T HE vote of the Socialist Congress at Amsterdam reveals a
good deal of what is going on in the thoughts of the Continental masses. A large division of the French Socialists, as the public know, have accepted. the advice of their leader, M. Jaures, which is to enter Parliament if they can, to accept office when obtainable, and thus gradually to give the powers of the State a Socialist direction. The effect of this policy has been greatly to increase the working power of the party, which has already secured a reduction of the term of military service, some important improvements of the law on compensation for injuries, and the great change, bad or good, involved in the laicising of education. Another division of the same party, however, headed by M. Guesde, furiously attacks this policy, which it considers a treacherous departure from sound principle, and from that logic which is to every Frenchman almost as dear as success. At the international meeting of Socialists held at Amsterdam during last week this section proposed what is called the Dresden resolu- tion,—that is, virtually a strong vote of censure on M. Jaures's policy. The debate was fierce ; but Herr Bebel, the well-known leader of the German Socialists, flung his whole weight on the side of the resolution ; denounced all departure from the most extreme Socialist views as helping to create a detestable bourgeois Republic, which would be worse than a Monarchy ; uttered, according to the German papers, a speech which in his own country would have made him liable to instant imprisonment ; and carried the resolution by a nationality vote of 25 to 5, twelve delegates abstaining. It is said that the vote will diminish the influence of M. Jaures ; but we are inclined to doubt the validity of that apprehension. The twelve who abstained must have been more or less in sympathy with M. Jaures, and we take it that what with his seat in the Chamber, his influence as a publicist, and the power which in France every man derives from being "practical," he will remain the leader of the French Socialists. In other words, Socialism in France will remain upon all except religious questions a comparatively moderate body of opinion, with which the Government can deal, and Liberal Cabinets can even form alliances. This develop- ment is the more important because it is in accord with the political circumstances of the country. The peasantry, who form a majority of the electorate, have never been, and probably never will be, Socialists in the full sense which their enemies give to that name. They own property ; they know perfectly well that the Chambers must obey them in the last resort ; and they are not pre- pared either to stake their possessions or endanger their political ascendency by efforts to establish a new society which might be less endurable than the old. They are quite willing as occasion arises to " capture " some of the means of industry—the mines, for example—but they are not willing to sanction any general attack on property ; while, impatient as they are of barrack life, they are much swayed by tradition, and hesitate greatly to abolish the Army—which they think might on some fortunate day recover the Provinces—in favour of the Swiss system of training, which is of necessity strictly defensive. The majority of them are, no doubt, hostile to the ecclesiastical system, and might, if their wives would let them, declare themselves hostile to religion ; but they are differentiated on this point by circumstances of locality, which involve circumstances of tradition ; and they do not hate, though they do not exactly reverence, the parochial clergy. They wish, therefore, even while they proclaim themselves Socialists, to move forward towards a greater equality of economic conditions with a certain caution, which their confreres on the rest of the Continent are inclined to denounce as base opportunism. It is all natural enough. It is when the masses suffer that they embrace logical Socialism ; and in France, though the artisans suffer, especially from too long hours and from the hostility of the bureaucracy to strikes, which they regard as infringements of social order, the mass of the popu- lation, which is still agricultural, is neither oppressed, nor in good years unhappy.
The condition of the people in Germany and Austria who sent up the majority that reaffirmed the Dresden resolution is far less satisfactory. In the great towns the workers are seriously overworked, underpaid except in a few trades, and housed in a way to which the condition of the slums of East London affords no parallel. They are conscious of a certain hardness in their employers, which either is oppressive, or is thought to be so ; though proud of their victories, they detest the military system which produced them ; and they are growing conscious of inequalities of caste, which in France for practical pur- poses have been swept away. They are, besides, a harder, peasantry, too, there is much more poverty, differing doubtless in every district, and arising mainly from their possession of a less grateful soil, while the propoition of landless men almost entirely dependent on wages is very much greater. Moreover, whether from want of thrift, or from the lesser return yielded by their agriculture, they do not possess the " stockings " which in France seem to afford to the peasantry so inexhaustible a reserve of means. The German and Austrian peoples could not raise the loans which France, whenever the Government is favourable, yields without an apparent effort. There is therefore a much keener wish that society should be over- turned and replaced upon new foundations. We all think the German Emperor ill advised when he. expresses his bitter hostility to Socialists ; but from his point of view, which is that of the whole of the Conservative classes of Germany, he has reason for his bitterness. The success of the Socialists in Parliament would, he thinks, mean civil war, and in the country would mean the disbanding of the Army, a revolution in taxation, and probably, though opinion is not unanimous upon this point, a bloody suppression of the ascendency of the upper classes. Socialism, therefore, in Germany tends to be a sort of religion ; and its leaders and thought-makers are almost as unable to bear any modification of their dogmas as clerics are unable to bear any departure from the autho- rised creeds. As Germany grows richer, and the system of government less repressive, her Socialists will probably change, like those of France, into opportunist Radicals ; but at present they are a generation behind their rivals, and, moreover, have never, it must be remembered, passed through a Revolution.
The Socialist theory, particularly as held upon the Con- tinent, has always appeared to us a dream impossible of realisation, if only because of human selfishness, and deriving its motive-power from an ideal which is altogether false. Real equality of conditions can no more be established than equality of size, strength, or intellectual force. There are, however, far too many removable causes of human suffer- ing still in existence, and it is most interesting to watch the methods, many of them instinctive, which each race adopts with the intention of securing their removal. In this island the dominant idea, at all events just now, obviously is that most of the admitted evils of society can be cured by educating those who suffer from them, by a large development of the benevolent side of Christianity, and by an unsparing application of the process which officials and people have agreed to call " inspection." In France, owing in part to the history of the Revolution, more is hoped from the State, which can, and it is believed will, always be most favourable to the masses who fill its armies and constitute as electors its ultimate sovereign power. In Germany and Austria there is not that belief in the benevolence of the State. It is seen that the true sovereignty does not reside in the electors, and there is a gulf between those who rule and those who obey which has not yet begun to be filled up. There is, therefore, a much deeper hatred of that which exists, and a greater readiness to believe that those who, for whatever reason, accept it, at heart accept also the continuance of the evils. The idea, however, that a revolution will come, or can come, is probably a delusion. The people fear invasion too much to abolish their military system, and while that exists society is too strong for overthrow. Central Europe, too, is becoming industrial, prosperity is slowly filtering downwards, and would filter rapidly but for the perverse idea of the value of Protection ; and by and by there will be, as in the two great Liberal States, a real desire on the part of the governing classes to make life pleasanter for those who are at present over- borne by the burden of too much work, too little gain, and the crushing weight of the military system. The improvement may be very slow ; but as it advances, the intellectual position of the Socialists will supply us with an excellent barometer. When the ideas of M. Jaures prevail among his party in Central Europe we may be certain that the air is becoming less heavy, and the people therefore at greater liberty to move without increased exertion. We may be sure, to be brief, that each country will have the Socialists it deserves.
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