Educating our Masters.

 ON the principle of " educating our masters," a subscription is being raised to place in every Free Library in the colony a copy of a book by Mr. W. H. Mallock, entitled "Labour, and the popular welfare." Judging by a review of the book which appeared in last Saturday's Age it contains or sets out with two enormous fallacies, which the Age reviewer did not detect, as he evidently fell a victim to Mr. Mallock's rhetoric. These fallacies are that Labour is a quality or factor by itself—a species of mineral, in fact, like iron; and the other that the national wage fund or total income under the present system of individualistic-competitive-industrial waste is the exact measure of what it would be under State Socialism. This reasoning of Mr. Mallock's is analogous to that frequently met with in a 6-yr old boy who thinks it incontestable that in two years time he will be as old as his 8-yr-old brother. Mr. Mallock's whole conception of Civilisation and of Humanity partakes of that misconception that present types, conditions, and methods are permanent factors, just as the ingredients of sea water are. His logical goal is Anarchy, as we have often taken occasion to assert. That is the reward of " individual cupidity" minus slavery; but what Mr. Mallock and his sympathisers really want is veiled slavery. They wish to segregate Labour into a commodity—a chattel— subject to the laws of supply and demand, just as a horse is, or an American slave used to be. Mallock's book is, in fact, a repetition of pro-slavery reasoning and literature. The Indian caste system is another variety of it. And this cant about Ability and Capital being so enormously superior to Labour will not bear examination. Ability mostly shows itself in this connection (which is chiefly industrial) in labour saving inventions, or discoveries of new adaptations of mechanical forces or natural products, and these have their origin very frequently from the ranks of Labour of a very humble degree, yet Mr. Mallock in the most supercilious manner appropriates them all to his Ability class, or to Capitalists. Moreover, he ignores the immense value or rights of Labour as the creator of all wealth and not the mere manipulator of products. That is to say, what would be the value of Ability and Capital minus population to utilise the exercise of both ? What have been rightly termed "the Classes" seek to use "the Masses" as "hewers of wood and drawers of water," and Mr. Mallock's book is designed to show how much indebted the latter are to the Classes for being guided by them, and paid for their labour their full share per head when the whole earnings of humanity are divided pro rata, but under Mr. Mallock's system they are not so divided, and never would be, yet he assumes that social conditions are now upon the best possible basis. In so far as he argues against Communism he is on sound ground, but he sees the highest Altruistic ideal in Capitalism or Cupidity, and that is simply the law of the tiger. It was supposed to have been set aside by the Christian dispensation, hence the hold which Christian Socialism has had and still has upon many of the best minds of the last century or two, but Capitalism and its baneful off-shoot, joint-stock financing, have killed Christian Socialism and all phlilanthropic effort as a practical force, and the only hope for humanity lies in State Socialism. Such books as Mr. Mallock's will hasten that consummation when its fallacies are at length detected by Conservatives who know that they cannot create a new heavens and a new earth and a new humanity, nor destroy those they have, but can guide the latter through the ballot box and an ever widening franchise. In other words, the only alternative to Anarchy is true Parliamentary government ever developing more and more State Socialism. This would not destroy any social or class interests or organisation, but would regulate the whole for the good of the whole. This is the true meaning and the only adequate creation of "the greatest good for the greatest number."

Bacchus Marsh Express (Vic. : 1866 - 1943), Saturday 19 January 1895, page 2