value of its raw material will ever come back? If the State is to control the sale of the finished article, where is the worker's intact control of the value of his work? Mr. Hyndman says: "Socialism is an endeavor to substitute for the anarchical struggle or fight for existence, an organized co-operation for existence."* I note on this, that while the struggle for existence has been clearly far too bitter, not only as between employer and employed, but also as between the workers themselves, and has certainly been most oppressive on the poorest and weakest, "anarchical" is an absurd word of description, and that the vitality of the whole definition depends on the translation of the words "organized co-operation.' Voluntary co-operation is organized co-operation determinable by the will of each co-operator, as far as he or she is concerned, and subject to the conditions agreed to as to such withdrawal, but this clearly is not what is meant by Mr. Hyndman. When in debate I pressed for explanation, it was refused, and Mr. J. L. Joynes, a prominent Socialist and one of the best educated among them, wrote in rebuke of my demand that "no 'scientific' Socialist pretends to have any scheme or detailed plan of organization." They only pretend to desire to destroy existing society because of its evils; to-morrow may grow, if and how it can, without the slightest precaution against the development of a worse state. What Mr. Hyndman meant by anarchy he thus explained: "There is many a man who works as a skilled laborer to-day, who if a machine is invented whereby man may benefit, will be turned out to compete against his fellows on the streets to-morrow. That is what I say is anarchy." And as the cure for this he asked for " the collective ownership of land, capital, machinery, and credit by the complete ownership of the people." As to labor-saving machinery, or cost-reducing machinery, or produce-increasing machinery, it is true that as each new invention is introduced, the introduction very often renders it necessary that persons who have pursued one method of earning their livelihood shall adopt new methods and there is often difficulty in finding new employment. If the worker is advanced in life, it is very difficult for him to adapt himself to other labor. But it is not true that the introduction of machinery has permanently reduced the number of workers in the country where most machinery is used, nor is it true that the rate

*All the quotations from Mr. Hyndman are from the debate with myself: "Will Socialism benefit the English People?"

of pauperism has, on the whole, increased in the countries where the most machinery has been introduced. Mr. Hyndman's definition means communism or it means nothing. If the collective ownership of everything by everybody is not the total negation of private property, then words have no value.

Many so-called socialistic experiments have been tried in various parts of the world, but none of these have yet been permanently successful. Such as have seemed temporarily to achieve a certain measure of success have been held together: (1) By some religious or quasi-religious tie, and those have in turn broken up when the effect of the tie has weakened; or (2) by personal devotion to some one man, and these have broken up when the man has died or grown weary; or (3) while directed by some strong chief or chiefs, and holding together only so long as the direction endured. And even the temporary success has only been maintained whilst the community were few in number. Whenever an apparent success tempted many recruits, then the experiment collapsed, and this because, whilst the members in the community were limited, the individual members of the community did not lose sight of the personal advantages accruing from their individual exertions. Each small community held its own property hostile to, or, at least, clearly distinguishable from, the property of other individuals, or communities, dwelling near. Every individual of the so-called socialistic community could estimate the addition to the common stock, the owners of which were so limited in number that he could calculate his share of the increased wealth. The incentive to increased exertion was constant in the hope of increased wellbeing, and in some of the communities the individual members had and often exercised an option of withdrawal, taking away with them on leaving a proportion of the property created or increased. But none of the communistic experiments, either in the United States or in this country, have been more than large co-operative enterprises, the property of the adventurers belonging to the corporate body. And there is little doubt that these experiments have done something to produce-as in the case of the Familistère of M. Godin-some modifications of the more unpleasant side of the fiercely competitive struggle for existence, and that they did pave the way, at any rate in England, for the co-operative institutions, which for exchange and distribution have already been eminently successful. And though co-operative enterprises for produc

tion have yet done comparatively little, it is in this direction that I look for the utilization of the best in modern socialistic energy. Modern Socialism is more ambitious of exercising State authority, and is therefore more dangerous than was the socialism of fifty years ago. The socialism of Owen, Cabet and Frances Wright was the experiment, in each case of a few, in their own persons, at their own risk and cost, patiently conducted, and, even in failure, giving example of great devotion and much self-reliant effort. Modern Socialists claim to experiment with the State as a whole, and without waiting even to convert the majority. Modern Socialism appeals to the poorest and most hungry to break up all accumulated wealth. It works chiefly by denunciations of the rich and well fed. It has no patience to gradually build up a new system; it regards reform as its enemy; it proposes to begin-by destroying the existing state of things. Unfortunately, the social evils in all old countries are great and sore, but if they are to be diminished they must be reformed in detail; there is no magic four-leaved shamrock at the disposal of the reformer. The worst and most mischievous advocates of Socialism are those who justify and encourage the unemployed in the use of forceand especially of the terrible phase of force revealed by modern chemistry, as an agent in changing the present state of society. In some countries Socialists call themselves "Anarchists," repudiating alike all law, rejecting all directing government; in other countries they call themselves "Social Democrats," and call upon the State to feed, clothe, and employ those who are ill fed, badly clothed, or lack employment. These Socialists are the real enemies of progress, they afford excuse to those who desire reaction. The State can give the people neither food, nor clothing, nor work, save to the extent, and as the citizens themselves, provide the State with the means to do these things. If the State is to do for each individual that which the individual is unable to do for himself, then if it be done at all it can only be done by a despotism. State Socialism is utterly at variance with individual liberty; it is totally hostile to the institutions of a free democracy.

Great publicity has been recently obtained in England, and chiefly in London, for a comparatively small knot of men, styling themselves "Social Democrats," and also describing themselves as "Scientific Socialists," some of whom give us ill-digested versions of German Socialism. They have, like the Salvation Army,

been chiefly prominent in holding meetings, to the detriment of traffic, in inconvenient places, whilst convenient places were disregarded by them. By these means they have brought on their heads several police prosecutions, which prosecutions had the color of unfairness as being directed against hysteric Socialism, while hysteric Salvation-armyism escaped scot free. They have also succeeded in provoking a criminal prosecution by the use of language which, if it had any meaning, was in the highest degree inflammatory and exciting, but which language was held not to be connected with or intended to provoke the riotous results which followed its use. These men have, however, neither the influence nor the devotedness of the men who preached and prac▾ ticed experimental Socialism under Robert Owen from 1817, a l who, fifty years ago, were stirring the whole of the midland and northern counties of England, holding great meetings and establishing scores of halls and institutions in the northern towns. The new Social Democrats, while calling loudly for the dissolution of the present social state, denied that they ought to be called upon to produce or formulate any scheme for the government of the society which is to follow the revolution they acclaim, and they refuse to discuss any of the details of life in the proposed new social state; though they profess at once to be ready by force, argument failing, to destroy what exists in order to make way for what they desire. Mr. Hyndman, professing to be a leader of the Social Democrats, declares that "force, or fear of force, is unfortunately the only reasoning which can appeal to a dominant estate, or which will even induce them to surrender any portion of their property." A socialist State, if it could be realized by force, which I do not believe, could only so be realized after a shocking and murderous civil war; a war which, however it ended, would leave, for more than one generation, legacies of bitter hate and of demoralizing desire for revenge.

The Social Democrats mix up in their programme some desirable objects which are not at all socialistic, with others that are not necessarily socialistic. They then add declarations conflicting in character, which are either so vague as to be meaningless, or are else, in the highest degree, communistic and revolutionary. They call for the "organization of agricultural and industrial armies under State control" and claim "that the exchange of all production should be controlled by the workers," but they decline VOL. CXLIV.-NO. 362. 2

to explain how this is to be done, or to meet detail objections urged against the feasibility of the proposals. All labor under State control means the utter stagnation of special industrial effort; the neutralization of almost all industrial enterprise; the stoppage of the most efficient incentive to inventive initiative. What can the organization and control of all labor by the State mean? In what would it end? By whom and in what manner would the selection of each individual be determined for the pursuit, profession, or handicraft for which he was deemed fittest? Would resistance or refusal on the part of any individual to perform the labor for which he had been selected be treated as crime? Would preference for any other kind of labor than that allotted be allowed? I am told that thus I am raising undue difficulties, but I want at least to know how the new State machine will work before I consent to suddenly break up the old one. That there are many evils in connection with exchange and distribution is true. In many departments there are too many concerned in the distribution of the necessaries of life, as brokers, merchants, and retailers, and the cost to the consumer is thus unnecessarily and outrageously augmented. But this can be cured by the gradual extension of the co-operative distributive institutions and stores which have already proved so useful. These co-operative societies, whilst rendering the cost of exchange less onerous and otherwise improving its character, also encourage habits of thrift and self-reliant effort on the part of the individual members. In a socialistic state there would be no inducement to thrift; no encouragement to, no reward for, individual saving; no protection for individual accumulation; no check upon, no discouragement to individual waste. If the establishment of a socialistic State be conceived possible, it is certainly not possible to imagine such a State co-existing with free expression of individual opinion, either on platform or through the press. All means of publicity in a socialistic State will belong to and will be controlled by the State. It is not conceivable that a socialistic government would provide halls for its adversaries to agitate for its overthrow, print books and pamphlets for its opponents to show that its methods and actions were mischievous; organize costly journals and give the conduct to hostile men to excite public feeling-and yet if all this were not done, utter stagnation of opinion is the only possible result. The "Social Democrats" urge that the "surplus value" of labor is "the keystone of the