THE FIGHT AGAINST SOCIALISM.
[TO THE EDITOR OP TEE " SPECTATOR.']
SIR,—May a workman, and a reader of the Spectator, add his testimony through your columns to the excellent work the British Constitution Association is doing in combating the
evils of Socialism ? An attentive perusal of the correspond- ence of our Press cannot but awaken the need for preparation. Socialism has permeated every section, and Liberals and Tories are vying with one another in the chase for the Socialist's Utopia. In chasing the butterfly you are forgetting how to govern. Let us endeavour to earn from a future historian a better epitaph than Green gave to our forefathers under the Roman legions. It is unnecessary to point out to you, Sir, that the worker is willing, nay eager, to hiss with the greatest of critics, " Wragg is in custody," but he wants men by his side in the fight, men who use their own crutches, and feel spurred on as the glories of the fullness of the panorama unfold. Who among your readers but has felt the nobleness, the sacred- ness of labour, as the navvy bends to his task, or the old folk wend their way across the fields to the village church. I have watched the old folk coming across the cornfields, I have seen on the " forehead clear " "the freedom of the mountaineer," and have joined in their chorus of thanks
" Go to work and be strong, halt not in your ways, Baulk not the end half won, for an instant mood of praise, Stand to your word and be wise, certain of sword and pen, Ye are neither children nor gods, but /sea in a world of men."
My work carries me into a large office, and Socialism is in the atmosphere ; but to every worker I -would say, However short, make a friend of your experience. I know "the Government stroke," I know that men have got something more in them, but the system does not tend to make men realise their value.
Whoever thinks of exchange P Socialists talk glibly, in spite of the historical refutation of Marx's assertion, of the time when the workers will turn against the capitalists. I know the futility of such nonsense, for there is something more decisive, something bloodier if you like, but which God forbid, --the time when the workers will turn against the charity. mongers. The stock-in-trade of a Socialist is the extremes of wealth and the deplorable poverty around us all, but I know something nobler, and you too know it. He is here In our midst in thousands, the honest, fearless, independent work- man. The only way to make wealth realise its responsibilities is ourselves to realise our responsibilities. I do not fear for democracy then. I do fear when men snivel for doles.
As has been often said in the Spectator, the workman is not thinking of the rich ; he is going forward, going up the slope,—mark the better position of his children. My father was a gardener, and has had five children, has been a Forester for forty-two years, and I hope when his family and children sit around him he "inherits the earth." Can you wonder that I have such faith in the family ? And I am typical. There are thousands, Sir, here and now, but I wish more would see in the British Constitution Association a means of striking for [In case the literary ability of this letter should make those who are ignorant of the working class at first hand doubt its authenticity, we may say that the writer is known to us, and that he is a working man at weekly wages. He is what the majority of English workmen are naturally, and will remain if we do not ruin them by the evil doctrine that they are not to rely upon their own efforts, but are to become the parasites of an illusory abstraction called the State.—En. Spectator.]
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