Chapter XIII: Recent Progress of Socialism

During recent years the organised socialism has made notable progress in nearly all parts of Europe. The German working men still continue to form the vanguard of the proletariat of the world. At the general election of 1893 the Social Democrats polled 1,786,000 votes, which was an increase of nearly 360,000 on the large figures of 1890. At the general election of 1898 the Social Democratic vote rose to about 2,100,000. Their seats in the Reichstag increased from 48 to 56, out of a total of 397.

There is no change to record in the principles of this powerful party. Its tactics, while remaining essentially the same, naturally vary to some degree according to circumstances. It adheres to the Erfurt programme. Its single-minded aim is the advocacy and promotion of the interests and ideals of the working class of Germany without compromise and without alliance with other parties, though it is ready to co-operate with them in particular questions. The party consistently refuses to vote for the imperial budgets, not only because they are designed for the support of militarism, but because they are so largely made up of indirect taxes that throw an unfair burden on the poorer classes. To the high tariff, which, after long discussion, came into operation in 1906, they offered the most strenuous resistance. The Social Democrats are also in general opposed to the colonial policy of the empire. They are the champions of the democratic rights of the people, of free speech, of a free press, and especially of the right of combination, which was lately threatened by the Emperor. In all matters relating to factory legislation and the better protection of the working class in its daily life and vocation they are forward both to make suggestions themselves and to assist any legislation which is really fitted to contribute towards these important ends. They claim, in fact, to be the representatives and advocates in the widest sense of the working class of Germany, and are opposed to all measures which tend to strengthen the class State to which they are so entirely opposed. While expressing a preference for peaceful methods, they still regard as probable a great crisis or catastrophe by which they will gain political power and so realise their collectivist ideal. Such a crisis will, they say, be brought on not by them but by the ruling classes, of which the class State is the representative.

At the Annual Congress at Stuttgart in 1898 the busts of Marx and Lassalle appeared on the platform amidst laurels and palms. The busts of Lassalle, Karl Marx, and Engels were grouped amidst ferns and flowers round an allegorical figure of Liberty on the platform at the Hanover Congress of 1899. It is only right to add that, with the development of Social Democracy in Germany and throughout the world, the stage on which these men appear seems to widen and their stature to grow. Their writings, whether learned or popular, are read and pondered in all lands of the civilised world, sometimes leading to organisation and action, often to latent thought and conviction ready to bear fruit in due time. Lassalle and Karl Marx promise to be, if they are not already, historical figures of the first magnitude.

It is also clear that, if the Social Democracy means to be worthy to guide the destinies of the working class of Germany, it must not stiffen and degenerate into a sect. Its principles and tactics founded on the views of Marx must be subject to continual discussion and to revision. The party is disposed to take Marx too literally, more literally than Marx took himself. They have been disposed out of season to emphasise the ultra-revolutionary side of Marx. We have already seen that this ultra-revolutionary side of Marx was the product of a time and of circumstances which no longer prevail in Germany or elsewhere, or prevail at least in a much milder degree. But there was another side to Marx. It would not be fair to call it his opportunist side. On this side Marx had regard to his environment, as every man must have. Even in the communistic manifesto Marx recommended co-operation with other advanced parties for the attainment of democratic ends. He recognised the possibilities of progress contained in a peaceful evolution. Factory legislation and the co-operative movement in England were not only good results, they were the victories of new principles. As we have seen, he believed that in America, England, and Holland the workmen might attain their goal by peaceful means. In a milder time it would only be consistent that this milder side of Marx should be more emphasised by his followers.

The necessity for a criticism of Marx as a condition of the further development of his teaching has recently been pointed out by Eduard Bernstein, formerly editor of the _Sozialdemokrat_. This criticism he attempted in a memorial addressed to the Congress at Stuttgart, and more fully in 1899 in a book _Die Voraussetzungen des Sozialismus und die Aufgaben der Sozialdemocratie_. Bernstein’s criticism is applied more or less to all the leading positions of Marx, his materialistic conception of history, his dialectical method, his theory of surplus value, his revolutionary conception of social development which looks forward to a great catastrophe as the close of the capitalistic era. He maintains that statistics do not favour the theory that a social catastrophe is imminent as the result of a class war carried on by a continually increasing host of impoverished and degraded proletarians against a diminishing band of the colossal magnates of capitalism, and has greater faith in a peaceful evolution through the democratic transformation of the State, the extension of municipal socialism and of the co-operative movement. We need not say that we believe that these criticisms are in the right direction.

Bernstein’s book made a great stir in Germany, and received a limited support at the Hanover meeting. But a resolution, which was moved by Bebel in a long and able speech, and which affirmed the old positions of the party against Bernstein, was carried by an overwhelming majority.

The abstract collectivism of the German Social Democratic party is not fitted to ensure success among the peasantry. Yet at the election of 1898 they gained ground in many agricultural districts east of the Elbe. We may presume that these results were obtained chiefly among the purely labouring class as distinguished from the men who own their farms. But they do not despair of also winning over the peasant owners, many of whom are heavily burdened with mortgages. The peasant owner is often proprietor only in name, being really caretaker for the mortgagee, and therefore merely a dependent of the capitalist.

All previous successes of the German Social Democrats were eclipsed by the triumph at the general election of 1903, when they counted 3,010,000 votes, and returned 81 members. Of the entire poll they had 32 per cent, or nearly one-third. It was an increase of 900,000.

The number of their seats in the Reichstag never correspond to their votes at the elections. There has been no Redistribution Act since the founding of the Empire, and the strength of the party lies in the towns, which have grown enormously since 1871. Even under the most favourable circumstances they have little direct influence on the legislation of Germany, and still less on the executive, which depends on the Emperor and his ministers. The rôle prescribed to them by their circumstances is vigilant scrutiny and outspoken criticism. They are an opposition party. In fact, they are more and more becoming the only effective opposition party in Germany.

At the Jena meeting of 1905 the bust of Liebknecht, who died in 1900, held a place of honour on the platform beside those of Marx and Lassalle. Changes of organisation aiming at greater energy and efficiency were introduced. This meeting elected a party direction (_Parteivorstand_) of two chairmen, four secretaries and a treasurer, with the two assessors chosen by the Board of Control. It thus consisted of nine members. The Board of Control, which acts as check on this executive, also numbers nine members. Among the subjects discussed were the dearness of meat and other necessaries of life caused by the German protective system, and the question of the general strike, introduced in a masterly speech by Bebel, who advocated it as a possible resource in case universal suffrage be withdrawn, or the right of combination be infringed by the Government. A resolution in this sense was in principle adopted by a very large majority. It was confirmed at the Mannheim meeting in 1906.

The German Social Democrats do not insist on universal suffrage in the hope of exercising any immediate influence on the Government or in the Reichstag. They regard it rather as an instrument of agitation and education. They seek to enlighten the masses of the people, to make them of one mind on the political and economic questions that concern them, to organise and discipline them for the great task of emancipation. Their main field of action is the people, not parliament. Their ‘main aim is to win the whole working class for socialism.’

In this aim their prospect of success depends on how far they can win over the Catholic working men and the rural population. With both they have so far gained ground. It is not impossible that they may in time prevail with both. In their principles and tactics there is nothing now that need give offence to the religious convictions of the Catholic electors. The rural population could be won over by a suitable agrarian programme. In these circumstances the Centre and the Conservatives would alike have the ground taken away from under their feet, and the German Government would find itself in an untenable position. For in such a case the army could hardly continue to be a trustworthy support. The following significant passage occurs in the speech of Bebel already referred to:—‘The struggle in Russia sends a chill into the marrow-bones of our rulers much more than you believe. They have a deadly fear that the fire may cross the border. They say to themselves, if that is possible in Russia where there is no organisation, and the proletariat is comparatively small, what then may happen in Germany where we have politically enlightened masses and an organised proletariat, where already there are not only battalions but whole regiments in the army which consist of Social Democrats, and when the Reserve and the Landwehr are called out, whole brigades are formed of them?’[1] The raising of the tariff has been to the party a most helpful subject of agitation, which they have used to the uttermost. Molkenbuhr, one of their leaders, looks forward to the doubling of their adherents in a few years.

At the general election of 1907 the party had 3,260,000 votes, but owing to the more active combination against it of other parties it returned only 43 members. The congress at Nürnberg in 1908 was notable for the first serious opposition to the rigid discipline of the party. The claim of the South German members to vote for the budgets of their governments was maintained by a minority of 119 against 258.

It was not till 1894 that a Social Democratic party was founded in Holland. It is making progress: in the general election of 1897 it counted 13,000 votes, and returned 3 members out of 100. In 1901 it had 38,000 votes, and returned 7 members, and there was besides an independent socialist member. It had 65,000 votes and 7 members in 1905. An interesting feature of the Dutch movement is the sympathetic reception which socialism has met among the artist and intellectual class generally. It is curious that anarchism has had considerable influence, which, however, is declining.

In Denmark the social democratic movement began in 1871, and it continues to have a strong and growing influence. At the general election of 1903 the party returned 16 members out of 114, polling 56,000 votes. In 1906 it polled 77,000 votes and returned 24 members to the popular chamber. For some time before 1902 half of the members of the municipal council of Copenhagen were socialists. The mayor also was one of the party. Denmark may still rightfully be regarded as the most progressive country in Europe. Even in Norway and Sweden the socialists are gaining ground. They claim to have wielded a considerable influence in securing the peaceful separation of the two countries.

No country in Europe has during recent years had a more interesting social history than Belgium. In hardly any country has the working class endured such misery. Ignorance, long hours of labour and low wages, the want of political rights and of organisation, have for generations tended to keep the workers in the lowest estate. All the more remarkable, therefore, is the awakening which has recently taken place. The Belgian socialist party can now muster at the polls a voting strength of about half a million, and in a chamber of 166 it returns about one-fifth. In 1900 it had 33, in 1902 it had 34, in 1904 only 28, in 1906 it had 30, and 34 in 1908. The organisation of the trade-unions is well developed. But the distinctive feature of the social movement of Belgium is its co-operative undertakings. These are affiliated to the socialist movement, and form an admirable training on its more practical side. The Belgian socialist party is specially fortunate in such leaders as Anseele and Vandervelde.

France, which was so long the foremost nation in the revolutionary movement, has for the last three decades yielded the first place to Germany. The terrible disasters sustained by the working men of Paris in 1848 and 1871 quelled their revolutionary energy for a time. The first working men’s congress after the Commune met in 1876, and at the congress of Marseilles in 1879 a socialist party was organised. It remained a united party till 1882, when it polled 98,000 votes. Since that year French socialism has been fruitful in division. In view of the danger which in 1899 appeared to threaten the Republic in connection with the Dreyfus case, the socialist parties combined in common action for its defence. For this purpose they formed a permanent _comité d’entente socialiste_. Five important socialist organisations were included in the agreement. The good understanding was broken when the socialist Millerand entered the emergency Cabinet of that year. Without going into details, it is enough to say that there have been two main tendencies in French socialism—the uncompromising revolutionary school which adheres to Marx, and an opportunist or _possibilist_ school which has been ready to co-operate with other democratic parties. The first-named school naturally objected to Millerand entering the Cabinet.

Socialism is rapidly becoming a power in France. According to M. Marcel Fournier, in the _Revue Politique et Parlementaire_, the radical socialists polled 171,810 votes at the general election of 1893 and 629,572 at that of 1898, whilst the socialists polled 598,206 in 1893 and 791,148 in 1898. The _Parti Ouvrier_ or Marx party claimed to have cast 152,000 votes in 1893 and 371,000 in 1898. The socialist members in the Chamber of 1898 numbered about fifty.

After 1900 two distinct parties, representing the two tendencies of which I have spoken, were for a time consolidated. The Socialist Party of France represented the uncompromising section. The French Socialist Party stood for the more opportunist policy. In 1902 the French socialists together polled 805,000 votes, and returned 48 members to the Chamber of Deputies. There was really very little difference between the two leading parties, and they formed a union in 1905. At the general election in 1906 it was calculated that the whole socialist vote amounted to 1,120,000. The unified party returned 52 members with 896,000 votes, while 23 were described as independent socialists. There were besides 143 radical socialists.

The radical and democratic republicans are to a large degree dependent on labour and socialist support. There is also a growing conviction that the political principles of the Revolution of 1789, which are so dear to the French heart, cannot be realised apart from the economic principles which are comprehended in socialism. In the great debate of Clemenceau with Jaurèz in the Chamber in 1906 it was no impassable gulf which separated radical and socialist. The former was in favour of a graduated income-tax, the eight hours’ day, and the restoration of monopolies to the State. What we may call the prevailing republican atmosphere is most favourable to social justice and the claims of labour. But it would be a very serious mistake to believe that France is at all convinced of the reasonableness or practicability of the abstract collectivism of the socialist party. When a motion for the substitution of collective property for individual property was put to the vote at the close of the debate, it was rejected by 505 to only 55. As at present advised, France will have neither clericalism nor collectivism.

The socialists form a majority in many of the most important French communes, and exercise great practical influence on their work. Thus they are taking a large part in the national and local life of France.

Revolutionary feeling tending to anarchism has considerable influence in France, especially among the trade unions (_syndicats ouvriers_).

The Italian socialist party definitely separated itself from anarchism and formed a distinct organisation at a congress in Genoa in 1892. Its career has been a hard and troubled one. There has been much discord in its own household. The government was for some years openly hostile. It has been concerned in many strikes and popular disturbances. The working classes of Italy, we must remember, were from an educational, economic, and political point of view at an inferior stage of progress. Between the various provinces, and especially between the north and south, the differences of development were very serious. Italy has had long to suffer from the burden of a divided and depressed historical past.

At the general election of 1892 the party had only 26,000 votes and returned 6 deputies. The next elections showed a rapid increase, till in 1900 they counted 175,000 votes and returned 32 members to the Chamber. On that occasion an alliance with the radicals and republicans partly accounted for the increase of members returned. At the general election of 1904 the party had a voting strength of 320,000, but returned only 27 members.

For some time after 1900 the Government was not only sympathetic, but in some degree dependent on the party for support. As in other countries, there is a reformist or moderate and a revolutionary wing in the Italian socialist party. The latter takes a _syndicalist_ or trade-union form and is largely imbued with anarchism. At the congress at Rome in 1906 a new movement called _integralism_ became supreme. The integralists aimed at combining the best and most effective methods of all sections, gradual reform when possible, but violence also, and the general strike if necessary. They are anti-monarchical and anti-clerical.

The Italian socialists have been active not only in organising strikes but in municipal work and in co-operative undertakings. A marked feature in the brief history of the party has been its success in organising the peasantry. One of these peasant combinations, with a membership of 200,000, held a national congress at Bologna in 1901 and formed a national federation. In that and the following year many agrarian strikes were successful, and brought a little improvement in the hard lot of the rural workers in Italy. It was a notable awakening of labour, in which the party took a leading share. When we consider the very backward condition of Italy and the short period during which the party has been in existence, we must regard its success as remarkable.

After making some progress the Working-Men’s Socialist Party of Spain has declined in recent years. The number of its votes for the Chamber decreased from 26,000 in 1904 to 23,000 in 1905. It has, however, succeeded in sending representatives to a good number of municipalities and communes. The political and industrial life of Spain has been in a most depressed condition.

Besides the Parliamentary Socialism, which is based more or less on Marx, anarchism has always found a congenial soil in Spain, Italy, and other countries where misery and oppression have been hereditary for so many centuries, and which even yet have not learned habits of self-control, of free discussion, and open action. It is such an unhappy environment that produced the assassins of President Carnot, the Empress of Austria, and King Humbert of Italy. Anarchism is very powerful and widespread in the south of Spain.

We may note a rapid progress of socialism in Eastern Europe. Even Servia and Bulgaria have socialist parties, which are affiliated to the International. In Austria there is a numerous and active Social Democratic Party, which has introduced the federal principle into its organisation. It is a united party with a common programme and tactics, but it is composed of national groups—German, Czech, Polish, Italian, etc., each of which enjoys a real autonomy. In fact, the party is an International on a small scale, of which the basis as regards principles and tactics is national autonomy and international solidarity. On the political side, it holds that the real and vital forces of the State in Austria can be developed only on the two principles of national autonomy and complete democracy. On the economic side the party adheres to the common principles of socialism. At the general election of 1901 the party polled about 800,000 votes. Its most pressing demand was for universal suffrage as necessary to the political development of the country. After long debate this was granted in 1907, in which year the party polled 1,050,000 votes and returned 87 members to the Reichsrath. The Christian Social Party returned 96 members with 722,000 votes. In view of the medley of races and languages which exist in Austria, the position and organisation of the party have a special interest. The various national groups, we are told, work together in perfect harmony.

The revolutionary movement in Russia had in 1881 its tragic culmination in the assassination of the Emperor Alexander II. Though his successor Alexander III. was for a time kept a prisoner in his palace at Gatschina by fear of the revolutionists, the movement was suppressed, and for several years there was comparative quiet. Among the innovating party a feeling set in that they had been trying to force the march of natural evolution, and a tendency prevailed to await the time when the economic development of the country would make revolutionary action practicable. Under a very high tariff the industrial revolution made rapid progress. Large factories soon led to the creation of a numerous proletariat, with the usual strikes. A gigantic strike at St. Petersburg in 1896 may be regarded as the starting-point of a new revolutionary movement arising naturally out of modern industrial conditions. A Social Democratic Party, which laid great emphasis on the doctrines of Marx, originated in this way. The Russian socialists were for the first time represented at an International Congress in London, 1896.

Groups of socialists, however, had been rising up and taking shape all over the country, and it was felt by many that they could not wait for the unfolding of the economic evolution, and that in the special circumstances of Russia a strenuous revolutionary action was necessary. Some surviving members of the old revolutionary party helped to supply the nucleus of a Socialist Revolutionary Party, which was accordingly formed towards the end of 1901. There were now two important socialist parties in the empire: the Social Democrats, who emphasised the need for awaiting the economic development of Russia, including the full creation of the proletariat, and the Socialist Revolutionary Party. The first party had little hope of leading the peasantry into the movement, so long as they were not expropriated by the growth of the great estates. The second party insisted on an energetic propaganda among the peasantry as well as an active campaign against the Tzardom and its servants.

Besides these two parties we find in Lithuania, Russian Poland, and other parts of Western Russia, a socialist organisation of Jewish workmen called the Bund. It is the peculiar fate of the Jews in Russia that their revolutionary activity renders them obnoxious to the Government, whilst the exactions of the usurers and dealers of the same race make them hateful to peasantry and workers. The Jewish question in Russia can be understood only by due recognition of both points.

The anarchists also are still active in Russia. And among the peasantry there is an agrarian movement, which may be regarded as the most powerful of all, though vague and ill-organised. As we saw in our chapter on anarchism, the revolution in Russia was an exotic or importation from abroad in the reign of Alexander II. It has now taken root in the soil and very strongly shows the influence of conditions peculiar to the country. Mutinies in fleet and army, strikes and popular risings, massacres, assassinations, conflagration, and pillage seem to portend the dissolution sooner or later of an ancient society and a long-established autocracy. The socialists have been the most active agents in the appalling movement.

After the decline of the Owen agitation and of the Christian Socialist movement in 1850, socialism could hardly be said to exist in England, and where it attracted any attention at all, it was generally regarded as a revolutionary curiosity peculiar to the Continent, with little practical interest for a free and normal country like our own. As we have seen, the English workmen took a considerable share in the founding of the International in 1864 and subsequently. But on the fuller development of the revolutionary tendencies of that movement, and especially after the great disaster of the Commune at Paris, socialism lost the not very serious hold which it had found among the English working class. There had indeed always been a group of men who were influenced by personal intercourse with Karl Marx and Engels during their long residence in this country, but they were mostly of foreign extraction, and had no wide relations with the English workmen.

About 1883 English socialism took a fresh start, indirectly through the influence of Henry George, and directly through the teaching of Karl Marx. By his vigorous and sympathetic eloquence Henry George gained a hearing for opinions which were not distinctly socialistic, but certainly tended to disturb the existing modes of thought. Though it led to little positive result, the agitation connected with his name was really the beginning of a radical change in English economics. A variety of causes, among which we may mention the agrarian agitation in Ireland, and the legislation which was designed to meet it, had contributed to shake the confidence of the English public in the finality of the accepted economic doctrines.

The recent English socialism had, in 1884, a definite beginning with the Social Democratic Federation, which, with great fervour, denounced the existing system and proclaimed the views of Marx. Most active and prominent in this movement was Mr. Hyndman; the most eminent was the robust and genial figure of William Morris, widely known as the author of the _Earthly Paradise_, and one of the foremost of living poets. The chief literary product of the movement at this early stage was Hyndman’s _Historical Basis of Socialism in England_. The organ of the Federation was, and continues to be, _Justice_.

About the end of the year 1885 the Socialist League diverged from the Federation on grounds of difference, which were partly personal, partly of principle, for the League showed a decided sympathy with the anarchist theory of socialism. Morris himself, its leading member, had anarchist leanings, which come out clearly in _News from Nowhere_ and other works. Belfort Bax, another prominent member of the League, has published _Ethics of Socialism_ and other works, which represent the extreme and uncompromising side of the movement. The _Commonweal_ was the organ of the League. The League and its organ, however, did not survive many years.

The year 1884 also saw the beginning of a Socialist Society of a nature different from the above. This was the Fabian Society, whose members were mostly young men, clever, full of initiative, and little disposed to bow before accepted authority. They are socialists whose aim has been first to educate themselves in the economic, social, and political questions of the time, and then to educate the English people in their views, or, to use their own language, to “permeate” English Society with progressive socialist ideas. _The Fabian Essays on Socialism_, by seven of its leading members, published in 1890, a work which has been the chief literary product of the Society, have had a great success. By its popular lectures and discussions, by its tracts and its articles in the monthly reviews, as well as by its activity in the press, the Fabian Society has undoubtedly done much toward the permeation of public opinion with a progressive evolutionary socialism. The tracts, of which there is now a large number, have been always able, generally well informed, and often brilliant. A tract by one of its members on the Workmen’s Compensation Act, issued in 1898, had a circulation of 120,000 the first year of its publication. Important works on a large scale have been _The History of Trade Unionism_ and _Industrial Democracy_ by Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Webb. The writings of Mr. G. B. Shaw and of Mr. H. G. Wells have done much to startle men’s minds out of the old way of thinking. In 1908 the membership of the Fabian Society had increased to 2500 in the London society, and 500 more in local societies. We give its Basis in the Appendix.

The Independent Labour Party, formed in 1893, was an organisation of socialists with a view to political action. It was to a large extent an offshoot from Fabianism in the provinces, and many of its leading members are Fabians. It has kept itself in close touch with trade unions.

All sections of recent English socialism have included men of real ability and culture, and the movement has been marked by sincere conviction, generous enthusiasm, and hard work in a great cause. For some years after its rise, in 1883, it had considerable influence in the country. Its mission was to rouse men of all classes out of the individualistic routine which had so long been prevalent. Trade unionists and co-operators were the objects of denunciation not less unsparing than that which they poured upon the middle class. The disturbances in Trafalgar Square in 1887 made no little stir; and the Dock Strike in London, which was so ably conducted by John Burns in 1889, for a time gave the movement a national importance. It almost seemed at one period as if English public opinion was veering round to Socialism. The reaction which was bound to set in was certainly due in part to the vehemence and extravagance of the socialistic orators, and to their want of skill and insight in adapting their theories to the atmosphere of the English mind. It is clear that recent English socialism has been too loyal to Marx. This particularly applies to the Social Democratic Federation, now the Social Democratic Party. But even the Fabian basis has implications which are ultra-revolutionary, and hardly consistent with a peaceful and orderly evolution.

At the general election of 1895, the organised socialism in England polled only about 45,000 votes. The mass of the English working men still voted with the old political parties. On the other hand, the Trade Union Congresses, representing over a million workers, for several years passed resolutions of a collectivist nature by large majorities, showing that when the man or men appear that know how to give voice and form to the half-articulate or latent socialism of the country it may have a great future.

In 1900 steps were taken towards the political organisation of labour on a wider scale than formerly. There was formed a Labour Representation Committee in which trade unions, the Independent Labour Party, the Social Democratic Federation, and the Fabian Society were represented. The Social Democratic Federation retired, however, at the end of the first year.

The new committee had been too recently formed to take much part in the general election of 1900. Yet it then returned two members, and two more at subsequent by-elections. At the general election of 1906 it had a great success, and produced an impression even greater on the national mind. As there was no definite dividing line at the election between socialism and labour on the one hand, or between labour and liberalism on the other, it is impossible to speak precisely as to the results. The committee had 323,000 votes and returned 30 members to the House of Commons. There was also a labour or trade-union group, which formed part of the Liberal Party. We may reckon the labour members at 54, of whom about half were socialists.

After the election the Labour Representation Committee transformed itself into the Labour Party, and very wisely decided not to formulate a programme. The new party had behind it a million adherents, of whom 21,000 were members of socialist societies, the rest being trade unionists. Mr. Keir Hardie had taken the leading share in the formation of a Labour Party distinct from the old political parties. In 1908 the trade unions and especially the Miners’ Federation which were represented by the liberal-labour group resolved to join the Labour Party, but this decision was not to be operative with regard to sitting members during the existing parliament. The same year the Labour Party was definitely affiliated to the International. It now represented one and a half million of adherents.

The Labour Party, whose origin we have briefly described, may fairly be regarded as a successful attempt on a worthy scale to form a labour-socialist organisation suited to British conditions. It appears to be commendably free from the excessive Marx influence; but in many important questions it has not thrown off old radical views which are inconsistent with a reasonable and enlightened socialism.

What we may call the avowed and organised socialism has made no great headway in the United States of America or in the English colonies. Books like Bellamy’s _Looking Backward_ have made a great impression, but in a vague way. Labour questions have, on the other hand, attained to a very high state of development. The struggle between trade-unionism and the employers’ combinations is carried on with an energy and comprehensiveness which can hardly be equalled in any part of the old world.

Australia has a Labour Party which is well organised and well led and takes a most honourable place in the recently constituted Commonwealth. It even formed the government in 1904, though it did not retain power long. It is, however, most powerful when out of power, as it then holds the balance between the other two parties. The party is to a great degree socialistic in aim and tendency. It was in power again in 1908.

During recent years we have seen in America a transformation which is without parallel in the history of the world. Till the middle of the nineteenth century the United States might be described as an agricultural country, which, apart from negro slavery, had no division of classes, no poverty, and no social question. It was a highly favoured region which to the most energetic and enterprising of the working classes of Europe had for generations been a Land of Promise. The early settlers had in the main brought from England all that was best and highest in respect of character, belief, and institutions. In particular, for the planting of New England the “finest of the wheat” was sifted from the most progressive counties of England; and as the area of emigration widened it embraced the best elements in the British Isles and in north-western Europe, the best endowed and the most progressive in the world. The country they came to live in had resources, and offered opportunities which were almost boundless. In the development of the country from the first settlement of Virginia, there was just enough of difficulty to stimulate and correct the energies of a free people.

A marvellous set of new conditions came into operation in the latter half of the nineteenth century. The industrial revolution ran its course with astonishing rapidity and thoroughness, and on a scale absolutely unprecedented. The Republic now has a gigantic machine industry and a vast railway and financial system organised in trusts which are controlled by a few men wealthy beyond example in history, and it has also got a large wage-earning class, the unemployed, poverty and slums. If the commonwealth has not already become a plutocracy, it appears to be on the downward way to it.

If the wage-earning class consisted of fully trained American citizens, the situation would be clearer. It is complicated by the fact that for many years the Republic has received an enormous number of immigrants from the less-advanced countries of eastern and southern Europe, and has the very difficult task of raising them to its own high standard of citizenship. The general result is that America is confronted with the vast problem, which socialism has undertaken to solve, in its most formidable form. Between a highly organised and gigantic capitalism and a continually increasing labour class which is largely composed of new immigrants, and is only partially organised, a wide gulf is fixed. A growing chasm threatens to divide the commonwealth in two. This rent is made manifest in the strikes, which degenerate into private war and even into civil war. Socialists maintain that they have been repressed with a severity and brutality known in Russia alone. As yet the organised socialism has made only moderate progress. In 1902, however, a resolution in favour of socialism obtained about half the votes at the congress of the American Federation of Labour, which numbered over 2,000,000 members. At the presidential election of 1904 the socialist candidate Eugène V. Debs received 408,000 votes, in 1908 he had 500,000 votes. It was widely recognised that the presidential election of 1908 turned on the vote of organised labour. The Republican and Democratic candidates both made special appeal to organised labour and made a special effort to gain its vote. It is obvious that the gigantic growth of the trust system in America has quickened inquiry into the most fundamental questions of industrial and social order. The programme of the Knights of Labour was for many years the nearest approach to socialism made by any great labour combination in America. But there can be no doubt now that America contains all the elements which favour the growth of socialism, and especially of the labour organisations which make for socialism.

The result of our brief review is, that in most countries of Europe the avowed and organised socialism has a formidable and rapidly increasing number of adherents. It is equally clear that socialistic theories have made a wide and deep impression on the opinion of most countries of the civilised world. Socialism has been a standing challenge to the economic theories so long prevalent: it is a protest against the existing social-economic order; and as such it has been discussed on every platform, in all journals, and we may venture to say in every private gathering, with some comprehension of its nature and aims. Whatever the issue may be, it is very improbable that reasonable men can ever again regard the competitive system of economics with the same satisfaction as formerly. The mere fact that we can survey and analyse great ideas and institutions with critical objectiveness is a proof that we are looking back upon them, and that we have already so far left them behind in the onward march of progress. In countries where the socialistic theory is accepted in its entirety only by a few, it has nevertheless effected a great change in opinion. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that the orthodox political economy, if it exist anywhere, survives only in old books and in the minds of a diminishing band of doctrinaires. Friends of the existing order would now almost have us believe that the old competitive political economy never existed at all, which at least may be taken as a sufficient proof that its days are numbered. Under these circumstances it is not surprising that we do not at present possess a settled political economy.

We may best consider the growing influence of socialistic ideas on current opinion under the following heads:—

1. On the theory of the State’s relation to labour.—The attitude of most governments to the organised socialism is naturally unfriendly; but the accepted view of the relation of the State to the working and suffering classes has marvellously changed in recent years. Whereas not many years ago the policy and principles of government took little account of the masses of the people, it is now a recognised duty of the State to care for them. So complete has the transformation been, that it will soon require a considerable knowledge of history to realise it, for the times when the claims of the lower orders were ignored are already beginning to pass out of the memory of the younger and most active portion of the community.

2. The relation of political economy to socialism.—We have already referred to the influence of social problems on the classical political economy of this country. The development of J. S. Mill’s economic views from loyal adherence to Ricardo, to a reasonable socialism, cannot be regarded as representative, seeing that he has so entirely outstripped his scholars. In recent important works on economics we see indeed only a moderate recognition of the new influences, but they do not command the assent of the public as formerly, the result being that English Political Economy remains in a most unsettled problematical and unsatisfactory condition.

Here again Germany leads the way. The socialism of the chair is not to any large extent really socialistic. But it includes among its representatives eminent professors and other economists, who recognise the historical and ethical sides of political economy, who go far in giving labour problems their due place in the treatment of their subject, and who have made most important concessions to the socialistic criticism of the existing society and the prevalent political economy. One of the most notable of living German economists and sociologists, Albert Schäffle, is more than historical; his great work _Bau und Leben des socialen Körpers_ is a construction of society from the evolution point of view. In the same work he has even expressed his conviction that ‘the future belongs to the purified socialism,’ though later utterances make his attitude somewhat doubtful. However that may be, he has brought to the study of social problems a combination of learning, of philosophic insight directed by the best light of his time, and of sympathy inspired by the cause of the poor man, which is not equalled by any living economist. No great living economist has been so powerfully influenced by socialist speculation.

3. The relation of the Christian Church to socialism.—It is a most serious mistake to suppose that there can be any real antagonism between the ethical and spiritual teaching of Christianity and the principles of socialism rightly understood. The difficulty is how to reconcile the prevalent competitive system with any reasonable conception of Christian ethics. We can now see that Christianity was a strong assertion of the moral and spiritual forces against the struggle for existence, which had assumed such a hard, cruel, and vicious form in ancient civilisation and in the Roman world. The Christian Church did much to soften and then to abolish slavery and serfdom, into which the peoples defeated in the struggle for existence had been forced. A right comprehension of the Christian life and of the spirit and tendency of Christian history should show that the Church should also use its influence against the continuance of the struggle for existence in the competitive system, and in favour of the less fortunate who in the course of that form of struggle have been driven to precarious wage-labour as their only means of livelihood.

Some of the prominent spokesmen of the Church have clearly seen that the competitive system is not consistent with Christian teaching. As we have already seen, Maurice and Kingsley denounced the Manchester school, started the Christian Socialist movement of 1848, and gave a very considerable impetus to co-operation.

The participation of the Catholic Church of Germany in the social question dates from the period of the Lassalle agitation. In 1863 Döllinger recommended that the Church should intervene in the movement, and Bishop von Ketteler of Mainz lost no time in expressing sympathy with Lassalle. In a treatise entitled _Die Arbeiterfrage und das Christenthum_ (1864) Ketteler criticised the liberalism of the Manchester school in substantially the same terms as Lassalle, and recommended the voluntary formation of productive associations with capital supplied by the faithful. In 1868 the Catholic Socialism of Germany took a more practical form: it started an organ of its own and began to organise unions for the elevation of the working men. The principles of the movement were with some precision expounded by Canon Moufang in an electoral address at Mainz in 1871, and by the writers in their organ.

All agree in condemning the principles of liberalism, especially in its economic aspects, as destructive of society and pernicious to the working man, who, under the pretence of freedom, is exposed to all the precariousness and anarchy of competition and sacrificed to the Iron Law of Wages. Self-help as practised in the Schulze-Delitzsch schemes is also considered to be no sure way of deliverance. The general remedy is union on Catholic principles, especially the formation of trade-guilds suited to modern exigencies, which some of their leaders would make a compulsory measure enforced by the State. The views of Moufang, which are most definite, may thus be summarised: legal protection for the workers, especially as regards hours of labour, wages, the labour of women and children, sanitation; subventions for workmen’s productive associations; lightening of taxes on labour; control of the moneyed and speculating interests. In the organisation of unions the success of Catholic Socialism has been great; and for several years the Social Democrats made no progress in Catholic districts.

The socialist activity of the Protestant Church of Germany dates from 1878. The most important literary product of the movement is a work by Pastor Todt entitled _Der radikale deutsche Socialismus und die christliche Gesellschaft_. In this work Todt condemns the economics of liberalism as unchristian, and seeks to show that the ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity are entirely Scriptural, as are also the socialist demands for the abolition of private property and of the wage system, that the labourer should have the full produce of his labour, and that labour should be associated. The chief leader of the movement was the Court preacher Stöcker, the head also of the anti-Semitic agitation, which is largely traceable to economic causes. Stöcker founded two associations—a central union for social reform, consisting of members of the middle classes interested in the emancipation of labour, and a Christian social working men’s party. The former has had considerable success, especially among the Lutheran clergy. The movement met with the most strenuous resistance from the Social Democratic party, and was greatly hampered by the anti-socialist law of 1878.

In recent years all the sections of the Christian Church in England have felt the influence of the democratic movement, and have shown a commendable interest in social questions. Among Catholics the most notable representative of this new spirit was Cardinal Manning. The Report on Socialism made to the Pan-Anglican Conference, which met at Lambeth in 1888, by the committee appointed to deal with the question, was also a remarkable sign of the times. This Report accepted what should be regarded as the main aim of socialism—the reunion of capital and labour through the principle of association. Without expressing an opinion on the Report, the Conference commended it to the consideration of the people. The Christian Social Union, founded in 1889 by members of the Church of England, has done good service. Its aim is to study ‘how to apply the moral truths and principles of Christianity to the social and economic difficulties of the present time.’ The late Dr. Westcott, Bishop of Durham, took a leading part in founding and guiding it. It is open to Conservatives and Liberals, socialists and non-socialists, who accept its main aim, as above stated. In a pamphlet on _Socialism_ Dr. Westcott gives one of the best and finest expositions of the principles of the subject which we have read.

The sympathetic attitude towards labour shown at the Lambeth Conference of 1888 was maintained also at the Conferences of 1897 and 1908. Very noteworthy was the favourable reception given to socialistic expressions of opinion at the Pan-Anglican Congress which preceded the Conference of 1908, though it would obviously be a mistake to assume that it meant the acceptance of any definite collectivist economic creed. A like sympathetic feeling has been shown in many nonconformist quarters. Dr. Clifford, so eminent as a nonconformist leader, is a socialist and member of the Fabian Society.

4. It is needless to speak of the great revolution in current opinion regarding labour, as reflected in the press and in contemporary literature. All is changed since the time when Carlyle and Ruskin lifted up their voices in the wilderness to an unbelieving generation! All that is best, all that is tenable in the teaching of those two great men is comprehended in socialism rightly understood.

5. Nor is it necessary to say anything of the greatest change of all, which has taken place in the opinions and feelings of the masses of working men, who constitute the modern democracy. Few men, however, really understand the new power that has arisen in the growing intelligence of the workers, in the discontent, in the passion for improvement, in the hopes and aspirations which so deeply move them. It has not yet found adequate expression, direction, and organisation; but every year it is making fresh advance towards clearness of aim. A main part of the significance of Marx’s activity lay in the fact that he strove to give utterance and organisation to this vast and growing mass of vague and half-conscious sentiment. In the future we can but hope that it will receive wise and salutary guidance.

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[1] _Protokoll_ of the party meeting at Jena, p. 298.