going to war. Every- body keenly desiring one thing, everybody doing ex- actly the opposite. Butler's phantasy had become a fact and the machine which mankind had created with his own hands turned round and destroyed him.

Now that could never have happened if men as a whole had been inspired for a generation previ- ously by a different spirit. If they had been accus- tomed to the view that society was mainly what they cared to make it, that it depended upon their will, that they could, in fact, " manage themselves," the monstrous paradox just described would have been impossible.

Happily, Socialism, of whatever form, has got away from the notion that you must leave things in society to happy — or unhappy — chance; to im- mutable " laws " we cannot modify; that States are not " made." And that is the very first step to a " co-operative peace."

But there is a second, just as important. xAUled to this habit, which belonged so much to the old in- dividualist society, of " taking things as we find them," of regarding the organization of society as

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something that we cannot much alter, went also the habit of refusing to question the purpose for which our State had come into being. English or Ger- man, we all had to defend our Fatherland: " For King and Country." Any kind of king and any kind of country. That was part of an almost re- ligious injunction. The notion that we should ques- tion the kind of country that it should be, immediately (and very suggestively) " smelt of Socialism."

The Tory was ready to die for his country — has died for it in his thousands — without ever asking for a moment what it stood for. " My country, right or wrong." It is a real religious fanaticism, the " religion of nationalism." Its devotee asks no questions. He is of his herd, and he fights with it.

It is in a special sense true of the German; but it is also true, in some degree, of his enemy. Each at the outbreak of the war was for his State, what- ever that State stood for, without question. And that of course, would have made war inevitable, even if the differences between them had been of the smallest.

The socialistic attitude helps to correct the funda- mental assumption that the ultimate problem in poli- tics is concerned with the struggle of rival states for domination and survival. It tends to make men feel, on the contrary, that the ultimate problem of politics is the quality of life led by the men that make up the states.

The wiseacres in Germany and elsewhere, who manage to make life in the world what it has been for its youth during the last four years, and what it is

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likely to be during the next generation or tv/o, have achieved that appalling result by talking In terms of " National Destiny," " Fatherland," and the rest of it, instead of in terms of the dally lives of men and women. If you were to ask one of these poHtlcal bandits (not alone In Prussia), how his triumphs of statecraft, the carrying of his flag over the world, would affect the daily life of his own people under It, he would deem you guilty of a gross Irrelevance. High politics are not concerned with such trivialities. If we could become deeply Interested In the quality of the common life In our states — if that were our main Interest — we should see that thereon these changes of frontiers and political sovereignties about which most wars are fought, have no bearing. The Statesmen will never solve the political problems of Europe by settling the questions Involved, because for the most part, they cannot be settled. Five dif- ferent nationalities are today laying equally just claims to the same piece of Balkan territory. Do- ing " justice " to one, means doing Injustice to four — however you may settle it. But if the main In- terest of these people were centred on the quality of their lives — on work, health, love, children, art, music, play, — no problems would have arisen. But we have built a political tradition, as we built In the past, a religious tradition, around Irreconcil- able differences that do not matter. The story of the religious struggles gives us a hint of the fashion in which socialism may be working towards a solu- tion.

Europe fought for some two hundred years over [i55l

questions arising out of the problem of the Real Presence. The religious wars did not stop because that question was settled (they could not settle it) but because men became interested in other things, which, strange as it may seem, enabled them to see that battles cannot determine a theological question. And the story of socialism would seem to show that advance in the political field will be made, not by frontal attack upon old political and national- ist dogmas, and prejudices, but by getting folk, con- cerned about things more real than rival national- isms: about a socialism that is not merely a matter of recasting the mechanism of production and ex- change.^

iThe idea seems to be disturbing Mr. Wells. The following from " Joan and Peter," although certainly very inadequate as a statement of the problem of Irish nationaliim, does bring into relief the point just dealt with:

" All this rot about Ireland a Nation and about the Harp, which isn't properly their symbol, and the dear old Green Flag, which isn't properly their colour! . . . They can't believe in that stuflF nowadays. . . . But can they? In our big world? And about be- ing a Black Protestant and pretending Catholics are poison, or the other way round. What are Protestants and Catholics now? . . . Old, dead squabbles. . . . Dead as Druids. . . . Keeping up all that bickering stuflF, when a child of eight ought to know nowadays that the Christian God started out to be a universal, charitable God. ... If Christ came to Dublin the Catholics and Protestants would have a free fight to settle which was to crucify him. . . ."

" It's the way with them," said Oswald. " We've got to respect Irish opinion."

" It doesn't respect itself. Everywhere else in the world, wher- ever we have been, there's been at least something iike the germ of an idea of a new life. But here! When you get over here you realize for the first time that England is after all a living country trying to get on to something — compared with this merry-go-round. . . . It's exactly like a merry-go-round churning away. It's the atmosphere of a country fair. An Irishman hasn't any idea of a future at all, so far as I can see — except that perhaps his grand- children will tell stories of what a fine fellow he was. . . ."

Oswald was not sure of the extent of Peter's audience. "The susceptibilities of a proud people, Peter," he whispered, with his eye on the back of their host.

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" feother their susceptibilities. Much they care for our suscepti- bilities. The worst insult you can offer a grownup man is to humour him," said Peter. " What's the good of pretending to be sympathetic with all this Wearing of the Green .-' It's like our White Rose League. Let 'em do it by all means if they want to, but don't let's pretend we think it romantic and beautiful and all the rest of it. It's just posing and dressing up, and it's a nuisance. Nobby. All Dublin is posing and dressing up and playing at re- bellion, and so is all Ulster. The Volunteers of the eighteenth century all over again. It's like historical charades. And they've pointed loaded guns at e<ich other. Only idiots point loaded guns. W^hy can't we get out of it and leave them to pose and dress up and then tell anecdotes and anecdotes and anecdotes about it until they are sick of it? If ever they are sick of it. Let them have their Civil War if they want it ; let them keep on with Civil Wars for ever; what has it got to do with us?"

He went on talking after a moment's reflection.

" It's as if we were hypnotized and couldn't get away from mean things, beastly suspicions and stale quarrels. I suppose we are still half apes. I suppose our brains set too easily and rapidly. I sup- pose it's easy to quarrel yet and still hard to understand. We take to jealousy and bitterness as ducklings take to water."

"Is there no way out, Peter?"

"If some great idea would take hold of the world!" said Peter. ...

" There have been some great ideas," said Oswald.

" If it would take hold of one's life." Peter finished his thought. . . .

" There has been Christianity," said Oswald.

"Christianity! " Peter pointed at the distant mist that was Dub- lin. " Sour Protestants," he said, " and dirty priests setting simple people by the ears."

" But that isn't true Christianity."

"There isn't true Christianity," said Peter compactly. . . .

"Well, there's love of country, then," said Oswald.

"That Dublin corporation is the most patriotic and nationalist iu the world. Fierce about it. And it's got complete control there. It's green in grain. No English need apply. . . . From the point of view of administration that town is a muck heap — for patriotic Growings. Look at their dirty ill-paved streets. Look at their filthy slums! See how they let their blessed nation's children fester and die!"

" There are bigger ideas than patriotism. There are ideas of empire, the Pax Britannica."

" Lansdowne and Carson smuggling guns."

"Well, is there nothing? Do you know of nothing?" Oswald turned on his ward for the reply.

" There's a sort of idea, I suppose."

"But what idea? "

"There's an idea in our minds."

" But what is it, Peter ? "

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" Call it Civilization," Peter tried.

" I believe," he went on, weighing his words carefully, " as you believe really, in the Republic of Mankind, in universal work for a common end — for freedom, welfare and beauty. Haven't you taught me that ? "

" Have I taught you that ? "

" What else can there be? "

" I suppose I have been coming to that myself," said Oswald.

" I think you've always been there. That seems to me to be the commonsense aim for all humanity. You're awake to it. You've awakened me to it and I believe in it. But most of this world is still deep in its old Fixed Ideas, walking in its sleep, the Fixed Ideas of class and nationality, of partizan religion, race supersti- tion, and all the rest of 'em. These things hold the mind of the world. And it won't wake up. It won't wake up. . . . What can we do? We've got to a sort of idea, it's true. But here are these Irish, for example, naturally wittier and quicker than you or I, hypnotized by Orange and Green, by Protestant and Catholic, by all these stale things — drifting towards murder. It's murder is coming here. You can smell the bloodshed coming on the air — and people like we are can't do a thing to prevent it. Not a thing. The silliest bloodshed it will be. The silliest bloodshed the world has ever seen. We can't do a thing to wake them up. . • ."

He danced a couple of steps with vexation.

" I don't knoiv, Nobby," he cried. " I don't know. I can't find the way. I'm making a mess of my life. I'm not getting on with my work. You knoiv I'm not. . . . Either we're mad or this world is. Here's all these people in Ireland letting a solemn humbug of a lawyer with a heavy chin and a lumpish mind muddle them into a civil war — and that's reality! That's life! The Solemn League and Covenant — copied out of old history books! That's being serious! And over there in England, across the sea, muddle and muck and nonsense indescribable. Oh and we're in it! ... Ohl I want to get out of all this. I don't like this world of ours. I want to get into a world awake. I'm young and I'm greedy. I've only got one life to live, Nobby. ... I want to spend it where something is being made. Made for good and all. Where clever men can do something more than sit overlong at meals and tell spiteful, funny stories. Where there's something better to do than play about with one's brains and viscera! . • ."

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CHAPTER V

MILITARY CONSCRIPTION AND THE INSTITUTION OF PRIVATE PROPERTY

The fashion in which the needs of war have prompted a reassertion of the absolute rights of the state over the person — his life and mind — is modifying age-long conceptions of private property. Confiscation, conscription of wealth and the Eighth Commandment. Not repudiation, but a progres- sive income tax. The virtual bankruptcy of some of the belligerent states and its effect on future legislation. Neces- sitas . . .

" In the disposal of the surplus above the standard of life, society has gone as far wrong as In Its neglect to secure the necessary basis of any genuine Industrial efficiency or decent so- cial order. ... It Is from this constantly aris- ing surplus . . . that will have to be found the new capital which the community day by day needs for the perpetual Improvement and In- crease of Its various enterprises, for which we shall decline to be dependent on the usury-ex- acting financiers."

" For raising the greater part of the revenue required, the Party demands the direct taxa- tion of Incomes above the necessary cost of family maintenance; and, for the requisite ef- fort to pay off the national debt, the direct taxa- tion of private fortunes both during life and at death. . . . The Income tax on large in- [159]

comes to rise to sixteen and even nineteen shill- ings in the pound, [that is to say from eighty to ninety-five cents on the dollar]. . . . The Labour Party stands for a special capital levy to pay off, if not the whole, a very substantial part of the entire national debt." — From the British Labour Party Programme.

" The Watchwords shall be * Conscription of Wealth and Equality of Income ' to be realized by:

" (a) Expropriation of private landowners and capitalists. No compensation beyond an ample provision against individual hardship, (b) All men and women willing to work to be paid, even when their work happens to be not needed, just as soldiers are paid when they arc not fighting. Equal payment for all to be the result at which reorganization shall aim. (c) Instead of the present capitalistic methods of production, ownership by the state: man- agement BY the workers. This shall be applied immediately to the case of Mines, Rail- ways, Shipping, Shipbuilding, and Engineering, Electric Light and Power, Gas and Water . . .

" Those classes who have sanctioned and ap- proved the conscription of men, cannot on any moral ground object to the conscription of money — expropriation of property owners for national purposes. Indeed the latter has jus- tifications which cannot be invoked for the former."

•— From the Lanshury-Herald Programme. [i6o]

Conscription of Wealth — the right of the Stat6 to demand from its citizens the contributions neces- sary for the maintenance of its pubHc service — is a principle as old as organized society. Taxation is conscription of wealth. But we should go woefully astray if we assumed from this that the introduction of military conscription as it is now known in Eng- land has had no effect in changing old ideas as to the rights of the community over the property of the individual. Mihtary conscription has created a revolution in those ideas, a moral revolution in which the whole institution of private property is involved.

Conscription of wealth in the form of taxation for public purposes has always heretofore operated within very definite limits, and deliberate seizure of property for the purpose of creating equality in the distribution of wealth, would, until the war, have been regarded as well outside those limits, and as morally perfidious. This is one of those cases in which the essence of the distinction between very different things is a difference of degree.

The sudden introduction of conscription into Britain has had certain moral and psychological ef- fects which the institution may not have had in con- tinental countries, for the simple reason that in them its introduction has been for the most part a process extending over generations. Gradual habituation will lead us to accept almost any situation without much vivid questioning. In England, conscription came upon the people without historical preparation, and not, incidentally, by selective draft with gen- erous exemptions. It was an institution they had

[i6i]

always looked upon as alien, and one which they boasted " Englishmen would never stand," Under it, a whole generation of young Englishmen were suddenly confronted with the fact that their lives did not belong to themselves ; that each owed his life to the state. But if he owed life itself to the com- munity, what did the state owe to him? And if he must give, or at least risk, everything that he pos- sessed, to life itself, were others giving or risking what they possessed? Here was new light on the institution of private property. If the life of each belongs to the community, then assuredly does his property.

For the great masses of the British working classes, conscription has solved the ethical problem involved in the confiscation of capital. The eighth commandment no longer stands in the way as it stood so long in the case of a people still religiously minded, and still feeling the weight of Puritan tradition.

For generations in modern states — certainly since the industrial revolution — there has been fair presumption that the aggregate wealth production would suffice for the abolition of poverty, if approxi- mate equality in distribution could be achieved. But the various schemes looking to that end have for generations been paralysed by scruples largely con- cerned with the institution of Private Property. Most plans of redistribution of wealth have come to naught because of the fact that purchase and com- pensation involves taking from the individual a dol- lar and giving him a hundred cents. In purchasing watered railroad stock, or concerns like the Standard

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Oil Company; one would be creating a new class of claimants upon the wealth of the community while destroying an old. It was a real difficulty, though a smaller one than it seemed to earlier critics of so- cialism.

The assumed ethical impossibility of confiscation was one of the great moral buttresses of the older or- der. The present writer remembers hearing an old Victorian Liberal make a statement of the moral case against Socialism in some such terms as these:

" Though he happens to be rich, and I hap- pen to be poor ; though he does not want it and I do; though I am hungry and he is gorged; though my children starve while he overfeeds his dogs — all has nothing to do with it. The money is not mine. If I take it I rob. Tup- pence pilfered from a millionaire is as much theft as when snatched from the old apple- woman. Once admit that because ' I want it ' I may take it, and society will become a den of thieves, not less so because the thieves use long words about their theft. If we cover up the moral fact with them, the end has begun. Expropriation, Confiscation, the Social Sanction of the Majority, may be such words. But the simple imperative is unshaken; it remains ab- solute : ' Thou shalt not steal.' " That had a very strong and deep appeal to the Victorian non-conformists (many of them workmen) to whom it was addressed. It would have very little appeal if addressed today to an audience of English working men conscripts. The retort is too obvious.

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If it is theft to take a man's money for the purposes of the State, is it any less theft to take his Hfe? Military conscription implies that we may for the general good take and even destroy the person of the citizen. Why not then his property? Is that more sacred? The individual must be ready to give his life for the general good — we have the right to compel him to do so. But we have not the same right over his possessions! Indeed the philosophy which attempts to justify military conscription gives to the community greater powers over the individual than even the powers of life and death. It asserts the right of the State to compel the citizen not only to give his own life, but to take the lives of others, whatever his personal conviction as to the cause which those others represent. Thus the political doctrine by which alone Conscription can be justified demands of the individual citizen for the purposes of the community the surrender of all his freedoms, convictions, person, life, conscience — but not money.

Just compare the powers which the government is now exercising for a military purpose and those which it would exercise in assuring a better distribu- tion of wealth for social purposes. (And it should be remembered that the powers now exercised are inforced by modern states not only on behalf of foreign policies which are purely defensive, but on behalf of policies like those which led Italy to war for the conquest of Tripoli, Russia to war with Japan, or like those which led England to war for the conquest of the Boer Republics.) Military Con-

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scriptlon empowers the State to say to Its citizens :

*' The government having decided to go to war, you are to leave your wife and your chil- dren and their future to our care. You shall, if necessary, give us your life without question. More, we demand that you shall kill as many of the enemy citizens as possible; if you refuse we shall use compulsion to the extent of imprison- ment, torture or death." The government of every great state in the world now possesses and exercises to the full those powers. What would be the powers which a Socialist gov- ernment, commissioned to ensure a better distribu- tion of the national wealth, would require for its purpose? Just compare its demand upon the indi- vidual citizen with that made now by Conscription. It would in effect say to that small minority which possesses the wealth:

*' The government having been authorized to take measures to liberate the country from evil economic conditions, asks as your contribution to that purpose, not any positive act, (as it would ask you to kill foreigners under your military obligation) ; nor does it ask you to give your life, or freedom, or conviction; nor does it ask you to accept poverty, because its object is to exempt all from poverty; it asks you merely to acquiesce in its withdrawal of its protection of your surplus and unneeded wealth, the reten- tion of which involves the slavery of so many of your countrymen." This parallel is, as we know, being very commonly [165]

drawn. Does any one believe it can leave the Insti- tution of private property unaffected?

The London Herald at the time of the publication of the Programme from which an extract is given at the head of this chapter, commented on the pro- posal for the conscription of the public utilities in these terms:

" There is at least one class who are estopped from objecting to it on moral grounds. That class are the people who have defended mili- tary conscription. And they happen to be thpse in possession of the wealth it is proposed to conscribe — or the machinery of profiteering. Indeed the phrase Conscription of Wealth, al- though perhaps the three words that are des- tined to play the largest part in <:he creation of the New Age, is not an accurate description of what would take place under better distribu- tion. The government would not ' seize ' wealth At all. It would prevent its being seized by the profiteers; would cease to spend its energies in protecting profiteers, in enforc- ing the Laws which alone make capitalist profits possible.

" Moreover, there is this point which should be made clear : To say that military conscrip- tion has disposed of the moral objection to Con- fiscation without compensation, does not mean that military conscription merely enables the advocates of confiscation to silence critics by a dialectical point, a tu quoque shutting up a pro- test against one wrong by citing the existence [166]

of a greater one; still less that the Conscription of Wealth based on the right of each to a fair share of the wealth he does his part in creating, is in any way a moral justification of military conscription. For while there can be no moral defence of military conscription which does not also justify the confiscation of private property for public ends — or the refusal to accord pro- tection to certain forms of private gain — this latter in no way justifies the military institution. Morally the state's right to take the lives of its citizens must include the right to retake the money they have ' absorbed ' from the com- munity. But the right to restore wealth by no sort of sophistry can be made to include the right to take life. As things stand we have al- lowed the militarists so to distort a social prin- ciple as to leave out what is good and might make for the general welfare, but to apply what is bad and tells most heavily against the workers."

It is not to be assumed from the foregoing that wild schemes of confiscation will ever be attempted. But the change of moral attitude towards enterprises of private profit and their relation to the community will involve a profound change in the terms upon which the state purchase of public utilities will be made. Some form of purchase is likely to prove both easier and, in the end, less wasteful perhaps, than expropriation. It is a matter of bargain. The newly awakened sense on the part of the dispossessed

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of the moral right of expropriation, and the newly awakened sense on the part of the possessors, that such a right might very well be exercised, are an assurance that the conditions of purchase will be economically possible and advantageous for the com- munity. The chastening effect of this newer atti- tude is seen in the latest proposals for dealing with a very precious and very powerful British interest

— beer. The reports of the English, Scottish and Irish committees ^ on the conditions under which the government might purchase all the private Interests in the Liquor Trade are a startling advance on any previous recommendations. They are of especial interest, of course, as indicating principles likely to be invoked in other cases of state purchase. The main principles laid down by the English Liquor Purchase Committee under Lord Sumner — a Com- mittee which Included the Permanent Secretary of the Treasury and two eminent Public Accountants

— are of general application. It Is proposed (I) to take as the basis the average net profits of the four years preceding the war; (11) to fix what we may call the pre-war price at a certain number of years' purchase (In this case normally 15) ; (Hi) to scale down the cash price so arrived at In proportion to the ascertained fall In general capital values be- tween August, 19 14, and the date of settlement; (Iv) to give in full discharge Government securities that would then and there sell for such a sum; and (v) to leave this purchase price for each concern to be judicially allocated among all interests, deben-

* Sec British government document Cd. 9042. [168]

ture-holders, preference and ordinary shareholders, and what not, according to the relative security and market value of their several holdings. These pro- posals, which avoid both war depreciation and war inflation of profits, are of great importance. Any joint-stock company — or, rather, the debentures (bonds) and shares (stocks) which together make up the entire interest of a joint-stock company — may be equitably transferred from private to public ownership on similar principles of compensation ac- cording to pre-war profits and so many years' pur- chase, reduced to the scale of present capital values, whether the business be transport, the extraction of coal, the brewing of beer or the issue of life assur- ance policies. As one commentator points out,*

The Nev} Statesman. It is noteworthy that the Committee sum- marily disposes of the claims often put forward (a) that the de- benture-holders, at any rate, should be given an undiminished income for ever in the much more valuable Government securities; (b) that the expropriated stockholders should be given an "un- depreciated " capital value, and thus be exempted from the common lot of investors who find that the number of years' purchase that they can get for their dividends has (owing merely to the rise in the current rate of interest) fallen by 25 per cent; (c) that the owners of the great stocks of spirits, now worth some ninety million pounds more than they cost in 1914, should be allowed to retain this huge " unearned increment," in addition to being compensated for their trading profits. The Scottish Committee would bring them under the principle of the Excess Profits Duty, and take 80 per cent, for the Exchequer. But when all equitable allowances and deductions are made, the property to be transferred to the State — the amount of the substitution of Government securities for debentures and share certificates — is estimated, for the United Kingdom, at between 400 and 500 million pounds, subject to the scaling-down in proportion to general depreciation of capital values — at present about 25 per cent. — and offset by numerous credit items (such as the fifty million pounds Excess Profits Duty on the whisky stocks). One member onh*, among all three Committees, thought the compensation too small (Mr. Thomas O'Donnell). On the other hand, Mr. Adamson, M.P., now the chairman of the Par- liamentary Labour Party, records his dissent on the ground that it is excessive.

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such transaction or all the transactions put together, whilst they would keep the accountants busy, and necessitate some reprinting of security documents, would not mean any increase (other than merely nominal) in the National Debt, and no increase in the interest charge ; would not necessarily involve any cash payments; nor cause disturbance of the market for securities.

Along some such lines as the foregoing, we may expect great plans of nationalization in the near fu- ture. Mr. Sidney Webb's organ has already an- nounced that we may soon expect the government to make public its decision to nationalize the rail- ways and canals. It is already clear that the sixteen great " super-power stations," which are to generate electric light, heat and power for the whole king- dom, must be erected and owned by the State itself, with the whole existing municipal and joint-stock electric plant unified, under local management, in a common distributive system. With the railways and the supply of electricity in public hands, it will hardly be possible to retransfer the coal mines to the colliery companies, which are themselves rapidly fusing and combining. What is to happen to joint-stock life assurance and banking may not yet seem so plain, but opinion is apparently ripening towards drastic change.

We may take it as fairly certain that every effort will be made to avoid direct confiscation of property as a source of public funds, and to look instead to the absorption of personal income. A millionaire's railroad stock will not be taken from him, but his

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income may be taxed ninety per cent. More and more will unearned increment be absorbed by the community. With the railroads, public communica- tions, and great public utilities all in public hands, able, by the manipulation of rates to control very largely the direction of development in industry; with a progressive income tax, twenty years or so would probably see the " painless " absorption by the community of a vast body of profits, (" economic rent "), now falling into private hands.

Equality of income as an ideal of the future de- mocracy bears a relation to the financial condition of the European belligerent states, as they will exist after the war, which is not perhaps generally appre- ciated. The aim of equality will have behind it the push of forces that are more than moral. For, the heavier the indebtedness of the European States, the more will they be compelled to resort to ruthless taxation of surplus wealth as the only alternative to repudiation; and obviously that process has only to go on long enough to end in equalization of income. With that result achieved the problem of public debt and national bankruptcy (at least in so far as in- debtedness to the states' own citizens is concerned) would be solved. For public loans are a device for perpetuating inequality of income. If we could imagine a public loan to which each citizen had made an equal contribution, it would not matter whether the loan were paid or not. The State would tax each citizen the same amount in order that the same citizen might receive it back as interest on his loan. It would be simpler to let him do the mental book-

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keeping in his own mind and dispense with tax- gatherer and treasury official.

This truth has more than mere fanciful interest.

Most of the continental belligerents of Europe have already reached a condition of thinly disguised bankruptcy. Austria-Hungary for instance, has al- ready eaten up four-fifths of its entire capital value in war debt; while none of the other countries falls short of one-half. Germany, with about two-thirds of the population of the United States will (assum- ing that the costs go on a few months longer) be compelled, for the payment of the interest on her national debt alone, ^ to find annually a sum of two billion dollars.

But a short time ago the United States, with a population larger than that of Germany, found a billion dollar budget for all purposes of the national government, an intolerable extravagance. Today the German government has to find twice that sum for debt charges alone, before a mark can be spent upon the actual business of government. France with barely one-third of the population of the United States will be compelled to find nearly one billion dollars annually for debt charges alone, before any- thing can be spent upon pensions, reconstruction or the work of government. As Mr. Brougham Vil- liers has pointed out,^ " every conceivable means of raising money, except that of putting a heavy di-

1 About one-eighth of this is the debt of the various states of the empire.

2 See "Britain After the Peace" (T. Fisher Unwin: London) and a remarkable series of articles in War and Peace (London) for June and July, 191 8.

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rect tax on the rich," has already been tried on the Continent. Except in so far as they impose special war profit taxes, which will cease to yield any money at the end of the war, these schemes are simply desperate attempts to glean something from a field that has already been swept bare by the needy Treasuries of Europe. " We may be confident," he says, " that if there really had been any important source of revenue that could have been taxed with- out offending the big landlords and capitalists of Europe it would have been tapped long before this."

We may take it as absolutely certain that in the first year of peace Europe must find at least $5,500,- 000,000 by new taxation or new loans, if the interest on its war debts is to be paid. Within six months of the conclusion of peace, interest to the tune of $2,500,000,000 must either be paid or the claims dishonoured; and that in addition to all the regular expenses of the States, to the necessary provision for discharged soldiers, and to any money that may be wanted to restore industry and maintain credit.

Some nations will be in a worse case than others, but the burden of national indebtedness will every- where but in America present statesmen with a crop of problems which they cannot solve except by revo- lutionary devices. Other issues may be evaded or postponed by astute political managers. But the necessity of finding the huge sums of money to pay the interest on the War Loans in a time of the gravest economic disorder and uncertainty cannot be dodged.

Mr. Brougham Villiers thinks that there are only three ways in which the Governments of Europe can

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meet this situation: by admitting bankruptcy, and, either for a term of years or for good, suspending payment of interest; by raising new loans, or by mak- ing a wholesale raid for revenue on land, capital, war profits, in fact, on any and every accumulation of wealth that has hitherto almost entirely escaped direct taxation. " They cannot deliberate very long upon which course they will take, for interest falls due on its day and must be paid on its day, while within six months another $2,500,000,000 will have become due and must be dealt with. Nor will it be possible any longer to conceal from the public the desperate condition of European finance. There will be no ravenous war expenditure going on, giving excuse for loans out of the proceeds of which any demand not provided for by the regular taxes can be met. They must decide at once, and whatever course they adopt, it seems to me, implies a funda- mental revolution in the European system." ^

FINANCES OF CONTINENTAL BELLIGERENTS.

IN MILLIONS OF DOLLAKS.

National National Proportion of

Debt Debt debt to Total

lQt2 June, IQ18 Capital %

$1,170 Empire $34,715 Empire

3 765 German States 5,765 G. States 51

3,970 21,500 82

5,060 24,100 41^.

2,685 7,685 47-S

4,730 32,500 46-4

^ At the close of 1917 M. Louis Marin prepared for the Chamber of Deputies in France an elaborate document, dealing with the financial position of the various nations engaged in the war. As- suming generally the same rate of expenditure per month since ai for the period up to which each estimate is given, Mr. Villiers has been able to prepare the following tables, which give the minimum co*t of the war to the great Continental belligerents, assuming that

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	National Capital
Germany $80,000 Austria-
Hungary 26,250 France 58,330 Italy 16,170 Russia 69,000

Amount needed

Revenue to meet interest

IQI2 Neiu Debt alone

Germany $ 705 Empire

1,660 States $i>76o

Austria-Hungary i>070 975

France 920 940

Italy 570 330

Russia 1,655 ii39o

But there is a fourth course which is in fact, a dis- guised form of repudiation and confiscation, and which will almost certainly be resorted to : Inflation of the currency by the public manufacture of money. War finance has revealed means of doing this while maintaining a fictitious redeemability in gold. This path is likely to be farther explored with a conse- quent further expansion of prices. If only the sys- tem can be maintained long enough, interest will be paid, public debts will be redeemed, in inflated money. The war bond-holders will get a good deal less in real wealth for their bonds than these repre- sented when the government accepted and used the money. It will, as I have said, be confiscation with- out compensation, but disguised and haphazard, fall- ing most heavily upon those least able to bear it.

That process might imaginably be linked to the de- vice of an international pooling of Allied war debts. We may, for instance, come to the rescue of France financially by some plan of the internationalization of debt. Such a plan might be linked to the scheme of a League of Nations and in some of its aspects be attractive. But it would be likely to mean the

it had ended on June 30th, 1918. In the case of Germany, an official estimate by Dr. Lentze, the German Finance Minister, is taken as basis.

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perpetuation of the capitalist system by international action, particularly if the diplomatic tradition of semi-secret arrangements between states, as opposed to public discussion as between peoples through rep- resentative machinery, dominates the futu.-e League of Nations, or Superstate. The plan would attach to that idea the pull of great financial interests, but it would be a factor of conservatism and authoritarian- ism, tending to make internationahsm the bulwark, not of democracy, but reaction. It is a scheme for democrats, not to reject, but to watch with every vigilance.

Here then, will be the situation on the morrow of war. The belligerent states will find themselves still in possession of the main sources of their material wealth (except the energy of the best of their young men). The mines, fields — for the most part — most of the factories and railroads will still be intact. Despite the need of renewing plant and the scarcity of certain raw materials, the populations will still be in a position to feed, and clothe themselves. But the problem of re-establishing the precise distribution of wealth called for by the war debts, will, from the nature of the figures already given, obviously be be- yond them. Devices of disguise will be resorted to. Public debts will be paid in inflated — that is in partly fictitious — money. When paid, much will be taken back in the form of income tax. Wealth, which is clearly due to communal activities will be reserved for the community. And at each turn the question of social right, in the light of the compulsory sacrifice of life made by miUions to whom life has meant

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most, will be hotly debated. If we are to avoid some very evil developments in ideas and political conduct we must somehow fit our generation for that debate. Otherwise, better things than the ancient institutions of militarism and capitalism may suffer therein.

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CHAPTER VI

THE SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE IN SOCIAL CHANGE

The end of the old fatalism which implies that we must " take the world as we find it," and that we cannot remake it. Some of the results that we may expect from the cheapening of life, the contempt of danger, the re-casting of moral stand- ards, and the spirit of revolution which the war has produced. The " strenuous life " in times of peace, and its social and political implications.

" Every sign of these terrible days of war and revolutionary change, when economic and so- cial forces are being released upon the world, whose effect no political seer dares venture to conjecture, bids us search our hearts through and through and make them ready for the birth of a new day — a day, we hope and believe, of greater opportunity and greater prosperity for the average mass of struggling men and women, and of greater safety and opportunity for chil- dren. . . . The men in the trenches . . . will, it is likely, return to their homes with a new view and a new impatience of all mere political phases, and will demand real thinking and sincere action." — Woodrow Wilson,

A previous chapter attempted to indicate one of the most fundamental differences between the

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old order of ideas which belonged to the individualist, capitalist, laissez-faire society of the nineteenth cen- tury and those which are coming to mark the twenti- eth century: a certain social fatalism which charac- terized the former is, despite much Marxian " eco- nomic determinism," absent from the latter.

The individualist and laissez-faire political econ- omy appealed continually to certain iron " laws," which it was implied men could not alter, or at least could only interfere with on pain of disaster. In- deed, the greatest mischief of the individualist con- ception was not the implication that the individual is all important. He is. The State was made for man, not man for the State. The mischief of the old doctrine resided in the implication that if the in- dividual went his way and let things work out for themselves, by some sort of happy chance, without any conscious control of collective action, things would work out for good.

That was a very thinly disguised fatalism; it aban- doned any real attempt at conscious control of the direction of society. To say that societies grow and are not made, was to imply that the progress is largely beyond our will. " Who, by taking thought, can add a cubit to his stature? "

The newer attitude is less helpless. The more modern forms of socialism at least imply that it de- pends on us, or our conscious action, collectively de- termined, what kind of society we should have. It implies that we are arbiters of our own destiny; that we need not " take the world as we find it," but that we can in large part make the world as we will it.

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We have come to realize that the direction taken by social development depends largely upon our minds and intelligence.

And it is that which makes it important to enquire into the factors which shape our will.

One may hear it asked: What is the use of at- tempting to forecast so imponderable, perhaps in- calculable, a thing as the psychology which will fol- low the war ?

Has the war then taught us so little that we have failed to realize that an indispensable part of states- manship is some understanding of the feelings which grow up among great groups of men — feelings which differing circumstances make it difficult for other groups to understand? We have seen Ger- man statesmanship brought to ruin from a failure to take into due account so imponderable a thing as the "feelings" of Alsatians, Poles, Austrian Slavs; or of the world in general about such things as the in- vasion of Belgium and the sinking of the Lusitania. And we have seen our own statesmanship almost wreck our cause by failure to anticipate in some de- gree, the growth of great moral forces in Russia; less disastrously in Ireland. All the belligerents have failed, to their own cost, to enter into the feelings of certain groups with whose co-operation their suc- cess was bound up; to examine the ideas of justice out of which those feelings grew. It is certainly true that millions of Englishmen, who would hon- estly desire to do justice, say, to Irishmen or to Rus- sians, simply cannot understand why such and such Irish and Russian demands should be made at all;

[i8o]

and it is that failure which has precipitated political mistakes for which we have paid very definite costs.

The part of wisdom is surely to avoid as far as possible similar failures to understand what may be, to some of us, a strange point of view, in dealing with those millions of young men who will return, as President Wilson has warned us, with " a new im- patience."

Previous chapters have attempted to bring into re- lief one great fact: The demonstration which the war has furnished of the economic feasibility of col- lectivist measures on a large scale; and the inevitabil- ity of widespread resort to this argument: If the collectivist system can succeed even relatively in all the strain and stress of war, applied in haste and without due preparation, it can certainly be made to succeed when applied at leisure in peace.

We have seen further that in the attempt to ensure success young men who have been called upon to give, if needs be, their lives for the future welfare of their nation, will not hesitate to demand that others shall give increasingly of their surplus wealth.

Now this constitutes a new fact — bearing upon what is often the most decisive of all elements in political events : the element of Will.

Is such and such a thing possible as a social ar- rangement? The true answer so often is that it is possible if we believe it to be so; impossible if we believe it to be impossible. The greatest of all prag- matists has illustrated what at first sight looks like a piece of political Christian Science, in these terms :

I am climbing in the Alps [says William James] and have [i8i]

had the ill luck to work myself into a position from which the only escape is by a terrible leap. Being without similar experience 1 have no evidence of my ability to perform it suc- cessfully; but hope and confidence in myself make me sure that I shall not miss my aim, and nerve my feet to execute what, without those subjective emotions, would have been impossible. But suppose that on the contrary the emotions ... of mistrust predominate. . . . Why then I shall hesi- tate so long that at last, exhausted and trembling, and launch- ing myself in a moment of despair, I miss my foothold and roll into the abyss. In this case, and it is one of an immense class, the part of wisdom is to believe what one desires; for the belief is one of the indispensable preliminary condi- tions of the realization of its object. There are cases where faith creates its own justification. Believe, and you shall be right, for you shall save yourself ; doubt, and you shall again be right, for you shall perish.

The very knowledge that the thing can be done will be the essential element in the formation of the will to do it. It Is the element of fVill which distin- guishes the condition of war time, from the condition of peace time.

The peculiarity of war with a powerful enemy is that he will not wait. The Kaiser asked, by the menace of his armies, forty million dollars a day from the British people. It was " impossible," but he got it. To the social adjustments made necessary for the purposes of national defence, all programmes and theories contributed. We have taken a bit of Guild Socialism here, of German State Socialism there, of Feudal Paternalism or Eighteenth Century Protectionism, or Advanced Feminism elsewhere. All these reconciliations would have been impossible

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but for the constant pressure of the enemy, and the incessant and insistent need of defeating him.

In peace time this corrective of dissipated effort and divided purpose is not at work. Governments may be as much afraid of popular destitution as they are afraid of the Germans, but they are not afraid of that familiar enemy in quite the same " he'U break through tomorrow morning " kind of way. To get things done by Governments — even quite simple things — there must be an incessant drive or stimulus like that furnished by the danger of the enemy's vic- tory : a stimulus which makes it possible to reconcile or amalgamate rival solutions.

We have demonstrated that the obstacles which stand in the way of a vast change for the better in the standard of living are not primarily physical at all, but moral. They are difficulties of will, of pur- pose. Given the will, the way to perform economic miracles has a habit of being found. We see that we have the physical means at our disposal for the abolition of poverty, and that the one thing needed for their successful employment to that end is the real determination to use them as resolutely and ruthlessly as we would use them for the defeat of a military enemy.

Such a lesson — once the feasibility of a standard of life so different from the past as to make possi- ble a new era is plainly manifest — is not likely to be lost upon a democracy at last in earnest. Some of the war methods will be applied to peace needs. And if the results are not forthcoming the

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workers will know that it is because the stimulus is lacking. And they will attempt to supply the stimulus.

" If you can't do it, we shall try to do it ourselves. We know now that revolutionary methods can be made to work. And we intend to try."

Suppose it fails?

We shall point out, with bated breath, that in such a contingency, trade will have been gravely disturbed, securities will have fallen In value, the stock exchange will be In a panic — and much more to the same effect.

We shall be saying it to men who, at the call of the nation, have had to abandon their civil callings, often give up completely their contemplated careers, leave their children, their wives and dependents; be ready to throw everything away. Including limb and life; men who for years perhaps, have seen their comrades give their lives at the simple command of a youthful officer; seen tens of thousands of youths sacrificed in order to try a military experiment which failed, as at Galllpoli and elsewhere.

And having borne all that, to the end that their children might know a new world, they are told that their attempts to make it must be abandoned because the money market might be disturbed.

It is fairly safe to say that they will be unim- pressed,

" Suppose it does fail? Will the effort cost ten million lives ? What will the effort cost ! Disturb- ance, loss of money, some discomfort, some hard-

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ship? You tell that to those who have fought for you in Flanders and Gallipoli? "

For years before the war those of us who tried to pave the way to a world order which should render war unnecessary were everlastingly treated to a very familiar form of sermonizing. If war was abolished where would human life find its hardships, dangers, strenuousness? Without its " bracing " influence we should all become soft, flabby, degenerate. Mr. Roosevelt for a generation has talked and written on this need for the " Strenuous Life." The editor of the London Spectator put the case in some such words as these : " Once let men get the idea that they can eat and drink securely in their pig sties un- disturbed, and they will become the most despicable of all creatures."

William James himself stated the case in these terms : ^

" The military party denies neither the bestiality, nor the horror, nor the expense; it only says that these things tell but half the story. It only says that war is worth these things, that, taking human nature as a whole, war is its best protection against its weaker and more cowardly self, and that mankind cannot afford to adopt a peace economy. . . . Mili- tarism is the great preserver of our ideals of hardi- hood, and human life without hardihood would be contemptible. . . . This natural feeling forms, I think, the innermost soul of army writings. With- out any exception known to me, militarist authors

''■McClure's Magazine, August, 1910. [185]

take a highly mystical view of their subject, and re- gard war as a biological or sociological necessity."

James made an effort to indicate some " moral equivalent " ; some method by which men normally without war, might find a means of satisfying their thirst for change, adventure, sacrifice, and even dan- ger. He bethought himself of a social and indus- trial conscription: young men compelled to give a year or two of service In dangerous trades, in mines, sea fishery, life-boat stations and the like.

But is not the opportunity of making life less dull, more adventurous, more full of hardship and sacri- fice, furnished most abundantly by vast social experi- ments which have in them the chance of failure? Why not adventure, not into wholesale killings which leave mankind pretty much as it was before, but into changes that may give it a new life?

In any case that will be the spirit of many who will return from an experience in which they have been habituated to great risks, to a contempt of danger, to a cheapening of life, to a recasting of moral standards.

And those of us who have not been through their experience must at least show ourselves ready to try a few great social experiments. The fact that they may fail will no longer be an unanswerable argu- ment. In the opinion of too many of those who are coming, the old order has altogether failed. The new can do no worse.

[i86]

PART III THE DANGERS

CHAPTER I

A SOCIETY OF FREE MEN OR THE SERVILE STATE?

The greater the degree of socialization, the more dependent does the individual become upon the community. Unless this increased power of the community is used with restraint and wisdom, the new order may be wrecked by the crushing of the individual personality on which in the long run society depends. A social order which comes into being as the result of war measures is likely to be strongly marked by coercive tendencies. If it is not to be in truth the Servile State, the indulgence of present tendencies must be checked by a clear recognition of their danger. Do we love oppression and coercion for their own sake? What present methods might mean, if employed by a Labour government.

It is obvious that a more socialized form of So- ciety which Increases the power of the community over the individual, making, that Is, each individual more and more dependent upon the collective de- cision, runs the risk of drifting Into errors which In the past made the great religious and social organi- zations which men created. Instruments for their own oppression and debasement. The greatest of- fence of those Institutions was of course, that by destroying the capacity for sane Individual judgment, upon which In the last resort the quality of any com- munity depends, they ended by rendering men In the mass Incapable of self government. The hls-

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tory of Europe Is largely the story of the swing be- tween two failures. The one has been over-organi- zation of authority, which checks the development of the individual personality, and renders it possible for millions to sanction and approve the very tyran- nies from which they suffer — as under the mediaeval church and the modern Prussian state. And the other failure has been a laissez-faire and license tend- ing to social chaos and anarchy, as that which fol- lowed the fall of Roman authority; or which, in some respects, marked the early period of the industrial revolution. One form of stating the permanent problem of social organization Is to say that It is the problem of the due adjustment between order and freedom.

The danger of the development of order Into tyranny arises from the fact that a degree of order and authority is an absolute need for the preserva- tion of any freedom whatsoever. The strength of any tyrannical society, like the strength of most evil institutions, resides, not In the element of evil In it, but In the element of good. The motives which start a people like the German on the road which ends in Prussianism, were assuredly not in the begin- ning bad motives. The people which gave us the kindergarten, the most delightful fairy stories in the world, the greatest melodies, did not fifty years ago support a change of national policy because they be- lieved It would end in the drowning of helpless chil- dren and the invasion of a peaceful nation. They supported their government because they had the in- stinct of discipline, order, and obedience to authority,

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very strongly developed; and because they were told, and probably believed, that the new policy was de- signed to give security and justice to their father- land. If, as President Wilson has recently declared, the unbelievable abominations of lynching are only possible by reason of the fact that great American communities are indifferent to this crime, the indif- ference is not due to a liking for cruelty, but to a hatred of negro crime.

The fact that oppressions usually begin with the best of motives is one great danger. The good mo- tive however, is usually re-enforced by one which is less defensible : the hatred of those who disagree with us. The populations of sixteenth century Europe who massacred Protestants, or made the burning alive of heretics a public holiday, may have argued to themselves that they were doing it in order to glorify God, and to protect society from error. But it would be truer to say that they killed heretics because they hated them. The hatred of the herd for the man of unusual belief is a quite real and definite fact in human nature.

It is related to the further fact which we have to take into account, namely, that men have naturally no liking for intellectual freedom — a real desire that is to accord freedom of expression for views with which we do not disagree, views which we re- gard as mischievous, wicked, dangerous and im- moral. We naturally desire to see the dissemina- tion of such views restrained, and we do not readily believe that any good can come of their expression.^

^ It is not possible to make the ordinary moral man underttaod [191]

Which means that the real justification of intellectual freedom is neither obvious nor easy of general un- derstanding; that the truth for which Socrates pleaded is as far from recognition by our democra- cies as it was by the Athenian democracy more than two thousand years ago.

The real defence of freedom of discussion is that it is necessary for the formation of sound judgment; that our minds are so made that unless we hear from time to time " the other side "^ — even though on the whole that side be wrong — we cannot see the truth of our own side ; put the necessary qualifications to our conclusions, be anything but unbalanced, " wrong," in fact.

Now that is a very ancient thesis; we learned it from Socrates, from Milton, Mill; free and demo- cratic states are supposed to be founded upon it; we support it vociferously when stated in the abstract; it is part of the battle cry of the war, and the fact that the German doctrine does not, in practice at least, admit it, constitutes our main indictment thereof.

Yet we do not believe this thesis the least in the world. For whenever a crisis comes in which it is above all necessary to keep a clear head and a sound

what toleration and liberty really mean. He will accept them verb- ally with alacrity, even with enthusiasm, because the word tolera- tion has been moralized by eminent Whigs; but what he means by toleration is toleration of doctrines that he considers enlightened, and, by liberty, liberty to do what he considers right; that is, he does not mean toleration or liberty at all; for there is no need to tolerate what appears enlightened or to claim liberty to do what most people consider right. Toleration and liberty have no sense or use except as toleration of opinions that are considered damnable, and liberty to do what seems wrong. — (Preface to "The Shewing up of Blanco Posnet") George Bernard Shaw.

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judgment, and discipline our passions with a little ra- tionalism, we throv/ the whole thing overboard. Our behaviour shows that our real attitude to intel- lectual freedom is this : " It may be a very enter- taining luxury in the small problems that don't par- ticularly matter, but in the great crises, in those de- cisions upon which the future of the country rests, freedom of discussion must be ruthlessly suppressed." Thus, the editor who in France or in this country, should advance the argument that the orderly devel- opment of Europe in the future could be more se- curely obtained by a moderate settlement than by a punitive one; who, adapting President Wilson's phrase, should declare victory dangerous because German freedom and democracy have more to hope from a stalemate than from defeat — such an one would be severely, perhaps ferociously punished for " defeatism," pro-Germanism, sedition. What we really believe is that discussion of such a ques- tion as that raised by President Wilson in 191 6, or as to the wisdom of meeting enemy socialists, as to intervention in Russia, the recognition of the Bol- sheviks, air raid reprisals, the character of the peace terms and a hundred and one other decisions, con- nected with the waging of the war and the making of the peace, should not be allowed.

Now it may well be that this decision as to the danger of public discussion is the right one; that such discussion should be limited to small matters, and that in great ones the government should have the right and the power to compel compliance with its view.

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But my point is that that decision itself has been arrived at without discussion. It is simply ridicu- lous to say that we have weighed and answered the arguments of Mill and Socrates about the need of discussion for the discovery of the right course. We should never dream of bothering ourselves with their musty old arguments. As manly, red-blooded and patriotic folk we have a very strong feeling in- deed about these cowardly pacifists and their snivel- ling talk of being kind to the dear, good Germans, and we are determined that anything resembling their pestiferous doctrines — even though covered up with high brow intellectualism — shall be stamped out without mercy. To want to argue about it is itself a proof of pro-Germanism.

And we don't argue about it; we lock the arguer up.

We have come to have a very strong feeling about this thing, and have acted on that feeling, not be- cause we even pretend to have thrashed It out, pro and con. In our minds. Again, the very disposi- tion so to do would condemn us as indifferent pa- triots.^

1 In the New York Times Magazine of April 7, 1918, Professor Alfred M. Brooks, Professor of Fine Arts in the University of In- diana, publishes, " at the request of the National Security League," an article telling how we may detect traitors who, he warns, will all " meet a traitor's fate." In a general way, he tells us, they may be known by the fact that: "They seek to darken all counsel by words. They pride themselves on calm of judgment and warn us against ' hysteria ' as the deadliest sin of the age. Heat of feeling, and force of language in connection with the Germans' taking hostages, or putting women and children in, the front line of their advance so that the enemy shall have to shoot down their own wives and babies, is ' hysteria,' according to them.

" The arguments and assertions of this class all go back to a few formulas easy to learn, and easy to detect wheoever the war if

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But that feeling upon which we have acted can at- tach itself to other things besides the partisanship of war. The past has taught us that it can attach it- self as violently to the partisanship of religion; and Russia is teaching us, as France and other countries have taught us in the past, that it can attach itself to the partisanship of social upheavals. Freedom of discussion as a principle stands in the way of satisfy- ing a deep, urgent, clamant thirst or desire ; the de- sire to dominate those who challenge our will, who oppose what we believe is right. That desire is a

broached. Once familiar with these formulas and we have an un- failing test of the actual, as well as the potential, traitor; a reagent, so to speak, which immediately makes known the presence of treason."

The most damning formula of all, he tells us, is " We should forgive our enemies." Every one capable of pronouncing that " is an enemy of the United States." Other tests are less sweeping. Yet all belong to the same group; the group made up of pacifists and all other pro-Germans. " To waste breath distinguishing be- tween these two reminds one of Dr. Johnson's famous remark upon the futility of discussing precedence in the case of a flea and a louse.

" The only safe rule is to regard all of these as unconditional traitors. But what we need more than rules for regarding them is a rule for detecting them. The lair of these craven beasts is everywhere. At one time he is an ex-college President, and again he is an editor. Now he is a minister, now a professor, now a grade teacher. Frequently he is the well-to-do citizen, in business, or retired; sometimes the rich widow of a publisher, or a judge. Every community has some of them ; known or doubtful suspects they may be termed. Every one of them is the enemy of humanity, and there are three excuses, none of them satisfactory, which can be put forth in behalf of these craven souls: The poor excuse of natural dulness; the poorer excuse of wishing to be absolutely fair, of seeing every side, and so, in the end, taking none ; the poorest excuse of all, that, as so many of them still say, of ' just not being able to read about the war, it is so terrible.' All three are equally foolish and equally to be feared. The point to be remembered is that a fool is always Satan's ready tool. Whatever we do we should never allow the gentle answer of the Secret Americans to turn away our wrath, or their self-assumed cloak of innocence and martyrdom to deceive us. Ever\' one of them is a blubbering sentimentalist or a hypocrite. In either case they are the comfort- er* of Germany and our enemies."

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fact in human nature like hunger, thirst, lust, anger, and we must face what that fact is likely to mean in the " new social order."

We are often led to neglect any serious considera- tion of what these repressions, when employed by a more socialized order of society, might mean, be- cause we say to ourselves that their present employ- ment is merely temporary, strictly for the purposes of war, and that peace will see the restoration of all the old freedoms; that the people do not willingly sanction these repressive measures, but bear them as part of the war sacrifice.

Can we honestly say that this last statement is true? Have either the British or the American people been greatly disturbed by the repressive meas- ures against unpopular minorities — the suppression of socialist newspapers, thirty years' sentences for Pacifist clergymen, the dismissal of Quaker school mistresses, the embargo on the teaching of German, or the playing of German music; and the like? Is our attitude really that " we are deeply sorry to be obliged to proceed against these socialists and Pa- cifists, and nothing but the dire need of war time would induce us to sanction this abandonment of the principles of freedom "?

We know of course that such a statement of our attitude would be dishonest. We don't really be- lieve that the suppression of German opera will help the boys in the trenches, or that to spend the time of our state legislatures prohibiting the teaching of Ger- man in our schools will greatly aid the offensive on the western front. These things are not reasoned

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at all; we do them for the same reason that a man swears at golf ; they are an expression of temper.

If that were all they might be harmless; but also they are the introduction of new principles into our state, principles that can be applied, by other parties in other circumstances, by the minorities that now suffer by them when some turn of circumstances give these minorities the power. We are not the least aware of the extent to which bit by bit we have adopted repression; and when made aware are in no temper particularly to care.

Any one coming from the open air into a closed room where several persons have been sitting is as- tonished to find that they do not notice how close is the atmosphere. They may be persons liking fresh air, but they are quite unconscious how foul and heated that which they are breathing has become.

Something similar to the surprise of this person from the outside would probably be in the mind of an Englishman or an American coming from abroad after an absence of a year or two; or one who, really remembering what was the general feeling in respect of certain fundamental things in national life as it existed before the war, compares it to that which now exists. That enables him to realize how vastly that feeling has changed, and how unconscious of the change are the great mass of his countrymen.

It is not — and the illustration just used must not be taken as implying such a thing — that the national atmosphere as a whole has become bad. In many respects it is obviously better than before the war; many very splendid qualities have been developed;

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" Tens of thousands of our young men have shown themselves ready to sacrifice everything, their future, their lives, to the cause of their country; they have gone to death as to a feast; our women-folk have suffered hardship and sorrow as readily; where flagrant luxury and idleness once reigned there is now willing toil and glad sacrifice; futile divisions and mean strife have given place to a unity of na- tional purpose that it has not known in our genera- tion." All this is true, and we justly enough rejoice in it.

But it is curious that when we do this, we praise ourselves for just those qualities which the Germans show in an almost equal degree — the readiness of the men to meet death, the women sorrow and hard- ship, the whole people to work unitedly in the na- tional purpose. Indeed, the German sacrifice is heavier than ours; the loss of life greater, the hard- ship greater. The passage just given between in- verted commas is taken from the letter of a German writer telling an American friend what the war has done for the German people; and he added much more concerning such things as the revival of religion through Germany.^

1 A phenomenon which has been dealt with by Dr. A. Shadwell in the Hibbert Journal (July, 1916), in an article on "German War Sermons." He examines fifty sermons preached by thirty German clergymen, and these are his conclusions: —

" It is clear from all this that the German Protestant clergy have seized upon the war as a great opportunity for re-affirming the moral law and re-establishing the authority of religious teaching, which has been driven more and more into the background by the growth of materialism and rationalism. They have a long score to settle on their own account with the forces of irreligion which have been fostered, as they always are, by material prosperity, and have gained a rapidly increasing hold on the German people. . . .

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But the net result In Germany is the demonstra- tion, to us at least, that these things do not suffice; that they are compatible with the gradual crystalliza- tion of ends that are morally pernicious in themselves and a disaster to Germany and the whole world.

This war has abundantly illustrated a truth which very many of us have suspected for very long, namely: that the exercise of authority, the repression of individual characteristics, the severe regimentation of peoples, the Prussian form of society in fact, are things liked for themselves by very many who pro- fess to the fighting to make their establishment im- possible. For four years throughout Europe we have witnessed this paradox: a war waged for the purpose of making the world safe for democracy supported most ardently, with the most ferocious " bitter-endism," by just those who in the past have never made any secret of their disbelief in democ- racy; their dislike and hatred of it even. This as-

" At the same time, these pulpit utterances must not be read as indicating any revolt against the national regime or any weakening about the war. On the contrary, the preachers insist on the neces- sity of fighting it out, holding on to the last, and suffering all things to win. (It is worthy of note that at least five-sixths of the texts are from the New Testament and many of them from the Epistles.)

" Now it seems to me that, taken broadly as a whole, these ser- mons reveal a stratum of thought and feeling in Germany which is not apparent from newspapers and other publications. How deep or broad it may be we cannot tell, but according to my experi- ence there is a great deal more of it than appears on the surface. The German clergy have not been preaching to empty churches dur- ing the war. And the essential feature of this stratum of thought is its maintenance of the moral law and the claims of conscience. . . .

" I cannot but see in the spirit of the self-examination and high ideals running through these sermons the potential elements of a strong moral revulsion when the facts, which cannot be concealed for ever even in Germany, become known. Ethical principles will come into their own again when Force has visibly broken down, but not before."

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tounding and undoubted fact has more importance than we seem disposed to give to it.

Nothing, perhaps, gives the sincere democrat who has supported this war as the price which the western democracies must pay for their liberation, more un- easiness than the fact that its most earnest advocates are those who have consistently represented the anti- democratic forces in European politics, and who have always denied that democratic government, peace, liberalism, internationalism are desirable things. If, say, in Italy, you take the ImperiaHsts and the militarists of the most extravagant type, or in France, the Royalists, Nationalists and anti-par- liamentarians, in Britain, the Tariffists and the back- woods Tories, you will find them stridently rejoicing (through, for instance, their newspaper organs) that, whatever else the war does, it will " once for all put an end to the poisonous doctrines of internationalism, pacifism, free trade, socialism and democracy" (as a certain London daily recently expressed it).

Do these anti-democrats see in the war, not so much a means of national defence as a means by which they may hope to realize the triumph of their political doctrines? Their intuition has at least this temporary justification: their influence in every coun- try has become immeasurably greater since the be- ginning of the war, as the presence of Milners, Cur- zons, Balfours, Ribots and Poincares in " Liberal " governments testifies.

Those who, like the present writer, have felt, and feel, a profound revulsion for the particular philoso- phy of life which, for want of a better word, we may

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call Prusslanism, will certainly have been struck by the fact that it is the bitterest anti-Germans, those who do not hesitate to proclaim their hate of the German nation and their desire for vengeance, who are themselves most ready to adopt the Prussian philosophy and methods and to see them imposed upon Britain. You can put this to a ready test. Make a mental inventory either of private friends or of public men, who, even before the war, were in favour of Conscription, were contemptuous of peace ideals, of internationalism, of " pacifist prattle " ; who rejected the idea that the nation could ever make itself secure by anything but its own preponder- ant strength, who endorsed the idea that the claims of a man's country — his state — should come be- fore all other social or moral claims whatsoever, who upheld the general principle of " my country right or wrong," and rejected the idea of any obligation to foreigners or a world order, who believed in the divine mission of their state to dominate the world for the world's benefit, but who also believed that by Protection and similar devices foreigners should be excluded from equal share in the benefits of its pre- ponderance; who believed that struggle between na- tions was the law of life and as inevitable as death, and who, for all these reasons, put first the military strength of the nation, and favoured its organization on a militarist basis with all that involved in the way of the extension of State control and the limita- tion of civil freedom and individual initiative. There were, and are, large numbers of influential Englishmen and Americans with political ideas of

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just that order. And when you have completed your list you will find that it corresponds pretty exactly with the membership of the Anti-German Union or at least includes all those obsessed by the most fero- cious of " anti-Hun " sentiment. Yet the general philosophy would give us a State so like the Prus- sian State that, as an English satirist has suggested, the simplest way of realizing their ideas would be to hand over the job to the Prussians.^

There is no reason to doubt the entire genuineness of the hatred of these Anglo-Prussians for their cor- responding type in Germany. History furnishes abundant proof that no real difference of ideal or outlook or race is necessary for the formation of rival groups that, circumstances favouring, will throw themselves at one another with suicidal fury. The struggles of Italian cities, the devastating wars of the Spanish-American Republics (communities of the same languages, origins, racial mixtures), are just a few illustrations that spring to one's mind.

The things which we have commonly In our mind as constituting the main objection to Prussianism are,

* The Daily Mail having declared that " we want a Government which will stick at nothing which will win the war," Mr. J. C. Squire retorts : —

"At nothing, Harrasworth, nothing?

.... But pause, proud Lord, and think

did we resort

To any measure of whatever sort,

To bullying, lying, wanton butchery,

To every kind of paying atrocity;

Might not seditious men who have no sense

Urge that the two contending Governments

Should cease to chant unmeaning »Hymns of Hate

Lay down their arms and just amalgamate?" [202]

in large part, things which we shall in any case be led by force of circumstances to adopt. We have been apt, for instance, to rail at the order, the regi- mentation and regulation of the individual's comings and goings implied in the German system. But we are being brought to something similar in any case not so much by our Government, as by the material conditions of our civilization. In the old days of the sailing ships and the stage coach, men lived a life in which " the time o' day didn't matter." A week or two's delay on a foreign journey, a day or two's delay in a home one, an hour or two's incorrectness in the cloclcs, made little difference. There were no microbes in those days. In a country of small towns and sparse population in no hurry, exactitude, order, promptitude and scientific cleanliness could really be disregarded. In our days we must regard them. We must come and go to the minute, we must keep to the right on the pavement, we must get on the motor 'bus at the regulation spot, we must mind the microbes, we must catch the 8.18 in the morning, not because the Government commands it, but be- cause a vast and closely-packed population living by machinery must observe order, system and hygiene, or no one could go about his business or earn his living, or be sure of not being killed, or be secure against devastating epidemics.

Indeed, the question here suggested has been pushed by those whom no one accuses of being " pro- German," very much farther than I have pushed it. " An immense note of interrogation hangs over the theory that the principle of free co-operation can

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secure for democracy the highest degree of effi- ciency," says Mr. Wells. Criticizing some of the conclusions of Professor van Gennep as to the ef- fectiveness of that form of national organization which has marked the western democracies of Europe, Mr. Wells says: " If the present Govern- ments of Great Britain and the United States are the best sort of Governments that democracy can pro- duce, then Professor Ostwald is much more right than Professor van Gennep is prepared to confess."

He goes on:

*' There can be little doubt which side has achieved the higher collective efficiency. It is not the western side. ... It is no use denying that the Central Powers were not only better prepared for this war at the outset, but that on the whole they have met the occasion of the war as they have so far arisen with much more collective intelligence, will-power, and energy than any of the Allies, not even excepting France. They have succeeded, not merely in meet- ing enormous military requirements better, but in keeping the material side of their national life steadier under greater stress." ^

And Mr. Wells concludes that if really the pres- ent Governments of Great Britain and the United States are the best sort of Governments that democ- racy can produce, then democracy is bound " if not this time, then next time or the time after, to be completely overcome or to be superseded by some form of authoritative State organization."

About the middle of 191 6 the present wiiter pub-

^ London Nation, July 24, 191 5.

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lished in England a review of certain tendencies. It may be worth while for the American reader to judge how far some of its passages could apply to Ameri- can conditions; such passages for Instance, as these:

All criticism of this growing tendency to re- pudiate the ideas of toleration and freedom upon which we used to pride ourselves, is met by the declaration that these new repressions and intoler- ances are necessary for the purposes of the war; that we acquiesce unwillingly In them as a necessary war measure. Is it true that we resort to such measures unwillingly? Is there not much evidence which would go to show that we are coming to take pleasure in repression and the Infliction of hardship upon those we don't like — unpopular, minorities, enemy aliens within our power — for Its own sake?

Note some of the problems upon which the na- tion, the newspapers, the House of Commons, the government are spending their time. There was a formal question in the House the other day as to whether German officer-prisoners had been allowed to ride in first class railway carriages, and quite a debate on it; another as to whether it was true that orders had been given to minimize noise in the neigh- bourhood of an internment camp for the sake of sick prisoners In the Infirmary; another as to whether enemies killed in air raids had been accorded mifi- tary honours at their funeral. These criticisms of the government by the super-patriots do not help to win the war. It is a military asset, for very obvious reasons, to treat your prisoners well. No earthly useful purpose Is served by spending the time of

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members, government officials, officers and soldiers on matters of this kind. Yet members know that it is immensely popular to raise just that kind of ques- tion, and that they gain credit with their constituents by doing it. The Evening News for days carried on a hectic campaign against some English people who had taken the children of interned Germans into their homes and with clothing and comforts had helped destitute enemy aliens. One would have supposed that here was an action of which the nation might well be proud, as showing how different is our con- duct to that of the Germans. But against these Eng- lish men and women, popular papers of immense cir- culation organize a tearing and raging campaign of vituperation and abuse. Flaming headlines throw at those whose crime It is to have helped main- tain our reputation for chivalry, mercy, and kindli- ness such vituperative epithets as " Hun-Coddlers " and " Pro-Germans." There are strident appeals to the government to " stop this scandal " of showing a little kindness to forlorn and helpless children whose crime of being German Is not theirs. Does Lord Northcliffe really think that that sort of cam- paign will help to win the war? But we must admit that it Is enormously popular and certainly helps to sell his papers.

" What has all this sentlmentalism to do with the problem of freedom In our own society? "

It has everything to do. For freedom — and not alone freedom but in the long run order, and good social organization as well — suffers most from the feelings of hostility latent In all of us towards men

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of opposing opinions, political or religious. Indulge and sanction these passions which lie at the root of intolerance, and we shall have a community in which difference of opinion is no longer possible, in which dominant groups will use their power to coerce their political opponents: and that is the end of freedom and democracy. Without toleration, so unnatural to man, so slowly and painfully developed, there can be no democracy.

This curious transformation of feeling — which Is bringing us to hate the very qualities we used to be proud of — is shown particularly in the virtual aban- donment of a tradition upon which, but a year or two since, we were apt to look as the foundation stone of all we most valued In our political life; that upon which the great movements of a thousand years of English history have been built: Freedom — of the person, of the mind, of conscience, of speech. If we surrendered these things with evident regret as a dire necessity of war, one could look on the matter with some hopefulness. But no one can hon- estly pretend that we enforce these measures against Socialist newspapers or conscientious objectors with regret. To appeal now to an Ideal which has ani- mated generation after generation of Englishmen in the past, which dethroned kings, upset dynasties, brought the country to civil war, which drove the most stalwart among our stock to the renunciation of the fatherland and exile in a new world, provokes now only impatience and derision, particularly, per- haps, among the official guardians of conscience. The pillars of organized religion have taken an at-

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tltude which Is one of open hostility to those guilty of so inconvenient a thing as invoking the categoric imperative. There are more Englishmen in gaol or suffering crippling civil disability today " for con- science' sake " than, perhaps, in any period of the Test Acts, and ninety-nine out of a hundred of us are not even aware of the fact, and would probably deny it.^

The importance of all this lies not, of course, In the individual hardship inflicted. In a world where suffering and sacrifice, to say nothing of life or jus- tice, are held as cheaply as they are today, it is, in so far as the individual is concerned, a small thing that a few thousand conscientious objectors should starve or go to prison; that English teachers and men of letters of international reputation should be reduced to penury. The hardship does not matter.

But what does matter is that the habit of tolerating this sort of thing is bound, sooner or later, to destroy

1 Here are some convictions in this country under the American Espionage and other war Acts:

The Reverend C. A. Waldron, fifteen years for preaching that Christ did not approve the war, and for circulating a religious pacifist pamphlet; Harold Mackley, fifteen years for disloyal re- marks in conversation, both at Burlington, Vt. ; Daniel Wallace, at Davenport, Iowa, twenty years for speech on conscription and the war; Frederick Kraft (former Socialist candidate for Governor), five years and $i,ooo at Trenton, N. J., for criticism of conscription in a street corner speech; Vincente Balbas, eight years and $4,000 fine for an editorial in his paper opposing the drafting of Porto Ricans who had declined U. S. citizenship ; at Minneapolis, J. A. Petersen, Republican nominee for U. S. Senate, four years for speeches and articles during their campaign; at Sioux Falls twenty- six Socialists sentenced from one to two years for circulating a petition charging unfair administration of the draft; at Sioux Falls, Wm. J. Head, State Socialist Secretary, sentenced to three years for circulating a petition for the repeal of the draft law; at Des Moines, D. T. Blodgett, twenty years for circulating leaflet advocating not re-electing Congressmen who voted for conscription. These are fair samples of a great many similar cases.

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that political morality, that sense of playing the game, which has made British democracy a possibil- ity, and has in some measure set the standard of self government throughout the world; that the quality of life which we associate with free society, and which renders possible a certain quality of men, self- reliant, and capable of individual judgment, will have been fundamentally altered.

Since that was written there has been a curious development of the situation in England, a develop- ment the history of which it is certainly worth while for Americans to note.

At the beginning of the war the government adopted the principle of restraining and controlling newspaper comment. The result of that policy has been to place the government absolutely within the control, not of the entire press of the nation, but of a section of it, the section which ninety educated Englishmen out of a hundred before the war would have declared to be the part which should on no account dictate public policy — the sensational and less responsible part.

It is no mystery how that has been brought about.

Public opinion in the early stages of war, in every nation, is always in favour of a " truce to discussion." We remind one another then that the time for words has passed and the time for action come. " Talk " is disparaged. We demand the union sacree. And almost always Is that rule first broken by those who at the beginning were most Insistent upon its enforce- ment. In the case of England, a party truce was

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declared at the outbreak of war and the feeling against public criticism of the government or its pol- icy was intense. Such public men as attempted any- thing resembling it were indeed driven from public life for a time, mainly by the influence of the group of papers controlled by Lord Northcliffe.^ For these papers, and others like them it will be noted, maintained their right to criticise policy and govern- ment (as Mr. Roosevelt does in this country). It was the Liberal papers that were silenced. For two years the public heard the discussion of policy from one side only : the Chauvinist and Nationalist. The Liberal and Internationalist side had to remain un- expressed. It was not difficult to see what would happen: Mr. Asquith's government was driven out and replaced by another largely as the result of the criticisms of Lord Northcliffe's papers.^

Now whether we take the view that that result was good or bad we justify public discussion. If the result was good, if the war was being mismanaged, the country was saved by virtue of public discussion — by virtue of abandoning the rule of silence. If we take the view that the result was bad we have a

''■ " It was the predominance of the Northcliflfe and Clemenceau schools that made the Anglo-French diplomacy toward Russia so disastrous. It prevented Stockholm, overthrew Kerensky and alienated the Bolsheviki. It has been under the influence of the same type of thinkers that the Entente war aims have been stated in so geographical a manner that even the President has become involved in complex boundary claims. . . .

" Unintelligence in war aims goes hand in hand with an ostrich policy about the facts. Journalists who tell the truth about condi- tions in any field of action are looked upon as weakening morale instead of strengthening it. This is one of the most damaging con- ventions now at work. Clearness of sight would help us to end far more than feed an ignorant optimism." — Mr. Norman Hapgood in the Nev^ Republic, Jan. 26, 1917.

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case where a government found It impossible to re- sist the intervention of public judgment, although it must have known that judgment to be wrong. And if it was wrong, it must have been because the public judged on an insufficient knowledge of the facts and made wrong conclusion concerning them; because in other words, public discussion was not full, had not all the facts, did not hear all sides. Either verdict pushes one to the conclusion that the public will judge either with or without the facts and opportunity for free discussion; and that the part of wisdom is to see that that discussion is as full and well-founded in fact as possible.

The present writer happens to have pointed out elsewhere something of the process of this thing:

What the " truce to discussion " really means in practice Is not that discussion ceases (a good deal might be said for that) but that all Liberal contribution to the discussion ceases. To re- alize that fact one must weigh certain elements of war psychology, and the psychology of dis- cussion. I will try not to be very abstruse. If you have ever taken part In a discussion of Protection and Free Trade during an election you know that when feeling has begun to run a little high the Protectionist becomes abso- lutely convinced that the obvious blindness of the Free Trader to the protectionist truth can only be accounted for by the fact that, by some moral perversion, the Free Trader Is more con- cerned with the welfare of foreigners than with that of Americans. I need not remind you

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that for years every Free Trader In America was an Anglomaniac, if indeed he had not been suborned by the gold of the Cobden Club. Now, if in times of profound peace an honest attempt to find the best policy for one's own country can in this way be interpreted as hos- tility to one's country, merely because the pro- posed policy is also good for the foreigner, how much more must we expect that kind of misapprehension in the immeasurably fiercer passions of war time. It is natural, human, excusable, a phase of the instinct of pugnacity and self-preservation, an essential element of war psychology, perhaps indispensable to na- tional morale.

But note how it operates in the case of the press. We agree not to discuss peace terms. A paper of large circulation has an article demonstrating that there will never be any peace in the world until the enemy nation is utterly destroyed; that the people are as much to blame as the government. It strikes nobody that this is a discussion of policy or peace terms. A rival paper has an article arguing that no territory must be taken from the enemy and that we have no quarrel with the enemy people. In this case we realize, not only that it is a dis- cussion of terms, but a very irritating one, with a pro-German colouring to boot. And we have a general impression that that sort of thing ought to be suppressed. Now, when to the handicap on the liberal paper is added the [212]

prospect of legal penalties its position becomes hopeless. Incidentally, when we suppress an obscure socialist paper, the importance of the act is not in that suppression, but in the effect that it has upon the policy of much more power- ful papers who realize that they will have to look out and do not feel disposed to take any risks at all in such a public temper — which doubtless extends to government officials and to juries. The liberal press becomes silent and control of opinion passes to those papers that appeal to the impulsive and instinctive, rather than to the reflective, element. This state of mind which I have described is progressively strengthened. And a good job too, you may say. You might quote the movie advertisement to the effect that you cannot put up a good fight until your blood boils; so the more it boils the better.

What, then, is the job of us civilians who are left behind and do not have to go over the top and do the bayoneting? It is, I think we have agreed, the direction of policy. If the govern- ment is going wrong we correct it, or replace it, and whether we intervene wisely or not de- pends upon this state of mind of ours. And I am not sure .that boiling blood is the best psychological condition for that judgment; for the public passes upon policies, and makes a choice between them, not by a cold intellectual analysis of their respective merits, but by virtue of a general state of mind and temper. [213]

If we really are directing the fight in its larger aspects — and I think we are agreed on that point — a certain balance and sanity of judgment rather than violent temper may be desirable. I believe it is a ruse of a prize fighter who is getting the worst of it to try and make his opponent really angry. Then the op- ponent's bad temper may compensate for his superior strength or ability. The toreador manages to reduce an opponent twenty times his own strength by making that opponent " see red." 1 But note what has happened today. We find the Northcliffe press itself complaining of the sensation- alism and lack of balance on the part of the public 1 It does so over the circumstances of the Pemberton Billing case. The popular attitude towards that case would seem to show that millions of the English people really do believe that the German govern- ment owns a mysterious " black book " containing the names of forty-seven thousand prominent Eng- lishmen — including cabinet ministers — addicted to unnatural vice and that it holds the knowledge of this fact over them as a means of securing a pro- German policy on the part of England. The public character who makes this amazing discovery has be- come a national hero, and the type of newspaper which exploits that type of rumour come to have im- mense power in the nation. Power seems to be passing in some degree from the Northcliffe press to

1 Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, July, 1918. Report of an address delivered at a meeting of the Academy.

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the press that out-NorthclIffes Northcllffe. No won- der we find the London Nation talking of the " col- lapse of the mind " of the people.

Now quite obviously a nation in that condition, in which the government and its policy tend to be con- trolled by its least sober press and least worthy ele- ments, is not likely to do the best in difficult and try- ing moments of policy; not likely, perhaps to select wisely its government, to choose with discernment between rival candidates for power. Its political judgment will be defective, " unbalanced." To put it at its very least it has a warning for America.

But note the difficulty: To utter that warning at all in any way likely to be listened to, may expose a journalist or an author to the very severest punish- ment: a large fine and a long period of imprison- ment. The espionage act reads :

Whoever, when the United States is at war, shall wilfully utter, print, write, or publish any disloyal, profane, scur- rilous, or abusive language about the form of government of the United States, or the Constitution of the United States or the military or naval forces, of the United States, or the flag of the United States, or the uniform of the Army or Navy of the United States . . . whoever shall by word or act support or favour the cause of any country with which the United States is at war, or by word or act oppose the cause of the United States therein, shall be punished by a fine of not more than $io,ooo or imprisonment for not more than twenty years, or both.

Note this suggestive progression. Rose Pastor Stokes, in favour of the war is condemned to ten years' imprisonment for sending the following letter

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to the Kansas City Star (which, incidentally, was not punished for publishing it) :

" I see that it is, after all, necessary to send a statement for publication over my own signature, and I trust that you will give it space in your columns.

" A headline in this evening's issue of the Star reads:

" * M rs. Stokes for Government and Against War at the Same Time.'

" I am not for the Government. In the interview that follows I am quoted as having said :

" * I believe that the Government of the United States should have the unqualified support of every citizen in its war aims.'

" I made no such statement and I believe no such thing. No government which is FOR the profiteers can also be FOR the people, and I am for the people while the government is for the profiteers.

" I expect my working-class point of view to receive no sympathy from your paper, but I do expect that the tradi- tional courtesy of publication by the newspapers of a signed statement of correction, which even our most Bourbon papers grant, will be extended to this statement by yours." ^

Yet a year or two since President Woodrow Wilson wrote the following:

" The masters of the government of the United States are the combined capitalists and manufacturers of the United States." 2

" We have restricted credit, we have restricted opportunity, we have controlled development, and we have come to be one

^ Judge Van Valkenburgh (Western District of Missouri, May, 1918) stated at the outset of his charge: "The act of the defendant complained of is the causing to be published in the Kansas City Star, a daily newspaper of wide and general circulation, the fol- lowing letter."

2 " The New Freedono," p. 57.

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of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated, governments in the civilized world — no longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and the duress of small groups of dominant men." ^

" We must learn, we freemen, to meet, as our fathers did, somehow, somewhere, for consultation. There must be dis- cussion and debate, in which all freely participate." ^

" I am not afraid of the American people getting up and doing something. I am only afraid they will not."

" I believe that the weakness of the American character is that there are so few growlers and kickers among us. . . . Difference of opinion is a sort of manadate of conscience. . . . We have forgotten the verj-^ principle of our origin if we have forgotten how to object, how to resist, how to agi- tate, how to pull down and build up, even to the extent of revolutionary practices, if it be necessary to re-adjust mat- ters." 3

Assuredly America has travelled quickly and trav- elled far.

But, it will be vociferated, there is all the difference between peace and war. Things good in peace time become quite inadmissible in war.

Is it at all certain, however, that we shall be able in the future, in many of the matters we are dis- cussing, to make a clear distinction between peace time and war time?

Take the matter of conscription. It is pretty definitely laid down now both in Britain and in America, that the teaching of the early Christian doctrine as to the sin of killing one's fellows, is in

^ " The New Freedom," p. 201. 2 " The New Freedom," p. 408.

' " Spurious vs. Real Patriotism." School Review, Vol. 7, p. 634. [217]

effect an incitement to the resistance of the draft, and must be regarded as sedition. But conscription will probably be the law as much of peace time as of war time. There is a very general demand in both countries that compulsory military service be made permanent. If we now send a clergyman to ten or twenty years' imprisonment for saying that Christ would not have killed his fellows at the orders of his government, and interpret such doctrines as subversive of the law, how will they be less subversive when that law has become part of the permanent legislation of the country? Shall we not be obliged, if we retain conscription, to make that particular interpretation of Christian doctrine illegal?

The very righteousness of this present war blinds us to certain dangers of the instruments — it may be the very necessary instruments — which we are employing in the waging of it. But how very power- fully certain of those instruments might affect, not only the waging of war in war time but the shaping of policy in peace time, we can realize if we could imagine conscription having been a permanent in- stitution in Britain twenty or thirty years ago.

Will the reader please note that I am not oppos- ing conscription, I am only insisting upon certain dan- gers of its use. It may be necessary in sickness to employ dangerous drugs, but safety lies in being fa- miliar with their risks. The more it is urged that conscription is indispensable and inevitable the more necessary does it become to realize the dangers of its normal employment. As an illustration of those dangers I suggest that if during the last few genera-

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tions England had had conscription, possessed of the powers with which it is already endowed the opera- tions of that system would have resulted inevitably in checking the liberal tendencies of English political development and strengthening the reactionary and imperialist, by limiting freedom both of discussion and institution, and by curtailing popular right; and would have made English political influence in the world very much less beneficent than happily it is.

That can be illustrated by an incident of recent British history.

The Boer War and its sequel indicate the exist- ence of two opposing forces in English political de- velopment — in the development of Western democ- racy, indeed; the forces which brought on the war, and the opposing forces which dominated the post- bellum settlement. Because, of course, the final set- tlement which has given us a loyal and united South Africa was carried out by a pro-Boer government, a party who had bitterly fought the policy that precipi- tated the war, and who in a large degree reversed its object. But so complete a victory of Liberal forces would have been impossible if the powers now possessed by the Government — and conscription would have given the Government these powers — had been in existence. That system would have strengthened incalculably those reactionary forces which played so large a part in the war itself. Let us see why.

Although the Boer War is a very controversial subject in English history, there are very few Eng- lishmen who would seriously challenge the view that

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there entered into its motives — whether the war as a whole was just or not — very ugly elements of cap- italist exploitation, a Prussianization of Enghsh temper shown in a crude desire of domination, ex- cuse or justification of things like the Jameson Raid, a refusal to see an " enemy " point of view, a sys- tematic vilification of the Boer character and finally, in the conduct of the war itself, methods which the Englishman who after the war became British Prime Minister, declared curtly to be " methods of bar- barism " — farm burning, concentration camps, etc.

Now, not merely had this lapse into Prussianism ranged the opinion of most of the civilized world against England — certainly as much as it was against France in the Dreyfus case — but what is much more to the point, most English Liberals fought the whole policy and tendency of the war. The pro-Boer agitation (in which Mr. Lloyd George was perhaps the most violent figure) did not, it is true, stop the war, though it shortened it; but It produced a reaction against the Prussian temper so great that the pro-Boers, electorally triumphant after the war, virtually restored to the Boer Repub- lics their independence under the guise of responsible Colonial Government; and to the bitter anger of British junkerdom at the time, allowed the Boer element to become once more politically dominant throughout South Africa; so that within a year or two of the close of the war the virtual ruler of South Africa was the man who had led the Boer forces In the field against British arms.

But that conversion of the British people, and [220]

their revolt against their own Government, would have been impossible under conscription and the powers we have now given it. The war, which lasted nearly three years, called from first to last for nearly half a million men, drawn not only from the regular army, but from militia and irregular forces. Presumably those who offered their services for the war did not share the views of the pro-Boer party of the day.

But what would have been the position of English soldiers under the existing powers of the State? The Government would, of course, take no account of political opinion. While the pro-Boer might be taken to the front, the pro-Chamberlainite might have been left at home. Young Liberals and Non- conformists were reading in Mr. Lloyd George's speeches that the war was a monstrous wickedness, tainted at its source, carried on by methods of bar- barism. Inflamed by all this these young men would, under conscription, have been sent to the veldt to kill Boers, burn Boer farm houses, and drive Boer women and children into concentration camps.

Would they, in such conditions, have done those things? I can answer personally for at least some; they would have flatly refused. We now know — the 1906 election taught us that — that pro-Boerism had gone much deeper than was generally supposed. The refusal would not have been isolated and spor- adic, for though pro-Boerism presented what was at the time a minority, it was a passionate and convinced minority. And that minority — the editors, writers, bishops, professors — would certainly, some of them,

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have followed Mr. Lloyd George In supporting that mutiny and encouraging it.

What would the conscription authorities have done ? Shot the young conscripts, and let Mr. Lloyd George — the pro-Boer agitator — really respon- sible for their mutiny, continue unchecked? Let the conscript choose whether he should go to war or not? Then that would have been the end of conscrip- tion. And would the military authorities accept sur- render to sedition in war times?

There was only one thing, under conscription, to have done : suppress the pro-Boer agitation. For conscription to have worked at all in the Boer War would have meant a very thoroughgoing censorship of newspaper opinion, suppression of public meet- ings, control of university professors and religious teachers, and the suppression of the speaking and writing of the men who have since ruled England and guided her policy.

It would have suited the Government of the day, of course; notably Mr; Chamberlain. He would not have needed to answer Lloyd George or the other very violent pro-Boers. He would have sent them to gaol. Incidentally, such a step would have been very popular just at the time.

But such a course would have altered not only the subsequent history of the South African settlement, but of all English politics. The discredit which fell upon the authors of the Boer War and finally swept them from office and so completely checked the Prus- sian temper and tendencies, was due largely to the educating influence of the pro-Boer agitation. The

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movement which accounted for the landslide of the 1906 election was largely a moral movement, a real- ization of the true character of Chamberlainite and Milnerite politics, due largely to just that agitation during the war which conscription must have sup- pressed.

Let us see what is the relation of the mechanism of those State powers to political freedom of opinion in present-day circumstances. Put the thing in the concrete fashion of Carlyle's two Dumdrudges. The young man of France, or Austria, or Prussia, or Bavaria, having been in no way consulted as to his opinion concerning the matter, and with no option of refusal, finds himself one day confronted with the order to enter the trenches and kill the man op- posite. Now suppose, being a Prussian, he should say: " I don't feel justified in killing the man op- posite. I have followed this particular dispute be- tween his Government and mine, and upon my con- science I am not at all sure that he is wrong. I think there is a good deal to be said for his case. Par- ticularly am I a little doubtful of my case when it is marked by the daily slaughter of children on land and sea. I cannot see that I do the best service to my country in killing the man opposite. He may not be altogether right, but I am at least sure that he is not so wrong as to justify me in putting him to death or torture."

Now, if what the Allies and their supporters have so often told us is at all true. Western Europe has taken up arms on behalf of that young heretic — to bring about, that is, just the moral revolution on

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the part of his people represented in his attitude. Mr. Asquith has told us that the war is a soiritual conflict fought to defeat " a monstrous code of in- ternational morality " into which the German people have been entrapped " to the horror of mankind." The war was undertaken to liberate them and Europe from the menace of certain political doctrines and moralities (such as that whatever the State does is right, and that obligations to it overrule all others, and that men should be, as certain members of the German Government have so proudly proclaimed themselves, " for their country, right or wrong"), and to replace those dangerous doctrines by — again to quote Mr. Asquith — "the enthronement of the idea of right as the governing idea " in international politics.

But if a nation is to know what is right in its re- lations with others it must in that matter allow free- dom of conscience and discussion, particularly free- dom to state the view of the other side. It is not an easy thing for even a third party to determine the rights and wrongs of a quarrel. As for the in- terested parties, it is humanly certain that each will be convinced he is absolutely right and the other absolutely wrong unless there is a deliberately cul- tivated capacity to " hear the other side." And, as Governments are made up of human beings, they too are just as likely to be incapable of fair and reason- able judgment in a case in which they are interested parties, unless drawn from a population that has cultivated the capacity for such judgment in the only way in which it can be cultivated — by the habit of

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forming individual decisions based on the weighing of both sides; unless, in other words, they have learned to " tolerate the heretic " and are dominated by the tradition of the need of heresy in forming opinion.

Now the simple truth is that the form in which we have established conscription has given to the State such powers that it makes political heresy — opposi- tion to the political religion of the State — in inter- national affairs, a crime punishable with death. It sounds fantastic, but it is a mere statement of fact. Let us go back to the young conscript I have imagined refusing to kill the man opposi 2. Whether he be German, French, Italian, Russian or Turkish, and whether his situation be that of a submarine com- mander refusing to sink Atlantic liners or an Al- lied aviator refusing to throw bombs at inland Ger- man cities, if he really persists there is only one result for him. He is shot.

Conscription, to be effective, must be a conscription of minds as well as bodies, just when freedom of minds is most needed. To allow real cleavage of opinion concerning the justice of a State's cause to grow up by allowing the advocacy of a rival cause would be to break down national solidarity, to affect gravely the efficiency of the military instrument by tainting its morale at the source. Moreover, the State must take charge not only of the expression of opinion, but of the dissemination of facts which lead to the formation of opinion. And if the inci- dent of the trenches I have described is not com- moner than it is (though it is commoner than we

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suppose It to be), it Is largely because States which, like Germany, knowing their military business, have carried out the intellectual conscription, the " mobil- ization of the mental and moral forces of the nation," so thoroughly before the beginning of the war that the mind as well as the body of the conscript has been suitably drilled. The control of the Press and of education, of the careers of all who teach or have in- fluence, has been as much part of the organization of the nation for military purposes as the physical drill and regimentation. And if we wonder how It Is that not only sixty or seventy millions of people In the mass, but great scientists, teachers and theo- logians as individuals, can subscribe to doctrines and support conduct which appear to the outside world as monstrous, It Is merely because we have forgotten that any case, however monstrous, can be made to appear reasonable and acceptable If we never hear anything that can be said against It.

If we think that a people like the French could not possibly, when a like efficiency of organization has had time to do Its work, show a like moral result, then we have probably forgotten certain incidents of their history, even quite recent Incidents like the Dreyfus affair and what we said about It and all that It meant at the time. I do not pretend of course that no freedom In political speculation can exist un- der conscription or allied systems. There has been freedom of political speculation of a kind in Ger- many, as her social contrivances like workmen's In- surance acts, which are models to the world and which we have copied, show. In the same way you

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had periods of bold Intellectual speculation, of a kind, under the Inquisition. The influence of men like Thomas Aquinas, one of the acutest and most pene- trating thinkers of all time, was felt in the most priest-ridden period. But although you had intel- lectual innovation in the nineteenth century in Ger- many and in the fourteenth century in Spain and Italy, authority intervened to arrest innovation at just those points where It was most needed. And with all her political heresy the power of the military machine in France has undoubtedly worked to main- tain for the most part the old ideas in such things as nationalism, patriotism — the v/orth of political sovereignty — to maintain just that group of ideas which of all others needs most radical modification. But for the momentum of the old Nationalist con- ceptions, which are so closely allied with the military organization, the result of the attempt of the Cail- laux ministry to compose the differences between the great two rival groups in Europe might have been very different.

But the French, as a matter of fact, have escaped the full flower of the Prussian result because the cir- cumstances of their history during the nineteenth cen- tury — the fact that not once during the whole of that century did they have a Government sufficiently national to set up a national orthodoxy — made it impossible to organize the system on its intellectual side. Since the Revolution there have always been in France, until this war, large groups ready to put certain social and moral principles above national de- fence, above the State. The revolutionary wars of

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France were fought with a whole class of French- men opposed to them, many members of that class actually fighting with the enemies of France. It is but a symbol of what has always been in post-revolu- tionary France that on the news of the fall of Sedan, because it meant the end of the Empire, Paris was illuminated; and that in Paris, in the struggle of the Commune, more Frenchmen were killed by French- men than had been killed there in the war by Ger- mans. You had here such ingrained habit of po- litical heresy that no machine could readily cope with it. No wonder France has been intellectually fairly free. Sufficient numbers of Frenchmen have always been ready to make national defence, the efficiency of the military machine, subservient to the retention of certain freedoms, as the Dreyfus case showed. But conscription — the military organization — has steadily fought these freedoms, and the tendency for the needs of the machine to override all other con- siderations has at times been so strong that, again as in the Dreyfus affair, the control of such tendency demanded for years at a time all the energies which the heirs of the liberal tradition could summon to the task. If, as a result of this war, France is " na- tionalized " in the sense of making all political dif- ferences really subservient to the needs of national power, the increasing efficiency of the military ma- chine will make the next Dreyfus affair in its out- come a Zabern affair.

The question surely is this: If the democracies like England and France are to put first the efficient working of the national military machine over a pe-

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riod of years, will it not be at the price of a control of opinion by the State, as complete as in Germany? And, if so, why should we expect sensibly different moral results?

I am not urging that the difficulties here indicated necessarily condemn resort to conscription in any circumstance whatever — that is quite a distinct problem — but that we must face squarely what permanent conscription involves. And it involves undoubtedly the suppression of freedom of con- science in the larger and deeper political problems, in some degree at all times, and with ruthlessness just at the time that such freedom is most needed. In- deed, the position of the modern political heretic is in one respect perhaps worse than was that of the old religious heretic. The latter, in order to be se- cure from the attentions of the Holy Office, had only to remain silent. That does not protect the modern heretic. He is taken out and compelled to kill with his own hand those whose political faith perhaps he shares, or himself be executed.

Just imagine such a conception of the powers of the State — of the majority, that is — being applied to the Class War.

We have seen as the result of conscription in Eng- land one very important result: a widespread change of ideas in reference to the institution of private property. The justice of the conscription of life has led to a very changed feeling as to the justice of the conscription of wealth. The economic foundation stone of society is no longer the right of the Individual but the interest of the community. It

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Is not, as we have seen, a mere matter of income tax. Out of the increase of state powers for the purposes of the war is coming obviously a vast permanent change in the relationship of the community to the control of public utihties like the railroads, the dis- tribution of necessaries like coal, means of communi- cation generally, insurance and so forth. All these economic changes carry with them great political and social changes. The construction, for instance, by the American government of what may ultimately be the greatest merchant marine in the world, and its ownership by the state, will involve, not only questions of traffic rates, and commercial policy, but the whole foreign policy of the nation. It is per- haps the greatest experiment in socialism ever at- tempted by any modern state ; and it will be attempted by the state which of all others has been heretofore most hostile to Socialist tendencies.

That change in fundamental social ideas will have come as the unintended result of a " temporary " war measure. And what is true of the building of ships, the nationahzation of the railroads, an eighty per cent, income tax, the control of food prices, will be true of more far reaching measures still, like the " work or fight " law; all affected by the " argument from conscription." Even though we abolish con- scription it will leave its indelible traces. We shall not be able to go back altogether to the old order.

If we would get a forecast of what the powers of a socialized state might be, just note what is in- volved in the principle of the " work or fight " law. When we declare that those who do not fight shall

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work, we must also dictate what they shall work at, what shall in fact, constitute work. We are doing so already in the case of the less fortunate socially: messengers, attendants, servants. Under any really socialist system the same rule would apply to the well-to-do. What are the essential occupations? An inventor declares himself on the track of a great discovery — inventors are always on the track of great discoveries, and until the discoveries are actu- ally made, are always regarded by their friends, neighbours and families as hopeless cranks. Could we hope that officials or commissions pledged to do their best for recruiting a labour army would take a more lenient view? As to the man thinking out social and moral problems — is that "work"? Could it be accepted as grounds for exemption from the industrial draft? Is it so accepted from bud- ding geniuses now in the case of the military con- scription? As to poetry, art, music, philosophy — shall we exempt self-styled poets and artists from the labour-conscription while their brothers toil? At present their exemption from labour is their own risk — the risk of starvation or wearing out the pa- tience of their friends and family upon whom they may live. But no such freedom could be accorded under a social system in which the obligation to work was enforced in the same way that we now enforce the obligation to fight.

We may at first sight regard all this as fanciful. But the application of the present temper to a Bol- shevist order — and the present temperamental tendencies are the natural forerunner of Bolshevism

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— would give us a system In which oppressions like those just indicated would daily confront unpopular minorities. If poetry and research and music be- came associated in the minds of the mass with "counter-revolutionary " tendencies — as well they might — the Tribunals of the Industrial Draft could be depended upon to see that all bourgeois tainted with such anti-socialist heresies got about the same treatment that we now accord to conscientious ob- jectors to the military service. Something resem- bling that has already happened under the Bolshev^ iks in Russia.

To suppose that the feeling of our people about individual freedom during the last four years in Eu- rope and the last eighteen months in America applies to war time only, and that it will suddenly cease with the declaration of peace, is to assume that there is no such thing as psychological habit or momentum.

The directing of public opinion by governments

— establishment of vast bureaux where officials un- dertake the work of " inspiring " editors and writers, sending out lecturers — hundreds and thousands — . to give the " governmental " view of policy, all this, is a thing which five years ago we of the Western democracies would have looked upon with detesta- tion as the very negation of democratic government, as incompatible with the free state. Today it does not excite the least hostility. It is adopted, not as something we apply with keen regret as a hard neces- sity, but in very many cases with evident relish, or as something we have simply no feeling about. There is no reason why the control of opinion by the

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State (through official "news" agencies; surveil- lance of educational institutions, etc.) should not be- come an accepted practice.

Many of these war time institutions are bound to survive for a very long time, not only because most of the arguments which justify them as war time measures will also justify them as a necessary part of preparedness for war — necessary to the proper maintenance of universal military service in peace time, for instance, — but also because the difficulties of demobilization will prolong for a very consider- able period many of the conditions of actual war. The re-entrance into civil life of tens of millions of men throughout the world; the turn over of indus- tries from a war basis to a peace one; the allocation of raw materials and their rationing; the common help to devastated countries like Belgium, France, Poland, Armenia ; the teaching of trades to miUions of wounded and semi-incapables; the allocation of pensions and allowances; the adaptation of finance and commerce to new political and social conditions, all of which is a part of demobilization, must be a matter of some years. It implies the retention of vast governmental and bureaucratic if not of mili- tary powers. Pensions, allowances, compensations, will be made contingent in some degree probably upon " good conduct "; which will mean, in practice, conformity to the political opinion of the government for the time being. Already educational authorities, in England as well as in the United States, have de- cided that they will refuse henceforth to employ " conscientious objectors." A recent Act of Parlia-

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ment disfranchises them. Later on a " Labour gov- ernment " grappling with its early difficulties and the opposition of anti-Labour — "bourgeois" and counter-revolutionary-groups, will not hesitate to take over for its own purposes existing principles and methods. The Labour government will maintain its Press Bureaux, and Committees of Public In- formation, but use them for the governmental in- doctrination of the people with the true Socialistic Gospel. School teachers and university professors who presume to criticize the new order will be re- moved; public men who do so will be hounded by a " kept " press under the lash of " the new patriot- ism " ; the Postmasters General ^ will be empowered to open the letters of private persons; everybody will be encouraged to become a spy upon everybody else and to report " disloyal remarks " in private con- versation; and the L W. W. will constitute a Com- mittee of Vigilantes to listen to sermons, note the remarks of teachers, censor books and plays; and finally of course, we shall have a law that no one of " bourgeois associations " shall hold public office of any kind. And so it will go on until the new tyranny becomes as loathsome as the old, and the new order also breaks down.

^ Section 4 of the Sedition Act reads :

" The Postmaster General may, upon evidence satisfactory to him that any person or concern is using the mails in violation of any of the provisions of this Act, instruct the postmaster at any post office at which mail is received addressed to such person or concern to return to the postmaster at the office at which they were originally mailed all letters or other matter so addressed, with the words ' Mail to this address undeliverable under Espionage Act ' plainly written or stamped upon the outside thereof, and all such letters or other matter so returned to such postmasters shall be by them returned to the senders thereof under such regulations as the Post- master General may prescribe."

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This Is not mere fanciful banter. It is so little impossible that we have seen it all actually happen before our eyes within a few months in Russia; and what has happened in Russia is so little exceptional or extraordinary that it is in lesser or greater degree the invariable rule of every revolution. All the bright hopes of past efforts at a really new order have been wrecked upon this one rock: human lust for the coercion of those of contrary opinion; the complete lack of faith in freedom as a method of human intercourse. Mankind has failed in these efforts because men do not yet love freedom; do not believe in it, do not understand its need, or the grounds upon which it is necessary to preserve it.

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CHAPTER II

THE HERD AND ITS HATRED OF FREEDOM

The deep-seated hatred of those who have the insufferable impudence to disagree with us is one of the strongest and most constant motives in history often ruthlessly over-riding economic and other considerations, yet seldom taken into account. The motive has strong biological justification, but like other instincts of self-preservation may destroy us if yielded to indiscriminately without foresight of consequences. How the social machinery of modern societj' tends to develop this herd feeling. Two essays for war time : " The Prob- lem of Northcliffe " ; " De Haeretico Comburiendo, or * Now Is Not the Time.' "

Although an almost universal discredit has fallen, both upon the over-intellectualization of mo- tive in the explanation of conduct, and upon " util- ity " as its basis, we still find a curious disinclination to give any considerable place to psychological and temperamental motives as factors in the shaping of human society. Thus, although, as already noted, it becomes more and more evident that we must accept as one of the predominant factors of history a real hatred of those who have the insuf- ferable impudence to disagree with us (the incred- ible horrors of religious persecution, the massacres, wars, inquisitions, are inexplicable unless we give a

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large place to this fact in human nature), we find our historians attempting to explain the religious wars and the history of such institutions as the inquisition in economic or " realist " terms — as though any- thing could be more " real " than the satisfaction of a great fundamental instinct, an instinct as deep- seated almost as the instincts of sex or hunger.

So at the present moment, the feeling of most Americans probably is that there can be no real danger of tyranny or oppression in American policy, foreign or domestic, because there is no " selfish in- terest " involved: the country is asking nothing from Germany and in the suppression of anti-war or anti- national expressions is demanding only conformity to a cause which is as noble as ever inspired a great people.

The religious persecutions, so far as the mass of the people were concerned, were entirely disinterested and unselfish. The intense popular feeling which demanded the suppression of heresy derived from no " economic " interest. That feeling was in large measure the conviction that in maintaining true reli- gion the persecutors were maintaining morality and good conduct, the welfare of society in this world as well as the salvation of their children in the next. The laws and institutions which become the most serious menace to rriankind are precisely those that can appeal to much that is good. Institutions which can appeal only to evil could never become powerful enough to become a menace.^

1 Nothing seems to make us so wicked as a conviction of right- eousness based on passionate intuition. Lea's " History of the In-

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That indeed Is the danger of the herd instinct itself — the fact that in a measure it is essential to any society. Without a certain unity of feeling paving the way to unity of action, there can be no workable social order. In the crowded traffic of the modern city we must all go to the right or all go to the left. It does not matter much which it is, so long as we all do the same thing. For some to insist on going to the left while the others go to the right, is to endanger all, and the majority have the right to insist upon conformity to the common rule. The strong instinct to exact unified conduct even at the cost of coercion, may well have its re- mote origins in the flock, the herd, the bee hive, where the very existence of the community, as a com- munity, depended upon a common policy commonly observed.

The motive may well be protective, biologically. Yet, like other Instincts of self-preservation, or which have great survival value, it may destroy us as well as protect us if yielded to indiscriminately without foresight of consequences. It is a self-protective in- stinct which prompts us to rush out of a theatre when some one shouts that it is on fire. If five thousand

quisition " (Vol. I, p. 228) tells us that under the law of the medi- aeval church: "The son must denounce the father and the husband was guilty if he did not deliver his wife to a frightful death. . . . No pledge was to remain unbroken. It was an old rule that faith was not to be kept with heretics. As Innocent III emphatically phrased it, ' according to the canons faith is not to be kept with him who keeps not faith with God.' No oath of secrecy, therefore, was binding in a matter of heresy, for if one is faithful to a heretic, he is unfaithful to God."

Transpose God into Patriotism, or Fatherland, and you have the moral basis of modern Prussianism.

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people yield to that instinct without discipline and without moral self-control, their action may result, not in protection, but distaster. Their safety depends upon not obeying their instinct, upon its repression, upon self discipline, based on rationalized experi- ence.

What the uncontrolled instinct of the herd has done to human society in the past such incidents as the religious persecutions, and the influence of re- ligious institutions upon the political and social or- ganization of Europe during some centuries, suffi- ciently tells. We have a feeling that never again could such things be duplicated. But history — par- ticularly the history of the last four years — gives not the slightest justification for any such hope. We may well transfer our errors from the religious to the political field; but they may well be as mischiev- ous in the one as in the other.

It is a fatuous and dangerous optimism which would see in the characteristic machinery of indus- trial society — our popular press, our rapid means of communication, our mechanical efficiency — any pro- tection against the tyrannies which have cursed men in the past. These mechanisms may well become instruments for the satisfaction of these widespread passions in a fashion which the two essays that fol- low attempt to indicate. They are here reproduced as pertinent to our present problem. The first is a consideration of the modern press as a social and political force.

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*' THE PROBLEM OF NORTHCLIFFE '

Let an American imagine that New York is not only the largest city in the Union, but that it is also the seat of the national government; and that the government has absorbed to itself most of the func- tions now exercised by the governments of the states, so that state politics have ceased to have any real in- terest or importance, even in the states themselves. Let him imagine further that participation in the poli- cies of this centralized government is a mark of social distinction, so that pohtics are largely in the hands of the socially prominent, and the city is also the country's artistic and literary centre — in short, the only capital that counts. Let him imagine further that this centralized government holds office, not for fixed periods, but at the pleasure of a legisla- ture split into five or six distinct groups; that the legislature itself is not elected immovably for fixed periods but may by the fortunes of politics find itself confronted at any moment by a general election, or by a by-election which may affect party fortunes; may, in other words, find itself at the mercy of the popular feeling of the moment.

Then let the American's already overtaxed im- agination conceive that New York can be reached from the remotest corner of the Union in a few

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hours, so that newspapers of the capital can ap- pear almost simultaneously in Boston, Washington, Baltimore, New Orleans, Chicago, St. Louis, Cin- cinnati, Pittsburgh, Denver, Omaha, Los Angeles, and San Francisco — which cities, having no state or local politics that matter, would be mainly in- terested in those of New York. Then let him im- agine that of these New York papers, the Times, the World, the Tribune, the American and Journal, to- gether with a score of weeklies like Collier's or the Saturday Evening Post, domestic publications like The Ladies' Home Journal and a few monthly maga- zines, amounting to some sixty publications, were all, together with forest and paper mills for their manu- facture, owned by one large trust, so entrenched by its vast capital resources and its facilities for economical and reciprocal publicity as to be able in- stantly to steam-roller any real competition; and, finally, that the controlling shareholder of this trust is also its active head, a man combining unusual ad- ministrative capacity and relentless energy with an incomparable genius for the understanding of the popular state of mind. The American who can in imagination grasp all those various factors will un- derstand something of the influence exercised by Al- fred Harmsworth, first Baron Northcliffe,^ in Eng- lish opinion and politics.

I have, of course, for purposes of clarity exag- gerated somewhat the contrast of conditions. It is obvious, for instance, that Manchester and Edin-

1 Written in 1916. Lord NorthcHffe is now a Viscount. [241]

burgh are in some degree centres of intellectual and political life offsetting the influence of London. But the general truth of the contrast remains. The problem of Northcliffe is the problem of capitalistic industry with its tendency to centralization and com- bination applied to newspaper production. I have put the case in this way because the American who thinks of it in terms of existing American conditions will not realize its gravity in England. The condi- tions I have just described are found in any other great country to a lesser degree, but in England they are very acute. Yet the decisions which they will affect do not concern England alone ; for the political decisions of England, by reason of her historical, geo- graphical, and economical circumstances, affect the whole world. They will necessarily determine in large part the course of the Allied Powers during the next few years, and so the character of western civilization for, it may be, generations. If, as some- one has said, " no man nor government can hold of- fice, nor policy succeed in England save by the grace of Lord Northcliffe," can that individual determine by his personal will the future of western civilization? The question receives commonly two answers in England; both, in my view, dangerously false and misleading. The first is to the effect — and this was until a year or two since the almost universal one — that the influence of the Northcliffe press is far more apparent than real. That what it does is intelligently to anticipate what in any case will take place — the German war, conscription, or what not — advocate it, and then appropriate the credit for

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having brought it about; that as its influence depends upon faithfully reflecting public opinion it cannot lead or control it; that, like a barometer, it registers the weather and has no part in determining it. The opposed school is typified by those whose one sug- gestion for the maintenance or making of peace, for the success of a league of nations, for the improve- ment of relations with America or what not is " the conversion of Northcliffe." If Northcliffe would but will it, the aspirations of mankind throughout the ages would at last be realized. English reformers and friends of peace have on many occasions plain- tively urged this upon the present writer.

As to the first of these views — that Lord North- cliffe's influence does not really count — it is voiced most energetically perhaps by those whose beliefs on concrete political and public affairs have been most largely — though unconsciously — determined by just the forces they belittle. I have known an English householder talk most contemptuously of ** this Harmsworth fellow and his half-penny sen- sations " and become indignant at the notion that he could be influenced in his opinions thereby; and yet reveal, on cross-examination, that practically every piece of printed matter that came into his home (and was ever read) came from just that despised source. " But I don't take my opinions from the papers; I never read their leading articles." I led him on to expressions of opinion concerning the government of the day, its merits and demerits, his estimate of the persons that compose it, of the character of other nations, his notions of fiscal policy,

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of national education, of the country's past and fu- ture foreign policy, and so on. Every opinion he expressed responded accurately to just that distribu- tion of emphasis In the news of our time which marks the Northcliffe press. Given the facts as this house- holder conceived them, he could come to no other opinion ; and those facts — one group of them stressed day after day and another group Intrinsically as Important quietly hidden away In corners — were presented as Lord Northcliffe had decreed they should be presented. I tested my householder as to his knowledge of some essentials. Did he know of such and such action by such and such foreign government? Of such and such statement In Par- liament? Of the result of such and such official in- quiry? He did not; it was not intended that he should. His estimate of such and such a public man was formed of headline or paragraph summaries made by hostile journalists of parliamentary speeches. My householder's vague impression that a certain public man had a great future was due In reality to hearing the women of the family talk so much about him : and that was due to the frequency with which pictures of the said public man's babies, held lovingly by their saintly mother, appeared in The Weekly Home Comforter or some other publi- cation which combines the overt distribution of paper patterns with successfully concealed promotion of certain political causes.

Obviously what England thinks Is largely con- trolled by one man; not by the direct expression of any opinion of his own but by controlling the

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distribution of emphasis in the telling of facts, so stressing one group of them day after day and keep- ing another group in the background as to make a given conclusion inevitable. And this, it will be said, justifies those who maintain that Northcliffe does in fact control the mind and opinion of his nation, and that he can by that means direct its policies and des- tiny.

Well, dangerous as that personal power un- doubtedly in certain circumstances may be, I do not believe that it is by any means the most danger- ous element in those English conditions I have de- scribed. For there are very definite limits to it; and it is precisely in the nature of those limits that we shall find a hint of a far greater danger.

Let us see first just how the power of a news- paper corporation is limited, in, say the matter of peace and war. Assume, for the sake of illustration, that the growth of militarism in Germany, of the party of aggression, during the last ten or fifteen years would have been checked, and liberal and in- ternationalist tendencies developed in that country if England had devised an acceptable plan by which Germany had been guaranteed real equality of economic opportunity in the undeveloped areas of the world — in Egypt, Morocco, and the rest of Africa — and a real economic right of way through to the Near East. Suppose this plan to be so far- reaching that it would be patent to the German peo- ple as a whole that they were in no way encircled, or menaced in their economic interest, or excluded from opportunities equal to those of other great

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peoples. Let us assume that England had been pre- pared to Internationalize her own imperially gov- erned territory and to use her influence with France to secure the application of a similar policy in French Africa.

Now, if the head of a great newspaper combina- tion had believed that along some such lines as these peace and the gradual liberalization of German pol- icy would have been secured, could he have used his power for the promotion of that policy? To ask of the English people some surrender of sover- eignty in their imperially governed territories — which would have been necessary to make such a policy successful — would have run counter to firmly established notions of national right and dignity; it would have made many Englishmen un- comfortable and disturbed, and the whole thing would have been very easily capable of misrepre- sentation. The first thought and natural impulse of a proud and imperially-minded people would have been all against it, a fact which would certainly not have been lost upon the trade rivals of this sup- posititious newspaper proprietor. Those rivals — if they had been at all technically efficient — would have been able to secure a popular reaction to appeals to old-established conceptions and prejudices, to im- pulse, and passion, long before any large response could have been provoked by appeals to second thoughts and rationally justified policies. These rivals would, moreover, have found capital and ad- vertising among the special groups menaced by the proposed new policy. Had Lord Northchffe

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adopted such a line fifteen years ago, he would not now be Lord Northcliffe. Had his been the sort of mind to be attracted to such a policy it would not be the sort that is predominantly popular — " the common mind to an uncommon degree." If, when he first entered journalism — some years before the Boer War — he had left to others the task of giv- ing expression to all those widespread impulses and feelings that lie near the surface of our nature, and had exploited rather the much more slowly aroused sentiment of rationality, some other proprietor would have entered the neglected field; and the con- trol of big circulations — and national destinies — would now be in other hands. Where, as between two pohcies, the instinctive motives of conduct are pretty evenly balanced, the power of an individual in Lord Northcliffe's position is of course decisive. But in those situations a small power may be de- cisive.

Where Lord Northcliffe may seem for a time to maintain a policy which runs counter to popular clamour of the moment — as when the Daily Mail was burned in the Stock Exchange because of its persistent attacks on Kitchener at the time of the shell shortage — it merely means that he knows what the public wants better than the public knows. He knew that their desire for victory was suflliciently near the surface, suflSciently formulated and over- whelming, for them to digest anything which he could show to be necessary for that purpose. And his rivals, in disparaging the line he took, showed themselves (since they too supported the war " to

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the bitter end ") his inferiors both in patriotism and in real understanding of the popular mind.

In this matter of the shell shortage particularly, as in most of the other campaigns which he has conducted, the abuse which has in the past been levelled at Northcliffe is as silly and ignorant as the disparagement of his influence. It is of the essence of his success that his social and political ideals should be the common and accepted ones of his time. Un- til the war the Northcliffe press had no particular politics and was perhaps on the whole the most im- partial in England. It admitted, in the form of signed articles, an expression of views hostile to its own to a degree that the papers who were so ready to gird at it could not boast. If, since the war. Lord Northcliffe has so selected daily facts as to tell in favour of his country's cause and against the enemy's; to maintain by hate and anger the country's fighting temper; to discredit views which might abate that temper, and persons who do not share it, he has ample justification in the example of the country's government and ordinarily accepted standards of patriotism.

The real problem of Northcliffe is not in a person but in social, psychological, and industrial conditions. If it had not been Northchffe, it would have been some one else whose personality would have swayed within the range of the limits I have indicated, the national action of his time. The fact which ought to disquiet us is the nature of those limits. They reveal — as in the instance I have chosen — the operation of a psychological Gresham law. Just as

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In commerce debased coin, If there be enough of it, must drive out the sterhng, so in the contest of mo- tives, action which responds to the more primitive feelings and impulses, first thoughts, established prejudice, can be stimulated by the modern news- paper far more easily than action which is prompted by rationalized second thought. Any newspaper ap- pealing to the former group of motives must " get away with it " long before that which appeals to the second can establish its case. And this premium upon the more dangerous type of action, modern conditions of industry and finance tend to increase.

When Swift wrote his pamphlet " The Conduct of the Allies " he presented a point of view con- trary to the accepted one and profoundly affected his country's opinion and policy. Yet at most he circulated ten thousand copies. It was printed, I believe, at his own expense. Any printer in a back street could have furnished all the material capital necessary for reaching effectively the whole reading public of the nation. Today, for an unfamiliar opinion to gain headway as against accepted opinion, the mere mechanical equipment of propaganda would be beyond the resources of any ordinary individual. A newspaper — the only effective medium for pam- phleteering in our day — is an important industrial undertaking, demanding grave financial risks which the ordinary capitalist will not face unless he is pretty sure of popular support. No newspaper can be financially successful as against well established rivals If it champions unpopular opinions.

This means In practice the stereotyping of all those [249]

social and political conceptions in which easily aroused passion and feeling are involved, those con- ceptions rooted, not necessarily in the deepest in- stincts, but in the most easily awakened. The net result of the process I have sketched is a tempera- mental and moral conservatism, a reversion to primi- tive instinct, and the sloughing of the more lately acquired social qualities. That may seem a strange statement when we remember that England has for the purposes of the war made overnight changes in the direction of state socialism which in time of peace half a century of agitation could not have produced. But the temperamental and moral foundations of those policies are not new; they are as old as the tribal grouping of mankind — which, you will kindly note, does not happen to have sufficed for our social needs. The ready submission to authority, the sub- mergence of the individual in the group, an intense gregariousness that will tolerate no individualism of thought or ideal, the determination to secure the victory of our group over rival groups, are among the instinctive foundations not only of the ancient tribe but of feudalism — and of the modern Ger- man state. It is not a mere political accident that the introduction of those " revolutionary " measures of wartime England have synchronized with the acces- sion to power of the most reactionary and conserva- tive type of statesman — the Milners, Curzons, Car- sons.

The result of applying the tribal conception to a world of closely knit nations is shown by the pres- ent condition of Europe. It needs revision. But

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every attempt at revision will encounter somewhere the primitive tribal instinct or passion. All revision of conception, in any field in the past, has been the work of small minorities, of individual minds: a few heretics, encyclopedists or pamphleteers able to reach other minds for a sufficient length of time to break down the first prejudice. But that influence of the individual mind maintaining a heresy, the modern press, by virtue of the psychological Gresham law acting in the particular economic and industrial con- ditions of our time I have indicated, tends to destroy. If the feudalisms, autocracies, dynasties, and inqui- sitions of the past had possessed the modern me- chanical press operating in closely packed populations whose industrial occupations demanded most of their mental energy, that control of the mind by which alone the old tyrannies were made possible (a tiny governing minority did not impose its will upon the vast majority by virtue of superior physical force) would have been maintained for all time. The modern press is likely to make our conceptions of the state, nationalism, individual right, international obligation and institutions that depend thereon all but impossible of reform.

The forces I am indicating are not merely con- cerned with the mechanical control of ideas. They determine the national temperament. The constant stimulus to passion and the herd instinct which the necessity of finding an appeal that shall be wider and more successful than that of a rival newspaper concern, the consequent violent-mindedness of the public, the impossibility for an unpopular view to

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obtain adequate expression, all end by destroying the capacity of weighing a contrary opinion by which alone thought on public issues is possible. The process by which the governmental changes of the last two years have been brought about in England can only be described as moral lynchings. In 19 15 the public man who criticized Sir Edward Grey could count upon being driven from public life; in 19 16 those who supported him were so driven. The pa- triot of January becomes the pro-German of June. Diametrically contrary opinions are advocated within six months of one another with the same violence, and the short-memoried public, Impulsive, unreflec- tive, follows the hue and cry in both cases. The conditions of the past which produced a political Englishman who was impervious to public clamour, stubborn in the maintenance of his individual opin- ion, yet tolerant of opposed views, have disappeared. Every one now seems to go in positive terror of the " lynch press." I heard only the other day of a highly placed officer who was withdrawn the day his command went into important action because the au- thorities feared that his German-sounding name would provoke attack by the " anti-Hun " papers If the operation failed ! The effect of his sudden with- drawal was gross confusion and muddle.

At the present moment in England an observer finds this extraordinary situation : the private ex- pression on almost every hand of opinions that find no public expression whatever. Thus " public opinion " does not reflect real opinion. I have be- fore me as I write letters from English public men

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lamenting the unwisdom of England's attitude to- wards America and Mr. Wilson's policy of the last few months.^ " But we must wait until public opin- ion is more favourable before taking any step." Yet if all were to speak their private opinion the pub- lic opinion of which they complain would be a vastly different thing. The failure to make this needed moral contribution to the collective mind causes that mind to be shaped by its worst elements. Those who shirk their civic duty cannot complain if they, too, finally are the victims of the lynch temper which they have done nothing to check.

It is true that In the terms of the problem, as I have stated it, the expression of momentarily un- popular opinion would be made at great disadvan- tage; but the balance would turn in favour of sanity if all did their civic duty in this respect, " The ul- timate foundation of every state," says Seeley, " is a way of thinking." And though I am offering no solution to this problem, it Is certain that any solu- tion must include this moral contribution of each man's unpopular opinion. If that is shirked, the way of thinking upon which in the last resort we must depend will be a disastrous way.

II

DE H^RETICO COMBURENDO : OR, " THIS IS NOT THE TIME "

A recent reference by a modern heretic to " the famous and amiable " Statute 2, Hen, IV, Cap, 15,

^It will be remembered that in 1916 much of the English press was hostile to Mr. Wilson, and to his proposed League of Nations.

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brought rather vividly to my mind two facts In con- nection with it: the excellence of its intention and the obvious ineffectiveness of its methods compared with those now employed against the particular her- etics of our age.

For, of course, the conception that underlay the old statute, as Mr. G. M. Trevelyan has pointed out, was that unless every one was compelled to believe the prevailing religious doctrine of the particular community in which he lived, or, failing his capacity to believe it, at least to conceal his thoughts about it, the underpinning of all morality would be gone, there would be no final sanction, men would give free rein to their passions, society would go to pieces, and humanity be dissolved into the animal chaos from which it had arisen. And so the representatives of law and order under the powers granted them by the Defence of the Realm and Society Act of their time took poor William Sawtrey (the first victim of Statute 2, Hen. IV, Cap. 15) and carefully grilled him alive over the hot coals and kept him sizzling till the market-place, crowded with those who had come to see the spectacle, smelt like a busy restaur- ant on a hot day; and all because he did aver " that after consecration by the priest there remaineth true bread."

Now, whether the safety of society or of the realm was threatened by Sawtrey's heresy or not, the meas- ure taken to protect them from the danger thereof was so ineffectual that in a generation or two the great ones of our l^nd had come to think exactly as William Sawtrey had thought and were busy burn-

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Ing other Sawtreys for refusing to affirm the very thing which the earlier Sawtrey had lost his life de- fending. And the result of the successive burnings was not to impress mankind with the importance of the point for which the rival heretics were burned, but to render them on the whole indifferent to both points and to convince them that neither had very much to do with real religion.

We, under our new statutes, have transferred our heresy hunting to another field, and have greatly improved on the ineffective methods of an earlier time.

You may now have what opinion you like upon re- ligion, and no man shall hamper the freedom of its expression by the written or spoken word, but in certain political matters yoyr case is that of Sawtrey in another field. You may doubt St. Paul or ques- tion the philosophy or the practicability of the theories of the Founder of Christianity (we happen to be questioning them a good deal). You may differ therefrom all you like; but you shall not differ from Sir Edward Grey.^ You may even as a Chris- tian Pastor criticize the Testament but you must not criticize the White Book. If you treat the Secre- tary of State for Foreign Affairs as critically as you do the Founder of Christianity and subject the For- eign Office dispatches to as rigid an analysis as Mr. J. M. Robertson has subjected the Bible, you will, if you are a pastor, lose your pastorate (two cases

^ This was written in 1914 when it was fatal for a public man to criticize Sir Edward Grey. Later the Northcliffe Press made it fatal to support him.

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have come to my personal knowledge), if a grocer, your trade; if a newspaper, your circulation and your advertising.

And these " sanctions " are so much more effec- tive than the burning alive. " Human nature, being what it is " (and being so very different from what those who appeal most frequently to it would have us believe), a man would so much rather lose his life than his livelihood; so much rather be burned alive for his opinions than held in contempt by old friends for them; finds it so much easier to make one momentary and dramatic sacrifice than to go on making day by day the small unnoticed sacri- fices: the pressure of debt and the reproaches of family or business associates. The matter does not admit of any doubt or discussion. Every single day since August has furnished numberless proofs of this fact in human nature. The soldiers who make up, say, the German army are not morally superior men; they are, of course, morally very in- ferior to the troops of the Allies (even, of course, to Senegalese Negroes, Turcos, or Cossacks) ; in their civil lives they show presumably all the usual servility of the German civilian; shape their opin- ions carefully to the needs of their careers as petty bureaucrats or employes; show themselves generally capable of all the small meannesses that character- ize that unpleasant animal. Yet by the testimony of their enemies they die without flinching; in hordes, in sickening waves (" the thousands that our guns tore to ribbons did not check in the slightest degree the onrush of the men behind," reads one typical

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account). And the deml-gods of the valiant French army are, when at home, the men we read about in the pages of CourteHne, Lavedan, or Zola. When armies embrace the whole manhood of a nation they are necessarily composed of the "average man"; and though, as we have seen, the average man can go to his death with a laugh, the same man will sell his conscience for an extra pound a week. If Jones the floor walker or Smith the partner of the East- hampton Emporium is called upon by public procla- mation of the Courts to make public recantation of his political creed or be shot, and the whole town waits in dramatic expectation for his decision, without any sort of doubt either Smith or Jones would elect to be shot and would go to his death without a tremor. But if Jones gets a hint that his political disagree- ment with an important customer has lost custom to the firm and is notified that he must not mix politics with his business; if Smith the partner is shown that his presidency of the local Peace Society is making the firm unpopular with the retired colonels who constitute its chief clientele; and Smith's partner — who does not share Smith's views — puts it to Smith, whether one partner has any right to ruin the other on behalf of the first's political opinions (which are not shared by the second) ; if Robin- son the manager of the local paper is told that he had no right to take the shareholders' money if he intended to make their property valueless by the advocacy of unpopular views; why, then the men who in the other circumstances would so readily have died are likely to waver. They are not quite sure

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what is right; they would sacrifice themselves — ■ have they a right to sacrifice others? And so they keep their views to themselves. I put the matter at its best, assuming that motives of simple venality do not operate. The process may even act more impersonally still. Robinson's shareholders may have no knowledge even of the politics of his paper; the shares may be held by maiden ladies or lawyers or trustees to whom they are just sources of dividend. The falling off in revenue is simply taken as proof of incompetence; Robinson is succeeded by a manager determined that no unpopular politics shall interfere with circulation or advertising. A heretic has been suppressed — the weight taken from one side of the scale of opinion and put into the other — simply by impersonal " social forces," a kind of force much more effective really as a corrective of heresy than the pressure of the thumbscrew.

Thus does a prejudice once started gain mo- mentum. It is not checked by the spectacle of any moving or human valour in the defence of contrary opinion; it eliminates without knowing all real ex- pression of the other side. The public cannot choose between two courses because it has become impossi- ble for two courses to be presented to it; it no longer uses its mind and weighs reasons pro and con, mak- ing a free choice; it is carried along a current of its own creation, as much a beast of instinct as a band of stampeded cattle, each of which is rushing in a given direction — perhaps to destruction — merely because the others are.

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prosecuting the war; to have been all his thinking life a profoundly convinced anti-Prussian; to take the view that English influence and government is very much better than Prussian influence and govern- ment; to beheve that in July last Sir Edward Grey did his very utmost to avert war; that the enemy should be defeated and Prussian militarism destroyed — and just as profoundly that none of these things will avail much if the new statute De Haeretico Com- burendo, which the nation has imposed upon itself, continues efi^ectively to stop any real discussion of the diflicult questions which will arise as part of the problem of defeating the Prussian and rendering the English ideal of life and politics triumphant as against the Prussian ideal.

The self-imposed statute is doing two things ; first, rendering us incapable of developing a public opinion which shall know what it wants at the peace, and how it proposes to get it; second, it is nullifying the moral object of the war by destroying in England the ideal it set out to protect and creating in England the ideal it set out to destroy.

We started upon the war fully persuaded that its object was to put an end to militarism in Europe, to build up a system of European governments based upon the co-operation of the governed, to establish a society of nations rooted in real law. Any one who cares to watch the development of opinion during six months will see that day by day this ideal has been steadily undermined; writers and public men who first advocated it we now find expressing the purest Prussianism; we find English scientists adopt-

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Ing without protest the view that peace Is not merely a dream, but an evil dream — a view which when expressed by Germans we take as demonstration of the need of destroying them. We shall not stand for a better society at the peace for the simple rea- son that we have gradually undermined our " Will to Peace " ; we have persuaded ourselves of its im- possibility, and we shall consequently make no effort to establish it.

The cause for this change of spirit is not far to seek. Shortly after the war began we laid it down that " this was not the time " to discuss peace. There was to be a truce. But the " truce " meant that the pacifist should be silent and the militarist should go on urging his view; there was no truce on the part of the Horatio Bottomleys, the Maxses, the Blatchfords. They were continuing to indoctrin- ate the public as lustily as ever. The truce meant that no one should be allowed to reply to them. A curious instance happened to come to my knowledge. A Liberal having proclaimed to the extent of two columns in a Liberal paper of a heretofore pacifist type that war was in the nature of things and in- evitable, a friend of mine wrote an article in reply thereto. He promptly received a note from the ed- itor to the effect that though he agreed with the tenor of the second article he did not think that " this was the time to discuss the ethics of war." (Pre- sumably a long article urging that war was inevitable, and in the nature of man, was not by way of discus- sion of the ethics of war.) And so for six months,

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day by day, in Liberal and reactionary papers alike the public has heard one side only.

No one, not even men of strong intellect thor- oughly well grounded in the contrary views, can day by day be exposed to this process without being un- consciously led to forget many things which he would not forget if occasionally reminded by impartial dis- cussion. And what is true of our general attitude towards peace as a whole is true of the more de- tailed problems of the settlement. We all know perfectly well that there are very difficult questions that will demand much discussion and will commit us one way or another to far-reaching principles greatly affecting our future policies.

In the end our destinies in these matters will be settled by a dozen diplomats acting in secret; the future of millions, the issues of civilization for a generation or two, will be settled over the heads of those concerned as much as though they were cattle upon a farm. Or by a wave of popular feeling, provoked fortuitously by some momenta- rily dramatic incident. In neither case are the peo- ples masters of their fate; in both self-government is reduced to a sham.

Under the old statute lay the view that the common people, because of their lack of understanding, should not concern themselves with theology; under the new statute the common people must not concern them- selves with their politics. And yet the common and " uninstructed " man of today has saner and clearer and truer notions concerning his theology than had

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the typically learned theologian of the older time, and far more of true religious feeling.

The old assumption was that you could not believe your religion if you discussed it, nor be loyal to your church if you took any step to protect it from error. The new assumption is that you cannot believe in your country's cause if you discuss it, nor protect your State if you attempt to understand its policy. We are told if we run the foreign affairs of our country as we run its other affairs normally, by public discus- sion, we shall make an end to the success which has marked the secret management of foreign affairs by experts in the past. Well, if the outcome that we are now witnessing, is the efficiency that marks se- crecy and the expert, there are some of us who feel half disposed to risk the inefficiency of the common man. In any case, even if the management of for- eign affairs by the methods of our home politics does produce the same result as at present, we shall at least go to the slaughter with our eyes open and having had some part in choosing our fate. As it is we have had no choice. It may be the " efficient " way; but it does not happen to leave us free men.

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CHAPTER III

WHY FREEDOM MATTERS

Our age long failures to grasp the real justification of freedom: Society's need. The self-same debate in Athens two thousand five hundred years ago. The oppressions from which the mass have suffered have always been imposed by themselves. The idea that a tiny minority, by means of physical force, can impose tyranny upon the mass, is ob- viously an illusion. That tyranny must be imposed by cap- turing the mind of the mass. The quality of any Society depends upon the ideas of the individuals who compose it, and those ideas upon Freedom and independence of judg- ment. The Political Heretic as the Saviour of Society.

The strength of this instinctive hatred of heresy seems to stand permanently in the way of our realiza- tion of those facts connected with the working of the human intelligence which make freedom of discussion a social need. It is twenty-five hundred years since Socrates based the defence of free discussion upon its real ground in terms that are as true and vital, — and as ignored — today as they were in his day.

In the press discussions of this matter both here and in Europe the problem is envisaged mainly as one of minority right. Protest against repression, so far as it is made at all, is made on behalf of the " right " to free speech. The implication is that the

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State should be prepared to take some risk in order to preserve a freedom so hardly won.

Such a claim places the matter upon a wholly mis- leading and unsound foundation. If it were true that respect for freedom of speech could invoke no greater reason than the right of individuals to enjoy intel- lectual exercise unhampered by the needs of the com- munity for common action, such a right should not survive a state of war for a single day. But the real reason for preserving minority criticism is the need for it on the part of the community — of the major- ity — as much in war time as in peace. Indeed the need is greater in war time. For without minority criticism the majority is bound, sooner or later, to go wrong, to show defective judgment, to adopt and execute disastrous policies; and that even more cer- tainly in war than In peace.

And it is a significant reflection upon the extent of any real understanding of the principle of democracy that this one reason, recognized by every mind from Socrates to Milton, and from Milton to Mill and Mill to Bertrand Russell, or John Dewey, that has wrestled with the problem of freedom as overriding all others in importance, is the reason practically never invoked by either party to the popular discus- sion. The matter is almost always regarded as a conflict of rights between the majority and the mi- nority, or as between the Individual and society. At best we " tolerate " contrary opinion — the very word excluding the idea that such is necessary to the common welfare, and should be scrupulously pre- served to that end.

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If we could imagine a modern heretic — a Bernard Shaw or a Bertrand Russell — put on trial for his heresies, would he not (especially Shaw) state his defence in just about the terms that Socrates made his:

" I do beg of you not to interrupt me, but hear me ; there was an understanding between us that you should hear me to the end. 1 have something to say, at which you may be inclined to cry out ; but I believe that to hear me will be good for you, and therefore I beg that you will not cry out. I would have you know that if you kill such an one as I am, you will injure yourselves more than you will injure me.

" I am not going to argue for my own sake, as you may think, but for yours, that you may not sin against God by condemning me, who am his gift to you. For if you kill me you will not easily find a successor to me, who, if I may use such a ludicrous figure of speech, am a sort of gadfly, given to the state by God ; and the state is a great and noble steed who is tardy in his motions owing to his very size, and requires to be stirred into life. I am that gadfly which God has attached to the state, and all day and in all places am always fastening upon you, arousing and persuading and re- proaching you. You will not easily find another like me, and therefore I would advise you to spare me. I dare say that you may feel out of temper (like a person who is sud- denly awakened from sleep), and you think that you might easily strike me dead as Anytus advises, and then you would sleep on for the remainder of your lives; unless God in his care of you sent you another gadfly."

And Socrates tells us of the impossibility of an honest independence of mind In the public life of the Athenian democracy :

" Some one may wonder why I go about in private giving advice and busying myself with the concerns of others, but

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do not venture to come forward in public and advise the state. I will tell you why. I am certain, O men of Athens, that if I had engaged in politics, I should have perished long ago, and done no good either to you or to myself. And do not be offended at my telling you the truth : for the truth is, that no man who goes to war with you or any other multi- tude, honestly striving against the many lawless and unright- eous deeds which are done in a state, will save his life; he who will fight for the right, if he would live even for a brief space, must have a private station and not a public one." ^

Can we write very differently of our time? Are we any nearer to understanding what should really be done with the heretic, the man of independent mind and judgment! Athens proposed to kill that particular heretic. What other fate did he deserve? Socrates answers :

" And so ne proposes death as the penalty. And what shall I propose on my part, O men of Athens? Clearly that which is my due. And what is my due? What return shall be made to the man who has never had the wit to be idle during his whole life; but has been careless of what the many care for — wealth, and family interests, and military offices, and speaking in the assembly, and magistracies, and plots, and parties. Reflect- ing that I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live, I did not go where I could do no good to you or to myself; but where I could do the greatest good privately to every one of you, thither I went, and sought to persuade every man among you. What shall be done to such an one ? Doubtless some good thing, O men of Athens, if he has his reward; and the good should be of a kind suitable to him. What would be a reward suitable to a poor man who is your benefactor, and who desires leisure that he may instruct you ?

^I have taken Jowett's translation word for word. ("The Four Socratic Dialogues of Plato.")

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There can be no reward so fitting as maintenance in the Prytaneum, O men of Athens, a reward which he deserves far more than the citizen who has won the prize at Olympia in the horse or chariot race, whether the chariots were drawn by two horses or by many. For 1 am in want, and he has enough; and he only gives you the appearance of happiness, and I give you the reality. And if I am to estimate the penalty fairly, I should say that maintenance in the Prj'tan- eum is the just return."

A very Shavian discourse. Of course Athens killed him. And our democracies two thousand years or more later have not begun to get his point.

Usually when we speak of the past struggles of the people against tyranny, we have in our minds a pic- ture of the great mass held down by the superior physical force of the tyrant. But such a picture is, of course, quite absurd. For the physical force which held down the people was that which they themselves supplied. The tyrant had no physical force save that which his victims furnished him. In this struggle of " People vs. Tyrant," obviously the weight of physical force was on the side of the peo- ple. This was as true of the slave States of antiquity as It Is of the modern autocracies. Obviously the free minority — the five or ten or fifteen per cent. — of Rome or Egypt; or the governing orders of Prussia or Russia, did not impose their will upon the remaining ninety-five or eighty-five per cent, by vir- tue of superior physical force, the sheer weight of numbers, of sinew and muscle. If the tyranny of the minority had depended upon Its own physical power, It could not have lasted a day. The physical

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force which the minority used was the physical force of the majority. The people were oppressed by an instrument which they themselves furnished.

In that picture, therefore, which we make of the mass of mankind struggling against the " force " of tyranny, we must remember that the force against which they struggled was not in the last analysis physical force at all; they themselves furnished the instrument which was used against them. It was their own weight from which they desired to be liberated.

Do we realize all that this means? It means that tyranny has been imposed, as freedom has been won: through the Mind.

The small minority imposes itself and can only impose itself by getting first at the mind of the ma- jority— the people — in one form or another: by controlling it through keeping knowledge from it, as in so much of antiquity, or by controlling the knowl- edge itself, as in Germany. It is because the minds of the mass have failed them, that they have been enslaved. Without that intellectual failure of the mass, tyranny could have found no force wherewith to impose its burdens. To say that " freedom rests upon the sword " is not merely not the whole truth ; it is very nearly the inversion of the truth, for it would be truer to say that if all men had refused to fight there could have been no tyranny because tyranny could have found no physical instrument. Physical force does not act of itself but only as the human will behind it may direct, and whether that force — the sword — is to be an instrument of sui-

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clde or salvation, depends, not upon the sword Itself, which, for all our romanticizing is dead metal, but upon the human mind that wills its use.

If that is broadly true, it makes the problem of preserving freedom very different from what we cur- rently conceive it to be. One hears commonly the expression " There is no fear that this, that or the other measure — of militarism, state control of opin- ion, censorship or what not — will ever be perma- nent because the people here have control and they will never tolerate it." But tyrannies do not come because people have lost the power to resist them; they come because they have lost the desire so to do. The problem of freedom is at bottom the problem of preserving the desire for freedom; preserving the capacity to know what it is even, to " know it when we see it." Millions of men of pure German blood are opposed to the German system. (The casualty lists of the American army reeks with German names.) Their environment, upbringing, the ideas they have absorbed, have brought them to hate the German system. Had they been subject to the environment of Prussia — been brought up in their fatherland in other words — they would have died for it as readily as do their relatives.

When, as we are just now learning to do, we at- tempt to read history, not as the story of the rise and fall of Empires and States and Dynasties, but as a picture of the lives of the common folk, the anony- mous millions, we are astonished how little difference all the external changes for which men bled so lav- ishly, seemed to make in the lives of those common

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folk. For them indeed it was true that the more It changed the more It was the same thing. It requires a real effort to realize, in our wonder and delight in the pictures that have been drawn for us of brilliant Asiatic, Roman and Greek civilizations, that they were all based upon the slavery of the greater part of the populations; that vast masses of human beings who lived during those thousands of years were the mere chattels of a tiny minority. But when we make that effort and take a long view we see history as the picture of the never-ending slaughter of one set of these human chattels by another set; or, if not thrown at one another as groups of human chattels, flying at one another as puppets of vague hates, as in the wars of religion and in the religious persecutions, or in the wars of the nationalities like those of the Balkans: one race or tongue blindly throwing itself at a differ- ent race or tongue merely because it was different, because, as Mr. Bertrand Russell says, like dogs " something angers them In each other's smell " ; and when that welter disappears In some degree in the western world, we find it succeeded by all the sordid meannesses of the Industrial revolution, as in our own land.

A student of Italian peasant life, both in the past and in the present, has questioned whether In the four thousand years more or less of which we have some record of life in the Apennine Hills, the lot of the peasant has Improved at all; whether "progress" and invention and political changes have in fact done anything whatsoever, either spiritually or materially, for the majority of the population living in those

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provinces ; whether the goat-herds and shepherds two thousand years before Christ — they and the women they loved and the children these bore (the few relics they left enable us to judge with some degree of certainty of the character of the life they led) — did not live as freely and as fully as the peasants living there today. If he had gone to the countries of the Old Testament, he might have pushed his comparison over even a longer period. He points out that less to eat they could hardly have had, for if those today had less they would starve; more toil they could hardly have had, for those of today toil almost to the limit of human endurance. Those of the past were not free, but neither are those of today. The servi- tude of the ancients did not bear more hardly upon them probably, than the economic and military servi- tude does upon those of today. The burden of debt, taxation, of a military machine that may at any mo- ment call for them to sacrifice their lives in some cause which they do not understand, or may not approve, certainly does not leave them free men.

And does that apply only to the Italian hills? Circumspice!

We have struggled during these untold centuries for bread and freedom. With this result. That the great majority have not yet enough to eat, suffer from insufficiency or overwork in one form or an- other. And our principles of Government have been such that there is not now, in theory at least, and very nearly in fact, in all the millions of Europe, one man physically able to kill, whose life and conscience be- longs to himself. From Archangel to Bagdad, from

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Carnarvon to Vladivostok there is not one to whom an impersonal entity known as THE STATE may not suddenly come and say, " You shall leave your wife and children and the tasks to which you have devoted your life, immediately, and put yourself obediently at my orders. The task which I assign to you is to kill certain men; as many as possible, whether you think them right or whether you think them wrong. Kill; or be killed."

These millions find themselves as much bereft of freedom as were the slaves of antiquity. With this difference : The slavery of antiquity, the slavery of biblical times for instance, made you a slave to a per- son, a human being, to whose ordinary human senti- ments you could appeal. But in the modern world you may at any moment become the slave of an ab- straction, a machine.

Just think : we may be on the eve of the discovery of the secret of the release of atomic energy. Such a discovery would multiply overnight the wealth of the world very many times. If man knew how to use such a discovery he could liberate himself once and for ever from poverty and soul destroying toil. But the instrument will simply use him : it will kill him in ever increasing numbers if our present ideas in international relationship, our present attitude in cer- tain large human issues continue, if we continue to believe that " ordeal by battle " is the right method of settling difference between peoples. For the atomic bomb will bear about the same relation to the present high explosive that a sixteen-inch howitzer does to a child's toy pistol. And as, with greatly

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increased mechanical power, the women could per- fectly well keep the men and youths fed and clothed there is no reason why — given the continued com- petition in armaments — such a discovery should not result in the whole male population of the world giv- ing themselves permanently during periods of peace to preparation for slaughter, and during war to the accomphshment of slaughter.

It comes then to this: the mind of man in the sphere of social relations has so failed, that a dis- covery capable of giving ample wealth to the very poorest, of abolishing all poverty and nine-tenths of the disease of the world, that could place creation definitely in man's power — that discovery would be a curse. For there would be a real danger that man would use such an instrument for collective suicide. Let the world tomorrow, during this war, discover how to control atomic energy, so that both sides could drop on the hostile cities, bombs like those described for us by Mr. Wells, and the killing would be multi- plied by ten. Europe, in sober fact and not rhetori- cal figure, would become a waste; and the fantasy of Samuel Butler, in which man is faced by extermina- tion by his own machines, would become true, in fact. And if today it is not actual extermination which faces him, it is a dreadful form of slavery — the consecration of his life to fulfilling the bloody behests of these soulless, mechanical monsters. Indeed, that slav^ery is already here. We have all wanted to do one thing; we have all done another. No one pre- tends that the common people of Europe — not even the common people of Germany — wanted war,

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wanted to be dragged from their fields and factories for what was to be for millions, certain death. But though everybody hated this act, everybody com- mitted it. Each had to take his place in the great machine he could not control ; or it would crush him. Nobody could stop it. It was the master.

Man's outstanding failures are often ascribed to his selfishness, his grasping materialism, his lack of readiness to give himself to the service of others. But those millions of lads throwing their lives away with a smile — and they include the German lads, too — are not doing it from selfishness. They, at least, are not actuated by materialism. Surely, the marvellous fact which stands out in all this story of man's bloodshed, his submissions, his poverty, is the vast unselfishness, the incalculable heroism and sacri- fices that it reveals. We find men, generation after generation, giving everything that they possess — the well-being of their lives, their places as bread- winners, as guardians and protectors of their families, and family life itself — for causes, the triumph of which could not only not benefit them, but which at- tached the burdens they bore still more firmly to them. It is not from any insufficiency of the impulse to sacrifice that untold generations have fought and died. It is from want of knowing how to combine to rule themselves for their common good; from failure of the social Instinct In the largest sense of the term.

Yet, as we saw, man has made advances at points — as In the abandonment of religious persecution. What is the nature of the " social sense " that has

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enabled him to do It, that has given him some capacity for self rule? To what do we owe our emergence from the Europe of ecclesiastical tyrannies and the religious wars, from a condition of society which ex- posed its members to the risks of the Inquisition, to torture or to popular massacre ; in which the heretic, the man of unusual theological ideas, was a thing of horror supposed to carry with him an intolerable bodily odour? The change in feeling in this matter is widespread, not confined to just a few thinkers on a special subject; it applies to whole populations. For the extraordinary thing is not so much that men should have given up killing one another on account of religious differences, but that they — the great number — should have ceased wanting to; not so much that the Inquisition should have disappeared, but that the personal odour which attached to the heretic should be no longer discernible.

Lecky has pointed out that the motive which dom- inated European politics for centuries, which over- weighed all others, which seemed destined to con- demn western civilization to never-ending conflict, which was perhaps the very greatest difficulty with which statesmen had to wrestle, has almost disap- peared as a major motive in statecraft. What then is the nature of this change of mind, of attitude? What has brought it about?

It is not that the experts in Statecraft are more learned or acute in our day concerning this detail of Government. The theological and political experts who defended the principle that the State should properly have authority over men's beliefs — were

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acuter reasoners and had greater knowledge of most aspects of the subject with which they dealt, than have those perhaps who deal with it today. (In the same way the disappearance from our life of the slavery or helotry which marked Roman life, is not due to the superiority of the modern to Roman statesmen. Roman political literature reveals often a type of ruler as able and understanding as ours of the pres- ent day — to put it at its very lowest!)

The Europe of the wars of religion and of the Inquisition was not, so far as the few were con- cerned, a savage Europe. It was the Europe at one point of Montaigne and Shakespeare. Nor was the theory upon which the State prosecuted heresy and which led one group to fight another an absurd one. It was based upon an argument which has never been fully answered.^

1 Elsewhere I happen to have written: —

" Civilized Governments have abandoned their claim to dictate the belief of their subjects. For very long that was a right tena- ciously held, and it was held on grounds for which there was an immense deal to be said. It was held that, as belief is an integral part of conduct, and that as conduct springs from belief, and the purpose of the State is to ensure such conduct as will enable us to go about our business in safety, it was obviously the duty of the State to protect those beliefs, the abandonment of which seemed to undermine the foundation of conduct. I do not believe that this case has ever been completeU' answered. A great many believe it today, and there are many sections of the European population and immensely powerful bodies that would reassert it if only they had the opportunity. Men of profound thought aiid learning today defend it; and personally I have found it very difficult to make a clear and simple case for the defence of the principle on which every civilized Government in the world is today founded. How do you account for this — that a principle which I do not believe one man in a million could defend from weighty objections — has become the dominating rule of civilized government throughout the world?

" Well, that once universal policy has been abandoned, not be- cause all arguments, or even perhaps most of the arguments, which led to it have been answered, but because the fundamental one has.

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Indeed, we know that the minority who ruled the Europe of the religious wars were sometimes as tol- erant — and as sceptical — in matters of religious opinion, as are the educated of today.

It was the feeling and attitude, the general pubhc opinion, which made the wars of religion (and some- times made it impossible for the ruling few to pre- vent them) and sanctioned these persecutions, as an earlier opinion, which included often the opinion of the slaves, sanctioned slavery.

Nor can we assume that the section of the public which made public opinion, was less informed in the details of theology than is our own. The modern man who is tolerant of hostile religious views, where the man of an earlier generation would have been intolerant, is certainly not so by virtue of any su- perior knowledge of the special issues of theological controversy, of the texts. Indeed, expert knowledge of these matters today, does not, as a rule, imply toleration, or even wisdom. He who is learned in the texts is generally intolerant of those who draw conclusions from them contrary to his own.

We may fairly conclude that if the theological ex- perts had had the settlement of the troubles which arose out of religious differences, and which did in

. . . The world of religious wars and of the Inquisition was a world which had a very definite conception of the relation of au- thority to religious belief and to truth ; as that truth could be, and should be, protected by force. . . . What broke down this concep- tion was a growing realization that authority, force, was irrelevant to the issues of truth (a party of heretics triumphed by virtue of some physical accident, as that they occupied a mountain region) ; that it was ineffective, and that the essence of truth was something outside the scope of physical conflict. As the realization of this grew, the conflicts declined." — "The Foundation of International Polity." (Heinemann.)

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fact for a time wreck civilization in much of Europe, we should be fighting wars of religion yet; and our populations sanctioning religious massacre.

If we have a vast change in the general ideas of Europe in one particular, in the attitude of men to dogma, to the importance which they attach to it, to their feeling about it, a change which for good or evil is a vast one in its consequences, a moral and intellectual revulsion which has swept away one great difficulty of human relationship and transformed so- ciety, it is because the mass, the common folk, have been led to challenge the premises of the learned, of those in authority. By so doing they brought the discussion back to principles so broad and fundamen- tal that the data became the facts of human life and experience — data with which the co7nmon man is as familiar as the scholar. And that challenge and dis- cussion authority always at the first regards as blas- phemous and impious, and would prevent if it could. And the great event I am here touching upon would seem to suggest that it is correct reasoning about the daily facts of life and experience that is needed be- fore we can hope to apply learning with any advan- tage — or even without disaster — to such things as the management of society.

The conclusion that it was not the learning of the expert, but common thought upon broad issues, which changed our attitude in this matter does not rest upon obscure or complex historical data. It may be proven by reference to any mind that typifies modern feeling. Most moderns for instance, reject such be- liefs as that in the eternal damnation of the unor-

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thodox or of unbaptlzed infants. Of the present- diy millions for whom such a belief would be morally monstrous, how many have been influenced by elab- orate study concerning the validity of this or that text? The texts simply do not weigh with them, though for centuries they were the only thing that counted. The things that do weigh with them are profounder and simpler — a sense of justice, com- passion — things which would equally have led the man of the sixteenth century to question the texts and the premises of the Church, if discussion had been free. It is because it was not free that the social instinct of the mass, the general capacity so to order their relations as to make it possible for them to live together, became distorted and vitiated. And the wars of religion resulted. To correct this vitiation, to abolish these disastrous hates and misconceptions, elaborate learning was not needed. Indeed, it was largely elaborate learning which had occasioned them. The judges who burned women alive for witch-craft, or inquisitors who sanctioned that pun- ishment for heresy, had vast and terrible stores of learning. JVhat was needed was that these learned folk should question their premises in the light of facts of common knowledge. It is by so doing that their errors are patent to the quite unlearned of our time. No layman was equipped to pass judgment on the historical reasons which might support the credi- bility of this or that miracle, on the intricate argu- ments which might justify this or that point of dogma. But the layman was as well equipped, indeed he was better equipped than the schoolman, to question

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whether God would ever torture men everlastingly for the expression of honest belief; the observer of daily occurrences, to say nothing of the physicist, was as able as the theologian to question whether a readiness to believe without evidence is a virtue at all. And questions of the damnation of infants, eternal torment, were settled not by the men equipped with historical and ecclesiastical scholarship, but by the average man, going back to the broad truths of life, to first principles, asking very simple questions, the answer to which depended not upon the validity of texts, but upon correct reasoning concerning facts which are accessible to all, upon our general sense of life as a whole, and our more elementary intuitions of justice and mercy, reasoning and intuitions which the learning of the expert often distorts.

Authority always tries to prevent this questioning of its premises by the unlearned. To the bishop it seems preposterous and an obvious menace to society and good morality that his conclusions in theology should be questioned by any bootblack. But experi- ence has shown over and over again that the Bishop is sure to go wrong unless his conclusions are ques- tioned and checked by the bootblack; and that un- less the bootblack has the liberty of so doing both will fall into the ditch.

The fact that the bishop or the statesman should need correction by the unlearned is not so paradox- ical as might at first sight appear. For what is the function of those learned and authoritative persons? It is to do the best for the bootblack in this world and the next. But if the bishop is separated from

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his wards by his learning, his intellectual pride in his own conclusions, his class interest even, he is no fit judge of the needs and conditions of the bootblack. And the bootblack himself is no fit judge of his own case even, if he has lost the habit of private judg- ment. That is why slaves have been generally in favour of their own slavery; and have so often fought to prolong it.

Exactly the service which extricated us from the intellectual and moral confusion that resulted in such catastrophes in the field of religion, is needed in the field of politics. From certain learned folk — writers, poets, professors (German and other), journalists, historians and rulers — the public have taken certain ideas touching Patriotism, Nationalism, Imperialism, the nature of our obligation to the State and so on. Ideas which may be right or wrong, but which — we are all agreed, curiously enough — will have to be very much changed if men are ever to live together in peace and freedom ^ ; just as cer-

^ Says the Daily Chronicle (October 4, 1916) :

" Did any one at the meeting of the Congressional Union yester- day detect the irony — of course the unintended irony — of Lord Bryce's recommendation addressed to a branch of the Christian Church that international machinery should be created for the pres- ervation of peace among men? It must occur at least to the reader of the address that in the Christian Church itself we have had such a machinery for some nineteen centuries. Nothing in this war of revelations and revolutions has astonished the world more than the failure of all forms of internationalism to be international — Chris- tianity, Socialism, civilization have all become as distinctively na- tional as the several belligerent armies themselves, and in Ger- many they fight for the Zeppelins and in England against them. Nationalism appears to be the master virtue of the day to which all others have to conform. Whether new international treaties and understandings will prove to be more successful than Christiani^ in securing for the rational side of man chance and time to develop remains to be seen, but it is doubtful."

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tain notions concerning the institution of private property will have to be changed if the mass of men are to live in plenty.

It is a commonplace of militarist argument that so long as men feel as they do about their fatherland, about patriotism and nationalism, internationalism will be an impossibility. If that is true — and I think it is — peace and freedom and welfare will wait until those large issues have been raised in men's minds with sufficient vividness to bring about a change of idea and so a change of feeling with reference to them.

It is unlikely, to say the least, that the mass of Englishmen or Frenchmen will ever be in possession of detailed knowledge sufficient to equip them to pass judgment on the various rival solutions of the complex problems that face us, say, in the Balkans, when the settlement of Europe comes. And yet it was inmiediately out of a problem of Balkan politics that the war arose, and future wars may well arise out of those same problems if they are settled as badly in the future as in the past.

The situation would indeed be helpless if the na- ture of human relationships depended upon the peo- ple, as a whole, possessing expert knowledge in com- plex questions of that kind. But, happily, the Sara- jevo murders would never have developed into a war involving twenty-five nations, but for the fact that there had been cultivated in Europe suspicions, hatreds, insane passions and cupidities, due largely to false conceptions of a few simple facts in po- litical relationship ; conceptions concerning the neces-

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sary rivalry of nations, the idea that what one na- tion gets another loses, that States are doomed by a fate over which they have no control to struggle together for the space and opportunities of a lim- ited world. But for the atmosphere that these ideas create (as false theological notions once created a similar atmosphere between rival religious groups), most of these at present difficult and insoluble prob- lems of nationality and frontiers and government would, as the common saying is, have solved them- selves.

Now the conceptions which feed and inflame these passions of rivalry, hostility, fear, hate v/ill be modi- fied, if at all, by raising in the mind of the European some such simple elementary questions as were raised when he began to modify his feeling about the man of rival religious belief. The Political Reformation in Europe will come by questioning, for Instance, the whole philosophy of patriotism, the morality, or validity, in terms of human well-being of a principle like that of " my country, right or wrong "; by ques- tioning whether a people really benefit by enlarging the frontiers of their State; whether " greatness " In a nation particularly matters; whether the man of the small State is not in all the great human values the equal of the man of the great Empire. Whether the real problems of life — not alone for the Boers or Quebec Frenchmen or the millions of India, but for the Europeans as well — are greatly touched by the colour of the flag. Whether we have not loyal- ties to other things as well as to our State. Whether we do not in our demand for national sovereignty

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ignore International obligation without which the na- tions can have neither security nor freedom. Whether we should not refuse to kill or horribly mutilate a man merely because we differ from him in politics. And with those, if the emergence from chattel slavery is to be completed by the emergence from wage slavery, must be put similarly fundamen- tal questions concerning institutions like that of pri- vate property and the relation of social freedom thereto; we must ask why, if it is rightly demanded of the citizen that his life shall be forfeit to the safety of the State, his surplus money and property shall not be forfeit to its welfare.

To very many, these questions will seem a kind of blasphemy, and they will regard those who utter them as the subjects of a loathsome moral perversion. In just that way the orthodox of old regarded the heretic and his blasphemies. And yet the solution of the difficulties of our time, this problem of learn- ing to live together without mutual homicide and military slavery, depend upon those blasphemies be- ing uttered. Because it Is only in some such way that the premises of the differences which divide us, the realities which underlie them, will receive attention. It is not that the implied answer is necessarily the truth — I am not concerned now for a moment to urge that it is — but that until the problem is pushed back in our minds to these great yet simple issues, the will, temper, general ideas of Europe on this subject will remain unchanged. And if they remain unchanged so will its conduct and condition.

Now I am suggesting here that we are drifting to [284I

a condition o^ Institutions calculated to suppress these heresies, to prevent those questions being asked. We believe that it is pernicious that they should be asked at all, and the power of the State is being used for the purpose of preventing it.

I have attempted to show that our welfare and freedom really do depend upon our preserving this right of the individual conscience to the expression of its convictions; this right of the heretic to his heresy. The claim has been based not upon any conception of abstract "right" — jus, droit, recht — but upon utility, our needs of heresy, upon the fact that if we do not preserve it it is not alone the individual heretic who will suffer, but all of us, so- ciety. By suppressing the free dissemination of un- popular ideas, we render ourselves incapable of gov- erning ourselves to our own advantage, and we shall perpetuate that condition of helplessness and slav- ery for the mass which all our history so far has shown.

I have stressed that point because the protagonist who attempts thus to place the case for freedom and welfare upon its real foundation feels always this difficulty: that in the mind of most perhaps, certainly of very many who call themselves democrats, there is a feeling not avowed, but real, that the mind and opinion and temper of the common folk do not mat- ter, that the science of government, like other sci- ences, should be left to the experts, and that there is something ridiculous in the spectacle of a bricklayer's labourer laying down the law in matters of high policy and passing judgment upon an authority who

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has given his life to the study of the matter under judgment.

As a matter of simple fact no Government ever has accomplished for long, save by virtue of the quality of those whom it governs, those ends we are now agreed upon as the proper ends of governments. Mexico or Venezuela may have constitutions as ex- cellent as that of England; they may have a small class drawn from their universities as educated as the members of our own Government. But neither the Constitution, nor the education of the minority, can assure to Mexico or Venezuela the results which are assured in England by virtue of the better general sense, understanding, capacity for self-government of the mass of English folk. And whether one tests this general proposition by such cases as Russia or India or certain cases of the past, its validity is un- shaken.

Do we sufficiently realize that a nation cannot think, any more than a corporation can? That a nation's thought can only come from individual thought — by the thought of certain definite men. If a committee composed of Jones and Brown take a certain decision, and Jones vt)tes a certain way be- cause Brown does, and Brown votes that way because Jones does, what is the basis of their " collective wisdom " ? Unless each questions his own mind, ex- ercises his own individual judgment, there could be no collective wisdom. Nothing multiplied a million times is still nothing. And a million Calibans are not less dangerous than one.^

'■"Though the customs be both Rood as customs, and suitable to [286]

The need of individuality in thought increases in direct ratio to the increasing complexity of our so- cial arrangements. The very fact that we do need more and more unity of action — regimentation,

him, yet to conform to custom, merely as custom, does not educate or develop in him any of the qualities which are the distinctive endowments of a human being. The human faculties of perception, judgment, discriminative feeling, mental activity, and even moral preference, are exercised only in making a choice. He who does anything because it is the custom, makes no choice. He gains no practice either in discerning or in desiring what is best. The men- tal and moral, like the muscular powers, are improved only by being used. The faculties are called into no exercise by doing a thing merely because others do it, no more than by believing a thing only because others believe it. If the grounds of an opinion are not conclusive to the person's own reason, his reason cannot be strengthened, but is likely to be weakened, b\' his adopting it: and if the inducements to an act are not such as are consentaneous to his own feelings and character (where affection, or the rights of others, are not concerned) it is so much done towards rendering his feel- ings and character inert and torpid, instead of active and energetic. " He who lets the world, or his own portion of it, choose his plan of life for him, has no need of any other faculty than the ape- like one of imitation. He who chooses his plan for himself, employs all his faculties. He must use observation to see, reasoning and judgment to foresee, activity to gather materials for decision, dis- crimination to decide and, when he has decided, firmness and self- control to hold to his deliberate decision. And these qualities he requires and exercises exactly in proportion as the part of his con- duct which he determines according to his own judgment and feel- ing is a large one. It is possible that he might be guided in some good path, and kept out of harm's way, without any of these things. But what will be his comparative worth as a human being? It really is of importance, not only what men do, but also what man- ner of men they are that do it. Among the works of man, which human life is rightly employed in perfecting and beautifying, the first in importance surely is man himself. Supposing it were possi- ble to get houses built, corn grown, battles fought, causes tried, and even churches erected and prayers said, by machinery — by automa- tons in human form — it would be a considerable loss to exchanee for these automatons even the men and women who at present in- habit the more civilized parts of the yvorld, and who assuredly are but starved specimens of what nature can and will produce. Hu- man nature is not a machine to be built after a model, and set to do exactly the work prescribed for it, but a tree, which reouires to grow and develop itself on all sides, according to the tendency of the inward forces which make it a living thing." — Mill's " Lib- erty," p. 34 (Edition 1913).

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regulation — In order to make a large population with many needs possible at all, is the reason mainly which makes it so important to preserve variety and freedom of individual thought. If ever we are to make the adjustments between the rival claims of the community and the individual, between national sovereignty or independence and international obliga- tion, between the need for common action and the need for individual judgment, if ever our minds are to be equal to the task of managing our increasingly complex society, we must preserve with growing scrupulousness the right of private judgment in po- litical matters. Because upon that capacity for pri- vate judgment, a capacity that can only be developed by its exercise, depends the capacity for public judg- ment, for political and social success, success, that is, in living together in this world of ours, most largely and most satisfactorily.

The truth of which I am trying to remind the reader is not precisely a new discovery. It troubled Plato some four hundred years before Christ and was demonstrated by Mill some eighteen hundred and fifty after. But it is one of those truths that our primitive passions are perpetually smothering. If the great truths were not in this way repeatedly being smothered we should not now be fighting the ten thou- sandth war of history — the previous ones, of course, having been fought to establish a " lasting peace," though they do not seem to have been notably suc- cessful in that respect.

It is not the mind of the heretic which suffers most, as Mill has reminded us, in the suppression of heret-

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Icai opinion. " The greatest harm done Is to thos6 who are not heretics but whose mental development is cramped and their reason cowed by the fear of heresy. . . . It is not solely or chiefly to form great thinkers that freedom of thinking is required. On the contrary, it is as much and even more indis- pensable to enable average human beings to attain the mental stature which they are capable of. There have been, and may be again, great individual think- ers in a general atmosphere of mental slavery. But there has never been, nor ever will be in that atmos- phere an intellectually active people. Where any people has made a temporary approach to such a character, it has been because the dread of heterodox speculation was for a time suspended. Where there is a tacit convention that principles are not to be disputed; where the discussion of the greatest ques- tions which can occupy humanity is considered to be closed, we cannot hope to find that generally high scale of mental activity which has made some periods of history so remarkable. Never, when controversy avoided the subjects which are large and important enough to kindle enthusiasm, was the mind of a peo- ple stirred up from its foundations, and the impulse given which raised even persons of the most ordinary intellect to something of the dignity of thinking be- ings. Of such we had an example in the condition of Europe in the times immediately following the Reformation; another, and although limited to the Continent and to a more cultivated class, in the speculative movement in the latter half of the eight- eenth century; and a third, of still briefer duration,

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in the Intellectual fermentation of Germany, during the Goethean and Fichtean period. These periods differed widely in the particular opinions which they developed ; but were alike in this, that during all three the yoke of authority was broken. In each an old mental despotism had been thrown off and no new one had yet taken its place. . . . Every single im- provement which has since taken place in the human mind or in institutions may be traced distinctly to one or other of them. Appearances have for some time indicated that all three impulses are well nigh spent; and we can expect no fresh start until we again assert our mental freedom." ^

If the German nation as a whole has lost its ca- pacity for sound political judgment, if its public opin- ion is at times such as to shock civilization, it is largely because of the readiness of the individual to yield to governmental authority in matters of opin- ion. You cannot have enough liberty without hav- ing too much of it. If the English race has devel- oped the capacity for freedom, democracy and par- liamentary government, a little perhaps ahead of that shown by other peoples, it is because obstinacy and stubbornness of private opinion have been found among us, and our Government heretofore has never been quite able, even in the very highest causes, to stamp it out.

Mr. Edmond Holmes, the educationalist, in a work In which he attempts to analyze the moral and intel- lectual causes of the catastrophe which has come upon Germany, a work which he has called " The Neme-

1" Liberty," Longman's 1913 edition, p. 20. [290]

sis of Docility," and in which he sketches the fashion in which the State has bit by bit captured the mind of the people, says : —

If, as a soldier, the German citizen is the victim of the iron discipline on which the army has always prided itself, as a civilian he is subjected to a less severe but more insidious pressure. For, whatever harm this pressure may have done to his character he is in part to blame. As I have already pointed out he has allowed the State, through its control of the various moulds and organs of opinion, to suggest to him what he is to think, to believe and to say; and to do this so effectually that he has come at last to regard those thoughts, beliefs and words as his own. In other words, he has al- lowed the State to take possession of his moral and spiritual springs of action, and so usurp the functions of bis own higher self.

Under the influence of this insidious pressure, changes of vital importance may be expected to take place in his inner being. The stern, direct, dogmatic pressure of military dis- cipline, which tends to deaden the moral sensibility of the soldier, aft'ects the citizen for two years of his early life, then its influence lessens and begins to wear off. But if his moral sensibility should survive or recover from that experi- ence, it would be exposed in civil life to a new danger, the danger of undergoing a morbid transformation in two dis- tinct directions. The man who allows the State to take the place of his higher self surrenders his judgment — his power and his right to think out and solve his moral prob- lems for himself; and he loses his sense of responsibility to his own conscience. These changes come upon him so stealthily that he may never become aware of either of them. He may flatter himself that he is exercising his judgment, when all the time he is really thinking, desiring and purpos- ing whatever the State wishes him to think, desire and pur- pose. And he may hold himself responsible to his conscience, when all the time the State has usurped that seat of author-

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fty, and is whispering from it suggestions to him which he mistakes for the dictate of his own higher self. And while the changes are going on in him, the uniform pressure of State control is crushing his individuality on all the planes of his being, and the dominant theory of the state is perverting the latent idealism of his heart. With all these insidious influ- ences brought to bear on him by the ubiquitous State can we wonder that the ethics of humanity cease to appeal to him, and that, as the soldier, looks at things from a point of view which is exclusively military, so he gets at last to look at things from a point of view which is exclusively national, and therefore anti-human and profoundly immoral.

The question which it Is surely the duty of every Englishman and American at this time to put to him- self is this: are the tempers and tendencies of war- time pushing us towards methods and Institutions similar to those which have been so disastrous for Germany?

Always does authority In justification of Its pow- ers over opinion plead that the Ideas which it Is sup- pressing are wicked and pernicious. It Is the plea now made. The Ideas professed by conscientious objectors are the result of loathsome moral perver- sion; those who oppose the war are outrageously wicked or absurd. Then In that case, they cannot possibly be a national danger, and can be safely Ig- nored. Why need authority worry, for Instance, about our Russells, Eastmans, Stokes, Debs?

Here are the constituted authorities having on their side all the vast powers of the State, the pres- tige of the established fact, the irresistible current of nearly the whole national feeling, practically every paper In the country, the weight of wealth and fash-

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Ion, practically all of organized religion. And there arises here and there an isolated thinker, with no great organizations behind him, no great daily pa- pers, no churches, but just the force of the ideas which he presents. And forthwith the State has to distort its already extraordinary powers to persecute these men, deprive them of their occupation, fine them, imprison them. Is it, then, afraid of the only thing these men possess: an idea? If not, why not let them freely expound those ideas, circulate their leaflets, publish their pamphlets? If the ideas are as absurd and pernicious as the authorities would have us believe, who will listen? A few, let us say, the degenerates, the cowards, the foolish and un- worthy. But those could never be a danger to the State, could never seriously interfere with the mili- tary machine. Why, then introduce the methods of Torquemada for so negligible a danger? If those in authority really believed the ideas to be as monstrous and foolish as they pretend, they would simply take no notice of them. The ideas would condemn themselves. The fact that the authorities do believe it necessary to suppress the dissemination of those ideas is demonstration that they feel at the bottom of their hearts that " there is something in them " ; that they are capable, if freely disseminated, of reaching others than the negligible and unworthy. They dis- like these ideas, they fear them. And that is why they suppress them.

And, unfortunately, we cannot console ourselves with the thought that force is never successful in the suppression of ideas. It is often successful. The

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quality of our society Improves so slowly largely be- cause it is so successful. We know of the heretics that have survived, that have given us the ideas that have served us best, that have given us the advances that we have made. But what of the heretics that would have given us those liberations centuries ear- lier if we had not managed to suppress them?

The Europe of the past entangled herself in a net of her own weaving — the work largely of theolog- ical professors, as our net today is woven so largely by political professors. Each religious group had convinced itself that everything it most valued on earth, the existence of any kind of morality, its spir- itual freedom here as well as its eternal salvation later, depended upon its defending itself by military power against the power of other groups — defence, of course, involving preventive wars. There was only one thing which could, and finally did, put an end to the resulting welter : a revision of the prevail- ing conceptions as to the relation of military force and power over the other group to those moral and spiritual values.

The modification of conception, theory, " sover- eign idea," what you will, was only possible as the result of certain heresies, of the conflict of one idea with another, and so the correction of both. But that one solution, the one means of egress, the man of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in Europe deliberately closed by making heresy the gravest moral offence which men could commit. Each side killed its heretic. What was more important was that they killed with him the capacity of the mass to

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think clearly — or to think at all on the subjects that the heretic raised, for a community which has no heretics, which is of one mind on a given matter, is on that matter mindless. If the rival communities had been successful in the attempt to protect them- selves by military means from heresy within and without, we should have been fighting wars of re- ligion yet, and perhaps organizing our massacres of St. Bartholomew. But certain forces, mechanical, like the cheapening of printing; moral, like the readi- ness of the heretic to suffer, were too strong for the imperfect organization of the State or the Holy Of- fice. But the modern State — as Germany proves — can be more efficient in the control of opinion and the consequent suppression of heresy. And we can hardly doubt that if unity of political belief seems — even though it may not really be — necessary to the successful conversion of a nation into a military in- strument, the modern State will kill political heresy even more successfully than the Church-State killed religious heresy; and in lesser or greater degree with the analogous result of rendering Europe impotent to solve the very problems with which our institutions were created to grapple.

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APPENDIX I

LABOUR AND THE NEW SOCIAL ORDER

A DRAFT REPORT ON RECONSTRUCTION

[The follo<wing Draft Report on the General Policy of the Party on " Reconstruction " has been prepared by a Sub-Committee of the Executive for the consideration of the Party; and is submitted by the Executive to the annual Conference at Nottingham, not for adoption but icnth a view to its being specially referred to the con- stituent organizations for discussion and eventual submission to the Party Conference to be arranged for June next, or a special Confer- ence should a General Election render it necessary.'}

It behooves the Labour Party, in formulating its own programme for Reconstruction after the war, and in criticizing the various preparations and plans that are being made by the present Govern- ment, to look at the problem as a whole. We have to make it clear what it is that we wish to construct. It is important to emphasize the fact that, whatever may be the case with regard to other political parties, our detailed practical proposals proceed from definitely held principles.

THE END OF A CIVILIZATION

We need to beware of patchwork. The view of the Labour Party is that what has to be reconstructed after the war is not this or that Government Department, or this or that piece of social machinery; but, so far as Britain is concerned, society itself. The individual worker, or for that matter the individual statesman, immersed in daily routine — like the individual soldier in a battle — easily fails to understand the magnitude and far-reaching importance of what is taking place around him. How does it fit together as a whole? How does it look from a distance? Count Okuma, one of the oldest, most experienced and ablest of the statesmen of Japan, watching the present conflict from the other side of the globe, declares it to be nothing less than the death of European civilization. Just as in the past the civilizations of Babylon, Egjpt, Greece, Carthage, and the great Roman Empire have been successively destroyed, so, in the judgment of this detached observer, the civilization of all Europe is even now receiving its death-blow. We of the Labour Party can so far agree in this estimate as to recognize, in the present world

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catastrophe, if not the death, in Europe, of civilization itself, at any rate the culmination and collapse of a distinctive industrial civiliza- tion, which the workers will not seek to reconstruct. At such times of crisis It is easier to slip into ruin than to progress into higher forms of organization. That is the problem as it presents itself to the Labour Party today.

What this war is consuming is not merely the security, the homes, the livelihood and the lives of millions of innocent families, and an enormous proportion of all the accumulated wealth of the world, but also the very basis of the peculiar social order in which it has arisen. The individualist system of capitalist production, based on the private ownership and competitive administration of land and capital, with its reckless "profiteering" and wage-slavery; with its glorification of the unhampered struggle for the means of life and its hypocritical pretence of the " survival of the fittest " ; with the monstrous inequality of circumstances which it produces and the degradation and brutalization, both moral and spiritual, resulting therefrom, may, we hope, indeed have received a death-blow. With it must go the political system and ideas in which it naturally found expression. We of the Labour Party, whether in opposition or in due time called upon to form an Administration, will certainly lend no hand to its revival. On the contrary, we shall do our utmost to see that it is buried with the millions whom it has done to death- If we in Britain are to escape from the decay of civilization itself, which the Japanese statesman foresees, we must ensure that what is pres- ently to be built up is a new social order, based not on fighting, but on fraternity — not on the competitive struggle for the means of bare life, but on a deliberately planned co-operation in production and distribution for the benefit of all who participate by hand or by brain — not on the utmost possible inequality of riches, but on a syste.natic approach towards a healthy equality of material circum- stances for every person born into the world — not on an enforced dominion over subject nations, subject races, subject Colonies, subject classes or a subject sex, but, in industry as well as in government, on that equal freedom, that general consciousness of consent, and that widest possible participation in power, both economic and po- litical, which is characteristic of Democracy. We do not, of course pretend that it is possible, even after the drastic clearing away that is now going on, to build society anew, in a year or two of feverish " Reconstruction." What the Labour Party intends to satisfy itself about is that each brick that it helps to lay shall go to erect the structure that it intends, and no other.

THE PILLARS OF THE HOUSE

We need not here recapitulate, one by one, the different items in the Labour Party's programme, which successive Party Conferences have adopted. These proposals, some of them in various publica- tions worked out in practical detail, are often carelessely derided as impracticable, even by the politicians who steal them piecemeal from us! The members of the Labour Party, themselves actually working

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by hand or by brain, in close contact with the facts, have perhaps at all times a more accurate appreciation of what is practicable, in industry as in politics, than those who depend solely on academic instruction or are biased by great possessions. But today no man dares to say that anything is impracticable. The war, which has scared the old Political Parties right out of their dogmas, has taught every statesman and every Government official, to his enduring sur- prise, how very much more can be done along the lines that we have laid down than he had ever before thought possible. What we now promulgate as our policy, whether for opposition or for office, is not merely this or that specific reform, but a deliberately thought-out, systematic, and comprehensive plan for that immediate social re- building which any Ministry, whether or not it desires to grapple with the problem, will be driven to undertake. The Four Pillars of the House that we propose to erect, resting upon the common founda- tion of the Democratic control of society in all its activities, may be termed, respectively:

(a) The Universal Enforcement of the National Minimum;

(b) The Democratic Control of Industry;

(f) The Revolution in National Finance; and {d) The Surplus Wealth for the Common Good.

The various detailed proposals of the Labour Party, herein briefly summarized, rest on these four pillars, and can best be appreciated in connection with them.

THE UNIVERSAL ENFORCEMENT OF A NATIONAL MINIMUM

The first principle of the Labour Party — in significant contrast with those of the Captialist System, whether expressed by the Liberal or by the Conservative Party — is the securing to every member of the community, in good times and bad alike (and not only to the strong and able, the well-born or the fortunate), of all the requisites of healthy life and worthy citizenship. This is in no sense a " class " proposal. Such an amount of social protection of the indi- vidual, however poor and lowly, from birth to death is, as the econo- mist now knows, as indispensable to fruitful co-operation as it is to successful combination ; and it affords the only complete safeguard against that insidious Degradation of the Standard of Life, which is the worst economic and social calamity to which any community can be subjected. We are members one of another. No man liveth to himself alone. If any, even the humblest is made to suffer, the whole community and every one of us, whether or not we recognize the fact, is thereby injured. Generation after generation this has been the corner-stone of the faith of Labour. It will be the guid- ing principle of any Labour Government.

The Legislative Regulation of Employment

Thus it is that the Labour Party to-day stands for the universal application of the Policy of the National Minimum, to which (a«

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embodied in the successive elaborations of the Factory, Mines, Railways, Shops, Merchant Shipping, and Truck Acts, the Public Health, Housing, and Education Acts and the mimiraum Wage Act — all of them aiming at the enforcement of at least the pre- scribed Minimum of Leisure, Health, Education, and Subsistence) the spokesmen of Labour have already gained the support of the en- lightened statesmen and economists of the world. All these laws purporting to protect against extreme Degradation of the Standard of Life need considerable improvement and extension, whilst their administration leaves much to be desired. For instance, the Work- men's Compensation Act fails, shamefully, not merely to secure proper provision for all the victims of accident and industrial dis- ease, but what is much more important, does not succeed in pre- venting their continual increase. The amendment and consolida- tion of the Factories and Workshop Acts, with their extension to all employed persons, is long overdue, and it will be the policy of Labour greatly to strengthen the staff of inspectors, especially by the addition of more men and women of actual experience of the workshop and the mine. The Coal Mines (Minimum Wage) Act must certainly be maintained in force, and suitably amended, so as both to ensure greater uniformity of conditions among the several districts, and to make the District Minimum in all cases an effective reality. The same policy will, in the interests of the agricultural labourers, dictate the perpetuation of the Legal Wage clauses of the new Corn Law just passed for a term of five years, and the prompt amendment of any defects that may be revealed in their working. And, ie view of the fact that many millions of wage-earn- ers, notably women and the less-skilled workmen in various oc- cupations, are unable by combination to obtain wages adequate for decent maintenance in health, the Labour Party intends to see that the Trade Boards Act is suitably amended and made to apply to all Industrial employments in which any considerable number of those employed obtain less than 30s. per week. This minimum of not less than 30s. per week (which will need revision according to the level of prices) ought to be the very lowest statutory base line for the least skilled adult workers, men or women, in any occupation, in all parts of the United Kingdom.

The Organization of Demobilization

But the coming industrial dislocation, which will inevitably fol- low the discharge from war service of half of all the working population, imposes new obligations upon the community. The de- mobilization and discharge of the eight million wage-earners now being paid from public funds, either for service with the colours or in munition work and other war trades, will bring to the whole wage-earning class grave peril of Unemployment, Reduction of Wages, and a Lasting Degradation of the Standard of Life, which can be prevented only by deliberate National Organization. The Labour Party has repeatedly called upon the present Government to formulate its plan, and to make in advance all arrangements necessary for coping with so unparalleled a dislocation. The pol-

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icy to which the Labour Party commits itself is unhesitating and un- compromising. It is plain that regard should be had, in stopping Government orders, reducing the staff of the National Factories and demobilizing the Army, to the actual state of employment in par- ticular industries and in different districts, so as both to release first the kinds of labour most urgently required for the revival of peace production, and to prevent any congestion of the market. It is no less imperative that suitable provision against being turned sud- denly adrift without resources should be made, not only for the soldiers, but also for the three million operatives in munition work and other war trades, who will be discharged long before most of the Army can be disbanded. On this important point, which is the most urgent of all, the present Government has, we believe, down to the present hour, formulated no plan, and come to no decision, and neither the Liberal nor the Conservative Party has apparently deemed the matter worthy of agitation. Any Gov- ernment which should allow the discharged soldier or munition worker to fall into the clutches of charity or the Poor Law would have to be instantly driven from office by an outburst of popular indignation. What every one of them who is not wholly disabled will look for is a situation in accordance with his capacity.

Securing Employment for All

The Labour Party insists — as no other political part>' has thought fit to do — that the obligation to find suitable employment in pro- ductive work for all these men and women rests upon the Govern- ment for the time being. The work of re-settling the disbanded soldiers and discharged munition workers into new situations is a national obligation ; and the Labour Party emphatically protests against it being regarded as a matter for private charity. It strongly objects to this public duty being handed over either to committees of philanthropists or benevolent societies, or to any of the military or recruiting authorities. The policy of the Labour Party in this matter is to make the utmost use of the Trade Unions, and equally for the brain workers, of the various Professional As- sociations. In view of the fact that, in any trade, the best organi- zation for placing men in situations is a national Trade Union hav- ing local branches throughout the kingdom, every soldier should be allowed, if he chooses, to have a duplicate of his industrial dis- charge notice sent out, one month before the date fixed for his dis- charge, to the Secretary of the Trade Union to which he belongs or wishes to belong. Apart from this use of the Trade Union (and a corresponding use of the Professional Association) the Govern- ment must, of course, avail itself of some such public machinery as that of the Employment Exchanges; but before the existing Ex- changes (which will need to be greatly extended) can receive the co-operation and support of the organized Labour Movement, with- out which their operations can never be fully successful, it is im- perative that they should be drastically reformed, on the lines laid down in the Demobilization Report of the " Labour after the War " Joint Committee ; and, in particular, that each Exchange should be

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placed eflFecrively under the supervision and control of a Joint Com- mittee of Employers and Trade Unionists in equal numbers.

The responsibility of the Government, for the time being, in the grave industrial crisis that demobilization will produce, goes, however, far beyond the eight million men and women whom the various departments will suddenly discharge from their own service. The effect of this peremptory discharge on all the other workers has also to be taken into account. To the Labour Party it will seem the supreme concern of the Government of the day to see to it that there shall be, as a result of the gigantic " General Post " which it will itself have deliberately set going, nowhere any Degradation of the Standard of Life. The Government has pledged itself to restore the Trade Union conditions and " pre-war practices " of the work- shop, which the Trade Unions patriotically gave up at the direct request of the Government itself; and his solemn pledge must be fulfilled, of course in the spirit as well as in the letter. The Labour Party, moreover, holds it to be the duty of the Government of the day to take all necessary steps to prevent the Standard Rates of Wages, in any trade or occupation whatsoever, from suffering any reduction, relatively to the contemporary cost of living. LJnfor- tunately, the present Government, like the Liberal and Conservative Parties, so far refuses to speak on this important matter with any clear voice. We claim that it should be a cardinal point of Gov- ernment policy to make it plain to every capitalist employer that any attempt to reduce the customary rate of wages when peace comes, or to take advantage of the dislocation of demobilization to worsen the conditions of employment in any grade whatsoever, will certainly lead to embittered industrial strife, which will be in the highest degree detrimental to the national interests; and that the Government of the day will not hesitate to take all necessary steps to avert such a calamity. In the great impending crisis the Govern- ment of the day should not only, as the greatest employer of both brainworkers and manual workers, set a good example in this re- spect but should also actively seek to influence private employers by proclaiming in advance that it will not itself attempt to lower the Standard Rates of conditions in public employment; by announcing that it will insist on the most rigorous observance of the Fair Wages Clause in all public contracts, and by explicitly recommending every Local Authority to adopt the same policy.

But nothing is more dangerous to the Standard of Life, or so destructive of those minimum conditions of healthy existence, which must in the interests of the community be assured to every worker, than any widespread or continued unemployment. It has always been a fundamental principle of the Labour Party (a point on which significantly enough it has not been followed by either of the other political parties) that in a modern industrial community, it is one of the foremost obligations of the Government to find, for every willing worker whether by hand or by brain productive work at Standard Rates.

It is accordingly the duty of the Government to adopt a policy of deliberately and systematically preventing the occurrence of un- employment instead of (as heretofore) letting unemployment occur,

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aDd then seeking vainly and expensively to relieve the unemployed. It is now known that the Government can if it chooses, arrange the Public Works and the orders of National Departments and Local Authorities in such a way as to maintain the aggregate demand for labour in the whole kingdom (including that of capitalist em- ployers) approximately at a uniform level from year to year; and it is therefore a primary obligation of the Government to pre- vent any considerable or widespread fluctuations in the total num- bers employed in times of good or bad trade. But this is not all. In order to prepare for the possibility of there being any unemploy- ment, either in the course of demobilization or in the first years of peace it is essential that the Government should make all necessary preparations for putting instantly in hand directly or through the Local Authorities, such urgently needed public works as (a) the rehousing of the population alike in rural districts, mining villages, and town slums, to the extent, possibly, of a million new cottages and an outlay of 300 millions sterling; (b) the immediate making good of the shortage of schools, training colleges, technical colleges, &c., and the engagement of the necessarj- additional teach- ing, clerical and administrative staflFs; (c) new roads; {d) light railways; (e) the unification and reorganization of the railway and canal system; (f) afforestation; (g) the reclamation of land; (A) the development and better equipment of our ports and harbours; (/) the opening up of access to land by co-operative small holdings and in other practicable ways. Moreover, in order to relieve any pressure of an overstocked labour market, the opportunity should be taken, if unemployment should threaten to become widespread, {a) immediately to raise the school leaving age to sixteen; {b) greatly to increase the number of scholarships and bursaries for Secondary and Higher Education; and (c) substantially to shorten the hours of labour of all young persons, even to a greater extent than the eight hours per week contemplated in the new Education Bill, in order to enable them to attend technical and other classes in the daytime. Finally, wherever practicable, the hours of adult labour should be reduced to not more than forty-eight per week, without reduction of the Standard Rates of Wages. There can be no eco- nomic or other justification for keeping any man or woman to work for long hours, or at overtime, whilst others are unemployed.

Social Insurance Against Unemployment

In so far as the Government fails to prevent Unemployment — wherever it finds it impossible to discover for any willing worker, man or woman, a suitable situation at the Standard Rate — the Labour Party holds that the Government must, in the interest of the community as a whole, provide him or her with adequate main- tenance, either with such arrangements for honourable employment or with such useful training as may be found practicable, accord- ing to age, health and previous occupation. In many ways the best form of provision for tho?e who must be unemployed, because the industrial organization of the community so far breaks down as to be temporarily unable to set them to work, is the Out of Work

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Benefit afforded by a well administered Trade Union. This is a special tax on the Trade Unionists themselves which they have vol- untarily undertaken, but towards which they have a right to claim a public subvention — a subvention which was actually granted by Parliament (though only to the extent of a couple of shillings or so per week) under Part II. of the Insurance Act. The arbitrary withdrawal by the Government in 1915 of this statutory right of the Trade Unions was one of the least excusable of the war econo- mies; and the Labour Party must insist on the resumption of thii subvention immediately the war ceases, and on its increase to at least half the amount spent in Out of Work Benefit. The exten- sion of State Unemployment Insurance to other occupations may afford a convenient method of providing for such of the Un- employed, especially in the case of badly paid women workers, and the less skilled men, whom it is difficult to organize in Trade Un- ions. But the weekly rate of the State Unemployment Benefits needs, in these days of high prices, to be considerably raised; whilst no industry ought to be compulsorily brought within its scope against the declared will of the workers concerned, and especially of their Trade Unions. In one way or another remun- erative employment or honourable maintenance must be found for every willing worker, by hand or by brain, in bad times as well as in good. It is clear that, in the twentieth century, there must be no question of driving the Unemployed to anything so obsolete and dis- credited as either private charity, with its haphazard and ill-con- sidered doles, or the Poor Law, with the futilities and barbarities of its " Stone Yard " or its " Able-bodied Test Workhouse." Only on the basis of a universal application of the Policy of the National Minimum, affording complete security against destitution, in sick- ness and health, in good times and bad alike, to every member of the community of whatever age or sex, can any worthy social order be built up.

THE DEMOCRATIC CONTROL OF INDUSTRY

The universal application of the Policy of the National Minimum is, of course, only the first of the Pillars of the House that the La- bour Party intends to see built. What marks off this Party most dis- tinctively from any of the other political parties is its demand for the full and genuine adoption of the principle of Democracy. The first condition of Democracy is effective personal freedom. This has suffered so many encroachments during the war that it is neces- sary to state with clearness that the complete removal of all the war- time restrictions on freedom of speech, freedom of publication, freedom of the press, freedom of travel and freedom of choice of place of residence and kind of employment must take place the day after Peace is declared. The Labour Party declared emphatically against any continuance of the Military Service Acts a moment longer than the imperative requirements of the war excuse. But individual freedom is of little use without complete political rights. The Labour Party sees its repeated demands largely conceded in the present Representation of the People Act, but not yet wholly satis<

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fied. The Party stands, as heretofore, for complete Adult Suffrage, with not more than a three months' residential qualification, for effective provision for absent electors to vote, for absolutely equal rights for both sexes, for the same freedom to exercise civic rights for the " common soldier " as for the officer, for Shorter Parliaments, for the complete Abolition of the House of Lords, and for a most strenuous opposition to any new Second Chamber, whether elected or not, having in it any element of Heredity or Privilege, or of the control of the House of Commons by any party or class. But unlike the Conservative and Liberal Parties, the Labour Party insists on Democracy in industry as well as in government. It demands the progressive elimination from the control of industry of the private capitalist, individual or joint-stock ; and the setting free of all who work, whether by hand or by brain, for the service of the community, and of the community only. And the Labour Party refuses absolutely to believe that the British people will permanently tolerate any re- construction or perpetuation of the disorganization, waste and in- efficiency involved in the abandonment of British industry to a jost- ling crowd of separate private employers, with their minds bent, not on the service of the community, but — by the very law of their being — only on the utmost possible profiteering. What the nation needs is undoubtedly a great bound onwards in its aggregate pro- ductivity. But this cannot be secured merely by pressing the manual workers to more strenuous toil, or even by encouraging the " Captains of Industry " to a less wasteful organization of their several enterprises on a profit-making basis. What the Labour Party looks to is a genuinely scientific reorganization of the na- tion's industry, no longer deflected by individual profiteering, on the basis of the Common Ownership of the means of Production ; the equitable sharing of the proceeds among all who participate in any capacity and only among these, and the adoption, in particular services and occupation, of those systems and methods of adminis- tration and control that may be found, in practice, best to promote, not profiteering, but the public interest.

Immediate Nationalization

The Labour Party stands not merely for the principle of the Common Ownership of the nation's land, to be applied as suitable opportunities occur, but also, specifically, for the immediate Nation- alization of Railways, Mines, and the production of Electrical Power. We hold that the very foundation of any successful re- organization of British Industry must necessarily be found in the provision of the utmost facilities for transport and communication, the production of power at the cheapest possible rate, and the most economical supply of both electrical energy and coal to every corner of the kingdom. Hence the Labour Party stands, unhesitatingly, for the National Ownership and administration of the Railways and Canals, and their union, along with Harbours and Roads and the Posts and Telegraphs — not to say also the great lines of steamers which could at once be owned, if not immediately directly managed in detail, by the Government — in a united national service of Com-

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munication and Transport; to be worked, unhampered by capitalist, private or purely local interests (and with a steadily increasing par- ticipation of the organized workers in the management, both central and local), exclusively for the common good. If any Government should be so misguided as to propose, when peace comes, to hand the railways back to the shareholders; or should show itself so spend- thrift of the nation's property as to give these shareholders any en- larged franchise by presenting them with the economies of unifica' tion or the profits of increased railway rates; or so extravagant as to bestow public funds on the re-equipment of privately owned lines — all of which things are now being privately intrigued for by the railway interests — the Labour Party will offer any such project the most strenuous opposition. The railways and canals, like the roads, must henceforth belong to the public, and to the public alone.

In the production of Electricity, for cheap Power, Light and Heating, this country has so far failed, because of hampering private interests, to take advantage of science. Even in the largest cities we still " peddle " our Electricity on a comparatively small scale. What is called for, immediately after the war, is the erection of a score of gigantic " super-power stations," which could generate, at incredibly cheap rates, enough electricity for the use of every in- dustrial establishment and every private household in Great Britain; the present municipal and joint-stock electrical plants being uni- versally linked up and used for local distribution. This is in- evitably the future of Electricity. It is plain that so great and so powerful an enterprise, affecting every industrial enterprise and, eventually every household, must not be allowed to pass into the hands of private capitalists. They are already pressing the Gov- ernment for the concession, and neither the Liberal nor the Con- servative Party has yet made up its mind to a refusal of such a new endowment of profiteering in what will presently be the lifeblood of modern productive industry. The Labour Party de- mands that the production of Electricity on the necessary gigantic scale shall be made, from the start (with suitable arrangements for municipal co-operation in local distribution), a national enterprise, to be worked exclusively with the object of supplying the whole kingdom with the cheapest possible Power, Light, and Heat.

But with the Railways and the generation of Electricity in the hands of the public, it would be criminal folly to leave to the present 1,500 colliery companies the power of " holding up " the coal supply. These are now all working under public control, on terms that virtually afford to their shareholders a statutory guar- antee of their swollen incomes. The Labour Party demands the immediate Nationalization of Mines, the extraction of coal and iron being worked as a public service (with a steadily increasing par- ticipation in the management, both central and local, of the various grades of persons employed) ; and the whole business of the retail distribution of household coal being undertaken, as a local public service, by the elected Municipal or County Councils. And there is no reason why coal should fluctuate in price any more than rail- way fares, or why the consumer should be made to pay more in winter than in summer, or in one town than another. What the

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Labour Party would aim at is, for household coal of standard qual- ity, a fixed and uniform price for the whole kingdom, payable by rich and poor alike, as unalterable as the penny postage stamp.

But the sphere of immediate Nationalization is not restricted to these great industries. VVe shall never succeed in putting the gi- gantic system of Health Insurance on a proper footing, or secure a clear field for the beneficent work of the Friendly Societies, or gain a free hand for the necessary development of the urgently called for Ministry of Health and the Local Public Health Service, until the nation expropriates the profit-making Industrial Insurance Companies, which now so tyrannously exploit the people with their wasteful house-to-house Industrial Life Assurance. Only by such an expropriation of Life Assurance Companies can we secure the universal provision, free from the burdensome toll of weekly pence, of the indispensable Funeral Benefit. Nor is it in any sense a "class" measure. Only by the assumption by a State Department of the whole business of Life Assurance can the millions of policy holders of all classes be completely protected against the possibly calamitous results of the depreciation of securities and suspension of bonuses which the war is causing. Only by this means can the great staflt of insurance agents find their proper place as Civil Serv- ants, with equitable conditions of employment, compensation for any disturbance and security of tenure, in a nationally organized public service for the discharge of the steadily increasing functions of the Government in Vital Statistics and Social Insurance.

In quite another sphere the Labour Party sees the key to Temper- ance Reform in taking the entire manufacture and retailing of al- coholic drink out of the hands of those who find profit in promoting the utmost possible consumption. This is essentially a case in which the people, as a whole, must assert its right to full and unfettered power for dealing with the licensing question in accordance with local opinion. For this purpose, localities should have conferred upon them facilities

(a) To prohibit the sale of liquor within their boundaries;

(b) To reduce the number of licences and regulate the conditions

under which they may be held; and (r) If a locality decides that licenses are to be granted, to deter- mine whether such licenses shall be under private or any form of public control.

Municipalization

Other main industries, especially those now becoming monopo- lized, should be nationalized as opportunity offers. Moreover, the Labour Party holds that the Municipalities should not confine their activities to the necessarily costly services of Education, Sanitation and Police ; nor yet rest content with acquiring control of the local Water, Gas, Electricity, and Tramways; but that every facility should be afforded to them to acquire (easily, quickly and cheaply) all the land they require, and to extend their enterprises in Housing and Town Planning, Parks, and Public Libraries, the provision of music and the organization of recreation; and also to undertake,

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besides the retailing of coal, other services of common utility, par- ticularly the local supply of milk, wherever this is not already fully and satisfactorily organized by a Co-operative Society.

Control of Capitalist Industry

Meanwhile, however, we ought not to throw away the valuable experience now gained by the Government in its assumption of the importation of wheat, wool, metals, and other commodities, and in its control of the shipping, woollen, leather, clothing, boot and shoe, milling, baking, butchering, and other industries. The Labour Party holds that, whatever may have been the shortcomings of this Government importation and control, it has demonstrably pre- vented a lot of " profiteering." Nor can it end immediately on the Declaration of Peace. The people will be extremely foolish if they ever allow their indispensable industries to slip back into the unfettered control of private capitalists, who are, actually at the instance of the Government itself, now rapidly combining, trade by trade, into monopolist Trusts, which may presently become as ruth- less in their extortion as the worst American examples. Standing as it does for the Democratic Control of Industry, the Labour Party would think twice before it sanctioned any abandonment of the present profitable centralization of purchase of raw materials; of the present carefully organized " rationing," by joint committees of the trades concerned, of the several establishments with the materi- als they require; of the present elaborate system of "costing" and public audit of manufacturers' accounts, so as to stop the waste heretofore caused by the mechanical inefficiency of the more back- ward firms; of the present salutary publicity of manufacturing processes and expenses thereby ensured ; and, on the information thus obtained (in order never again to revert to the old-time profiteering) of the present rigid fixing, for standardised products, of maximum prices at the factory, at the warehouse of the whole- sale trader and in the retail shop. This opinion of the retail prices of household commodities is emphatically the most practical of all political issues to the woman elector. The male politicians have too long neglected the grievances of the small household, which is the prey of every profiteering combination ; and neither the Liberal nor the Conservative party promises, in this respect, any amendment. This, too, is in no sense a " class " measure. It is, so the Labour Party holds, just as much the function of Government, and just as necessary a part of the Democratic Regulation of Industry, to safe- guard the interests of the community as a whole, and those of all grades and sections of private consumers, in the matter of prices, as it is, by the Factory and Trade Boards Acts, to protect the rights of the wage-earning producers in the matter of wages, hours of labour, and sanitation.

A REVOLUTION IN NATIONAL FINANCE

In taxation, also, the interests of the professional and house- keeping classes are at one with those of the manual workers. Too

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long has our National Finance been regulated, contrary to the teach- ing of Political Economy, according to the wishes of the possessing classes and the profits of the financiers. The colossal expenditure involved in the present war (of which, against the protest of the Labour Party, only a quarter has been raised by taxation, whilst three-quarters have been borrowed at onerous rates of interest, to be a burden on the nation's future) brings things to a crisis. When peace comes, capital will be needed for all sorts of social enterprises, and the resources of Government will necessarily have to be vastly greater than they were before the war. Meanwhile innumerable new private fortunes are being heaped up by those who take ad- vantage of the nation's need; and the one-tenth of the population which owns nine-tenths of the riches of the United Kingdom, far from being made poorer, will find itself in the aggregate, as a result of the war, drawing in rent and interest and dividends a larger nominal income than ever before. Such a position demands a revolution in national finance. How are we to discharge a public debt that may well reach the almost incredible figure of 7,000 mill- ion pounds sterling, and at the same time raise an annual revenue which, for local as well as central government, must probably reach i.ooo millions a year? It is over this burden of taxation that the various political parties will be found to be most sharply divided.

The Labour Party stands for such a system of taxation as will yield all the necessary revenue to the Government without en- croaching on the Prescribed National Minimum Standard of Life of any family whatsoever; without hampering production or dis- couraging any useful personal effort, and with the nearest possible approximation to equality of sacrifice. We definitely repudiate all proposals for a Protective Tariff, in whatever specious guise they may be cloaked, as a device for burdening the consumer with un- necessarily enhanced prices, to the profit of the capitalist employer or landed proprietor, who avowedly expects his profits or rent to be increased thereby. We shall strenuously oppose any taxation, of whatever kind, which would increase the price of food or of any other necessary of life. We hold that indirect taxation on com- modities, whether by Customs or Excise, should be strictly limited luxuries ; and concentrated principally on those of which it is socially desirable that the consumption should be actually discour- aged. We are at one with the manufacturer, the farmer and the trader in objecting to taxes interfering with production or com- merce, or hampering transport and communications. In all these matters — once more in contrast with the other political parties, and by no means in the interests of the wage-earners alone — the Labour Party demands that the very definite teachings of economic science should no longer be disregarded.

For the raising of the greater part of the revenue now required the Labour Party looks to the direct taxation of the incomes above the necessary cost of family maintenance; and for the requisite ef- fort to pay off the National Debt, to the direct taxation of private fortunes both during life and at death. The Income Tax and Sup- ertax ought at once to be thoroughly reformed in assessment and collection, in abatements and allowances, and in graduation and

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difFerentlation, so as to levy the required total sum in such a way as to make the real sacnnce or ail tJie taxpayers as nearly as pos- sible equal. This would involve assessment by families instead of by individual persons, so that the burden is alleviated in proportion to the number of persons to be maintained. It would involve the raising of the present unduly low minimum income assessable to the tax, and the lightening of the present unfair burden on the great mass of professional and small trading classes by a new scale of graduation, rising from a penny in the pound on the smallest assess- able income up to sixteen or even nineteen shillings in the pound on the highest income of the millionaires. It would involve bringing into assessment the numerous windfalls of profit that now escape, and a further differentiation between essentially different kinds of income. The Excess Profits Tax might well be retained in an ap- propriate form; while so long as Mining Royalties exist the Mineral Rights Duty ought to be increased. The steadily rising unearned Increment of urban and mineral land ought, by an appropriate direct Taxation of Land Values, to be wholly brought into the Public Exchequer. At the same time, for the service and redemption of the National Debt, the Death Duties ought to be regraduated, much more strictly collected, and greatly increased. In this matter we need, in fact, completely to reverse our point of view, and to re- arrange the whole taxation of inheritance from the standpoint of asking what is the maximum amount that any rich man should be permitted at death to divert, by his will, from the National Exchequer, which should normally be the heir to all private riches in excess of a quite moderate amount by way of family provision. But all this •will not suffice. It will be imperative at the earliest possible mo- ment to free the nation from at any rate the greater part of its new load of interest-bearing debts for loans which ought to have been levied as taxation; and the Labour Party stands for a special Capi- tal Levy to pay off, if not the whole, a very substantial part of the entire National Debt — a Capital Levy chargeable like the Death Duties on all property, but (in order to secure approximate equality of sacrifice) with exemption of the smallest savings, and for the rest at rates very steeply graduated, so as to take only a small contribu- tion from the little people and a very much larger percentage from the millionaires.

Over this issue of how the financial burden of the war is to be borne, and how the necessary revenue is to be raised, the greatest political battles will be fought. In this matter the Labour Party claims the support of foor-fifths of the whole nation, for the interests of the clerk, the teacher, the doctor, the minister of religion, the average retail shopkeeper and trader, and all the mass of those living on small incomes are identical with those of the artisan. The land- lords, the financial magnates, the possessors of great fortunes will not, as a class, willingly forego the relative immunity that they have hitherto enjoyed. The present unfair subjection of the Co-opera- tive Society to an Excess Profits Tax on the " profits " which it has never made — specially dangerous as " the thin end of the wedge " of penal taxation of this laudable form of Democratic enterprise — will not be abandoned without a struggle. Every possible effort

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will be made to juggle with the taxes, so as to place upon the shoulders of the mass of labouring folk and upon the struggling households of the professional men and small traders (as was done after every previous war) — whether by Customs or Excise Duties, by industrial monopolies, by unnecessarily high rates of postage and railway fares, or by a thousand and one other ingenious devices — an unfair share of the national burden. Against these efforts the Labour Party will take the firmest stand.

THE SURPLUS FOR THE COMMON GOOD

In the disposal of the surplus above the Standard of Life society has hitherto gone as far wrong as in its neglect to secure the neces- sary basis of any genuine industrial efficiency or decent social order. We have allowed the riches of our mines, the rental value of the lands superior to the margin of cultivation, the extra profits of the fortunate capitalists, even the material outcome of scientific dis- coveries — which ought by now to have made this Britain of ours immune from class poverty or from any widespread destitution — to be absorbed by individual proprietors; and then devoted very largely to the senseless luxury of an idle rich class. Against this misappro- priation of the wealth of the community, the Labour Party — speak- ing in the interests not of the wage-earners alone, but of every grade and section of producers by hand or by brain, not to mention also those of the generations that are to succeed us, and of the permanent welfare of the community — emphatically protests. One main Pillar of the House that the Labour Party intends to build is the future appropriation of the Surplus, not to the enlargement of any individual fortune, but to the Common Good. It is from this constantly arising Surplus (to be secured, on the one hand, by Nationalisation and Municipalisation and, on the other, by the steeply graduated Taxation of Private Income and Riches) that will have to be found the new capital which the community day by day needs for the perpetual improvement and increase of its various en- terprises, for which we shall decline to be dependent on the usury- exacting financiers. It is from the same source that has to be de- frayed the public provision for the Sick and Infirm of all kinds (including that for Maternity and Infantry) which is still so scanda- lously insufficient; for the Aged and those prematurely incapacitated by accident or disease, now in many ways so imperfectly cared for; for the Education alike of children, of adolescents and of adults, in which the Labour Party demands a genuine equality- of oppor- tunity, overcoming all differences of material circumstances; and for the organization of public improvements of all kinds, including the brightening of the lives of those now condemned to almost ceaseless toil, and a great development of the means of recreation. From the "ame source must come the greatly increased public provision that the Labour Party will insist on being made for scientific investiga- tion and original research, in every branch of knowledge, not to say also for the promotion of music, literature and fine art, which have been under Capitalism so greatly neglected, and upon which, so the Labour Party holds, any real development of civilization fun-

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daraentally depends. Society, like the individual, does not live by bread alone — does not exist only for perpetual wealth production. It is in the proposal for this appropriation of every surplus for the Common Good — in the vision of its resolute use for the building up of the community as a whole instead of for the magnification of in- dividual fortunes — that the Labour Party, as the Party of the Pro- ducers by hand or by brain, most distinctively marks itself off from the older political parties, standing, as these do essentially for the maintenance, unimpaired of the perpetual private mortgage upon the annual product of the nation that is involved in the individual own- ership of land and capital.

THE STREET OF TOMORROW

The House which the Labour Party intends to build, the four Pillars of which have now been described, does not stand alone in the world. Where will it be in the Street of Tomorrow? If we repudiate, on the one hand, the Imperialism that seeks to dominate other races, or to impose our own will on other parts of the British Empire, so we disclaim equally any conception of a selfish and in- sular " non-interventionism " unregarding of our special obligations to our fellow-citizens overseas; of the corporate duties of one nation to another; of the moral claims upon us of the non-adult races, and of our own indebtedness to the world of which we are part. We look for an ever-increasing intercourse, a constantly developing ex- change of commodities, a steadily growing mutual understanding, and a continually expanding friendly co-operation among all the peoples of the world. With regard to that great Commonwealth of all races, all colours, all religions and all degrees of civilization, that we call the British Empire, the Labour Party stands for its main- tenance and its progressive development on the lines of Local Au- tonomy and " Home Rule All Round " ; the fullest respect for the rights of each people, whatever its colour, to all the Democratic Self- Government of which it is capable, and to the proceeds of its own toil upon the resources of its own territorial home ; and the closest possible co-operation among all the various members of what ha» become essentially not an Empire in the old sense, but a Britannic Alliance. We desire to maintain the most intimate relations with the Labour Parties overseas. Like them, we have no sympathy with the projects of " Imperial Federation " in so far as these imply the subjection to a common Imperial Legislature wielding coercive power (including dangerous facilities for coercive Imperial taxation and for enforced military service), either of the existing Self-Gov- erning Dominions, whose autonomy would be thereby invaded ; or of the United Kingdom, whose freedom of Democratic Self-develop- ment would be thereby hampered; or of India and the Colonial De- pendencies, which would thereby run the risk of being further ex- ploited for the benefit of a " White Empire." We do not intend, by any such " Imperial Senate," either to bring the plutocracy of Can- ada and South Africa to the aid of the British aristocracy or to en- able the landlords and financiers of the Mother Country to unite in controlling the growing Popular Democracies overseas. The absolute

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autonomy of each self-governing part of the Empire must be main- tained intact. What we look for, besides a constant progress in Democratic Self-Government of every part of the Britannic Alliance, and especially in India, is a continuous participation of the Minis- ters of the Dominions of India, and eventually of other Dependencies (perhaps by means of their own Ministers specially resident in Lon- don for this purpose) in the most confidential deliberations of the Cabinet, so far as Foreign Policy and Imperial Affairs are concerned; and the annual assembly of an Imperial Council, representing all constituents of the Britannic Alliance and all parties in their Local Legislatures, which should discuss all matters of common interest, but only in order to make recommendations for the simultaneous con- sideration of the various autonomous local legislatures of what should increasingly take the constitutional form of an Alliance of Free Nations. And we carry the idea further. As regards our re- lations to Foreign Countries, we disavow and disclaim any desire or intention to dispossess or to impoverish any other State or Na- tion. We seek no increase of territory. We disclaim all idea of " economic war." We ourselves object to all Protective Customs Tariffs; but we hold that each nation must be left free to do what it thinks best for its own economic development, without thought of injuring others. We believe that nations are in no way damaged by each other's economic prosperity or commercial progress; but, on the contrary, that they are actually themselves mutually enriched thereby. We would therefore put an end to the old entanglements and mys- tifications of Secret Diplomacy and the formation of Leagues against Leagues. We stand for the immediate establishment, actually as a part of the Treaty of Peace with which the present war will end, of a Universal League or Society of Nations, a Supernational Au- thority, with an International High Court to try all justiciable issues between nations; an International Legislature to enact such common laws as can be mutually agreed upon, and an Interational Council of Mediation to endeavour to settle without ultimate conflict even those disputes which are not justiciable. We would have all the nations of the world most solemnly undertake and promise to make a com- mon cause against any one of them that broke away from this funda- mental agreement. The world has suffered too much from war for the Labour Party to have any other policy than that of lasting Peace.

MORE LIGHT — BUT ALSO MORE WARMTH!

The Labour Party is far from assuming that it possesses a key to open all locks; or that any policy which it can formulate will solve all the problems that beset us. But we deem it important to our- selves as well as to those who may, on the one hand, wish to join the Party, or, on the other, to take up arms against it, to make quite clear and definite our aim and purpose. The Labour Party wants that aim and purpose, as set forth in the preceding pages, with all its might. It calls for more warmth in politics, for much less apathetic acquiescence in the miseries that exist, for none of the cynicism that saps the life of leisure. On the other hand, the Labour Party has no belief in any of the problems of the world being

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solved by Good Will alone. Good Will without knowledge is Warmth without Light. Especially in all the complexities of politics, in the still undeveloped Science of Society, the Labour Party stands for in- creased study, for the scientific investigation of each succeeding prob- lem, for the deliberate organization of research, and for a much more rapid dissemination among the whole people of all the science that exists. And it is perhaps specially the Labour Party that has the duty of placing this Advancement of science in the forefront of its political programme. What the Labour Party stands for in all fields of life is, essentially. Democratic Co-operation ; and Co-opera- tion involves a common purpose which can be agreed to; a common plan which can be explained and discussed, and such a measure of success in the adaptation of means to ends as will ensure a common satisfaction. An autocratic Sultan may govern without science if his whim is law. A Plutocratic Party may choose to ignore science, if it is heedless whether its pretended solutions of social problems that may win political triumphs ultimately succeed or fail. But no La- bour Party can hope to maintain its position unless its proposals are, in fact, the outcome of the best Political Science of its time ; or to fulfil its purpose unless that science is continually wresting new fields from human ignorance. Hence, although the purpose of the Labour Party must, by the law of its being, remain for all time unchanged, its Policy and its Programme will, we hope, undergo a perpetual development, as knowledge grows, and as new phases of the social problem present themselves, in a continually finer adjustment of our measures to our ends. If Law is the Mother of Freedom, Science, to the Labour Party, must be the Parent of Law.

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APPENDIX II

The following is the full text of the tentative programme sug- gested by the party led by Mr. Lansbury and published in the Lon- don Herald some eighteen months previous to the publication of the Report on Reconstruction of the Labour Party.

CONSCRIPTION OF WEALTH AND EQUALITY OF INCOME.

{a) Expropriation of private landowners and capitalists. No com- pensation beyond an ample provision against individual hard- ship.

{b) All men and women willing to work to be paid, even when their work happens to be not needed, just as soldiers are paid when they are not fighting. Equal payment for all to be the result at which reorganization shall aim.

(f) Instead of the present capitalistic methods of production

OWNERSHIP BY THE STATE: MANAGEMENT BY THE WORKERS.

This shall be applied immediately to the case of Mines, Rail- ways, Shipping, Shipbuilding, and Engineering, Electric Light and Power, Gas and Water. (</) The National properties in Mines, Railways, Shipping, Land so created to be leased to the Unions on conditions which will ensure every member at present money value a

MINIMUM REAL INCOME OF ONE POUND A DAY.

ECONOMIC INDEPENDENCE OF ALL MEN AND WOMEN.

Until such time as the whole industry of the country can be or- ganized upon the basis indicated above, the workers in industries not embraced in the above list — including those whose work is that of the household and the bringing up of children — shall be assured a similar standard of life by one, or a combination, of the following means:

{a) A high minimum wage guaranteed by the State through a levy upon the profits of unexpropriated capitalists.

(b) Continuation and increase of present war allowances to the women and children of soldiers' families.

(f) Increase of maternity benefits and maintenance of children dur- ing school age.

(d) Great increase of old-age pensions beginning at an earlier age than at present.

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(*) Revision of war and other pensions periodically in accordance

with the increased cost of living. (/) Increase of soldiers' pay to Australian, Canadian and New Zealand standards.

Those classes who have sanctioned and approved the con- scription of men, cannot on any moral ground object to the conscription of money — expropriation of property owners for national purposes. Indeed the latter has justifications which cannot be invoked for the former.

Not only must we assure to all our workers an income on which a reasonable life can be led: we must also create condi- tions in which work ceases to be mere drudgery under a ruling class, whether of bureaucrats or capitalists. By taking over the management of industry the workers will be realizing free- dom and democracy in their daily labour. The nationalization of industry will not subject the workers to the discipline of a bureaucratic machine, but enable them through the Unions to organize production in the interest of all. State ownership of the means of production, balanced by the control of industry by organized Labour, offers the best, and indeed the only guar- antee of individual freedom in an industrial society.

In the case of the Post Office we already have the first half of the principle — ownership by the State — and there is now a powerful movement towards the second half — management by the workers.

As to the practicability of the minimum income indicated above, the economic facts of the war prove conclusively that a minimum real income of a pound a day, present value, for every worker is quite attainable. The country is spending eight millions a day on the war alone. Very nearly the whole of the wealth represented by that sum, together ivilh the wealth iiecessary for the support of the civilian population, is created by the labour of not much more than eight million workers. In peace time there are not more than fifteen million avail- able workers, including men, women and children. More than half of this number is now withdrawn for the army or unpro- ductive army work, like munitions. Making every allowance for such of the army as do productive work, the support of the army and the country now falls upon half the usual available workers, the half which includes the older people and the children. This calculation is not seriously affected by the argument that we are " living on credit." It is not true, in the sense that we are consuming wealth that we are not now creating, save to a very tiny extent. The amount that America sends to us " on credit " is about offset by the amount that we send to our Allies " on credit." And although the Government may pay for its purchases by money borrowed from the capital- ist, that is merely in order to preserve the capitalist system. The actual material — munitions, clothing, etc. — is made by the workers noiv, not taken by some magic from past or future stores. And while it may be true that we are making war material instead of renewing necessary plant, we have official

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assurance that that is so only to a small extent. The experi- ence of the war shows that, given a large and insistent demand — ensured during the last three years by the immense consump- tion of war — the wealth necessary to satisfy- it can be produced far more easily than was generally supposed. The high con- sumption ensured during the last three years by war, must after the war be ensured by the high standard of living of the workers. Those now busy destroying good houses in France and Belgium must after the war be kept busy destroying bad ones in the slums and in building better ones; and in all the work of readjustment and reconstruction necessary to ensure food and raw material, and a continually increasing produc- tivity in order to meet the continually increasing consumption of the workers.

A COMPLETE DEMOCRACY.

(a) Abolition of the House of Lords. Substitution for it of a Chamber based on the representation, not of geographical areas, but of occupations, industrial, professional and domestic. Labour and professional bodies thus becoming a constituent part of the countr\'s government.

Political and industrial reconstruction cannot be considered in complete abstraction from each other, and it is essential to any plan, even of political reconstruction, that the workers should have their own industrial Chamber — representative not of geographical areas, like the House of Commons, but of occu- pations, industries and professions. This body must sit, not for a few days in every 5'ear, but continuously. It must not merely pass resolutions and indicate policies, but have definite powers of initiative and control. It will represent the people in their capacity of producers, just as the present House of Commons is supposed to represent them, and as a reformed House of Com- mons will really represent them, in the capacitj* of consumers.

{b) Abolition of all titles and State-granted honours.

The traffic in titles has become a financial and moral pre- mium upon reactionarj' politics, as well as a subtle form of State bribery.

(c) Full political rights for all men and women. Payment of Elec- tion expenses.

{d) Democratization of Army and Navy (so long as they exist) by the effective representation of the Rank and File in all military and naval administrations not dealing with strategy-. Abolition of military discipline in its present form immediately on the conclusion of peace.

Demobilization may last two or three years after the declara- tion of peace. During that time, unless the law is modified, men who had enlisted for the duration of the war may still be 'ubject to restrictive forms of discipline and to the risk of being ' ;ed for strike-breaking, etc. The Laws framed for the purpose of providing for Freedom of

Conscieiice to be made effective.

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Freedom of Speech and Press, The Right to Strike, and to advo- cate strikes.

THE OPPORTUNITY TO ENJOY LIFE.

(fl) A freer Social Life: Increase of opportunities for Recreation,

Sports, Clubs. Better Public Houses.

(^) A high minimum standard of comfort to be set in all housing and similar schemes.

(f) Education, both elementary and secondary, to be universal. No child labour, but maintenance of children during school age; small classes; inamediate large increases in salaries of teachers. We put education under "enjoyment of life" because it is clear that the proper end of education is the proper enjoyment of life. The present outcry for better scientific and technical training, for the endowment of research in processes which may be adapted to commercial ends, and for similar so-called " edu- cational " developments, will miss the real educational end if, by centring exclusively upon mechanical or industrial efficiency, it disregards the necessity for leisure and enjoyment. The problem of education is not how to contribute to the production of greater material wealth, but how to nourish in every indi- vidual the desire for a full free life (since without that desire there is no hope of social progress) and the capacity for enjoy- ing a full free life (since without that capacity social progress is unmeaning). That part of education in this country which is known as " higher " has, in spite of its narrowness, at least one good point: it aims at being a liberal education — an education which is an end in itself, and not a mere means to " efficiency." This aim must be kept in view by education of all grades and all kinds.

THE WORKERS ORGANIZED AGAINST WAR.

{a) Communications between workers to be maintained in War as in Peace.

{b) Negotiations to be instituted at once to end the present war on the following basis:

The right of all people to decide their own destiny. No indemnities, but each belligerent to restore the damage he has done, or to compound such reparation by concessions to be agreed by negotiation.

Equal access by all peoples to the trade and raw materials of the world.

The government of non-European races in Africa to be re- garded as an international trust, with no exclusive advantages to the sovereign state; such populations not to be trained for war or subject to conscription or servile labour. All secret treaties, or treaties not ratified by the people to be void. Disarmament by International Agreement.

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If democracy is to be a reality in the future, the competition for preponderant military power, which necessarily militarizes all the nations taking part in it, must be brought to an end. But the attempt on the part of one nation to create over vast areas of the world special reserves for its own trade and in- dustry or to block therein the access of other nations to neces- sary raw materials, will be certain, sooner or later, to be resisted by military means. These conflicts, though the workers as a whole never benefit from them, are the main source of modern wars. The price of peace is equality of economic op- portunity for all nations big and little. If the arming of the black millions of Africa for the purpose of fighting the white man's quarrels is permitted, a new danger as well as a new horror will be added to civilization. If a people is not fit to share the privileges of the British Empire in the shape of self- government it should not be asked to share its burdens by fight- ing its wars. Forced fighting, like forced labour, is in such case, whatever it may be elsewhere, undisguised slavery. The only certain cure for war is disarmament. If the nations are not loaded they will not explode.

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