Chapter LXXXIII: Act 8: Parliament 1. repeated in Act 99. Parliament 7 (9)

The east coast, whence a few years ago the slaves marched in
battalions to scatter over the wide interior of the continent
for pillage and devastation, is to-day guarded by German and
British troops. The island of Zanzibar, where they were
equipped for their murderous enterprises, is under the British
flag. … The final blow has been given by the act of the
Brussels Antislavery Conference, lately [1893] ratified by the
powers, wherein modern civilization has fully declared its
opinions upon the question of slavery, and no single power
will dare remain indifferent to them, under penalty of obloquy
and shame. … The Congo State devotes her annual subsidies of
£120,000 and the export tax of £30,000 wholly to the task of
securing her territory against the malign influences of the
slave trade, and elevating it to the rank of self-protecting
states. The German government undertakes the sure guardianship
of its vast African territory as an imperial possession, so as
to render it inaccessible to the slave-hunter. … The coast
towns are fortified and garrisoned; they [the Germans] are
making their advance towards Lake Tanganika by the erection of
military stations; severe regulations have been issued against
the importation of arms and gun-powder; the Reichstag has been
unstinted in its supplies of money; an experienced
administrator, Baron von Soden, has been appointed an imperial
commissioner, and scores of qualified subordinates assist him.
… So far the expenses, I think, have averaged over £100,000
annually. The French government devotes £60,000 annually for
the protection and administration of its Gaboon and Congo
territory."

_H. M. Stanley,
Slavery and the Slave Trade in Africa (1893). _

ALSO IN:
_R. F. Clarke,
Cardinal Lavigerie and the African Slave Trade,
part 2._

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1871-1888.
Emancipation in Brazil.

See BRAZIL: A. D. 1871-1888.

{2931}

SLAVES AND GLADIATORS, Rising of the.

See SPARTACUS, RISING OF.

----------SLAVONIC PEOPLES: Start--------

SLAVONIC PEOPLES AND LANGUAGE.

"The name under which the Slavonians appear in ancient
literature is generally Venedi or Veneti. … This name, unknown
to the Slavonians themselves, is that by which the Teutonic
tribes have from the first designated these their eastern
neighbours, viz. Wends, and the use of this appellation by the
Roman authors plainly shows that their knowledge of the
Slavonians was derived only from the Germans. The Old German
form of this name was Wineda, and Wenden is the name which the
Germans of the present day give to the remnants of a Slavonic
population, formerly large, who now inhabit Lusatia, while
they give the name of Winden to the Slovens in Carinthia,
Carniola and Styria. … If the Slavonians themselves ever
applied any common name to the whole of their family, it must
most probably have been that by which we now are accustomed to
call them, Slavs, or Slavonians; its original native form was
Slovene. … The most ancient sources from which we derive a
knowledge of the Wends or Slavonians, unanimously place them
by the Vistula. From that river, which must have formed their
western frontier, they extended eastward to the Dnieper, and
even beyond. To the south the Carpathians formed their
boundary. To the north they perhaps crossed the Dwina into the
territory afterwards known as Novgorod. In the extensive woods
and marshes which cover these remote tracts the Slavonians
seem to have dwelt in peace and quiet during the first
centuries after Christ, divided into a number of small tribes
or clans. … It was not long, however, before their primitive
home became too narrow for the Slavs, and as their numbers
could no longer be contained within their ancient
boundaries—and, perhaps, compelled to it by pressure from
without—they began to spread themselves to the west, in which
direction the great migrations of the fourth and fifth
centuries had made abundant room for the new immigrants. By
two different roads the Slavs now begin to advance in great
masses. On the one side, they cross the Vistula and extend
over the tracts between the Carpathian mountains and the
Baltic, right down to the Elbe, the former Germanic population
of this region having either emigrated or been exhausted by
their intestine contests and their deadly struggle with the
Roman empire. By this same road the Poles, and probably also
the Chekhs of Bohemia and Moravia, reached the districts they
have inhabited since that period. In the rest of this western
territory the Slavonians were afterwards almost exterminated
during their bloody wars with the Germans, so that but few of
their descendants exist. The other road by which the
Slavonians advanced lay to the south-west, along the course of
the Danube. These are the so-called South-Slavonians: the
Bulgarians, the Servians, the Croatians, and farthest
westward, the Slovens."

_V. Thomsen,
Relations between Ancient Russia and Scandinavia,
lecture 1._

"A controversy has been maintained respecting the origin of
the name [Slave]. The fact that … it has become among
ourselves a synonyme of servitude, does not of course
determine its real meaning. Those who bear it, naturally
dignify its import and themselves by assigning to it the
signification of 'glory';—the Slavonians to themselves are,
therefore, 'the glorious race.' But the truth seems to be,
that 'Slava' in its primitive meaning, was nothing but
'speech,' and that the secondary notions of 'fama,' 'gloria,'
followed from this, as it does in other tongues. ['If I know
not the meaning of the voice, I shall be unto him that
speaketh a barbarian, and he that speaketh shall be a
barbarian unto me.' I. Corinthians, xiv. 11.]. … Slave or
Slavonian was, therefore, nothing more than the gentile
appellative, derived from the use of the national tongue, and
intended as antithetical to 'foreigner.' In the ancient
historic world, the Slaves played an insignificant part. Some
have identified them with the Scythians of Herodotus. … Like
the Celts, they seemed destined to be driven into corners in
the old world."

_J. G. Sheppard,
The Fall of Rome,
lecture 3._

See SLAVE: ORIGIN, &c.

"The Wendic or Slav group [lingual] … came into Europe during
the first five centuries of our era; it is divided into two
great branches, Eastern and Western. The first includes
Russian, Great Russian in West Central Russia; Little Russian,
Rusniac, or Ruthene in the south of Russia and even into
Austria, … Servian, Croatian, Slovenic, and Bulgarian, of
which the most ancient form is to the whole group what Gothic
is to the German dialects; modern Bulgarian is, on the
contrary, very much altered. … The western branch covered from
the 7th to the 9th century vast districts of Germany in which
only German is now known: Pomerania, Mecklenburg, Brandenburg,
Saxony, Western Bohemia, Austria, Styria, and Northern
Carinthia. Though now much restricted, it can still boast
numerous dialects; among others the Wendic of Lusatia, which
is dying out, Tzech or Bohemian, which is very vigorous (ten
millions), of which a variety, Slovac, is found in Hungary;
lastly, Polish (ten millions)."

_A. Lefèvre,
Race and Language,
pages 239-240._

See, also: ARYANS; SARMATIA; and SCYTHIANS.

SLAVONIC PEOPLES: 6-7th Centuries.
Migrations and settlements.

"The movements of the Avars in the sixth century [see AVARS]
seem to have had much the same effect upon the Slaves which
the movements of the Huns in the fourth century had upon the
Teutons. … The Slaves seem to have been driven by the Turanian
incursions in two directions; to the North-west and to the
South-west. The North-western division gave rise to more than
one European state, and their relations with Germany form an
important part of the history of the Western Empire. These
North-western Slaves do not become of importance till a little
later. But the South-western division plays a great part in
the history of the sixth and seventh centuries. … The Slaves
play in the East, though less thoroughly and less brilliantly,
the same part, half conquerors, half disciples, which the
Teutons played in the West. During the sixth century they
appear only as ravagers; in the seventh they appear as
settlers. There seems no doubt that Heraclius encouraged
Slavonic settlements south of the Danube, doubtless with a
view to defence against the more dangerous Avars. … A number
of Slavonic states thus arose in the lands north and east of
the Hadriatic, as Servia, Chrobatia or Croatia, Carinthia. …
Istria and Dalmatia now became Slavonic, with the exception of
the maritime cities, which, among many vicissitudes, clave to
the Empire. …
{2932}
The Slaves pressed on into a large part of Macedonia and
Greece, and, during the seventh and eighth centuries, the
whole of those countries, except the fortified cities and a
fringe along the coast, were practically cut off from the
Empire. The name of Slavinia reached from the Danube to
Peloponnêsos, leaving to the Empire only islands and detached
points of coast from Venice round to Thessalonica. … The
Slavonic occupation of Greece is a fact which must neither be
forgotten nor exaggerated. It certainly did not amount to an
extirpation of the Greek nation; but it certainly did amount
to an occupation of a large part of the country, which was
Hellenized afresh from those cities and districts which
remained Greek or Roman."

_E. A. Freeman,
Historical Geography of Empire,
chapter 5, section 4._

See, also, BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: 7TH CENTURY.

SLESWIG.

See SCHLESWIG.

SLIDING SCALE OF CORN DUTIES.

See TARIFF LEGISLATION (ENGLAND):
A. D. 1815-1828; and 1842.

SLIVNITZA, Battle of (1885).

See BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES:
A. D. 1878-1886 (BULGARIA).

SLOBADYSSA, Battle of (1660).

See POLAND: A. D. 1668-1696.

SLOVENES, The.

See SLAVONIC PEOPLES.

SLUYS: A. D. 1587.
Siege and capture by the Spaniards.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1587-1588.

SLUYS: A. D. 1604.
Taken by Prince Maurice of Nassau.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1594-1609.

SLUYS, Battle of (1340).

Edward III. of England, sailing with 200 ships on his second
expedition to France (see FRANCE: A. D. 1337-1360), found a
French fleet of about equal numbers lying in wait for him in
the harbor of Sluys. The English attacked, June 24, 1340, and
with such success that almost the entire French fleet was
taken or destroyed, and 25,000 to 30,000 men slain.

_W. Warburton,
Edward III.,
pages 77-79. _

ALSO IN:
_Sir J. Froissart,
Chronicles,
(translated by Johnes).
volume 1, book 1, chapter 50._

SMALKALDE, League of.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1530-1532.

SMALL-POX, AND VACCINATION.

See PLAGUE, ETC.: 6-13TH CENTURIES,
and MEDICAL SCIENCE: 18TH CENTURY.

SMERWICK, Massacre of (1580).

See IRELAND: A. D. 1559-1603.

SMITH, Captain John:
American voyages and adventures.

See VIRGINIA: A. D. 1607-1610, and 1609-1616;
also, AMERICA: A. D. 1614-1615.

SMITH, Joseph, and the founding of Mormonism.

See MORMONISM.

SMITH, Sir Sidney, and the siege of Acre.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1798-1799 (AUGUST-AUGUST).

SMITH COLLEGE.

See EDUCATION, MODERN: REFORMS, &c.: A. D. 1804-1891.

SMOLENSK, Battle of.

See RUSSIA: A. D. 1812 (JUNE-SEPTEMBER).

SMYRNA: Turkish massacre of Christians (1821).

See GREECE: A. D. 1821-1829.

SNAKE INDIANS, OR SHOSHONES, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES:
SHOSHONEAN FAMILY.

SNUFF-TAKERS, The.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1850.

SOBIESKI, John,
King of Poland, A. D. 1674-1697,
and his deliverance of Vienna.

See POLAND: A. D. 1668-1696;
and HUNGARY: A. D. 1668-1683.

SOBRAON, Battle of (1846).

See INDIA: A. D. 1845-1849.

SOBRARBE, Kingdom of.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1035-1258.

SOCAGE TENURE. FREESOCAGE.

See FEUDAL TENURES.

----------SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: Start--------

SOCIAL MOVEMENTS.
Communism.
Socialism.
Labor Organization.

SOCIAL MOVEMENTS:
Utopias, Ancient and Modern.

"Speculative Communism has a brilliant history. It begins
about six hundred years before Christ with Phaleas of
Chalcedon, whom Milton speaks of as the first to recommend the
equalization of property in land. Plato favors Communism. In
the fifth book of the 'Republic,' Socrates is made to
advocate, not merely community of goods, but also community of
wives and children. This was no after-dinner debauch in the
groves of the Academy, as Milton too severely suggests. It was
a logical conclusion from a mistaken premise. … The ideal
aimed at was the unity of the State, whose pattern appears to
have been partly Pythagorean, and partly Spartan. In regard to
property, the formulated purpose was, not to abolish wealth,
but to abolish poverty. In the 'Laws' (volume 13), Plato would
allow to the richest citizen four times as much income as to
the poorest. In regard to women, the aim was not sensual
indulgence, but the propagation and rearing of the fittest
offspring. This community of wives and children was for the
ruling class only; not for the husbandmen, nor for the
artificers. So also, probably, the community of goods. We say
probably, for the scheme is not wrought out in all its
details, and Plato himself had no hope of seeing his dream
realized till kings are philosophers, or philosophers are
kings. The echoes of this Platonic speculation have been loud
and long. About the year 316 B. C., Evemerus, sent eastward by
Cassander, King of Macedon, on a voyage of scientific
discovery, reports in his 'Sacred History' the finding of an
island which he calls Panchaia, the seat of a Republic, whose
citizens were divided into the three classes of Priests,
Husbandmen, and Soldiers; where all property was common; and
all were happy. In 1516 Sir Thomas More published his
'Utopia;' evidently of Platonic inspiration. More also chose
an island for his political and social Paradise. He had Crete
in mind. His island, crescent-shaped, and 200 miles wide at
the widest point, contained 54 cities. It had community of
goods, but not of women.
{2933}
The 'Civitas Solis' of Campanella, published in 1623, was in
imitation perhaps of More's 'Utopia.' This City of the Sun
stood on a mountain in Ceylon, under the equator, and had a
community both of goods and of women. About the same time Lord
Bacon amused himself by writing the 'New Atlantis,' a mere
fragment, the porch of a building that was never finished. In
the great ferment of Cromwell's time the 'Oceana' of
Harrington appeared (1656); a book famous in its day, with
high traditional repute ever since, but now seldom read except
by the very few who feel themselves called upon to master the
literature of the subject. Hallam pronounces it a dull,
pedantic book; and nobody disputes the verdict. Harrington
advocates a division of land, no one to have more than two
thousand pounds' (ten thousand dollars') worth. The upshot of
it all would be, a moderate aristocracy of the middle classes.
Such books belong to a class by themselves, which may be
called Poetico-Political; æsthetic, scholarly, humane, and
hopeful. They are not addressed to the masses. If they make
revolutions, it is only in the long run. They are not battles,
nor half battles, but only the bright wild dreams of tired
soldiers in the pauses of battles. Communistic books with iron
in them … are not modern only, but recent. Modern Communism,
now grown so surly and savage everywhere, began mildly enough.
As a system, it is mostly French, name and all. The famous
writers are Saint-Simon, Fourier, Considérant, Proudhon,
Cabet, and Louis Blanc."

_R. D. Hitchcock,
Socialism,
pages 33-36._

ALSO IN:
_M. Kaufmann,
Utopias._

SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: Definition of Terms:
Socialism.
Communism.
Collectivism.

"As socialism has been most powerful and most studied on the
Continent, it may be interesting to compare the definitions
given by some leading French and German economists. The great
German economist Roscher defines it as including 'those
tendencies which demand a greater regard for the common weal
than consists with human nature.' Adolf Held says that 'we may
define as socialistic every tendency which demands the
subordination of the individual will to the community.' Janet
more precisely defines it as follows:—'We call socialism every
doctrine which teaches that the State has a right to correct
the inequality of wealth which exists among men, and to
legally establish the balance by taking from those who have
too much in order to give to those who have not enough, and
that in a permanent manner, and not in such and such a
particular case—a famine, for instance, a public calamity,
etc.' Laveleye explains it thus: 'In the first place, every
socialistic doctrine aims at introducing greater equality in
social conditions; and in the second place at realising those
reforms by the law or the State.' Von Scheel simply defines it
as the 'economic philosophy of the suffering classes.'"

_T. Kirkup,
A History of Socialism,
introduction._

"The economic quintessence of the socialistic programme, the
real aim of the international movement, is as follows. To
replace the system of private capital (i. e. the speculative
method of production, regulated on behalf of society only by
the free competition of private enterprises) by a system of
collective capital, that is, by a method of production which
would introduce a unified (social or 'collective ')
organization of national labour, on the basis of collective or
common ownership of the means of production by all the members
of the society. This collective method of production would
remove the present competitive system, by placing under
official administration such departments of production as can
be managed collectively (socially or co-operatively), as well
as the distribution among all of the common produce of all,
according to the amount and social utility of the productive
labour of each. This represents in the shortest possible
formula the aim of the socialism of today."

_A. Schäffle,
The Quintessence of Socialism,
pages 3-4._

"Socialism, … while it may admit the state's right of property
over against another state, does away with all ownership, on
the part of members of the state, of things that do not perish
in the using, or of their own labor in creating material
products. Its first and last policy is to prevent the
acquisition or exclusive use of capital, by any person or
association under the control of the state, with the
exception, perhaps, of articles of luxury or enjoyment
procured by the savings of wages. No savings can give rise to
what is properly called capital, or means of production in
private hands. … Commun·ism, in its ordinary signification, is
a system or form of common life, in which the right of private
or family property is abolished by law, mutual consent, or
vow. … Collectivism, which is now used by German as well as by
French writers, denotes the condition of a community when its
affairs, especially its industry, is managed in the collective
way, instead of the method of separate, individual effort. It
has, from its derivation, some advantages over the vague word
socialism, which may include many varieties of associated or
united life."

_T. D. Woolsey,
Communism and Socialism,
pages 1-8._

SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1720-1800.
Origin of Trades Unions in England.

"A Trade Union, as we understand the term, is a continuous
association of wage-earners for the purpose of maintaining or
improving the conditions of their employment. … We have, by
our definition, expressly excluded from our history any
account of the innumerable instances in which the manual
workers have formed ephemeral combinations against their
social superiors. Strikes are as old as history itself. The
ingenious seeker of historical parallels might, for instance,
find in the revolt, B. C. 1490, of the Hebrew brickmakers in
Egypt against being required to make bricks without straw, a
curious precedent for the strike of the Stalybridge
cotton-spinners, A. D. 1892, against the supply of bad
material for their work. But we cannot seriously regard, as in
any way analogous to the Trade Union Movement of to-day, the
innumerable rebellions of subject races, the slave
insurrections, and the semi-servile peasant revolts of which
the annals of history are full. … When, however, we pass from
the annals of slavery or serfdom to those of the nominally
free citizenship of the mediæval town, we are on more
debatable ground. We make no pretence to a thorough knowledge
of English town-life in the Middle Ages. But it is clear that
there were at all times, alongside of the independent master
craftsmen, a number of hired journeymen, who are known to have
occasionally combined against their rulers and governors. …
{2934}
After detailed consideration of every published instance of a
journeyman's fraternity in England, we are fully convinced
that there is as yet no evidence of the existence of any such
durable and independent combination of wage-earners against
their employers during the Middle Ages. There are certain
other cases in which associations, which are sometimes assumed
to have been composed of journeymen maintained a continuous
existence. But in all these cases the 'Bachelors' Company,'
presumed to be a journeymen's fraternity, formed a subordinate
department of the masters' gild, by the rulers of which it was
governed. It will be obvious that associations in which the
employers dispensed the funds and appointed the officers can
bear no analogy to modern Trade Unions. The explanation of the
tardy growth of stable combination among hired journeymen is,
we believe, to be found in the prospects of economic
advancement which the skilled handicraftsman still possessed.
… The apprenticed journeyman in the skilled handicrafts
belonged, until comparatively modern times, to the same social
grade as his employer, and was, indeed, usually the son of a
master in the same or an analogous trade. So long as industry
was carried on mainly by small masters, each employing but one
or two journeymen, the period of any energetic man's service
as a hired wage-earner cannot normally have exceeded a few
years. … Under such a system of industry the journeymen would
possess the same prospects of economic advancement that
hindered the growth of stable combinations in the ordinary
handicrafts, and in this fact may lie the explanation of the
striking absence of evidence of any Trade Unionism in the
building trades right down to the end of the eighteenth
century. When, however, the capitalist builder or contractor
began to supersede the master mason, master plasterer, &c.,
and this class of small entrepreneurs had again to give place
to a hierarchy of hired workers, Trade Unions, in the modern
sense, began, as we shall see, to arise. We have dwelt at some
length upon these ephemeral associations of wage-earners and
on the journeymen fraternities of the Middle Ages, because it
might plausibly be argued that they were in some sense the
predecessors of the Trade Union. But strangely enough it is
not in these institutions that the origin of Trade Unionism
has usually been sought. For the predecessor of the modern
Trade Union, men have turned, not to the mediæval associations
of the wage-earners, but to those of their employers—that is
to say, the Craft Gilds. … The supposed descent of the Trade
Unions from the mediæval Craft Gild rests, as far as we have
been able to discover, upon no evidence whatsoever. The
historical proof is all the other way. In London, for
instance, more than one Trade Union has preserved an unbroken
existence from the eighteenth century. The Craft Gilds still
exist in the City Companies, and at no point in their history
do we find the slightest evidence of the branching off from
them of independent journeymen's societies. … We have failed
to discover, either in the innumerable trade pamphlets and
broad-sheets of the time, or in the Journals of the House of
Commons, any evidence of the existence, prior to 1700, of
continuous associations of wage-earners for maintaining or
improving the conditions of their employment. And when we
remember that during the latter decades of the seventeenth
century the employers of labour, and especially the industrial
'companies' or corporations, memorialised the House of Commons
on every conceivable grievance which affected their particular
trade, the absence of all complaints of workmen's combinations
suggests to us that no such combinations existed. In the early
years of the eighteenth century we find isolated complaints of
combinations 'lately entered into' by the skilled workers in
certain trades. As the century progresses we watch the gradual
multiplication of these complaints, met by counter-accusations
presented by organised bodies of workmen. … If we examine the
evidence of the rise of combinations in particular trades, we
see the Trade Union springing, not from any particular
institution, but from every opportunity for the meeting
together of wage-earners of the same trade. Adam Smith
remarked that 'people of the same trade seldom meet together,
even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in
a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to
raise prices.' And there is actual evidence of the rise of one
of the oldest of the existing Trade Unions out of a gathering
of the journeymen 'to take a social pint of porter together.'
More often it is a tumultuous strike, out of which grows a
permanent organisation. … If the trade is one in which the
journeymen frequently travel in search of work, we note the
slow elaboration of systematic arrangements for the relief of
these 'tramps' by their fellow-workers in each town through
which they pass, and the inevitable passage of this
far-extending tramping society into a national Trade Union. …
We find that at the beginning of the eighteenth century the
typical journeyman tailor in London and Westminster had become
a lifelong wage-earner. It is not surprising, therefore, that
one of the earliest instances of permanent Trade Unionism that
we have been able to discover occurs in this trade. The master
tailors in 1720 complain to Parliament that 'the Journeymen
Taylors in and about the Cities of London and Westminster, to
the number of seven thousand and upwards, have lately entered
into a combination to raise their wages and leave off working
an hour sooner than they used to do; and for the better
carrying on their design have subscribed their respective
names in books prepared for that purpose, at the several
houses of call or resort (being publick-houses in and about
London and Westminster) where they use; and collect several
considerable sums of money to defend any prosecutions against
them.' Parliament listened to the masters' complaint, and
passed the Act 7, Geo. 1. st. 1, c. 13, restraining both the
giving and the taking of wages in excess of a stated maximum,
all combinations being prohibited. From that time forth the
journeymen tailors of London and Westminster have remained in
effective though sometimes informal combination, the
organisation centring round the fifteen or twenty 'houses of
call.'"

_S. and B. Webb,
The History of Trade-Unionism,
chapter 1._

{2935}

SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1753-1797.
Mably, Morelly, and the conspiracy of Babœuf, in France.

"If Rousseau cannot be numbered among the communistic writers,
strictly so called, two of his contemporaries, Mably and
Morelly—the first more a dreamer, the second of a more
practical spirit —deserve that title. … In the social theory
of Mably, inequality of condition is the great evil in the
world … Mably was a theorist who shrunk back from the
practical application of his own theories. The establishment
of community of goods, and even of equality of fortunes, he
dared not advocate. 'The evil,' he says, 'is too inveterate
for the hope of a cure.' And so he advised half
measures—agrarian laws fixing the maximum of landed estates,
and sumptuary laws regulating expenses. … Morelly, whose
principal works are a communistic poem, called 'The Basiliade'
(1753) and 'The Code of Nature' (1755), is called by a French
writer one of the most obscure authors of the last century.
But he knew what he wanted, and had courage to tell it to
others. … Morelly's power on subsequent opinion consists in
his being the first to put dreams or theories into a code;
from which shape it seemed easy to fanatical minds to carry it
out into action. His starting-point is that men can be made
good or evil by institutions. Private property, or avarice
called out by it, is the source of all vice. 'Hence, where no
property existed there would appear none of its pernicious
consequences.' … In 1782, Brissot de Warville invented the
phrase, used afterward by Proudhon, Propriété c'est le vol. …
Twelve years afterward a war against the rich began, and such
measures as a maximum of property and the abolition of the
right to make a will were agitated. But the right of property
prevailed, and grew stronger after each new revolution. In
1796 the conspiracy of the Equals, or, as it is generally
called, of Babœuf, was the final and desperate measure of a
portion of those Jacobins who had been stripped by the fall of
Robespierre (in 1794) of political power. It was the last hope
of the extreme revolutionists, for men were getting tired of
agitations and wanted rest. This conspiracy seems to have been
fomented by Jacobins in prison; and it is said that one of
them, who was a believer in Morelly and had his work in his
hands, expounded its doctrines to his fellow-prisoner Babœuf.
When they were set at liberty by an amnesty law, there was a
successful effort made to bring together the society or sect
of the Equals; but it was found that they were not all of one
mind. Babœuf was for thorough measures—for a community of
goods and of labor, an equality of conditions and of comforts.
… There was a secret committee of the society of the Equals,
as well as an open society. The latter excited the suspicion
of the Directory, and an order was given to suspend its
sessions in the Pantheon (or (Church of St. Geneviève). The
order was executed by Bonaparte, then general of the army of
the interior, who dispersed the members and put a seal on the
doors of the place of meeting. Next the Equals won over a body
of the police into their measures; and, when this force was
disbanded by the Directory, the Equals established a committee
of public safety. The committee was successful in bringing as
many as sixty of the party of the mountain into their ranks,
and an insurrection was projected. Seventeen thousand fighting
men were calculated upon by the conspirators as at their
disposal. But an officer of the army whom they had tried to
bring into their plots denounced them to the Directory. The
leading conspirators were arrested [1797]. Babœuf and Darthé
suffered death, and five others were banished."

_T. D. Woolsey,
Communism and Socialism,
pages 97-104._

SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1774-1875.
The Communities of the Shakers.

See SHAKERS.

SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1800-1824.
Robert Owen.
His experiments at New Lanark and his New Harmony Society.

"Whilst in France the hurricane of the Revolution swept over
the land, in England a quieter, but not on that account less
tremendous, revolution was going on. Steam and the new
tool-making machinery were transforming manufacture into
modern industry, and thus revolutionising the whole foundation
of bourgeois society. … With constantly increasing swiftness
the splitting-up of society into large capitalists and
non-possessing proletarians went on. Between these, instead of
the former stable middle-class, an unstable mass of artisans
and small shopkeepers, the most fluctuating portion of the
population, now led a precarious existence. The new mode of
production was, as yet, only at the beginning of its period of
ascent; as yet it was the normal, regular method of
production—the only one possible under existing conditions.
Nevertheless, even then it was producing crying social abuses.
… At this juncture there came forward as a reformer a
manufacturer 29 years old—a man of almost sublime, childlike
simplicity of character, and at the same time one of the few
born leaders of men. Robert Owen had adopted the teaching of
the materialistic philosophers: that man's character is the
product, on the one hand, of heredity, on the other, of the
environment of the indivIdual during his lifetime, and
especially during his period of development. In the industrial
revolution most of his class saw only chaos and confusion, and
the opportunity of fishing in these troubled waters and making
large fortunes quickly. He saw in it the opportunity of
putting into practice his favourite theory, and so of bringing
order out of chaos. He had already tried it with success, as
superintendent of more than 500 men in a Manchester factory.
From 1800 to 1829, he directed the great cotton mill at New
Lanark, in Scotland, as managing partner, along the same
lines, but with greater freedom of action and with a success
that made him a European reputation. A population, originally
consisting of the most diverse and, for the most part, very
demoralised elements, a population that gradually grew to
2,500, he turned into a model colony, in which drunkenness,
police, magistrates, lawsuits, poor laws, charity, were
unknown. And all this simply by placing the people in
conditions worthy of human beings, and especially by carefully
bringing up the rising generation. He was the founder of
infant schools, and introduced them first at New Lanark. …
Whilst his competitors worked their people 13 or 14 hours a
day, in New Lanark the working-day was only 10½ hours. When a
crisis in cotton stopped work for four months, his workers
received their full wages an the time. And with all this the
business more than doubled in value, and to the last yielded
large profits to its proprietors. In spite of all this, Owen
was not content. The existence which he secured for his
workers was, in his eyes, still far from being worthy of human
beings. 'The people were slaves at my mercy.' … 'The working
part of this population of 2,500 persons was daily producing
as much real wealth for society as, less than half a century
before, it would have required the working part of a
population of 600,000 to create. I asked myself, what became
of the difference between the wealth consumed by 2,500 persons
and that which would have been consumed by 600,000?' The
answer was clear.
{2936}
It had been used to pay the proprietors of the establishment 5
per cent. on the capital they had laid out, in addition to
over £300,000 clear profit. And that which held for New Lanark
held to a still greater extent for all the factories in
England. … The newly-created gigantic productive forces,
hitherto used only to enrich individuals and to enslave the
masses, offered to Owen the foundations for a reconstruction
of society; they were destined, as the common property of all,
to be worked for the common good of all. Owen's Communism was
based upon this purely business foundation, the outcome, so to
say, of commercial calculation. Throughout, it maintained this
practical character."

_F. Engels,
Socialism, Utopian and Scientific,
pages 19-24._

Owen's projects "were received with applause at first. 'The
Times' spoke of 'his enlightened zeal in the cause of
humanity;' the Duke of Kent writes to Owen: 'I have a most
sincere wish that a fair trial should be given to your system,
of which I have never hesitated to acknowledge myself an
admirer;' Lord Brougham sympathised with the propounder of
this social scheme; the judicial philosopher Bentham became
actually a temporary ally of the 'wilful Welshman;' a
committee was appointed, including Ricardo and Sir R. Peel,
who recommended Owen's scheme to be tried; it was taken up by
the British and Foreign Philanthropic Society for the
permanent relief of the working-classes; it was actually
presented to Parliament with petitions humbly praying that a
Committee of the House might be appointed to visit and report
on New Lanark. But the motion was lost. The temporary
enthusiasm cooled down. … Contemporaneously with royal
speeches alluding to the prosperity of trade, and
congratulations as to the flourishing appearance of town and
country, the voice of Owen is silenced with his declining
popularity. It must be remembered also that he had by this
time justly incurred the displeasure of the religious public,
by the bold and unnecessarily harsh expressions of his ethical
and religious convictions. Those who could distinguish the man
from his method, who were fully aware of his generous
philanthropy, purity of private life, and contempt of personal
advancement, could make allowance for his rash assertions. The
rest, however, turned away with pious horror or silent
contempt from one who so fiercely attacked positive creeds,
and appeared unnecessarily vehement in his denial of moral
responsibility. Owen set his face to the West, and sought new
adherents in America, where he founded [1824] a 'Preliminary
Society' in 'New Harmony', which was to be the nucleus of his
future society. …

See A. D. 1805-1827: ROBERT OWEN AND THE
COMMUNITY AT NEW HARMONY.

In the following year Owen agreed to a change in the
constitution, in favour of communism, under the title of the
'New Harmony Community of Equality.' The settlement enjoyed a
temporary prosperity, but soon showed signs of decay, and Owen
was destined to meet with as many trials in the new as he had
encountered discouragements in the old world."

_M. Kaufmann,
Utopias,
chapter 6._

ALSO IN:
_W. L. Sargant,
Robert Owen and his Social Philosophy._

_Anonymous
Life of Robert Owen. _

SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1800-1875.
Struggle of the Trades Unions in England for a legal existence.

During the 18th century, "the employers succeeded in passing a
whole series of laws, some of them of Draconian severity,
designed to suppress combinations of working men. In England
they are called the Combination Laws, and culminated in the
Act of 40 George Ill., c. 106, which was passed in 1800 in
response to a petition from the employers. It made all trade
combinations illegal. … The result of this law, which was
expressly designed to put an end to strikes altogether, is an
instructive example of the usual effect of such measures. The
workmen's associations, which had frequently hitherto been
formed quite openly, became secret, while they spread through
the length and breadth of England. The time when the books of
the Union were concealed on the moors, and an oath of secrecy
was exacted from its members, is still a living tradition in
labour circles. It was a time when the hatred of the workers
towards the upper classes and the legislature flourished
luxuriantly, while the younger generation of working men who
had grown up under the shadow of repressive legislation,
became the pillars of the revolutionary Chartist movement. The
old struggle against capital assumed a more violent character.
… It was the patent failure of the Combination Laws which gave
the stimulus to the suggestion of repeal soon after 1820," and
the repeal was accomplished by the Act of 1824. "The immediate
consequence of this Act was the outbreak of a number of
somewhat serious strikes. The general public then took fright,
and thus the real struggle for the right of combination began
after it had received legal recognition. In 1825, the
employers rallied and demanded the re-enactment of the earlier
laws on the ground that Parliament had carried their repeal
with undue precipitation. … The Act of 1825 which repealed
that of the previous year, was a compromise in which the
opponents of free combination had gained the upper hand. But
they had been frustrated in their attempt to stamp out the
Unions with all the rigour of the law, for the champions of
the Act of 1824 were in a position to demonstrate that the
recognition of combination had already done something to
improve the relations between capital and labour. It had at
least done away with that secrecy which in itself constituted
a danger to the State; and now that the Unions were openly
avowed, their methods had become less violent. Nevertheless,
the influence of the manufacturers strongly predominated in
framing the Bill. … The only advance on the state of things
previous to 1824 which had been secured was the fundamental
point that a combination of working men was not in itself
illegal-though almost any action which could rise out of such
a combination was prohibited. Yet it was under the Act of 1825
that the Trade Unions grew and attained to that important
position in which we find them at the beginning of the
seventies. Here was emphatically a movement which the law
might force into illegal channels, but could not suppress. …
The most serious danger that the Trade Unions encountered was
in the course of the sixties. Under the leadership of one
Broadhead, certain Sheffield Unions had entered on a course of
criminal intimidation of non-members. The general public took
their action as indicating the spirit of Trade Unions
generally.
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In point of fact, the workmen employed in the Sheffield trade
were in a wholly exceptional position. … But both in
Parliament and the Press it was declared that the occurrences
at Sheffield called for more stringent legislation and the
suppression of combinations of working men. … But times had
changed since 1825. The Unions themselves called for the most
searching inquiry into their circumstances and methods, which
would, they declared, prove that they were in no way
implicated in such crimes as had been committed in Sheffield.
The impulse given by Thomas Carlyle had raised powerful
defenders for the workmen, first among whom we may mention the
positivist Frederic Harrison, and Thomas Hughes, the
co-operator. … The preliminaries to the appointment of the
Commission of 1867 revealed a change in the attitude of the
employers, especially the more influential of them, which
marked an enormous advance on the debates of 1824 and 1825. …
The investigation of the Commission of 1867-1869 were of a
most searching character, and their results are contained in
eleven reports. The Unions came well through the ordeal, and
it was shown that the outrages had been confined to a few
Unions, for the most part of minor importance. It further
appeared that where no combination existed the relations
between employers and hands were not more friendly, while the
position of the workers was worse and in some cases quite
desperate. The report led up to proposals for the legislation
of Trade Unions, and to the legislation of 1871-1876, which
was supported by many influential employers. The altitude of
Parliament had changed with amazing rapidity. … The Trade
Union Acts of 1871 and 1870 give all Unions, on condition that
they register their rules, the same rights as were already
enjoyed by the Friendly Societies in virtue of earlier
legislation, i. e. the rights of legal personality. They can
sue and be sued, possess real and personal estate, and can
proceed summarily against their officers for fraudulent
conduct. They also possess facilities for the transfer of
investments to new trustees. The Act of 1871 was extended by
that of 1876, framed expressly with the concurrence of the
Trade Union leaders. … The working men, now that they are left
to conduct their meetings in any way they choose, have
gradually developed that sober and methodical procedure which
amazes the Continental observer. … At Common Law, any action
of Trade Unionists to raise wages seemed liable to punishment
as conspiracy, on the ground that it was directed against the
common weal. The course run by the actual prosecutions did,
indeed, prevent this doctrine from ever receiving the sanction
of a sentence expressly founded on it; but it gathered in ever
heavier thunders over the heads of the Unions, and its very
vagueness gave it the appearance of a deliberate persecution
of one class of society in the interests of another. The Act
of 1871 first brought within definite limits the extreme
penalties that could be enforced against Trade Unionists
either at Statute or Common Law. … By the Conspiracy and
Protection of Property Act of 1875 the workmen's economic aims
were at last recognised on precisely the same footing as those
of other citizens."

_G. von Schulze-Gaevernitz,
Social Peace,
pages 86-102. _

ALSO IN:
_Le Comte de Paris,
The Trades' Unions of England._

_W. Trant,
Trade Unions._

_National Association for the Promotion of Social Science,
Report of Committee on Societies and Strikes, 1860._

SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1805-1827.
George Rapp and the Harmony Society.
Robert Owen and the Community at New Harmony.

The "Harmony Society" was first settled in Pennsylvania, on a
tract of land about twenty five miles north of Pittsburgh, in
1805, by George Rapp, the leader of a religious congregation
in Germany which suffered persecution there and sought greater
freedom in America. From the beginning, they agreed "to throw
all their possessions into a common fund, to adopt a uniform
and simple dress and style of house; to keep thenceforth all
things in common; and to labor for the common good of the
whole body. … At this time they still lived in families, and
encouraged, or at any rate did not discourage, marriage." But
in 1807 they became persuaded that "it was best to cease to
live in the married state. … Thenceforth no more marriages
were contracted …, and no more children were born. A certain
number of the younger people, feeling no vocation for a
celibate life, at this time withdrew from the society." In
1814 and 1815 the society sold its property in Pennsylvania
and removed to a new home in Posey County, Indiana, on the
Wabash, where 30,000 acres of land were bought for it. The new
settlement received the name of "Harmony." But this in its
turn was sold, in 1824, to Robert Owen, for his New Lanark
colony, which he planted there, under the name of the "New
Harmony Community," and the Rappists returned eastward, to
establish themselves at a lovely spot on the Ohio, where their
well-known village called "Economy" was built. "Once it was a
busy place, for it had cotton, silk, and woolen factories, a
brewery, and other industries; but the most important of these
have now [1874] ceased. … Its large factories are closed, for
its people are too few to man them; and the members [numbering
110 in 1874, mostly aged] think it wiser and more comfortable
for themselves to employ labor at a distance from their own
town. They are pecuniarily interested in coal-mines, in
saw-mills, and oil-wells; and they control manufactories at
Beaver Falls—notably a cutlery shop. … The society is
reported to be worth from two to three millions of dollars."

_C. Nordhoff,
The Communistic Societies of the United States,
pages 63-91._

At the settlement in Indiana, "on the departure of the
Rappites, persons favorable to Mr. Owen's views came flocking
to New Harmony (as it was thenceforth called) from all parts
of the country. Tidings of the new social experiment spread
far and wide. … In the short space of six weeks from the
commencement of the experiment, a population of 800 persons
was drawn together, and in October 1825, the number had
increased to 900." At the end of two years, in June, 1827, Mr.
Owen seems to have given up the experiment and departed from
New Harmony. "After his departure the majority of the
population also removed and scattered about the country. Those
who remained returned to individualism, and settled as farmers
and mechanics in the ordinary way. One portion of the estate
was owned by Mr. Owen, and the other by Mr. Maclure. They
sold, rented, or gave away the houses and lands, and their
heirs and assigns have continued to do so."

_J. H. Noyes,
History of American Socialisms,
chapter 4._

{2938}

SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1816-1886.
The modern Co-operative movement in England.

"The co-operative idea as applied to industry existed in the
latter part of the last century. Ambelakia was almost a
co-operative town, as may be read in David Urquhart's 'Turkey
and its Resources.' So vast a municipal partnership of
industry has never existed since. The fishers on the Cornish
coast carried out co-operation on the sea, and the miners of
Cumberland dug ore on the principle of sharing the profits.
The plan has been productive of contentment and advantage.
Gruyère is a co-operative cheese, being formerly made in the
Jura mountains, where the profits were equitably divided among
the makers. In 1777, as Dr. Langford relates in his 'Century
of Birmingham Life,' the tailors of that enterprising town set
up a co-operative workshop, which is the earliest in English
record. In France an attempt was made by Babœuf in 1796, to
establish a despotism of justice and equality by violence,
after the manner of Richelieu, whose policy taught the French
revolutionists that force might be a remedy. … Contemporaneous
with the French revolutionists we had Shute Barrington, Bishop
of Durham, who surpassed all other bishops in human sympathy
and social sagacity. He established at Mongewell, in
Oxfordshire, the first known co-operative store; and he, Count
Rumford, and Sir Thomas Bernard published in 1795, and for
many years after, plans of co·operative and social life, far
exceeding in variety and thoroughness any in the minds of
persons now living. 'The only apostle of the social state in
England at the beginning of this century,' Harriet Martineau
testifies, 'was Robert Owen,' and to him we owe the
co-operation of to-day. With him it took the shape of a
despotism of philanthropy. … The amazing arrangements Mr. Owen
made at his New Lanark Mills for educating his workpeople, and
the large amount of profit which he expended upon their
personal comforts, have had no imitators except Godin of
Guise, whose palaces of industry are to-day the wonder of all
visitors. Owen, like Godin, knew how to make manufacturing
generosity pay. … It was here that Mr. Owen set up a
co-operative store on the primitive plan of buying goods and
provisions wholesale and selling them to the workmen's
families at cost price, he giving storerooms and paying for
the management, to the greater advantage of the industrial
purchasers. The benefit which the Lanark weavers enjoyed in
being able to buy retail at wholesale prices was soon noised
abroad, and clever workmen elsewhere began to form stores to
supply their families in the same way. The earliest instance
of this is the Economical Society of Sheerness, commenced in
1816, and which is still doing business in the same premises
and also in adjacent ones lately erected. … These practical
co-operative societies with economical objects gradually
extended themselves over the land, Mr. Owen with splendid
generosity, giving costly publicity to his successes, that
others might profit likewise according to their means. His
remarkable manufacturing gains set workmen thinking that they
might do something in the same way. … The co-operative stores
now changed their plan. They sold retail at shop charges, and
saved the difference between retail and cost price as a fund
with which to commence co-operative workshops. In 1830 from
300 to 400 co-operative stores had been set up in England.
There are records of 250 existing, cited in the 'History of
Co-operation in Eng]and.' … The Rochdale Society of 1844 was
the first which adopted the principle of giving the
shareholders 5 per cent. only, and dividing the remaining
profit among the customers. There is a recorded instance of
this being done in Huddersfield in 1827, but no practical
effect arose, and no propagandism of the plan was attempted
until the Rochdale co-operators devised the scheme of their
own accord, and applied it. They began under the idea of
saving money for community purposes and establishing
co-operative workshops. For this purpose they advised their
members to leave their savings in the store at 5 per cent.
interest; and with a view to get secular education, of which
there was little to be had in those days, and under the
impression that stupidity was against them, they set apart 2½
per cent. of their profits for the purpose of instruction,
education, and propagandism. By selling at retail prices they
not only acquired funds, but they avoided the imputation of
underselling their neighbours, which they had the good sense
and good feeling to dislike. They intended to live, but their
principle was 'to let live.' By encouraging members to save
their dividends in order to accumulate capital, they taught
them habits of thrift. By refusing to sell on credit they made
no losses; they incurred no expenses in keeping books, and
they taught the working classes around them, for the first
time, to live without falling into debt. This scheme of
equity, thrift, and education constitutes what is called the
'Rochdale plan.' … The subsequent development of co-operation
has been greatly due to the interest which Professor Maurice,
Canon Kingsley, Mr. Vansittart Neale, Mr. Thomas Hughes, and
Mr. J. M. Ludlow took in it. They promoted successive
improvements in the law which gave the stores legal
protection, and enabled them to become bankers, to hold land,
and allow their members to increase their savings to £200. …
The members of co-operative societies of the Rochdale type now
exceed 900,000, and receive more than 2½ millions of profit
annually. There are 1,200 stores in operation, which do a
business of nearly 30 millions a year, and own share capital
of 8 millions. The transactions of their Co-operative Bank at
Manchester amount to 16 millions annually. The societies
devote to education £22,000 a year out of their profits, and
many societies expend important sums for the same purpose,
which is not formally recorded in their returns. In the
twenty-five years from 1861 to 1886 the co-operators have done
business of upwards of 361 millions, and have made for working
people a profit of 30 millions. … Co-operation in other
countries bears no comparison with its rise and progress in
England. The French excel in co-operative workshops, the
Germans in co-operative banks, England in the organisation of
stores. No country has succeeded yet with all three. Italy
excels even Germany in co-operative banks. It has, too, some
remarkable distributive societies, selling commodities at cost
prices, and is now beginning stores on the Rochdale plan.
France has many distributive stores, and is likely to
introduce the Rochdale type. … America … is likely to excel in
industrial partnerships, and is introducing the English system
of co-operation."

{2939}

_G. J. Holyoake,
The Growth of Co-operation in England
(Fortnightly Review, August 1, 1887)._