The Press. FRIDAY, JANUARY 3, 1896. " MERRIE ENGLAND."

Press, Volume LIII, Issue 9304, 3 January 1896, Page 4

The Press. FRIDAY, JANUARY 3, 1896. " MERRIE ENGLAND."

Oub late notice of this exasperating book has roused some of our correspondents to assert that we have treated this newest exposition of Socialism unjustly and superficially. We have certainly no space for a full refutation of all the fallacies contained in a work that discusses most social and political problems within two hundred pages. But as the vigorous style of " Merrie England" has attracted much attention, and as it is calculated to do more harm than most books of its size, we will try to show more fully that we had good reason for the judgment that we have already pronounced in brief. In the first place, there is absolutely nothing new about the Socialism of "Merrie England." All general objections to Socialism apply directly to this gospel according to " Nunquam." Socialism as a heresy* is based upon the belief that all men are in capacity or potentiality equal. No proof, so far as we know, has ever been advanced for this astounding assumption. We believe, on the contrary, as Fitzjames Stephen said, that the only thing that can be said with truth about equality is that all men are unequal. This we think is borne out by every fact of political and social history, as well as by the experience of daily life. Socialism, again, as a practicable constitution for society, is based upon the theory that men placed in certain fixed positions, irrespective of their choice, would be happy in them and would be willing to maintain them, in amity and

brotherly affection. This view of things, again, is contradicted by all our personal or historical knowledge of human nature. " The Socialist," says Herbert Spencer, " proceeds on the assumption that all concerned will judge rightly and act fairly—will think as they ought to think and act as they ought to act — and he assumes this regardless of the daily experiences which show him that men do neither the one nor the other." And on the authority of such unsupported and reckless assumptions as these Socialists demand that the world should plunge blindly into a tremendous social revolution. As to ways and means they generally leave us discreetly in the dark. The usual argument is something like this — that the modern capitalistic regime involves many evils, therefore capitalists cause them —therefore capitalists should be as a class suppressed. The greatest of all capitalists, the landowners, should ba dispossessed of their property —with or without compensation, according to the moral delicacy or taste of the preacher—and the State should take upon itself every possible function now exercised through competition or by individual discretion. Having got to this point, Mr. Bellamy and Mr. William Morris and " Nunquam " cease to reason and proceed to write ecstatic descriptions of the blissful existence that men will lead when there is no more money and no more private ownership—when all men shall be content to have their course in life directed and superintended to the smallest detail by that omniscient and omnipotent divinity the " State." " Nunquam," the author of " Merrie England," does not represent any advance upon his forerunners in this field. He assumes all that we have noted as unproved and improbable in the average Socialism of to-day; and he expresses his belief in his assumptions with more than the ordinary eloquence and self-confidence. With obvious sincerity he deplores the miseries of the destitute; but he is not content with this. He assumes that all these woes are the direct result of the greed and oppression of the wealthy, and he urges the poor to the spoliation of the rich. "Nationalise the land," he cries, not knowing or not caring that if all the land in the United Kingdom were nationalised to-morrow it would add just about two ])ence per day to the income of each man, woman and jchild therein. " The land has been stolen," he asserts, and he points for proof to the enclosure of the common lands; though Jeremy Bentham, who was once held to be a Badical, declared that this step was the greatest possible gain to the nation at large. "The land is the gift of nature to man," he says, yet Dr. Schaffle, perhaps the foremost Continental authority on Socialism, says that " the soil is a means of production slowly manufactured by the arts and labours of numberless generations of proprietors and tenants." But that is au unpopular view of things, and " Nunquam " finds it much simpler to quote Karl Marx, and to repeat Proudhon's insane maxim that " ownership is theft."

Competition is in " Nuxquam's " eyes one of the great evils of life. Yet MiLii said truly that " where competition is not monopoly is." By-the-way, " NunqtjAm " asserts (page 85) that competition lowers prices, and elsewhere (page 126) that competition raises prices. Which he means, we cannot say; nor can we see how he reconciles his horror of cheapness with the facts that most wages have gone up within the last fifty years, as most prices have come down. But it is part of his programme to ignore the benefits that wage-earners have received or won within the last half century. He never tires of repeating Marx's ridiculous dogma that " the workmen earn all the wealth." "Capitalists," says Mallock, "have taken from the labourer only what they themselves have added to their labour by their ability." But of this "Nunquam" will hear nothing. Capitalists are an abomination unto him. Yet he would make the " State " a capitalist —and that on a most colossal scale. And just as he insists that all men would be happy under Socialism, so he asserts that the State would as capitalist have none of the vices of the individual. There is only one practical illustration of the working of State Socialism with which English readers are familiar—the Post and Telegraph system. This is quoted by "Nunquam," as by most Socialists, as a permanent proof of the efficacy of their remedy for social disorders. We can only regard this most unfortunate choice a3 one proof of what Mr. John Morley has called the astonishing ignorance that Socialists display about the facts of life around them. We cannot quote Mr. Henniker Heaton at length now, but if our readers will remember that the inland post carries letters for one penny that cost only one-thirty-sixth of a penny for transmission, that one London firm saves £1300 a year by posting its Eastern mails in France, that millions of London samples for provincial English houses are sent to Belgium to be posted at half English rates, that the Brindisi service costs the nation £50,000 a year more than it need, if our readers will recall these facts, they may have some idea of the value of the only evidence adduced by writers like " Nuxquam" for the practicability of State Socialism. We may add that five years ago this very socialistic institution, the British Post and Telegraph Department, suffered, like any ordinary competitive establishment, from a strike amongst its employees— and the head of the Postmen's Union called the Postmaster-General "a taskmaster worse than the vilest Eastend sweater," from which it would seem that State Socialism does not always promote harmony and happiness.

There is one aspect of Socialism that neither " Ndxquam " nor any of his school attempt to face. It is a well-known fact that any slight improvement in the material circumstances of the labouring classes is followed by a disproportionate increase in population, and the temporary benefit gained is soon lost by the growth of numbers. Hebbebt Spexces points out that no socialistic scheme has ever been even temporarily successful save where celibacy has been insisted on. Another critic acutely

remarks: —'' Socialism without restraints on increase of population would be utterly inefficient; with such restraint it would be slavery." But "Nuxquam" never faces thi3 dilemma. His teaching is unfortunately all in the way of absolving his hearers from a sense of their responsibility for their own actions. No writer of our acquaintance asserts more clearly the monstrous and demoralising doctrine that the rich are responsible, not only for the poverty, but for the vices and crimes of the poor. We will not uudertake to say that so reckless and illogical a writer as " Nunqdam " realises the full force of his own assertions. But we do not hesitate to state our opinion that any doctrine of social existence that encourages the surrender of moral responsibility is in the truest sense tho worst possible form of immorality.

Perhaps enough has been said to show the futility of the work that we have been discussing. It is one thing to deplore the miseries of human life ; it is another matter to rush blindfold into revolution, in the hope that all things, including human nature., will be much better later on. Bevolutions generally work out in unexpected ways. The great French Revolution was preached in the name of Liberty and Fraternity, and it ended in bloodshed and despotism. One of the greatest of modern thinkers believes that Socialism would land us in a form of existence " ruled by graded officials tied to their districts, superintended in our private lives as well as our industries, and toiling hopelessly for the support of the government organisation." The pictures of Eichter's " Socialist Future " are at least consistent with human nature, as we know it; and the prospect is not inviting. No one denies that modern industrialism and modern social existence need to be improved and reformed. But when we are asked to commence a reformation by making ourselves blind to experience and deaf to reason we must beg to be excused.