RETROGRESSION IN AMERICA.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 780, 11 February 1887, Page 8

RETROGRESSION IN AMERICA.

The recent, news from the United States.is amiewhat disheartening. Mr Blaine has bee* more successful in his recent election -ering tour than was believed to be possible, and wil , it. is intimated, bs the candidate of his party for the next Presidential contest, that is, of course, a mere guess, for the most experi enoed cannot predict the action of a "Repub. lican ‘Convention’ two year* in advance; and the friends of Civil Service Reform within that party will, when it. meets, throw a heavy vote against Mr Blaine, who ts believed to be an ally of all the ‘ Biugs.’ It is more cerroin that his speeches have induced large sections of workmen to believe their interests in danger from Freetiade, and constqoonlly to vote against such Democratic candidates as are openly opposed to Protection. These candidates have fallen on every side in such numbers, that the Democrat majority in the House of Representatives has sunk from fortytwo to less than ten, while it may b 9 reduced, when all the returns come in, to less than fivp, in which case, it is added, the five or six Labour representatives, who are more or less Socialists, will hold the balance of power. In the Senate, the Republicans still possess a majority of two ; and the total result is declared to be that no question of Tariff Reform can be so much as brought forward n: Congress until 1883. The consumers have, it is evident, not yet been educated up to Free trade; the freeholders are still indifferent to break party ties; and the interested classes, who fancy their wages depend upon keeping out foreign competition, hive bestirred themselves with a vigor which has carried the elections.

That is disheartening, but it ia not so disheartening as the power displayed by the ‘labor’ movement in many States, the success of the Socialists in Chicogo—where t hey polled in one election, it is believed, 38,000 votes, and among other officers elected three Judges —and tho heavy vote thrown in New York for Mr Henry George, who sought the Mayor s ckair. Out of 217,000 votes given to all the candidates, Mr George received (8 000, or nearly one-third ; and though he did not succeed, and his chief competitor, Mr Hewitt, who received 90,000 votes, avowedly stood on * capitalist ’ principles, still it is felt that his party is henceforth an important factor in city polities. It can give the victory to either side, and can therefore, it is said, within the limits which would induce the State to interfere and revise the City Constitution, dictate its own terms. That is an alarming pn spect ; for although Mr George is not exactly a Socialist, and, in England at all events, professed to respect the Ten Commandments, he stood forward in New York to advocate tho separate claims of the handicraftsmen to advantages not conceded to the rest of the community ; his ideas on land would destroy private property in the soil; and his definite promise to 1 make the Elevated Railway frse as air to working men,’ points either to direct plunder, or, which is much more probable, to a scheme for using the city revenues to buy up all means of communication for the benefit of a single class. That is a most dangerous extension of the Poor-Law idea; and without believing implicitly the much wilder threats, about bouse property in particular, attributed to Mr George, we may take it as certain that the workpeople took him to be a Socialist, and that no one not utterly discontented with the organisation of society voted for him as Mayor. That nearly one-third of all adult males in New York should be so discontented is a serious symptom of social malaise, not much mitigated by the faot that the majority of voters on this side may bare been, and probably were, Irishmen, Germans, and unen out of work. Neither Irishmen nor German* will grow fewer in New York, while spasms of bad trade will recur there, as elsewhere, at stated intervals, and will, if socialist ideas should spread, al ways furnish excuse for anti social movements. Nothing in the condition of the great oily promises that the trouble will be only temporary. The attraction oflimitleßs land, which should draw away all who are at once able-bodied and unsuccessful, exists already, and oan hardly increase ; the ‘ congestion ’ of the population shows no sign of decreasing ; and the sufferings of a section of the people of New York—arising in part from their lodging, which is worse than that of London —described by the devoted phi’anthropist, Mr O. Bvaoe, began in a period of prosperity. The only visible hope is in education ; and while immigration continues, general education is rather a distant dream of good men than a present source of confidence to politicians. If the vote for Mr H. George cannot be be explained, the proportion of Socialists, or semi-Socialists, in New York is larger than in any other great town in the world; aod though this muy not be a source of actual danger, 'it certainly is a reason for most disheartening perplexity. In the long last, actual power in the United States rests with the freeholders, who cannot be devotees of Mr Henry George ; and the farmers of New York State could as easily put down any antisocial movement within the city, as the Illinois Militia could put down rioters io Chicago. But to appeal to force against such numbers is almost to appeal to civil war ; and it iB the existence of tho evil, not the impossibility of repressing if, which is so saddening to the observer. Io Europe it is possible to say that Socialism is due to repression—a remark often made about Germany—or to overcrowding though the population of France does not increase—or to the monopoly of the land—an argument constantly adduced by English theorists; but now it breaks out in America, where there is no military repression ; where population, though it increases rapidly, has ample room ; and where uqder the Homestead Law, every man can obtain 160 acres by fu filling a few simple forms. Everyone is free, everyone has a vote, everyone can obtain education* and everyone can enjoy laud practically without payment. If, in a country where those conditions of

prosperity exist, and where, moreover, the immense majority are not only contented with their institutions, but sincerely proud of them, anti-social liatrei can be generated on a vast scale, what hope is there for the future ? Let nations do what they will, they cannot create among their peoples either universal comfort or universal content ; and if discomfort or discontent are to justify anti-iociiil movements after all artificial obstacles to prosperity have been removed, when is civil war, or the fear of civil war, to come to an end ? Wo seem to be in the presence of a kind of mania with which there is no dealing, and about which the wise can only hope that it proceeds from an impulse that will one day wear o it. A great many people think in their hearts that it w.ll bo cured by despair, by what is, in fact, the dread of irresistible physical force ; but the evidence is nut on that side. The physical foree in Chicago was visibly irresistible when the anarchists began throwing bombs ; and the first idea of t he fanatics of the creed —happily, not yet very numerous—is that they ought to. be the martyrs for it, ought, thiti-*, t •> regard physica’ foree just as the e-irly Christiins did, as of no account in the battle. t'thors think that surrender will ultimately satisfy discontent ; bat. what is to bo the surrender which will sa‘i fv men in America. The people have already all power. The unoccupied land is already divided among them on demand. They can regu’ate taxation as they please. They do already by custom, though not by law, distribute proper'y pretty equally among all cbd Iren at, death. What remains, unless wo give up the moral law altogether, and under a thin veil of legislative action, plunder those who hwe earned for the benefit of those who have cot, and so announce authorit itively, in a world where bread is not produced except by hard ploughing, that industry is to be of no account ? The States may establish a Poor Law, and so prevent hunger ; but we have done that here, and our Socialists say it ia nothing but an insult, and of no good at all in the solution of the social problem. We confess we see no secure ground of hope, except in a change of religious feeling deep down among the masses ; and as yet, all that is visible, in Europe at all events, is a deeper and deeper scepticism, leading nowhere except to an iatenser belief that the true objects of life are a maximum of comfort and a minimum of toil. That ideal is the very root of the strange passion which, Jong increasing in Europe, is now menacing America also.