TWO BOOKS FOR ANTI-SOCIALISTS.* AMONG recent books which Anti-Socialists may
be recom- mended to read are Mr. Dawbarn's Liberty and Progress and Mr. Headley's Darwinism and Modern Socialism. Mr. Dawbarn looks at the subject essentially from the abstract point of • (1) Liberty and Progress. By C. Y. C. Dawbarn, M.A. London : Longman and Co. [Se. net.]—(2) Darwinism and Modern Socialism. By F. W. Headley. F.Z.S. London: Methuen and Co. [5e. net.] view. He has evidently been largely inspired by Bentham, and he has usefully reproduced in footnotes some of the most valuable of Bentham's sayings. The following, for example, if only its truth could be grasped by the public generally, would serve to dispel many of the most popular of the Socialist theories : " Poverty is not the work of the laws: it is the primitive condition of the human race." Mr. Dawbarn elaborates this fundamental truth, and points out bow miserable is the lot of man in the unaided fight with Nature. It is by the organisation of labour and by the use of machinery that the world is able to create sufficient wealth to bring comfort, and even luxuries, to millions whose primitive parents were naked savages. The portion of this huge product of wealth which the capitalist and the organiser of labour retain for themselves is a mere fraction of the total. It seems large when com- pared with the share which goes to any individual unskilled worker, but it is small in comparison with the amount which the unskilled workers collectively draw. Yet without the capital and without the organisation these unskilled workers would be unable to support themselves. Even if the employer gave up his whole profit, it would in many cases add no appreciable sum to the wages of his workpeople. It is more often possible to improve the condition of the worker by raising the price of the product, but this method is not always available. The building trade is a case in point. The various Trade-Unions connected with this industry have in the list twenty years very greatly raised the cost of building with a view to benefiting their own position. Yet there is no trade in the kingdom at the present time suffering so much from chronic unemployment as the building trade. This illustration is of course not conclusive, and it shows the danger of the assumption that the raising of the price to the consumer will necessarily benefit the producer. Broadly speaking, the improvement of the position of poorer members of the working classes, though it ought to be a primary object of all social effort, can only be secured by increasing the efficiency of labour. To this end three factors contribute,—the increase of capital, the improvement of organisation, and the improvement of the labourer himself. Unfortunately the efforts of the Socialists are directed towards the weakening of all these three factors. They denounce the capitalist as a thief, and discourage saving, which is the only method of increasing capital ; they are jealous of the skilled organiser of labour, and make his task as difficult as possible; and finally, instead of encouraging the individual labourer to improve himself as an industrial unit, they preach that he should give as little value as possible for the wages he receives.
Mr. Headley's book is very different in character, and perhaps more useful for popular propaganda. In particular, Mr. Headley avoids the mistake which runs through a good deal of Mr. Dawbarn's book of treating Individualism and selfishness as interchangeable terms. Selfishness and unsel- fishness are both equally individual characteristics, and it is a great mistake to admit even for a moment that Socialists have a monopoly of unselfishness. In practice one does not observe any greater unselfishness in the life of a Socialist than in the life of an Individualist. The distinction between the Individualist and the Socialist is one of creed and aim, not one of conduct. Approaching the whole social problem as a Darwinian, Mr. Headley feels the danger of the modern tendency to encourage the unfit. " Civilization has advanced up till now through two co-operating processes, the improve- ment of the conditions, physical, moral, and intellectual, under which men live, and the weeding out of the uncivilizable. Neither process can effect much if a stop be put to the other." For this reason Mr. Headley lays stress, as all Individualists do, on the importance of inequality as a stimulus to exertion, and refers happily to Mr. Burns's career: "Success so con- spicuous, by stimulating ambition, may save many lives from going to waste."
Mr. Headley is, however, eminently practical and tolerant. He admits that unregulated competition may sometimes result not merely in cruelty to individuals, but in the prevention of social progress by the crushing out of valuable elements in the community. He is therefore quite willing to grant the necessity for a considerable amount of State regulation, but he wisely takes the precaution of warning the more careless reader that this is no argument whatever for the Socialist demand that the State should itself undertake the management of every industry. " To be umpire or referee it a very different thing from playing the game oneself." In hit examination of various State undertakings, such as the Post Office, Mr. Headley makes the very obvious point that the success which the Socialists here claim is due to the fact that the Post Office is a monopoly. Incidentally, however, he gives to the Post Office greater credit than it deserves. Speaking of the Post Office telegraphs, he says: "All capital expenditure now comes out of profits, and three per cent. interest is paid on the sum spent on the purchase of the tele- graphs." As a matter of fact, the Post Office telegraph department is worked at an annual loss of well over a million pounds a year. Another equally startling blunder as to figures is made in connexion with the capital of the railway companies. Mr. Headley gives £194,341,000 as the total capital of the railway companies of the United Kingdom in the year 1905. An examination of the Statistical Abstract will show that he has taken the figure from the wrong column. The actual railway capital in that year was 21,272,601,000.
Among the blots on our civilisation on which Mr. Headley rightly lays much stress is the idleness of a large section of the well-to-do classes. While admitting frankly this and many other evils in our present social system, Mr. Headley is perfectly clear that the assumed remedies of the Socialists are worse than the disease, and he urges that the most valuable service which Individualism can at the moment render is to put a stop to the Socialistic experiments from which the country is now suffering.
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