STATE SOCIALISM.

THE European interest which has arisen in State Socialism is not, as yet, very intelligent. Feudality is not out of the bones of people in England, even now. Free workmen still expect from employers something of the gifts and care of vassalage, though they no longer render vassal service. Landlords still look for the allegiance of their tenants, notwithstanding that they charge them rent for their lands. In other countries, despotism, tempered by paternal government, trains the people to look for State redress and State management. Thus the mass of the people everywhere regard the State as the source of evil or of good. State Socialism is one of the diseases of despotism, whose policy it is to encourage dependence. Only free men, who intelligently understand freedom, are prepared to owe their prosperity to themselves, and elect to do it, regard State dependence as the malady of subjection, or incompetence.

The working man, with no fortune save his capacity of industry, lives under the despotism of Trade, which, better than the despotism of Government, leaves him the freedom of opportunity, though without any certainty of opportunity occurring. He remains subject to the precariousness of hire. No wonder, therefore, that Labour, imprisoned in the cage of wages, and seeing no mode of self-extrication, is ready to follow any one who offers to open the door, utterly regardless of the chance of living outside.

State Socialism, so far as any taste for it exists in England, is a growth of Toryism. Absolutism in politics has always fostered a liking for paternal government in the people. Before what we know as Toryism arose, Ecclesiasticism did the same thing. Almsgiving on the part of the churches was partly kindness and partly policy, and is still kept up by the wealthier classes of laymen. The rich, as a class, are not averse to the dependence of the poor. Patronage is pleasing to them, and ministers to their influence. The extinction of pauperism, which they believe they desire, would fill them with dismay if it were likely to take place. They only object to charitable gifts when they become too expensive; but they have a permanent objection to enable the poor to obtain a position absolutely independent, and hesitate to afford them the means of becoming so, by

obtaining for them fair legal facilities of supporting themselves, which they fear would give the people the airs and importance of equals, when their education would be no longer regulated and limited by their superiors, and their politics and religion would cease to be dictated by their pastors and masters.' Practically untrained, therefore, in the aspiration of independence, little wonder that many of them are lame in their pursuit of it. Thus it comes to pass that one day they are prone to be beguiled by the professions, and next day liable to become the prey, of the Saviours of Society.'

The better sort of 'Saviours' have invented seductive phrases which have heretofore beguiled me into expressions of admiration, until more discernment taught me to distrust their tendency. One was that Property has its duties as well as its rights.' Property, honestly come by, is for security, pleasure, and power. It has no obligations save those dictated by its interests. All men have a right to an equitable chance of property for the ends of protection and enjoyment; and in a justly organised society there ought not to exist either the necessity or duty of parting with it, when rightly obtained. When something is required to be done for those who have no means of doing it for themselves, the richer people are now expected to assist in providing what is wanted. What is this but a humanitarian confiscation of the property of those from whom such help is exacted? What is this but industrial mendicancy on the part of those who receive it? Why should workmen need to stoop to this? Why should they not possess the means to provide themselves with what they need? A municipality of independence, desiring some improvement, does not beg; it assesses itself for the expenses. In the same manner, the working class anywhere needing an institution, or an advantage, should do the same-pass a levy upon themselves-not pass round the hat to their richer neighbours. Property has no intrinsic duties of charity. It is the poor who have duties, not the rich; and it is the first duty of the industrious poor not to be poor. Because of their helplessness now, the poor may accept the politic largesses of the rich, but they have no claim thereto. The obligation lies upon them always and everywhere to find out why riches accumulate in other hands and not in theirs, and to take immediate and persistent steps to amend the irregularity. The rich-if we except the 'out-door relief' to the aristocracy, which Mr. Bright considers is dispensed at the Horse Guards and Admiralty-do not ask for State Socialism; only men in mendicant condition or of mendicant spirit do that, or ever think of it.

The only persons in this country likely to be suspected of the State Socialistic craze are the working class co-operators, because they are the only class which has any capacity of understanding Socialism. Civil Service storemen are mere shopkeepers and are not to be counted. Their horizon being bounded by the till, they lack the dignity which

being subjects of suspicion implies. True co-operators are no State Socialists. English co-operators never borrow money, and never ask the State to lend them any. They save their own capital mainly by their stores. Mr. Owen, the modern founder of English Socialism, indeed, professed that the State ought to lend the capital which should found a community on a great scale; after which he believed that private capitalists would readily furnish it, when they saw the success which he believed would be sure to attend the first experiment. But he had small hope of any Liberal Government lending this kind of assistance. The instinct of Liberalism is that of self-help. Its principle is that the people should do everything for themselves; and that the province of Government is to afford equal facilities to all classes to do this, and afford nothing more. In several things Liberal Governments have afforded assistance where they thought the people could not help themselves, and where some assistance would clearly lead to their ultimately doing without it. The policy of Liberalism is to encourage the people to owe everything to themselves. The policy of Conservatism is exactly the reverse. It is to impress the people with the belief that they owe everything to their superiors. By giving back to the people some of the money of the State, these sort of rulers obtain the influence of donors, and conceal from the people that the money given them (and a great deal more) is first taken from them. If Mr. Owen did not perceive this policy he understood the fact, and to obtain money for his community scheme he danced attendance in the chambers of Tory ministers, and was a suppliant in the Courts of despotic monarchs. To do him justice, he was so devoted to his object, that he would have accepted assistance, with equal impartiality, from angel or fiend who would promote his views.

But we have among us a school who, had they the capacity of converting the populace, would soon spread the infection of State Socialism among the working class. The Comtists, who are influential in one way, and nominally few in numbers, have always been in favour of appeals to the public treasury. The Comtists are influential because they are on the side of despotic rulers. They are a secret force who work for Absolutism in the name of Humanity. They intend to rule well, but it is ruling which they intend; nor peradventure do they care much for the working class except as persons to be ruled. The number of persons in all parties willing to rule others is much greater than is supposed. The air of the State is always full of Political and Social Cuckoos, who lay the eggs of their self-importance in the nests of any party likely to hatch them. The few avowed Comtists are rendered influential beyond their apparent numbers by the sympathy of those who have their instinct without their method. In an early manifesto on the Labour Question made by Mr. Congreve in 1861, he gave documents authorised personally by Auguste Comte which set forth that the State should

always have at its disposal the necessary funds for giving employment to workmen whom private enterprise leaves without work. . . The funds for doing this should be furnished by the public treasury.'' The late Emperor Napoleon subsidised co-operative workshops in Paris freely, in lieu of giving the workmen liberty; and that Imperial friend of Humanity had whatever advantage Auguste Comte's approval could give him.

The English Conservatives are not averse to giving State aid for a similar purpose-their private difficulty is as to whether they could keep the management of the influence in their hands. The Liberals are for the people managing their own affairs, as the nobler class of Conservatives are. Sir Robert Peel who gave us Free Trade, and Lord Derby, may be counted as instances of this way of thinking. But if the other class of Conservatives, who believe that the welfare of the people depends entirely upon their being allowed to manage them, could get the upper hand, all the Jingoes would be found to be State Socialists. Trade Union workshops would be subsidised, and the Conservative working man' would be recruited by thousands from the ranks even of Liberals-for great numbers of working men are of the politics of State aid, just as great numbers of manufacturers are always of the policy of 'Protection.' State aid to Industry, and Protection to Trade, are the two cries of masters and men-of that class who want something done for them.

The followers of Lassalle in Germany were of this class, and were ready to support that political party which supplied them with capital. But there were also intelligent self-respecting workmen in Germany who declined to sell their birthright of independence for a mess of pottage from the State. So two parties arose. They are known now as Lassallites and Marxites, and at Gotha, in 1874, they agreed to joint demands, with a view to prepare the way for the solution of the Social question, the formation of productive co-operative associations with State aid, under the democratic control of the labouring people. The productive co-operative associations to be started for industrial and agricultural operations on such a scale that the Socialistic organisation of labour in general may arise from them.'2 As Liberals are against State subsidies, and Conservatives against 'Democratic control,' this movement stands at present high and dry in the middle of the nation. Without the democratic condition Bismarck has no more objection to State Socialism than he had in the days of Lassalle, with whom he connived to promote it.

State Socialism, being a disease of some of the rich as well as of many of the poor, is not to be regarded as though it were necessarily a crime in workmen. The Socialists and Nihilists among the workmen of Germany and Russia are not the dangerous class they are 1 The Labour Question, pp. 20, 21 (Manwaring, 1861). 2 J. F. Smith. Theological Review, January 1879, p. 47.

represented. A little outrage of speech or act on their part is made to go a long way 3 by classes more dangerous than they, who, unwilling to accord redress, are glad of pretexts of repression. Alarmed power has many friends. A great cry goes up in the press against assassins, while none cry out against the oppression which creates the assassinations of despair. Irritated Paternal Government is far more ferocious than any Socialism. The Father of his People' in Russia will commit more murders in a day than all the Nihilists in the empire in a generation. Despotic Order' has its Robespierres as well as Anarchy. The armed and conspiring Bonapartes, Bismarcks, and Czars, are bloodier far than the impotent and aspiring poor. In time, despotism irritates other persons than workmen. The unreading Russian workmen cannot produce or support a press. They have no means of organisation: they have no horses, carriages, bags of roubles, and costly weapons. They do not attack high functionaries in their offices, generals in their camps, or emperors in their courts. They do not know them when they meet them, they are ignorant where they are to be found, and could not get access to them if they knew. The disease of State Socialism is bad, but let not the crimes of others be imputed to it. We may deplore what we hear, but Englishmen need not be foolish in what they believe. It is despotism, not order, which is in danger.

The silent revolution of Industry, produced by the rise of cooperative devices, will save England from the plague of State Socialism. Intelligent artisans now understand that the two leading aims of the working classes should be independence and equality. The State Socialists propose that the Government should take all property and apply it in organising all labour, and make itself responsible for the well-being of everybody. Into this vast speculation English co-operators have never entered. Being observing persons, they perceive that a great number of the people—including a considerable portion of the working classes-are satisfied with things as they are. They do very well, or sufficiently well, under them. Cooperative Socialists concern themselves, therefore, only on behalf of such workmen as have reason to be dissatisfied and are despairing of their prospects. This class of persons Mr. Mill has described in the following memorable passage:- No longer enslaved or made dependent by force of law, the great majority are so by force of poverty. They are still chained to a place, to an occupation, and to conformity to the will of an employer, and debarred from ad

3 Not only are acts imputed to them they never meditated, but, like the Fenians whose policy was terror, the furious among them claim to be the authors of untraced crimes by which they increase their influence without increasing their danger. In Russia where even succession to the crown is adjusted by murder, and in Germany where liberty is regulated by troopers, any movement of the people may be expected to be imitative.