SOCIALTSII ABROAD AND AT HOME.*
PROFESSOR NITTI'S Catholic Socialism, as translated by the late Miss Mary Mackintosh—amid the weakness and suffering of her last illness—is a book of great interest and value. It puts the English reader in possession of a remarkably full and clear view of the spread of doctrines, more or less cor- rectly called Socialistic, among the Roman Catholics of Germany. Austria, France, Belgium, Switzerland, and the United States ; and also gives a good deal of information which is at least partially new to many non-Romanists in this country, as to the advanced opinions held by Cardinal Man- ning and by Monsignor Bagehawe, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Nottingham. There can, we think, be no doubt that its perusal will cause very considerable surprise to many persons who reflect how comparatively small is the number of influential Anglican clergy and Nonconformist ministers who have openly adopted views of the kind in question. It is common to suppose that the advocacy of Socialism abroad is mainly confined to political adventurers who play upon the passions of their less fortunate fellow-countrymen, and to a few other " cranks " whose judgment has been deranged by their feelings. But Professor Nitti shows that this is an entire misconception of the situation, and that, on the contrary, alike in Germany, Austria, and France, there are powerful, if not dominant, parties among the most highly placed and influential of the clergy and laity of the Roman Church, with a numerous following among her rank-and-file, who have much in common with the Social Democrats, though differing from them profoundly on religious questions, who are certainly moved by the most popular sympathies, and who are aiming at social and economic changes of a far-reaching character. Professor Nitti's method is described by him as merely positive ; but it is not surprising to learn from Pro- fessor Ritchie's introduction to the present volume that he .has succeeded in being attacked on both sides. For on the one hand, he not only gives full sketches, copiously illus- trated by quotations from their writings and speeches, of the opinions avowed by the Roman Catholic Socialists, but indicates again and again that he regards the advocacy of such opinions by prelates and eminent laymen of that com- munion as morally to their credit. Yet every now and then, on the other hand, after a very sympathetic summary of a man's views, the Professor, in a few words, points out that economically some of the most important of them are absurd and unpractical. Thus, in the case of the late Monsignor Ketteler, Archbishop of Mayence, who was the pioneer of German Roman Catholic Socialism, Professor Nitti tells us of his large acceptance of the views of Lassalle, according to whom labour had become a" ware " which, under the "iron law " of a competitive economic system, was bound to fetch no more than the absolute necessaries of life for the worker and his family. For that reason, and in contemplation of the wretchedness of an existence in which even a minimum livelihood was only obtainable at the mercy of the capi- talist, Monsignor Ketteler held that workmen's co-opera- tive productive associations, such as Lassalle had advocated, were the most equitable and most efficacious means of easing the workman's condition, while rendering it less insecure. Where the Archbishop differed from Lassalle was in holding that the pecuniary aid necessary to enable the pro- ductive associations to thrive successfully should be obtained not from the State, but from the freewill offerings of the faithful, as to the flow of which for that purpose he was • (1) Catholic Socialism. By France.co 8. Nitti, Professor of Political Eco- nomy at the University of Naples. Translated from the Second Italian Edition by Mary Mackintosh. With an Introduction by David G. Ritchie, erofess,r of Logic and Metapb3sics in the University of St. Andrews. London Swan 8 nnen- schein and (2.1 The Socialist State, its Nature, Aims, and Conditions: being an Introduction to the Study of Socialism. By E. C. K. Gonne-, Brunner Pro- larsor of Ec inomic Science at University College, Liverpool. London : Sc At.--(3.) Socialism and Sense: a Radical Review. By William With Illustrations by F. Carruthers Gould. London Walter Scott.—(4.1 The Social Contract. By Jean Jacques Rousseau. Translated, with an Hist,,rica and Critical Introduction and Notes, by Henry J. Tozer, With a Preface by Bernard Bosanquet. London: Swan Clonnenscnein and Co.
grievously disappointed in after-years. Professor Nitti, how- ever, is careful to point out in a note, later on in the book, that "economic science has already, a long time ago, proved that the so-called ' iron law' of Lassalle is without any foundation of truth." Yet, if so, a great part of the justifi- cation for the vehement denunciations of the existing economic system, which Ketteler, among leading German Churchmen, began, and which has been followed up by a succession of prelates and laymen of the Roman Church on the Continent, disappears. Again, when one analyses the remedies proposed for the evils they deplore by these " Catholic Socialists," in so far as they go beyond factory legislation and regulation of working hours, they come mainly to the enactment of a minimum wage and the re-establish- ment, with certain modifications, of the old guild system. Professor Nitti decisively condemns both these proposals on the obvious grounds on which any orthodox economist would be expected to condemn them. And yet, as we have said, although our able and learned author, in his odd, half- incidental way, thus throws a jet of cold economic criticism both on the premises and the conclusions of the people whose views he is describing, it is with the most evident pleasure and sympathy that he brings forward one person of high degree, in the Church or in the world, after another to set forth the hardships endured by the working classes under the present order of things, and the urgent need of State action for the mitigation or removal of those hardships.
The explanation of this apparent inconsistency is to be found mainly in the opinion expressed by Professor Nitti in his preface, that "though the systems of Socialism may be false, or contradictory, or Utopian, the morality it teaches is by far superior to that of its adversaries." And this may be said with special force, when Socialism, or something tending towards it, is taught by men of high station who have not themselves suffered in the least from the pressure of the economic system which they deplore. And if, as Professor Nitti maintains, "the social question is not only based on an economic problem, but constitutes of itself a vast moral problem "—which cannot, we think, be denied—then a powerful aid towards its solution may well be considered as furnished by the earnest participation in its treatment of influential men acting in the spirit of tender regard for the poor, which appears to inspire such men as the late Monsignor
Ketteler, the Abbe Hitze, and Count Losewitz in Germany, M. Gaspard Decurtins in Switzerland, and the Count de Mon and his titled allies in France. Even if they put some un- practical items into their programme, the part played by such men as champions of the poor, the spectacle of their
strenuous and often successful efforts to promote the protec. tion of the working classes against some of the inevitable risks of their occupations, and against excessive work and un- wholesome conditions, cannot fail to soften the bitterness of feeling which has been caused among the workers by the smallness of their share in the immense growth of production, and by their failure, since endowed with political power, to achieve a corresponding improvement in their material con- dition. And it may well be believed that the healing influences of the course taken by the Roman Catholic Socialists, whose action and views are so well described by Professor Nitti, has had not a little to do with the fact that, as he says,—
" The evolution, in a practical and pacific direction, made by Socialism within the last few years, has been most rapid. Not only have the Anarchists and revolutionary Socialists been greatly in the minority at all the more recent Socialist Congresses, but they could not succeed in finding a hearing for their opinions, and eve rywhere met a current of thought contrary to their useless
and criminal violence In the various European States Socialism tends not only to become Conservative, but, in preference to their old system of isolated action, its partisans now join the political struggle, and take part in the Parliamentary battles."
This "practical and pacific" turn given to the Socialist agitation abroad within recent years, largely by the aid of the infusion of a Christian element into the movement for the amelioration of the condition of the working classes, is a matter for special congratulation, in view of the facts alluded to by Mr. H. J. Tozer, in his learned and very useful introduction to his translation of Rousseau's Contrat Social, as to the influence exercised by the doctrine of the alienation of all persons and property to the State, on the Socialistic movement of the pre- sent century. " Fourier, Saint-Simon, Owen, Lassalle, and Marx," says Mr. Tozer, "have carried the problem of popular control into the industrial sphere, where it now presses for solution more powerfully than in the domain of politics ; they, too, have desired to compel men to be free, equal, and fraternal." It is a happy thing that another stream of in- fluence than that flowing from the revolutionary classic of Jean Jacques, with its strange mixture of flashes of inspira- tion, rigid deduction from fanciful assumptions, and perverse inconsistencies, should have been brought to bear upon the immense social problem of our day.
But while readily making these acknowledgments as to the beneficial effects of much of the work of the so called Roman Catholic Socialists, described in Professor Nitti's very in- teresting work, we must not omit to express our pleasure at the very clear and effective warnings to those Englishmen who may be inclined to accept the teachings of our English Socialists, which are conveyed in Professor Gonner's excellent little book, designed as an introduct'on to the study of the
subject, and entitled The Socialist State. Professor Gonner
takes great pains to be fair to the views he discusses, and altogether avoids dogmatism ; but this only gives the greater weight to his carefully weighed criticisms and suggestions.
The following sentences rela•ing to the very vital question of public criticism in a Socialist State, afford a good example of Mr. Gonner's quiet and lucid style :—
" It is a difficulty which has not escaped the view of Socialists themselves, that inasmuch as all capitalistic organisation will be taken over by the State, there will be no private issue of news- papers and other means of political criticism. This is not likely to conduce to the publication of outspoken attacks on what will then be the constitution of things. A State, even if paid by sub- scription from the partisans of the writer, will have to be incon- ceivably regenerated to actually publish attacks on itself, particularly if they happen to be well founded. Censorship can always find excuses It is no use assuming that Society will be regenerated under the influence of criticism, and then instituting a condition under which those interested in the maintenance of the status quo will have every interest and every reasonable opportunity for interfering with the publicity of such criticism. Matter of detail though this may seem, the peril is so tremendous that a mode of obviating it must be discovered."
Another little book, which is well worth reading, on the same subject, is Mr. William Hill's Socialism and Sense : a Radical Review. Mr. Hill writes too bitterly for our taste with regard to the Independent Labour Party ; but the Radicals have felt that they have been "wounded in the
house of their friends," and that does make people bitter. He puts the practical case against Socialism, its terrible dangers to liberty, to individual energy, to invention, and to progress generally, with much clearness and vigour, and in a manner to be grasped readily by working people, for whom he specially writes. Mr. Hill, though a strong anti-Socialist in regard to production, holds views hardly distinguishable from those of land-nationalisers on the subject of the soil of the country, and would also put up the Death-duties on all millionaires indefinitely high. These projects we cannot accept as dictated either by " sense " or justice. At the same time we are glad that in other ways it is distinctly recognised in Mr. Hill's book, as in Professor Gonner's, that, in the words of the latter writes., " Socialism is not the only alterna- tive to the policy of rigid and unrelenting Individualism." "Individual freedom," precious as it is, " must be restricted," as Mr. Gonner says, "by considerations of the well-being of the State." That has been the principle wisely observed in much recent legislation, and it is on the well-balanced development of that compromise, together with the growing sense of personal obligation, alike in the public and in the private sphere, that the security and happiness of the com- munity must ultimately depend.
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