LAFCADIO HEARN ON SOCIALISM.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SpECTATOR.".1
am sending you some extracts from the "Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn" which I think ought to be published abroad. He surely was au educated man and a "thinker." He cannot be considered conventional or of a political party. He certainly cannot be classed as a bloated capitalist or effete landlord. So perhaps his opi.ions may have some weight.—I am, Sir, &c., C. A. E.
"The tendency now seems to point, indeed, to what Spencer calls 'The Coming Slavery.' Monopolies and trusts must continue to grow and multiply—must eventually tend to coalesce —must ultimately hold all. Bellamy's ideas will be partly carried out, but in no paradisiacal manner. The State itself will become the one monstrous trust. Socialism will be promised all, and be compelled to work against its own ends unconsciously. The edifice is even now being reared in which every man will be a veritable slave to the State—the State itself a universal monopoly and trust. Then every life will be regulated to infinitesimal details, and the working population of the whole West find them- selves situated just as men in factories or on railroads are situated. The trust will be nominally for the universal benefit, and must for a time so seem to be. But just so surely as human nature is not per- fect, just so surely will the directing class eventually exploit the wonderful situation, just as some Roman rulers exploited the world. Assuredly anarchy will eventuate; but first—in spite of all that human wisdom can do—nations will pass under the most fearful tyranny ever known. And perhaps centuries of persistent effort will scarcely suffice to burst the fetters which Socialism now seeks to impose on human society. The machinery will be too fright- fully perfect, too harmonious in operation, too absolutely exact and of one piece, to be easily attacked. As well try with naked hands to pierce the side of an ironclad. The law, the military power, the police, religious influence, commercial and industrial interests, all will be as one, working to preserve the form of the new Socialism. To seek redress, to demand change, were then sheer madness ; even the power to flee away out of the land, to dwell among beasts and birds, might be denied. Liberty of opinion, which we all boast of now, would be then less possible than in the time of the sway of Torquemada."
"Undoubtedly the Coming Slavery' predicted by Spencer will come upon us. A democracy more brutal than any Spartan oligarchy will control life. Men may not be obliged to eat at a public table ; but every item of their existence will be regulated by law. The world will be sickened for all time of democracy as now preached. The future tyranny will be worse than any of old, for it will be a regime of moral rather than physical pain, and there will be no refuge from it except among savages. But for all that the people are good. They will be trapped by their ignorance and held in slavery by their ignorance, and made, I suppose, in the eternal order to develop a still higher goodness before they can reach freedom again. I fear I must shock you by my declaration of non-sympathy with much of the work of contemporary would-be reformers. They are toiling for Socialism, and Socialism will come. It will come very quietly and gently and tighten about nations as lightly as a spider's web : and then there will be revolutions ! Not sympathy and fraternity and justice, but a Terror in which no man will dare to lift up his voice. The rule of the many will be about as merciful as a calculating machine, and as moral as a, lawn mower. What Socialism means really no one seems to know or care. It will Mean the most insufferable oppression that ever weighed upon mankind."—Extracts from "Letters of Lafcadio Hearn from Japan,' 1894-1904.
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