a

G. H.

I. A EUROPEAN PICTURE.

For some time after the conclusion of the Franco-Prussian war, Germany presented a spectacle of much interest to students of social science. The huge indemnity, which France was paying, was being poured into Germany, and this stream of wealth was accompanied by all the phenomena of "land boom." Rapid rises took place in the selling prices of land, bubble companies were formed, mansions were built, cities grew in size, rents rose, wages became high, and there was extravagance in every direction; but productive industry declined, manufacturers became unable to compete with their French rivals, who were pouring articles of all kinds into Germany, and many factories consequently were closed. Meanwhile, in France, all the productive industries were stimulated enormously in order to supply the demand from Germany. After the " boom," when the last of the indemnity had been paid, Germany displayed, as relics of the period, a number of mansions, broken banks, empty bottles, and crippled industries. In France, on the other hand, production was in full swing, and, having finished with the indemnity, the country was free to retain the wealth which it was producing, or to exchange it for the products of other countries. France had never been more prosperous than shortly after it had paid an immense sum of wealth to Germany.

II. AN AUSTRALIAN PICTURE. Australia's borrowing period was marked by high land values, bubble companies, mansions, overgrown cities, high rents, and extravagance. Our condition now at the end of that period resembles that of Germany when France had paid over the last of the indemnity; but our plight is worse, for Germany was not under obligation

to pay back what it had received, nor even interest thereon, while we have both interest and principal to pay.

It may be worth while to examine closely some of the main features which these two pictures possess in common, and to speculate as to what the effects would have been had the conditions been different. The second picture is nearer to us, and therefore more convenient for close examination than the first.

4. Extravagance, or, at all events, the raising of the standard of comfort, seems a necessary adjunct to a sudden inflow of wealth into a country; but with a tax on land values, a great inducement to extravagance would be absent, viz., the imaginary fortunes made by speculation in land.

5. The falling off in productive industries which attended the influx of wealth both in Germany and Australia was to some extent due to the fact that capital was so largely invested in land as a speculation. Had this field for speculation been closed, capital would have been forced into productive channels.

normal.

Within certain limits it is also true

would have greatly benefited us had we in operation a tax on land values. But one of the direct results of such a tax while we were borrowing would have been that we should have borrowed less, because (1) the increase in the value of the land would have been applied to pay for the railways, &c.; and (2) there would not have been the scramble for railways which we witnessed a scramble on the part of landholders to have their land improved in value at the expense of the State.

Seeing, then, how very much better off we in Australia would have been at the present moment had we only had an equitable tax on land values during the last ten or twenty years, and seeing the complications that have arisen for the want of such a tax, it remains to inquire whether, in present time is opportune for introthe face of these complications, the ducing it. We believe it is, but reserve our reasons for a future article.

In the United States, the duty on plate glass ranges from 723 per cent. to 1413 per cent. according to size. The largest of the factories, the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co., with works at Creighton, Tarrentum, and Ford City, Pa., pays dividends of over 30 per cent.. in spite of the methods, so well understood by the managers of such concerns, of reducing the benefits accruing to shareholders. The workmen do not fare quite as well. According to the late census report the wages for grown-up males, inclusive of foremen, average 328dol., or £68 68. 8d., per year Considering the high cost of living, this is not a princely wage for a man who has to maintain a family. But what matter? shareholders earn dividends of over 30 per

cent.

The

Socialism.

I.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

It is an old truism that men are like sheep, that they thoughtlessly follow recognised leaders, and shout with the largest crowd. This tendency becomes all the more powerful when the watchword adopted by any numerous band of men is so delightfully vague, that almost any set of opinions can be covered by it. This is the case with Socialism. Only the other day the writer found that a friend of his declared himself to be a Socialist. Asked what he meant by the name, and to set forth the opinions thus ticketed and labelled, he delivered himself as follows:

I believe that the present condition of society is thoroughly diseased, and that the tendency of the human mind which manifests itself in competition is a passing one. The more permanent tendencies are growing all the time, and will ultimately assert themselves, making superfluous most of the repressive and regulative laws, and substituting voluntary co-operation for competition in the conduct of industries, and a general altruism for the prevailing egotism.

Obviously, the opinions thus expressed are on all fours with those held by the so-called "scientific" anarchists, and are diametrically opposed to Socialism. Yet he called himself a Socialist. His case is by no means a rare one; he is only one among many thousands in every country who label themselves Socialists, while they would denounce the

doctrines of the men who claim the

name by right. What, then, is Socialism? In order to discover it we ought to go to the recognised teachers, to the men who in their

books have set forth the doctrines upon which it is founded, or who have in these later days attempted to show us how they would work; and also to the programmes and platforms of the political parties which in Germany, France, and England are fighting for the realisation of their ideals.

Fortunately for us, however, the work has been made much easier. For though there are great differences in detail between the various schools of Socialism existing to-day, just as a wide difference separates the methods recommended by the earlier teachers from those of the later ones, the fun

damental object of all of them is the fine ourselves to point out the same. They all want to abolish enormous difference which separates existing abuses in the distribution of it from the amiable forecasts of our wealth by substituting a different friend who claimed to be a Socialist. method in the production of wealth to He looks forward to the abolition that now prevailing; and the method of repressive and regulative laws. which they want to introduce has been Socialism looks forward to their inset forth by an opponent of Socialism, finite extension. He aims at volunDr. Albert Schaeffle, in so fair, just, tary co-operation; Socialism aims at and exhaustive a manner, that it has compulsory co-operation. Though been accepted as the most authorita- the ultimate object at which they aim tive by the otherwise differing schools is the same, as the objects of all reof Socialists themselves. formers are, viz., the abolition of involuntary poverty, and the consequent elevation of mankind to a higher material and moral level, the methods by which they hope to bring about this result are diametrically opposed to each other; our friend, and with him thousands of other enthusiasts, want to do it by voluntary methods under a system of greater freedom; Socialism evidently wants to do it by compulsion under a system which largely abolishes freedom.

In his work, "The Quintessence of Socialism," Dr. Schaeffle describes the political object of Socialism in the following terms :

To replace the system of private capital (i.c., the speculative method of production regulated on behalf of society by the free competition of private enterprises only) by a system of collective capital; that is, by a method of production which would introduce a unified, social or collective organisation of national labour on the basis of collective or common ownership of the means of production by all members of the Society. This collective method would remove the present competitive system by placing under official administration such departments of production as can be managed collectively (socially or co-operatively), as well as by the distribution among all of the common produce of all, according to the amount and utility of the productive labour of each."

The italics are ours, and we ought also to point out that the phrase "means of production" includes the land as well as all machinery, tools, buildings, and animals which are used for, or can be used for, productive purposes. The political programme of Socialism, the means by which existing injustice in the social relations of men are to be removed, can therefore be stated concisely as follows:

The State, on behalf of the community, is to own and administer land and all the capital. All industries are to be carried on by the State under official administration. The same official administration is to distribute to the labourers the result of the common labour of all; the share which each of them receives to be equal to the productiveness of his labour (of course less the cost of administration and distribution).

Without entering, for the present, into the question whether this programme is capable of realisation, or what would be the probable result of any attempt to realise it, we will con

The next subject we have to inquire into are the means by which land and capital are to be transferred from private owners to the State, and how the official administration of all industries is to be organised. Here we meet a great difference between the earlier Socialists and most of the present ones. The former aimed at a revolution, at a sudden transference; the latter aim at evolution, at a gradual transference. Taking the "Fabian Essays," the publication of the Fabian Society of Socialists, for our guide, and there is no more authoritative one, we have the following picture placed before us :

The growing pressure of the unemployed will compel municipalities in town and country to start municipal workshops of sufficient variety to secure an outlet for the varying abilities of the former. These, once set up, will develop, and will, through the higher wages prevailing in them, attract the victims of the sweaters' dens. Not being compelled to make profits, being also in a position to hinder private capitalists by municipal regulations intentionally hostile to them, the latter will be unable to compete in the long run, and will either sell their concerns for a peppercorn to the municipalities or be defeated by them.

Where the private undertakings are too powerful to be vanquished by municipal ones, as may be the case with the "Trusts" and "Rings," such as have arisen under the fostering influence of Protection, a more drastic