SOCIALISTS AND SOCIAL ORDER.

Press, Volume LIII, Issue 9515, 7 September 1896, Page 4

SOCIALISTS AND SOCIAL ORDER.

The Belgian authorities have concluded that it is worth their while to assert the dignity of the law against the assaults of Socialism. A month ago, several "advanced" Germans were arrested at the Lille Congress, the English editor of the Seamen's Chronicle was expelled from Antwerp for promoting a dock strike, and now the notorious Ben TrLtiETT has been summarily suppressed for encouraging illegal action among Belgian workmen. Tiixett has been probably misled by the extraordinary impunity that he and his friends enjoy in England, where, as ,; Comrade" Hyndman says, the rulers of the land " do not think it their business to muzzle sheep." The popular " Ben " made his last experiment on the patience of the law two months ago with reference to his ineffectual libel action, heard before Mr. Justice Hawkins. In an address to the Dockers' Union Tillett asserted that " in all labour cases that have come before our prominent judges adverse decisions have been given without exception. Insolence and mendacity have been the chief characteristics of all the summings-up; the law has been so construed that what law was passed in the interests of the workman has been literally revoked. Our courts are centres of corruption and our Judges mere class creatures and instruments for the maladministration of the law." Presumably Tillett thought that what was ignored in England would be permissible on the Continent; and it is hardly to ba regretted that this reckless agitator has received a decided check, But, generally speaking, the English Government has extended the most good-natured tolerance to men and women who are constantly and as a professional duty inciting others to create disorder. It is true that not very much active harm has, so far, come from the Trafalgar Square demonstrations and the violently incendiary manifestoes of the Social Democratic Federation. But the language of the leaders of the "S.D.F." and kindred bodies is calculated to lead to nothing so directly as a breach of the peace, The famous " Comrade " Hyndhan boasts a career which once " threatened to be a series of encounters with, the London police." WaiiiAM Mobbis seceded from the S.D.P. and founded the Socialists' League because the original Federation insisted on following comparatively legal mean 3 and in achieving objects by ordinary political and parliamentary methods. The great Socialist poet, as is well known, hag figured on more than one occasion in

police courts for his share in what are commonly termed " rows." The Fabian Society is professedly a very orderly body. Its name implies its desire to "conquer by delay." Bernard Shaw representing the society refused at one critical juncture to aid Morris and Hyndm-vn in what they vaguely termed "vigorous action." But Bernard Shaw himself declares that the original Fabian Society was quite as " Anarchist " as the S.D.F. Now, the Society' which has been described asa " bod} T of young men who understudy Shaw and young women who worship him," is comparatively peaceful, and proportionately dull—" it has gorged itself with statistics and gono to sleep," says one of its members. But it boasts one " typical Anarchist in Herbert Burrows." This enthusiast is said to regard a free fight as the necessary conclusion to all public meetings. One of his friends has said that he has never been to a meeting at which Burrows appeared that did not end with Burrows's exit from the platform in the arms of two or three men striving to repress his claim for "liberty of speech." Unfortunately the Socialistic notion of freedom of speech is confined always to the man who happens to be speaking. Burrows is an Inland Revenue Officer, but it has been well said that " a Government which supports many Socialist leaders leaves him ample leisure to organise plots for. overthrowing it." They order these things differently—in Belgium.