SOCIAL CHANGE

 The Reform Conference to be opened this evening is highly significant of the restless activity of the extreme advocates of political and social change, and their desire to formulate one or more grounds of practical co-operation. No less than 25 societies will be represented at the congress, and these are of all kinds. Democratic associations, labor organisations, land reform societies, sociological classes—Christian and otherwise—country liberal—and town progressive associations, are to meet for the interchange of opinion. To sober, steady-going individuals who only ask to be let alone such an assembly will appear a portent. Radicalism, it will be said, is a hydra-headed monster, seeking whom   it may devour ; and that is the only real point of union among all the impatient and revolutionary have-nots who muster to discuss their varied schemes of mischief. The fact is that the liberal cause has always been weakened by internal division. The party wedded to liberty and progress has never been homogeneous. At the one end may be the Whig of the old school, to whom law and order are hardly less precious than to the pronounced Tory ; at the other end the fiery and irreconcilable Jacobin, with incendiary proposals for the destruction of property and the dissolution of society as at present organised. Between these two historical extremes the activity of modern political and economic thought his established innumerable gradations. That what is summed up in a general and not particularly definite phrase as liberalism should possess so many different phases is not in itself surprising. Conservatism is comparatively a simple doctrine. Those who want to conserve have little reason to quarrel with one another —there are necessarily few points of divergence in the practical application of their general policy. The progressists, the reformers, the revolutionaries—allied only by agreement in their discontent— are in much worse case. Those who favor change are separated alike by their aims and their methods. The moderate liberal strives for orderly progress, for steady, peaceful, and reasonable advance, with law as the guide and sanction of his operations. The radical applies the axe to every time-honored institution which cannot claim the express approval of the modern democracy—he cares for nothing, all shall go. With splendid disdain the socialist puts on one side all the results of political emancipation, of alterations in the forms of government, and demands the amendment of social conditions which are the same under monarchies or republics—under the rule of a despot or where universal suffrage obtains. The socialists, of all the host, are least in harmony. Their aspirations may be the same, but their remedies for social and industrial evils are perplexing in their diversity. One recognises a panacea in the communalisation of capital and industry. Another believes the golden age will return if the San Francisco prophet has his way. A third laments the monstrous overgrowth of credit and would abolish interest.
 The address at the Conference will give ample scope for the discussion of political, social, and industrial questions from various points of view. Thus Mr. Proud is to tell us about "The social outlook and the objects of this Conference ;" Sir. Day is to discourse on " The democratic movement:" Mr. Hourigan on "Labor organisations, what they have done and what they hope to do ;" the Rev. C. Blight on "The ethics of the land question ;" Mr. Hooper on " What will benefit the farmers ;" and the Rev. J. Day Thompson on "Individualism and Socialism." We have not the least doubt that an attempt will be made to focus all liberal energies on the one subject of land reform. And here we perceive a real danger. There is much for an enlightened liberalism to accomplish in South Australia. It way perfect the system of representation, so that the ballot shall, as lightning the decrees of heaven, execute the people's will. It may reform the constitution, so that, if needs be, the influence of women shall be available for the purification of politics, and that Ministries shall not be the creatures of faction and degraded by the necessity of bowing habitually to its insatiable demands.   The liberal Party may help to read past the burden of national taxation, and incidentally to make a more equitable incidence the means of discouraging the undue accumulation of riches in a few hands. It may well seek to substitute conciliation for strikes in adjusting the relations between capital and labor, and to promote a wider application of the beneficent principle of industrial co-operation. In the regulation of particular forms of industry it may strive to ameliorate the condition of the wage-earning classes.   Above all, it may endeavor by all legitimate methods to render the land more accessible to labor, and thus to facilitate the production of national wealth. There are many openings for reforming activity in which the results will be of unquestionable usefulness. But ardent and enthusiastic liberalism must beware of the pitfalls dug by irresponsible reformers who would, with a light heart, uproot our civilisation. Proudhon's anarchical dogma that property is theft would not be consciously accepted by law-abiding citizens as the watchword of a movement to which, misled by phrases, they attach the name of "forward." Consciously or unconsciously, the Georgian propaganda proceeds upon that principle. Mistaken zeal and misleading rhetoric have surrounded it with a halo of illusion. It attacks law and justice, and yet assumes to be a gospel of righteousness. It joins issue with the Decalogue, and nevertheless calls upon religion for a holy sanction and consecration.
  The social aspirations that find more or less articulate expression at conferences like that to be opened to-day are by no means of recent development. Mazzini recognised clearly enough, after the revolution of 1848, that the revolutionary struggle would thereafter assume even more strongly a social than a political form. He saw that the organisation of labor was one of the chief issues of the future. He admitted that the supreme question was "to establish better relations between capital and labor, between production and consumption, between the workman and the employer." His most valuable lesson was that revolutionary effort had hitherto chiefly justified itself in the vindication of individual rights, and that henceforth the main concern was to promulgate a higher conception of the obligations imposed by social duty. The churches have of late years largely identified themselves with what is known as the "forward movement." It is easy to see how they can render service of the greatest value in the promotion of its ends. On the lines laid down by Mazzini the principle of association may be strengthened against a selfish individualism by a courageous application of the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount to the practical affairs of human life. This is Christian socialism of the best kind, and it is competent to work a silent but mighty revolution. The political socialist attacks the environment, as if that were all. The religious socialist would imperceptibly but surely alter and improve the environment by changing and ennobling the character of the individuals environed. Reform from within is more sure than that from without; social changes voluntarily evolved from the individual are more lasting than social changes arbitrarily imposed on individuals by the operation of mechanical law. Doubtless Henrik Ibsen had something of this kind in his mind when, addressing a club of working men a few years ago, he said—"Mere democracy cannot solve the social question. An element of aristocracy must be introduced into our life. Of course I do not mean the aristocracy of birth or of the purse, or even the aristocracy of intellect. I mean the aristocracy of character, of will, of mind. That only can free us. From two groups will this aristocracy I hope for come to our people—from our women and our workmen. The revolution in the social condition, now preparing in Europe, is chiefly concerned with the future of the workers and the women. In this I place all my hopes and expectations ; for this I will work with all my life and with all my strength."

The Advertiser 13 September 1893