Chapter III: "laborism" in Great Britain

The British Socialist situation is almost as important internationally as the German. The organized workingmen of the world are indeed divided almost equally into two camps. Most of those of Australia, South Africa, and Canada, as well as a large majority in the United States, favor a Labour Party of the British type, and even the reformist Socialist leaders, Jaurès in France, Vandervelde in Belgium, and Turati in Italy, often take the British Party as model. On the other hand the majority of the _Socialists_ everywhere outside of Great Britain, including the larger part of all the _working people_ in every country of continental Europe, look towards the Socialist Party of Germany as their model, the political principles and tactics of which are diametrically opposed to those of the British Labour Party.

Far from opposing their Socialism to the "State Socialism" of the government, the British Socialists in general frankly admit that they also are "State Socialists," and seem not to realize that the increased power and industrial functions of the State may be used to the advantage of the privileged classes rather than to that of the masses. The Independent Labour Party even claims in its official literature that the "degree of civilization which a state has reached may almost be measured by the proportion of the national income which is spent collectively instead of individually."[108]

"Public ownership is Socialism," writes Mr. J. R. MacDonald, until lately Chairman of the Labour Party,[109] while Mr. Philip Snowden says that the first principle of Socialism is that the interests of the State stand over those of individuals.[110]

"I believe," says Mr. Keir Hardie, "the collectivist state to be a preliminary step to a communist state. I believe collectivism or State Socialism is the next stage of evolution towards the communist state." "Every class in a community," he said in this same speech, "approves and accepts Socialism up to the point at which its class interests are being served." It would appear, then, that Mr. Hardie means by "Socialism" a program of reforms a part of which at least is to the benefit of every economic class. He contends only that this "Socialism" could never be "fully" established until the working class intelligently coöperate with other forces at work in bringing Socialism into being.[111]

"State Socialism with all its drawbacks, and these I frankly admit," said Mr. Hardie, "will prepare the way for free communism." Mr. Hardie considers it to be the chief business of Socialists in the present day to fight for "State Socialism," and is fully conscious that this forces him to the necessity of defending the present-day State, as, for instance, when he writes elsewhere, "It is not the State which holds you in bondage, it is the private monopoly of those means of life without which you cannot live." Private property and war and not the State Mr. Hardie believes to have been the "great enslavers" of past history as of the present day, apparently ignoring periods in which the State has maintained a governing class which consisted not so much of property owners as of State functionaries; to periods which may soon be repeated, when private property served merely as one instrument of an all-powerful State.

Mr. MacDonald still more closely restricts the word "Socialism" to the "State Socialist" or State capitalist period into which we are now entering. "Socialism," says MacDonald, "is the _next_ stage in social growth,"[112] and throughout his writings and policy leaves no doubt that he means the very next stage, the capitalist collectivism of which I have been speaking. The international brotherhood of the nations, which many Socialist thinkers feel is an indispensable condition for the establishment of anything like democratic Socialism, Mr. MacDonald expects only in the distant future, while the end of government based on force, which is also considered essential by the majority of Socialist writers, Mr. MacDonald postpones to "some far remote generation."[113] In other words, the position of the recent Chairman of the Labour Party is that what the world has hitherto known as Socialism can only be expected after a vast period of time, and his opinion accords with that of many bitter critics and opponents of the movement, who avoid a difficult controversy by admitting all Socialist arguments and merely asking for time--"Socialism, a century or two hence--but not now,"--for all practical purposes an endless postponement.

Mr. MacDonald, who is not only a leader of the Labour Party, but also one of the chief organizers also of the leading Socialist Party of that country, has given us by far the fullest and most significant discussion of that party's policy. He says that an enlightened bourgeoisie will be just as likely to be Socialist as the working classes, and that therefore the class struggle is merely "a grandiloquent and aggressive figure of speech."[114] Struggle of some kind, he concedes, is necessary. But the more important form of struggle in present-day society, he says, is the trade rivalry between nations and not the rivalry between social classes.[115] Here at the outset is a complete reversal of the Socialist attitude. Socialists aim to put an end to this overshadowing of domestic by foreign problems, principally for the very reason that it aids the capitalists to obscure the class struggle--the foundation, the guiding principle, and the sole reason for the existence of the whole movement.

Mr. MacDonald claims further that a class struggle, far from uniting the working classes, can only divide them the more; in other words, that it works in exactly the opposite direction from that in which the international organization believes it works. The only "natural conflicts" in the present or future, within any given society, according to the spokesman of the Labour Party, represent, not the conflicting interests of certain economic classes, but the "conflicting views and temperaments" of individuals.[116] And the chief divisions of temperament and opinion, he says, will be between the world-old tendencies of action and inaction--a view which does not differ one iota from that of Mr. Roosevelt.

Mr. MacDonald asserts that "it is the _whole_ of society which is developing towards Socialism," and adds, "The consistent exponent of the class struggle must, of course, repudiate these doctrines, but then the class struggle is far more akin to Radicalism than to Socialism."[117] I have already pointed out how the older Radicalism, or political democracy, no matter how individualistic and anti-Socialist it may be, is often, as Mr. MacDonald says, more akin to International Socialism than that kind of "State Socialism" or State capitalism Mr. MacDonald represents.

Mr. MacDonald typifies the majority of British Socialists also in his opposition to every modern form of democratic advance, such as the referendum and proportional representation. Far from being disturbed, as so many democratic writers are, because minorities are suppressed where there is no plan of proportional representation, he opposes the second ballot, which has been adopted in the majority of the countries of Continental Europe--and, in the form of direct primaries, also in the United States. The principal thing that the electors are to do, he says, is to "send a man to support or oppose a government."

Mr. MacDonald finds that there is quite a sufficiency of democracy when the elector can decide between two parties; and far from considering the members of Parliament as delegates, he feels that they fill the chief political rôle, while the people perform the entirely subordinate task either of approving or of disapproving what they have already done. Parliament "first of all initiates ideas, suggests aims and purposes, makes proposals, and educates the community in these things with a view to their becoming the ideals and aims of the community itself."[118]

While Mr. MacDonald continues to receive the confidence of the trade union party, including its Socialistic wing, the Trade Union Congress votes down proportional representation by a large majority, apparently because it does not desire its members to be constituted into a truly independent group in Parliament, does not care to work for any political principle however concrete, but prefers to take such share of the actual powers of government as the Liberal Party is disposed to grant. Proportional representation would send for the first time a few outright Socialists to Parliament, but the election returns demonstrate that the trade unionists, if more independent of the Liberals, would be fewer in number than at present. A part of the Socialist voters desire this result and, of course, believe it is their right. The majority of the trade unionists, however, who have won a certain modicum of authority in spite of the undemocratic constitution of their party, do not care to grant it--as possibly conflicting with the relatively conservative plans of "the aristocracy of labor."

The Fabian Society's "Report on Fabian Policy" says that the referendum, "in theory the most democratic of popular institutions, is in practice the most reactionary."[119] Mr. MacDonald refers to it as a "crude Eighteenth Century idea of democracy," "a form of Village Community government."[120] At the Conference of the Labour Party at Leicester in 1911 he declared that it was "anti-democratic" and that if the government were to accept it, the Labour Party "would have to fight them tooth and nail at every step of that policy." As opposed to any plans for a more direct and more popular government, he defends the "dignity and authority" of Parliament and bespeaks the "reverence and deference" that the people ought to observe toward it.

Contrast with these views Mr. Hobson's presentation of the non-Socialist Radical doctrine. "Under a professed and real enthusiasm for a representative system," as opposed to direct government, Mr. Hobson finds that there is concealed "a deep-seated distrust of democracy." He acknowledges "that the natural conservatism of the masses of the people might be sufficient to retard some reforms." "But this is safer and better for democracy," he says, "than the alternative 'faking' of progress by pushing legislation ahead of the popular will. It is upon the whole far more profitable for reformers to be compelled to educate the people to a genuine acceptance of their reform than to 'work it' by some 'pull' or 'deal' inside a party machine."[121]

Mr. MacDonald not only puts a high value on British conservatism and a low one on the French Revolution and the Declaration of Independence, but declares that no change whatever in the mere structure of government can aid idealists and reformers in any way, and expects politics and parties to be much the same in the future as they are at the present moment. It is this attitude that Mr. Hobson has in mind when he protests that "the false pretense that democracy exists" in Great Britain has proved "the subtlest defense of privilege"--and that this has been the greatest cause of the waste of reform energy not only in England but also in France and in the United States.[122] Mr. MacDonald says explicitly, "The modern state in most civilized countries is democratic," and adds impatiently that "the remaining anomalies and imperfections" cannot prevent the people from obtaining their will.[123] To dismiss in so few words the monarchy, the restrictions of the suffrage, the unequal election districts and other shortcomings of political democracy in Great Britain, and to insist that the government is already democratic, is surely, as Mr. Hobson says, "the subtlest defense of privilege."

Mr. MacDonald comes out flatly with the statement that under what he calls the democratic parliamentary government of Great Britain it is practically impossible to maintain a pure and simple Socialist Party. He says proudly that "nothing which the Labour Parties of Australia or Great Britain have ever done or tried to do under their constitutions departs in a hair's breadth from things which the Liberal and the Tory Parties in these countries do every day."[124] "Indeed, paradoxical though it may appear," he adds, "Socialism will be retarded by a Socialist Party which thinks it can do better than a Socialistic Party."[125]

The Independent Labour Party, indeed, has had a program of reform that is remarkably similar to that of Ministers Churchill and Lloyd George, and is indorsed in large part by capitalists--as for example, by Andrew Carnegie. The first measure of this program provided for a general eight-hour day. Mr. Carnegie protests that to put the Socialist label on this is as "frank burglary as was ever committed," and the trade union movement in general would agree with him.[126]

The second demand was for a "workable unemployment act." The Labour Party had previously introduced a more radical measure which very nearly received the support of a majority of Parliament. The third measure called for old-age pensions. Mr. Carnegie remarked of this with perfect justice: "Mr. MacDonald is here a day behind the fair. These have been established in Britain before this [Mr. Carnegie's "Problems of To-day"] appears in print, both political parties being favorable." It is true that the Labour party demands a somewhat more advanced measure than that to which Mr. Carnegie alludes, but there is no radical difference in principle, and the Labour Party accepted the present law as being a considerable installment of what they want.

Of the fourth point the "abolition of indirect taxation (and the gradual transference of all public burdens to unearned incomes)," Mr. Carnegie remarks that "we must read the bracketed works in the light of Mr. MacDonald's philosophy," and "that this is a consummation which cannot be reached (in Mr. MacDonald's words) 'until the organic structure of society has been completely altered.'" We have seen that Mr. Churchill also aims at the _ultimate_ expropriation of the whole future unearned increment of the land.

The fifth point of the program was similar,--a series of land acts (aimed at the ultimate nationalization of the land).

The sixth point was the nationalization of the railroads and mines. Mr. Carnegie reminds us that many conservative and reactionary governments own their own railroads. We have seen that Mr. Churchill is in favor of the same proposal. Mines also are now national property in several countries, and there is nothing particularly radical or unacceptable to well-informed conservatives in the proposal to nationalize them elsewhere.

The seventh demand of the program was for "democratic political reforms." While the Independent Labour Party and some of its leaders are in favor of a complete program of democratic reforms, I have shown that others like Mr. MacDonald are directly opposed even to many modern democratic measures already won in other countries.

It would certainly seem that the social reformers, Mr. Carnegie and others, have as much right as the Socialists to claim such measures as all those outlined.

Many of the other reforms proposed by the Independent Labour Party are such as might readily find acceptance among the most conservative. Indeed in urging the policy of afforestation, as one means of helping in the solution of the unemployed problem, the party actually uses the argument that even Prussia, Saxony, and many other highly capitalistic governments are undertaking it; though it does not mention the reactionary purposes of these governments, as for example, in Hungary where it is proposed to use the government's new army of labor to build up a scientific system of breaking strikes. Afforestation would add to the general wealth of the country in the future, and would be of considerable advantage to the capitalist classes, which makes the largest uses of lumber. Such a policy could undoubtedly be devised in carrying out this work as would absorb a considerable portion of the unemployed, and, since unemployment is a burden to the community and troublesome in many ways, besides tending to bring about a general deterioration of the efficiency of the working class, it is also to the ultimate interest of the employers to adopt it.

A leading organ of British Socialism, the _New Age_, went so far as to say of the Budget of 1910 that it was almost as good "as we should expect from a Socialist Chancellor in his first year of office," and said that if Mr. Philip Snowden, were Chancellor, the Budget would have been little different from what it was.[127] And it is true that the principles of the Budget as interpreted by Mr. Snowden only a few years ago in his booklet, "The Socialist Budget," are in nearly every instance the same, though they are to be somewhat more widely applied in this Socialist scheme. Of course all Socialists would have desired a smaller portion of the Budget to go to Dreadnoughts and a larger part to education, though, in view of the popularity of the Navy, it is doubtful whether Labour Party Socialist's would materially cut naval expenditure (see Chapter V). It must also be noted that the Socialists are wholly opposed to the increase of indirect taxation on tobacco and liquor, some four fifths of which falls on the shoulders of the workingman. But aside from these points, there is more similarity than contrast between the two plans.

Mr. Snowden declared that it was the intention of the Socialists to make the rich poorer and the poor richer, that they were going to use the power of taxation for that purpose, and that the Budget marked the beginning of the new era, an opinion in strange contrast with Premier Asquith's statement _concerning the same Budget, for which he was responsible_, that one of its chief purposes was "_to increase the stability and security of property_."

Indeed the word "Socialism" has been extended in England to include measures far less radical than those contemplated by the present government. The Fabian Society, the chief advocate of "municipal Socialism" and a professed and recognized Socialist organization, considers even the post office and factory legislation as being installments of Socialism, while the Labour Party would restrict the term to the nationalization or municipalization of industries--but the difference is not of very great importance. The latter class of reform will undoubtedly mark a revolution in the policy of the British government, but, as Kautsky says, this revolution may only serve "to Prussianize it," _i.e._ to introduce "State Socialism."

"The best government," says Mr. Webb, "is no longer 'that which governs least,' but 'that which can safely and advantageously administer most.'"

"Wherever rent and interest are being absorbed under public control
for public purposes, wherever the collective organization of the
community is being employed in place of individual efforts,
wherever in the public interest, the free use of private land or
capital is being further restrained--there one more step toward the
complete realization of the Socialist Ideal is being taken."

The fight of the British Socialists has thus been directed from the first almost exclusively against the abstraction, "individualism," and not against the concrete thing, the capitalist class. John Morley had said that the early Liberals, Cobden, Bright, and others, were systematic and constructive, because they "surveyed society and institutions as a whole," because they "connected their advocacy of political and legal changes with theories of human nature," because they "considered the great art of government in connection with the character of man, his proper education, his potential capacities," and could explain "in the large dialect of a definite scheme what were their aims and whither they were going."

"Is there," Mr. Morley had asked, "any approach to such a body of systematic political thought in our own day?" Mr. Webb announced that the Fabians proposed to fill in this void. It was primarily system and order rather than any particular principle at which he aimed. The keynote of his system was to be opposition to the individualistic _theory_ of the philosophic Liberals whom the Fabians hoped to succeed rather than opposition to the _principles_ of capitalism, which lend themselves equally well either to an individualistic or to a collectivistic application.

Just as Mr. Webb is the leading publicist, so Mr. Bernard Shaw is the leading writer, among the exponents of Fabian Socialism. It is now more than twenty years since he also began idealizing the State, and he is doing the same thing to-day. "Who is the people? What is the people?" he asked in the Fabian Essays in 1889. "Tom we know, and Dick; also Harry; but solely and separately as individuals: as a trinity they have no existence. Who is their trustee, their guardian, their man of business, their manager, their secretary, even their stockholder? The Socialist is stopped dead at the threshold of practical action by this difficulty, until he bethinks himself of the State as the representative and trustee of the people."[128] It will be noticed that Mr. Shaw does not say the State may become the representative and trustee of the people, but that it _is_ their representative. "Hegel," he continues, "expressly taught the conception of the perfect State, and his disciples saw that nothing in the nature of things made it possible or even difficult to make the existing State if not absolutely perfect, at least trustworthy;" and then, after alluding with the greatest brevity to the anti-democratic elements of the British government, Mr. Shaw proceeds to develop at great length the wonderful possibilities of the existing State as the practically trustworthy trustee, guardian, man of business, manager, secretary, and stockholder _of the people_.[129]

Yet Mr. Shaw says that a Social-Democrat is one "who _desires_ through democracy _to_ gather the whole people into the State, so that the State may be trusted with the rent of the country, and finally with the land and capital and the organization of national industry." He reasons that the transition to Socialism through gradual extensions of democracy and State action had seriously begun forty-five years before the writing of the Essays, that is, in the middle of the nineteenth century (when scarcely one sixth of the adult male population of Great Britain had a vote, and when, through the unequal election districts, the country squires practically controlled the situation--W. E. W.). In Mr. Shaw's reasoning, as in that of many other British Socialists, a very little democracy goes a long way.[130]

Later Mr. Shaw repudiated democracy altogether, saying that despotism fails only for want of a capable benevolent despot, and that what we want nowadays is not a new or modern form of democracy, but only capable benevolent representatives. He shelved his hopes for the old ideal, government _by_ the people, by opposing to it a new ideal of a very active and beneficent government _for_ the people. In "Fabianism and the Empire" Shaw and his collaborators say frankly: "The nation makes no serious attempt to democratize its government, because its masses are still in so deplorable a condition that democracy, in the popular sense of government by the masses, is clearly contrary to common sense."[131]

Mr. H. G. Wells, long a member of the Fabian Society, has well summed up the character of what he calls this "opportunist Socialist group" which has done so much to shape the so-called British Socialism. He says that Mr. Sidney Webb was, during the first twenty years of his career "the prevailing Fabian."

"His insistence upon continuity pervaded the Society, was re-echoed
and intensified by others, and developed into something like a
mania for achieving Socialism _without the overt change of any
existing ruling body_. His impetus carried this reaction against
the crude democratic idea to its extremest opposite. Then arose
Webbites to caricature Webb. From saying that the unorganized
people cannot achieve Socialism, they passed to the implication
that organization alone, without popular support, might achieve
Socialism. Socialism was to arrive as it were _insidiously_.

"To some minds this new proposal had the charm of a schoolboy's
first dark lantern. Socialism ceased to be an open revolution, and
become a plot. Functions were to be shifted, quietly,
unostentatiously, from the representative to the official he
appointed; a bureaucracy was to slip into power through the
mechanical difficulties of an administration by debating
representatives; and since these officials would, by the nature of
their positions, constitute a scientific government as
distinguished from haphazard government, they would necessarily run
the country on the lines of a _pretty distinctly undemocratic
Socialism_.

"The process went even farther than secretiveness in its reaction
from the _large rhetorical forms of revolutionary Socialism_. There
arose even a _repudiation of 'principles' of action_, and a type of
worker which proclaimed itself 'Opportunist-Socialist.' This
conception of indifference to the forms of government, of accepting
whatever governing bodies existed and using them to create
officials and '_get something done_,' was at once immediately
fruitful in many directions, and presently productive of many very
grave difficulties in the path of advancing Socialism." (Italics
mine.)[132]

Besides the obvious absurdities of such tactics, Mr. Wells points out that they ignored entirely that reconstruction of legislative and local government machinery which is very often an indispensable preliminary to Socialization. He is speaking of such Socialism when he says:--

"Socialism has concerned itself only with the material
reorganization of Society and its social consequences, with
economic changes and the reaction of these changes on
administrative work; it has either accepted existing intellectual
conditions and political institutions as beyond its control or
assumed that they will obediently modify as economic and
administrative necessity dictates.... Achieve your expropriation,
said the early Fabians, get your network of skilled experts over
the country, and your political forms, your public opinion, your
collective soul will not trouble you."[133]

Here Mr. Wells shows that, while the practical difficulties of making collectivism serve all the people were ignored on the one hand, the first need of the people, political education, was neglected on the other. It is true that during the first few years of its existence the Fabian Society made a great and successful effort to educate public opinion in a Socialist direction, but soon its leading members deserted all such larger work, to support various administrative "experiments."

Mr. Wells referred to this same type of Socialism in his "Misery of Boots":--

"Let us be clear about one thing: that Socialism means revolution,
and that it means a change in the everyday texture of life. It
_may_ be a very gradual change, but it will be a very complete one.
You cannot change the world, and at the same time not change the
world. You will find Socialists about, or at any rate men calling
themselves Socialists, who will pretend that this is not so, who
will assure you that some odd little jobbing about municipal gas
and water is Socialism, and backstairs intervention between
Conservative and Liberal the way to the millennium.... Socialism
aims to change, not only the boots on people's feet, but the
clothes they wear, the houses they inhabit, the work they do, the
education they get, their places, their honors, and all their
possessions. Socialism aims to make a new world out of the old. It
can only be attained by the intelligent, outspoken, courageous
resolve of a great multitude of men and women. You must get
absolutely clear in your mind that Socialism means a _complete
change, a break with history_, with much that is picturesque;
_whole classes will vanish_. The world will be vastly different,
with different sorts of houses, different sorts of people. All the
different trades and industries will be changed, the medical
profession will be carried on under different conditions,
engineering, science, the theatrical trade, the clerical trade,
schools, hotels, almost every trade, will have to undergo as
complete an internal change as a caterpillar does when it becomes a
moth ... a change as profound as the abolition of private property
in slaves would have been in ancient Rome or Athens." (The italics
are mine.)

Here is the exact opposite view to that which has been taught for many years by the Fabian Society to no small audience of educated Englishmen (and Americans). For there are comparatively few who have neither read any of the Fabian pamphlets nor seen or read any of Bernard Shaw's plays in which the same standpoint is represented.

Mr. John A. Hobson classes the Socialist and non-Socialist reformers of Great Britain together as regards their opportunism. Though a Liberal himself, he objects that some Socialists are not radical enough, and that "the milder and more opportunist brand suffer from excessive vagueness." Of the prevailing tendency towards opportunism, Mr. Hobson writes:--

"This revolt against ideas is carried so far that able men have
come seriously to look upon progress as a matter for the
manipulation of wirepullers, something to be 'jobbed' in committee
by sophistical motions or other clever trickery. Great national
issues really turn, according to this judgment, upon the arts of
political management, the play of the adroit tactician and the
complete canvasser. This is the 'work' that tells; elections, the
sane expression of the national will, are won by these and by no
other means.

"_Nowhere has this mechanical conception of progress worked more
disastrously than in the movement towards Collectivism._ Suppose
that the mechanism of reform were perfected, that each little
clique of specialists and wirepullers were placed at its proper
point in the machinery of public life, will this machinery grind
out progress? Every student of industrial history knows that the
application of a powerful 'motor' is of vastly greater importance
than the invention of a special machine. Now, what provision is
made for generating the motor power of progress in Collectivism?
Will it come of its own accord? Our mechanical reformer apparently
thinks it will. The attraction of some present obvious gain, the
suppression of some scandalous abuse of monopolist power by a
private company, some needed enlargement of existing Municipal or
State enterprise by lateral expansion--such are the sole springs of
action. In this way the Municipalization of public services,
increased assertion of State control over mines, railways, and
factories, the assumption under State control of large departments
of transport trade, proceed without any recognition of the guidance
of general principles. Everywhere the pressure of special concrete
interests, nowhere the conscious play of organized human
intelligence!...

"My object here is to justify the practical utility of 'theory' and
'principle' in the movement of Collectivism by showing that
reformers who distrust the guidance of Utopia, or even the
application of economic first principles, are not thrown back
entirely upon that crude empiricism which insists that each case is
to be judged separately and exclusively on its own individual
merits."

Mr. Hobson then proposes his collectivist program, which he rightly considers to be not Socialist but Liberal merely--and we find it more collectivistic, radical, and democratic than that of many so-called Socialists. Moreover it expresses the views of a large and growing proportion of the present Liberal Party. Then he concludes as follows:--

"If practical workers for social and industrial reforms continue to
ignore principles, the inevitable logic of events will nevertheless
drive them along the path of Collectivism here indicated. But they
will have to pay the price which shortsighted empiricism always
pays; with slow, hesitant, and staggering steps, with innumerable
false starts and backslidings, they will move in the dark along an
unseen track towards an unseen goal. Social development may be
conscious or unconscious. It has been mostly unconscious in the
past, and therefore slow, wasteful, and dangerous. If we desire it
to be swifter, safer, and more effective in the future, it must
become the conscious expression of the trained and organized will
of a people not despising theory as unpractical, but using it to
furnish economy in action."[134]

Practically all "State Socialists" hold a similar view to that of Shaw and Webb. Mr. Wells even, in his "First and Last Things," has a lengthy attack on what he calls democracy, when he tells us that its true name is "insubordination," and that it is base because "it dreams that its leaders are its delegates." His view of democracy is strictly consistent with his attitude toward the common man, whom he regards as "a gregarious animal, collectively rather like a sheep, emotional, hasty, and shallow."[135] Democracy can only mean, Mr. Wells concludes, that power will be put into the hands of "rich newspaper proprietors, advertising producers, and the energetic wealthy generally, as the source flooding the collective mind freely with the suggestions on which it acts."

The _New Age_, representing the younger Fabians, also despairs of democracy and advocates compromise, because "the democratic party have failed so far to be indorsed and inforced by popular consent." It acknowledges that the power of the Crown is "great and even temporarily overwhelming," but discourages opposition to monarchy for the reason that monarchy rests on the ignorance and weakness of the people and not on sheer physical coercion.[136] The _New Age_ opposes those democratic proposals, the referendum and proportional representation, considers that the representative may so thoroughly embody the ideals and interests of the community as to become "a spiritual sum of them all," and admits that this ideal of a "really representative body of men" might be brought about under an extremely undemocratic franchise.[137] "Outside of a parish or hamlet the Referendum," it says, "is impossible. To an Empire it is fatal."[138] And finally, this Socialist organ is perfectly ready to grant another fifty million pounds for the navy, provided the money is drawn from the rich, as it finds that "a good, thumping provision for an increased navy would do a great deal to sweeten a drastic budget for the rich, as well as strengthen the appeal of the party which professes to be advancing the cause of the poor." Imperialism and militarism, which in most countries constitute the chief form in which capitalism is being fought by Socialists, are actually considered as of secondary importance, on the ground that through acquiescing in them it becomes possible to hasten a few reforms, such as have already been granted by the capitalists of several other countries without any Socialist surrender and even without Socialist pressure of any kind.

The recent appeal of the _New Age_, for "a hundred gentlemen of ability" to save England, its regret that no truly intelligent and benevolent "governing class" or "Platonic guardians" are to be found, and its weekly disparagement of democracy do not offer much promise that it will soon turn in the radical direction. On the contrary it predicts that the firm possession of political power by the wealthy classes is foredoomed to result, as in the Roman Empire, in the creation of two main classes, each of which must become corrupt, "the one by wealth and the other by poverty," and that finally the latter must become incapable of corporate resistance. The familiar and scientifically demonstrated fact of the physical and moral degeneration of a considerable part of the British working people doubtless suggests to many persons such pessimistic conclusions. "It is hopeless in our view," the _New Age_ concludes, "to expect that the poor and ignorant, however desperate and however numerous, will ever succeed in displacing their wealthy rulers. No slave revolt in the history of the world has ever succeeded by its own power. In these days, moreover, the chances of success are even smaller. One machine gun is equal to a mob."[139]

Indeed the distrust of democracy is so universal among British Socialists that Belloc, Chesterton and other Liberals accuse them plausibly, but unjustly, of actually representing an aristocratic standpoint. In an article entitled "Why I Am Not A Socialist," Mr. Chesterton expresses a belief, which he says is almost unknown among the Socialists of England, namely, a belief "in the masses of the common people."[140] Mr. Belloc, in a debate against Bernard Shaw, predicted that Socialism, if it comes in England, will probably be simply "another of the infinite and perpetually renewed dodges of the English aristocracy."

It may be well doubted if any of the more important of the world's conservative, aristocratic, or reactionary forces (except the doctrinaire Liberals) are opposed to Socialism as defined by the Fabian Society, _i.e._ a gradual movement in the direction of collectivism. Not only Czar and Kaiser but even the Catholic Church may be claimed as Socialistic by this standard. Mr. Hubert Bland, one of the original Fabian Essayists and a very influential member of the Society, himself a Catholic, actually asserts that the Church never has attacked Fabian or true Socialism. In view of the fact that the Church is at war with the Socialist Parties of Italy, France, Belgium, Austria, Germany, the United States, and every country where both the Church and the Socialists are a political power, in view of the wholesale and most explicit denunciations by Popes and high ecclesiastics, and the war being waged against the Socialist Parties at every point, Mr. Eland's argument has some interest.

Having defined Socialism as "the increase of State rights" and "the tendency to limit the proprietary rights of the individual and to widen the proprietary rights and activities of the community" or as the "control of property by the State and municipality," Mr. Bland has, of course, no difficulty in showing that the Catholic Church has never opposed it--though many individualistic Catholics have done so.

"No fewer than two Popes," writes Mr. Bland, "are said to have condemned Socialism in authoritative utterances, but when I examine and analyze these condemnations, I find it is not Socialism in the sense I have defined it here, that is condemned."[141] It is indeed true that few of the most bitter and persistent enemies of the Socialist movement condemn "Socialism" as defined by Mr. Bland and his "State Socialist" associates.

This capitalistic collectivism promoted by the Fabian Society has embodied itself practically in the movement towards "municipal Socialism" of which so much was heard some years ago, first in Great Britain and later in other countries. It is now from ten to twenty years since many British cities, notably Glasgow, began municipal experiments on a large scale that were branded by Socialists and non-Socialists alike, as municipal Socialism. The first of these experiments included not only the municipalization of street railways, electric light and current, and so on, but even the provision of municipal slaughter houses, bathing establishments, and outdoor amusements. The later stages have developed in a somewhat different direction. The chief reforms under discussion everywhere seem now to be the proposals that the municipalities should provide housing accommodations for the poorer elements of the population, and that the health of the children should be looked after, even to the extent of providing free lunches in public schools. If less had been heard of "municipal Socialism" in the last year or two, this is merely because reforms on a national scale have for the moment received the greater share of public attention. This does not necessarily mean that the national reforms are more important than the municipal, but only that the latter came first because they were easier to inaugurate, though perhaps more difficult to carry to a successful conclusion.

But the first popularity of the municipal reform movement, both in Great Britain and in other countries, has received at least a temporary setback as the relations between this "municipal Socialism" and taxation were recognized. Both the non-taxpaying working people and the small taxpaying middle class saw that the profits of the new municipal enterprises went to a considerable extent towards decreasing the taxation of the well-to-do instead of conferring benefits on the majority. This might appear strange, since under universal suffrage the non-taxpaying and non-landowning majority would be expected to dominate. But in Great Britain, as well as elsewhere, central governments, in the firm control of taxpayers and landowners, exercise a strict control over the municipalities, so that this kind of reform will prove advantageous chiefly to the landlords, by enabling them to raise rents in proportion to the benefits gained by tenants; and to the taxpaying minority, by making it possible to use the profits of municipal undertakings for the purpose of reducing taxes.

The tendency toward the extension of municipal enterprises to be noted in all the important cities of the world, is hastened by the public belief that there is no other possible means of preventing the exploitation of all classes, and consequent widespread injury to trade, building, and industry in general, by public service corporations. But it must be observed that whatever municipalization there is will continue to be under the control of the taxpayers, landowners, and business men and largely in their interest as long as national governments remain in capitalist hands.

The national social reform administrations that are coming into power in so many countries are encouraging various forms of taxpayers' "municipal Socialism." The ultraconservative governments of Germany, Austria, and Belgium all permit the cities to engage even in the public feeding of school children, while the reactionary national government of Hungary has undertaken to provide for the housing of 25,000 working people at Budapest. The conservative _London Daily Mail_ cries out that the Hungarian minister, Dr. Wekerle has "stolen a march on the Socialists," but that it is the "right sort of Socialism," and that "it has been left to the leader of the privileged Parliament [the Hungarian Parliament representing not the small capitalists, but the landed nobility and gentry] to make the first start." And there is little doubt that both the provision of houses for the working people and the public feeding of school children rest on precisely the same principles as the social reforms now being undertaken by national governments, such as that of Great Britain, and are, indeed, the "right sort of Socialism" from the capitalist standpoint.

Taking the municipal reformer as a type of the so-called Socialist, Mr. Belloc, a prominent Liberal Member of Parliament and an anti-Socialist, says that "in the atmosphere in which he works and as regards the susceptibilities which he fears to offend," that the municipal Socialist is entirely of the capitalist class. "You cannot make revolutions without revolutionaries," he continues, "and anything less revolutionary than your municipal reformer never trod the earth. The very conception is alien to this class of persons; usually he is desperately frightened as well. Yet it is quite certain that so vast a change as Socialism presupposes cannot be carried out without hitting. When one sees it verbally advocated (and in practice shirked) by men who have never hit anything in their lives, and who are even afraid of a scene with a waiter in a restaurant, one is not inclined to believe in the reality of the creed." Mr. Belloc concludes finally that all that this kind of Socialism has done during its moments of greatest activity has tended merely to recognize the capitalist more and more and to stereotype the gulf between him and the other classes.[142]

And just as Mr. Belloc has reproached the Socialists for their conservatism, so the _New Age_ and other mouthpieces of Socialism condemn the non-Socialist radicals who constitute one of the chief elements among the supporters of the present government (including Mr. Belloc) as being too radical. In the literature of the Fabian Society also, the accusation against the Liberals of being too revolutionary is quite frequent. Years ago Mr. Sidney Webb accused them of having "the revolutionary tradition in their bones," of conceiving society as "a struggle of warring interests," and said that they would reform _nothing_ "unless it be done at the expense of their enemies." While this latter accusation is scarcely true, either of the British Liberals or of the revolutionary Socialists of the Continent, it is obvious that the _most important_ reforms of the Socialists, those to which greatest efforts must necessarily be given, those which alone must be fought for, are precisely the ones that must be brought about "at the expense of the enemy."

In no other country has public opinion either within the Socialist movement or outside of it so completely despaired of democracy and the people. In none has the spirit of popular revolt and militant radicalism been so long dormant. Yet, there can be little doubt that the British masses, encouraged by those of France, Germany, and other countries, will one day recover that self-confidence and self-assertion they seem to have lost since the times of the "Levellers" of the Commonwealth, two hundred and fifty years ago. It may take years before this new revolutionary movement gains the momentum it already possesses in Germany and France. But the great strikes of 1910, 1911, and 1912 (see