Alfred Russel Wallace 



retrograded, subsiding swiftly, so that there were many- 

 individuals among us to-day who were in body, mind, and 

 character below the level of our barbarian ancestors or 

 contemporary '* savages," to say nothing of civilised Bur- 

 mese or Malays. What he meant by Socialism can be seen 

 from his books. Nothing in them surprised me after our 

 talk. His appreciation of Confucius, when I quoted some 

 things of the Chinese sage's which confirmed what he was 

 saying, was emphatic, and that and many other things 

 showed that Socialism to him implied the upward evolu- 

 tion of humanity. It was because of the degradation of 

 men involved that he objected to letting individuals grab 

 the public property — earth, air and water. Monopolies, he 

 thought, should at once revert to the public, and we had an 

 argument Avhich showed that he had no objection to even 

 artificial monopolies if they were public property. He de- 

 fended the old Dutch Government monopolies of spices, and 

 declared them better than to-day's free trade, when culti- 

 vation is exploited by men who always tended to be mere 

 money-grabbers, selfish savages let loose. In answer I 

 mentioned the abuses of officialdom, as seen by me from 

 the inside in Burma, and he agreed that the mental and 

 moral superiority of many kinds of Asiatics to the Euro- 

 peans who want to boss them made detailed European 

 administration an absurdity. We should leave these peoples 

 to develop in their own way. Having conquered Burma 

 and India, he proceeded, the English should take warn- 

 ing from history and restrict themselves to keeping the 

 peace, and protecting the countries they had taken. They 

 should give every province as much home rule as possible 

 and as soon as possible, and study to avoid becoming 

 parasites. — D. A. W. 



We may fittingly conclude this brief summary of 

 Wallace's social views and ideals by citing his own reply to 

 the question : '' Why am I a Socialist ? " '' I am a Socialist 

 because I believe that the highest law for mankind is jus- 

 tice. I therefore take for my motto, ' Fiat Justitia, Ruat 

 CoBlum ' ; and my definition of Socialism is, ' The use, by 



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