Why the Socialistic State is Impossible.

 By Edgar T. Wheelock, Chief Editorial Writer, the Milwaukee Sentinel.

The charm that attracts converts to the cause of socialism is to be found in statements of the objects which socialists seek to attain. It has been said that the principles of socialism may be reduced to the abstract statement :" From every man according to his ability; to every man according to his needs." And socialists take pride in pointing to the fact that their plan of government is devised for the sole purpose of providing for the adequate production of material comforts which are to be distributed with even-handed justice—or what they term justice—to all individual members of society.

In sharp contrast with this pleasant picture of plenty without responsibility or apprehension for the future, socialists point to the evils that have grown up under the present political system, and the suffering, poverty, ignorance and vice to which no man honestly can close his eyes. The fact also is pointed out that under the so-called capitalistic system one man rides in his carriage, dresses in purple and fine linen, and fares, sumptuously every day, while another is barely able to provide for himself and family the necessaries of life ; yet the former, it is asserted, produces nothing, while the latter adds to the wealth of society by the work of his hands. In the struggle for existence, it is eloquently contended, the prizes do not go to those who earn them by the sweat of their brows, but are appropriated by the designing, selfish, scheming financiers, by the unproductive middlemen, and by the politicians whose very existence has become a reproach which utterly condemns the present political system.

 

GOVERNMENT NOT TO BLAME FOR EVIL.

But it should be remembered that the fact that evils of this character have developed and spread in the existing social order does not prove that they can be abolished by changing to another system. As a matter of fact, the conditions complained of are directly chargeable to human nature and not to our political system. He who reads the constitution of the United States and of the several states, the common law principles that were established by English jurists and that we have inherited as a foundation for our jurisprudence, and, finally, the statutes enacted by our legislative bodies, will experience some difficulty in discovering in them the germs of evil, real or imaginary. They are not there. The entire scheme of government is designed to protect each individual in his natural rights—life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—and to leave him free and untrammeled in the exercise of these rights. Whatever of evil, whatever of injustice, whatever of inequality in the distribution of wealth, whatever of crime, suffering, selfishness, and vice there may be in this country to-day can no more be charged against the political system than can the charity, human kindness and love of justice that distinguish so many men who were born, educated, and developed to admirable moral proportions be credited to the form of government under which we live.

DIFFICULT TO MANAGE THE NEW STATE.

It is proposed by the advocates of socialism that we attempt to remedy the faults they complain of by doing away with personal inequalities and by bringing all mankind to a common level. They advocate the adoption of a form of government which they especially have designed with a view to bringing about that result. That government is to take over by right of eminent domain the means of production and the agencies of distribution, and all citizens are to receive from the producer, the state, an equal share of the necessities of life and the luxuries as well, without distinction of any kind, and that share is to be liberal enough to supply all their needs. It is believed that by this plan the evils of " capitalism " will be abolished, and, the incentive to greed and opportunities to gratify that base passion having been done away with, society will settle down to a peaceful state that will continue through the ages like a dream of bliss in which the wicked will cease from troubling and the weary will be at rest. This is an attractive picture.

The system under which this is to be accomplished is one in which the state, as has been said, will own and manage the sources of supply the products of industry, and the agencies of distribution. All land will be public property and every grain of wheat raised will be owned by the government until it is ground into flour and apportioned to a citizen for his private use. Every shop, factory, foundry, mill and mine ; every engine or piece of machinery of whatever character ; every locomotive, and car upon every railroad ; every steamboat upon the waters; in fact, every item of property except the personal belongings of the citizens such as their clothing, household furniture, libraries and pictures; will be owned by the state. Every citizen, male and female, will be employed by the state during the years following graduation from school and preceding the time of retirement. There can be no private enterprise of any nature.

It will thus be seen that the proposed socialistic state is to be a great industrial enterprise and in order that it may be successful it must be organised like an army, each individual fitting into his place like a soldier in the ranks of his company. The nearest approach to such an organization of which we have any knowledge, aside from military bodies, is the Standard Oil Company and the United States Steel Corporation, both of which great trusts have absorbed many small industries and have branches extending into nearly every state in the Union. The plan of management adopted by these two capitalistic enterprises is so perfect in all its details that the work performed by their hundreds of thousands of employes goes on with the order and regularity of a perfect mechanism. It is thus the advocates of socialism would organize their industrial state. What would be the result ?

Can you imagine an enterprise of this magnitude and character being successfully managed without first reducing its details to a system and order that shall approximate the perfect organization of the great corporations mentioned ? There must be a head whose authority is absolute, and he must have under him departmental heads and bureaus to whom all subordinate officials and private individuals must render obedience. Any lack of discipline, any insubordination or independence on the part of those who are subject to superior officers, would introduce an element of uncertainty that would go far toward bringing about discords miscarriages of plans that would prove to be dangerous menaces to the stability of the government upon which the people must depend for their food. It must be remembered that no member of society would be in a position to shift for himself. Every pound of food; would be produced by the government acting through its agents, its bureaus of officers, who would direct the energies of the workingmen—for there would be workingmen in the socialistic state. If those workingmen became so dissatisfied as to rebel against their superiors and strike, and if the government did not have authority and power to enforce discipline and compel the men to do its bidding, what would happen ?

WOULD ONLY MEAN A BARBAROUS DESPOTISM.

Without such authority the socialist state would fall like a house of cards, and the age of the physically strong— barbarism—would return and reign until order could be brought out of chaos. With such authority the state would soon establish itself as a despotism ruled by men who under our system have sought and are still seeking power through political or financial  supremacy. And the despotism would be still more powerful because the individuals who under our democratic system are guaranteed life, liberty and the right to pursue happiness in their own way would have lost their liberty. Their only hope of employment would be in the government service; the only source from which they could draw the necessaries of life would be the government warehouses ; their only chance of obtaining both employment and food would be in sustaining the government which enslaved them.

This is not an attractive picture, I am aware, nor is it the picture painted by socialists; but it is difficult to see how any other conclusion can be reached when it is remembered that the socialists advocate according to their own admissions, the strongest possible form of paternal government; and the management of that government must be entrusted to men who, they assert, under this free democratic system, without any of the advantages offered by a ready-made despotism, have succeeded in enslaving the workingman and depriving him of a portion of his earnings.

NO CHANGE IN THE PEOPLE, HENCE NO CHANGE.

When the socialists start the experiment—if they ever do start—they will take the people who are now here, with all their imperfections, jealousies, selfishness and 'general cussedness,' as material out of which their ideal state is to be constructed. The system will be changed, not the people. They will then proceed to organize their stupendous industrial enterprise, a description of which has already been given, and for the sake of getting on with the argument, it will be conceded that they will be able to accomplish their purpose without breaking up in a row, a concession that means a great deal when it is considered that there will be some very attractive positions to be disposed of, carrying with them more or less honor, and within certain limits, autocratic power. Having perfected their organization, it will be found that each man and woman has been assigned a place in the industrial army and large numbers of those who are to-day marching in the ranks of the socialist party under the impression that they will all draw capital prizes under the new dispensation, will discover that the only change in their condition is that they have surrendered freedom for slavery, with a possible betterment, in some cases, in the character of food and clothing received in exchange for their work. This may sound like exaggeration in the ears of a socialist, but it is nevertheless true. The socialist state, which is an industrial empire, would not endure twenty four hours except through the exercise of despotic power lodged in the head of a great organizer, a captain of industry like John D. Rockefeller, or a board of managers, and extending down through all the subordinate bureaus until it reached and acted upon the rank and file like the ukase of Alexander of Russia upon the soldiers who do the will of the " great white Czar " without stopping to question or complain.

The man who enters the employ of the Standard Oil Company or the United States Steel Corporation does so voluntarily. At any time he may become dissatisfied with the rules laid down for his guidance or the conditions under which he works, he is at liberty to leave the service of the company and look elsewhere for employment.

Under the socialistic form of government there would be but one employer in the land—the state. The rules of service would have all the force and effect of law. The employe who refused to abide by them would be a law breaker. He could not withdraw from the service because there would be no other way in which he could make a living. He could not get into the country and live upon what he could raise from the soil because he would be cut off from the source of supply by government ownership of land as well, as government ownership of himself.

HUMAN NATURE ALWAYS THE SAME.

Is there any man who will presume to say that a mere change in the form of government would work the miracle for purifying mankind and removing selfishness, jealousy and discontent from the human heart ? It is possible that universal satisfaction will follow immediately upon the change from a democratic to a socialistic system ? Yet discontent with one's assignment to work would be disloyality to the government and a refusal to obey would be rebellion, a crime.

I am aware that socialists will contend that these statements are exaggerated. They will say that their state will be governed by all the people, that the man who digs in the sewer will have as much as influence as the one who holds the most exalted position in the state, because each will have but one vote. But we may say that about our democratic form of government, and it is not literally true. At least, our socialist friends say it is not. How then can we be sure that they will furnish the people a better opportunity to make their influence felt,particularly as they would substitute bureaucracy in place of democracy. Men of great powers as orators, statesmen, political organizers and managers, always have and always will influence their fellow men. From the time when primitive men formed themselves into tribes, the rank and file of mankind have followed leaders, and they will continue to do to until the end of time. Whenever conditions have so shaped themselves that the leaders could become masters they have, as a rule, discovered that the best interests of the people demanded that a strong central government be formed. For nearly a century the constitution framed by the founders of this republic set a limit beyond which the ambition of the leaders dare not go, and the time has not yet come when it will be safe to abandon that organic law.

SOCIALISTS UNDER THE SWAY OF THE STRONG

As an evidence that the success of a socialistic experiment would depend upon the adoption of a despotic form of government it is only necessary to refer to efforts that already have been made along those lines. History tells of many attempt to establish communities and colonies in this country, in Europe and Australia upon the socialistic plan. Some have failed while others have succeeded. Those that were wrecked were the ones that attempted to run a socialistic community on the democratic plan. They gave to each member of the community an equal voice in the government. Sooner or later dissensions crept in, and in spite of the fact that these colonies invariably have succeeded in making money, have been industrially successful, they were wrecked by jealousies and bickering.

On the other hand, there have been communities modeled in some cases on socialistic ideals and in others on those of the communists that have been successful for long periods, and some of them are in existence to-day. In every one of these cases the success recorded has been due to the fact that some central cause —a religious belief or the personality of a strong man who dominated his followers and controlled their wills—has taken from the members of the community any disposition they originally may have had to think or will for themselves. These colonies have been petty despotisms and the members outside of the governing boards or the supreme head, as the case may be, served terms of mild slavery ; but the slavery was real nevertheless.

Reason and experience therefore teach that an attempt to establish a socialistic form of government will result either in a despotic bureaucracy or in a state torn by revolutions which will bring about a condition little if any better than anarchy. The statesmen who directed the course of events that finally resulted in the reign of terror in Paris were inspired by the highest motives, and were far from suspecting that they were digging a pitfall for the French nation. The motives that inspire the teachers of socialism may be admirable, but it does not follow that their plans are practicable. It has been said that ' hell is paved with good intentions.'


Port Pirie Recorder and North Western Mail (SA : 1898 - 1918), Saturday 10 December 1904, page 1

ENGLAND'S NEW MISSION.

 (From the Daily News.)

ENGLAND has a new mission to fulfil. She is called on to teach the nations that military power can be united with civil liberty. For the benefit of all posterity she must prove that civilization is capable of defending itself, and of being a noble ally in vindicating the outraged rights of others. She is now threatened by the Times with the "fate of the Dutch and the Venetians," told that she must be the mere spectator of a neighbour's quarrels, and hold her own right and liberties on sufferance, unless she establish a despotism like that of the neighbouring powers. A commercial nation is described as below a military despotism in security. Our mercantile habits and constitutional ideas are said to hinder us in the prosecution of war. " War," it is oracularly said, is war, and cannot be made anything else than war." " It will not be reduced to a system of ledgers, memoranda, desks, stores, uniforms, or other dead or dormant affairs, such as may answer possibly for a domestic institution." Following in the wake of the Edinburgh Review, and other authorities that discard reflection and adopt positively the opinion of their fathers, our vehement contemporary, in advocating a re-organisation of our military system, describes despotism as essential to military success, and holds up the mercantile system and civilisation as inimical to it, and as bringing feebleness and degradation on the nation. It is implied even that England must become a second-rate power, or must imitate the Czar and the Emperor of the French and that, for the purposes of war, we must sacrifice our liberties. Agreeing with the Times in the necessity of reorganising our military system ; believing, however, that the extension of trade is essential to the growth of national power that liberty and civilisation would not be secure if not stronger than despotism ; we must repudiate its doctrines, and show that the re-organisation we demand requires more, and not less, freedom. Our own history is full of encouragement. In spite of our radically and essentially bad military system, which in every war has been more or less set aside before we could succeed, no nation of Europe has performed more brilliant feats of arms, or, in proportion to the amount of its population, has exercised greater military power. The least despotic of the nations of Europe, uniting her navy with her army, England has long been the most powerful military nation of modern times. Nor can we suppose, when we cast our, eyes across the Atlantic, that the freedom which there prevails is incompatible with great military power, whether it be for offensive or defensive warfare. No nation of Europe is insensible to the force of the United States. If free England has no reason to fear, the Czar assiduously courts the republicans. In the time of Louis Philippe their power was not despised by France. If required in any good cause to put forth their strength by sea or land, they would be found a formidable foe by the most powerful despotism of Europe. Of England and the United States it is the boast that the liberties of the people are in their own keeping ; they are their own guardians ; they and their respective Governments are identical ; and the consequence is that the whole military power of each nation, whatever may be its amount, can be directed against a foreign foe, while every despotism in Europe must employ a large part of its military force to secure its own existence. Though in a great national war the thrones of Russia, Prussia, and France might be safe, no sense of security can come to the mind of the Sovereign of any of these states sufficient to make him send, as our Government might, every soldier to the war, and rely on his people to protect him and themselves. Austria is only held together by its army, and nearly half of that must always be employed in keeping her enslaved subjects in subjection. Liberty, therefore, far from being adverse to military power in a nation, is essential to its completeness. We are not required to imitate the despots, in order to become effectually military. On the contrary, our duty and our business require us to adapt our military institutions to the principles of our civil life and the present condition of society. There already exists, as we have previously shown, from the Prime Minister downwards, in military matters, all the absolute power required and the great fault lies in the fact that, this absolute power, and all the wealth annually devoted to support it, instead of being, like our commerce and manufactures, thrown open to the whole people, is monopolised by a class, and made subservient to the purposes of their ambition. The obvious consequence is that the army is excluded from making the same progress as competition introduces into every other department of society. At the same time, the same monopoly extends to all the higher branches of the civil service, which ought to improve and regulate the military, but, which, like the military, is cut off from improvement, and remains for ever behind the advancing people. Thus, neither our civil or military services are imbued with the new life that is for ever springing up. The progress of society deprives both of the vigour of old conservatism; and the self exclusion they impose upon themselves shuts them out from all share in the new vigour of progress. For about half a century, with some interruption, the government of the army was in the hands of the Duke of York and the Duke of Wellington. Throughout the same period, while every walk of civil life abounded in men of great acquirements, we had a succession of Ministers, from Addington to Derby, of the most commonplace abilities. Our chemistry, our machinery, our manufactures, are pre-eminent among the nations—our statesmanship is below par. For the long period of fifty years, with the exception of Canning, whom we do not rate very high, and who held power for too short a time to effect much we have not had one man of great talents at the head of affairs. Sir Robert Peel, illustrious in many respects, was chiefly great from knowing when to yield a commanding or organising spirit he did not possess. More illustrious even than Sir Robert Peel, the Duke of Wellington was essentially, in all his habits, a soldier; and his very greatness as a soldier, combined with the well-merited reverence of his countrymen, shut up his mind against a complete knowledge of, and sympathy with, the great social improvements made outside the Horse Guards and Downing-street. The Duke of York, though not an absolute ninny, was in no respect a great man and as he was never controlled by any Minister of great talents, and had no confidence in himself, our military system became, in his hands, in order to guard against his inability and rashness, a system of bonds and checks and dilatoriness. Though the Duke of Wellington suffered very much from the system while in the Peninsula, he achieved greatness under it, and he became attached to it. After he was its chief he had no opportunity of seeing it work in war, or he would have had strength of character enough to reform it, as he reformed the penal laws. We have only, therefore, to look back at the chiefs of the Horse Guards for nearly fifty years, to be convinced that our military system was established on the principle of giving a monopoly of all the honours and emoluments to the rich and the noble, and of taking into the ranks only the dregs of society. The army is paralysed, as trade was, by a monopoly, and more despotism would destroy it outright The Commander-in-Chief, if he knows how to exercise his power, is a perfect despot. The Prime Minister, if he knows how to command, is perfectly despotic over the Commander-in-Chief. He can dismiss him at his pleasure, if he be not a King's son, or the Queen's Consort. What is required to improve the army is to open every rank to merit, to increase the pay of the soldier, to relieve him from the degradation of being flogged, and from irksome discipline and constraint not essential to actual warfare, to banish from the army absurd clothing, useless regulations, parades, and inspections, to invite better men into its ranks, and thus make it a force in which the best men of the country may be proud to serve, and may hope to rise to the highest dignities. We are required to do this in order to reconcile liberty and military power, to infuse into the whole army the vivifying genius of freedom, the power of knowledge, and the order which springs from division of labour. We must get rid of boards, of independent Master-Generals of Ordnance, and of First Lords of the Admiralty, excepting as military subordinate officers. We must have in the Prime Minister, or some one minister immediately responsible to the representatives of the people, a person bound to regulate our whole military power in subservience to the principles of our civil life. We must take care that he be one of the people themselves, familiar with all their knowledge, acquainted with their men of genius, friendly to all the great interests of the country, and eager to avail himself, in organising our army, of all the helps which the arts and sciences of civil life can afford. To stand aloof from them, as our military rulers have hitherto stood, is to cut off the army from all the natural sources of military power.

Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), Wednesday 9 May 1855, page 5

THE SMOKE NUISANCE.

 HOUSE OF Commons, March 9.

 Sir R. Peel rose, pursuant to notice to call attention to this subject. He said: I trust this may be considered a question of sufficient importance to justify me in bringing it under the notice of the House. I shall endeavour to detail, as concisely as I can, some of the evils arising from smoke furnaces in the towns and country districts of England, with the view of inducing the Government, if possible, to legislate on the question during the present session. The question is one which affects the sanitary condition, the health, the comfort and the happiness of almost every class in the community, but more especially of the operative classes in the great centres of industry in the north. All the evils of which I have to complain arise from the nuisance created by the smoke of coal, a mineral our resources in which it is impossible to over-estimate. But the greater value of this article the more careful, I contend, ought we to be to observe due economy in the use of it. Coal is, I think, positively, more valuable than the precious metals of the mines of Mexico, because it is applicable to all the purposes of human labour. Considering the number of hands employed in this branch of industry, the capital invested, the tonnage of the vessels employed in carrying the coal, and the value of the article when extracted from the soil, I believe there is no gentleman who will not see with me that the subject I am bringing before the House is one of the deepest importance, and that if real be so valuable a material we ought in the same degree to be most careful in its economic use. (Hear. ) that the fact is that, instead of this most valuable mineral being economised, the most reckless waste of it prevails. In all the Midland Counties—Yorkshire, Lancashire, and Durham—as I have been informed by most eminent analytical chemist, 40 per cent. less heat is produced than might be obtained by proper combustion, and that gentleman believes that 10 per cent., and, perhaps, in some cases, 20 per cent. of the coal passed up through the chimney, and was also nearly lost as far as regards the purpose for which it was used. That was a most important statement. A reason of great eminence, Mr M'Culloch, said about twenty years ago that if the coal trade of England continued at the same rate as in 1845, there was a sufficient supply of coal in the coal fields and seams of this country to last for 2000 years. But what is the case in 1865? The consumption, including waste, in the United Kingdom, amounts to three times the quantity expended in 1845. In the year 1845 the consumption in Great Britain for domestic and all manufacturing purposes was 31,800,000 tons, and there were exported in the same year 1,800,000 tons. In 1865, however, the amount of coal raised in Great Britain was 96,000,000 tons of which there were consumed for domestic and all purposes of manufacture 87,000,000 tons, 9,000,000 tons being exported. This clearly shows the immense importance of this question. There are laid on the table of the House of every year most instructive returns as to the consumption of coal and cinders. I find that in 1850 there were exported from the several ports of the United Kingdom 3,350,000 tons of coal and cinders, the declared value of which was £1,282,000. In 1864 the quantity exported was 8,000 000 tons, and the declared value £4,160,000. I recollect being struck by an observation made by the hon. member for Glasgow in his able speech on seconding the Address at the opening of Parliament. The hon. member, in referring to the general condition of trade, and the rapid rate at which the manufactures of the country were progressing, warned the manufacturers not to forget that the supply of coal in England was not inexhaustible and told them that they should, by the closest economy in its use, do all in their power to prevent what would be a great national calamity— viz, an increased difficulty in obtaining coal, and a consequent increase of its price. Those observations are sufficient to induce the House to consider whether something may not be done on this subject, and I would ask the Home Secretary to give a pledge that, in the course of the present session, he will undertake to legislate on it. I know that he is occupied with many questions, but I believe that, if he should be able to lay on the table a bill with regard to this subject, it might before the close of the session become law. I would ask whether there is not in the Home Office an analysis of patents for smoke-burning made by Mr Holland some years ago; for if so, I think it would be desirable to have that paper produced ; and I also suggest to the right hon. baronet not to attempt to propose a committee or commission of inquiry, for we have had enough of them. Let us deal with the question in this House, must believe that if the right hon. baronet were to consult some gentleman in London or Manchester who had given attention to the matter, he might be able in a week to frame a bill which would be satisfactory and efficient. If he would only consult Dr. Joule, who has written on heat, Dr. Angus Smith, Mr. Hunt of the Museum of Practical Geology, Professer Tyndall, Professor Thomson, of Glasgow University ; Dr Roscoe, of Manchester; Dr Franklin, and Professors of the Royal Institution, he would in a short time inform himself of the importance of this question, and would be able to say what smoke really is. Perhaps some hon. gentlemen do not know what smoke is. (a laugh), though they feel it, and live in the pestilential atmosphere which surrounds them, and which is ruining the health of the labouring classes. Unless perfect combustion takes place when the furnace is lighted, smoke rises, and, without an adequate supply of air, the evil which so much distresses the country cannot be overcome. I have a letter from a well known gentleman in Manchester, addressed to a member of this House, which forcibly shows what can be done in this matter. The letter is dated March 1, 1866, and the writer states :—

" In regard to the practicability of smoke prevention there is no longer any question; and further, it has been proved by the most careful experiments, that its prevention increases the economic value of the fuel. (Hear, hear.) Two conditions only are requisite—admission of atmospheric air above the fuel to mix with the gases evolved in order to supply sufficient oxygen for their perfect combustion, and a high temperature in the furnace; and as neither of these conditions can be obtained where there is deficient draught, this deficiency may be said to be the chief cause of smoke. In Glasgow and Dundee measures have been taken of late years to abate the smoke nuisance, and several prosecutions have ensued, but although some good has undoubtedly been done, the results cannot be said to have been altogether successful."

I have been informed by the hon. member for North Durham that an agitation is getting up in his division of the country—for it is not the manufacturers who oppose measures of prevention—to put an end, if possible to a state of things which causes a gross destruction of property. Some ignorant people speak of the cost of smoke prevention, but there could not be a greater fallacy ; for it will cost nothing, but, on the contrary, insure a saving. With reference to legislation on this important subject in past years, it will be found in the journals of this House, that actually as far back as the year 1316, the question was agitated in Parliament, that on account of the intolerable nuisance of smoke the use of coal must be prohibited altogether. (A laugh. ) I don't want to to so far as that. ( A laugh. ) I believe I am justified in saying that the first person who agitated this question in Parliament was Lord Redesdale in the other House; but the first person who passed a bill on the subject was Lord Palmerston, when he was Home Secretary. His bill was called the Metropolis Smoke Nuisance Abatement Bill, and it is really interesting to refer to the remarks that fell from that lamented statesman in bringing forward that measure. No opposition was offered to it. The metropolitan members supported it. There was only one hon. member who thought it too late to proceed with it. The hon. member who has just entered the House (Sir M. Peto) has assured me in the most cordial manner that he will support such a measure as I have described. ( Hear, hear.) Lord Palmerston said,—and I should wish the House to be impressed with the words that fell from that lamented statesman—he said :—

" It was no argument to urge, because the nuisance had been borne so long, that therefore it could be come a little longer. Manufacturers might say they could not consume their own smoke, but if Parliament would only say, 'You must do so,' the smoke should be consumed, and the public would be relieved from this nuisance."

(Hear, hear. ) An hon. member before me (Mr. Dunlop) informs me that a bill for Scotland passed some years ago which was in operation only a few weeks, during which the whole smoke in Scotland had well nigh disappeared, but some flaw was discovered in the bill, and immediately the smoke nuisance recommenced, and was continued because the bill was considered valueless. (A laugh. ) Lord Palmerston went on to say :—

"If ever there was a case in which he would not say the interests, but the prejudices of the few were opposed to the interests of the many, this was such a case. Here were a few, perhaps 100, connected with the different furnaces of London who wished to make 2,000,000 of their fellow inhabitants swallow their smoke, and who thereby helped to deface all our architectural monuments and to impose the greatest inconvenience and injury upon the lower class. (Hear, hear. ) Here were the prejudices and the ignorance—the affected ignorance— of a small combination of men set up against the material interest, the physical enjoyment, the health, the comfort of upwards of 2,000,000 of their fellow men. (Hear, hear.) He would not believe that Parliament would back these smoke producing monopolists." (Hear, hear.) I want to see my right hon. friend the Home Secretary speak and act in that bold indecorous manner. (Hear, hear.) The bill passed a third reading unanimously. In the other House it was intrusted to Lord Lansdowne. The first and second reading having been passed without discussion in committee, Lord Lansdowne referred to it as affecting the comfort of every class of society, and said such was the gradual encroachment of the enemy that for years past they had been living not under the canopy of Heaven, but under one of their own creation. It was an evil that called for the distinct interference of the Legislature. His lordship continued that the experiment of the last seven years had abundantly proved that with perfect safety, without imposing any burdens upon individuals beyond home amount of attention and trouble, they might require the extinction and consumption of all smoke generated by manufacturing establishments. That bill passed in 1853. Glassworks and potteries were at first exempted by this bill, but subsequently included in the amended bill of 1856. There was no housekeeper who was not able to vouch for the increased difficulty in maintaining the commonest cleanliness in consequence of the nuisance which the bill would abate. The smoke so affected the clothing of the working classes that it was computed every mechanic paid at least five times the amount of the original cost of his shirt for the number of washings rendered necessary (" hear," and a laugh) : and in parts of Whitechapel, where the provisions of a local Act enforced the consumption of smoke, the persons who had been compelled to consume their own smoke had found themselves benefited in point of economy by the change. (Hear.) Lord Redesdale congratulated the country upon this bill, and expressed his obligations to the Government. Glassworks and potteries were exempted, which he regretted. A bill in 1853 was passed for improvement of Newcastle-on-Tyne, where more glass was made than in any other place in England at that time, and no exemption was required in that instance. And has not the effect been satisfactory as far as the metropolis is concerned? I have numberless letters—I will not trouble the House by reading them—from manufacturers in London, stating that although they were first opposed to that measure on its introduction, they now saw its valuable economic results. Only last year a bill was introduced into the other House of Parliament, respecting alkali works. Lord Derby made a most effective speech on the occasion, and the measure became law Inspectors of alkali works were appointed throughout the country. I have lately seen the inspector of the alkali works in Manchester, who informed me this had been the result of that Act —whereas 40 per cent. of muriatic acid escaped before into the atmosphere of Manchester and the vicinity, at present little more than 1 per cent. escaped into the atmosphere, although the Act permitted 5 per cent. (Hear, hear. ) Can anything be more satisfactory than that fact? And it is equally applicable to the detestable nuisance of smoke, which is so prejudicial to the health of everybody. I have two letters upon this subject which are well worthy of being brought under the attention of the House. The first is from the town clerk of Blackburn, who says :—

"I have not the slightest doubt that so far as our park is concerned, the vegetation is much injured by the smoke, although it is situate on high ground and some distance from the factory chimneys. It is much to be regretted that there is not some compulsory law for the consumption of smoke. I attribute the present non-observance of the existing law to the fact that its enforcement rests with the local authorities, who are individually as a rule large manufacturers, and as such creators of the nuisance." (Hear, hear) The other letter is from a gentleman well known at Accrington. It is dated February 29th, 1856 He says :—"Your letter refers to a subject on which I have had some considerable experience of a very disagreeable nature. To begin with, our township of Oswaldtwistle, and within 300 yards of my house we have naphtha works, emitting a most offensive smell, and most destructive to vegetation. If they are contained, all the trees within their influence will die Then adjoining we have bone boiling works polluting the atmosphere in the most dreadful manner. Now, what is the general effect of these works upon the neighbourhood. Many a time my house is filled with nauseous effluvium, and my land as building land is ruined, for no one would choose to reside in such a locality. Mr. S. has suffered dreadfully in the health of his family, Mr. B.'s occupation of his house is destroyed, and Mr G. has experienced the same evils. It may be said what are the local Boards doing? I answer they are doing nothing, although the strongest representations have been made to them. But the fact is the Acts of Parliament constituting these local Boards are not sufficiently definite or stringent. I and my neighbours are joining together and preparing evidence for legal proceedings, but we think it very hard we should be put to a large expense for that which we think ought to be done by the local Board. If Sir R. Peel take up the matter I have no doubt he will accomplish his purpose and greatly benefit society." (Hear, hear. ) That is very true, but I am informed by many most influential manufacturers that they are quite prepared to second any effort on the part of the Government by statutory enactment to abate this nuisance. Many towns have attempted to legislate on this subject. In 1862 Salford came for a bill to effect the improvement that was required; but it failed. Since then Newcastle on Tyne, Glasgow, Dundee, and many other places have made similar efforts ; but what is required is that the Government should take the matter up and legislate for the whole country by one uniform statutory enactment for the whole country.

(Hear.) Having said so much, I should wish, if I have not already detained the House too long (Hear hear), to allude for a moment to the case of Manchester, where I have just been to inform myself as to the real condition of things there. What is the coal consumption of Manchester ? It is prodigious. At this moment the population of London, I believe is about 3,000,000, and the annual consumption of coal amounts to about 5,300,000 tons; but in Manchester with a population of certainly not more than 380,000 the coal consumption is estimated at 2,000,000 tons per annum, within a radius of three miles from the Exchange. There are many manufacturers in Manchester consuming more than 300 tons of coal a week. Now, just conceive what a saving would be effected if a proper system of combustion was introduced (hear hear), whereas it is scientifically ascertained that 40 per cent. less heat is produced now than would be by proper combustion. (Hear, hear.) I visited Stockport. I could hardly see it for smoke. ( A laugh.) Salford has been suffering from the smoke nuisance to a degree it is hardly possible to describe. And so with regard to Burnley, Bury, and Rochdale, without exception the three dirtiest towns of Lancashire. (A laugh. ) They have no public park, and the operatives who are labouring all day long in their industrious hives have no means of relaxation or opportunity of breathing a pure atmosphere. What is the sanitary condition of Manchester? The average annual mortality in England is 22 per 1000, and in some rural villages it falls to 17 per 1000; but a large coal burning towns like Manchester it rises to 34 per 1000. This vast increase in the death rate is entirely owing to the smoke and the noxious exhalations from the burning coal. ( "Oh," and laughter. ) I saw the other day a letter in the other from a gentleman at Birmingham, stating that smoke could not injuriously affect the health of the people because the cholera had not severely attacked that town when it last visited this country. The writer forgot that Birmingham is built upon sandstone, and was, therefore, not so liable to be attacked by that disease. As a proof that smoke does not keep away the cholera I may instance the case of Bilston, which, although the most smoky town in England, suffered greatly from the terrible scourge on its last visitation. (Hear ) I hold in my hand a report that was published in the quarterly returns of the Registrar-General of Health, which forms a most interesting account of the sanitary state of Manchester. The report is drawn up by Mr John Leigh, registrar of the Deansgate sub-district of Manchester, and it contains much that deserves attention now that there is a possibility of the cholera again visiting this country. It is the duty of Government to take time by the forelock in order to preserve us as far as possible from the attacks of this pestilence. Mr Leigh says in his report,—
"I very carefully traced nearly every case of cholera during the last two invasions of this disease in Manchester, and invariably I found there had been direct communication which infected persons or an infected atmosphere. I entertain no more doubt of the infectious nature of cholera than that of smallpox or scarlatina. Its course can be accounted for in no other way. Under the threatening prospect of a fresh invasion it is best to look the disease fairly in the face, and not, under the fear of being considered alarmists, to ignore its nature and neglect the means of breaking the force of the attack. It is doubtful, too, whether in our time typhus does not absolutely originate in the ill conditions of our crowded towns. Be that as it may, nothing is more certain than that the ordinary unfavourable conditions of large towns, with their festering graveyards, decomposing offal, noisome exhalations of tallow chandlers, and other manufactories of animal matters, stenches of sewers and drains, and stagnant atmosphere of courts and alleys, are the predisposing causes of diseases especially infectious diseases. If they do not actually produce disease, they so reduce the tone and strength of the population, so vitiate their blood and exalt their susceptibility of deleterious influences that a constant tendency exists to take on diseased action, whether in the form of typhus, scarlatina, smallpox, or cholera. A state of chronic disorganisation is always attracting the flying bands of the enemy. It is not a question of food and wages ; the day labourer in the country who earns his 10s. or 12s. a week, and it tastes animal food but once that week, is ruddy, strong, and healthy, compared with the highly paid and well fed artisan, who works in a crowd of fellow workmen, and sleeps in the narrow street or confined court where his house stands, and whose cadaverous looks tell the tale of his surroundings." How true that is any one must feel who has been in that town. (Hear, hear) The expressly states that their ill-looks are not to be traced to bad water, for he says,—" No town in England is better and more abundantly supplied with good and pure water than Manchester. " He says the town is well scavengered, and the streets are kept constantly clean. "What is it, then," he asks, "that makes Manchester so unhealthy a town?" He replies to his question thus,— "Close to my town house, on the west side, is a large graveyard, in which interments are yet made daily. On one side of the street, separated by a small interval, is a large tallow-melting work recently established; on the other side of the street an ancient and time-honoured tallow-chandlery, with its vested right of poisoning the neighbours. Add to the noxious products which load the atmosphere from these sources the black outpourings from innumerable chimneys, and a tolerable conception of the sanitary state of the neighbourhood will be obtained. The unhealthiness of Manchester is due to its vitiated atmosphere. " Again, he says that no plant will live in the town unless it be washed two or three times a week. (Laughter) He proceeds:— "Let anyone examine the lungs after death of a person who has been long resident in Manchester, and in the bronchial glands he will find a fluid substance, inhaled soot, as black and thick as ink. " I do think I have made out a case that should induce Government to take up the subject. (Loud cheers ). It is idle to attempt to establish public parks in such districts. You cannot get trees to grow or plants to flourish. I am informed that the trees in the park at Salford are dying. I have received a letter from the curator of the Salford Park, stating that the trees are all being destroyed because Parliament will not legislate upon the subject. That gentleman says :—

"In respect to your inquiry as to the injury which this park suffers from the smoke of Manchester and Salford, I may say that, in the opinion of the members of the Park Committee, who have served from the opening in 1846, and my own opinion from watching its effects from 1851, the smoke is gradually destroying the many fine trees, elms, horse chestnuts oak, ash, and ornamental shrubs. Year by year the damage gains in amount, and even the grass gets poorer, and requires to be renewed by sodding brought from a distance, for the seed will not grow in such a smoked and impure atmosphere." I think these are observations that require the attention of Government, coming as they do from different parts of the country. This morning I received a letter from a gentleman residing at a village near Birmingham, stating that the trees in that neighbourhood are dying in consequence of the smoky atmosphere. Any man who is fond of the country must feel pained at the sickly look of the little widow gardens of the poor man in the large towns of Manchester and Yorkshire.

 It was Bacon who said that he accounted a garden as the purest of human pleasures, and as the greatest refreshment to the spirit of man, and it is with the object of placing within the reach of the poor that refreshment of the spirit of man that philanthropic people have established the large parishes that are now springing up in the neighbourhood of all great towns. (Hear.) I am sorry that I have been compelled to detain the House so long in drawing attention to this subject, but my excuse must be the great desire I have to check the growing evils I have alluded to. (Hear, hear. ) There may be topics of a more exciting character in connexion with the rights and privileges of the working classes to exercise a greater power than they now do in the government of the State ; but in my humble judgment we can discuss no nobler question than how to abate the noxious vapours a great city. (Hear, hear.) The evil is one of our own creating, and we are told by men of science that we can prevent it if we please, and therefore it is the bounden duty of Government to deal with the question, by taking such steps as may tend to the comfort, convenience, and the happiness of the working-classes in large towns. (Hear.) I therefore ask the right hon. baronet the Secretary of State for the Home Department—than whom I am sure no men holding high office is more disposed to give a fair and careful consideration to all questions appertaining to public interest—to give us an assurance that Government will legislate upon this question during the present session of Parliament, as by so doing he will confer a benefit, nay a blessing, upon the people of this country. (Hear, hear. ) A measure of the kind I wish to see introduced would in a great degree affect the health, the comfort, and the happiness of millions of working men whose daily toil in a vitiated atmosphere is the main support of our manufacturing interests. I do not move any amendment.

Mr Henderson had given some attention to this subject, and thought it was very desirable that in all large manufactories the smoke should be consumed. It would be a great boon to the working classes if they were permitted to see a little daylight. An eminent example of what could be done in the way of controlling this smoke nuisance could be seen by any hon. member who might choose to note the different manufacturing establishments between Battersea and Blackwall from the deck of one of the river steamers. It was not, however, in places like the metropolis that nuisances of this kind prevailed to any extent. They were chiefly found in districts where coal was cheap. There were men who were always opposed to changes which offered any prospect of effecting any saving, and there were others who persisted in walking in the old beaten track, refusing to concur in any change as being nothing short of innovation, and whose opposition would be enhanced if the change were necessitated by anything which could be regarded in the light of compulsion. When, however, it could be shown that by their adherence to the present system these people were causing injury to the health and to the property of their neighbours the Legislature might, he thought, be very fairly called upon to interfere. (Hear, hear.) It could not be doubted that an atmosphere charged with smoke was prejudicial both to health and property. In some districts it was found impossible to open a window for the purpose of ventilation, without having the room and its contents covered with "blacks," The volumes of smoke that issued from these manufactories were left at the mercy of the wind and the atmosphere, and frequently caused great discomfort and annoyance to those who lived within several miles. In one garden particularly, situated at a distance of three miles from these offenders, it was impossible to touch a leaf or a flower without having the fingers soiled by these sooty deposits. He should be about the last person to place any impediment in the way of carrying on manufactures, but when it could be shown that this nuisance could not only be avoided, but absolutely abolished, and that, too, advantageously to the offenders, he thought it would require little further argument to induce the House to legislate upon the subject. (Hear, hear.) The employment of Juke's apparatus had been found exceedingly advantageous. Even in those cases in which it was at present found difficult to avoid the nuisance, hopes were entertained that some effectual remedy might be discovered, and he trusted that this result might be attained. At all events, he had such confidence in the scientific acquirements of the age, that he did not believe the difficulty would endure many years if the Government took the subject thoroughly in hand. The question was the more important, inasmuch as it was intimately connected with the rapid disappearance of our coal-beds, the duration of which would not, he believed, be so long as was generally anticipated.

Mr Hanbury could bear personal testimony to the almost complete success attending the use of Jukes's apparatus. In the early morning, it was true, some smoke was generated, but during the day the chimney sent forth but little smoke. The economical result in the employment of fuel had been extremely satisfactory during the previous year ; the saving effected to the firm with which he was connected had amounted to nearly £2000. (Hear, hear.) Their expenses had been much diminished because they had been able to employ small and dust coal instead of the large coal which was absolutely necessary for the former furnaces. Those living now in the neighbourhood of the silk weaving manufactories were enabled to open their windows and could enjoy the pure air without being subjected to any annoyance from their proximity to the factories.

Mr. A. F. Egerton thought that the thanks of the House were due to the right hon. baronet who had introduced this subject. (Hear, hear ) He believed, however, that the right hon. baronet had overstated the results of smoke upon the health.
Sir R. Peel —I quoted the mortality tables.
Mr A. F. Egerton was of opinion that because the rate of mortality at Manchester was high it did not follow that the increase was owing to the effects of the smoke. He believed that the high rate of mortality of that place might be otherwise explained, and might be attributed to a great extent to the overcrowding of the population. Undoubtedly the presence of smoke did not tend to purify the atmosphere of a locality. Living, however, as he himself did, at no great distance from Manchester, he had yet to learn that the working men in the neighbourhood were less healthy than those living in the rural district. In all other respects he perfectly coincided in the remarks which had fallen from the right hon baronet. The steamers both on the Mersey and Thames consumed their own smoke, and there could be no doubt that if a similar plan were generally adopted a great saving of fuel would result. (Hear.) They had endeavoured in Lancashire to employ smoke-consuming apparatus, and although those attempts had been attended with great success, unless attention was paid to the matter by the stokers, smoke would, at certain times, escape and blacken the atmosphere. (Hear, hear.) He trusted that the attention of the right hon. baronet the Secretary of State for the Home Department would be given to the subject, and that instead of local Acts one Act would be framed applying to the whole of the country.

Sir M. Peto would not have troubled the House with any remarks upon the subject under discussion had it not been for the fact that Lord Palmerston had asked him, when the subject was before dealt with, to make a series of experiments with a view to ascertain whether the evil complained of could be met in a practical manner. When the late Premier was assured that the consumption of smoke would result in a great saving to the manufacturer, he took action in the matter; and the result had shown that many instances could be cited similar to that mentioned by the hon. member for Middlesex, who had mentioned the fact that his firm had saved upwards of £2000 a year by the adoption of a process which had always before been looked on as objectionable. He saw no reason for believing that the same result would not attend the general adoption of the London plan throughout the country. If an example was wanted, he would point to Leicester, which had as many manufactories in and around it as any town in the kingdom, yet in the very centre of Leicester flowers would be found blooming as fresh as in a country village. This had been done by the manufacturers, who had voluntarily made themselves subject to a law of their own. (Hear, hear. ) The right hon. baronet had not overstated the case. It must be remembered, however, that manufactories often gave off vapours far more deleterious to the public health than the smoke itself, and unless some means were taken of stopping all exhalations the mischief would not be put an end to. He remembered that soon after the last Smoke Act was passed several hon. gentlemen found, as they walked on the terrace skirting the river, that they were greeted with the odours of certain bone-boiling establishments, and other objectionable works of Lambeth, they were accordingly not long in extending the operation of the Smoke Act to works of that description. He trusted the Act which had done so much good to the metropolis would be extended by the Government to the country, he was sure the result would be equally satisfactory.

Sir G. Grey : I am sure I only give utterance to the general sentiment of the House when I say the right hon. member for Tamworth has done good service in bringing this matter before us. The time of the House, I am sure, cannot be employed to more advantage than in endeavouring to devise some practical means whereby we may contribute to the health and enjoyment of the great majority of the people.

But, Sir, I would, with the permission of the right hon. gentleman, observe that he seems scarcely to have informed himself as to how far the laws at present in existence give him power to do what he desires—namely, to enforce the consumption of smoke in furnaces and manufacturers' fireplaces. Indeed, it is not generally known that the evil complained of would be very much decreased if the means at present in our hands were made full use of; and, although it may be desirable that some such Act as that suggested by the right hon. gentleman should pass, it is far more desirable that we should endeavour to discover some means to insure that the law when passed should be strictly carried out. (Hear, hear. ) As regards London, I may mention that the exceptions made to the first Act were so made because it was thought it would be unfair to force certain manufacturers to go to expense unnecessarily ; but it was not long before it was found that the change would be an economical rather than an expensive change, after the first outlay had been made for the purpose of providing the machinery necessary to secure the proper consumption of the smoke. The exceptions were, therefore, swept away, and the proprietors of those manufactories before excepted found themselves garners instead of losers by coming under the operation of the Act. It desirable that the owners and managers of works should bear in mind that their outlay in the first instance, though, perhaps, considerable in amount, will be repaid in the long run. The right hon. gentleman has alluded to the probable exhaustion of the coal fields. Great doubt exists in the minds of scientific men upon that subject, and I will not now enter into it further than today that, as we cannot look upon our coal fields as in-exhaustible, we should use our fuel with great care, and take every precaution against waste in order that the supply may last as long as possible. But what Sir, is the state of the law at present? A clause was inserted in the Towns Improvement Act of 1847, absolutely requiring that every fireplace or furnace used in working engines by steam, or in any manufactory, should be so constructed as to consume the smoke arising from it; and the penalties attached to the Act are ordered to be enforced if these regulations are broken. This was a general Act, and it was required that its provisions should be incorporated in a special Act, in order to apply it to any large towns or districts. This has been done to a very large extent; and I may remark that the provisions of the general Act are equally as stern as the law relating to the metropolis. So that the evil complained of exists to its present extent only because the local authorities do not, from some reason or other, enforce the provisions of the law. (Hear, hear. ) Really, Sir, I am afraid that local government is permitting itself to be placed upon its trial. Our proceedings here to night almost amount to preferring an indictment against the local authorities throughout the country, because, having the law in their hands, they refrain from enforcing it. (Hear, hear. ) I wish the right hon. gentleman would induce some of his correspondents such as the gentleman who wrote from Blackburn and other populous places, to enforce the laws they have before they come to the Government for more stringent enactments. What is the difference between the practice in London and in the country in reference to these Acts ? The metropolis is subject to the local directions of the police, who act under the Chief Commissioner of Police, and he in his turn is subject to the direction of the Secretary of State, who authorises prosecutions when cases of infringement of the law have been reported to him. Prosecutions are not frequent now because the nuisance his greatly abated, owing, I believe, to the judicious manner in which the law has been enforced by the magistrates, who have refrained from dealing harshly with offenders, and have always offered to postpone judgment in the hope that during the time allowed proper means would be provided by the persons charged for complying with the Act. My right hon. friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer reminds me that in cases, where the police have neglected their duty in the way I have described, the local authorities should be requested to refund the contributions made by the Government to the local police fund. (Laughter.) I believe, Sir, we shall have no difficulty in passing a general law. It is desirable that it should be done, but I would again remind the House that we must endeavour at the same time to find some means by which we can insure that the law will be enforced. We all know how very zealous local authorities are of the Government, and how objectionable it is to have an inspector going through the country trying to find cause for summoning manufacturers. We must see it we cannot induce the local bodies, and those whom they represent, to feel it to be to their interest to have such a law, and we may hope that interest or higher considerations will induce them to enforce it. I have directed inquiry to be made in many of our principal towns as to the means taken to enforce the law in them, and the result will, I hope, throw some light upon the matter and enable us more surely to find a remedy for the evil we have under consideration (Cheers.)

Mr. Henley remarked upon the desirability of setting inspectors to work. He was of opinion that if informers were pitted against the smoke, the one nuisance would soon destroy the other. (Laughter.)

Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), Monday 11 June 1866, page 3

THE FACTORY SYSTEM IN ENGLAND.

 

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(FROM THE MORNING CHRONICLE.)

If any man were to say, that every year a tenth or twentieth part of the children born in this country should he taken from their parents and guardians and butchered, the proposition would be received with the utmost horror. But this would he humanity itself, compared with the practices in our manufacturing districts, condemn so many infants to unvaried misery and pain ; so that life, instead of being a blessing, is a curse to them.

 This may be called a country of anomalies. We legislate to ensure the kind treatment of the inferior animals, and we have hitherto abandoned helpless infants to the most merciless treatment. We have allowed the laws prescribed by nature for the physical and moral developement of human beings to be cruelly infringed. We have consigned creatures unable to protect themselves to being as hard as the machinery they direct, and by whom the bones and sinews of these human victims are less prized than one of their rollers.

 We fear it will be found that in no country can the mass of the people be deemed free agents. In thinly peopled countries, the powerful make slaves of the less powerful. In densely peopled countries, the numbers of the people force a competition which leaves them at the mercy of the rich. But whatever may be the case with adults, we say decidedly, that a nation possesses a deep interest in securing the healthy development of all the people, and that no persons, not even parents and guardians should be allowed to subject children to a degree of labour which interferes with their growth and health, and deteriorates the species. The manufacturing system in this country, has grown up in our own days. All the physiologists seem to think think that the degeneracy, which is already too visible, will greatly increase. Sir Anthony Carlisle does, indeed, seem to hold out a sort of consolation in the circumstance of the power of propagation being destroyed in our manufacturing population in the course of a few generations, so that room will be made, by the extinction of the effete races, for the constant emmigration of healthy race from the country, the persons born and bred in cities throughout Europe (he says) are naturally of less stature than those born in country places."

 He supposes the population of London would become extinct in fifty years, if not refreshed by accessions from the country.

 "Children (he observes) brought up from early life in warm rooms, may enjoy an apparent degree of health until almost the age of maturity, but they never obtain vigorous health ; for although they may not apparently perish in much larger numbers, compared with those who are less protected against the inclemencies of the cold and wet weather, the effects of bad food, and so forth, shall I would venture to add, that even supposing the mortality among the former were not so great as in the latter class, they would be unfit to carry on a succeeding generation of healthy and vigorous human beings; they would be either nipped in the bud about the time of puberty, or they would beget weakly, inferior children ; for there is nothing more hereditary than family tendencies, particularly tendencies engendered by such habits as are hurtful to the first formation of animal structures. The same happens again in the animal creation ; if you domesticate rabbits, and keep them in close houses for a series of generations, they deviate into morbid rarities, and eventually cease to breed ; the procreative power being one of the first animal faculties to cease with every diminution of animal health and vigour."

(FROM THE MORNING HERALD.)

If Mr. Sadler had never done any thing for society but the bringing to light this monstrous and inhuman system, society would be largely his debtor. The evil cannot long outlive its exposure. Every heart capable of a throb of sympathy, must feel for the infants who are sacrificed by hundreds to the political economy of the factories. What a picture is that which represents childhood in chains—childhood under lock and key not indulging its sportive gambols in the presence of tenderness and affection, but drudging for a brute, and trembling at a tyrant! —And yet that picture is no one of fancy. But the meeting of parliament will be the signal for putting an end to such an abomination. It must stop—it cannot go on—for the common instincts of mankind rise up in judgment against it.

(FROM THE COURIER.)

We boast of our unrivalled manufactures and of their extraordinary cheapness, but it is little known at how great a cost of infant suffering and of human life our manufacturing pre-eminence is purchased. The population of this country is in a condition of manufacturing slavery to the rest of the world. But it is not enough that our adult population are reduced to the lowest state of destitution, in order that the produce of their labour may compete with the labour of the population of less-burdened states—it is in vain that the wages of labour have been reduced so low that the wretched workmen are scarcely able to sustain the unexampled privations to which they are subjected, a new economy has been introduced into the machinery of our manufacturing system ; the machinery of children! The machinery of wood and iron costs something to put together ; something for repair; but the human machinery costs nothing to procure, and when the repair of health and strength is wanted, it may be thrown aside without loss to the employer.—The evil is in the system ; under the actual circumstances of the country, manufactures and wholesale child-murder must go on together; if manufactures must be produced at the little money cost, at which they are now produced, children must be consumed, as they are now miserably consumed in the forced production of cheap goods. Whence has arisen this necessity? Great Britain has not been wont to be celebrated for the infamous distinction of a callous indifference to the welfare of its working population; still less has this country been distinguished for a neglect of the children of the poor, who are in the truest sense of the term, the children of the State. How is it that this novel feature has become conspicuous in the aspect of our labouring poor? We must search deeper for the cause than in the natural cupidity of those engaged in trade. Were things in a natural state in this country, the cupidity of the trader would be counteracted by the the instinctive affection of the parent. There must be some powerful cause at work commensurate with the enormity of the practice of this sale of a child of tender years, by its father and its mother. The moral degradation of this English slavery, is greater on the part of the seller than the buyer. The manufacturer may be selfish, but the parent seems to be a monster. Nothing but the sternest law of the most terrible necessity could have produced such an unnatural change as this.— And it is so:—the terrible necessity of the most appalling destitution has produced this monstrous system of child machinery. The whole evil results directly from the lowness of wages, which is indirectly caused by the change in our system of currency, consummated by the Bill of 1819.

 The matter is so plain that a child may understand it. The diminution of the circulating medium of the country, has made money more valuable ; that is, less money is given in exchange for any thing now than was given in exchange for it before the diminution; less money, consequently, is given in exchange for an article of manufacture ; but the manufacturer must have a certain profit on the article to make it worth his while to produce it; at any rate, he must receive as much money for it as will save him from a loss on his manufacture—but he cannot have in exchange for it so much money as he was used to have, because the whole quantity of money circulating in the country is less than it used to be—nor can the manufacturer sell his article at less than he used to sell it, for its price was already at the lowest remunerating profit. Thus while that amount of that part of the price of his manufactured article, the taxes on it, remain the same, he can get in exchange for it, but a portion of that money which before went to pay the cost of its manufacture, and the cost of its taxation. So that the taxation absorbs a much larger part of the money given in exchange for the manufactured article than used to be the case before the diminution of the currency—for though money is raised in value, the taxes do not therefore take less of it, as would be fair--they take the same number of sovereigns in nominal amount, but as money of greater value.

 Well, the manufacturer feeling the change that has come over his operations, has been obliged to consider, since he cannot reduce the amount of his taxation, and cannot increase the quantity of the circulating medium to correspond with it as it did before 18I9—how can he reduce the cost of production. He finds that he can reduce it in no other way than by lowering the wages of labor. To this, in fact, he is forced. He must either cease from manufacturing or he must reduce that part of the cost of his production which consists of wages paid to the labourer.

 It may be observed, that such has been the case with all trades and pursuits; agricultural as well as mechanical. Nor would it be difficult to show that the rural insurrections are effects proceeding from the same cause as that which we are now describing. But to our argument ; and to the close of our deductions. The manufacturer is irresistibly compelled to lower the wages of labor; and the labourers are by a like irresistible compulsion, the compulsion of necessity, forced to take them. These wages are inadequate to the purchase of the sustenance of the parents and their children. The children therefore, must be made to provide in part or in the whole for themselves. We are speaking of children of eight or nine years of age! The losing business of the manufacturer continues to urge him to look out for further means of reducing his cost of production. The famished child stands ready ; the natural feelings of the still more famished mother are are deadened—the last thing that fails is the instinct of natural affection—deadened from excess of habitual suffering ; the domestic slave trade of the English nation is established: and a system of child machinery furnishes horrors for a parliamentary report to excite the disgust and reprobation of astonished Europe.

Austral-Asiatic Review (Hobart Town, Tas. : 1833), Tuesday 30 July 1833, page 4

SOCIALISM AND STATE OFFICIALS

 TRINITY OF EVILS.

THE INEVITABLE RESULTS.

Socialists never tire of talking about the tyranny of private capitalists, but they would do well to consider another kind of tyranny that socialism would inevitably set up, namely, the tyranny of state officials. It is perfectly clear that under socialism the number of officials—Fourier, the French socialist, significantly calls them "Omniarchs"—would be vastly increased. For consider what socialism means. It proposes to take over all the instruments of production, distribution, and exchange. The socialist street-corner speaker repeats this with a glib tongue, but not one agitator in a hundred can have the remotest conception of what it means.
To mentally compass such a phrase as "all the means of production, etc.," one must stretch the imagination. It means the control of all commodities in every city, town, and village in the country; the management of all the land, industries, and commerce; the working of all the mines, railways, roads, and canals; the charge of all imports and exports and all mercantile shipping; the tremendous burden of all municipal and local government—water and gas and tramways and motor traffic and omnibuses; the postal, telegraphic, and telephonic administrations; with the police, the army, and the navy. Remembering what Herbert Spencer has said, that the "cardinal trait in all advancing organisation is the development of the regulative apparatus," we get some faint glimmering of the vast bureaucratic system socialism would create.

A TRINITY OF EVILS.

Now, what would be the condition of the people under such a system? Continental countries have developed it to a far greater extent than we have. Germany is burdened with a bureaucracy of about 3,000,000 state officials, and France, with a much smaller population, has about 1,000,000. But everyone knows that officialism on the Continent is a curse. Four evils have been found to grow up with it—it establishes tyranny; it is inefficient; it encourages waste; and it makes for mediocrity. Tyranny, mediocrity, inefficiency, these will be the inevitable results of a socialist regime. Can we contemplate a more terrible trinity of evils?
What reason have we to suppose that bureaucracy would work out any better in this country under socialism? None whatever. The probability is that it would be much worse, because the interests of the official under socialism would be larger, and would consolidate more. Marriage, caste, favouritism, official status, and at hundred other things would unite the officials placed in power so that their strength would become irresistible. To quote Herbert Spencer once more, "a comparatively small body of officials, coherent, having common interests, and acting under central authority, has an immense advantage over incoherent public, which has no settled policy, and can be brought to act unitedly only under strong provocation. Hence an organisation of officials, once passing a certain stage of growth, becomes less and less resistible; as we see in the bureaucracies of the Continent." "Man v. the State," page 29.)

NO CHANCE OF REDRESS.

Let us suppose the socialist state firmly established. You as a worker have been allotted a place (without power of choice) in the industrial ranks. The state has said, "Do this or starve." Now, suppose you have some legitimate cause for complaint; maybe, against your fore. man or against a certain decision of the authorities. What chance of redress would you have? What means of voicing your protest? " No trades unions would exist to fight your battle; no free public press would exist to ventilate your grievance. Even to-day we know something of the haughtiness and brutality of officials. At the last annual conference of the United Government Workers' Federation, Mr. Clarke (Woolwich workers) said, "The Government was supposed to be democratic, but in administration it was autocratic." Thus it is clear that even to-day officialism is too strong to be brought under subjection at the bidding of highly organised workers. What will happen when there are a hundred officials for every one saddled upon us now? Think what encouragement would be given to selfish and callous men by the consciousness that they had the full strength of the his state behind them.

THE TYRANNY OF THE STATE.

Take another case. Suppose you could not conscientiously support the Socialist Government on some given point. Suppose you felt it was your duty to protest or rebel. How would the Government treat your protest? Is it possible, is it likely, that the state would be tolerant to those who might undermine its authority? Mr. Robert Blatchford, the editor of the "Clarion," complains that the socialists have persecuted him even now. What would be his fate then? Let the socialists themselves reply. Professor Karl Pearson says, in "The Ethics of Freethought," that "socialists have to inculcate that spirit which would give offenders against the state short shrift and the nearest lamp-post," and Mr. Webb, in "Socialism, True and False," states. "To suppose that the industrial affairs of a complicated industrial state can be run without strict subordination and discipline, without obedience to orders, and without definite allowances for maintenance, is to dream, not of socialism, but of anarchism." This means, if it means anything, that under socialism iron discipline would be necessary. Mr. John Spargo, an American socialist, admits that "Socialism may involve a hierarchical Government," and Dr. A. Chaaeffle, in his "Impossibility of Social Democracy," says, "What is impossible for all time is an improved democratic and exchanging collective production without firm hands to govern it." Even the persuasive Mr. H. G. Wells, in "New Worlds for Old," goes so far as to say, "A socialism might exist conceivably tyrannised over by state officials," which might lead to "a state of affairs scarcely less detestable than our own."'

THE ALL-PERVADING OFFICIAL.

Not only so, but socialism would set up another inquisition. Not a compartment of life would be left private from the irritating scrutiny of state officials, eager and interested to report cases. Every action would be subject to an awful and intolerable system of espionage. Any idle rumour—true or false— any common tittle-tattle, would be sufficient to set these paid state inspectors upon the track of the supposed offender. Everybody knows that the official is nearly always officious and over-anxious to justify his position. Under socialism every official would be a kind of policeman with a strong interest to produce a certain number of charges. Can we conceive, not only the tyranny, but the intrigue, corruption, blackmailing, and other sinister practices this would set up? Can we conceive anything more obnoxious, anti-social, and un-English? Think of our people, with their inborn love of liberty, doomed to such slavery. An Englishman's house is said to be his castle; socialism would convert it into a prison cell, with a spy-hole in the wall and an inspector's eye fixed there. What a prospect!

STATE MANAGEMENT INEFFICIENT.

As for the wastefulness and inefficiency under socialism, this is well illustrated. in the history of nearly all Government and municipal administration. Men who drop upon soft places generally fall asleep. The more entrenched and secure they become in positions of privilege, the less vigilant and painstaking they become in the public interest. The vice in all departmentalism is "red tape." The managers "do not see their way" to make a change. Exactly. They are blind. The permanent officials loathe change—and permanent officials dominate the position.
Referring to the Board of Trade's reluctance to supersede gas for oil as a lighthouse illuminant. Professor Tyndall humorously said, "It would be easier to reach the limit of illumination in the official mind than to fix the limit possible to our lighthouses." Tyndall's sarcasm was fully deserved. Corporate bodies and bureaucracies are ever tempted to consider the interests of their class, and not the interests of the general community. Monopolies as a rule grow intensely selfish. In France, the state has a monopoly in the manufacture of tobacco and matches. The tobacco is unsmokable, and the matches give out more smell than light. Yet socialism is essentially a class movement, and socialists would convert the state into one vast monopoly.

Examiner (Launceston, Tas. : 1900 - 1954), Tuesday 25 April 1911, page 7

SOCIALISM AND THE STATE.

 (By J. R. MACDONALD, M.P., in the "Labor Leader.")

Before the war the British Socialist had no memory or experience of the State as anything but the political organisation of a tolerably free people working democratic institutions. The institutions had their defects, but not to such an extent as to destroy their general character. If they failed, the fault was not in them, but in the people who worked, or ought to have worked, them. It was therefore difficult for us to comprehend the deeper meaning of the controversy which went on in some Continental countries between State Socialism and Social Democracy. We know it now.

This war has revealed to us dangers of State authority which have hitherto appeared to be only fanciful. We have not only become familiar with militarism in power, but we have been brought hard up against the crude idea, contributed mainly by trade union officials, that in order to prove their allegiance to democratic government minorities must allow themselves to be suppressed. Thus we have had the sudden appearance in Great Britain of the tyrannical State and the Jack-in-Office bureaucracy. In future the Socialist doctrine of State authority and of the State itself must be defined with far more care than hitherto, and must be rid completely of the idea of the servile political and military State.

A belief in democracy is not the same as a belief in majority rule, because democracy is not a mathematical conception. Democracy is a spirit and method of government confined in its operations by the end which it serves—liberty. It includes the safeguarding of freedom of thought and speech, as well as of majority authority; it protects the individual responsible to his inner light as well as the individual as part of a crowd; it recognises conscience as well as authority, liberty as well as obedience. When perfect, it is a kind of government which has discovered how to harmonise in co-operative activities the apparent opposites of law and individual rights, order, and individual initiative.

After the war we may nationalise the railways and run them as State capitalist enterprises. We may nationalise essential industries and conduct them in the spirit of the Munitions Act, offering "national necessity" as a justification. In form, Socialism will have triumphed; in fact, it will have receded because capitalism will be the ruling factor; and will be strengthened by becoming representative, impersonal, and political, instead of being individualist and unrepresentative.

Of all the form of State organisation, and of all the motives behind State authority which are most obnoxious to and destructive of Socialism, the military State is the chief. As militarism strengthens its grip upon the life of nations—a thing which its uniform failure to guarantee national security has done in Europe, generation after generation—the acquiescence of Labor becomes more and more important to the military authorities. These authorities are not primarily concerned with commercial profits; they are ignorant of both economics and polities; of all experts in social responsibilities they are the furthest removed from the real life of the nation. But, moved solely by their own needs, they would be willing to give heed to certain Labor claims in order to keep Labor quiet and transform Labor leaders into their own servants and spokesmen. The German State shows that a military authority is willing to be philanthropic if it is allowed to exact obedience; the history of the British aristocracy and the Tories shows that they are willing to be charitable if they are regarded with becoming deference and allowed to control the economic life of the State. There is, therefore, nothing inconsistent between a military State and a Labor philanthropic State. In that State there may be a complete system of wages boards, of standard rates, of trade union recognition, of physical health and training, of apparent protection of Labor against capital.

On the other hand, in order not to upset capital, the military State will give a corresponding protection to it in the shape of tariffs or by the adoption of any other scheme which capital may put forth. But the end which such a State serves is not liberty, but obedience; not democracy, but bureaucracy; and if a majority of trade union officials, using the votes of their societies, were to support this bureaucracy, that would not make it the duty of Socialist Democrats to acquiesce. The economic and social mechanism which is built up within such a State is one which catches up Labor in itself, binds it to itself, and confines it by a baffling network of interrelated interests. That is the servile State in its purest and most deadening manifestation. Its general structure will be Socialist, but its life will be slavery. It will secure a certain decree of animal comfort, but not the comfort which releases the spirit of man.

Some of our Socialist friends have not only supported a war, but the spirit of war, and from that they have come to adopt new and very bad standards by which to value liberty and conscience.

To this Socialism must issue a decisive challenge. The conditions created by the war have made us identify conscience with pacifism. But that is to narrow the issue. Conscience made some men fight and restrained others from fighting. The first must have liberty as well as the second. Those who do agree with them do so, not as to whether they had a right to act as they did, but as to whether they were wise to act as they did, and so the door of Socialism is as open to the soldier as to the conscientious objector, to the recruiter as to him who declined to recruit. But Socialism can have nothing to say to him who limits liberty by military expediency, and who defended a needless oppression and excuses himself by saying that social stability required the sacrifice.

Nor within its four corners is there to be found any justification for those who took official positions and used them to impose the will of Governments upon organised labor, who took decisions of policy from other classes and interests and carried them as mandates to Labor.

Before the war I felt that what was called "the spirit of the rebel" was to a great extent a stagey pose. Karensky, in a speech addressed to soldiers representatives put the idea into these striking words: "Are we a free Russian nation or a band of mutinous slaves?" It is now required to save us, but I must be serious. If, for instance, the wider federation of trade unions, which we ought to support, is to result in more centralised authority and the crushing out of all sectional and local initiative trade unionism will become mass without life and the natural conservatism of officialdom— who has not felt it creep over him?— will sap the vitality and blurr the vision of democracy. The organisation of Labor must, like the State itself provide room for the man of free mind and must allow the swelling buds of minority thought to burst out into foliage.

The war has brought us face to with two great dangers—the first that of trade union authority becoming so centralised that Labor policy can be determined by officials; the second that of government by an inert mass—the block votes' decisions of trade union congresses and Labor party conferences since the war created important minorities show this tendency—inert because only at the official top does real responsibility rest.

Let there be no mistaking of the position. Here again we are facing the ubiquitous difficulty of apparently conflicting truths. It is as easy to show the calamity that would follow an independent local control and a weak, irresponsible Central Executive as to point out the shortcomings of the opposite state of affairs. Socialists must devise an organisation which will assign proper functions and liberties to both, so that they can work in co-operation.

From this point onward we can only summarise Mr. Macdonald's argument. He showed that the methods of trade union government necessary in industrial affairs transplanted from the trade union region without modification into the political region threaten the political Labor movement with great danger. The government of trade unionism shows signs of degenerating into a bureaucracy claiming absolute authority not merely in industrial but in political matters. "This has a direct bearing upon my subject. British Socialism has never agreed that the political State working from a bureaucratic centre by political agents can control the factories and workshops. It has always believed that in industrial control the workmen affected must have special concern. Whilst it opposes the cruder Syndicalism of the Sorel school, it need not oppose National Guilds, especially if they will supplement their industrial programme by recognising that the political State must exist to regulate national industrial interests in a general way."

Daily Standard (Brisbane, Qld. : 1912 - 1936), Thursday 13 September 1917, page 8

THE BALLARAT REFORM LEAGUE.

 — The following manifesto has been issued by the Ballarat League, and sanctioned by vast masses of the diggers, storekeepers, and general community:— "Principles and objects of the Ballarat Reform League:— That it is the inalienable right of every citizen to have a voice in making the laws he is called upon to obey. That taxation without representation is tyranny. 

"That being, as the people have hitherto been, unrepresented in the Legislative Council of the colony of Victoria, they have been tyrannised over, and it becomes their duty as well as their interest to resist, and if necessary, to remove the irresponsible Government which so tyrannises over them. That this colony has hitherto been governed by paid officials upon the false assumption that law is greater than justice, because, forsooth, it was made by them or their friends, and admirably suit their selfish ends and narrow-minded views. That it is the object of the League to place the power in the hands of responsible representatives of the people; to frame wholesome laws and carry on an honest Government.

 "That it is not the wish of the League to effect the immediate separation of the colony from the parent country, if equal laws and equal rights are dealt out to the whole free community; but that if Queen Victoria continued to act upon the ill advice of dishonest Ministers, and insists upon indirectly dictating obnoxious laws for this colony, under the assumed authority of Royal prerogative, the Reform League will endeavour to supersede such Royal prerogative by asserting that of the people, it being the most Royal of all Royal prerogatives, as the people are the only legitimate source of all political power. 

"The political changes contemplated by the League are —
1. A full and fair representation.
2. Manhood suffrage.
3. No property qualification of members for the Legislative Council
4. Payment of members; and
5. Short duration of Parliament.

" The immediate objects of the League are— a complete change in the management of the gold-fields by disbanding the Gold Commission; the total abolition of the diggers' and storekeepers' licence-tax, and a thorough agitation of the gold-fields and the towns. That, to carry out the foregoing objects, there should be a large tent erected, in which to meet and conduct the business of the Reform League. Cards of membership to be issued, and Ballarat to be divided into districts."

South Australian Register (Adelaide, SA : 1839 - 1900), Tuesday 5 December 1854, page 2

MEN THE WORLD WILL NEVER FORGET— No. 2

 TROTSKY—THE MAN NOBODY WANTS

THE world war brought many changes in the affairs of men. The face of Europe was changed, monarchies crashed, kings and emperors lost their thrones. New ideas came. There was Russia . . . and the revolution. The Tsar lost his life, and a new social order was brought into being. Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin — what parts they played. And with one of them, Lenin, gone, what roles there are for the other two! Of Trotsky, the brilliant Winston Churchill writes to-day a thrilling and entertaining description of the man.

By  Winston Churchill M.P.

LEON TROTSKY — alias Bronstein — must have been a difficult man to please. He did not like the Czar, so he got rid of him and his family. He did not like the Russian Imperial Government, so he blew it up. He did not like the Liberalism of Guchkov and Miliukov, so he overthrew them. He could not endure the Social Revolutionary moderation of Kerensky and Savinkov, so he seized their places. And when at last the Communist regime for which he had striven with might and main was established throughout the whole of Russia, when the Dictatorship of the Proletariat was supreme when the New Order of Society had passed from visions into reality, when the hateful culture and traditions of the individualistic period had been eradicated, when the secret police had become the servants of the Third International, when, in a word, his Utopia had been achieved, he was still discontented. He still turned, growled, snarled, bit, and plotted. He had raised the poor against the rich. He had raised the penniless against the poor. He had raised the criminal against the penniless.
ALL had fallen out as he had willed. But nevertheless the vices of human society required, it seemed, new scourgings. In the deepest depth he sought with desperate energy for a deeper. But — poor wretch— he had reached rock bottom. Nothing lower than the Communist criminal class could be found. In vain he turned his gaze upon the wild beasts. The apes could not appreciate his eloquence. He could not mobilise the wolves, whose numbers had so notably increased during his administration. So the criminals he had installed stood together, and put him outside.

* * *

IT is astonishing that a man of Trotsky's intelligence should not be able to understand the well-marked dislike of civilised governments for the leading exponents of Communism.
But Communism is not only a creed. It is a plan of campaign. A Communist is not only the holder of certain opinions; he is the pledged adept of a well-thought-out means of enforcing them. The anatomy of discontent and revolution has been studied in every phase and aspect, and a veritable drill book prepared in a scientific spirit for subverting all existing institutions. The method of enforcement is as much a part of the Communist faith as the doctrine itself.
At first the time-honored principles of Liberalism and Democracy are invoked to shelter the infant organism. Free speech, the right of public meeting, every form of lawful political agitation and constitutional right are paraded and asserted. Alliance is sought with every popular movement towards the Left.
The creation of a mild Liberal or Socialist regime in some period of convulsion is the first milestone. But no sooner has this been created than it is to be overthrown.
Woes and scarcity resulting from confusion must be exploited. Collisions, if possible attended with bloodshed, are to be arranged between the agents of the new government and the working people. Martyrs are to be manufactured. An apologetic altitude in the rulers should be turned to profit.
Pacific propaganda may be made the mask of hatreds never before manifested among men. No faith need be, indeed may be, kept with non-communists. Every act of goodwill, of tolerance, of conciliation, of mercy, of magnanimity on the part of governments or statesmen is to be utilised for their ruin.
Then when the time is ripe and the moment opportune, every form of lethal violence from mob revolt to private assassination must be used without stint or compunction.
The citadel will be stormed under the banners of Liberty and Democracy; and once the apparatus of power is in the hands of the brotherhood, all opposition, all contrary opinions, must be extinguished by death. Democracy is but a tool to be used and afterwards broken: liberty but a sentimental folly unworthy of the logician. The absolute rule of a self-chosen priesthood according to the dogmas it has learned by rote is to be imposed upon mankind without mitigation progressively for ever.
All this, set out in prosy textbooks, written also in blood in the history of several powerful nations, is the Communist's faith and purpose. To be forewarned should be forearmed! Is this not an exact account of the Communist plot which has plunged Spain into the present hideous welter against the desires of the overwhelming majority of Spaniards on both sides?

* * *

TROTSKY'S MISTAKE— HE WANTED TO RULE

IT is probable that Trotsky never comprehended the Marxian creed; but of its drillbook he was the incomparable master.
He possessed in his nature all the qualities requisite for the art of civic destruction — the organising command of a Carnot, the cold detached intelligence of a Machiavelli, the mob oratory of a Cleon, the ferocity of Jack the Ripper, the toughness of Titus Oates.
No trace of compassion, no sense of human kinship, no apprehension of the spiritual, weakened his high and tireless capacity for action.
Like the cancer bacillus, he grew, he fed, he tortured, he slew in fulfilment of his nature. He found a wife who shared the Communist faith. She worked and plotted at his side. She shared his first exile to Siberia in the days of the Czar. She bore him children. She aided his escape. He deserted her.
He found another kindred mind in a girl of good family who had been expelled from a school at Kharkov for persuading the pupils to refuse to attend prayers and to read Communist literature instead of the Bible. By her he had another family.
As one of his biographers (Max Eastman) puts it: "If you have a perfectly legal mind she is not Trotsky's wife, for Trotsky never divorced Alexandra Ivovna Sokolovski, who still uses the name of Bronstein."
Of his mother he writes in cold and chilling terms. His father— old Bronstein— died of typhus in 1920 at the age of 83. The triumphs of his son brought no comfort to this honest, hardworking and believing Jew. Persecuted by the Reds because he was a bourgeois; by the Whites because he was Trotsky's father, and deserted by his son he was left to sink or swim in the Russian deluge, and swam on steadfastly to the end. What else would you have?
Yet in Trotsky, in this being so removed from the ordinary affections and sentiments of human nature, so uplifted, shall we say, above the common herd, so superbly fitted to his task, there was an element of weakness especially serious from the Communist point of view.
Trotsky was ambitious, and ambitious in quite a common worldly way.
All the collectivism in the world could not rid him of an egoism which amounted to a disease, and to a fatal disease. He must not only ruin the State, he must rule the ruins thereafter. Every system of Government of which he was not the head or almost the head was odious to him. The Dictatorship of the Proletariat to him meant that he was to be obeyed without question. He was to do the dictating on behalf of the proletariat.
"The toiling masses," the "Councils of Workmen, Peasants and Soldiers," the gospel and revelation of Karl Marx, the Federal Union of Socialist Soviet Republics, etc., to him were all spelt in one word : Trotsky. This led to trouble. Comrades became jealous. They became suspicious. At the head of the Russian Army which he reconstructed amid indescribable difficulties and perils, Trotsky stood very near the vacant Throne of the Romanovs.

* * *

OBSTACLE THAT STOPPED HIM BEING A DICTATOR

THE Communist formulas he had used with devastating effect upon others, were now no impediment to him. He discarded them as readily as he had discarded his wife, or his father, or his name. The Army must be remade; victory must be won; and Trotsky must do it and Trotsky profit from it. To what other purpose should revolutions be made? He used his exceptional prowess to the full.
The officers and soldiers of the new model army were fed, clothed and treated better than anyone else in Russia. Officials of the old Czarist regime were wheedled back in thousands.
"To the devil with politics — let us save Russia."
The salute was reintroduced. The badges of rank and privilege were restored. The authority of commanders was re-established.
The abandonment by the Allies of the Russian Loyalist cause crowned these measures with a victory easy but complete.
In 1922 so great was the appreciation among the military for Trotsky's personal attitude and system that he might well have been made Dictator of Russia by the armed forces, but for one fatal obstacle.
He was a Jew. He was still a Jew. Nothing could get over that. Hard fortune when you have deserted your family, repudiated your race, spat upon the religion of your fathers, and lapped Jew and Gentile in a common malignity, to be baulked of so great a prize for so narrow-minded a reason.
Such intolerance, such pettiness, such bigotry were hard indeed to bear. And this disaster carried in its train a greater. In the wake of disappointment loomed catastrophe.
For meanwhile the comrades had not been idle. They, too, had heard the talk of the officers. They, too, saw the possibilities of a Russian army reconstituted from its old elements.
While Lenin lived, the danger seemed remote. Lenin, indeed, regarded Trotsky as his political heir. He sought to protect him.
But in 1924 Lenin died; and Trotsky, still busy with his army, still enjoying the day-to-day work of administering his department, still hailed with the acclamations which had last resounded for Nicholas II, turned to find a hard and toughly wrought opposition organised against him.

* * *

MAROONED BY THE MUTINEERS HE LED

STALIN THE GEORGIAN was a kind of general secretary to the governing instrument. He managed the caucus and manipulated the innumerable committees.
He gathered the wires together with patience and pulled them in accordance with a clearly perceived design.
When Trotsky advanced hopefully, confidently indeed, to accept the succession to Lenin, the party machine was found to be working in a different direction.
In the purely political arena of Communist activities Trotsky was speedily outmanoeuvred. He was accused on the strength of some of his voluminous writings of "Anti-Leninism."
He does not seem to have understood that Lenin had replaced God in the Communist mind. He remained for time under the impression that any such desirable substitution had been effected by Trotsky.
He admitted his heresy and eagerly explained to the soldiers and workers the very cogent reasons which had led him to it. His declarations were received with blank dismay. The Ogpu was set in motion.
Officers known to be under an obligation to Trotsky were removed from their appointments, After a period of silent tension he was advised to take a holiday. This holiday after some interruptions still continues.
Stalin used his success to build a greater. The Politbureau, without the spell of Lenin, or the force of Trotsky, was in its turn purged of its remaining elements of strength.
The politicians who had made the Revolution were dismissed and chastened and reduced to impotence by the party manager. The caucus swallowed the Cabinet, and with Stalin at its head became the present Government of Russia.

Trotsky was marooned by the very mutineers he had led so hardily to seize the ship.

What will be his place in history? For all its horrors, a glittering light plays over the scenes and actors of the French Revolution.
The careers and personalities of Robespierre, of Danton, even of Marat gleam luridly across a century.

* * *

PAYING THE PENALTY OF THEIR CRIMES

BUT the dull, squalid figures of the Russian Bolsheviks are not redeemed in interest even by the magnitude of their crimes.
All form and emphasis is lost in a vast process of Asiatic liquefaction. Even the slaughter of millions will not attract future generations to their uncouth lineaments and outlandish names.
And now most of them have paid the penalty of their crimes. They have emerged from the prison cells of the Cheka, to make their strange, unnatural confessions to the world. They have met the death in secret to which they had consigned so many better and braver men.
But Trotsky survives. He lingers on the stage in Mexico. He has forgotten his efforts, which Lenin restrained, to continue the war against Germany rather than submit to the conditions of Brest-Litovsk.
He has forgotten his own career as a war lord and the opportunist remaker of a Russian Army. In misfortune he has returned to Bolshevik Orthodoxy. Once again he has become the exponent of the purest sect of Communism.

Around his name gather the new extremists and doctrinaries of world-revolution. Upon him is turned the full blast of Soviet malignity.

The same vile propaganda which he used with so much ruthlessness upon the old regime is now concentrated upon himself by his sole-surviving former comrade.

* * *

BEST PUNISHMENT HE COULD HAVE

ALL Russia, from Poland to China, from the North Pole to the Himalayas, is taught to regard him as the supreme miscreant seeking in some way or other to add new chains to the workers, and bring the Nazi invader into their midst.
The name of Lenin, the doctrine of Karl Marx, are invoked against him at the moment when he frantically endeavors to exploit them.
Russia is regaining strength as the virulence of communism abates in her blood. The process may be cruel, but it is not morbid.
It is a need of self-preservation which impels the Soviet Government to extrude Trotsky and his fresh-distilled poisons.
In vain he screams his protests against a hurricane of lies in vain he denounces the bureaucratic tyranny of which he would so blithely be the head; in vain he strives to rally the underworld of Europe to the overthrow of the Russian Army he was once proud to animate. Russia has done with him, and done with him for ever. He will perhaps have leisure to contemplate his handiwork.

No one could wish him a better punishment than that his life should be prolonged, and that his keen intelligence and restless spirit should corrode each other in impotence and stultification.

Indeed we may forsee a day when his theories, exploded by their application, will have ceased even to be irritating to the active, hopeful world outside, and when the wide tolerance which follows from a sense of security will allow him to creep back, discredited and extinct, to the European and American haunts where so many of his early years were spent.
It may be that in these future years he will find as little comfort in the work which he has done as his father found in the son he had begotten.

Truth (Sydney, NSW : 1894 - 1954), Sunday 22 May 1938, page 33