THE COMING SLAVERY. 741 



media3val Europe and still more in Japan — nay, has thus so led among 

 our neighbors within our own times. The recent confessions of M. 

 de Maupas have shown how readily a constitutional head, elected and 

 trusted by the whole people, may, with the aid of a few unscrupulous 

 confederates, paralyze the representative body and make himself auto- 

 crat. That those who rose to power in a socialistic organization would 

 not scruple to carry out their aims at all costs, we have good reason 

 for concluding. When we find that shareholders, who, sometimes gain- 

 ing, but often losing, have made that railway-system by which na- 

 tional prosperity has been so greatly increased, are spoken of by the 

 council of the Democratic Federation as having " laid hands " on the 

 means of communication, we may infer that those who directed a 

 socialistic administration might interpret with extreme perversity the 

 claims of individuals and classes under their control. And when, fur- 

 ther, we find members of this same council urging that the state 

 should take possession of the railways, " with or without compensa- 

 tion," we may suspect that the heads of the ideal society desired, 

 would be but little deterred by considerations of equity from pursuing 

 whatever policy they thought needful — a policy which would always 

 be one identified with their own supremacy. It would need but a war 

 with an adjacent society, or some internal discontent demanding for- 

 cible suppression, to at once transform a socialistic administration into 

 a grinding tyranny like that of ancient Peru ; under which the mass 

 of the people, controlled by grades of officials, and leading lives that 

 were inspected out-of-doors and in-doors, labored for the support of 

 the organization which regulated them, and were left with but a bare 

 subsistence for themselves. And then would be completely revived, 

 under a different form, that regime of status — that system of compul- 

 sory co-operation, the decaying tradition of which is represented by 

 the old Toryism, and toward which the new Toryism is carrying us 

 back. 



" But we shall be on our guard against all that — we shall take pre- 

 cautions to ward off such disasters," will doubtless say the enthusiasts. 

 Be they " practical " politicians with their new regulative measures, or 

 communists with their schemes for reorganizing labor, the answer is 

 ever the same : " It is true that plans of kindred nature have, from 

 unforeseen causes and adverse accidents, or the misdeeds of those con- 

 cerned, been brought to failure ; but this time we shall profit by past 

 experiences and succeed." There seems no getting people to accept 

 the truth, which nevertheless is conspicuous enough, that the welfare 

 of a society and the justice of its arrangements are at bottom depend- 

 ent on the characters of its members ; and that improvement in nei- 

 ther can take place without that improvement in character which re- 

 sults from carrying on peaceful industry under the restraints imposed 

 by an orderly social life. The belief, not only of the socialists but 

 also of those so-called Liberals who are diligently preparing the way 



