Socialism and Democracy in Europe Part 22

William Morris, uncompromising dogmatist, inveighed against the Whigs in 1886 as "the Harlequins of Reaction." Democracy was his ideal of government, and he was not entirely averse to political action on the part of Socialists. "To capture Parliament, and turn it into a popular but const.i.tutional a.s.sembly, is, I must conclude, the aspiration of the genuine democrats wherever they may be found."

But he was wary of compromise. "Some democrats take up actual pieces of Socialism, the nationalization of land, or of railways, or c.u.mulative taxation of incomes, or limiting the right of inheritance, or new patent laws, or the restriction by law of the day's labor....

All this I admit and say is a hopeful sign, and yet once again I say there is a snare in it.... A snake lies lurking in the gra.s.s." "Those who think they can deal with our present system in this piecemeal way very much underrate the strength of the tremendous organization under which we live, and which appoints to each of us his place, and, if we do not choose to fit it, grinds us down until we do."[22]

Morris' advice, "Beware the Whigs," was uttered at a time when the leader of that party, Gladstone, was beginning to see that the chief event of the century would be the merging of the social question with politics. The "piecemeal" method that Morris decried became the actual method of Parliamentary activity as soon as a new party, a third party, arose and drew its inspiration from the working cla.s.ses.

Such a party was antic.i.p.ated. Lord Rosebery said in 1894: "I am certain there is a party in this country, unnamed as yet, that is disconnected with any existing political organization--a party that is inclined to say, 'A plague on both your houses, a plague on all your politics, a plague on all your unending discussions that yield so little fruit.'"[23] And the same year John (now Lord) Morley prophesied: "Now I dare say the time may come, it may come sooner than some think, when the Liberal Party will be transformed or superseded by some new party."[24] And Professor Dicey, over a decade ago, spoke of the waning orthodoxy of Liberalism and its rapid merging into Socialism.

The "piecemeal" party of Morris, the "transformed" party of Morley, the radicalized party of Dicey, is the Liberal Party of to-day. The "unnamed" party of Rosebery is the Labor Party, which not only says, "A plague upon all your discussions," but, "A plague upon all your fine-spun theories of cla.s.s war--it's results we want."

Before detailing some of the significant acts of this new democratic coalition, it should be added that the motive of the Liberal Party has not been unmixed with politics. The Labor Party possesses not only the 30 or 40 votes in the House of Commons; there are hundreds of thousands of labor votes outside. This background of silent, vigilant voters forms the greatest force of the Labor Party. Many Liberal members hold their seats by its favor.

There are in both the great parties men with strong sympathies for the labor ideal. In fact, a number of Socialists are sitting with the Liberals. There is no clear demarcation. It is only a difference of the degree of infusion.

The Labor Party has had a strong influence upon the House of Commons.

For many years the "Government" has ruled quite arbitrarily. When there are only two parties this is possible. But when an influential third party appears on the scene, government by the "front benchers"

must be moderated.[25]

The "cross benchers" have wrested a good deal of power from the leaders. This is necessary in a democracy which is kept alive only by contact with the people. There is more government by the Commons, and less government by the ministry. This _entente_ can degenerate into Parliamentary tyranny if it wishes. It can demand the cloture, as well as open the valves of useless debate. But an arbitrary act unsanctioned by the cross benchers would be likely to bring destruction upon the government that perpetrated it.

VI

A review of the Acts of Parliament since the Liberal-Labor coalition and a perusal of the debates are convincing proof of the character of the new legislation and the opinions that prompt it. We must confine ourselves to a few types of this legislation, enough to show the actual changes now in process.

The first bill introduced by the Labor Party, and enacted into law, authorized the providing of meals for poor children in the schools. It does not make this compulsory, but under its sanction in 1909 over $670,000 were spent in providing over 16,000,000 meals. Nearly half of these were in London.[26] This law is especially a.s.sailed by the anti-Socialists. They claim its administration has been too lenient, not discriminating between the needy and those capable of self-help.

It is only the entering wedge of Socialism, they say; it is only a step from feeding the child to clothing him, and from feeding and clothing the child to caring for the parent. They recall that Sidney Webb has often said that if the city furnishes water free to its citizens it should be able to furnish milk as well.

The second bill introduced by the Labor Party was the Trades Dispute Act. This was framed to annul the Taff Vale decision, making the unions immune from suits for tortious acts and providing an elaborate system of arbitrating labor disputes. The provisions of this act were tested by two railway crises. In 1907 the railway employees threatened to go out on strike. Lloyd George, then president of the Board of Trade, averted the strike by enlisting all the power of the government in persuading the companies and the men to agree to a scheme of arbitration. This was to last a stipulated term of years, but before the time had elapsed the men actually struck (1911), and for a week the country was in a panic. Lloyd George, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, again used all the power of the government to bring peace, and a commission was appointed to investigate the grievances of the men, who had agreed to abide by its decision. In this way the government has become the most active force in settling labor disputes--a subject that was formerly left to the two parties of the labor contract.

A Workman's Compensation Act and an Old-Age Pension Act soon followed.

The latter provides a pension for all workmen who are 70 years old.

Unlike the German act, the government provides all the funds. In 1909 the Labor Exchange Act empowered the Board of Trade to establish labor exchanges. These have been established in every city. At first there was some friction with the unions because "blacklegs" were a.s.signed to places. But since union men have been invited to sit on the local governing committees, things are running smoother.

There are three laws which show the trend of the changing relation of the state to property.

The Development Act of 1909 provides for the appointment of five commissioners, upon whose recommendation the Treasury advances money to any governmental department or public authority or university or a.s.sociation of persons for the purpose of aiding agriculture and rural industries of all sorts; the reclamation of drainage lands and of forests; the general improvement of rural transportation, including the building of "light railways"; the construction and improvement of harbors; the improvement of inland navigation, including the building of ca.n.a.ls; and the development and improvement of fisheries. This law endows the government with the necessary authority for the absorption of virtually all the internal means of communication except the trunk railways, and extends the paternal arm of the government over agriculture and the fisheries and subsidiary industries.[27] The first report of the commission, 1910-11, indicates that work under this law has begun in earnest. A comprehensive plan of regeneration, embracing the entire kingdom and based on adequate surveys, is outlined. One of the interesting features of the plan is the proposal to do as much of the work as possible by direct labor rather than by compet.i.tive bidding. The commission wants to make sure "that the funds shall not go into the pockets of private individuals."[28] Under an enthusiastic commission there will be practically no limit to the influence of this law.

Two other acts are closely allied with this scheme: the Small Holdings Act of 1908, and the Housing and Town Planning Act of 1909. The Small Holdings Act gives authority to county councils to "provide small holdings for persons who desire to buy or lease and will themselves cultivate the holdings." This provision is extended to borough, urban, district, and parish councils. These authorities may purchase such lands "whether situate within or without their county."

The Town Planning Act gives cities and towns the power to purchase land and allot it, to tear down undesirable buildings, to co-operate with any workingman's a.s.sociation for improving and erecting dwellings, and to buy the necessary land for making improvements of all kinds. John Burns, who stood sponsor for this bill, explained that it gave complete authority to local governing bodies "to make a city healthful and a city beautiful."

Following the British habit, work has very cautiously begun under these acts. Up to December, 1910, about 28,000 acres were purchased or leased under the allotment act, and sublet to 100,498 individual tenants. "Town planning" has progressed rapidly, and the regeneration of the British slums, the most dismal in the world, may be not far distant.[29]

Under the Small Holdings Act there were, up to December, 1910, nearly 31,000 applicants, asking for over 500,000 acres. Only one-fifth of this amount was acquired, for 7,000 holders. Thirty per cent. of the applicants are agricultural laborers, and the majority of the others are drawn from the rural population who have some small business or trade in the villages and wish a plot of land for a garden. This "often makes the difference between a bare subsistence and comparative prosperity."[30]

These laws show the drift of the current. The question of the nationalization of railways has been the subject of Parliamentary inquiry, and the great railway strike of 1911 emphasized the matter profoundly. The state in 1911 completed the taking over of all the telephone lines; it conducts an extensive postal savings bank and a parcels post.

In local affairs some British cities are models of munic.i.p.al enterprise. Even London, that amorphous ma.s.s of human misery and opulence, is changing its aspect. Since the granting of munic.i.p.al home rule it has built a vast system of street railways, cleaned out acres of slums, opened breathing s.p.a.ces, built tenements, and in many other ways displayed evidences of an awakening civic consciousness.

Three other pieces of legislation must be described more in detail, because they are more revolutionary, far-reaching, and democratic than anything attempted by the British nation since the days of the Reform Bill.

First is the famous "Budget" of Lloyd George. When this virile Welshman became Chancellor of the Exchequer he cast his budget in the mold of his social theories. He said: "Personally, I look on the Budget as a part only of a comprehensive scheme of fiscal and social reform: the setting up of a great insurance scheme for the unemployed and for the sick and infirm, and the creation, through the development bill, of the machinery for the regeneration of rural life."[31]

The land system of England is feudal. Tenure still legally exists.

There still clings the flavor of social and political distinction to fee simple. This the landowners have fortified against all the changes that industrialism has wrought. There has been no general land apprais.e.m.e.nt since the Pilgrims landed at the new Plymouth. The "land monopoly" successfully resisted every attack until the famous budget of 1908. Chiozza Money quotes John Bateman's a.n.a.lysis of the "New Domesday Book," fixing the ownership of land in England and Wales as follows:[32]

In 1883, in the United Kingdom, there was a total area of 77,000,000 acres; of this 40,426,000 acres were owned by 2,500 persons. "While the total income of the nation is 1,840,000,000, the landowners take 106,000,000 as land rent."[33] England is a great industrial and commercial nation living on leased land.

The development of the industrial towns has enormously multiplied the value of some of these vast estates.[34]

The new budget proposed, first, to tax the land values; not a fict.i.tious sum, or the value of the land with improvements, but the site value--the increment value with which the land is endowed because of its favorable location. Second, to this was added a 10 per cent.

reversion duty. Third, a tax was levied on undeveloped land held for speculative purposes. And, fourth, a 5 per cent. tax on mineral rights was a.s.sessed on the owners of the land that contained the mines.

These proposals raised a storm. They aimed at the traditional stronghold of English aristocracy. The budget pa.s.sed the House of Commons by a large majority; the Lords rejected it. The government promptly prorogued Parliament and went before the people. And what was at first only an attack upon hereditary rights in land became an attack also upon hereditary rights in politics. The House of Lords became an issue as well as the budget. After a fiery and furious campaign, in which Socialists and Laborites joined Radicals and Liberals, the budget won by a safe majority.[35] The Lords pa.s.sed the measure. But this resistance cost them dear. One of the first prerogatives established by the House of Commons was the right to control the purse-strings of the kingdom. Custom has given the sanction of const.i.tutionality to this prerogative. And the Lords, in first denying and then delaying the budget, laid themselves open to the charge of "hereditary arrogance" and "unconst.i.tutionalism."

After the pa.s.sage of the budget there followed six months of conference between the two front benches, to find a basis of reform for the House of Lords upon which all could unite. When it became evident that this was impossible, the government again prorogued Parliament and went to the people for a mandate on the question of "reforming the Lords." The Liberals and their allies were, for a third time, returned to power, and in February, 1911, the Prime Minister, Mr. Asquith, introduced his "Parliament Bill," taking from the House of Lords the power to amend a money bill so as to change its character. If any other bill pa.s.sed by the Commons is rejected by the Lords, the Commons can pa.s.s it over their veto; and if this is done in three consecutive sessions of the same Parliament--provided two years elapse between the introduction of the bill and its third rejection by the Lords--it becomes a law. The law is intended as a preliminary measure. The preamble states that it is the intention of the government to provide for a second chamber "const.i.tuted on a popular instead of hereditary basis." The bill was so amended by the Lords as to change its character and returned to the Commons. The Prime Minister then informed the leaders of the opposition that the King, "upon the advice of his ministers," had consented to create enough peers to insure the pa.s.sage of the bill in its original form. Rather than have their house enc.u.mbered by 400 new peers, the Lords gave a reluctant consent to the measure that virtually destroyed the bicameral system in England.

This profound const.i.tutional change, that practically makes England a representative democracy pure and simple, was unaccompanied by any of those popular and spectacular demonstrations one naturally expects to see on such occasions. The debate in both houses rarely touched the pinnacle of excitement, its fervor was partisan rather than patriotic.[36]

In 1832, when the hereditary peers stood in the way of the Reform Bill, which had pa.s.sed the Commons by only one majority, the populace rose _en ma.s.se_, surged through the streets of the capital, and threatened the King and his Iron Duke,--whose statue now adorns every available square in the city,--and made it known that their wishes must be respected. To-day the people, secure in the knowledge of their supremacy, scarcely notice the efforts of the opposition, in its attempts to bolster the falling walls of hereditary prerogative in representative government. So far has England a.s.sumed the air of democracy.

The third piece of legislation, to which allusion has been made, indicates the direction that this democracy is taking. It is the Insurance Bill, also introduced by Lloyd George, and pa.s.sed in December, 1911. It insures the working population against "sickness and breakdown." It is planned to follow up the law with insurance against non-employment. The law is of especial interest to Americans, because it adapts the principle of the German system to the Anglo-Saxon's traditional aversion to state bureaucracy. It commands a compulsory contribution from employer and employee, supplemented by state grants. These funds are not administered by the state, but by "Friendly Societies" (insurance orders organized by the unions) and other benevolent organizations of workingmen now in existence. These are democratic, voluntary organizations. Where no such organizations exist, the post-office administers the fund.

The keynote of this law is the prevention of invalidity. Its details are largely based upon the reports of the Royal Poor Law Commissioners, 1905-9. The commission made two voluminous reports; Mrs. Sidney Webb, a member of the commission, prepared the minority report.[37]

The Labor Party, in all of these measures, voted with the Liberals.

The Insurance Bill was denounced by the most radical Laborites on the ground that labor was charged with contributing to the fund, and that the bill was inadequate. But the majority of the delegation voted for the measure.

VII

Enough has now been said to indicate the changes in economic and social legislation that are being brought about in England by the coalition of Socialists and Liberals.[38] The causes for this change cannot be laid to Socialism alone. Socialism is an effect quite as much as a cause; it is the result of industrial conditions, as well as the prompter of changes. The permeation of the working cla.s.ses with the principles of state aid; the spread of discontent; the lure of better days; all deepened and emphasized by the poverty of the Island, are the sources of this Social Democratic current. This has led, first, to the unification of the several Socialist groups; secondly, to the coalescing of labor union and Socialist ambitions into the Labor Party; thirdly, to an effective co-operation between the Labor Party and the Liberal-Radicals.

Sagacious Socialists saw this trend long ago. In 1888 Sidney Webb appealed to the Liberals to espouse the cause of labor. He pointed out the inevitable, and it has happened.[39]

Two questions naturally arise: First, how far will this movement toward Social Democracy go? Second, how long will the Labor Party hold together and prompt the action of the Liberals and Radicals in social legislation?

The first question is not merely conjectural. The Reform Bill now (1912) prepared by the government will destroy the last vestige of property qualifications for voting. It will destroy plural voting, which now allows a freeholder to vote in every district where he holds land. In some districts the absentee voters hold the balance of power.[40] Votes for women are also promised. This increased electorate will not be conservative in its convictions. Along with this will come the abolishing of the custom that compels candidates to bear the election expenses; the payment of members of Parliament has already begun; the lure of office is no longer a will-o'-the-wisp to the poor with ambition.

The new Liberalism is, then, devoted first of all to real democracy, in which the King's prerogatives retain their sickly place. As to the functions of the state, it will "probably retain its distinction from Socialism in taking for its chief test of policy the freedom of the individual citizen rather than the strength of the state, though the antagonism of the two standpoints may tend to disappear in the light of progressive experience."[41]

As to property, it will probably continue to make unearned increments and incomes bear the burden of social reform; create a business democracy for running the public utilities, leaving more or less unhampered the fields of legitimate industrial opportunity. "Property is not an absolute right of the individual owner which the state is bound to maintain at his behest. On the contrary, the state on its side is justified in examining the rights which he may claim, and criticising them; seeing it is by the force of the state and at its expense that all such rights are maintained."[42] This, the well-considered opinion of a well-known scholar, may be properly taken as the gauge of present-day English Radical sentiment on the inviolability of property rights.

As to the second question: How long will the coalition hang together?

the Socialists are now (1912) showing signs of restiveness. The old question, that has rent all Socialists in all countries, and always will, because Socialism is a wide-spreading and vague generalization, has arisen among these practical Englishmen. In the convention of the I.L.P., 1910, there was a prolonged discussion on the policy of the party in its relation to other parties. "The Labor Party should stand for labor, not for Liberalism," was the complaint. Keir Hardie suggested that they were not in Parliament to keep governments in office or to turn them out, but "to organize the working cla.s.ses into a great independent political power, to fight for the coming of Socialism."[43] A resolution objecting to members of the party "appearing on platforms alongside Liberal and Tory capitalists and landlords," was defeated by a large majority.[44]

In the House of Commons clashes are not infrequent between the Laborites and the Liberals. Annually the labor members move an amendment to the Address of the Crown, asking for a bill "to establish the right to work by placing upon the state the responsibility of directly providing employment or maintenance for the genuinely unemployed."[45] John Burns opposed their amendment in 1911, in a brilliant and vehement speech, not so much because the government was opposed to the principle, but for the political reason that the government was not ready to bring in a bill of its own, which should be a part of its comprehensive system of social reform.[46]