In the current number of The Christian Socialist Mr.Lawrence Gronlund, the author of that most comprehensive book on Socialism in the English language, "The co-operative commonwealth," refers to that splendid little book "Darkness and dawn," to the author of which John Ruskin wrote — “ I am very greatly helped and comforted by the force and hope of your work." These recommendations fortunately induced a friend to buy this book on his first visit to town, and bring it home with him. I have just finished reading it, and wish to recommend my Australian friends to invest sixpence in its purchase. " Darkness and dawn: the peaceful birth of a new age" has some resemblance to " The republic " of Plato, the " Utopia " of Sir Thomas More, the "New Atlantis" of Lord Bacon, and works of that order; but it is an attempt to forecast the changes that would be made in the social condition of Britain at the present day, by the substitution of a fraternal for the existing competitive or covetous system. " That highest law of Christ which is fulfilled in the bearing of one another's burdens," the writer says, " affords the only security against the corruption and downfall of nations—the only foundation for kingdoms essaying to be permanent, and of civilizations which shall be interpenetrated with progress." The contrary principle was of purely barbarian origin, but "Christendom has continued the legend of injustice, for, though freeing the serf, she absolved herself from all responsibility for his maintenance, and in adjusting his burden measures it by the weakness of his back—that is, the less the resistance the heavier was the load ; she tempered her demands only towards the strong." Long and black is the indictment brought against the British bourgeoisie. " That double-diddling, called ' buying in the cheapest and selling in the dearest markets,' otherwise paying the producer less than you might and charging the consumer more than you ought, became England's choicest pastime. England's productions became her glory, England's producers became her shame." The reports of the Royal Commissioners upon factories, he declares, " should certainly enter, along with Jewish antiquities, into the studies of every preacher to modern trading Christians." This, "together with an actual personal inspection of laboring life, would do more to revolutionize current conceptions of Christian doctrine and of Christian duty," he thinks, " than tons of disquisition outside the knowledge of such facts." Under the present system "the worthiest are driven to the wall —there is a survival of the unfittest and unworthiest. The men worthiest to achieve success — to give the tone to society, and direction to law—are thrown into the background, to share the impotence and insignificance to which the want of means reduces individuals in a society like ours ; but with the survival of the unfittest the wealth of England rises higher." The muscle, brain, thrift, industry, and enterprise of the nation, disheartened, seek a home beyond the seas. Will the emigrant find this new world free from the old shackles laid upon labour, and God's earth, freed from needless and injurious tax, offered to his willing hands to till for his own sole benefit, and not for another ? Alas! No. “A man who has simply taken out a claim for land, and lived the requisite period upon it to make it his possession—not, however, driving a ploughshare once across it, but only waiting for industrious labor to come with its painfully saved-up earnings—this man in advance of the emigrant has needlessly, unrighteously, come into a position to say, ' You can have the land, but give me so much fruit of your past hard labor first.' In short, land monopolists in these virgin countries are beforehand with toiling Europe, and virtually cry out — 'Come on, come over, most useful race of men, come over and help us to an unearned fortune.' The long arms of capital have reached across to New Zealand even, and there made sure that the newest colony shall in due time breed the pauperism of the oldest State; so that even now, with thousands of leagues of uncultivated acres, and thousands of willing hands ready, if they might, to till, New Zealand is troubled with a pauper question. And the lands, thus owned in the States, Australia, and New Zealand belong, many of them, to English proprietors, the profits of their resale coming home to enrich the capitalists in the land from which the emigrants went out. And the wealth of England rises higher.”
As a matter of course, the writer prefaces his dream of the new age, by a few references to the earliest society of Christians and the communism they practised. "It has been strangely argued," he remarks," by Christian commentators, that the early Church went astray in this fundamental matter, as a consequence of the degree in which the Holy Spirit rested upon them." But he thinks the Pentecostal Spirit is doing its old work in these latter days, and is still pointing " back to the time when men ate their bread in gladness and singleness of heart—when they uplifted a standard, not destined for universal empire until the set time had come, but which fluttered long enough to impregnate the air with its commotions, and to waft hope to every succeeding generation." He goes on to observe that modern legislation is undesignedly preparing society for the triumph of the idea. " The landlord, except in Ireland, has kept his freedom unfettered, but his hour for compulsory deference to the general welfare has already struck." Moreover, he contends, in precise contradiction of what is usually alleged, that " What is done by the State is always better than what is done by the profit mongering individual." How a completely bloodless revolution is to be effected, the reader will learn from " Darkness and Dawn.” I must also refer him to the book itself for the picture he draws of the dawning era. But I must notice two or three of the prominent features. It will probably surprise not a few of those who entertain merely conventional notions of the Social State, to learn that " the preservation and development of the individuality of men" is one of its characteristics. " Under the former state of things, an artificial variety was created, so that men appeared ruled into the pattern of their classes ; and as classes were many, so were patterns. It was necessary to abide in class conventionalities, to conform to class institutions, to avow class prejudices, in order to 'succeed.' All that had passed away; men returned into the possession of themselves. " The political economy of the new era will be an economy of men and not an economy of wealth. It seems that the men of that time, having an abundance of leisure, capacity and goodwill, will build cathedrals. These edifices will be "laid down upon the lines of the cross and circle—the cross, sacred memorial, now regarded as significant also of the cursed death to which competitive society is justly exposed ; the circle embracing the cross and superseding it, tyye of the bond of perfect unity." Of the service I can say little. "The one subject of every homily was the Great Founder before the first, the labouring Man of Nazareth—He who wrought obscurity for thirty years before He preached His gospel to the poor, a gospel which it took two thousand years to apply to man as denizen of earth as well as pilgrim to the skies." Here is another sentence, or part of a sentence : — " While together, with resistless force and swell, the march, the triumphant march of emancipated multitudes pulsed throughout the marble pile ; and while the storied windows shook and every heart beat louder, faster, up rose the mighty chorus with which the anthem ended—
Jesus Hominum Salvator,
Civitatis Dei Creator."
" Darkness and Dawn " is published anonymously, but I learned yesterday from Mr. Laurence Gronlund that he is a commission agent at Bristol named Mr. Henry Deacon. Mr. Gronlund is a handsome, light built gentleman, little more than forty years of age He is wholly absorbed in the movement for the regeneration of society, and will spend the rest of his life in its promotion. When he told me he had practised as a lawyer for some ten years before he was converted to socialism, I could not help thinking that that fact might explain the denial of the natural rights of man which is a serious flaw in his very valuable "Co-operative Commonwealth." Bentham repudiated natural rights, and ever since his time the vast majority of the English jurists have followed suit. But as John Morrison Davidson remarks in one of his works, the denial of the natural rights of man is the most dangerous doctrine that the propertied and privileged classes could preach in a democratic age, for if men have no natural rights they must assert their natural mights. Mr. Gronlund is just about to publish another work entitled "Ca Ira ! or Danton in the French Revolution," and expects to reach New York by the 1st of May to resume his work on platform and press.
One of the signs of the changing times we live in is that many, not only of the best, behaved in civilized communities, but of the legislators or law-makers themselves, are beginning to abjure the doctrine, lately almost universally prevalent, that law, whether good or bad, ought to be observed and even respected. The phrase " law and order" was a short time ago unquestioned. Law—man-made law—was a fetish before which decent men bowed their necks, their intellects, and their hearts. This is so no longer. The Chief Secretary for Ireland in the debate on the vote of urgency for the Coercion Bill, laid it down that it was the first duty of civilized society to enforce the law. The law might be enforced, whether it was just or unjust. To this doctrine, not yet quite obsolete, Sir Wm. Harcourt, who is now the apparent successor to Mr. Gladstone in the leadership of the Liberal Party, gave an absolute denial. Amid Conservative cries of "Oh! oh!" and considerable Liberal cheering, Sir William declared that " if the law is a good and just one, it is the first duty of a civilized community to enforce it; but if, on the other hand, the law is a bad law which works injustice, it is not the first duty of society to enforce that law. The first duty of society is to abrogate or to amend that law. When crime is the outcome of an unjust law the best way to get rid of the crime is not to continue the unjust law, and to suppress disorder with coercion, but to get rid of crime by amending the law." At this point murmurs of dissent rose from the speaker's side of the House, probably from some Liberal Unionists, who intend to vote for the Coercion Bill, and thereby act in glaring contradiction to the obviously rational doctrine laid down by Sir Wm. Harcourt. Who can doubt the truth of the statement Sir William made before sitting down. " Whatever crime or disturbance or resistance to the law is taking place in Ireland arises out of unjust rents. If that grievance were removed, no coercion would be needed at all ; for if this were done the work which the 'combinations' had been established to fulfil would be accomplished."
WILLIAM WEBSTER.
Kapunda Herald (SA ) 1887,
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