It is statedin Vienna that a great Socialist experiment is
to be tried in Africa, a body of adventurers, guided by Dr. Hertzka, having obtained a tract of land on the slopes of Mount Xenia, which is English, where they propose to establish a colony. They mean to dispense with capital and individual property, to live by labour, and generally to carry out communistic ideas. The. Times' correspondent says the association numbers a thousand members, who are exceedingly anxious to secure the good-will of the English authorities. We trust that they will be aided and protected to the full. So far from being opposed to such experiments, as some of our correspondents imagine, we heartily hope that there will be a hundred of them within the next few years. They will all fail, unless, indeed, the members are governed by strong religious ideas; and there will be much individual suffering ; but Socialism has now taken such a hold, that nothing but experiment will disenchant its votaries. We should like to give them an island in a good climate, with full sovereign rights, and there let them carry out their ideas to the sweet or bitter end. They would soon find that human nature was too strong for them, and many of their number, once disen- chanted, would turn out, like the St. Simonians, excellent and successful members of industrial society.
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