WHY SOCIALISM IS POPULAR.

Sir,—The joint committee of the Social Democratic Federation, the Fabian Society, and the Hammersmith Socialist Society, concluded their "manifesto of English Socialists," issued on May 1st, 1893, with these words "We therefore confidently appeal to all Socialists to sink their individual crotchets in a business like endeavour to realise in our own day that complete communisation of industry for which the economic forms are ready, and the minds of the people are almost prepared." Yes, Socialism is identified with Communism. The earlier manifesto of the Socialist League adopted at the general conference in London, on July 5th, 1885, with annotations and explanatory notes by Mr William Morris and Mr E. Belfort Bax, is one of the best accounts ever given of the peculiar economic and ethical ideas which constitute at once both the essence and the driving force of the Socialist movement.

After urging that, under the present system of things, "the workers, although they produce all the wealth of society, have no control over its production and distribution," it goes on to say. "This must be altered from the foundation," and "the land, the capital, the machinery, factories, workshops stores, means of transit, mines, banking, and all means of production and distribution of wealth must be declared and treated as the common property of all." This is is clearly a very large order, and, as Socialists themselves frequently admit, it is not likely to be executed without a great convulsion. The authors of this manifesto proceed to argue that, when this revolution, this social convulsion, has been accomplished, "every man will receive the full value of his labour, without deduction for the profit of a master ; and as all will have to work, and the waste now incurred by the pursuit of profit will be at an end, the amount of labour necessary for every individual to perform in order to carry on the essential work of the world will be reduced to something like two or three hours daily, so that every one will have abundant leisure for following intellectual or other pursuits congenial to his nature." This is undoubtedly the Socialist ideal, apart from the pestiferous fungi which, with tenacious parasitic grip, attach themselves to it ; but whether the ideal can be realised is another matter.

But there is not the shade of a doubt that it is a fascinating ideal to at least ninety nine out of a hundred persons to whom it is presented. That it is a deadly poison, fatal to human society in proportion as it is realised is a truth that never enters their minds. They know little or nothing of history, little or nothing of the various attempts that have been made at different times and in different places to carry Socialism out, but with bad results. The gospel of the everlasting bellyful is bound to please crowds whose belly is their god. To those who love ease and hate work—to the vast majority, that is, of every existing community—Socialism is, and necessarily must be, an attractive picture. Under the collectivist system here described they would indeed be able to follow " other pursuits," and of such a character, most likely, as would be far more congenial to their nature than intellectual ones attractive as these last unquestionably are to the few—the lamentably few. But probably a very large number would prefer to use their too ample leisure in a thoughtful and quiet, especially quiet, study of football matches in the fields where they take place. Entrance to these would, of course, be free, as also would that to all other elevating amusements. And, in addition no doubt there would be free beer, free tobacco, and free drinking and billiard saloons for all who desired them—in fact, free everything ; for evidence of which statement read the following extract from page 103 of "Merrie England," by Robert Blatchford, the popular Socialist writer :— "Under ideal Socialism there would be no money at all, and no wages. The industry of the country would be organised and managed by the State ; goods of all kinds would be produced and distributed for use, and not for sale in such quantities as were needed hours of labour would be fixed, and every citizen would take what he or she desired from the common stock. Food, clothing, lodging, fuel, transit, amusements and all other things would be absolutely free, and the only difference between a Prime Minister and a collier would be the difference of rank and occupation. "

Be all this as it may, one truth is indisputable namely that competition, the essence of which is rivalry, is now, and must ever remain, absolutely necessary to individual and racial efficiency, let vote catching popularity and paid place hunters say what they will. Nothing else can find out who are mentally, morally, and physically superior to others. Those nations that ignore this axiomatic truth will be crushed out by those that guide their policy by it, and frame their laws in accordance with it. The root of Socialism is cowardice. It is the whine and the dream of the weakling's base fear of rivalry of competition. The Socialist ideal is popular because it appeals to these effeminate creatures, panders to their baseness, promises them what they would be ashamed to desire or seek if they were men ; and fools them to the top of their bent, while it misleads them into the pit of destruction. Socialism is ever the cry of the laziness that wants to have everything done for it by others, and that abhors having to exert itself to do anything for itself. It is the cry of adult babyhood for public nurses and public pap-bottles.

Government is to do everything for the self-indulgent, lazy Socialist without charging him anything for it! In fact, its numerous functionaries, its vast armies of inspectors, and inspectors of inspectors, its crowds of officials of all kinds, prying and swarming everywhere like locusts to eat the people out of house and home are to live and work, on the dreamer's illusionary theory, with out consuming anything at all, so that the Socialist may obtain everything he wants to fill his voracious and insatiate maw, absolutely free ! For how else is this model of altruism to have so much gratuitously done for him ? Even the functionaries of a Socialist State could not live on nothing. They will not be workers of miracles, and even those who profess to perform, such wonders seldom appear to be able to do the miracle of living for long without eating ; and many of them are very costly beggars and paupers, until they become still more costly robbers and social and spiritual dictators, for "appetite grows with what it feeds on. "

This bring us to another point. A violent, sudden, and wholesale destruction of the weak by the strong, which is sometimes said by Socialists and Communists to be the logic of the individualist position, would promote no steady improvement. It would produce only reaction, the natural fruit of violence and haste. Consequently it would only be less of a curse to its country, and to the world at large, than the blind, irrational sentimentalism now working so much evil in our midst by thoughtlessly providing facilities for, and encouraging the multiplication of, all forms of inefficiency ; thus spreading the very mischief to which it ministers, and which it is the endeavour of all rational minds to steadily and surely remove. We do not oppose any change which is really for the better for this or subsequent generations. But Socialism, as it is now showing itself, is certainly not a change for the better ; it is a change for the worse, as the facts about it clearly demonstrate. Whatever else the good and lasting system of the future may be, it will assuredly not be Socialism. It will be a moral and ethical system in which there is far greater scope for healthy and bracing competition than exists now, as well as far greater security for the private property which such competition requires. Those are the best laws; those are the best institutions, which lead men to put forth their best faculties of mind and body to the uttermost, without injury to their health or morals, and without injustice to each other. This is a position of unsophisticated reason, which is that of men prepared to take the risks of personal freedom, instead of embracing collective slavery and then looking to the State to dry-nurse and molly-coddle them into adult babyhood.

But an economic and social gospel based upon fear of honest rivalry, fear of intelligent competition, fear of being killed with work, fear of paternal and maternal duties and responsibilities, fear, in short, of everything that makes a man a man or a woman a woman, cannot be entertained seriously by men who have any respect for themselves or any desire for the lasting good of their species. Socialism, as we know it, is damned because it seeks to do by political means what cannot possibly be done by such means. It would raise the poor, but no class in this world is really benefited without a change in its character as well as in its material circumstances ; and no class can really be elevated to a higher plane of mental, moral, and physical life without the constant exercise of personal economy, thrift (that bete noire of your "whole-hog" Socialist), industry, valour, continence, and the other virtues. Outward prosperity that corresponds to no inward worth, to no nobility of mind and action, is a vain and empty thing.

Those who seek to help the poor by taking from the rich, nolens volens, merely because they are rich, only sink the poor lower in their own self-respect and in the respect of the rest of the world. They produce paupers but not men. Those who seek to help the poor by relieving them of their duties and responsibilities as parents, only debase and enslave them. They produce loose, vicious, careless, shallow, idle characters, but not men, not women. They will sink their proteges low enough if they are but allowed to do so. This is why, far more in the interests of the poor than in those of the rich, the deadly poison of Socialism, wherever it is found, and under whatever disguise it is sought to be concealed, ought to be not merely opposed, but utterly, completely, and for ever destroyed.-I am, sir. &c..

T. J. MALYON,

Indooroopilly, March 29.

Brisbane Courier (Qld. : 1864 - 1933), Monday 7 April 1919, page 9