CH^ISTIAMTY AXD SOCIALISiT. 



71 



Thirty years ago -eemed to me to be some difficulty in 



accoimtiDg for the slow progress which Socialism, despite the 

 influence it was exercising in foreign lands, had made in 

 England.* The rapidity of the success of the invasion of 

 socialistic ideas since that time has been chiefly due, as I 

 believe, to the weakening or withdrawal of two restraining 

 forceS; one political, and the other intellectual. It may be 

 worth while to say a word about each of these in turn before 

 going on to discuss the relation of Socialism, as a doctrine of 

 life, to Christianity. 



I. 



Diuin!^ the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, there had 

 been an increasing leeHng that the sphere within which the 

 State could advantageously interfere was somewhat limited. 

 The sentiment against unnecessary State regulation had played 

 no small part in the growth of popular discontent which 

 culminated in the Great Rebellion : Adam Smith had insisted 

 on the mistakes which the State is likely to make, and on the 

 cumbronsness of its machinery : and the evils, which gi'ew up 

 under the old Poor Law. had led many people to fear the 

 incidental and unforeseen mischief which may arise in 

 connection with the best-intentioned legislation. The fact 

 that there are many evils which government cannot cure, was 

 a recognised axiom on the part not only of Members of the 

 House of Commons, but of electors during the greater part of 

 the nineteenth century. The governing classes were convinced 

 that it is impossible to make men moral by Act of Parhament, 

 whereas Socialists hold, according to Mr. Shaw in to-day's 

 Times, that they cannot be made either moral or happy in any 

 other way." But the Eeform Bill of 1885 ti*ansf erred a large 

 share of poUtical power into the hands of sections of the 

 community who were inclined to hope great •things from their 

 new rights. The Chartists had reckoned that, if only they could 

 secure political power, all merely social wrongs would be put 

 right : and the classes, who were enfranchised in 1885, have 

 been inclined to cherish the same beUef ; it is the mainspring 

 of much of the agitation for Women's Suffrage in the present 

 day. The powers of the State are so vast and far-reaching, 

 that it is easy to foi-m an exaggerated view of what it can 

 wisely undertake and carry tlirough ; and those, who have not 



* Compare mv article on The Progress of Socialism in Encrland." in 

 The Contemporan/ Review, xxxiv, -lA^b^ January, 1S79. 



