does not apply to their system, because the industrial and social circumstances are different to-day, because their system, they say, is adapted to the new circumstances, and because the social and industrial evolution still going on is spontaneously leading up to their ideal, and must inevitably issue in it, spite of argument or of effort to the contrary. And there is in this so much of truth, together with unproved or doubtful assumption, that the system must be examined separately on its own merits, apart from the judgment of history on past systems.

I take the form of Socialism called Collectivism, which postulates the collective ownership of land and capital, with production under State direction, to be Socialism. I do so because most Socialists, as a matter of fact, are collectivists, and because the collectivists regard themselves as the true church, though, as will be seen hereafter, there are differences within its bosom as to the way of attaining the goal, the further and ultimate aims when the goal is reached, and even as to the time of its realization; there being some who look for the coming of the Socialist kingdom within a generation or two, whilst others postpone the event indefinitely, but still expect it to

come.

In giving an exposition of Collectivism, there is a difficulty from a certain reserve on the part of authoritative writers as regards their positive programmes. Neither Karl Marx nor Lassalle submit any beyond the vaguest outline, as M. Leroy-Beaulieu complains; but this want of definite programme, as

Dr. Schæffle says, in his criticism of the new Socialism, is perfectly natural, as well as prudent on their part; and after all it is just as well that they do not submit detailed programmes; the refutation of which, however much the refuter might plume himself on it, would be little to the purpose. It is best that our attention should be directed to the main topics and larger issues round which the battle must turn. And the main topics, with which the principal issues are connected, are the chief economic categories: the production of wealth; its distribution amongst the different kinds of labourers, productive and unproductive; money and exchange, with their proposed suppression under Socialism; the theory of value; these, together with the position of the liberal professions, of literature, art, science, and the nature of the Socialist Government; -with reference to all of which I have considered the views of the new Socialism in Chaps. V. to VIII.; while the argument of Karl Marx, on which the moral case of Socialism rests, is examined in Chap. IV.

In the expository part I have confined myself in the main to general considerations; where details are entered into they are such as are either generally agreed upon by Socialists, or are the strictly logical consequences of their general principle-consequences which can be seen necessarily to follow by placing oneself at the central point of view. Where the Socialists themselves have not come to unanimity on a capital point, such as whether there is to be equality or inequality of remuneration, both views are

considered, as well as the general tendency of the system to one or other.

As the result, partly of the historical review, which shows what things the universal human experience has decided against in the past, as well as what has stood the test of time, partly of the criticism which shows how much of the present system must be retained, and how much of the Socialist system must be given up, but chiefly from the consideration of powerful present facts and tendencies,-what is practicable in the general Socialist direction, as well as what is in the sequence of these tendencies, is ascertained and stated in the last four chapters. It is in this way only that the course of the social movement in the line of least resistance can be roughly discovered. I believe that the path of the possible for statesmen and social reformers lies in the direction and within the limits there indicated, though the category of time has to be considered, and public opinion may not be ripe or not equally ripe for all the measures indicated.

II.

I HAVE aimed as far as possible at scientific treatment throughout, that is, I have tried to consider the subject from the point of view of the economical, moral, and political sciences, as being the only mode of treatment that goes to the heart of the subject. Moreover, the new Socialism calls itself scientific, and appeals to political economy, and to historical science including the new doctrine of evolution as exemplified

in the history of human societies, and it must be met and judged on its own ground. It appeals in particular to political economy, as in fact does also the existing capitalist and individualist system, so that the decisive battle must be fought in the field of economics. But here it is especially necessary to distinguish laws that always hold and that are more properly called scientific laws, from laws that are merely temporary, or local, to distinguish hypothetical from real laws and the fully-verified theory from the theory still disputed, the latter occupying a considerable portion of the economic field. We must also distinguish the practical postulate or assumption like laissez-faire from other fundamental assumptions such as the universality of competition, the former being a maxim of policy more and more discredited as a maxim, the latter a fact generally realized, and depending on principles of human nature, though in its mischievous forms becoming less true from the spread of the opposite fact of combination. Both the facts of laissez-faire and competition were indeed necessary and fair assumptions to the orthodox economy when it occupied a larger and more undisputed territory than it now does; but the former was a principle of Political Economy in a wholly different sense from the latter; it was an assumption which implied a precept or maxim of State policy, the latter an approximate generalization which largely corresponded, and which still, though in a less measure, corresponds, to facts. If these distinctions are not made, the Socialist and the Individualist may alike beg the

question under cover of an appeal to the assumed principles of political economy."

Accordingly, we cannot allow Karl Marx and the new Socialists to assume as beyond dispute Ricardo's theory of value, which makes the comparative value of commodities depend on the comparative quantity of labour necessary to produce them and carry them to market; because there are decisive reasons against the theory, which moreover has been objected to on good grounds by authoritative English economists. since Ricardo's time. Nevertheless, this theory of value of Ricardo's, slightly developed, or altered, together with his famous theory of minimum or bare subsistence wages (called by Lassalle the "Iron Law of Wages"), a little exaggerated, is the foundation of Karl Marx's whole attack on Capitalism, and of the attempt to prove capital and its accumulations the result of spoliation.

Moreover, this same theory of value in another aspect, in which the quantity of labour is measured by hours of "average" or common labour, is made the foundation of a supposed law of distribution, which is to render to each in proportion to his amount

It is indeed partly defended by Cairnes, in whose hands, however, the innate impotence of the theory is unintentionally made manifest; as by "quantity of labour" Cairnes understands duration or the number of hours of labour, but insists that these should be multiplied by the severity of the labour and again by its risk; being apparently unconscious that the word " multiplication" has no meaning where there is no quantitative measure of the multiplying factors, as in the case of degrees of severity or of risk.