THE NATIONAL WORKSHOPS OF 1818.

[TO THZ EDITOR OF TES "SPECTATOR." j

SIE,—Y011 are the last to wish to support your case against Socialism with garbled historical facts. Yet I fear you have recently done so in two instances.

First, in your account of the French national workshops experiment in 1848. The national workshops of 1848 were deliberately organised to fail by an unfriendly Government. A reference to Lamartine's "History of the Revolution of 1848," or even to the English Blue-book on the unemployed (1893), will demonstrate this. M. Emile Thomas, -himself the original manager of those workshops, in his "History of the 'National Workshops" has made it clear that they were but a mere travesty of the proposals of Louis Blanc, and were organised in a manner expressly meant to discredit the move- ment. Louis Blanc stipulated that regard should be paid to the character of the workmen, and that they should only be set to productive work. Both stipulations were wantonly dis- regarded. Louis Blanc himself denounced the workshops as based upon unsound principles, and demanded their abolition. Further, a French Governmental inquiry has long since finally established these facts. But it is astonishing that you, Mr. Morley, and Mr. Balfour go on repeating the hoary falsehood that Louis BIands workshops were tried in France and failed. They were not.

Secondly, you garble history—unintentionally, of course— in your account of the fall of the Roman Empire. You are not alone in this, for Sir Edward Fry has been keeping you company. You both practically say that the Empire fell because the middle classes were overtaxed to supply bread and games for an idle populace. The middle classes (ctiriales) were indeed overtaxed, but not for the sake of the people of the Roman Empire. They were overtaxed for the sake of the great landowners of that Empire, and ruined by that and by the corruption and extortion of public officials. You will admit that Professor S. Dill is a greater authority on this igubject than M. Guizot, quoted by Sir Edward Fry. In his "Roman Society in the Last Centary of the Western Empire"' (1905) Professor Dill in his chapter on "The Decay of the Middle Classes" writes :— "The absorption of the smaller by the great landowners and 'the growing power of the latter is by far the most interesting and importantvfeature of the period" (p. 264).

"They [the middle Glasses) could borrow only from the very men who were hungering for their land and desired their extinction" (p. 266). "We learn, both from Calvianus and from the [Theadosian] Code, that the wealthier class in Gaul contrived to shift their share of the land-tax on to their poorer neighbours" (p. 268).

"The most serious danger however to the 'small landowner from the great lords lay in the facilities which the latter possessed for corrupting the sources of justice" (p. 269). "Complaints relate almost entirely to oppression and injustice in the collection of the various branches of the revenues. The upper classes secured immunity from their proper burdens, or succeeded by unfair assessment in shifting them on to the classes less able to bear them". (p. 271).

These quotations are sufficient. I am sure that your sense of fairness, and your knowledge that a case buttressed by" shaky" history is sure finally to fail, will induce you to publish these corrections. With thanks.—I am, Sir, &c.,

Higher Broughton, Manchester. S. E. KnEBLE.

fin the "Letter to n Working Man" dealing with the national workshops of 1848 "J. St. L. S." specifically antici- pated our correspondent's objection that the workshops were set up in order to ruin the influence of Louis 'Blanc and the Socialists with the French people, and to prove that Socialism was impossible. Though not admitting this reading of history,

"J. St. L. S." went on to point out that even if the national workshops were to be put aside on this ground, it was

impossible to get rid in the same way of Louis Blanc's special experiment at the Hotel Cluny, where he was allowed to organise the tailors of Paris on his own lines. The tailors who worked in the Hotel Cluny were certainly producers, and according to Bagehot's account, quoted by "J. St. L. S.," they were also enthusiastic and patriotic Socialists, and therefore not likely to have been objected to by Louis Blanc on the ground of character. That our correspondent, the courtesy and good feeling of whose letter we gladly acknow- ledge, does not make any allusion to the fact that "J. St. L. S.'s " letter dealt in detail with the Cluny experi- ment, and laid more stress upon that than upon the disputed ateliers nationaux, seems to indicate that Mr. Keeble had not seen the "Letter to a Working Man," and was only writing on hearsay as to its contents. As to the allegation that Louis Blanc was betrayed by the Provisional Government, the point is one very difficult to disprove ; but we are bound to say that the fact that Louis Blanc asserted this when the experiment was obviously proving a failure,, and after it had proved a failure, by no means establishes its accuracy. Though a very honest and a very good man, Louis Blanc was not exempt from the national peculiarity of thinking that he must have been betrayed by some on when things went wrong. We note that M. Pierre de la Gorce in his "History of the Second Republic" (Plon-Nourrit et

Cie., 1904), the latest authority on the subject, does not, as far as we can see, give any sanction to Mr. Keeble's view. We would refer Mr. Keeble to "Le Droit an Travail 1 L'Assemblee Nationale" (.Guillauman et (lie., 1848), a work which contains

the whole of the heated debates in the Assembly, important official documents, and large extracts from the pamphlet, " Socialisme, Droit an Travail" (1848), in which Louis Blanc,

after the event, repudiated the workshops as not carried out according to his theory. M. Joseph Gamier, the editor of the work in question, makes the following significant comment on Louis Blanc's declaration that the Socialists had no

responsibility for the national workshops because of the manner in which they were organised and worked :—

"C'est-a-dire quo M. Louis Blanc aurait voulu des ateliers nationaux autrement organises. Reste t savoir comment il serait parvenu it classes lea 115 on 120 mille hommes quo nous avons vus error autour de la capitale. Nous ne pensons pas quo M. Louis Blanc paisse se soustraire a une grand° part de responsabilite, pour le fait des ateliers nationaux. Si ses collegues sont entree dans cette vole, c'etait en vertu de theories generales 4 in vulgarisa- tion desquelles il a contribue plus sine tout autre."

The passage shows what Louis Blanc's contemporaries thought of the excuse when it was first raised,—i.e., at a time when all the facts were fresh in men's minds.

In a word, we do not believe the treason and betrayal story. That it was found impossible to organise workshops according

to Louis Blanc's abstract theories is, we have little doubt, quite true. --Those theories were in effect absolutely im- practicable and could not be carried out. But that is Ustease of the anti-Socialists against Socialism, and cannot be used as an argument in favour of Socialism. That the Provisional Government tried to make the ateliers, nationaux succeed is, we think, certain. They were too much afraid Of

the mob to do anything else. But if the Socialists reject all responsibility for their failure, then we say again that they cannot possibly reject Louis Blanc's failure at the Hotel Cluny.

As to the question of Rome Mr. Keeble seems to 'have been in some confusion of mind. We did not say that the middle class were taxed to provide the bread doles, but that they were taxed out of • existence. We read Dr. Dill's

admirable book on "Roman Society" in a very different fashion from that adopted by Mr. Keeble. Dr. Hodgkin in

"Italy and her Invaders" points out that although the bounties and rations might make the Emperors popular, yet communism thus robed in the purple was becoming the destroyer of the commonwealth, "while," he adds, "the middle class was being oppressed beyond endurance." "A system of rates and levies so burdensome was imposed by the State that they found it practically impossible to exist. There was a huge land-tax, and cities staggered under a mountainous burden of rates," with the inevitable result of depopulation and the failure of the human harvest. We cannot resist quoting once more, though it has been quoted on several previous occasions in the Spectator, Dr. 'Hodgkin's declaration that

" of all the forces which were at work for the destruction of the Roman world none is more deserving of the careful study of an English statesman than the grain largesses to the populace of Rome. Whatever occasional ebbings there may bein' the current, there can be little doubt that the tide of -affairs in 'England and in all the countries of Western Europe, as well as in the 'United States of America, sets permanently towards democracy. Will the great democracies of the twentieth century resist the tempta- tion to use political power as a means of material self-enrichment? With a higher ideal of public duty than has been shown by some of the governing classes which preceded them, will they refrain from jobbing the commonwealth ? Warned by the experience of Rome, will they shrink from reproducing, directly or indirectly. the political heresy of Caine Gracchus, that he who votes in the Forum must be fed by the State ? If they do, perhaps the world may see democracies as long-lived as the dynasties of Egypt or of China. If they do not, assuredly now as in the days of our Saxon forefathers it will be found that he who is a giver of bread is also lord." [Dr. Hodgkin might have added " and he that receiveth the bread is a loafer.") "The old weary round will recommence," proceeds the historian, "democracy leading to anarchy, and anarchy to despotism, and the national workshops of some future Gracchus will build the palaces in.-which British or American despots, as incapable of rub as Areading or Honorius, will guide mighty empires to ruin amidst the acclama- tions of flatterers as• eloquent and as hollow as the courtly Claudian."

We can only conclude by saying that though most anxious not to found any argument on an inaccurate historical basis, it seems to us that "J. St. L. S.'s" appeal to history' in the case of the communistic experiments tried in Paris in 1848 and in that of the Socialism of the Roman Empire holds the field.—ED. Spectator.]