MR BRADLAUGH ON SOCIALISM

Mr Bradlaugh, M.P., on Sunday morning commenced a course of lectures at the Hall of Science, Old street, City road, on the question, " Will Socialism help the English people?" At the outset he said he intended to meet this question with a direct negative. He defined a Socialist to be one who denied all private property, desired to see society organised as a State dealing with, and compelling the equal distribution of all results of labour, and as one who wished that all property, of whatever kind, should belong to the State, and who would, as far as it was possible, make matters so that there should be no distinction of class at all. Dealing first with German Socialism, he said if it were true in Germany, as was asserted, that the workers had nothing to lose in a social revolution "save their chains,” this did not apply to the working men of England, as our savings-banks, co-operative societies, and the comparatively small amount of pauperism, compared with the working class, showed. The improved condition of the hours of work men in Lancashire, Yorkshire, Northumberland, and Durham within the last 25 years also contradicted the assertion. Those who advocated a violent over throw of social order, if honest, were mad. Honest and good men ought to know that the knife, pistol, explosive, and the torch could never be arguments that could serve the poor. Burning the mill down would make the workmen no richer, however much they might hate the millowner. He held that as capital was necessary to increase the productivity of labour, the labourer should retain the future application of his capital in his own hands by association In co operative production. There was no sense in the labourer yelling at the rich man's house when he might make his own hovel a little more decent. Alluding to the “Summary of the Principles of Socialism ” issued by Messrs Morris and Hyndman and others of the Democratic Federation, he remarked that he was puzzled by the historic part of this manifesto. When he was told that the Catholic Church protected the people he wondered what was the object of telling this to the people to-day. When he was told that the nunneries and the monasteries did something to prevent pauperism, he wondered at the state of mind of those who issued this, thinking it contained some historic résumé on which a science and a system could be founded. It was not true, as the Democratic Federation alleged, that the condition of the people had become worse. That body said " Labourers in the first few hours of their day's work produce the full value of their labour." If there was anything certain in this the number of hours could be stated—he did not know what it meant. Cheap food was described as simply bringing increased profit to the capital class; but the fact was that cheap food meant better homes and better clothing for the people, a cheap press, cheap literature for the people— in fact it meant the entire change in the material well-being of the people which had been wrought since the abolition of the Corn Laws. Then it was said that "national, organised socialism” had, since 1848, "been a moral, intellectual, and physical force to be counted with all the councils of Europe.” He knew something of European affairs during the last 25 years, and said it was untrue and absurd. Further, it was stated that the trades unions, after improving the position of the higher grade of workers, cared little or nothing for those below them. It was at first true that particular trades were foolish enough to believe that they could exist well while other trades were miserable, but that was long ago, and now trades unionists had learned that one particular trade could not be bad without affecting another; and they met year after year in conference in order to discuss these questions. Although in every great centre of population there was a great deal too much starvation, it was not true "that the vast mass of our fellow countrymen are on the verge of starvation." It was not courageous on the part of members of the Democratic Federation to "to urge forward the revolution.” True courage was, with the obstacle in one's path, to wear it away by small pieces and not to break other men's hearts against it. Those who cried for fire and sword either did not mean what they said or had not seen, as he saw, Paris as it was still smoking, or they would never want to let loose a fiend.—The Times

Ballarat Star (Vic. : 1865 - 1924), Saturday 22 March 1884, page 4