p. 72My Dear Mr. Blatchford,
I cannot help thinking from your fourteenth letter that you are conscious of the practical difficulties in the way of the establishment of Socialism. You “approach the question” of “how it is to be accomplished” “with great reluctance.” Why, how is this, Mr. Blatchford? This is the kernel of the whole question. It is very easy to conjure pretty ideals. It is very good of you to give us entertaining sketches of the state of things that ought to exist; but it is not quite so good of you, just as our teeth are beginning to water as it were—just as the thing is beginning to enlist our attention, and just as we are beginning to ask, “Well, and how are we going to bring this about?” to sheer off with the remark that “you have not given so much attention to the question of how Socialism is going to be established, and how it is to be organised.”
You say, “Socialists are practical people in these days, and know that coats must be cut according to the cloth.” You therefore ought to be ready with pattern and scissors according to the piece flung on the counter. You show us splendid plates of the newest styles, and when we point out some difficulties in the way of producing the garment, you say you had not thought of these, and that “you have no system cut and dried.” This is suspicious. You are worse than a bogus company promoter. He not only paints the advantages of his scheme in glowing colours, but he has got the whole modus operandi at his finger ends, and can rattle off his calculations in the most convincing style. He can show “how the thing is to be done.” But you “approach this question with great reluctance.”
You show us the picture of a “Merrie England,” with a clean, well-dressed, happy population, working, many of them, only three p. 73 hours a day; living in opulent villas, in spacious tree-bordered avenues, and spending their leisure time in attending concerts and crowding colleges to hear lectures on the extermination of the microbe, and the utilization of manures in agriculture. And when we ask how it is to be brought about, and how conducted, you say “these are the two branches of the work to which I have given least attention!”
Really, Mr. Blatchford, you might as well tell us at once of “the happy land where the apples drop off the trees into our open mouths; the fish come out of the river and fry themselves for dinner; the looms turn out ready-made suits of velvet with golden buttons, without the trouble of coaling the engine;” where the people are pure as “stained-glass angels;” who never swear; “who always love their neighbours better than themselves, and who never need to work unless they wish to.”
I cannot but think that it is your felt inability in the practical department of the question that leads you to take refuge in the pretence that “Socialism is begun,” for it is a pretence merely. The abolition of toll bars, the prohibition of back-to-back houses, the compulsory inspection of mines and factories, etc., to which you refer, are not phases of Socialism at all, in the sense of the Socialism you are advocating. They are not interferences with individual liberty in individual matters, but the regulation of individual liberty in matters affecting the community. This has been a characteristic of all law ever since there was human society upon earth, and if this is Socialism, then Socialism as a distinctive name has no meaning. But this is not Socialism. Socialism is not the regulation, but the extinction of individual liberty, by the fusion of society into a petrified conglomerate body, in which individual enterprise, individual distinction, individual aspiration, and even individual choice would no longer be possible. It would provide a State officialism, which would lie like a heavy incubus on the community, squeezing individual life into the dead level of a similar condition and a common type, and that the lowest type. It would bear society downwards by a uniform common pressure, instead of affording it scope and breathing room for development upwards through the action of stimulus from below.
It is a smart thing to say that Socialism has begun. But it is not true. Society has always regulated the liberty of the individual in defence of the well being of the community—sometimes less, p. 74 sometimes more. It has recently taken some special strides in this direction. The art of living together to mutual advantage is being cultivated to a little greater perfection; but the art itself is nothing new.
But Socialism is a new thing so far as the general practice of mankind is concerned. It proposes to crush the liberty of the individual for the sake of benefits of a theoretical and highly problematical kind. It would place the community at the mercy of experimenting doctrinaires sent to Parliament by the least instructed of the population, to act as delegates in the enforcement of crude theories that would work ruin to the best interests of the country.
There are such things as “freedom of contract” and “rights of the individual,” though they may be abused. You rightly scout their abuse, but their extinction is not the remedy. The remedy for their abuse is not to extinguish them, as Socialism proposes, but to impose upon them their reasonable limitations, of which a democratic Parliament would not be the best judges. Such a Parliament would set up a despotism that would crush all superiority and joy out of life.
You are not entitled to use the gas and water supply as an argument in favour of Socialism. No man can supply his own gas and water. It is a thing that can only be done by some community extraneous to himself, it matters little to him which, whether a voluntary company or the town authority, taking over the business from the company. Individual liberty is in no way imperilled by such a mode of supply. He is not even obliged to have the gas or water, though the company or corporation is ready to supply it. He can have it or leave it as he chooses.
But Socialism would propose to compel men to have their bread, clothes or boots from a government store, whether they liked it or not; and to make it penal for them to get these articles from any private citizen who might be willing to supply them; and it proposes to forbid him trading with his own capital, or giving or taking his own prices. This is a different thing altogether. It is not the regulation but the extinction of individualism. The government management of the post office and telegraph is not of this character at all. These are great public conveniences that the individual is at liberty to use or let alone as he likes; they do not encroach on individual liberty.
p. 75 The more the subject is thought out, the greater will the difficulties appear. The English working classes may be so acted on by the sophistries of brilliant writers—mis-called “education”—as to vote in favour of the experiment. It is not a bold prophecy to say that it would not be in operation five years before it would explode in a tempest of popular indignation. Socialism in the hands of a democratic Parliament would become an intolerable tyranny. It would smother society under an exasperating officialism of which Englishmen would soon get rid. They have not forgotten their national motto, “Britons never shall be slaves.” They will not become slaves for the sake of having plenty to eat and drink. There are things dearer than life, without which Englishmen would not consent to live.
Part of your plan is to put agricultural labourers and tramps on State farms. You anticipate the objection to saddling the nation with the maintenance of a vast army of paupers. You don’t dispose of the objection. You think the farms would pay. It would all depend. Do you think the labour of tramps, except under the task-master’s rod, could be made to pay, if bread is to be cheap and wages high? You would treat the tramps as “honourable gentlemen”—a rather difficult performance, I should think, except at the hands of fellow-tramps; and these only in mock respect. You cannot force facts in obedience to a theory.
The honourable gentlemen would work the farm among them, and then “when rent and other charges were paid to the State, the balance would be divided.” But suppose there was no balance to divide? Suppose there was not enough to pay wages? Suppose the farm did not produce enough to feed the colony on account of the slack-handedness of the “honourable gentlemen,” who would probably prefer play to work? Suppose agriculture languished for want of the energetic initiative and superintendence of individual proprietors, and for want of the compulsion of necessity which now spurs every man to activity—every man, on the contrary, taking it very easy in the knowledge that the State would look after his maintenance — the agricultural Minister, “responsible for the feeding of thirty-six millions,” would have rather an anxious time of it.
Yes: the question of Socialism is become a very important question. It threatens a great public disaster which it is the duty of every citizen to prevent if possible.
Your perhaps somewhat obtuse, but not rash or altogether unpenetrating friend,
JOHN SMITH.