British Socialism Part 54

[1259] Blatchford, _Real Socialism_, p. 14.

[1260] Snowden, _The Individual under Socialism_, p. 12.

[1261] Jaures, _Practical Socialism_, p. 6.

[1262] Bebel, _Woman_, p. 181.

[1263] Gronlund, _Co-operative Commonwealth_, p. 126.

[1264] Thompson, _Hail Referendum_, pp. 3, 4.

[1265] Bax, _Essays in Socialism_, pp. 75, 76.

[1266] Gronlund, _Co-operative Commonwealth_, p. 135.

[1267] _Fabian Essays in Socialism_, p. 159.

[1268] _Fabian Essays in Socialism_, pp. 149, 169.

[1269] Bax, _Religion of Socialism_, p. ix.

[1270] Blatchford, _Merrie England_, p. 100.

[1271] Hyndman, _Socialism and Slavery_, Preface.

[1272] Joynes, _The Socialist Catechism_.

[1273] Bax and Quelch, _A New Catechism_, p. 9.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII

CONCLUSION

The leading Socialists claim that Socialism is at the same time a scientific doctrine and a practical policy. A perusal of this book should suffice to prove that it is neither the one nor the other. On its scientific side it consists of twenty catch-phrases which are very effective for propaganda purposes, but which are contrary to general experience and to common-sense. On its practical side it consists of a number of fantastic proposals which are likewise contrary to general experience and to common-sense.

Socialism has two faces. The one which is turned towards the cultured and towards the non-Socialists of the middle cla.s.s constantly a.s.serts that Socialism is a scientific and perfect system of well-ordered government and co-operation, which will evolve order and harmony out of the chaos of individualism and of compet.i.tion, and which will raise men to the highest level of perfection. The other, which is turned towards the ma.s.ses, and which is by far the more important, is purely predatory in character. It appeals to all the pa.s.sions of the mult.i.tude. It denounces law, religion, charity, thrift, temperance, and all existing inst.i.tutions. It preaches envy, hatred, greed, selfishness, violence, civil war, and general plunder. It sets cla.s.s against cla.s.s, and creates among its supporters a frame of mind which makes not for harmony, order, and co-operation, but for disorder, revolution, and anarchy.

The followers of Socialism do not see in it a science. "With the speculative side of Socialism the average man has but a small concern; it is its common-sense which appeals to him. By inherited instinct we are all communists at heart."[1274] The attraction of Socialism to the ma.s.ses lies in its promise of the spoliation of the rich and of the general division of their wealth. It is true that Socialists habitually and very emphatically protest that Socialism is not a system of robbery and of general division. It is true that Socialists merely propose that all private property should be transferred to the State by expropriation--which is a euphemism for confiscation--and that the State should manage it for the general good of the ma.s.ses.

However, that is a distinction without a difference. Property is valuable because of the income which it yields. Therefore it comes for all practicable purposes to the same, whether the Socialist leaders propose dividing all the private property or all the income derived from that property. A prominent Socialist writer has asked: "Is not honesty--the sense of right of possession in the fruits of our labour--the very basis of Socialism?"[1275] Regretfully one must answer that question with a very emphatic "No."

Socialism is not a system of organisation and of national co-operation, but merely a plan of spoliation and of general division.

That may clearly be seen from the fact that the Socialist leaders have not the slightest desire to create a Socialistic model commonwealth, and thus demonstrate the practical value of their highly speculative doctrines, in a new country where Socialism could be introduced peacefully, easily, and without a revolution, where co-operation and exchange would be comparatively simple because wants are simple, the commodities produced are few, and the opposition of vested interests would be _nil_. In spite of all these great advantages, the Socialist leaders prefer introducing Socialism into old countries where the confiscation of the existing property seems a shorter way to wealth than work, and where confiscation will have the most satisfactory results to the despoilers.

We have seen that the various Socialistic organisations agree on hardly one point in their constructive policy. However, they absolutely agree in their main purpose--spoliation. On that point there is absolute unanimity among all the British Socialists, and they condemn State Socialism (see Chapter x.x.xII.) because State Socialism would not mean confiscation and general division. Besides, it would not enable the Socialist leaders to overturn the State and to seize the reins of Government. British Socialism is purely destructive in character, and if Socialism should ever be established in Great Britain it would lead not to national co-operation, but to civil war among the various Socialistic sections for the spoils, and to a series of sanguinary _coups d'etat_ similar to those which arose out of the great French Revolution.

The "scientific" proposal of transferring all private property to the State, and of using that property for the common good, merely circ.u.mscribes the word and act of confiscation and of general division. Therefore we may say that Socialism has no scientific basis, unless we choose to call science a collection of fallacies expressed in involved terms so as to deceive the simple. Karl Marx was not a scientist but a professional demagogue and revolutionist, and his merit from the Socialists' point of view consists only in this, that he elaborated a formula of roundabout spoliation and general division, which he took from his Anarchist predecessors, and gave it a much needed, though rather transparent, cloak of scientific respectability.

Socialism is, in the first place, a business proposition. Therefore, if it were practical, it should appeal particularly to business men.

However, it is noteworthy that the loudest champions of British Socialism are not business men, of whom but few are to be found in the Socialist ranks, but pushing writers in search of self-advertis.e.m.e.nt, whose special domain is the highly spiced and the sensational, writers who, knowing that many people mistake eccentricity for genius and paradoxical absurdity for brilliancy, have discarded common-sense, let their imaginations run riot, and outbid one another for notoriety.

The complaints of the Socialists about the unequal distribution of wealth are as old as is humanity itself. Since the earliest times demagogues have endeavoured to obtain a following by working upon the misery, envy, short-sightedness, and pa.s.sions of the poor, by promising them equality and boundless wealth to be obtained by the simple process of seizing and dividing up the property of the well-to-do. The identical arguments and proposals which are now put forward in the name of Marx, and of modern "scientific" Socialism, as something new and original may be found throughout literature since the very dawn of history.[1276] However, history teaches us that, although countless Socialistic experiments have been made, all attempts at enriching the poor by spoliation and at creating an artificial equality among men have proved a failure. They have invariably ended in national ruin, and have left the ma.s.ses poorer and more miserable than ever. The reason of this universal failure is obvious. Man cannot reconstruct Nature. He may violate, but cannot alter, the laws of Nature. Inequality rules throughout Nature, and it seems as little possible to equalise the fortunes, as it is to equalise the bodily and mental powers, of men. We all are the slaves of Nature. The inequality of natural gifts and the division of labour are the princ.i.p.al causes of the division of men into cla.s.ses and of the unequal distribution of wealth. Nature is only governed by obeying her. We can certainly diminish poverty, but we cannot, for any length of time, maintain an artificial equality among naturally unequal men.

The first duty of the State, as of the individual, is self-preservation. British Socialism, being by those teachings which it addresses to its supporters a revolutionary doctrine in the worst sense of the term, and therefore a purely destructive factor, must unconditionally be resisted and combated. However, at the same time all that can be done must be done to alleviate the distress of the British ma.s.ses, which is undoubtedly very great, and which makes them exceedingly receptive to the revolutionary doctrines of Socialism. As it would require too much s.p.a.ce to deal with the social problem in Great Britain in its entirety, only a few of the most important points can be touched upon.

The greatest scourge of the British worker is no doubt irregular and ill-paid employment. The first step to improve his position is therefore to improve employment. Hence the most urgent reform is the revision of Great Britain's economic policy. Great Britain's present economic policy, Free Trade, was based upon the supposition that Great Britain, as Cobden prophesied, was, and always would remain, the workshop of the world; that other countries were compelled to buy British manufactures because British manufactures were as necessary to them as foreign foodstuffs are now to Great Britain. In 1846, when Free Trade was introduced, there was some reason for that supposition.

Before the advent of electricity manufacturing was based exclusively upon coal. Great Britain's absolute predominance in manufacturing for the markets of the whole world immediately before the introduction of Free Trade may therefore best be seen from the following table:

PRODUCTION OF COAL IN 1845[1277]

Quant.i.ty produced. Percentage of Tons world's production Great Britain 31,500,000 64.2 Belgium 4,960,077 10.1 United States 4,400,000 8.9 France 4,141,617 8.4 Prussian States 3,500,000 7.0 Austrian States 659,340 1.4 ---------- ---- 49,161,034 100

The above table shows that Great Britain produced two-thirds of the world's coal, and the coal of most other countries was supposed to be unsuitable for manufacturing purposes. However, Great Britain produced not only two-thirds of the world's coal, but she produced likewise two-thirds of the world's iron, she consumed two-thirds of the world's cotton, and she possessed two-thirds of the world's shipping. Her railway mileage was greater than that of the whole Continent of Europe.[1278]

Times have changed. Great Britain is no longer the workshop of the world. British manufactures are no longer indispensable to foreign countries. In the present age of steel, the production of steel is the best index of a nation's manufacturing eminence, and how greatly conditions have changed, and are still changing, to England's disadvantage may be seen from the following figures:

OUTPUT OF STEEL

United States. Germany. Great Britain.

Tons Tons Tons 1890 4,277,000 2,127,000 3,679,000 1906 23,246,000 11,135,000 6,462,000

Great Britain, which formerly produced nine-tenths of the world's steel, produces now little more than one-tenth of the world's steel.

As Great Britain has to buy vast quant.i.ties of food and raw material from foreign countries, she must sell to foreign countries vast quant.i.ties of manufactured goods. However, market after market is being closed to her industries by ever-rising tariff walls, and the profits from her exports have been greatly diminished through foreign compet.i.tion. Her home market has been reduced through the decay of her agriculture and the shrinkage of her agricultural population, and it is systematically spoiled by combinations of foreign manufacturers.

Foreign syndicates determine not only the price of British wheat and meat, but of British iron and other manufactures too, and they endeavour to ruin the British industries completely. Great Britain, far from being the world's manufacturer, has become the world's dumping ground. From the richest country in the world she is rapidly becoming one of the poorer countries of the world. Her industries are suffering, and the result is bad times, low wages, irregular employment, unemployment, poverty, and distress. It is noteworthy that, on an average, unemployment among the skilled workers in free-trade Great Britain is always five times greater than it is in protectionist Germany;[1279] that British emigration per million is eleven times larger than German emigration; that German savings-banks deposits are four times larger than British savings-banks deposits, and that the former increase ten times faster than the latter.[1280]

What can be done to improve the position of the British workers?

Emigration on the largest scale has proved a palliative, but no remedy. During the last twenty years almost five million people have left Great Britain. Yet the labour market is as over-stocked, and unemployment and poverty are as great, as ever. Besides, the United States and the British colonies may not always be able to absorb the vast and ever-growing numbers of British unemployed workers.

Employment and wages depend upon the prosperity of industries, and the prosperity of industries depends on a sufficiency of markets. The British industries have not a sufficiency of markets. Therefore the British population suffers from irregular employment, unemployment, and consequent want and misery; and want and misery among the British ma.s.ses are likely to continue increasing and ever increasing until Great Britain adapts her economic policy to the altered circ.u.mstances of the time, protects the industries by which her workers live, and secures a sufficient outlet for their productions by preferential arrangements with the self-governing Dominions. Under the shelter of Protection at home and with the aid of preferential arrangements throughout the empire, Great Britain will be able vastly to extend her manufacturing industries. Great Britain has unrivalled facilities for manufacturing. Whilst the manufacturing centres of the United States, Germany, France, Austria-Hungary, Russia, Italy, and other countries lie far inland near their coalfields, Great Britain has the unique advantage of being able to manufacture on the seash.o.r.e, where coal, iron, great manufacturing towns, and excellent harbours lie in close proximity. The potentialities of the British industries under fair conditions and under the wise care of a fostering Government are boundless.

Under the shelter of Protection the rural industries of Great Britain may be revived, especially if the British peasantry be re-created. A hundred years ago the great agricultural authority, Arthur Young, wrote: "The magic of property turns sand into gold. Give a man a bleak rock, and he will turn it into a garden. Give him a nine years' lease of a garden, and he will convert it into a desert." Since the time when these words were written most European countries have created a freehold peasantry by buying out the landed proprietors and settling the rural labourers on the land, and Great Britain will be wise in following their example.

The tripart.i.te question of Fiscal Protection for the home market, of an Imperial Customs Union, and of Imperial Federation is not a party question. It is a question of life or death for Great Britain. It may soon become a question of prosperity or starvation for the ma.s.ses.

Great Britain stands at the parting of the ways. She must either protect and re-create her industries, federate with her colonies, and make the British Empire a reality, or sink into insignificance, and history knows no instance of a great nation becoming a small one without the most intense suffering to the ma.s.ses of the people. Great Britain must either adopt that constructive and protective national policy which the greatest statesmen and Empire builders of modern times--Richelieu, Cromwell, Colbert, Lord Chatham, George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, Stein, and Bismarck--have pursued, or she will share the fate of the great commercial world empires of the past, from Phoenicia to the Netherlands. She must either follow the policy of Mr. Chamberlain, build up the Empire and make it strong and prosperous, or that of revolutionary demagogues, who will wreck the Empire and drag Great Britain through plunder and ruin to destruction and anarchy.

The experience of other industrial nations allows us to conclude that a wisely framed protective tariff will save the British industries and improve employment and wages. But better wages alone will not improve the position of the workers. A large part of the British working cla.s.s must alter their personal habits, and especially their drinking habits. At present every rise in wages leads immediately to a great increase in the Drink Bill, and therefore benefits rather the brewer than the worker. "The strongest answer to the theory that poverty causes drink is the statistical fact that as wages rise general drunkenness follows, insanity increases, and criminal disorders due to drink keep pace with all three. Wherever one seeks for information dispa.s.sionately, one sees that drink does cause poverty to a greater extent, overwhelmingly so, than that poverty causes drink. Poverty is due to intemperance in varying degrees from twenty-five to fifty-one per cent, of cases and areas investigated."[1281] "The Committee on Physical Deterioration in 1904 declared that if the drink question were removed three-fourths of the difficulty with regard to poverty and deterioration would disappear with it."[1282] The drinking section of the working cla.s.s spends _18l. 15s. 4d._ per family on drink,[1283]

a sum much larger than that spent on rent. "There are two great causes of physical deterioration--these are dirt and drink. The former is responsible for nearly every form of disease. The latter is the direct cause of the vast number of defects."[1284] "The most urgently needed public health reform of the present day is not so much one of environment as one of personal life."[1285]

Many British workmen are incredibly wasteful. When one visits public-houses and working-men's clubs, when one goes to racecourses, football or other matches, and music-halls, the British workers seem to be the richest in the world. When one looks at their homes, their clothes, and especially their savings, they seem to be the poorest in the world. British working men drink, waste, and gamble to a much greater extent than foreign working men. Therefore not only the higher paid American workers, but also the lower paid French, German, and Swiss workers, are better housed, better clothed, and better fed--and are therefore better off and healthier--than British workers.[1286]

Besides, as their savings are much larger they are better able to stand a short spell of ill-luck or of bad times. Whether a working man is prosperous or poor, happy or unhappy, depends--under fair conditions of employment, which Protection should create--perhaps more on his personal habits and on those of his wife than on the actual amount he receives in wages. Social reform, to be effective, must be a.s.sisted in the home. The worker must aid the social reformer. Outside a.s.sistance alone will little benefit wasteful and improvident men who refuse to help themselves.

FOOTNOTES:

[1274] Keir Hardie, _From Serfdom to Socialism_, pp. 33, 34.