THE Central Literary Magazine. No. 4. It must be borne in mind that this Magazine is neutral in Politics and Religion; its pages are open to a free expression of all shades of opinion without leaning to any. OCTOBER, 1883. VOL. VI. The Drift Communistic. OTHING has been more noticeable of late than the prominence which social questions have assumed in the public mind. I mean those questions, which, regarding society as an unity, discuss the possibility of the cure or alleviation of its evils through legislative action. The propositions put forth by large sections of the community in Germany and France, and more or less in every country of Europe, are of a much more drastic and radical nature than any which have so far found defenders in this country. Nevertheless, the whole set and trend of the mind of Reformers, even in England, is in the direction of the socialistic idea. In England, the subject crops up in the varied discussions which have arisen about education, the land, sanitary questions, and the provision of improved dwellings for the people. I propose in this paper, briefly to trace the causes which I conceive to have led to this result, and to discuss the limits within which the application of governmental interference is justifiable. Within the memory of middleaged men, the doctrines of political economy, as laid down by Adam Smith, Ricardo, and subsequently (in the main) by John Stuart Mill, were almost looked upon as axioms, which could never again be brought into dispute. The theory of this school consisted in extending to the full the liberty of the individual, and in limiting to the smallest possible radius the function of the government. Little by little these principles, in their extreme form, have become discredited. To the more humane instincts of the age it has become evident that there are large numbers of the community who are unable to protect themselves from the selfish claims which are made on them by the stronger and wealthier classes of society. The Factory Acts were the outcome of this feeling. The Poor Law-which makes the community responsible for the life of all its members, and which taxes the whole for the maintenance of the more unfortunate, and it may be even the more unworthy portion— is a distinct violation of the old law of political economy. The Education Act, likewise, is a provision at the public expense of advantages which the weakest and poorest sections of society are unable to provide for themselves, and the deprivation of which is felt to be a wrong to the children, as well as to constitute a public danger. Whilst the Irish Land Act, of 1882, recognising the right of the State to interfere with private contracts where National interests are concerned, involves moreover an extension of the principle under discussion in a direction altogether new, forming a precedent, the results of which are probably not yet foreseen. When we add, to these examples, the provision of public libraries and parks from the local rates-legislation of a purely communistic character—it will be seen how far we have already travelled in this direction. The contention of the old theorists, and one that has much truth in it, was that this class of legislation (at all events, wherever it affects adults, as in the case of the Poor Law) is distinctly unjust; that the thrifty, the virtuous, and the industrious, are mulcted of a portion of their hard-earned savings, to provide for the improvident, the vicious, and the idle. If it were true that these last made up the whole, or even a very large proportion of those saved from starvation, it might be permitted to allow the stern law of the survival of the fittest to take its natural course; but we are beginning to realize that the nation is, in a sense, an individual; not only is it true that inevitable misfortune and deficient natural powers largely contribute to the supply of pauperism, but we are obliged to recollect that with the guilty man, the wife and children, who are at any rate innocent, would share the same fate as he upon whom they depend for bread. It is thus seen that the spirit of the age, permeated by the principles which Christ taught, does not permit the community as such to look with indifference on the individual sufferings of the unit. And so long as social legislation is carried out with the distinct sanction and approval of the majority, the objections may be put on one side, provided that such unsound legislation is avoided, as may cause greater evils than those attempted to be remedied. But it is not alone the gentler spirit of the age which has caused the change. At the commencement of the era which introduced the steamengine, and that great extension of labour-saving machinery, which has multiplied so many times the productive power of man, sanguine philanthropists not unnaturally thought that they foresaw the incoming of a new element, which would deliver mankind from excessive labour, and would enable time to be economized so largely that human beings would no longer be called upon to work so continuously, or so exhaustively, as to practically push out from the possibilities of their existence, the cultivation of their higher faculties. Henceforth, it seemed possible that culture might be attained by all, and that gradually extreme poverty would die out, through the cheapening and extension of all articles of general use, as well as through the reduction of the hours of labour How these sanguine hopes have been dashed, it is unnecessary to point out, but the fact that no such a result has ensued, has led men to investigate afresh the principles underlying the distribution of wealth; and this search has brought to light certain facts that tend to make us distrust the existing principles on which our social life is based, and to cast about for a possible remedy before the growth of the evils of the present system culminates in revolution. It is found that although the wealth of the community has enormously and even fabulously increased since the introduction of machinery,* the position of the great bulk of the people, those who labour with their hands more especially, is but slightly modified; in short, the distribution of the wealth which has resulted, is very unequal, and tends to become still more so. Two facts will, I think, indicate the process that is going on. In the first place pauperism has not materially decreased. The number of paupers has remained during the last thirty years at something less than one million, only twice rising above that number; this, however is the number at any one time, and it therefore follows that inasmuch as the individuals receiving relief are constantly changing, the pauper class must be very much larger; probably nearly three times as many. If, further, we add those who, while not actually recipients of public relief, are ever trembling on the edge of the gulf, kept from it only by the doles of private charity, the frightful fact stares us in the face, that after all these years of prodigious prosperity (if the mere accumulation of wealth constitutes prosperity), about one-sixth of the whole population live habitually in a state of squalid poverty. Now another fact: in 1852, the value of property and profits assessed for income-tax was in round numbers 259 millions, whilst in 1882 it was 578 millions. That is a good deal more than double in thirty years, so that if this increased wealth was equally distributed each man's income would be doubled, but during all that period, wages as far as the unskilled labourer goes, have never risen much above starvation point, and the general condition of the great body of the people is not radically better. It follows that this enormous and rapid increase of wealth is acquired under such conditions, as that those who have the largest share in its production, who labour the longest hours for the least wages, have the very smallest share in the reward. On the other hand, the wealth that thus flows into the hands of the comparatively few, instead of blessing thousands as it might do by raising and refining their sordid and labour-stricken lives, in multitudes of cases becomes a curse to its possessor, who, purse-proud and haughty, revels in luxury, and deteriorates * It was stated by Mr. Gladstone in 1875, that more wealth had been created in the present century than had been produced from the time of the Roman Empire to the close of the eighteenth century. in character; whilst his children, with the prospect of plenteous wealth without labour, are placed in a position at once unwholesome for themselves and dangerous to the community. I do not assert that this is the necessary result of great wealth, but it is a common effect, and one to which by the nature of things it tends, for it is undoubtedly the natural law that man shall live by his labour, and it is no less true that the existence of a large class in any society who are independent of that necessity, and who in addition are possessed of superfluous means which can most readily be got rid of by pandering to their own pleasure-seeking and vanity, is as distinct an evil as the existence at the other pole of society of an utterly impoverished class. The problem, then, being to obtain a more equal distribution of wealth, and it being proved that under present social arrangements, existing laws tend rather to aggravate the evil, where are we to look for a remedy? No doubt co-operation is capable of doing much in this direction; that is, manufacturing co-operation, and not merely distributive co-operation. But experience proves that the ordinary working-man is not as yet educated to the point which will enable him to carry out the plan with general success. After a generation of Board Schools, great things may be hoped from the system. One direction in which we may properly seek an extension of that socialistic legislation which will act as a partial check to this tendency, is in the gradual acquirement of monopolies by the government, either imperial or local, as the case may be, in order that they may be administered not only with a more direct view to the greater public convenience, but also that the profits appertaining to them may be devoted to the lessening of the public burdens. The acquirement of the Gas and Water monopolies, by Municipal Corporations, is an illustration of what I mean, and an examination of the great profits arising therefrom, and the high prices which have had to be paid to private companies for their acquirement, will show how much the community has lost in years gone by, by permitting this source of wealth to flow into private coffers. But the arguments in favour of these transfers apply equally in case of all monopolies; especially of such as have become absolute public necessities. It is monstrous, for instance, that the railways of a country, which have now become as necessary as the turnpike roads, should be administered by private companies, whose one leading motive necessarily must be the desire to make them pay. A common management of all the railways, with the sole view of public convenience, would not only add enormously to the comfort of travelling, but would inevitably result in an immense pecuniary saving, which could either be remitted in the form of lessened fares, or be applied to the reduction of our enormous burdens. Still, the one great monopoly which overshadows all others, and from the private administration of which, more than from any other single cause, has resulted the unequal distribution of wealth, is that of the Land. It is impossible of course here to go into any detailed argument in proof of this position-a position which but for our long familiarity with the wrong of private ownership, and the curious |