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 THE 
 
 SOCIALIST MOVEMENT, 
 
 BY 
 
 ANNIE BESANT. 
 
 [REPBINTED FEOM THE " WESTMINSTER REVIEW".] 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 FKEETHOUGHT PUBLISHING COMPANY, 
 
 63, FLEET STREET, E.G. 
 1887. 
 
 PEICE THREEPENCE.
 
 PEINTED BY ANNIE BESANT AND CHARLES BRADLAtTGH, 
 63, FLEET STREET, B.C.
 
 Stack 
 
 Annex 
 
 5T 
 
 585" 
 
 THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT. 
 
 good-hearted people must have felt an uncomfortable 
 thrill when they heard Professor Huxley declare that he 
 would rather have been born a savage in one of the Fiji 
 Islands than have been born in a London slum. The 
 advantages of civilisation, from the slum point of view, 
 must appear somewhat doubtful; and as a considerable 
 part of the population of every large city live in the slums, 
 the slum view has an importance of its own as a factor in 
 the future social evolution. For it must be remembered 
 that the slum population is not wholly composed of 
 criminals and ne'er-do-weels the " good-for-nothings " 
 of Herbert Spencer. The honest workman and struggling 
 seamstress live there cheek by jowl with the thief and 
 and the harlot ; and with the spread of education has 
 arisen an inclination to question whether, after all, every- 
 thing has been arranged quite as well as it might be in 
 this best of all possible worlds. The question, Whether 
 on the whole civilisation has been an advantage ? has 
 been a theme of academical discussion since Rousseau 
 won the prize for an essay on " Has the restoration of the 
 Sciences contributed to purify or to corrupt Manners ? " 
 and laid down the audacious thesis that riches gave birth 
 to luxury and idleness, and from luxury sprang the arts, 
 from idleness the sciences. But it has now changed its 
 form, and has entered the arena of practical life : men 
 are asking now, Is it rational that the progress of society 
 should be as lopsided as it is? Is it necessary that, 
 while civilisation brings to some art, beauty, refinement 
 all that makes life fair and gracious it should bring to 
 others drudgery, misery, degradation, such as no un-
 
 4 THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT. 
 
 civilised people know ; and these emphasised and rendered 
 the bitterer by the contrast of what life is to many, the 
 dream of what it might be to all ? For Professor Huxley 
 is right. The savage has the forest and the open sea, the 
 joy of physical strength, food easily won, leisure sweet 
 after the excitement of the chase; the civilised toiler has 
 the monotonous drudgery of the stuffy workshop, the hell 
 of the gin-palace for his pleasure-ground, the pande- 
 monium of reeking court and stifling alley for his lullaby : 
 civilisation has robbed him of all natural beauty and 
 physical joy, and has given him in exchange the slum. 
 It is little wonder that, under these circumstances, there 
 are many who have but scant respect for our social fabric, 
 and who are apt to think that any change cannot land 
 them in a condition worse than that in which they already 
 find themselves. 
 
 The tendency to think of complete social change as a 
 possible occurrence has come down to the present genera- 
 tion as an inheritance of the past. Old men still dwell 
 fondly on the hopes of the " social missionaries " who were 
 preaching when the men now of middle-age were born. 
 Some even remember the experiments of Robert Owen and 
 of his personal disciples, the hopes raised by New Lanark 
 and Arbiston, the chill disappointment of New Harmony. 
 The dream that glorified their youth has remained a sacred 
 memory, and they have told how all might have been 
 different had society been prepared in Owen's time for the 
 fundamental change. And the great and far-reaching 
 co-operative movement, born of Owen's Socialism, has kept 
 "his memory green", and has prepared men to think of 
 a possible future in which co-operation should wholly re- 
 place competition, and Owen's dream of universal brother- 
 hood become a living reality. Such part of the energy of 
 the Owenite Socialists as was not merged in co-operative 
 activity was swamped in the sudden rush of prosperity 
 that followed the repeal of the Corn Laws and the English 
 triumph of Free Trade. Now that that rush is long over, 
 and the old misery is on the workers once more, their 
 minds turn back to the old schemes, and they listen readily 
 to suggestions of a new social order. 
 
 The abnormally rapid multiplication characteristic of the 
 very poor is at once constantly rendering the problem to 
 be solved more difficult and more imperatively pressing.
 
 THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT. 5 
 
 Unhealthy conditions force the young into premature 
 nubility; marriage takes place between mere lads and 
 lasses; parenthood comes while father and mother are 
 themselves legally infants ; and the dwarfed, peaky little 
 mortals, with baby frames and wizened faces, that tumble 
 over each other in the gutters of the slums, are the un- 
 wholesome and unlovely products of the forcing-house of 
 extreme poverty. 
 
 The spread of education and of religious scepticism has 
 added the last touch necessary to make the poor ripe for 
 social change. Ignorance is a necessary condition for 
 prolonged submission to remediable misery. The School 
 Boards are teaching the children the beauty of order, 
 cleanliness, and decency, and are waking up in them desire 
 for knowledge, hopes, and aspirations plants unsuited for 
 cultivation in the slums. They are sowing the seeds of a 
 noble discontent with unworthy conditions, while at the 
 same time they are developing and training the intelli- 
 gence, and are converting aimless, sullen grumbling into 
 a rational determination to understand the Why of the 
 present, and to discover the How of change. Lastly, reli- 
 gious scepticism has enormously increased the value put 
 upon the life which is. So long as men believed that the 
 present life was the mere vestibule of an endless future, it 
 was possible to bribe them into quiescence in misery by 
 representing poverty as a blessing which should hereafter 
 bring in its train the "kingdom of heaven". But now 
 that many look on the idea of a life beyond the grave with 
 doubt, and even with disbelief, this life has taken giant 
 proportions in their eyes, and the human longing for 
 happiness, which erstwhile fed on hopes of heaven, has 
 fastened itself with passionate intensity on the things of 
 earth. 
 
 Such is the soil, ploughed by misery, fertilised by edu- 
 cation and scepticism, ready to receive and nourish the 
 seed of social change. 
 
 While the soil has been thus preparing, the sowers who 
 are to scatter the seed have been fashioning. Thoughtful 
 persons have noted the regular cycle of alternate depres- 
 sion and inflation trodden by industrialism during the last 
 century. At one time industry progresses ' ' by leaps and 
 bounds ", employment is plentiful, wages high (as wages 
 ..go), prices of coal and iron high, profits increase, and
 
 O THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT. 
 
 fortunes are rapidly built up. This inflation after a while 
 passes away, and is succeeded by depression ; "short time " 
 is worked, wages are reduced, profits diminish, the " market 
 is overstocked". This in its turn passes away, and tem- 
 porary prosperity returns, to be after a while succeeded 
 by another depression, and that by another inflation. But 
 it is noticeable that the depressions become more acute and 
 more prolonged as they return time after time, and that 
 there is less elasticity of revival after each. The position 
 of England in the world's markets becomes yearly one of 
 diminished advantage ; other nations raise their own coal 
 and their own iron instead of buying from us, and as the 
 competition of nations becomes keener, English trade can 
 no longer monopolise the custom of the world. The radical 
 weakness of our industrial system is thus becoming patent 
 no longer veiled, as it was during the first half of the 
 century, by a monopoly which brought such enormous 
 gains that the drain of wealth into a few hands was com- 
 paratively little felt. Now that there is so much less to 
 divide, the unfairness of the method of division is becoming 
 obvious. 
 
 Nor can we overlook, in tracing the fashioning of those 
 who are to sow the seeds of change, the effect on English 
 thought of the greatly increased communication with 
 foreign countries, and especially with Germany. English 
 religious thought has been largely influenced by the works 
 of Strauss and Feuerbach ; philosophic thought by those 
 of Hegel, Kant, and Schopenhauer ; scientific by the specu- 
 lations of Goethe, the practical labors of Vogt, Biichner, 
 and Haeckel. English insularity has been broken down 
 in every domain of theoretical and speculative thought ; it 
 was inevitable that it should also be broken down in the 
 domain of practical sociology, and that German proposals 
 for social change should win the attention of English 
 students of social problems. The works of Marx, Bebel, 
 Liebknecht, and Engels have not reached any large num- 
 ber of English people ; neither have those of Strauss, 
 Hegel, and Kant. None the less in each case have they 
 exercised a profoundly modifying influence on religious, 
 philosophical, and sociological thought respectively ; for, 
 reaching a small band only, that band has in its turn in- 
 fluenced thought in the direction taken by itself, and has 
 modified the views of very many who are unconscious of tha.-
 
 THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT. 7 
 
 change thus wrought in their own attitude towards pro- 
 gress. At the same time the German graft has teen itself 
 modified by the English stock, and English Socialism is 
 beginning to take its own distinctive color ; it is influenced 
 by English traditions, race, habit, and methods of public 
 procedure. It shows, at its best, the influence of the open- 
 air of English political life, the tolerance of diversity of 
 thought which is bred of free speech ; it is less arrogant, 
 less intolerant, than it is with Germans, or with those 
 English who are most directly under German influence. 
 In Germany the intolerance of oppression has caused in- 
 tolerance of revolt ; here the very power of the democracy 
 has a tendency to sober its speech, and to make it take its 
 own way in the quiet consciousness of its resistless strength. 
 This peculiarity of English life must modify Socialism, 
 and incline it to resort to methods of legislation rather 
 than to methods of dynamite. 
 
 Nor has the effect of foreign thought been confined to 
 the influence exerted by thinkers over thinkers, through 
 the medium of the press. A potent worker for the inter- 
 nationalisation of thought has been silently busy for many 
 years past. At first insular prejudices were broken down 
 only for the wealthy and the nobles, when the " grand 
 tour" was a necessary part of the education of the fine 
 gentleman. Then the capitalist broke down national fences 
 for his own gain, feeling himself nearer in blood to his 
 foreign colleagues than to the workers in his own land ; 
 for, after all, common interests lie at the root of all fellow- 
 feeling. And the capitalist abolished nationalism for 
 himself : he hired Germans and Frenchmen for his count- 
 ing-house work, finding them cheaper and better educated 
 than English clerks ; when his English wage-workers 
 struck for better wages he brought over foreigners to take 
 their place, so that he might live on cheap foreign labor 
 while he starved the English into submission. The effect 
 of foreign immigration and of foreign importation has not 
 in the long run turned wholly to the advantage of the 
 capitalist ; for his foreign clerks and his foreign workers 
 have fraternised with the English they were brought over 
 to displace. They have taken part in club discussions ; 
 they have spread their own views ; they have popularised 
 in England the ideas current among workers on the Con- 
 tinent ; they have made numbers of Englishmen acquainted
 
 8 THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT. 
 
 with the solutions suggested abroad for social problems. 
 Thus, the internationalism of the luxurious idle and of the 
 wealthy capitalist has paved the way for the interna- 
 tionalism of the future the internationalism of the prole- 
 tariat, the internationalism of Socialism. 
 
 From this preliminary sketch of the conditions which 
 make for a Socialist movement in England at the present 
 time we must turn to an examination of the doctrines held 
 and taught by the modern school, which claims to teach 
 what is known as Scientific Socialism. The allegation, or 
 even the proof, that modern civilisation is to a large ex- 
 tent a failure, is obviously not sufficient ground for a com- 
 plete social revolution. Appeals to the emotions by means 
 of word-pictures of the sufferings and degradation of the 
 industrious poor, may rouse sympathy, and may even 
 excite to riot, but can never bring about fundamental 
 changes in society. The intellect must be convinced ere 
 we can look for any wise movement in the direction of 
 organic improvement ; and while the passion of the igno- 
 rant has its revolutionary value, it is on the wisdom and 
 foresight of the instructed that we must rely for the work 
 of social reconstitution. 
 
 The first thing to realise is that the Socialist move- 
 ment is an economic one. Despite all whirling words, 
 and revolution fire, and poetic glamor, and passionate 
 appeal, this one dry fact is the central one Socialism 
 rejects the present industrial system and proposes an ex- 
 ceedingly different one. No mere abuse can shake the 
 Socialist ; no mere calling of names can move him. 
 He holds a definite economic theory a theory which 
 should neither be rejected without examination, nor ac- 
 cepted without study. 
 
 The preliminary stock objection which is often held to 
 be sufficient to wave Socialism out of court is the statement 
 that it is "against the laws of political econonrj'". No 
 statement could be more erroneous ; though it may be 
 pleaded in extenuation that the abuse levelled by ignorant 
 Socialists at political economy has given excuse for sup- 
 posing that it is in antagonism to Socialism. With political 
 economy, as the science which deals with the nature, the 
 production, and the distribution of wealth, Socialism can 
 have no quarrel. Its quarrel is with the present industrial
 
 THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT. 9 
 
 system, not with, the science which points out the ascer- 
 tained -sequence of events under that system. Suppose 
 a regime of avowed slavery : political economy, dealing 
 with the production of wealth in such a state, would lay 
 down how slaves might be worked to the best advantage 
 how most might be got out of them with least expenditure. 
 But it would be irrational to attack political economy as 
 brutal under such conditions; it would be the slave system 
 which would be brutal, and blame of the science which 
 merely dealt with the existent facts would be idle. The 
 work of political economy is to discern and expound for 
 any type of social system the best methods of producing 
 and distributing wealth under that system ; and it can as 
 easily study and develop those methods under a regime of 
 universal co-operation such as Socialism, as under a regime 
 of universal competition such as the present. Socialism is 
 in antagonism to the present system, and seeks to over- 
 throw it ; but only the ignorant and the thoughtless con- 
 found in their hatred the system itself, and the science that 
 deals with its phenomena. 
 
 In truth, Socialism founds part of its disapproval of 
 the present industrial system on the very facts pointed 
 out by orthodox economists. It accepts Eicardo's "iron 
 law of wages ", and, recognising that wages tend to fall 
 to the minimum on which the laborer can exist, it de- 
 clares against the system of the hiring of workers for a 
 fixed wage, and the appropriation of their produce by the 
 hirer. It accepts Ricardo's theory of rent, with such 
 modifications as are adopted by all modern economists. 
 It assents to, and indeed insists on, the facts that all 
 wealth is the result of labor applied to natural agents, 
 that capital is the result of labor and abstinence, that in 
 all save the most primitive forms of industry capital and 
 labor that is, the unconsumed result of past labor and 
 present labor are both necessary factors in the produc- 
 tion of wealth. 
 
 Nor does Socialism challenge the aecuracy of the deduc- 
 tions from the "laws of political economy" in a com- 
 petitive system drawn by the trading community. That 
 a man who desires wealth should buy in the cheapest 
 market and sell in the dearest ; that he should drive the 
 hardest possible bargains ; that in selling he should be 
 guided by the maxim, caveat emptor ; that in buying he
 
 10 THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT. 
 
 should take advantage of the ignorance or the necessities 
 of the seller; that the weakest should go the wall; that 
 feeling should not interfere with business ; that labor 
 should be bought at the lowest possible price, and as 
 much got out of it as may be ; that trade morality differs 
 from the morality of private life all these maxims the 
 Socialist regards as the evil fruits of the perpetuation 
 among men of the struggle for existence ; a struggle which, 
 however inevitable among brutes, is from his point of view 
 unworthy of human civilisation. 
 
 Recognising thus the unsatisfactory results which flow 
 naturally and inevitably from the present system, Socialism 
 proceeds to analyse the way in which wealth is produced 
 and accumulated under it, to seek for the causes of the 
 extreme wealth and extreme poverty which are its most 
 salient characteristics. 
 
 Applying ourselves, then, to the study of the produc- 
 tion of wealth, we find taking part therein three things 
 natural agents, capital, and labor. These, under the pre- 
 sent system, are represented in England by three types 
 the landlord, the capitalist, and the proletarian. The 
 transitional organisms need not detain us : the landlord 
 who tills his land with his own hands, the capitalist who 
 works in his own mill these are exceptions ; and we are 
 concerned with the normal types. Abroad, the landlord 
 pure and simple is comparatively rare. Of these three, the 
 landlord owns the natural agents ; no wealth can be pro- 
 duced without his consent. John Stuart Mill (" Principles 
 of Political Economy", bk. ii., ch. xvi., sec. 1) remarks 
 that "the only person, besides the laborer and the 
 capitalist, whose consent is necessary to production, and 
 who can claim a share of the produce as the price of that 
 consent, is the person who, by the arrangements of society, 
 possesses exclusive power over some natural agent ". 
 Given a person who, by possession of the natural agents 
 from which wealth can be produced, can prevent the pro- 
 duction of wealth by withholding the raw material, and 
 you have a person who can successfully claim part of the 
 wealth to be produced as a condition of allowing produc- 
 tion to take place. He gains, by virtue of his position, 
 wealth which one less fortunately placed can only acquire 
 by prolonged labor. Nay, more ; since many capitalists 
 will compete for the raw material when it is advantageously
 
 THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT. 11 
 
 situated, he will be able to obtain an ever higher price 
 from the most eager bidder ; as towns increase and trade 
 develops, competition will drive the price up still higher ; 
 and this ever-mounting " rent", paid to the owner of the 
 natural agents, will enrich the lucky possessor, however 
 idle, ignorant, or useless he may be. Thus is produced 
 a class which has a vested right to tax industry, and 
 which taxes it in proportion to its success. Not an 
 improvement can be effected, nor a railway constructed, 
 nor a road made, without toll being first paid to the 
 owner of the soil. The whole nation is at the mercy 
 of a comparatively small class, so long as it consents to 
 admit that this class has a right to own the ground on 
 which the nation lives. Here is a point at which Socialism 
 finds itself in direct antagonism to the present system of 
 society. Socialism declares that natural agents ought not 
 to be private property, and that no idle class should be 
 permitted to stand between land and labor, and demand 
 payment of a tax before it will permit the production of 
 wealth. Socialism holds that the soil on which a nation 
 is born and lives ought to belong to the nation as a whole, 
 and not to a class within the nation ; that the soil should 
 be cultivated by individuals, or by co-operative groups, 
 holding directly under the State the "State" here 
 meaning central organising body or district organising 
 body, according as the organisation is communal or cen- 
 tralised. And here, among different Socialist schools, 
 difference in detail manifests itself. All agree that the 
 soil must in some fashion be controlled by the community, 
 and the benefits derivable from it spread over the com- 
 munity. But some Socialists would have each commune 
 practically independent, with the soil on which it lives 
 vested in each ; the agriculturists of the commune would 
 form an organised body for cultivating the soil, and the 
 agricultural product^ would be collected in the communal 
 store, and thence distributed as each member of the 
 commune had need of them. Nothing would here be 
 recognised as " rent ", since the total produce would pass 
 under communal control. Other Socialists favor a system 
 of more centralised management. But all agree that in- 
 dividual property in land must disappear, and that in the 
 future land must not be used as an investment which is to 
 bring in a profit in the shape of rent to some speculator or
 
 12 THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT. 
 
 idler, but must be used for purposes of production for the 
 general good, yielding food and raw materials for clothing 
 and other necessaries of life, but profit in the shape of 
 rent to no individual. 
 
 The extreme Eadical school of politicians accepts the 
 Socialist theory of land, and denounces private property in 
 the soil as vigorously as does the Socialist. In fact, the 
 Eadical is a half-fledged Socialist indignant as many 
 would be at the description : he is in favor of the State 
 being the landowner, but he boggles at the idea of 
 the State being the capitalist. His attitude to the land 
 is, however, an important factor in the Socialist move- 
 ment, for it familiarises the national mind with the idea 
 of the State absorbing the functions hitherto belonging 
 to a class. The establishment of Land Courts, the fixing 
 of judicial rents, the legal restrictions put on the "rights" 
 of landlords all these make for Socialism. M. Agathon 
 de Potter, a well-known Continental writer, rejoices over 
 the introduction of Mr. Charles Bradlaugh's Bill for expro- 
 priating landlords who keep cultivable land uncultivated, 
 and for vesting the forfeited lands in the State, as a direct 
 step towards Socialism. The shrinking of English poli- 
 ticians from the name does not prevent their advance 
 towards the thing, and the Liberty and Property Defence 
 League is justified in its view that politics are drifting 
 steadily in a Socialist direction. 
 
 Pass we from the landlord who holds the natural agents 
 to the capitalist who holds the means of production. What 
 is capital, and how has it come into existence ? Capital is 
 any wealth which is employed for profit. On this there is 
 no dispute. As Senior says: "Economists are agreed 
 that whatever gives a profit is properly called capital ". 
 Now, as all wealth is the result of labor applied to natural 
 agents, capital, being wealth, must have been so produced. 
 But another factor has been at work ; as Marshall says : 
 it is " the result of labor and abstinence ". Wherever there 
 is capital there has been labor, and there has also 
 been abstinence from consumption. But in studying 
 the origin and the accumulation of capital, this remark- 
 able historical fact stares us in the face that capital is 
 not found in the hands of the laborious and the 
 abstemious, but is obtained by a process of confiscation 
 of the results of labor and the imposition of privation on
 
 THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT. 13 
 
 the laborious. On this John Stuart Mill has the following 
 pregnant passage : 
 
 " In a rude and violent state of society it continually happens 
 that the person who has capital is not the very person who has 
 saved it, but someone who, being stronger, or belonging to a 
 more powerful community, has possessed himself of it by 
 plunder. And even in a state of things in which property was 
 protected, the increase of capital has usually been, for a long 
 time, mainly derived from privations which, though essentially 
 the same with saving, are not generally called by that name, 
 because not voluntary. The actual producers have been slaves, 
 compelled to produce as much as force could extort from them, 
 and to consume as little as the self-interest or the usually very 
 slender humanity of their taskmasters would permit. ("Prin- 
 ciples of Political Economy", bk. i., ch. v., sec. 5). 
 
 Capital always has been, and it always must be, 
 obtained by the partial confiscation of the results of 
 labor ; that is, it must be accumulated by labor which 
 is not paid for, or by labor of which the payment is 
 deferred. In slave communities the slave-owner becomes 
 a great capitalist by appropriating the total results of 
 his slaves' toil, and returning to them only such small 
 portion of it as suffices to keep the wealth-producers in 
 capable working order. That is, the wealth produced 
 minus the amount consumed by the producers, goes to 
 the owner, and that part of it which he does not consume 
 is laid by to be employed as capital. And it is worth 
 noting that no considerable accumulation of capital was 
 made, and no rapid progress in civilisation was possible, 
 until slavery was introduced. In a low stage of evolution 
 men will not deny themselves present for the sake of future 
 enjoyment, nor incur present toil for the sake of future 
 ease. But when, as was neatly said to me, the barbarian 
 discovered that he could utilise his conquered enemy to 
 much greater advantage by making him work than by 
 merely eating him, civilisation had a chance. Slavery 
 was, in truth, a necessary stage in social evolution ; only 
 by forced toil and forced privation was it possible to accu- 
 mulate capital, and without capital no forms of complex 
 industry are realisable. At the present time that which 
 was done frankly and unblushingly in the slave regime is 
 done under a veil of fine phrases, among which free con- 
 tract, free laborer, and the like, play a striking part. But
 
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 labor-force, and of nothing else. He is the incarnation of 
 the " labor " necessary for the production of wealth, the 
 third factor in our trio. This type, in our modern society, 
 is numerous, and is rapidly increasing. He is the very 
 antithesis of the really free laborer, who works on his own 
 raw material with his own instruments of production, and 
 produces for his own subsistence. In the country the 
 proletarian is born on somebody else's land, and as he 
 grows up he finds himself owner of nothing except his 
 own body. The raw material around him is owned by the 
 landlord ; the instruments of production are owned by the 
 capitalist farmers. As he cannot live on his own labor 
 force, which can only become productive in conjunction 
 with raw material and means of production (capital), he 
 must either sell it or starve. Nominally he may be free ; 
 in reality he is no more free than is the slave. The slave 
 is free to refuse to work, and to take in exchange the lash, 
 the prison, the grave ; and such freedom only has the 
 present proletarian. If he refuses to work, he must take 
 the lash of hunger, the prison of the workhouse, and, on 
 continued refusal, the actual gaol. Nor can he put his 
 own price on this solitary property of his, his body he 
 must sell it at the market rate ; and in some agricultural 
 counties of England at the present time the market rate
 
 THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT. 15 
 
 ia from 7s. to 9s. a week. It is most significant of the 
 bearing of the propertyless condition of the proletarian 
 that many farmers object to the very slight improvement 
 made in the laborer's position by his being permitted to 
 rent at a high price a small allotment which he cultivates 
 for himself. The ground of the farmer's objection is that 
 even such small portion of freedom makes the laborer 
 "too independent", and thereby drives up wages. To 
 get the full advantage out of him, the proletarian must be 
 wholly dependent for subsistence on the wages he earns. 
 The town proletarian is in a similar position neither land 
 nor instrument of production is his ; but he also has his 
 labor force, and this he must sell, or he must starve. 
 
 We have arrived at the citadel of the Socialist position. 
 Here is this unpropertied class, this naked proletariat, face 
 to face with landlord and capitalist, who hold in their grip 
 the means of subsistence. It must reach those means of 
 subsistence or starve. The terms laid down for its accep- 
 tance are clear and decisive : " We will place within your 
 hands the means of existence if you will produce sufficient 
 to support us as well as yourselves, and if you will consent 
 that the whole of your produce, over that which is sufficient 
 to support you in a hardy, frugal life, shall be the property 
 of us and of our children. If you are very thrifty, very 
 self-denying, and very lucky, you may be able to save 
 enough out of your small share of your produce to feed 
 yourself in your old age, and so avoid falling back on us. 
 Your children will tread the same mill-round, and we hope 
 you will remain contented with the position in which 
 Providence has placed you, and not envy those born to a 
 higher lot." Needless to say, the terms are accepted by 
 a proletariat ignorant of its own strength, and the way to 
 profit is open to landlord and capitalist. The landlord, 
 as we have seen, obtains his share of the gains by taxing 
 the capitalist through raising his rent. The capitalist 
 finds his profit in the difference between the wage he pays 
 and the value of the produce of his hired workers. The 
 wage is fixed by the competition for employment in the 
 labor market, and limited in its downward tendency by 
 the standard of living. The minimum wage is that on 
 which the worker can exist, however hardly. For less 
 than this he will not work. Every shilling above this is 
 fought over, and wage rises and falls by competition. At
 
 16 THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT. 
 
 every stage of their relationship there is contest between 
 employer and employed. If the wage is paid for a fixed 
 day's work as in nearly every trade the employer tries 
 to lengthen the day, the employed to shorten it ; the 
 longer the day, the greater the production of " surplus 
 value " i.e., of the difference between the wage paid and 
 the value produced. The employer tries to increase surplus 
 value by pressing the workers to exertion ; they lessen 
 exertion in order not to hasten the time of their discharge. 
 The employer tries still to increase surplus value by sup- 
 planting male labor with female and child labor at lower 
 wages. The men resist such introduction, knowing that 
 the ultimate result is to increase the amount taken by 
 capital and to lessen that obtained by labor. 
 
 Now the Socialist alleges that these antithetical interests 
 can never be reconciled while capital and labor are the 
 possessions of two distinct classes. He points to the results 
 brought about by the capitalist class while it was left un- 
 shackled by the State. The triumph of capitalism, and of 
 laisser-faire between employers and employed, was from 
 1764 to 1833. During that time not only adults but young 
 children were worked from fifteen to sixteen hours a day, 
 and the production of surplus value was enormous. The 
 hiige fortunes of the Lancashire "cotton-princes" were 
 built up by these overtasked, quickly worn-out workers. 
 The invention of machinery centupled man's productive 
 power, and its benefits were monopolised by a compara- 
 tively small class ; while those who made the wealth 
 festered in closely crowded courts, those who appropriated 
 the wealth luxuriated in country seats ; one side of industri- 
 alism is seen in the Lancashire mansions, pleasure-grounds, 
 and hothouses ; the other in the reeking slums within the 
 sound of the factory bells. Under a saner system of pro- 
 duction, the introduction of machinery would have lightened 
 toil, shortened the hours of necessary labor, and spread 
 abundance where there was want. Under capitalistic in- 
 dustrialism it has built up huge fortunes for a few, and 
 has reduced thousands to conditions of insanitary living 
 and dreary degradation, worse than anything the world 
 has hitherto known. It has poisoned our rivers, polluted 
 our atmosphere, marred the beauty of our country's face, 
 bestialised large numbers of our people. Improvements in 
 machinery, which should be hailed with joy, are regarded
 
 THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT. 17 
 
 with dread by large classes of workers, because they will 
 throw numbers out of work, and reduce men, who were 
 skilled laborers with the old machinery, into the ranks of 
 the unskilled. True, the result of the introduction of 
 machinery has been to cheapen in consequence of com- 
 petition among capitalists many commodities, especially 
 articles of clothing. But this effect is little felt among the 
 laboring classes. They can buy perhaps three coats where 
 they used to buy one, but the easily worn-out shoddy, 
 thought good enough for clothes sold in poor quarters, is 
 but a poor exchange for the solid hand-made stuffs worn 
 by their ancestors. 
 
 What, then, is the remedy proposed by Socialism ? It 
 is to deal with capital as it deals with land ; to abolish the 
 capitalist as well as the landlord, and to bring the means 
 of production, as well as the natural agents on which they 
 are used, under the control of the community. 
 
 Capital is, as we have seen, the result of unpaid labor ; 
 in a complex system like our own it is the result of co- 
 operative that is, of socialised labor. It has been found 
 by experience that division of labor increases productive 
 ability, and in all forms of industry numbers now co- 
 operate to turn out the finished product. In each com- 
 modity is embodied the labor of many workers, and the 
 socialisation of labor has reached a very advanced stage. 
 But while industrialism has been socialised in its aspect of 
 labor, it has remained individualistic in its aspect of capi- 
 tal ; and the results of the combined efforts of many are 
 appropriated to the advantage of one, and when the one 
 has exhausted his power of consumption he retains the 
 remaining results, and employs them for the further 
 enslavement and exploitation of labor. Thus labor con- 
 stantly adds new links to the chain which fetters it, and 
 is ever increasing the capital which, let out at interest by 
 its owners, becomes ever a heavier tax upon itself. Social- 
 ism contends that these unconsumed results of socialised 
 labor ought not to pass into the hands of individuals to be 
 used by them for their own profit ; but should pass either 
 into the industrial funds of the several trades that produce 
 them, or into a central industrial exchequer. In either 
 case, these funds created by past labor would be used for 
 .the facilitation of present and future labor. They would 
 be available for the introduction of improved machinery,
 
 18 THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT. 
 
 for the opening up of new industries, for the improvement 
 of means of communication, and for similar undertakings. 
 Thus, in a very real sense, capital would become only the 
 deferred payment of labor, and the whole results of toil 
 would be constantly flowing back tipon the toilers. Under 
 such conditions, fixed capital or plant would, like land, be 
 held for purposes of use by the workers who used it. Its 
 replacement would be a constant charge on the commodi- 
 ties it helped to produce. A machine represents so much 
 human labor ; that embodied labor takes part in producing 
 the finished commodity as much as does the palpable labor 
 of the human worker who superintends the machine ; that 
 worker does not produce the whole value added in the 
 factory to the material brought into it, and has no claim 
 to that whole value. The wear and tear of the machine is 
 an offset, and must be charged on the products, so that 
 when the machine is worn out there may be no difficulty 
 in its replacement. Under such conditions also the dis- 
 tinction between employers and employed would disappear. 
 All would be members of industrial communities, and the 
 necessary foremen, superintendents, organisers, and officers 
 of every kind, would be elected as the officers of trades 
 unions are elected at the present time. 
 
 Poverty will never cease so long as any class or any indi- 
 viduals have an interest in the exploitation of others. 
 While individuals hold capital, and other individuals can- 
 not exist unless that capital is used for their employment, 
 the first class will prey upon the second. The capitalists 
 will not employ unless they can " make a profit " out of 
 those they hire to work for them ; that is, unless they pay 
 them less than the value of the work produced. But if 
 one man is to have value for which he has not worked, 
 another must have less than the value of his work ; and 
 while one class grows wealthy on unpaid labor, another 
 must remain poor, giving labor without return. Socialism 
 would give to each return for labor done, but it recognises 
 . no claim in the idle to grow fat on the produce of the in- 
 dustrious. 
 
 Interest on capital, paid to individuals, has as is obvious 
 from the foregoing no place in Socialism. Strongly as 
 Socialism protests against the whole system of which land- 
 lords and capitalists form an integral part, it reserves its 
 uttermost reprobation for the theory which justifies a class
 
 THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT. 19 
 
 of the latter in living solely on money drawn as interest on 
 investments. If a man possesses three or four thousand 
 pounds he can invest them, and live all his life long on 
 the interest without ever doing a stroke of honest work, 
 and can then bequeath to some one else the right to live in 
 idleness ; and so on in perpetuity. Money in the capitalist 
 system is like the miraculous oil in the widow's cruse it 
 can always be spent and never exhausted. A man in sixty 
 years will have received in interest at five per cent, three 
 times his original fortune, and although he may have spent 
 the interest, and thus have spent every penny of his for- 
 tune three times over, he will yet possess his fortune as 
 large as it was when he began. He has consumed in com- 
 modities three times the sum originally owned, and yet is 
 not one penny the worse. Other people have labored for 
 him, fed him, clothed him, housed him, and he has done 
 nothing in exchange. The Socialist argument against this 
 form of interest lies in a nutshell : a man earns 5 ; he 
 gives labor for which he receives in exchange a power of 
 possession over 5 worth of commodities ; he desires only 
 to consume l worth now, and to defer the consumption 
 of the remaining 4. He buys his l worth of commodi- 
 ties, and considers himself repaid for the fifth portion of 
 his work by possessing and consuming these. But he ex- 
 pects to put out his saved 4 at interest, and would con- 
 sider himself hardly used if, fourteen years hence, when he 
 desired to exercise his power of consumption, deferred for 
 his own convenience, that power had not increased although 
 he had done nothing to increase it. Yet it can only be in- 
 creased by other people's labor being left unpaid for, while 
 he is paid twice over for his ; and this arrangement the 
 Socialist stamps as unjust. So long as capital remains in 
 the hands of individuals, interest will be demanded by 
 them for its use, and will be perforce paid ; and so long 
 also will exist an idle class, which will consume without 
 producing, and will remain a burden on the industrious, 
 who must labor to support these as well as themselves, and 
 must produce sufficient for all. 
 
 Now, Socialism, aims at rendering impossible the exist- 
 ence of an idle class. No healthy adult but will have to 
 work in exchange for the things he requires. For the 
 young, freedom from labor ; they have to prepare for life's 
 work. For the aged, freedom from labor : they have
 
 "20 THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT. 
 
 worked, and at eventide should come rest. For the sick 
 also, freedom from labor ; and open hospitals for all, with- 
 out distinction of class, where tendance and all that skill 
 can do shall be at the service of each. But for the strong 
 and the mature, no bread of idleness, no sponging upon 
 other people. With division of labor will come also divi- 
 sion of leisure ; the disappearance of the languid lady, full 
 of ennui from sheer idleness, will entail the disappearance of 
 the overworked slavey, exhausted from unending toil ; and 
 there will be two healthy women performing necessary 
 work, and enjoying full leisure for study, for art, for 
 recreation, where now are the over-lazy and the over- 
 driven. 
 
 In thus condemning the existence of an idle class, Social- 
 ism does not assail all the individuals who now compose it. 
 These are not to blame for the social conditions into which 
 they have been born ; and it is one of the most hopeful 
 eigns of the present Socialist movement, that many who 
 are working in it belong to the very classes which will be 
 abolished by the triumph of Socialist principles. The man 
 who has inherited a fortune, and has embraced Socialism, 
 would do no good by throwing it away and plunging into 
 the present competitive struggle ; all he can do is to live 
 simply, to utilise his position of advantage as a pedestal 
 on which to place his advocacy of Socialism, and to employ 
 his money in Socialist propaganda. 
 
 It is feared by some that the success of the Socialist 
 movement would bring about the crushing of individualism 
 and an undue restriction of liberty. But the Socialist 
 contends that the present terrible struggle for existence is 
 the worst enemy of individualism, and that for the vast 
 majority individuality is a mere phrase. Exhausting toil 
 and ever-growing anxiety, these crush out individuality, 
 and turn the eager promising lad into the harassed drudge 
 of middle age. How many capable brains are wasted, 
 how many original geniuses lost to the nations they might 
 illuminate, by the strife for mere livelihood ? The artist 
 fritters away his genius in " pot-boilers "; the dramatist 
 writes down to the piece that will "pay", and harnesses 
 iiis delicate fancy into coarse burlesque full of wretched 
 witticisms ; in the stress of the struggle to live, patient 
 .study and straining after a great ideal become impossible. 
 Individualism will only develop fully when Socialism has
 
 THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT. 21 
 
 lifted off all shoulders the heavy burden of care, and has- 
 given to all leisure to think and to endeavor. 
 
 Nor is the fear of undue restriction of liberty better 
 founded than that of the crushing out of individualism. 
 One kind of liberty, indeed, will be restricted the liberty 
 to oppress and to enslave other people. But with this- 
 exception liberty will be increased. Only the very wealthy 
 are now free. The great majority of people must work, 
 and their choice of work is very limited. The poor must 
 take what work they can get, and their complaint is not 
 that they are compelled to work, but that they often cannot 
 get work to do. In satisfying the complex wants of the 
 civilised human being there is room for all the most diverse 
 capacities of work ; and if it be said that there are un- 
 pleasant kinds of work that must be done, which none 
 would willingly undertake, it may be answered that those 
 kinds of work have to be done now, and that the com- 
 pulsion of the community would not be a greater restriction 
 of personal liberty than the present compulsion of hunger; 
 and further, that it would be easy to make a short period 
 of unpleasant toil balance a long period of pleasant ; and 
 that it would be far better to have such tasks divided 
 among a number, so that they would press very lightly upon 
 each, than have them, as now, pushed on to a compara- 
 tively few, whose whole lives are brutalised by the pressure. 
 The very strictest organisation of labor by the community 
 that can be imagined, would be to the great majority far 
 less oppressive than the present system, for at the worst, 
 it would but control an extremely small portion of each 
 working day, and would leave the whole of the rest of the 
 existence free, to be used at the pleasure of the individual, 
 untrammelled by anxiety and harassing care for the mere 
 necessaries of life. The pride in skill, the stimulus of 
 honorable ambition, the pleasure of success, all these would 
 be present, as they are to-day ; but instead of being the 
 privilege of the few, they would brighten the life of all. 
 
 A profound moral impulse really underlies the whole 
 of the Socialist movement. It is a revolt against the 
 calloiis indifference of the majority in the " comfortable 
 classes " to the woful condition of large numbers of the 
 workers. It is an outburst of unselfish brotherhood, 
 which cannot bear to sit at ease while others suffer, 
 which claims to share the common human lot, and to bear
 
 22 THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT. 
 
 part of the burden now pressing with crushing weight on 
 the shoulders of the poor. It detests the theory that there 
 must always be hewers of wood and drawers of water for 
 & luxurious class, and proclaims that human degradation 
 lies in idle living, not in earnest work. It would have 
 all work, that all may have leisure, and would so distribute 
 the necessary work of the world that none may be crushed 
 by it, but that all may be disciplined. And this very out- 
 burst of human brotherhood is in itself a proof that society 
 is evolving Socialismwards, and that the evolution of 
 humanity is reaching a stage in which sympathy is tri- 
 umphing over selfishness, and the desire for equality of 
 happiness is becoming a potent factor in human conduct. 
 The Socialist ideal is one which could not meet with wide 
 acceptance if humanity were not marching towards its 
 realisation. 
 
 On one matter the Socialist movement, both abroad and 
 at home, has set itself in opposition to science and to right 
 reason e.g., on the law of population. It is easy to see 
 how this opposition has arisen, and it may be hoped that 
 when Socialists in general disentangle the scientific state- 
 ment of facts from Malthus' unwise applications of them, 
 Socialism and prudential restraint will be seen to be 
 indissolubly united. Malthus accurately pointed out that 
 population has a tendency to increase beyond the means 
 of subsistence ; that as it presses on the available means, 
 suffering is caused ; and that it is kept within them by 
 what he termed " positive checks " i.e, a high death-rate, 
 especially among the children of the poor, premature death 
 from disease, underfeeding, etc. The accuracy of his state- 
 ment has been proved up to the hilt by Charles Darwin, 
 who describes with abundant illustrations the struggle for 
 existence a struggle which is the direct result of the fact 
 stated in the law of population, of the tendency of all 
 animated things to increase beyond their food supply ; this 
 has led, and still leads, to the survival of those who are 
 fittest for the conditions of the struggle. Unhappily, Malthus 
 added to his scientific exposition some most unfortunate 
 practical advice ; he advised the poor not to marry until, 
 practically, they had reached middle life. The poor felt, 
 with natural indignation, that in addition to all their other 
 deprivations they were summoned by Malthus to give up 
 the chief of the few pleasures left to them, to surrender
 
 THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT. 23 
 
 marriage, to live in joyless celibacy through, the passion- 
 reason of life, to crush out all the impulses of love until 
 by long repression these would be practically destroyed. 
 Under such circumstances it is little wonder that " Mal- 
 thusianism" became a word hated by the poor and 
 denounced by those who sympathised with them. It is 
 true that the advice of Malthus as to the putting off of 
 marriage has been and is very widely followed by the 
 middle classes ; but it is perfectly well known that the 
 putting off of marriage does not with them mean the 
 observance of celibacy, and the shocking prostitution 
 which is the curse of every Christian city is the result of 
 the following of the advice of Malthus so far as marriage 
 is concerned. It is obvious that Malthus ignored the 
 strength of the sexual instinct, and that the only possible 
 result of the wide acceptance of his teaching would be 
 the increase of prostitution, an evil more terrible than 
 that of poverty. But the objection rightly raised to the 
 practical teaching of Malthus ought not to take the form of 
 assailing the perfectly impregnable law of population, nor 
 is it valid against the teachings of Neo-Malthusians, who 
 advise early marriage and limitation of the family within 
 the means of existence. 
 
 The acceptance of this doctrine is absolutely essential to 
 the success of Socialism. Under a system in which children 
 are forced to labor, they may begin to "keep them- 
 selves" at a very early age; but under a Socialist system, 
 where education will occupy childhood and youth, and 
 where old age is to be free from toil, it will soon be found 
 that the adult working members will not permit an un- 
 limited increase of the mouths which they have to fill. 
 Facilitate production as we may, it will always take more 
 hours to produce the necessaries of life for families of ten 
 or twelve than for families of three or four. The practi- 
 cal enforcement of the question will probably come from 
 the women ; highly educated women, full of interest in 
 public work and taking their share in public duty, will 
 not consent to spend year after year of their prime in 
 nothing but expecting babies, bearing babies, and suckling 
 babies. They will rebel against the constant infliction of 
 physical discomfort and pain, and will insist on the limita- 
 tion of the family as a condition of marriage. The sooner 
 this is recognised by Socialists the better, for at present
 
 24 THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT. 
 
 they waste much strength by attacking- a doctrine which 
 they must sooner or later accept. 
 
 A glance backward over the histoiy of our own country, 
 since the Kefonn Bill of 1832 opened the gate of political 
 power to those outside the sacred circle of the aristocracy, 
 will tell how an unconscious movement towards Socialism 
 has been steadily growing in strength. Our Factory Acts, 
 our Mines Eegulation Acts, our Education Acts, our Em- 
 ployers' Liability Acts, our Land Acts all show the set 
 of the current. The idea of the State as an outside power 
 is fading, and the idea of the State as an organised com- 
 munity is coming into prominence. In the womb of time 
 the new organism is growing : shall the new birth come in 
 peace or in revolution, heralded by patient endeavor or by 
 roar of cannon ? Who can tell ? But this one thing I 
 know, that come it will, whether men work for it or 
 hinder ; for all the mighty, silent forces of evolution make 
 for Socialism, for the establishment of the Brotherhood of 
 Man.
 
 
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