PRIMITIVE PROPERTY AND MODERN SOCIALISM. 



447 



" The Socialist Laborer party demands under 

 the present society : 



" 1. The utmost possible extension of political 

 rights and liberties in the direction of the above 

 demands. 



" 2. A single progressive income-tax for state 

 and parish in the place of all existing taxes, es- 

 pecially the indirect taxes which burden the peo- 

 ple. 



" 3. Unrestricted liberty to combine. 



"4. A fixed labor-day corresponding to the re- 

 quirements of society. The prohibition of Sunday 

 labor. 



" 5. The prohibition of children's labor, and of 

 all labor of women that is injurious to health or 

 morality. 



" 6. Laws protecting the lives and health of 

 laborers. Sanitary control of laborers' dwellings. 

 The superintendence of mines, factories, work- 

 shops, and domestic manufactures, by officials 

 elected by the laborers. An effectual law making 

 employers responsible for injuries to their work- 

 men (' Haftpflichtgesetz '). 



" 7. The regulation of prison-labor. 



" 8. Complete independence of administration 

 of all funds for the relief or maintenance of la- 

 borers." 



A superficial objection might be raised by the 

 present middle and upper classes to the transfer, 

 as contemplated by German Socialists, of the 

 present owners' goods to the state, in trust for 

 the community. But the objection would be 

 waved aside as a mere class prejudice. What 

 should, but we do not suppose would, weigh with 

 the working-class itself, is the comparative cer- 

 tainty that, without a distinct order of capitalists 

 to direct their labor, and privately interested 

 in amassing as large a fund as possible for the 

 maintenance of labor, the workmen would speedi- 

 ly starve for want of employment. German labor 

 even now is not very successful ; it is ha-rd to im- 

 agine to what a depth it would fall without the 

 vigilant supervision of the employer. In the 

 course of the debates in 1876 on the German 

 Criminal Supplementary Law, Prince Bismarck 

 denounced the Socialist press. He declared it 

 contributed to cause the stagnation of trade, and 

 to make a German working-day less productive 

 than a French or English working-day. The 

 prince referred the members of the Reichstag, in 

 proof of this, to their own observation of French- 

 men working by the side of Germans in Berlin ; 

 and he declared any one could see that a French 

 builder executed in a day more and better work 

 than a German : the result is, that German work 

 cannot compete in the world's markets with 

 French. Prince Bismarck traced the decline to 



Socialist agitation for undefined and unrealizable 

 objects ; and he was not sanguine of anv cure 

 for the disease except poverty. Poverty is, in 

 fact, the most certain cure for the onslaught la- 

 bor designs against capital. If the Socialist 

 schemes could ever be supposed likely to attain 

 any measure of success, the workmen would 

 speedily find that capital does something more 

 than feed on their earnings. But we trust Ger- 

 many will not come to have its workmen taught 

 the folly of their theories at this cost. The dan- 

 ger, in the mean time, is that the best energies of 

 the workman may be wasted on the concoction of 

 imaginary constitutions, in which Communism 

 would be the ruling principle, just as the military 

 exigencies of the empire at present decimate the 

 powers which might else be applied to achieving 

 a high industrial rank for the nation. It is a 

 heavy drawback to the industrial prosperity of a 

 country when the best energies of one half of its 

 manhood are absorbed in soldiering, and those 

 of the other half in devising new republics, in 

 which work is to have the profits and none of 

 the dangers of capital. 



But to attempt to argue German Socialists out 

 of their theories is a hopeless task. Prince Bis- 

 marck, in the speech we have already referred 

 to, recommended discussion of Socialist views 

 in the press and in Parliament, but not, he add- 

 ed, in the expectation of converting Socialists. 

 Neither the country nor even members of the 

 Reichstag — excepting Herr Bamberger, who had 

 taken part in the debate — understood, he thought, 

 the nature of Socialism, and the sooner they did 

 the better. But, in any such discussion, Germans 

 who are not Socialists will do wisely to recognize 

 that there should be no thought of " reconciling " 

 views. A Continental journal styled the Concor- 

 dia was established in 1871, with the design of 

 elevating trade controversies from the basis of 

 self-interest on to the higher platform of duty 

 and conscience. All such attempts, however well 

 meant, are dangerous. Socialists mock at the 

 notion of compromise. They may vote in the 

 German Reichstag with the Cltramontanes, just 

 as in Belgium ; though the Liberals denounce 

 them, they join in attacking the Ultramontanes. 

 But not one jot or tittle of their own Socialist 

 creed they will ever abate. Prince Bismarck 

 said of the Social Democrats in the Reichstag 

 that, when one of them addressed the assembly, 

 he seemed to be " speaking from another world." 

 They are, in fact, thinking and speaking from 

 another world — a world which, if realized, would 

 differ from this of ours in more essential matters 



