SOCIALISM 473 



capitaliste devient impossible a partir du moment oi le marche ne s'etend 

 plus dans la meme mesure que la production, c'est a dire des que la sur- 

 production devient chronique. . . . Voila une situation de laqueUe, si 

 elle se presente, resultera in^vitablement I'avtoement du socialisme. On 

 doit en venir a une telle situation si revolution iconomique continue d 

 progresser jusquHci, car le marche ext6rieur comme le march6 interieur a ses 

 limites, tandis que 1' extension de la production est pratiquement illimitee." ^ 



Let US, for the moment, take these assertions of Karl Marx 

 and of his disciple Kautsky as grounded in fact, and let us 

 suppose the advent of Socialism to be inevitable. The question 

 at once arises, Does Socialism constitute the force which is best 

 adapted to increasing the actual tendency to widen the sphere 

 of conflict, while at the same time increasing the value of life ? 



In the first place, we may remark that it is a grievous error 

 to think that Sociahsm has been disposed of when we have 

 denounced it as the ideal of highway robbery or spoUation. 

 No, an ideal which has been capable of moving the masses of 

 the people all over Europe, as Sociahsm has done ; an ideal 

 which has produced among its adherents a spirit of devotion, 

 of self-sacrifice on behalf of a cause, such as Socialism has pro- 

 duced, is not an ideal to be lightly dismissed with a few scornful 

 words. M. Bourdeau, who is by no means a Socialist, in a very 

 interesting book published some twelve years ago on German 

 Sociahsm and Russian NihiUsm, tells us that the receipts of the 

 German Social Democratic party amounted in a single year, 

 1890-91, to the sum of 223,266 marks (about £11,163). Of 

 this amount private subscriptions accounted for 168,645 marks 

 (£8,432). This sum may not appear great to the accountancy 

 departments of the Conservative or Liberal parties, among the 

 component elements of which are peers, wealthy landed pro- 

 prietors, county gentry, finance magnates, and grands industrids ; 

 but it is certainly inmiense when we remember that it is contri- 

 buted by the working man, for whom every halfpenny counts. 

 M. Bourdeau tells us that this sum, which constitutes the 

 1 Karl Kautsky, Le Marxisme, pp. 266, 267. Paris, 1900. 



