REVIEW.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VI, Issue 313, 18 April 1879, Page 16

REVIEW.

" Socialism, or the Wrongs and Remedies of our Social Condition," by the Rev. James Copland, M.A., Edinburgh, 1878. The author tells us in his preface that his work has been undertaken in order to supply a want that is now generally felt to " understand the nature of the principles which socialism proclaims, and that their tendency may be fairly estimated." This is undoubtedly a desideratum now that this burning question is forcing itself so prominently upon the attention not only of profound thinkers, but even of the commonly prudent, and, so far as the limits to which the author has confined himself have allowed him, we acknowledge he seems fairly to have performed the task. He begins the work by sketches of the International and of the various leaders and Apostles from whose teaching the present aspect of social democracy has arisen, and then he proceeds to discuss the principles which socialism seeks to alter or destroy ; the sources of the evils to be recognized in our social condition, and finally their remedies. The undertaking is impartially worked out. The author is not a partisan who sees nothing «T socialism, but an unreasoning attack upon existing institutions,' or who, on the other hand, is ready to declaim against capital, and welcome the opening out of any Utopia that may offer. The spirit in which he writes may be gathered very fairly from the following :—: — 41 Yet we are far from denying that there is good reason for adopting some measures whereby those holders of property who have been greatly enriched — not through their own labour or merit, but simply by the circumstances of the community — should contribute proportionally for the general benefit." — Chap, ii., p. 37). And again " Such an injustice as this, and other acts of severity which a landlord has it in his power to inflict on a tenant, should be guarded against by the law. « If property has its rights, it has also its duties.' " —(Chap, ii., p. 39.) On the whole, as we said, the work is fairly written, and is calculated to prove a boon to those persons who are desirous of gaining a clear Tiew of the matter treated of, but who have not the opportunities, or probably the ability, required for the research which the author in question has undertaken with very creditable results.