SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD.

CHAPTER I.

THE FORMS OF SOCIALISM.

MODERN Socialism had its origin some seventy years ago in France, under the initiative of St. Simon. If took a definite form from his school about the time of the July Revolution of 1830; but after drawing to itself distinguished converts, and exciting much attention for a time, it soon passed away as impracticable. It rose again some time before, and particularly during, the memorable year 1848. This time it took more specific form as a scheme for the reorganization of Labour, but also a threatening form as a revolutionary force. In its former character it was found impracticable, after partial trial; in the latter it was suppressed by the sword, after a terrible insurrection in Paris. This time it was thought it had finally died. It was not so. It rose again in Germany about 1862, increased in strength, and fortified with stronger arguments, in process of time it crossed the Atlantic, and made many converts in America; and within a comparatively recent period (almost

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within the past ten years) it has made its appearance in England, where it is making considerable progress. At the present time it is a wide-spread, almost a universal, movement, which shows itself in every civilized and Christian land. where the same economic and social conditions meet; and it is certain that it is a movement that will not die without leaving important results behind it in the sphere of practice.

If the question be asked, What is Socialism? it is impossible to give a single definition that would find general acceptance, because the word is used by writers of authority in three different senses, in each of which again it is somewhat vaguely applied.

In the widest sense of the word, Socialism is any scheme of social relations which has in view a more equal distribution of wealth, or the preventing too great inequality, in whatever way this be effected, whether by State action, the voluntary efforts of individuals directed towards that end, Church action, philanthropy, or any other means; in which wide sense of the word Socialism embraces many social phenomena and movements, both in the present and in the past. Thus in the present it would embrace co-operative production, the communistic experiments in the United States and elsewhere, Christian. Socialism, contemporary legislation to ameliorate the condition of small tenant farmers and the working classes generally, and even, if we set aside the means to be employed, contemporary anarchists' final aims. In this wide sense of the word, ancient laws and customs aiming at the prevention of

poverty or of great inequality, the various risings of the people for the same ends in England, in France, and in Germany, together with the ideas, and sentiments that prompted them, might all be styled Socialistic, and have been so described by Laveleye, Roscher, and other writers.

There is a second sense of the word, which is also perhaps the most usual sense, in which it covers only a portion of the above field of meaning. In this sense, the word is applied only to the aim and endeavour of the State to secure, by laws or institutions, a greater equality of conditions, or to prevent too great inequality, in which sense the laws of Solon, equally with certain legislation of to-day, the Jewish Jubilee, and even the English Poor Law would be Socialism. In this sense the legislation of the Constituent Assembly, and of the Convention during the French Revolution, which took from the nobles to give to the peasants, was Socialism, as the aim of the late Emperor William to make a provision for the workman in time of old age and sickness, by taking part of the insurance fund from the employers, was socialistic. But in this sense, voluntary co-operative production would not be Socialistic; existing communistic attempts would not

We might perhaps extend this sense of the word to cover the case of customs in the Village Communities acquiesced in by the Heads, even before there was any State or Law in the strict sense, when such customs aimed, as they often did, at preventing inequality. For though there was no State there was government, recognized authority, and custom held in place of law.

be Socialistic; even though both contain the central aim of Socialism, and the one thing common to all forms of Socialism at all times, namely, the aim at the diminution of inequality. In this sense loans by the State to associations of working men of capital at less than current interest would be Socialistic; and the recent agrarian legislation respecting landlord and tenant in Ireland was so far Socialistic, that it was designed, and had for effect, to benefit the tenant at the expense of the landlord. But the undertaking by the Government of an industry or a service like the Telegraph or the Postal Service is not necessarily Socialistic, if it be done for the general convenience, and without thought of diminishing inequality; though the farther such extension is carried the more it tends to become so, by its narrowing the field of private enterprise, and by consequence the profits of the capitalist class, and by coming nearer to the extreme Socialist's ideal of universal state-directed industry. Moreover, so far as the extension of Government functions in the economical sphere is accompanied by a classification of workers according to merit, and furnishes opportunities to talent without means, the nearer it comes to the ideal of St. Simon, who is generally regarded as the founder of modern Socialism.

It is in this second sense of the word that it is generally used by writers of authority. Thus, M. Janet defines Socialism to be "every doctrine which believes it to be the business of the State to correct the inequalities of riches that exist amongst men, and to establish the equilibrium legally by taking from