CONTINENTAL GOVERNMENTS AND SOCIALISM.
WE cannot, we must say, reconcile ourselves entirely to the new form which social improvement is taking upon the Continent. Kings and Ministers have been frightened by the acute discontent of the lowest class, and appear disposed to offer heavy pecuniary bribes for their acquiescence in existing order. We do not deny that they have before them a great precedent, the English Poor Law, which was decreed from above by a domineering Queen and a proud aristocracy, and has, on the whole, succeeded ; nor do we deny that an improvement in the condition of the poor is a matter of pressing moment. But we should like to see the remedies come from the people themselves, through their representatives, and not be forced upon them in this way from above. Kings when they make grants are dealing with other people's money, and are very apt to believe that the first object of a State is not to improve the men in it, but to develop in them a habit of acquiescent obedience. Ministers, too, are much tempted under a regime of universal suffrage to buy the votes of the masses at the base of society, without much consideration either for justice or for the principles of sound finance. There is nothing to object to, for instance, in the Message of the German Emperor to the Reichstag, so far as it is a mere exhortation to Parliament to press on "social and economic reforms." The Germans allow their Emperor a kind of paternal position, and are no more affronted by his interference than the English people are by their Queen's counsel to them to abstain for a year or two from eating lamb. But when the Emperor suggests that in order to discuss the social reforms, it will be well to pass a prophetic Budget—that is, the Budget of 1884—and thus to deprive Parliament for eighteen months of its only substantial control, it is impossible not to regard his advisers with some suspicion. Are they anxious about the poor, who are to be relieved of taxes and provided for when sick, or are they planning, through an appearance of such anxiety, to relieve themselves of an irksome and hampering control ? It looks very much as if Prince Bismarck, who recently asked for a prophetic Budget. and was refused, bad calculated that if he persisted and pleaded the distress of the poor, and the necessity of finding time to consider their case, the Members would be afraid to resist, lest on a dissolution the vote of the lower masses should be thrown against them. If that is so, and the Progsessist Members certainly believe that it is so, the German Chancellor is using the social cry not to introduce ameliorations in the condition of the poor, but to secure the support of the lowest class in depriving Parliament of a portion of its power. Suppose that in England, Mr. Gladstone brought forward a Bill containing a grand scheme of Insurance for the Poor, and asked that in order to allow time for that
Bill the Executive should for one year remain uncontrolled, should we not doubt his motives ? Yet this is precisely what Prince Bismarck has done, at a moment when, as he himself avows, he expects affairs abroad to take a very dangerous turn. He will allege that the Members are not disposed to his Bill, are in fact middle-class men, reluctant to consider the poor ; but he forgets or conceals the facts that they are elected by universal suffrage, and that they will not be the more inclined to the poor because they have voted the Budget in advance. He would advance the cause he professes to have at heart much more rapidly by allowing Parliament more control, both over economic legislation and the expenditure. Instead of that, he is trying, with the assistance of the poor, to limit both.
In France, the danger perceptible is of a different kind. The Ministry there does not ask the Chamber to give up any of its powers, well knowing that such an appeal would be hopeless; but it does ask support from the most dangerous section of the people, in consideration of bribes. The Ministry dreads only one portion of the population—the workmen of Paris—and it therefore makes them two offers, one comparatively reasonable, one of a most indefensible kind. M. Waldeck Rousseau, the Minister of the Interior, is exerting himself greatly to comfort the men of the building trades, who are out of work and inclined to riot. He has, therefore, asked the Credit Foncier, a company which advances money for in dustrial undertakings, to advance £2,000,000 sterling for the construction of workmen's barracks, with flats, to be let at £8 a year. This speculation probably will not pay, and as it may be subsequently extended, the Credit Foncier asked for a guarantee, and were originally promised that of the State. As, how ever, the Treasury objected to this plan, it was modified, and the Minister now asks the Municipality of Paris to guarantee the loan. That would not be unreasonable or unwise, if the Municipality
were free to accept or reject the proposal, but that is scarcely the case. It is elected by universal suffrage, its first object is to keep well with the labourers, and it is quite aware that the project having been pressed from above, the labourers will not bear its rejection quietly. Of course, there is a remedy in the Chamber ; but the Chamber is equally afraid of riot which brings soldiers to the front, and so the project will, there is little doubt, be carried through, and the force of the whole State, though not the money of the whole State, will be used for the benefit of Paris alone.
As the Municipality is, in the first instance, to make the experiment, though under a Ministerial impulse, this project may pass ; but M. Waldeck-Rousseau intends to go much further. He is inclined, very wisely, to encourage co-operation, and his method of encouraging it is to give great State contracts, by preference, to societies of workmen. Whenever work is to be done, he proposes that " a company " of workmen shall be formed to do it, and when formed shall have this immense advantage over the competing capitalist, that it " is to give no security for the performance of its contract." We are not exaggerating, in any way. M. Waldeck-Rousseau himself made that precise proposal, in those words, to the Commission appointed to consider the subject, and added that, a State contract being of itself a valuable asset, the working coparcenary could have no difficulty in borrowing necessary capital. We never remember to have seen a more dangerous suggestion. It is hardly necessary in this country to show that under such a system the workmen would have a monopoly of contracts, for if they did the work badly nothing could happen to them, and they could, therefore, undersell all competition. They could hardly even be punished for bad work, for the only punishment possible would be to refuse them further contracts, that is, to throw gangs of unemployed and starving workmen on the streets by a direct Ministerial order, and so to reproduce in a most exaggerated form the very danger it is intended to avoid. The Communist idea, that contracts should be abolished and the State do its own work, is better than this, for the State as employer, as experience shows, can, through its right of dismissing individuals, secure very good work indeed. The fault of the English Dockyards and of the French State factories is that they turn out work too good, and, therefore, too costly, for the necessities of the case. M. Waldeck-Rousseau's proposal is not yet adopted, but if it is, it will close State work to private enterprise, and thereby throw thousands out of work, who will form Companies, without capital, give no security, and do the State work, which is to be given to them exclusively, as well or as badly as they please. Moreover, the State will, in a city like Paris, become the great employer of labour, and must always keep its workmen employed, if it be only at polishing shot, under penalty of an &write in the streets. We suppose, or rather hope, that all these tentatives will end in some reasonable plans for ensuring subsistence to workmen when thrown out of work, and thus diminishing the sense of insecurity which alarms and irritates them ; but at present, ruling men seem to have caught only at the idea that the lower classes are dan gerous, and that to make them less dangerous, the easiest way is to grant them State or Municipal funds levied by taxation. That is bad political economy, and if it is acted on to any great extent will sooner or later exhaust the resources accumulated by ordinary industry, besides demoralising the workmen, who will speedily perceive that all these exceptional advantages are granted them because they are, in the last resort, the masters of the State. In England, the Socialist proposal is to nationalise land, but it is resisted by all in authority ; on the Continent, where they dare not touch the freeholding peasantry, it is to nationalise labour, and authority is visibly giving way.
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