ENGLISH SOCIALISM OF TO - DAY.* IT is one of the glories
of the British Constitution that under its aegis we are able to combine many, and sometimes divergent, principles in our scheme of government. We owe our liberties to its protection ; but it lends itself readily to legislation coercive of our liberties when such legislation is thought to be necessary on behalf of a depressed section of society. This is the characteristic attitude of the British politician, and it is from this point of view that Mr. Arnold-Forster's criticism of Socialism is written. There are, Mr. Arnold-Forster points out, more than one forms of Socialism in the field. He proposes to deal with the Socialism of the active propagandist. " No reference is made to the Socialism of the philosophers, or to the Socialism which is a necessary part of the machinery of any civilised country, and the extension of which may legiti- mately form the subject of careful and sympathetic examina- tion." The propagandist, presumably, is the connecting link between the ideals of the philosopher and the realm of practical politics. All government ultimately rests on force and is in restraint of liberty, but since the death of that amiable enthusiast, Mr. Auberon Herbert, there is no one to bear aloft the standard of philosophical anarchism. Nevertheless, the controversy continues to be a controversy between ideals. There are those who have persuaded themselves that liberty and equality and a well-ordered condition of society can only be attained by a detailed and minute coercion of the units which compose society. This, of course, is the policy of those who, on the laces a non lucendo principle, term themselves Socialists.
Right Hon. H. 0. Arnold-Forster, M.P. London Smith, Elder, and Co, t The Man who was Thursday ; a Nightmare. By G. E. Chesterton. Bristol : [2s. 61. net.] J. W. Arrowstnitb. [6s.]
This view is now put prominently before us. It lends itself well to impassioned advocacy, it imputes all the evils of society to principles with which it is at variance; and un- doubtedly its high pretensions and plausible declamation are obtaining for it a hearing. It is an old creed appearing in new garments. Against this reactionary propaganda there stands the party of liberty, which, rightly understood, has its constructive side. Progress, in this view, involves the adjust- ment of individual claims within society by the exercise of a free initiative, and, rightly or wrongly, the party which has freedom for its watchword believes that this system makes inevitably for the liberty, equality, and good order which are the ideal of all right-thinking men.
Mr. Arnold-Forster is for the most part silent on this con- structive aspect of liberty. His criticism of the ordinary propaganda of Socialism is most effective, and as it is throughout documented by appropriate references to Socialist authorities, his book will be most useful. When he has finished his admirable destructive criticism, the author makes some constructive suggestions. They might be not unfairly described as mild homoeopathic doses of Socialism, and mere administrative reforms of minor importance. We doubt whether this is a relevant or effective answer to Socialism. It will certainly fall short of the expectation of those who wish to see a lucid statement of the organising and constructive influence of a policy of liberty. We are inclined to despair of the cause of logical controversy when in an argument against undue interference by the State we find an author advocating the rigging of the market and a diversion of the course of industry by a system of regulative tariffs.
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