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 Will Socialism Benefit 
 
 the 
 
 
 English People? 
 
 
 
 Verbatim Report of a Debate 
 
 
 H.xv. . Hyndman 
 
 
 
 and 
 
 
 
 Charles Brad laugh 
 
 
 y 
 
 i
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 d> 
 
 WILL SOCIALISM BENEFIT THE 
 ENGLISH PEOPLE? 
 
 VERBATIM REPORT OF 
 
 A DEBATE 
 
 BETWEEN 
 
 \~^ n Ti 
 
 H.M.IIYNDMANaxdCHARLES BRADLAUGII 
 
 Edd at SL James' Hull on April 11th, 1884. 
 
 PROFESSOPv BEE3LY IN THE CHAIR. 
 [TE^-TH THOUSA^ri).] 
 
 LONDON: 
 FRDETHOUGHT PUBLISHING COMPA^fT, 
 
 63, FLEET STREET, P.*:. 
 1884. 
 
 PRICE TnRP:EPEl?CB.
 
 iondon: 
 i>bunied by annie besant and chaele8 ekablabq^ 
 
 63. FLEET STKEBT, E.C
 
 MX 
 
 WILL SOCIALISM BENEFIT TH 
 ENGLISH PEOPLE? 
 
 1/ 
 
 The CuA'.iorAX : Fellow citizeiiR, wo are met liere to-niglit 
 to listen to what I have no doubt will he a very interestiiitj; 
 discussion. The subject is one of the highest importance. 
 It is a subject upon which everyone who feels any interest 
 in it ought to furnish himself with as clear ideas as p(jssible. 
 The speakers are both of them able representatives pf their 
 respective opinions. They are botJi of them well accus- 
 tomed to expound them; there cannot be tho smallest 
 question about their sincerity, and the earnestness with 
 which they hold those opinions. (Hear, heai*.) lOach of 
 them is vrell acquainted with the other's position, and 
 therefore, although one evening may seem to be but a very 
 small space for handliiig so vast a sul)ject, I dare say wO' 
 shall find that they v/ill soon know how to narrow dosvu. 
 their controversy to the essential points at is.suo, and so Ave-, 
 shall deriV'O i)rofit from the evening — greater profit than 
 perhaps is usually derived from discussions of this charac- 
 ter. I need hardly remind you that the usefulness oi:' tho 
 meeting will depend a good deal upon a ch'ciimstanco over 
 which the speakers have no control, and that is tho temper 
 of the audience — (hear, hear) — their patience, their for- 
 bearance in listening to arguments with Avhich they do not 
 agree. Perhaps I shall not be wrong if I assume that a 
 large portion of those present have come here -u'ith their 
 minds pretty well made up ah-eady one Avay or tho otlier. 
 It would, however, I suppose, be too much to expect that 
 tliey Avill not from time to time give expression to their 
 feelings oi approbation or disapprobation of the argu- 
 
 493771 
 
 fCQN0K!G3
 
 4 soci.vLrs:.r. 
 
 inonts llicv in ly ]i<\'ir, biit I -would appeal to tlicm not to 
 do so tosiicii iin extent as cither to interfere with the quiet 
 ]it';n-ing- ('i' those v»'ho may wish to listen quietly t<) what 
 >,s heiiiy said, or so as to curtail unfairly the space of tim 
 allotted to cacli of the speakers. I may say that it is ii^t 
 iiitended to-niglit to suhmit any resolution to the meetir g"> 
 or to i-alio any show of hands, and therefore there is ^lo 
 reason whatever w]jy it should he rec^'arded as a trial of 
 strcng'th, a tri;d of lungs, or oxhihition of numerit^l 
 strength hetwec]! the two different parties. (Laughter.) 
 For myself, I niay say I am in tlie Chair to-night because 
 both parties have done me the honor to belieye that I 
 should endeavor to conduct the proceedings, as far as de- 
 pends upon nie, with impartialiiy— (hear, hear) — and 
 perhaps they thought I should find it all the more easy to 
 do f.o because they believe it is pretty well known that 
 I belong to a schi>olof opinion whicli diifers very consider- 
 ably from the opinions of both Mr. Ih-adiaugh and Mr. 
 Hyndman. I shall not detain you an}- longer, but I shall- 
 just explain to you the conditions on which it has been 
 agreed that tliis discussion should bo can-ied on. Mr. 
 Hjiidman will hiv-t speak for half-an-hour; then Mr. Brad- 
 laugh will speak for half-an-liour ; then each of tho 
 speakers will address you for twenty minutes, and then 
 again for ton minutes ; and that will conclude the pro- 
 ceedings. 
 
 Mr. IJvxi>.M.\v, who was received with loud cheers, said: 
 Mr. Ohairnnm, friends, and fellow-citizens, in rising hero 
 to-night as the delegate of the Democratic Federation to 
 maintain that Socialism will benefit the English peoyde, I 
 desire to say at the outset that I do so in no sense as an 
 individual. (Hear, hear.) I come here as the delegate of 
 an organised Socialistic body. The cause for which I como 
 h.ere and have the honor to champion is too high and too 
 noble to be mixed -with personal considerations of any kind 
 whatsoever. I know very well that in meeting an oppo- 
 nent hero to night who has been before the public for 
 very many 3'ears, who is a master of the art of addressing 
 public aiuliencos, and thoroughly acqu;;i:ited with all tin* 
 wavs of debate, I do so at some considerable disadvant;;ge. 
 I only ask those wlio are present, and who think that I do 
 not put the case of the Socialists suihciently well beforo 
 this great audience, to supplement my shortcomings fts 1 
 go along; and to otheis, whcth\.r the majority or the
 
 sociALis::. o 
 
 minority of tliose present who difior from wliat I Iiavc to 
 Bay, I only ask what I hcliovc I shov.Ll g-et without riskinp;, 
 ^'iz., for a'fair and impartial consideration of tho argument:* 
 I liave to lay before ycni. (Hear, hear.) Now, first, what 
 is Socialism? I will ejidcavor to give a deiinition which 
 . applies to the active life of to-day. Socialism then is an 
 \ <Mideavor to sul).stitnte for tlie anai'chical strug-gle or light 
 for existence an org-anisod co-operation for «ixisteuce. 
 That, I say, in so f;',r as it applies to the ai'tive life of to- 
 dny. But it is somclhing- nuu-h move; it is a distinct 
 historical theory which accoiuits for the progress of man 
 in society by his command over the forces of uatui-e, by 
 the economical deve]o|)ment, the ])owcr which he has of 
 producing Avealtli. Tlius the history of the past enables 
 us to understand the present, and in some sort to forecast 
 the future, but with that I have not to do at tliis moniojit. 
 What do wo see around us ? \\^o see that never in tho 
 history of mankind was there Mich power over nature as 
 there is to-day. Never had man before sieani, electricity, 
 machinery — all thc\se great powers with winch to produce 
 wealth. Those powers are increasing in evciy eo:intry in 
 ■ Western Europe and America at far ga-eator rate than the 
 population is incr(!asing. Therefore it is not necessary to 
 iro to the amount of population t(j account for the contrasts 
 we see around us. If it w"ere necessary to limit the amount 
 of po]3ulation, let us begin with those who do not ])roiluce. 
 (Rear, hear.) If it is necessary there shoidd be fewer 
 people in the couutry let a few of the idlers stop breeding. 
 Theref;n-e when wo come to these contrasts, which we all 
 see and dcsplore, with this enormous power ar.d this enor- 
 mous y/ealth on the one hand, and such terrible misery 
 and awful destitution upon the other, it must strike us all 
 — it has struck us all, or I take it we shoidd not be here 
 lo-night — that these contrasts ought not to continue. 
 (Hear, hear.) Why is it that on the one hand the producers 
 in this country are the poorest of the popidation? Why 
 is ittlmt those who do not produce are the richest? How, on 
 the other hand, are we to give the producers a full share in. 
 that which they produce, and to teach those who live m 
 luxuiy without producing, some better idea of existence? 
 On the ansAver, Mr. Chairman, to those two questions, I 
 take it, the debate we hold to-nig'ht will hinge. Now 
 then, first and foremost, men are born into this world, 
 hundreds and- thousands of them, without any property
 
 G SOCIALISiT. 
 
 Avlintsoover — (Oh, oli) — or any claim to any pro- 
 perly. ^Vo are all born without any property. 
 Tliey arrive at manhood and womanhood in that con- 
 dition—thousands of them. What is their position? 
 Tiicy have no property, no command over the means 
 of .production, either land, capital, machinery, or credit, 
 either as individuals or as part of the organised 
 commimity. Under what conditions, then, have they to 
 live ? They have not one thing which they possess but 
 the force of labor in their bodies. Mind, what I am say- 
 ing applies not only to the worker, not only to the dis- 
 tributor who is working on the railways, &'c., but it applies 
 in a A'cry large degree to the small shopkeepers and clerks 
 and those who live by intellectual labor. They have to 
 compete against one another in what is called the labor 
 market in order to be able only to exist. Under what cir- 
 cumstances do they so compete ? The middle class econo- 
 mists all tell us that the law of that competition is that 
 they get on the average the standard of life in the country 
 ill which they were born, and just so much as will enable 
 them to hand on the same lot to their successors. There 
 tre some who get more ; there are some highly skilled' 
 laborers who receive more than this, but there are others, 
 as some perhaps here may well know, who for months 
 Hever get a full meal, and there are whole classes who, as 
 the official reports tell us, never get enough food to keep 
 them clear of the diseases which arise from starvation. 
 (Applause.) Such I say is the law under which they work. 
 Now see what follows upon that. These producers of the 
 community, the men who produce all the wealth in this 
 England of ours, what do they get? Say that a man is 
 receiving 5s. a day, which is considered remarkably high 
 Avages (the average of the country is about one-half of 
 that), and he produces a value of £1 in that day, where 
 does the 15s. go? It goes, as we know A'ery well, to pay 
 tlie landlord's rent, to pay interest on the capital, to pay 
 profits, and it is labor value. The value of this man who 
 is working very close to starvation wages produces the 
 luxuries which we see around us. (Cheers.) That is the 
 Kui-})lus value which is divided up by the idle or non-pro- 
 ducing classes of tlie population. Now, what is the result 
 to those who thus work Y Are they not enfeebled by want 
 of sufficient leisure, by want of power, by want of that 
 wliich is taken from them under the forms of society in
 
 SOCI^VLISU. 7 
 
 which we dwell ? None can deny that it Is so. We know 
 that the brutal competition of one against the other, where 
 there is plenty for all, means to the great mass of English 
 people (and my opponent here to-night will not deny it), 
 degradation to the English people, and worse degradation 
 in the futiu'e than it is to-night. (Applause.) Consider 
 the circumstances under which the work is carried on to- 
 day. Say that a man is working, and a machine is intro- 
 duced to the trade in which he is a sldlled laborer, ought 
 it not to benefit everyone that greater wealth can be pro- 
 duced with less labor ? Certainly, there is no reason why 
 it should not. Why are we known as organised individuals 
 if we cannot take hold of what each of us invents and pro- 
 duce it for the benefit of all ? It is not so used. It is used 
 bya class against a class, and there is many a man who 
 works as a skilled laborer to-day who, if a machine is 
 invented whereby man may beneiit, will be turned out to 
 compete against his fellows on the street to-morrow. That 
 is what I say is anarchy for those men, not order ; and the 
 uncertainty of the condition so produced, think of that. 
 What uncertainty it is for a man not to know whether he 
 will be able to keep his wife and his children because man- 
 kind is getting greater power over the forces of nature. 
 Now, how does it tell on women ? Are there not hundreds, 
 nay thousands, of girls turned out into the streets to starve, 
 nay, worse, to go to prostitution by reason of the invention 
 of these machines. (Applause.) In these matters it is 
 necessary to speak out. We Socialists do not blink the 
 question. We go to the roots of the society we see around 
 us. That is not all. Taking the system of production as 
 it to-day exists, what do you see ? An increasing difficulty 
 in buj'ing what you may call good goods. There has been" 
 the age of stone, there has been the age of bronze and the .,- 
 age of iron, but it strikes me we are in the age of adultera- ^ 
 tion. If a careful summary were made of the process of S!.' 
 production for profit under which our present civilisation ^ 
 exists, it strikes me a fair representation of it would be ,. 
 a keg of bosh butter, a bale of shoddy cloth, and a wooden 
 ham, and that might go down to posterity as a fair sum- 
 mary of what our system is tending to. (Hear, hear.) 
 Remember that workmen who produce these adulterated 
 goods have no interest in these adulterations, which injure 
 their health, lower their vitality, and damage the market 
 upon which they are dependent for their livelihood. (Ap-
 
 •8 60CIAI.ISM:. 
 
 l-)lause.) Wliat ilo you say to that, thon, for a system of 
 l)roductioii -R-kich is based on falsifying the very goods 
 which the men have to produce '? I say again it is 
 Mjiarchy, not order, when you use the force of nature 
 to, produce rottenness instead of pure goods. (Cheers.) 
 Again, what do we see around us to-day? A universal 
 crLsis iu every industrial centre. There are men out of 
 work at Shields, and there are many in the East End of Eon- 
 don who are unable to get anything to do, and it is geitir.g 
 worse. That state of things is not confined to this country, 
 but it is all over the world. What is the reason of tliis 
 great industrial crisis that comes once in every eight or 
 nine or ten years ? How do you account for it ? "We have 
 our explanation, and it ia this. We say — and remember 
 wliat is the case to-day — there is wheat piled up in tha 
 elevators of Chicago and in New York. There is food 
 enough in America. Is there no one in London who wants 
 H loaf ? Is there nobody who would give a daj^'s work for 
 some of that wheat in our great industrial centres? Plenty 
 of them ; but you cannot bring the two together. Tliero 
 r.re gluts of commodities such as boots and shoes, and yet 
 there are plenty of people with bare feet who would be 
 glad to do a day's work in order to got them.. Consider 
 what this means. It means that you cannot bring the two 
 KOurcoR of wealth together, the labor and the goods which 
 have been produced. Why? Because the class that owns 
 the means of production cannot produce to a profit, wliich 
 prollt the very glut itself prevents. (Hear, hear.) ^^^hat 
 is the reason, ag.ain, of that ? It is this — that whereas 
 mankind in the factories or upon the farm, and men all 
 through our great industries, are working in social union, 
 exchange is conducted at war; those who take the com- 
 modities after they are produced continue to produce mor-e 
 and more in order to undersoil one another, and the worker 
 has no command over tlie market, tlie result being this 
 • great financial crisis, which throvrs hundreds and thousands 
 into misery day after day. (Applavuse.) We say that can 
 ■ only be remedied as the production is social, so the exchange 
 must be social too ; that the workers must control the sj^stem 
 of exchange in the interest of the whole of the community ; 
 that it must no longer be conducted for the advantage of 
 a class; that the competition for gain .above, and com- 
 petition for bare subsistence-wages below, must fade into 
 a gTcat organisation where both are conducted for tke
 
 SOCIALISiT. 9 
 
 general good. As we are talking and discussing hero we 
 can see very well that the State itself, the organising State 
 of the middle class, has been obliged to come in in order 
 to remedy in some sort the anarchy which exists around 
 Tis. Take the Factories Acts. Wl^y were the}'- introduced 's' 
 I do not think my opponent would deny that they were, 
 most valuable measures, that they have done some good, 
 and protected women and children somewhat. So infamouf 
 was the slavery under ;inrestrictcd competition that it was 
 necessary to stop the degTadation which was going on. 
 Again, people were growing up in ignorance. Parents did 
 not see that their children were educated in any way what- 
 ever. It became so serious to the community — so manifest 
 was it that it was necessary to intervene, that the School 
 Board was introduced, and it has not gone half far enougli 
 in my humble judgment, but nevertheless the rights of 
 ])arents to bring up their children in ignorance were inter- 
 fered with by Parliament, and were put a stop to as far a& 
 they then could go. There is an interference on the part 
 of the State. Again, in the question of employers' habilily 
 for injury done \o their workmen, tlie State again comes 
 in, and it is acknowledged on all hands by the middle 
 class economists, whom Ave Soeiaiists oppose, that this is 
 beneficial to the community. (No, no.) 1 say yes. I say it 
 is acknowledged by Professor Thorold Eogers, if that gentle- 
 man wiK look at his writings. It is acknowledged by Mr.. 
 Henry Sidgwick in his last book — let him look at his 
 writings. It is acknowledged by Henry Fawcett, of 
 whom I will have something to say • directly. It i& 
 acknowledged by Mr. Walker, the American — by all the 
 leading middle class economists of the present day. 
 ("Herbert Spencer.") He is not an economist, to start 
 with, and no one ever contended he was before tliis gentle- 
 man in the hall. (Oh, oh.) You may say oh! but it is 
 60. To go on ; I say these interferences have been com- 
 monly acknowledged as beneficial and necessary, and it is 
 my belief that at the present moment it would be impossible 
 to put an end to either of these measures. I must hurry 
 on. Again, we are no Utopians. We cannot take up 
 society by the root and plant it elsewhere. We have not 
 the slightest wish to take a trip to Yenus, or take a little 
 jaunt to Saturn. We have no idea of that sort at aU, 
 neither do we think we can raise up a little oasis of co- 
 operation in the midst of a great wilderness of competi-
 
 10 SOCIALISM. 
 
 tion. "\Vo have no such idea whatever. Every attempt 
 made in this direction has been a failure, and Ave do not 
 intend to try it again. They were failures because they 
 did not take account of what was going on around them, 
 of having an association which shoidd dominate over all 
 in the interest of all. We are in no sense Utopians. "We 
 take tho history of the past in order to analyse the history 
 of the future. Tliat being so, what do we see in the 
 sphere of State organisation V I have spoken about State 
 prohibition. You see already a State Post Office, not 
 organised in the interests of the workers in the Post 
 Office — for they compete for starvation wages, like every- 
 body else. (No, no.) A gentleman behind me says : "No, 
 no," but I should think no one would dispute that when 
 the Postmaster-General said: "If you do not like your 
 wages, I can get somebody outside to do it just as cheap 
 or cheaper." Thus they are working at starvation wages. 
 The Post Office produces to the coiintry £2,500,000 a-year, 
 or thereabouts. AVe say that organisation should be used, 
 not for the benefit of the middle class to reduce their taxa- 
 tion, but for the benefit of the workers, and to improve 
 them. (Ajiplause.) We go farther; we go to each of the 
 other departments that are used by the State, the Tele- 
 graph, the Savings Bank, the various departments under 
 their control, the dockyards and factories — all these should 
 be handled by salaried servants, but instead of being 
 handled for the upper class and the middle class, they 
 should be worked for the benefit of the workers, and for 
 the benefit of all. (Loud applause.) We desire it not 
 imder the control of a class, but under the control of a 
 Democracy, where every adult woman and man shall be 
 entitled to a vote. (Hear, hear.) This is no control of 
 class. The State ceases when every man and every woman 
 is the State himself — (hear, hear) — when it is the right and 
 the duty of all to labor, and none is able to thrust oS on 
 to another class the right of maintaining them from their 
 cradles to their graves. I say that such a Democratic 
 community as that ceases to be a State ; it means an 
 organisation for all and by all. Such an organisation we look 
 to as the force of the future. The Democratic Federation 
 (whose delegate I am to-night) has put forward a series 
 of stepping-stones for this organisation. AVe believe that 
 the propaganda we have carried on has brought many 
 questions to the front, and is bringing them day by day.
 
 soci-VLisir. 1 1 
 
 Wc sny tlio won: we Lave done has been already to a largo 
 extent beneficial, and that Socialistic ideas are abroad 
 nmong the people at this hour. Sir, wo are accused of 
 preaching discontent and stirring up actual conflict. We 
 do preach discontent, and we mean to preach discontent ; 
 and we mean if we can to stir up actual conflict. (Hear, 
 hoar.) I have never known any progress in the history 
 of the world where the men who were striving for it were 
 not accused of setting class against class. There is cla^s 
 •conflict going on without om- feeling it ; it is going on in 
 every country in Europe, and it is bitter in England. It 
 is here to-day though it is below the surface, but thirty or 
 forty years ago it appeared in our cities, and we desii-e to- 
 day that it shall bo the conflict of argument as far as 
 possible; an organised conflict wherein all shall benefit 
 and none really suffer. Such proposals as those which I 
 have here, and which I have not time now to dilate upon, 
 are objected to, particularly the one for feeding childrt-n 
 in the Board Schools, and every child that goes there in 
 my opinion ought to be well fed. AV'hat does this over- 
 pressure arise fi'om ? From want of physical vigor. If 
 you overwork the brain the body will break down to a 
 moral certainty. (Hear, hear.) So with regard to housing 
 of the poor ; the compulsory construction of artisans' 
 dwellings in our cities all through the country. AVhy 
 should that not be ? Is not that for tlio benefit of all ? 
 Assuredlj^ it is. Tlie small amount of injury which might 
 be done means really justice to the whole commimity. I 
 may have another opportunity of going seriatim through 
 these proposals of ours, but I desire in the few minutes 
 that are left to me to point out that our system in no way 
 hampers individuality — nay, it is the first system whei-o 
 individuality for all has ever been possible. (Hear, hear.) 
 Sir, I can imagine nothing more horrible than to see, as I 
 see day after day, able men, far more capable as I believe 
 than I am myself, crushed down by society, bound to keep 
 theu- noses to the grindstone every day of their lives, un- 
 able to use individuality, unable to use the powers they 
 have been gifted with, unable to do a stroke of work for 
 the emancipation of man, because they are obliged to work 
 in order to keep themselves. (Cheers.) Is that individu- 
 ahty ? It is slavery ; and one of the worst and most de- 
 grading forms of slavery that the world has ever seen. If 
 you go to the match-box-makers in the East-end of London, ii
 
 12 sociALisir. 
 
 you go to ilic north and seethe people iitworli in the luills, 
 or to anj' of the numberless sweaters' dens, what do you iiiid? 
 Individuality? No ! not a particle of it. (Cheers.) Yery 
 well then. We say, light labor for all. Wo know right 
 well that three or four hours' work a day is more than 
 sufficient to cover luxury and comfort for every man. 
 (Hear, hear.) We say that this can only be done by the> 
 collective ownership of land, capital, machiner}' and credit, 
 by the complete ownershi]) of the people in tliis great 
 country of ours. I say, therefore, that Socialism will 
 benefit the English people. (Hear, hear.) I contend thcr 
 that it will benefit them physically — ('-Prove it") — tha; 
 it will beneht them in this wav. that it will benefit ever' 
 child to l)e brought up in full physical heallli, benefit hiu 
 and her to be taught to labor not against their fellows ;. 
 wdll give them an intellectual education, it Avill give their 
 a moral education as against beastly competition for greec 
 of gain. (Applause.) It will do more tluin this. All th 
 world looks to us because here capitalism and landlordisn 
 are more supreme than elfjewhere. They know Uiej canncf 
 move imless we men in England move; they know tha . 
 here is the nexus of the sn-eed for cain that dominates this 
 planet ; that if we Socialists can organise, as we shall 
 organise, a power that it will benefit not our own people 
 l)ut the organised industry of the civilised world, and I 
 say that such an ideal, such a national ideal, to keep 
 before our men and our wojnen ainongst us, the emanci- 
 pation of men and the eufi-anchisement of women, th&' 
 right of those who live by labor to enjoj' the fruits of that 
 labor in common for the benefit of all, and to get for our 
 country the leadt^rship m this great crusade for men, is 
 the noblest thing which will benefit every man and woman 
 that has a part ia it, and v/ill carry us down to posterity 
 as those avIkj worked for the greatness and glory of man- 
 kind and the human race to countless and countless gene- 
 rations. (Loud applause.) 
 
 The Chairman : I now call upon Mr. Bradlaugh. 
 
 Mr. BitABLAUGH, who Avas received with loud cheers, said : 
 Friends, tin- distinction between myself and my antagonist 
 is this. Wt^ both recognise — I am not cj^uite sure fron^ 
 his speech how far we actually clearly recogiiise — we both 
 recognise in any social CA^ils. Ke vrants the State to remedy 
 them, I vrant the individuals to remedy tliem. (Hear, 
 hear. A voice: " Which individuals ? ") I v.ill tell you,
 
 SOCIALISTvI. 1 3 
 
 and I want llie evil of interruption romediod In- your 
 individually holding your tongue. We rocoguise tlie 
 mC'ist serious evils, and especially in large centres of popu- 
 lation, arising out of the poverty already existing, aggravat- 
 ing and intensifying the crime, disease, and misery developed 
 fi'om it. ]\ly antagonist -wants to cure that by some 
 indefinite organisation. (A voice : "Not indelinite.") It 
 iKay be definite to you. It is not to me j-et — (hear, hear) — 
 and I ^\'ill show you so when I follow what he has siiid. 
 I want to remedy the evil, attaching it in detail by tho 
 action of the individuals most afiected ly- it. I do not 
 wonder that men call themselves Socialists. The evils are 
 grave enougii to mah'o men willing to take any naTue tiuit 
 they may connect with a possible cure. What I shall try 
 to do is to show that the cui-e does not lie in tho direction 
 pointed out in the speech wo have listened to, and I havo 
 to complain that wo have had no definition of Socialism, 
 that the two very vague phi*ases which commenced the 
 speex'h wore as far from being a definition as any phrases 
 can possibly be. (Hear, hear.) Unless we can understand 
 one another there is no x;sc in discussing with one another. 
 I shall try at least to make tho position I take cleai*, and I 
 will begin by distinguishing between social reformers and 
 Socialists. (retting the vote for women may be dono 
 vrithout Ix^iug a meniber of the Democratic federation, 
 and there are no political or .social evils which have been 
 ref"erred to in the speech of to-night, nor any one of tho 
 remedies for them, that -were not discussed so long ago that 
 the}" may be found in the old Chartist Circular of 1810. 
 (Hear, hear.) I do not mean that they are less v.'orth 
 discussing now, but I do mean that they have not the 
 newness that lias been claimed for them in the speech to 
 which we have just listened. Social reform is one thing 
 because it is reform ; Socialism is the opposite because it 
 is revolution — (applause, in which Mr. Hyndman joined) 
 • — and that I am sorry to see is approved by my antagonist. 
 Revolution, as he says, to be effected by argument if -pos- 
 sible. Ayo,butbywhatif argument benot possible? (Force.) 
 Ye.s, that is the term. (Api^lause.) Force. Yes, that is 
 the curse, and that is why 1 deem it my duty to be hero at 
 the expense of much misrepresentation, for the purpose of 
 diverting and tui'uing away this argument of force which 
 holds weapons to our enemies, and which hurts and damns 
 oux cause, (Applause.) Let me hero point out that which
 
 1 4 SOCIALISM. 
 
 has been already stated roughly in the speech to Avhieh wv 
 have listened, namely, that no Socialistic experiment has 
 yi-t ever succeeded in the world. (Oh, oh.) None ever! 
 The temporary success — (interruption) — if you cannot listen 
 to argument against you, how do you hope to convince the 
 majority who are hostile to you ? (Hear, hear.) I was 
 saying that no Socialistic experiment had ever yet been 
 successful. Some have seemed to be temporarily successful, 
 l)ut only so long as they have been held together, either by 
 some religious tie, and then they have broken up when the 
 effect of the tie has failed, and of this there are numerous 
 illustrations; or by personal devotion to some one man, 
 and then they have broken up when that man has grown 
 weary, or when his life has ceased ; or when directed hy 
 some strong chief or chiefs, holding together only so long 
 as the direction lastc^d. Then they have only been tem- 
 porarily successful, while they have been very few in 
 number. AMien their apparent success has tempted many 
 to join them, then they have broken down, and I Avill tell 
 you why. As long as they were few, they did not lose tiie 
 sense of private property ; they did not lose sight of the 
 advantage the}' were gaining by their individual exei'tions. 
 The small community owned its property hostile to, or at 
 least distinct from, that of every property around it, and 
 therefore each one knew every addition he had made to 
 the common stock ; the stock was so small that he could 
 count his increased richness. I have complained that wo 
 have heard no definition of Socialism, and the complaint 
 would be unfair indeed unless I were prepared to givo 
 what I believe to be a definition. I will do it at once. I 
 say that Socialism denies individual private property. 
 (liear, hear, No, no.) I vrill show you that it does in the 
 last words which fell from the speaker when he had for- 
 gotten to speak cautiously, and it is not unnatiu'al — I shall 
 jn'obably do the same — it is not unnatural that the enthusiasm 
 of such a meeting as this should induce one not to speak 
 cautiously. I am glad he did not, because he spoke accu- 
 rately then from his own position. I say that Socialism 
 denies all individual private property, and affirms that 
 society organised as the State — (No) — those who say 
 "No" will remember at present I am not debating with 
 them. (Hear, hear.) They possildy maybe more intel- 
 ligent, but this gentleman (Mr. Hynclman) is the repre- 
 Bentative for the moment — (hear hear) — and affirms that
 
 SOCIALISM. 1 5 
 
 society organised as the State should o^yn all wealth, 
 direct all labor, and compel the e(;[ual distribution of all 
 produce. I say that is what the vague words amount to. 
 What docs the collective ownership of all the means of 
 wealth, and of the residts oi labor mean, if it does not 
 mean that ? AVhat does the organised direction of work 
 through the State mean, if it does not mean that? 
 If the words are only counters to jingle in the 
 ears of the hungry', then they are not only no good, but 
 may result in serious mischief. (Hear, hear.) I say that 
 a Socialistic statv would be that state of society in which 
 everything would be held in common, in which the labor 
 of every individual would be directed and controlled by the 
 State, to which State would belong all results of labor. I 
 urge the importance of exact definitions. (Hear, hear.) 
 The gentleman hsljs that he represents a body which has 
 issued some programme. One of the persons signing that 
 programme writes himself, and he actually complains tliat 
 the opponents of Socialism want too much definition and 
 too much explanation of what is to be done, and he says 
 that scientific Socialism gives no details. Dare you try to 
 organise society without discussing details ? It is the de- 
 tails of life which make up hfe. (Cheers.) The men who 
 neglect details are lost in a fog, they have no sure path. 
 You might as well build a house without bricks as discuss 
 a scheme without details, and I object to vague phrases 
 which may mean anything or nothing, and I object to 
 being told that this is to be done by a revolution, to be 
 effected by argument if possible. (Laughter.) We ought 
 to know what it is to be done hy if argument is not possible, 
 and I will show you that argument will be impossible 
 within a very feAv moments. The question is: " AVill 
 Socialism benefit the English pcoph> '? " and by " benefit " 
 I mean permanently improve the condition of, and by "the 
 English j)eople" I mean the majority of the English 
 people. ("All.") I would say "all" if I could, but the 
 man who says "all" is very likely to benefit none. 
 (Laughter.) The practical way is to benefit the majority with 
 the least injury to any. i\jid I object that if a Socialistic 
 State could bo realised it could only be done by revolution ; 
 that it would requii-e in effect two revolutions, one a revolu- 
 tion of physical force and the other a mental revolution, and 
 I will show you that both of them are impossible. (Hear, 
 kear, and interruption.) Termit me to say, even if you
 
 1 6 SOCIALISil. 
 
 are wiser tlian myself, you had better hear me first — to 
 laugh, at me before hearing mo may be Socialistic, but it 
 is not common sense. (Laughter and cheers.) I object, 
 if the two revolutions could be effected, and if Socialism 
 could be realised, that then it woidd be fatal to all pro- 
 gress b}' neutralising and paralysing indiv-idual effort, and 
 I say that civilisation has only been in proportion to the 
 energy and enterprise of the individual. (Hear, iiear.) 
 Now I have .'^aid that in order to effect Socialism in this 
 country — and I am only dealing with this country — it 
 woukl require a physical-force revolution, because you 
 would want that physical force to make all the present pro- 
 perty owners who are unwilhng, surrender their private 
 property to the common fund — you would want that physical 
 force to dispossess them. You say "by argument if pos- 
 sible " ; but how many property-owners are there? I say 
 that tlie property-owners are in the majority, not in the 
 minority. (No, no.) I am not going merelj^ to say it, I 
 am going to prove it. (Applause.) I am_ going to prove 
 that the property- owners in this country are in the enor- 
 mous ma jorit\'. What is a property-owner ? A property- 
 owner is that person who has anything vrhatever beyond 
 what is necessary for the actual existence of the moment. 
 All savings in the Savings Bank, the Co-operative Store, 
 the Building Societ}', the Friendly Society and the Assur- 
 ance Society are propert}. ; and I will show you that there 
 are n:iilions of working men in this country who are in 
 that condition. (Applause.) It is not true that the ma- 
 jciity are starving. It is bad enough that any shoidd 
 svar've — it is terrible enough that any should starve ; and I 
 and one other in this room at least have given evidence of 
 our sincerity in the discussion of this question. It is fron) 
 no ignoring of poverty, of the misery and the terrible crime 
 which grow out of it, that I speak ; but I say you are hin- 
 dering the cure of it to pretend that the bulk are ia that 
 condition, when it is comparatively the few. Property- 
 owners belong to all classes — the wage-earning class aii 
 largely property-owners. (Oh, oh, and laughter.) I wib 
 prove it — do not laugh till you have heard the eviden'ce. 
 Ignorance does not give 3'ou the right to make a revolution 
 In old times, before the science of medLine was studied, 
 quacks were ready to come forward to cure every disease, 
 and they did it with thorough honesty, with tliorouq-h con- 
 fideuce, and with thoix>ugh incapacity. Unless we test the
 
 sociALis^r. 1 7 
 
 sjinptoms we may not agree even uLout the disease. 
 (Clieers.) I say, then, that pliysical force revolution must 
 fail hecause the majority are against you, and I say even 
 if it succeeded by the desperate e]\crgy of those oMiiing 
 nothing who directed it, that then the crime of it and the 
 terjror of it, and the miscliief of it, and the long-enduring 
 demoralisation of it, would more retard and hinder pro- 
 gress than do an}" possible good — (great applause) — and I 
 allege that those who pretend when they are in a minority, 
 that science has given them the means to equalise strength 
 b}" the use of weapons and explosives, which were not 
 Ivuown in other times, are criminal in the liighest degree. 
 (Eravo and interruption. A voice : "Coercion.") I would 
 try to coerce you by appealing to your brains, but if you 
 have not any I cannot help it. But I say that a Socialistic 
 State, e^enif it cnidd be realised by force, could not be 
 maintained unless you make a mental revolution — a revo- 
 lution in which j^ou alter all present forms of expres- 
 sion — a revolution in which 3-ou efface the habit of cen- 
 turies of education — a rcA'olution in A\hich the use of the 
 words "my house," "my coat," "my watch," "my 
 book," all disappear. (Oh.) " Oh ! " you say; but why 
 may I have a guld watch? The man in tlie next street 
 has none. Is tliere to be common lot ? Then where the 
 distinction? You say, "These are details," and I say, 
 Yes, they are details, they are the details that you have 
 not studied. (Applause.) I say that every form of ex- 
 pressing private property woidd have to be unlearned, 
 and for that you must cancel aU your literature, 
 you must unteacli all your teacliers, you must un- 
 educate aU yoiu' scho(.ilmasters and re-ediu^ate them, and a 
 new dictionary will have to be invented. (Hear, hear.) 
 "Hear, hear," yes; but in the meantime what becomes of 
 society? "Will 3'ou direct it? andwhoare "you"? (Laughter.) 
 I object that in a Socialistic State there would be no in- 
 ,; ducement to thrift, no individual savings, no accumulation, 
 no check upon waste. I say that on the contrary you woidd 
 have paralysis and neutralisation of endeavor, and that in 
 fact you woidd simply go back, you could not go forward. 
 (Hear, hear.) I urge that the only sufficient inducement 
 to the general vu'ging on of pi-ogress in society is by indi- 
 vidual effort, spurred to action by tlie hope of private 
 gain ; it may be gain of money, it may be gam in otlicr 
 kind, it may be gain iu the praise of fellows or .sliaring
 
 18 sociALisir. 
 
 tlieir greater happiness ; Lut wliatever it is, it is the indi- 
 vidual motive which prompts and spurs the individual to 
 action. (Hear, hear.) In this Collective Socialism, the 
 8tate would direct everytliing, and there could bo no free- 
 dom of opinion at all, no expression of opinion at all except 
 that which the State ordered and directed. (Rubbish.) 
 You saj' "Eubbish," and I think you correctly express 
 your own thoughts, but at least do not anticipate mine. 
 (Laughter.) If I want to lecture now I liire a hall if I 
 can; I get people to come if I can; I pay for announce- 
 ments if I can ; my private risk enables me to do it, or 
 that of those wlio stand by me, it is the same thing. In a 
 State where the State owns the lecture hall, who shall 
 have it ? May I or some other who thinks ho can speaks 
 Will the himgTy ])ay for the gas wasted on my empty 
 room ? How is it to be arranged ? AVill some committee 
 , decide whether there shall bo such a lecture or not ? Do 
 not say these are foolish details ; they are details of yoiu" 
 . system which you have to face. A public meeting, who 
 may convene it — how many may concur in it — who shall 
 provide the building — who pay for it ? Or a pamphlet ; at 
 present I buy paper and print it if I can get a printer to 
 trust mo, or have the means of paying him ; he prints it 
 for his private profit at his private press. There will 
 he no private presses, and no private printers, no private 
 money to pay for it, or if there be, then your collective 
 holding is a sham and a delusion. (Cheers.) How is a 
 newspajier to be conducted which requires large capital ? 
 May it be conducted hostilely to the State? WiU the St<vte 
 advance funds for the paper to advocate that you may 
 make a revolution to overtiu-n it ? (Loud laughter and 
 applaoise.) How will you arrange for museums and 
 theati-es, music halls and places of public resort? (Oh.) 
 You may say " Oh," but there must be some amusement in 
 life — if you live as dead as the Shakers, you will be as 
 "pale as the Shakers. They are honest, but- they are 
 gloomy. (Question.) They are honest, but they are sad, 
 {ind they aye only limited in number. Now that is done 
 by private enteri^rise. How will you induce a great actor 
 to stop here, or a good singer ? He may get paid in other 
 countries in the world for his private benefit, but here he 
 must do it for the common good. How will you get great 
 iictors or singers at all? Will you train them? Shall the 
 State select them early in life ? Now people speculate in a
 
 sociALisjr. 19 
 
 special kind of education, and incur the rislc, tlie individual 
 rislv, in the hope of gaining individual profit. (Ilear, 
 hear.) If you nay these are nothing, then you have not 
 stopped to consider it at all. How are you to deal with 
 the railways ? I prefer that all monopolies should be 
 controlled by the State, which gives the monopoly. (Ap- 
 plause.) But that is not Socialism. (" Yes, it is.") That 
 is not Socialism, for the railway is not everybody's pro- 
 perty to use as everybody pleases ; persons can only pur- 
 chase the right of travelling upon it for the distance they 
 want to go by parting with a portion of their individual 
 earnings. How, Avhen the State owns railways, is it to be 
 managed '? Ma}' I go to Aberdeen if and when I please ? 
 (Laughter.) Is the poor man who stops to earn my 
 journey, or do 3-011 not think of any of these things at aU ':* 
 Omnibuses and cabs, how are they to be regulated when 
 the collective property belongs to the organised State? 
 How will you got youi- cabmen and chimnej'-sweeps ? If 
 you organise labor, you must pick all these men, and who 
 is to be the " you " to pick them ? How is the distinction 
 to be made between emplo}Tnent on skilled and unskilled 
 labor? Individual effort regulates all this; State effort 
 would crush it aU. You talk about foreign produce. How 
 are you going to get it ? You wiU have no markets here. 
 ("Why not?") Why, if all things are owned by every- 
 body, nobody can sell to anybody. (Laughter.) Are you 
 going to send unpaid buyers abroad to use their great 
 skill without reward to buy cheaply for j'ou, and who are 
 "you"? A\Tiat may the State buy abroad — may it bo 
 luxuries for everybody, or only for some ? and if for 
 some, why onl}- for some ? and if no luxuries at aU, how 
 are you going to get people to act if there is a dead level 
 which nothing can go beyond ? Is the State to pro^dde a 
 private laboratoiy for scientists, and private libraries for 
 students, to give the artist the proj)er means for study, for 
 painting, or for music, or for scidpture, and if not, how will 
 excellence m these be won? Or are these to be neglected? 
 and if yes, what becomes then of the beauty which I think 
 some one near me is in favor of. (Laughter, question.) 
 There would be no encouragement to make beauty. You 
 sny "Question;" but it is the whole question. If you 
 knock all beauty out of life, then life will not be left worth 
 living. (Cheers.) I am told that property is to be held 
 collectively, and one of the points in connexion with tha
 
 ^ 
 
 20 SOCIALISM. 
 
 is tlio nationalisation of tlie land. (TTear, lieav.) Let m© 
 show you whom you have to deal with, then. You have 
 to deal with some niillion.s of people, not a handful, as- 
 some say — not a mere liaiidful of m«i'auders, as some say. 
 For example, you liavc 1,0.37,896 persons in this country 
 holding small plots of land, the hulk of these probably in 
 centres of population, plots from under an acre up to iii'teen 
 acres. How are you going to get them to give it up 
 (Hear, hear.) And ought you to try? They are not 
 marauders. 500,000 of them are members of building 
 societies now, working men, and probably another 200,000 
 of them have been. (Hear, hear.) Are you going to fight 
 them, or are you goii.g to leave them their private pro- 
 perty, and only own collectively all the rest ? In some 
 words which my able antagonist will recognise it was said: 
 "Force, or the fear of force, is unfortunately the only 
 reasoning which can appeal to a dominant estate, or which 
 will even induce them to surrender any portion of their 
 property." (Hear, hoar.) You say "Hear, hear;" but 
 you must use that force against ten millions of the popula- 
 tion. I will show you that ten millions of the population are- 
 in possession of recorded property. Here are 1,057,000 — 
 they represent at least four millions — (No, and cries) — 
 they have wives and children. You do not regard wives, 
 and children. I do. (Cheers, and interruption from a 
 steward of the Uemocratic Federation.) You, who are so 
 indecent when 3-ou are here as a steward on the other side 
 to preserve order, at least set some example. The gentle- 
 man who now interrupts was good enough, at a recent 
 meeting, to suggest that I should have the first rope wheu 
 revolution came. At lea.st let kim be decent here. I say 
 the nationalisation of the land, if proposed, would render 
 at once bankrupt every life assurance company in the king- 
 dom. They have some seventy-five millions invested of mort- 
 g.ige on landed property-. You speak of a few thousands. 
 Why, in the ordinary savings' banks, in 1883, you have 
 1,900,000 depositors; in the Post Office Savings' Bank 
 2,706,612 dejwsitors. [The Chairman here called "Time. "J 
 Fight them ! (Loud and prolonged cheering.) 
 
 Mr. Hyndmax, who was again received with loud cheers: 
 Mr. Chairman, I must confess when I entered this hall I did 
 not expect that I had to explain all the details of bottle- 
 wa.shers, cooks, and cabmen in the remote futui'e. (Hear, 
 hear.) I must honestly say that it never entered my mind
 
 SOCIALISM. 21 
 
 that my opponont fvoukl adopt tliut line of argument. He Las 
 adopted some other lines of arg-umeiit more, as it seems to 
 iTie, geniiane to the matter, and with tlio.se I shall deal. I 
 will commenee, howevin*, by saying- that ho correctly- stated 
 in a (pertain Avay the diiference between us when he said 
 that thb dilYerenee was between the eolleetive power and 
 the individual power, but, as I pointed out in my opening 
 address, when all have the vote, all are the State. (Hear, 
 hear.) They eould elect therefore for certain purposes all, 
 those whom they desired to orp^aniso their labor. It is 
 just as possible for Ihe worker in a factory, in a mine, or 
 on the laud to elect those who shall organise their labor 
 and that they should exchange the products of that labor 
 with those around them, as it is that somebod}' to-day should 
 take upon himself, owning that property, to organise their 
 labor and take from them the third part of the labor value 
 they produce. (Cheers.) But, sir, my opponent said that 
 I claim a novelty in this business. I claimed nothing of 
 the sort. (Hear, hear.) Nor have I in anything I havo 
 <3ver written or said claimed any novelty whatsoever. 
 AVhat I say is this, that we Socialists to-day are the direct 
 inheritors of whole generations of those who have worked 
 before iis, and more especially are wo indebted to those 
 who worked prior to 1^48. Such men as Eobert Owen 
 - — (hear, hear) — a noble and glorious man. He was 
 unable to see the full historical development, but ho 
 worked hard for co-operation as far as he could see it. 
 Such men as Bronterre O'Brien again, a really great man, 
 (Bravo.) He demanded the nationalisation of the land, 
 and denounced the villainy of capital under which t]yo 
 working class, as I contend, suffer to-day. Again, there 
 were such men as Oastler, Stephens, Feargus O'Connor, to 
 a certain point, and many more men who worked hard for 
 the cause which we call Socialism to-day. It is perfectly 
 true that for the organised scientific Socialism wo are 
 indebted to another great man, a foreigner this time, who 
 lived thirty years in our midst ; we are indebted to Dr. 
 Karl Marx for that organisation, but I say that he himself 
 Avas deeply indebted to these Englishmen, and acknow- 
 ledged his indebtedness in everything he ever wrote, and 
 that being so I claim no novelty. Wo claim a direct 
 inheritance, and we stand hero as international Socialists ; 
 beside that international Socialisna we must have. l')ut I 
 am told the difference is between revolution and reform.
 
 22 sociALTSxr. 
 
 (Hear, hear.) The revolution is going on to-daj. (Hear, 
 hear.) The revolution is here amongst us. The very 
 fact that we are here debating Socialism to-night, 
 organised revolutionary Socialism, is itself a revolution. 
 (Hear, hear.) I say that two or three years ago it would 
 have been impossible to have had this hall crowded by aa 
 audience perhaps evenly divided between those who agree 
 with Socialism and those who are opposed to it, and I say 
 that that in itself is a revolution of opinion, a mental revo- 
 lution of that very kind that my opponent says we ought 
 to bring about. And what is that mental revolution ? It 
 is a reflexion of the revolution that is going on below in 
 the forms of production to-da}'. The revolution is going' 
 on day by day ; electricity is supplanting steam, and 
 steam is supplanting in other directions the old mechani- 
 cal powers, and that constant competition of machinery 
 with the skilled working man is producing a revolution in 
 Ms lot, and rendering it more and more insecure. There- 
 fore, I say that is not i-eform ; it is revolution. (No.) It 
 is revolution, and we make ourselves the mouthpieces of 
 that revolution, and desire to carry it out. (Applause.) 
 Again, I said " by argument if possible," and my presence 
 here as a delegate to-night shows that we are anxious to 
 convince. AVh}', Sir, amongst our body there are many 
 men who are wealth}' to-day who are anxious to step down 
 from their position of advantage. (Oh, oh, laughter, and 
 repeated cries of " Name,, name.") 
 
 The Chairman : Gentlemen, be so good as to allow the 
 speaker to continue without interruption. If you take up 
 his time, I shall be obliged to allow him longer time than 
 the twenty minutes allotted to him. 
 
 Mr. Hyndman : Now, with relation to force, my 
 opponent says that we are all for force. Is there no 
 force used to-day at all? (Hear, hear.) Has he not 
 himself been the victim of force ? (Applause.) I take it, 
 Sir, that the foi'ce of to-day is constantly used within 
 the letter of law, but in spirit illegally, in order to enforce 
 the views of the dominant class. (Hear, hear.) AVe are 
 told that argument, therefore, must fail, and that if 
 argument fails, then we will resort to force. Now, what 
 is the i^osition ? We know perfectly well that in the long 
 run, unless you siicceed by argument, force eventually does 
 decide it. But we should be madmen, we shoidd be fools 
 indeed, if we were to-day, when we have the right of
 
 SOCIALISJl. 23 
 
 public meeting, tlie free right of argument, if to-day we 
 were to go before the English people, in the minority we 
 are, and advocate force. We endeavor to convince them, and 
 we say we are opposed to force because we believe force 
 can destroy, but cannot reconstruct. AVe appeal to you not to 
 bring faj-ce on yourselves, not to drive men to desperation, 
 men many of whom are at present living in misery ; but take 
 hold of society around you and organise it for the benclit 
 of aU. (Applause.) Now, I am told further that Socialism 
 denies all individual property alike. "What did I say? 1 
 said, first of all, that we had the right, if we could get it, 
 to the means of jiroduction. Very well, what does that 
 mean ? It means that in place of a class having control of 
 the land, the machinery, the capital, and the credit, that 
 the community should take them. I pointed out how in the 
 Post Office, how in the railwa^-s, how in the factories, how 
 in the shipping, it would be perfectly possible to continue 
 the same system to-day. But who are the shareholders in 
 the railroads: do they ever do any good in the world V 
 They are simply using the labor of the dead in order to 
 get the labor of the living. (Cheers). I say that the 
 whole railway system to-day miglit be organised just as 
 well for the benefit of the community, and far better for 
 ail the workers in this country, than it is to-day under the 
 control of shareholders and Boards of Directors. I have 
 been told that I am lost in a fog and that we are quacks, 
 and a variety of other things. Such matters as tliis I never 
 pay any attention to. I remember, sir, the phrase of a 
 famous Frenchman who on one occasion, when an antag- 
 onist said that he was a fool, an idiot, a dolt, and a variety 
 of other things, said : "I understand b}' a-11 these pretty 
 compliments that my antagonist does not agree with mo." 
 (Hear, hear.) I knew that, sir, before I came here. But 
 I am accused of saying that the majority are starving. I 
 never said such a word. I never said anj'thing at all like 
 it. "SAliat I said was that the majority of the population 
 who had to compete with one another in the lalior 
 market either as producers, distributors, or as men Avho 
 use their intellectual powers for otliers' benefit, wero 
 competing against one another for a subsistence wage, and 
 I say further that when my opponent states that there is 
 this large amount of property he seems to forget that it is 
 not so, and if he will refer to the Economist of February 
 23rd, 18(S4, he will discover that the savings banks are not
 
 24 sociALisir. 
 
 a criterion of tlie wealth of tlie wage-earning class. The 
 return shows that the sa^^ngs are owned by others. ^ And 
 with regard to this building society business which is 
 brought for^-ard, and the amount of land held by building 
 societies, a gi-eat many of those lands are mortgaged 
 heavily to the capitalist class ; and in addition to that with 
 regard to the largo number of owners whom my oppouenl 
 quotes from the Blue-books, I would ask him to look at 
 the "Financial Eeform Ahuanack," and see how those 
 Blue-books have been fudged up, and how a single owner 
 sometimes figures as eight or ten. But do you suppose 
 that even those who hold building allotments are gohig to 
 be dispossessed or injured y 8uppose they get a full 
 return for all the labor whicli they do, they would get in 
 each year three or four times the amount of their building 
 allotment. As a matter of fact the value of the labor 
 which they get in the shape of wages is not more tlian 
 one-third "or one-fourth of the value which they produce. 
 Now, that being so, how much greater return that is to 
 them than the paltry building allotment, even supposing 
 they were not mortgaged back to the capitalist class, as so 
 manv of them are. And again, how in any way does this 
 small ow^lcrship benefit them ? Take a period of distress 
 like this, what hapjiens? Do you not know that working men 
 wage-earners throughout the country are forced to have 
 resort over and over again to their sa\dngs, to sell out 
 every little thing they have to tide over the period of 
 depression? Look how it is to-day. How quickly that 
 property fades away in times of depression. The little 
 they have got together is soon gone, and very little 
 indeed it is, not certainly enough to induce them to 
 reject anv system whereby they can obtain the 
 means of " production and relieve themselves from the 
 domination of a class. I am told that there will bo no 
 incitement to thrift, and that no individual will be 
 interested in doing anything for the advantage of the 
 community, or to elevate himself. Sir, I think I may 
 deny that any great thing has ever been done for direct 
 personal gam. (Hear, hear.) I believe that a higlier 
 end and aim than that really has influenced mankind m 
 every great advance that has been made. (Loud applause.) 
 I appeal, sir, to higher motives that have governed man- 
 kind, not to low personal greed and profit which leads each 
 man to strive to cut the others' throats for personal advantage.
 
 sociALisir. 2-j 
 
 I liave jet tu learn iliat Newton cr Simpson or Darwin or 
 Faraday workevl as tliey worked for the sake ol' individiinl 
 ^-eed or individnal advantage. (Applause.) Th',\v did 
 not ; they Avorkod for the good of the liuman rac(\ and 
 becaus^) they ^\■(n•ked for their fellows around them. Fara- 
 day hiij>self lived on £100 a year, Mhen ho might havo 
 made four millions in his lifetime if he had chosen t-o 
 patent what he did. (Oh, oh, and cheers.) IIo was tho 
 greatest chemical and electrical genius in his time, and he 
 deliberately determined to give up his life to the sciences 
 he had made his own. That has been so over and over 
 again in the history of m.ankind. (Hear, hear.) iUl the 
 great advances have been made by men, even under 
 •our present individual system, who were really imbued 
 \A'ith the collective idea. It is said there would be really 
 110 high education. AVh}-, sir, what education has been 
 got for the people to-day has been really got by the inter- 
 ference of the- State. (Hear, hear.) Even to-day they 
 cannot get high education. Why ? Because the iipper 
 and middle classes have laid their hands on the endow- 
 ments intended for the benelit of the poor, and taken them 
 to their own advantage. (Cheers.) That is what class 
 ■ilomination does. The universities — to whom do they 
 belong to-day ? To the upper and middle classes. The 
 higher education throughout is, as a whole, shut out fi'om 
 tho poor, and I say again that until that organised Demo- 
 ■cratic State comes in to interfere our education will be the 
 sham that it is'to a large extent to-day. And amusement 
 again! It would be out of our proceedings, and therefore 
 I cannot appeal to it, but I say how much amusement is 
 there for working-men to-daj^ as a whole ? How much en- 
 jo^Tuent';' How much can he use his time ? I have spoken of 
 this before, of the individualit3^ My opponent says allindi- 
 viduahty will be crushed. I say individuality is erushed to- 
 day. (Hear, hear.) And not for one class, but for all to a 
 largo extent. There are many of us who are cru.shed. 
 Although some may have means, their intellectual de- 
 velopment has been hampered from their earliest }-outh 
 liy the society around them, for they have not 
 been able to emancipate themselves from these fetters 
 that are around them in eveiy direction. I say it 
 (Tamps human intelligence to be perjietually tliinking 
 whether there will be bread-and-cheese for to-morrow. I 
 savthat so far from accumidation not being made, Avhv under
 
 '2G SOCIALISM. 
 
 every old communal form, far inferior to that whicli ^e are 
 working- for, j)eople were always a year or two years 
 ahead of their subsistence. Is that so with us ? Not at 
 all. My opponent himself admits that there are many who 
 are constantly on the verge of starvation who are yet ready 
 to work. Very well. Then I say such individuality as that 
 means degradation, not elevation ; it means injury, not 
 progress. (Cheers.) I think I have dealt in the main 
 with my opponent's arguments. (Hear, hear, and laughter.) 
 He has asked me to state how a newspaper could be brought 
 out under the new system. Well, what difficulty is there 
 in the organization of a body of men to bring out a news- 
 paper? It is just as easy under any system of society as it 
 is to-day. At this very moment there is being introduced 
 into one of the largest printing offices in London a mecha- 
 nical typc^-setter. A nice result that will be for the com- 
 ])ositors, if there are any hero, whereby a man sitting at a 
 table could play the types into the places it is necessary for 
 them to go into! ("Why not?") I say it is a great 
 advantage, but it is a very nice thing for the compositors 
 who would be thrown out as unskilled laborers on to the 
 street under our present system, but who would be benefited 
 by tlie newspapers coming out with much less labor under 
 the new system, which we champion. That thing applies 
 in every clirection. I say that if Jill are liable to work, the 
 object of all will be to lessen the amount of necessary 
 work, wliereas to-day the object of every class which is 
 living by profit is to increase the amount of work in order 
 that they may increase the amount of profit. But again, 
 and with this I will conclude. I would say, how is it that 
 the workers have got what little they have got ? (" Through 
 Trades I'nions.") Now, what are they b\it small com- 
 numal societies? (Hear, hear.) They are societies in. 
 which the individual sinks himself for the common ad- 
 vantage, and that is the only way in which they have 
 gained, anything at all. That is the best evidence, that by 
 a wider extension of the same system all those wlio really 
 X)roduce and are useful members will gain a similar 
 advantage. (Applause.) 
 
 Mr. BiiADLAUGK (who was again received with loud 
 cheers) : I regret that my antagonist imagined tliat some 
 words wliich I used to the persons who interrupted me 
 before I could get out my sentence, were intended to apply 
 to him. I could have had no right to apply it except to
 
 SOCIALISil. 27 
 
 tlie pcrBon •who called m}^ sontimcnts rubbish before ho 
 heard them ; not one of those words had any application 
 or was intended to have any application to the gentleman 
 I am discussing with. 
 
 Mr. HvxDMAx : Then I beg yonr pardon. 
 
 Mr. BiiADLAUGii : I am told fii'st, tliut I have to consult 
 the "Financial Reform Almanack" upon the Blue Books 
 relating to land-owning. It is hardly necessary for mo to 
 do that, because I analysed the returns eleven years ago, 
 and published an analysis of them long before the}'^ ap- 
 peared in the " Financial Reform Almanack," although 
 that is a very admirable publication. But no analysis; 
 woidd change the fact that 1,057,896 persons own small 
 properties, 852,438 of them holding less than one acre 
 — (A voice: "They are mortgaged") — and when I am 
 told that they are niortgaged, it is perfectly true that, 
 the essence of a building society's plan is that the men 
 who have not got the £200 to pay for their houses, are 
 paying it out of their earnings by weekly or monthly in- 
 stalments into the building society, the money being- 
 advanced at the commencement to enable the pm-cliase to 
 be made. And therefore the fact of their being mort- 
 gaged does not affect the statement I made. It is a lessen- 
 ing mortgage, and more than half-a-million of such small 
 properties have been cleared during the last twenty years. 
 The fact of their being mortgaged does not affect the argu- 
 ment, and if it does as to those who are mortgaged, how 
 will you deal with the rest ? Then I am told that the 
 savings are not put in by the working classes, but by 
 others. But which others? There are 4,500,000 depositors 
 — who are tlie others ? Is it the few thousand owners of 
 capital who have done it ? But you cannot make 4,500,000 
 of them. I will read the figures. There are and there 
 were paid into the Savings Bank in 1883 (not the Post 
 Office) £127,799,536; how could that be done by men 
 only earning bare subsistence '? It is not true. I do not 
 care for the Economist. (Laughter). No,, I have a know- 
 ledge of the people at least as good as any Economiat writer. 
 I shoidd suggest that when you have 2,300,000 persons 
 members of friendly societies, that every one of those per- 
 sons belongs to the working-classes — (hear, hear) — and 
 when you have 500,000 persons members of co-operative 
 societies, I suggest to you that three-fifths of them belong 
 to the working-classes — (hear, hear) — and when you have
 
 2y sGii.\Lii>yi. 
 
 lialf-a-!iiillion of people inemliers of buildhig socirtiea, I 
 6ug-g-est to you tliut liall of tiieni at least belong to the 
 absolute artisaji classes. (Cheei-s'. And I sa^' tliat if j^ou 
 consider the words " woi'lcing-classes " to irieaxi persons 
 w]io exist by the sale of their labor, then the whole of 
 thoi^e belong to the vrorkiug-olasses — (liear, hear) — and 
 although it is perfectly true that the 4,500,000 depositors 
 in the tSavings Banhs may include uiany children and ser- 
 vants, yet out of those ligures I have read to you, you 
 cannot have less than two and a lialf millions adult males 
 — there are more than that — representing at least 10,000,000 
 in po]Mdation. (Hear, hear). And vrhat are tlie ligures? 
 The figures are of absolute savings left in tlie )Savings' 
 Bank at the end of the year — Post-(Jffice Savings' Banks, 
 £30,194,000; ordinary Savings' Banks, £45,403,569; and 
 then we are told that thrift is no good, because in the bad 
 times it is soon used. But if there is nothing, then in the 
 bad times it is starvation. (Applause). I am told that 
 man is blinded by thinking of bread and cheese for 
 to - morrov,'. It is not true. (Hear, hear, and Oh, oh). 
 It is not true. (Cheers and counter cheers'*. I am asked 
 what good these building societies have done. I refer you 
 to the great borough I have the honor to represent. I tell 
 you that the building society plots have removed hunch'eds 
 of them from squalor into cleanliness, and a wliole dis- 
 trict has grown up larger than the whole of the old town, 
 in which men who were dwelhng in filth and miser}' have 
 now by their own individual exertions earned them 
 clean, healthy, moral liomes. (Cheers.) You ask me what 
 is the good of it, and 1 answer you that in Lancashire, 
 ■during the twenty-five years that I have l>een familiar 
 with it, in the West Eiding of Yorkshire, diu'ing the 
 twenty-five years I have known it, hundreds of cleanly 
 homes have sprung up in almost every district — thousands 
 throiigli those counties — and I say that that has made 
 them more moral. I say that while they take no thought 
 of })read and hunger for to-morrow they will be paralysed 
 and indifferent, that they will liave wasted themselves and 
 their lives, and I say that while they tried to surround 
 their wives and childi-en with comfort, and acted with 
 thi'ift in providing for the morrow, they were making a 
 new race which will hinder the revolution j'ou invoke. 
 (Loud applause.) You say, use argument if possilde, if 
 not force must go. Eh! tread: " gunpowder helped to
 
 SOCIALISM. '29 
 
 sweep nwa}' feudalism with all its beauty aud all it.^ 
 cliivalry, when new forms arose from the defcay of the old. 
 Now far stronger explosives are arrayed ag-ainst capital- 
 ism." I sa}" it is not true; in this countiy there is no sucIl 
 array. \,I sa}' it is a wicked l3'ing libel to print it uf tht> 
 working- men for whom I have the right to speak. (Pro- 
 longed applause.) I say that in the struggles in which 
 labor takes part they would injure none. I say that they 
 have gi'owu out of the mad deeds of the old trades' luiions, 
 only jwssible when men were outlaws and had no rights ; 
 and I say the}' rely on the platform to-day, on tho 
 press to-day, and on the organisation of their great 
 bodies and uni(ms to-day, on their congresses to-day, 
 and the}'' regard that man as their worst enemy wha 
 dare put into the hands of the capitalist foe things liko 
 that. (Loud cheers, and a voice: "IJead a little fm'ther.") 
 I will read as far as I please. I have now another. I am 
 told about shareholders in railways, and I find a proposal 
 that they shall be expropriated with or without compensa- 
 tion — (hear, hear) — without compensation, and the 
 national debt is to be extinguished. (Hear, hear.) Well, 
 but you will then destroy every trade society m England 
 — (hear, hear) — every life assurance company in Eng- 
 land, every benefit society in England. Every sa\-ings bank 
 will be ruined, for they have their money invested in. 
 Government securities and in these railway securities. You 
 do not care for that, but I do, for I belong to the Eughsh 
 people. And then you tell me Avhen every man has a vote- 
 the State ceases. It does not. It is c[uite possible for 
 every citizen to have a vote, and a very bad State to be 
 left at the polling. (Hear, hear.) I am in favor of De- 
 mocracy. (Oh !) Aye, and I ask for the vote for all.. 
 (Cheers.) I asked for the vote wlien some of you were 
 opposing it. (Cheers.) I ani told that force is used 
 against me, ancl that I am a victim of it. I do not look 
 much like a victim. (Laughter, and a voice: "You are, 
 though.") No, I am not. I am winning lilicrty for those 
 that come after me by showing respect to the law, and by 
 fighting within the law. (Loud cheers.) And then yoic 
 say that you appeal to higher motives, not to greed of 
 gaia. (Hear, hear.) I do not appeal to greed of gain 
 alone. I pointed out one might be moved by the desire to 
 be kaiown or to be praised, and to deserve it. 1 pointed 
 out aU that in the speech I put to you. It is not true that
 
 30 SOCIALISM. 
 
 there is only tlie gi'eed of personal gain. But it is good 
 and desirable to have that greed if you can make those 
 around you less miserable, less starving with the gain that 
 is won. You say you do not say the majority are starving. 
 "Why then do you pretend that the few take and that the 
 bulk who earn are left without? (Hear, hear.) If those 
 ^vords have no meaning do not use them. You are right 
 to modify them here, but you are wrong to print extrava- 
 gant programmes which deceive the people. Take one illus- 
 tration for examj)le. Here you say that the total annual earn- 
 ings of the coimtry are £1,300,000,000, you say that of that 
 the landlords take £1,000,000,000, and that the producers 
 get £300,000,000. Where do you get your figures from? 
 I find that the classes paying income tax pay income tax on 
 £680,000,000 of income, and out of that these are incomes 
 under £200 to the extent of about £26,000,000. There aro 
 incomes under £300 to the extent of about another 
 £26,000,000. If all the rest are capitalists, which they are 
 not, it would only leave £528,000,000, as against 
 £772,000,000 of the total, £1,300,000,000. It is no use 
 flinging about vague figures and big words. It is no us© 
 appealing in vague phrase to the future. The present is 
 here. Do not talk of organising the 8tate after you have 
 destroyed this. Take the broom and sweep one street 
 clean by individual effort, and do not blow bubbles in the 
 ■ air. (Loud applause.) I am told that the lines and argu- 
 ment I have used have surprised. That is hardly my fault — 
 (hear, hear) — and it should not have been 3'our misfortune; 
 "because I have delivered nearly every proposition I have 
 put to-night in the course of a careful six lectures, some 
 of which have been noticed in the journal with which I see 
 your name connected. But why are these details not 
 worth dealing with? Why do you jeer at the bottle- 
 washer? Surely the bottle-washer is as good as the prince. 
 (Hear, hear, and cheers.) I belong to the bottle-washers, 
 and I want to know how our bottles are to be washed. 
 Then you say, under the Socialistic State a number of 
 men may organise a newspaper then as they do to-day. 
 That is not true. They organise a newspaper to-day by 
 clubbing together their private propert}-, but they will 
 then have no private property to club together. There 
 will be no private paper-maker to buy paper from, no 
 private printer to print it for them for hire. Everything 
 will be held by the State, and can only be used under the
 
 SOCIALISM. 3 1 
 
 direction of the State. You have not answered any of the 
 the propositions I put to you, and unless you answer them 
 I cannot suppose you are prepared to deal with them. 
 (Cheers.) I regret that I did an injustice in suggestin^r 
 that the propositions you jnit you claim to he new. I 
 thought I heard it, and it shows I misunderstood. (Hear, 
 hear.) But I had thought there was some claim for the 
 newness in the speech which opened the debate. ]}ut if 
 you refer mo for your views to Eronterre 0'J3rion, Feargus 
 O'Connor, and Eobert Owen, you cannot unite those three 
 opposite men in any harmonious social system ; the whole 
 of their plans and most of their ideas were opposed, 
 and nobody would say he inherited the whole of 
 their pohcy knowing it, if he gave his antagonist 
 credit for knowing any thing about it. AVell now, 
 I would ask you here, and I ask all who have to 
 deal with this, to consider the question whicli is realh- 
 raised: "Will Socialism benefit the English people?" 
 (Cries of "Yes," and "No.") It is no use saying thero 
 are people in filth and misery, poverty and crime. A\'f> 
 know it — wo deplore it, and to the best of our ability, evwi 
 if wrongfully, we have tried for thirty years to awaken 
 men to the knowledge of it. You say organised society 
 will remedy it. That may be true, but you do nut show us 
 the plan of organisation you propose. You say t'Vc>rybody 
 having a vote they will do right, but I have seen coiintrirs 
 where everybody has had a vote, and they have doii'^ 
 wrong. (Hear, hear.) You do not venture to say whetlicj- 
 you would have private proi:)erty or not. You say first you 
 mean collective ownership, and then say you are not against 
 the private property of these people. You cannot blo'.v 
 hot and cold. You must be for the annihilation of ail 
 private property, or else your Socialistic system is of no 
 avail. You say that refomi is revolution, that electrii'ity 
 superseding steam or gas is revolution. It is a misus.'> 
 of words. New agents modify old conditions, modify 
 and do not destroy. It is progi-ess, not destruction. It is 
 perfectly true that everything which benefits the human 
 kind by saving labor, injiu-es some temporarily at the time 
 this benefit first comes ; but those who judge worthily and 
 widely judge by the general benefit of the hmnan race, and 
 you appeal to the worst passions when you try to escit-^ 
 men amongst the audience who may be compositors, and 
 who may be driven out of employ by machines. It is what
 
 32 soGiALis:u. 
 
 was done in tlie old Llanket-Aveavcrs' days. It is wliat was 
 done in the old days in Lancashire and Lanarkshire. It is 
 what has ever been done by men who deal with these great 
 social problems without belonging to and having their 
 liearts in the welfare of the people. (Loud cheers.) In- 
 stead of making the State all-powerful, I would make the 
 individual so strong for good that the State would have 
 little left to do. (Hear, hear.) Every State interference 
 with liberty is only defensible to-day because of the corrupt 
 .social state which we have got to remedy. (Cheers.) AVe 
 arc not beginning with a new plan, we are dealing with an 
 old society ; and when you talk of International Socialism, 
 llie Avants of every nation dilfer, their wrongs differ, 
 their needs differ, their traditions differ, and their aspira- 
 tions diifer. You cannot bring twenty honest earnest men 
 of diverse countries together in any part of the Avorld to plan 
 reform liut what you find their schemes, suggestions, and the 
 whole of th oir trains of thought are different from one another . 
 'rhen words suggesting force have no right to be used with 
 ilie poftsi],ility of bad deeds beliiud theni. The hungry are 
 ulwajs ready to strike — (hear, hoar) — and if you tell pro- 
 perty owners we will not take from you by force if you give 
 u]i willingly, it is the doctrine of the highwayman, who says : 
 *• Your money, or your life. I will not take your life if 
 you gi-\'o me your money, but I. shall be compelled to shoot 
 you if you do not." (Grreat applause.) I am glad, short 
 as this time is, that at least we have met to exchange some 
 ihoughts upon this question; but when the speaker says 
 tliat two or tliree j-ears ago such a di.scussion would have- 
 been impossible, it shovrsthat he does not know the history 
 of the countr}- to which I belong. (Hear, hear.) Archibalc' 
 Campbell, Robert Owen, Lloyd Jones, debated this ver;, 
 ([uestion before crowds as T)ig as this thirty, thirty-five, 
 .".ndforty years ago, and those who say "No" simply do no' 
 Jcnow the history of their own country. (Hear, hear.) Wo 
 are for reform. Revolution means destruction first. W( 
 M-ill cure gradually. If we tiy to cure the whole immedi 
 atel}", we must poison and destroy. AVo have to deal witl 
 generations of ill and habit that cannot be swept away b;^ 
 the stroke of a magic wand. It wants great patience, grea; 
 endurance, bearing great obloquy. All those who preaclj 
 dass Avnr do not know what life should be. Class war i-^ 
 murder ; class war is fratricide ; class war is suicide ; anu 
 theie v.lio rail at the bourgeoisie may have won the righ'.
 
 SOCIALISM. 33 
 
 by hard toil, in mine and vein, with bar, pick, and shovel to 
 do it; but if not, they should think long- before they 
 attempt the railing. (Loud cheers.) 
 
 Mr. Hyndman (who was again cheered on rising) : Mr. 
 Chairman, friends, and fellow citizens, before going to anv 
 further arguments of my opponent's, I will conclude the 
 sentence which he left unconcluded. (Hear, hear.) Hh 
 
 , says he quoted the passage : " Gunpowder helped to sweep 
 away feudalism with all its beauty and all its chivahy, 
 when new forms arose from the decay of the old ; now far 
 stronger explosives are arrayed against capitalism, whilst 
 the ideas of the time are as alive with revolution" — that 
 cannot be doubted, I think — "as they were when feudal- 
 ism fell. To avoid the like crushing anarchy of to-day " — 
 I gave some instance of it in my opening speech — "and 
 the fierce anarchy of to-morrow, we are striving to help for- 
 ward the workers of the control of the State as the only 
 means whereby such hideous trouble can be avoided, and 
 production and exchange can be organised for the benefit 
 of the country at large." (Cheers.) Now, Sir, I utterly 
 deny that that passage bears the interpretation which my 
 opponent put upon it. (Cheers.) I say, Sir, he should 
 not, knowing what followed, have stopped where he did. 
 I do not think it was quite fair — (hear, hear) — and I now 
 put it to you whether that does not alter the sense entirely 
 of the passage where he stopped. (Applause.) I say we 
 are working here — aye, working every day. He has worked 
 many years in his cause, and I thank him for what he has 
 done. He has done great good — I know that. But I say 
 we are working to-day because perhaps we see a little 
 farther than he does. (Laughter and cheers.) He has 
 spoken of the gi-eat advantage in his own town. I do not 
 happen to know the town of Northampton ; but he has 
 
 ■ spoken of Lancashire, and says the people there are 
 , producing a new race, a race stalwart and gallant 
 
 jS Mr. Brad LAUGH : I never said so. 
 
 Mr. Htndman : I beg your pardon, sir, a new race 
 which should withstand the revolution we were approach- 
 ing. I say, take the blue book of 1875, and let him study 
 the degradation, the physical misery of the popular centres, 
 and then say what do you say of the new race. I lived in 
 Stockport twenty-five years ago, and I have been back 
 there several times since, and I state positively that the 
 people of to-day are punier and more stunted than they
 
 34 SOCIAIJSM, 
 
 were twenty-five years ago. (Cheers.) I say the factory 
 work, as admitted to-day by the report of every certifying 
 surgeon, means degradation to the women and children 
 who work in those mills, and I say, if that is the new race 
 let us have the old one. Remember it is only by re- 
 organisation that you can stop this miserable degeneration 
 that is going on absolutely to-day. (Hear, hear.) Again 
 I am asked with regard to the figures which were given, 
 where do you get them from ? I will tell you, from Mr. 
 Gilfen and !Mr. Mulhall. Mr. Giffen puts the annual 
 income of the country at 1,200 millions sterling, Mr. Mul- 
 hall at 1,247 millions sterling, to which you have to add 
 the amount which comes to this coiintry from foreign 
 coiintries in return for various investments we have there. 
 Now then, in the year 1869 Mr. Dudley Baxter, quite as 
 good an expert as either Mr. Mulhall or Mr. Griifen, put 
 the earnings of the wage-earning class at 255 millions 
 sterling out of a smaller income, and Mr. Giffen himself, 
 only six years ago, put the earnings of the wage-earning 
 class at £338,700,000. When be denied that in the Times 
 I sent the figures to show that he did say so, but the Times 
 would not print my letter against Mr. Giffen. That shows 
 how it is. Therefore, I say, going from the figures, upon 
 the system my opponent urges, the working class get about 
 one-fourth or one-third at the outset of the total produce and 
 wealth of this coiintry, and I say that all the talk about 
 building societies, and all the talk about the enormous in- 
 vestments that they have, must read like bitter irony to men 
 who see 800 millions of their wealth being taken from 
 them by the social arrangements of to-day. (Cheers.) 
 Again, Sir, I am told that Bronterre O'Brien, Feargus 
 O'Connor and Robert Owen differed. I know they did; 
 but do not we inherit the learning of Aristotle and Plato, 
 although they were absolutely opposed ? Certainly we do. f 
 (Hisses and cheers.) We are indebted to both. What I| 
 say is this, that Feargus O'Connor, as I told you, differed 
 from the other two very much, but O'Brien and Owen were 
 both of them Socialists although in a diiierent way. 
 (Laughter.) We are deeply indebted to the men who 
 preach the nationalisation of the land as O'Brien did and 
 as Spence did, and we are deeply indebted to Robert 
 Owen who showed how if the State were to take possession 
 capital might be dominated. He himself did not work 
 that out because he could not, but lie showed how it could
 
 SOCIAIilSM. 35 
 
 be done. (Laughter.) Eead his works any of you who 
 doubt — read his "Combination between Land and Capi- 
 tal " — but where he failed was that he had not seen the 
 historical development which leads up to State domination, 
 ^ but the State domination not under the control of a class 
 J as it is to-day, but under the control of the people for the 
 4 benefit of all. I never said that universal suffrage of it- 
 self would right anything. It is this very mental change 
 which must be wrought, the mental change we are trying 
 to bring about. I say the organised power of the community 
 must be used with the definite forces which now dominate 
 them. I never contended for a single moment that uni- 
 versal suffrage was alone enough ; time, education, orga- 
 nisation, better knowledge are all necessary in order 
 to bring about that which we desire, but you will 
 not bring it about by simply exalting the indi\ddual. 
 As I pointed out to my opponent, the one good thing the 
 working classes have done, they have done as Trade Union- 
 ists, by combination, by sinking the individual against the 
 class which is organised against them. They must domi- 
 nate it by organisation. My opponent admits the corrupt 
 social state ; but this very social state is all round us. I 
 am told there is no social war. Is there no social war ? 
 What happened at Kidderminster the other day? Un- 
 fortunately it was attended with violence, but it was begun 
 by the capitalist. They began by substituting female 
 labor for men's labor in order to make more profit. Was 
 not that class war, using a man's own wife against himself ? 
 (Cheers.) Why, Sir, under the present system a man's 
 foes are indeed those of his jown household. His own wife 
 and children are brought in to compete with him on the 
 labor market. Now, I say that this is class war, that we 
 see the way in which the war is going on, and we desire 
 that that class war shall inure to the benefit of the 
 community and all those above aU who work. But I am 
 ' told that in dealing with these things I omit points that 
 ; Mr. Bradlaugh puts to me. I say that these small matters 
 are as nothing compared to what I have already proposed : 
 to give food to all children in school, to the control of tlie 
 land by the people, and by permitting the whole of this 
 country to be used, not as it is used to-day for a compara- 
 tively small minority, especially the agricultural land. 
 Take the condition of the land. Look at the great Land- 
 owners who dominate over us. Look at the Duke of Bed-
 
 36 SOCIALISM. 
 
 ford and tlie Duke of Westminster, and men lite those. Is 
 that the result of individuality my opponent wishes to see? 
 I say let us municipalise the land — let us apply it to aU classes 
 by cumulative taxation, as we advocate. (CJieers.) Again, 
 if you take the question of railroads and the National 
 Debt. The National Debt was imposed and the railroads 
 were sold to the shareholders by a class. The people were 
 never represented. They never gave their assent to this 
 enormous debt. They never gave their assent to this most 
 egregious monopoly. They have never been asked yet 
 whether they approve of these enormous monopolies. 
 They have never been asked whether they approve of this 
 indebtedness. I say let it be put to them. Let this ques- 
 tion be put boldly before them — whether they are willing 
 to sanction what has been done by a class or whether they 
 are not. That is what I say we are attempting to do, and 
 we shall achieve it. (Cheers.) I am told we are appealing 
 to the hungry. We are not. We are apj)ealing here to-night 
 to the educated and the intelligent, and the men who have 
 something, because we say hungry men make revolutions 
 and riots, but they never made and organised revolution 
 yet. It is the best educated and organised and capable 
 men who have always made revolutions in our country. 
 The revolution of 1641 to 1649, one of the greatest re- 
 volutions in history, was made in the interest of the middle 
 classes, but how was it made ? It was made by strong, 
 stalwart, well-conducted, well-fed men. I say those revo- 
 lutions were beneficial, and I say tjiat such a revolution 
 to-da}^ although God forbid it should come by force, I 
 trust will come with the organised education of all. 
 (Cheers.) But I say that such a revolution will enhance 
 individuality, it will relieve people from this crushing 
 domination of a class, and will enable each man to ex- 
 hange through Government banks and Government dis- 
 tributive centres. Then men may have and own the fruits 
 of their labor whereby they may all benefit. Therefore I 
 say that what we look to is a thoroughly organised Eng- 
 land wherein each man will work for all, where there will be 
 free exchange of the fruits of labor without any profit, 
 and where we shall hold up a really organised centre for 
 mankind. (Applause). 
 
 Mr. Bradlaugh (who was again received with cheers) : 
 I did not gather that the words which were read in any 
 way explained or modified these words : " Now far stronger
 
 SOCIALISM. 37 
 
 explosives are arrayed against capitalism," and I should 
 have Hked to have known, in the mind of one of the 
 signers who happens to be speaking this evening, what 
 that meant. If it did not mean that a stronger explosive 
 than gunpowder was a weapon which could and might be 
 arrayed in this war, then it has no meaning whatever. 
 (Hear, hear. A voice: "It meant moral force.") A 
 moral explosive ! (Laughter.) A moral explosive stronger 
 than gunpowder ! There must have been an explosive in 
 a vacuum there, I am afi-aid. (Laughter.) Then I am 
 told that the times are as rife with revolution now as when 
 feudaHsm was destroyed. It is not true. It is simply the 
 repetition of words without meaning, or which if meant, 
 are not true. No evidence was given of it, and to use 
 vague phrases of this kind is utterly add wholly misleading. 
 There is a respect for law amongst the people now that 
 did not obtain at all then. There is an industry and 
 saving now that did not exist at aU then. I wiU remind 
 you that on every matter which has been contradicted, when 
 challenged upon it, no sort of evidence has been given. I 
 asked who were the "others" than working folk of the 
 4,500,000 depositors; not the slightest explanation is 
 given. My definition of Socialism has not been touched — 
 never even objected to ; yet if it be the true definition, it 
 is fatal to the whole of the argument that has been put to 
 us. (Hear, hear.) Then it has been put upon me that 
 I have said there is no class war. I never said so. I 
 rebuked those who try to make a class war. (Hear, hear.) 
 There is too much class war, and I have done my best in my 
 short hfe to try to diminish it — (a laugh) — and those who 
 laugh are jjrobably incapable of comprehending either the 
 disadvantage or the work. (Cheers.) At least they do not 
 convey to me the notion that Socialism involves courtesy 
 in its communication with opponents. (Oh.) I am glad to 
 have another illustration of the truth of what I am saj-ing. 
 (Question.) Then I am told it is not true what I have said 
 about Lancashire and Yorkshire, but here again the point 
 that I urged was not grappled with. I said the houses 
 were better, newer, cleaner, and the only answer made is 
 as to the places they work in. I dealt with the homes 
 built within the past twenty years [Mr. Hyndman expressed 
 dissent] ; it is no use shaking your head ; it was the 
 homes I mentioned. I said that more human homes had 
 been built and healthy surroundings provided, in which
 
 38 SOCIALISM. 
 
 a man found the opportunity of making Ms wife and chil- 
 dren more comfortable. It is true that there are many 
 factories very bad, but it is not true of the whole of them ; 
 it is not even true of the majority of them erected in the 
 present generation. (Hear, hear, and Oh.) I have been 
 iu hundreds of them. My speech will go amongst Lanca- 
 shire and Yorkshire men who work in those mills, and 
 who will know whether what I am saying is true or not. 
 (Cheers.) In every new mill built in the last twenty years 
 the best resources of science have been utilised, because 
 owners of capital have found that under comfortable con- 
 ditions more is got from the labor, and therefore they do 
 it. (Hear, hear.) Ah! but if that is true, it gives the 
 lie to the position taken. (Eidiculous.) You say it is 
 ridiculous. Your saying it is ridiculous is simply to say 
 you are ignorant of the classes you propose to organise. 
 Then I am told that Trades Unions work on Socialist lines. 
 (No.) Yes, that was said — by combination and co-opera- 
 tion. But combination does not necessarily involve social- 
 ism, nor does co-operation Each co-operative society 
 owns its own property ; each trade society watches its own 
 interests ; and it is because they are their own interests that 
 they try to watch them. (Applause.) What they have 
 learned is that, by the different trades meeting together in 
 congresses year by year, they may not waste their efEorts 
 in fighting against one another, and may turn them to the 
 real utilisation of their advantages in the stiuggle for life. 
 Then I am told " we want the control of the land." But 
 how ? And what wiU you do ^viih. that 1,000,000 of people ? 
 You have said nothing about that. You say that the 
 nation has not approved of the railways being constructed 
 as they are ; but that does not give you the right to steal 
 them. There are poor people who own shares as well as 
 rich ones, poor people whose livelihood depends on them. 
 You ought to deal with details, and if you are incapable of 
 details, you have no right to try and move the people to- 
 wards overturning what exists. (Applause.) You say that 
 you have not appealed to the starving, I say you have told 
 the whole of the wage-earning class that they are starving. 
 You say : " To-day the worn-out wage slaves of our boasted 
 civilisation look hopelessly at the wealth which they have 
 created to be devoured only by the rich and their hangers- 
 on." (Cheers.) I tell you that is not true. I have always 
 claimed that the rich take too much (hear hear) ; but it is
 
 SOCIALISM. 39 
 
 not true that they take all. It is not true that the State has 
 educated the people. The people, in many fashions, have 
 educated themselves. They won cheap papers against the 
 State ; they sold the unstamped press, and broke through 
 against the State. Lancashire men and Yorksliire men 
 ' did it. From Stockport's neighborhood, which you say you 
 know, thirty men lay in gaol one Christmas day in the fight 
 for a free press and to win this education. (Great cheers.) 
 When you used the three names and spoke of the system 
 from them, and I show you the systems contradict each other, 
 aU you say is we inherit all their wisdom. So every gene- 
 ration inherits the whole of the wisdom of the generations 
 which go before ; but that is not Socialism. It was indi- 
 vidual effort that gained the wisdom and left its record. 
 The individual Aristotle who reasoned, the individual Plato 
 who wrote, the individual Bronterre O'Brien who taught, 
 and these men would have been cripjiled and gagged in 
 your Socialistic State, which would have left them no plat- 
 form, no voice. (Applause.) I know, in appealing to the 
 miserable, they may be moved by their misery, but you 
 will not cure their misery by vague preaching. You say you 
 desire revolution — you say you are clamoring for it. These 
 are the words you use. You say: "We ai-e m-ging it on ;" 
 and I say it is the duty of every honest man to delay 
 and prevent revolution. (Great cheers.) Eevolution if it 
 must come is terrible, if it must come it is horrible, revo- 
 lution means ruined homes, it leaves behind the memory 
 of bloody deeds. (Cheers and groans.) I speak for the 
 English people, which through generations of pain and 
 toil gradually has climbed towards Hberty, the liberty of 
 which they have won some glimpses, and which they are 
 claiming still. I speak for the people — who are ready to 
 suffer much if they may redeem some, who know that the 
 errors of yesterday cannot be sponged away in a moment 
 to-day, and who would try slowly, gradually, to mould, to 
 modify, to build, and who declare that those who preach 
 international Socialism, and talk vaguely about explosives, 
 are playing into the hands of our enemies, and giving oux 
 enemies an excuse to coerce us. (Prolonged cheers.) 
 
 Mr. Hyndman: Friends and fellow- citizens, it is now 
 my pleasant duty to ask you to accord a hearty vote of 
 thanks to the honored English gentleman who occupies the 
 chair. He is a man whose whole life has been devoted to 
 working in the interests of the poorer classes of this
 
 40 BOCIAXISM. 
 
 country, a man who twenty years ago took tlie chair when 
 no other man dared, a man who in conjunction with his 
 friends stood forth on behalf of Trades IJnions when they 
 were abused and denounced by all the upper classes of this 
 country. I say we owe him for his presence here to-night 
 and the admirable way in which he has conducted this 
 meeting, oui* sincere thanks, and I ask you to join with us- 
 iij giving him a very cordial vote. 
 
 Mr. Beadlaugh : I have pleasure in seconding that vote. 
 I have learnt may lessons from your chairman twenty-five 
 years ago, lessons which have served me, and I desu-e to 
 tender him my thanks while I second the proposition that 
 you give him yours. I desii'e to thank you who have lis- 
 tened patiently to some things that have offended you. 
 
 The resolution was carried with acclamation. 
 
 The Chairman : Gentlemen, I am very much obliged to 
 3'ou for the very kind way in which you have given this vote 
 of thanks. M}^ duty to-night has been an extremely easy 
 one. As you have seen, the meeting has conducted itself 
 in the most orderly manner, and the credit of it is entirely 
 and alone to you and to the good temper with which 
 the two disputants have can-ied on the discussion.
 
 This book is DUE on the last 
 date stamped below 
 
 viAY 1 6 1952. 
 
 MAY 11 1953 
 
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