Chapter VI.

Socialism.

Socialism is a much-abused term. The stubborn antagonists of innovation use it as an epithet of malignity by which they affect to dispose of any proposal of reform they are incompetent to meet with reason. The name has gotten such an evil savour that often the mere branding of a movement as Socialistic is sufficient to condemn it. Again, we are told that Socialism is so vague and fugitive in its meaning as to be insusceptible of precise definition. "What is Socialism?" men derisively and triumphantly ask as though an intelligent answer were impossible.

Socialism, notwithstanding, has a definite aim; it is directed against a definite evil; and has a definite method. Its object is to reorganise society on a basis of co-operation instead of competition. It proposes that the whole people, as represented in the State or the municipality, shall control all the means of production, distribution, and exchange; that private property in the great material instruments of production shall be abolished, and collective property substituted therefor; that land, machinery, and capital, in all its forms, shall be employed not for the profit of individuals but for the benefit of all.

For the justification of this reorganisation of industry we are pointed to the failure of individualism. The evils of unrestricted competition cannot be gainsaid. Under it some men have to work too hard, some need not work at all, and others cannot get work however earnest they be in its search. The toilers (the producers) are poorly fed, poorly clad, and poorly housed. Capitalistic production seems to enrich the non-producers. It involves prodigal and frightful waste. Especially is this characteristic of the distributive industries. In all cities there is a redundancy of retail shops. The requirements of the public could be served with one-tenth of the number if organised with a view only to the common interest. It is estimated that England spends £90,000 a day in advertising alone. The elimination of competition would indeed effect saving in numberless ways. The vast class of agents and middlemen would be turned into productive industry. The services which the community requires of the legal profession, for instance, would be supplied by half the number at present engaged in it, and at less than half the' cost. "Undoubtedly Socialism stands for many and far-reaching economies. By making service to the community the foundation of the enjoyment of the fruits page 52 of labour, it would compel all able-bodied persons to work. Once for all, it would end the possibility of living by the labour of others. The rich, who don't want employment, and the poor, who can't get it, would reinforce the ranks of the producers. The stimulus to production would be incalculable.

It would be better for the United Kingdom to feed her people than to develop a vast over-sea commerce. The curious spect [unclear: acts] is now presented of a mighty nation straining every nerve to capture foreign markets, when hungry stomachs, ill-clad backs, ill-furnished homes, indicate countless unsatisfied material wants amongst its own people.

"Our cities," says Ruskin," are a wilderness of spinning wheels yet the people have not clothes. We have blackened every leaf of English greenwood with ashes, and the people die of cold; our harbours are a forest of merchant ships, and the people die of hunger." So John Stuart Mill questioned whether all the page 53 mechanical inventions had lightened the day's toil of any human being. He was neither Socialist nor Communist, yet so dissatisfied was he with the results of unrestricted individualism that he wrote the following:—

"If therefore the choice were to be made between Communism, with all its chances, and the present state of society, with all its, sufferings and injustices; if the institution of private property necessarily carried with it as a consequence that the produce of labour should be apportioned as we now see it, almost in inverse ratio to the labour—the largest portions to those who never worked at all the next largest to those whose work is almost nominal, and so in a descending scale, the remuneration dwindling as the work lows harder and more disagreeable, until the most fatiguing and exhausting bodily labour cannot count with certainty on being able to earn even the necessaries of life—if this or Communism were the alternative, all the difficulties, great or small, of Communism would be but as dust in the balance."

Now, how does Socialism propose to proceed in the attainment of its end? Its method is evolutionary, not revolutionary. Anarchists, no doubt, have been called Socialists, but their attitude is at variance with the teaching of modern Socialism. Such recent writers as Kirkup, Macdonald, and Keir Hardie maintain that Socialism springs naturally out of the past. It is the next stage, we are told, in the progress of society. It was essential that individualism should precede it to break up the system of caste and class privilege. The vast scale upon which industries arc organised in this age is looked upon as the immediate preparation for the overthrow of private property. Competition is exhausting itself, and leading to co-operation everywhere. The spirit of individualism has departed from the industrial organisation. The method of Socialism, in fact, prevails in production. How small a part of the labour of a modern community is done by persons working for themselves! "From the Irish reaper or hodman to the Chief Justice or the Minister of State, nearly all the work of society is remunerated by day wages or fixed salaries." As Mill truly says: "A factory operative has less personal interest in his work than a member of a communist association, since he is not like him, working for a partnership of which he is himself a member."

Any modern factory reveals the fact that co-ordination is the characteristic of modern industry. Men gather together in multitudes, divide the tasks among them, and generally co-operate to one end. The benefit of this socialisation of production accrues however, to capitalists and landowner. It is claimed that the nest step is to socialise the products, as well as the method of production.

If competition is the justifying principle of the present system, then it will have difficulty in upholding itself. Industry everywhere is organised on the co-operative plan. Trusts and combines everywhere lift themselves above the influence of competition by crushing out their rivals. The age is full of the doings of monopolies. They are wrapping their tentacles round every branch of production and distribution. Private enterprise, when it becomes monopolistic, ceases to be enterprising, and cannot be made so by regulation. State intervention is becoming imperative. The State manages monopolies with greater safety and efficiency and at less expense than private corporations. Its aim is to secure serviceableness to the community rather than large profits. It does not cut off non-paying but serviceable departments.

The rapid and fundamental changes, which industry is undergoing, the barely tolerable burden of trusts, the submerging of old landmarks, the accentuation of class antagonisms, the growing numbers of those distinguished by conspicuous leisure and conspicuous consumption, are all claimed as leading to Socialism and the disappearance of the individual struggle for existence.

Benjamin Kidd wrote "Social Evolution" to demonstrate that Socialism is at variance with the principle underlying evolution and consequently must fail. "True Socialism," he said, "has always one definite object in view up to which all its proposals directly or indirectly lead. This is the final suspension of that personal struggle for existence which has been waged, not only from the beginning of society, hut in one form or another from the beginning of life." He points out how all nations have been cradled and nurtured in ceaseless war; how the road by which man has come is strewn with the wreck of races and civilisations. The elimination of competition, of industrial and commercial rivalry, which Socialism would effect he fears would bring about decadence and race suicide.

But Socialism would not extinguish combat. Man is something more than an animal, and if the struggle for animal existence were suspended mind would be freer to measure itself against mind, and spirit to contend with spirit. Struggle, we know, is the condition precedent of progress, hut the struggle for bread and shelter which now absorbs the energies of the greater portion of mankind is inimical to man's mental and spiritual progress.

Drummond has grasped more truly the principle of social evolution. "War," he says, "is simply the modern form of the struggle for life. As the higher qualities become more pronounced, and their exercise gives more satisfaction, the struggle passes into more refined forms. One of these is the industrial struggle. Another is the moral struggle. The former of these must give place to the latter. The animal struggle for life must pass away. And under the stimulus of ideals man will continually press upwards, and find his further evolution in forms of moral, social, and spiritual antagonisms."

It is quite possible, therefore, to argue, as modern Socialists do, that Socialism is a phase of the evolutionary progress. They have, consequently, abandoned all attempts to introduce it by force or revolution. They insist that it must come by gradual change. It is a growth from the acorn to the oak. They look with keenest satisfaction upon the progress of Municipal Socialism and upon the steady advance of State Socialism in the Australasian colonies.

Municipal enterprise in the United Kingdom during the past twenty-five years reads like a romance. Here is what R. B. Suthers, a leading authority on the subject, says of the City of Glasgow :—"A citizen of Glasgow may live in a municipal house. He may walk along the municipal street or ride on the municipal tramcar, and watch the municipal dust-cart collecting the refuse, which is used to fertilise the municipal farm. Then he may turn into the municipal market, buy a steak from an animal killed in the municipal slaughter-house, and cook it by municipal gas on a municipal gas stove. For his recreation ho has the choice of municipal libraries, municipal art galleries, and municipal music in the municipal parks. Should he fall; ill, he can ring up his doctor through the municipal telephone, or he may be taken to the municipal hospital on the municipal ambulance by a municipal policeman. Should he be so unfortunate as to get on fire, he will be put out by a municipal fireman, using municipal water, after which he will, perhaps, forego the enjoyment of a, municipal bath, though he may find it necessary to buy a new suit in the municipal old clothes

A Parliamentary return issued in 1903 established the fact that municipal enterprise "pays" in the commercial sense. It gave particulars of the most important undertakings of the municipal boroughs of England and Wales. The total amount of capital invested was £121,172,372; the average annual not profit was £4,812,005. Waterworks averaged a gross profit of 4 per cent,; gasworks. 7 per cent.; electricity supply, 4 per cent.; tramways, 5 per cent.; and markets. 7 per cent. In addition the price of the supply of these conveniences was reduced and the rates relieved.

Thus the municipalities charged more than 25 per cent, less for current, while their profits were only 14 per cent. less than those of the companies.

Examples of this kind can be given without limit. The City of Glasgow has a better tram service than the private company formerly provided, the fares are from 30 to 50 per cent. lower, the men work four hours a day less, and get from 5s a week more wages and free uniforms. Besides, the capital invested is being gradually repaid out of the receipts, and in thirty years the tramways will be free from debt.

"The Reformers' Year Book, 1907," shows that municipal trading has been successful almost without exception. Sixty towns reduced their rates over 2d in the £, twenty under 2d. From the profits of its municipal undertakings Leeds was able to reduce its rates 8½d. Manchester 8d, Liverpool 1s, Stock port 1s 3¾d.

In the face of this uniform success, municipal enterprise aft not fail to advance into other fields of industry. Its advocates are now pressing for the public supply of the necessaries of life as well as the conveniences. If water is supplied, why not bread; if lighting, why not clothing? So far, however, municipalities have only undertaken those industries which are in their nature monopolies. The same success may not attend it in those departments where competition already protects the interests of the consumer. The only defensible position probably is that public control in the monopolistic and private control in the competitive field will produce the best results.

Another movement of Socialism which is destined to grow to large proportions is what is technically known as co-operation. In the sphere of distribution this has been remarkably successful in England. From the Rochdale Pioneers, who started with a capital of £28, and opened a small store for the "supply of a few common articles for consumption of their families," there has been a rapid development. In 1905 there were 1,457 societies, with a total membership of 2,153,185 and with profits for distribution amounting to £9,559,238. Productive co-operation has not fared so well. Since the united coal-miners of South Yorkshire lost all their savings in the purchase of the Shirland collieries in 1874, the organisation of societies for co-operative production has not greatly flourished.

The advantages hitherto obtained from public ownership and management—from Socialism, in short—cannot, be disputed. The benefits of extended ownership will possibly be greater. He were a bold man who would assign a limit to municipal activity. This is the channel in which the stream of Socialism seems destined to flow during the present century.

Having examined the potentialities of Socialism, having indicated the method it employs and the direction in which it moves, the question which this chapter is designed to answer may be put: His Socialism any virtue to solve for this generation the social problems which confront it?

The answer must be "No!" Socialists assert that gross injustices and inequalities will continue until land and all the material Lents of production are under public ownership. But how do they propose to compass their end? All schemes of revolution have been abandoned. Confiscation has been ruled out of court. Gradually Socialism is to arrive. But progress is retarded by a most important factor, the land, the factories, and the machinery have to be purchased The capital value of the land of the United Kingdom is estimated at £6,000,000,000. The purchase by the State or the municipalities of this agent of production alone represents a financial undertaking of unprecedented proportions. Here in itself is the work of generations of Parliaments. And, in the meantime, social problems will grow more acute despite the enlargement of municipal activity.

Or, again: "The land value of London is £16,000,000 a year, and is increasing daily. This value is due to the presence and industry of the large population living in London. The landlords have not created one single pennyworth of it.

"Here is a shop in, the Strand. A shop! It looks more like a rabbit hutch. Measure it. Width, 9ft; depth, 18ft. What is its worth? What would it be worth in the middle of Essex? About 2s 6d a week. The rent of the Strand shop is £500 a year Ten pounds a week! Eighty times as much as the same space would be worth in Essex!

"What is the cause of the difference in value? In Essex there are few people. In London there are millions. Did the landlord make the people and bring them there? No, he didn't. . . . page 58 Did the landlord pay for the widening and improvement of the Strand, which made it a convenient street tor traffic and marketing? No! The ratepayers paid, and are paying, for the improvements. The landlord sits still and smiles and draws the profits."

The above is from the pen of a Socialist, bemoaning the way in which the public are cheated of the benefit of municipal expenditure by increasing rents. It puts a finger upon the vital cause of our social distress. Yet the only remedy the Socialist offers is the buying of the land—a task so colossal as almost to he impossible.

Socialism has made considerable strides, and much betterment has resulted, but it possesses no power to touch the root of our social evils within a period which this generation or the next will cover. This is acknowledged by such an eminent Socialist as Kirkup, who, writing in 1900 the 'History of Socialism,' said: "Socialism, therefore, is for the most part a theory affecting the future, more or less remote, and has only to a limited degree gained a real and practical footing in the life of our time."

But the toiling, burdened masses of this generation want hope. They clamour for relief and redress in the present time. They cannot be comforted with the anticipation of the millennium for then children's children.

It is not so much that Socialism is running in the wrong direction, as that it is travelling the longest road to its goal. It has not a sufficiently clear perception of the relative proportions of our social problems. In its efforts to burst asunder the integument of capitalism, to sound the knell of capitalist private property, and to expropriate the expropriators, as Karl Marx, emphatically puts it, it neglects the permanent distinction between land and capital. Its error lies in supposing land an instrument of production in the same way as a machine or a factory. The return to capital may be excessive, the organisation of industry for private profit may aggrandise its promoters at the expense of the worker; but, after all, capital and organisation have enormously increased the productiveness of labour. Interest and the emoluments to organising ability are not altogether an unearned increment. For the rent of the unimproved value of land, however the landlord renders no service whatever. The paramount enemy of Labour is growing land values. Against this; Socialism has no weapons of immediate warfare. The solution of the most colossal problem of all it postpones indefinitely. It pours out its energy in securing small instalments of reform which bring to the masses a scarcely appreciable increase of the products of labour, whilst they enlarge the gains of idle landlordism.