attained by a violent revolution, and it adds, "that the transformation of society would not take place. according to the preconceived ideas of any reformer, but on the initiation of the entire labouring classes -whatever the last vague clause may mean, which is both mysterious and partly contradictory to the preceding, because the "preconceived ideas of reformers," and in particular those of himself and of Louis Blanc, are laid down as at least general goals.

In 1864 Karl Marx founded the International Society, intended as a sort of universal Trades' Union, aiming at first, as M. de Laveleye says, at

raising wages; but later on, when the influence of Marx was overridden, at a transformation of society, if needs were, by revolution." The first manifesto of the International, conceived by Marx, points to cooperative production as the goal, but says that an understanding among all the workmen of all countries will be necessary. Now one sees that to make strikes and combinations effective, there should be an agreement amongst the working classes to support each other; e.g. that if the workers in any branch of production in England should strike, foreign workers should not come over from Belgium or Denmark to take their place; for if they do, the capitalist could defy his hands at home. One also sees how, if there were funds subscribed by all, a part could be transferred to any given place in any country to enable a local strike to resist. This we can see; though it was somewhat Utopian to expect that such a plan would long continue. We do not see how an international understanding is needed to realize co-operative pro

K

duction, except, indeed, so far as the capitalist might, if foreign cheap labour were imported, sooner starve the co-operative producers by underselling. But for this purpose an understanding of mutual interests, without the founding of a society with subscriptions, would seem sufficient. Or the workmen in each country might agitate till they forced their Government to forbid the importation of cheap foreign labourers.

Marx had, at the commencement of his career, urged the necessity of the working men getting first their political rights, in order to make their influence felt in the State, which was also the idea of Louis Blanc, as it was of the leaders of the English Chartists. But in the International Congress at Brussels in 1868, it appears that the Congress repudiated State action. If so, either Marx's influence and ideas were discounted, or he had changed his views. By making their influence felt in the State, he thought in 1864 that beneficial legislation might be secured for the working classes, and that gradually, without revolution, cooperative labour, without the capitalist, might be introduced. After the Congress of 1873 Marx retired into private life to finish the second volume of the book that has made him famous-" Das Kapital," in which whatever may have been his previous views his final ones are given, and in which Collectivism is indicated as a goal, without, however, being expounded

4 He had previously published, in 1847, "Misère de la Philosophie," in answer to Proudhon's "Philosophie de la Misère," and in 1859, "A Critique of Political Economy," the latter mostly reproduced in "Das Kapital."

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as a system, or without making it clear whether he occupies the evolutionary or revolutionary standpoint. At all events, the argument on which Collectivism, the new Socialism, rests, is given at great length, and with much repetition.

II.

THE new Socialists say that the previous efforts failed because they were Utopian, and because the fulness of time was not come for the experiments. Industry, on the grand scale, had not universalized itself, the evil of the existing system had not sufficiently declared itself, the State had not shown what it could do in the sphere of industry, and the people had not got political power. The conditions are all different to-day. Moreover, the Socialists say, "We will not this time commit the mistakes of the past Socialists; we will not abolish private property, but only considerably limit it; we don't propose to do away with inheritance, as the St. Simonians did, only we shall so arrange that there will not be overgrown private fortunes to leave; but we do propose to do away with profits, with rents, and, above all, with interest, the taking of money for the use of money. There shall only be wages which will be increased by what now goes to rent and interest, and each one's share shall be in proportion to the amount of his work. The land and capital must henceforth belong to the State for the good of all, instead of being private property for the good of a few, and to the detriment

of the many. Such is the just ideal for which the time is ripe."

This new Socialism appeals to political economy, and it appeals to history; moreover, it appeals to ethics. It calls itself Scientific Socialism, and for these reasons it must be regarded with much more seriousness than any previous form. All would seem to turn on whether the appeals to economics and ethics justify the conclusion drawn from them, and accordingly it becomes necessary to examine the arguments of Karl Marx, and his views on capital and its origin, with some attention and at some length.

According to Marx, there are three main stages in the history of industry: First, the stage of the handicrafts; secondly, the stage of what he calls (not very accurately) manufactures and division of labour, though without much help from machinery; thirdly, the stage of the great machine-produced industry— the modern stage in which we still are. In the first stage, which lasted from time immemorial—at least from the days of Tubal Cain-the handicraftsman owned the few instruments of his art, and the results of his labour were his without deduction. If the materials on which he wrought were likewise his, the product was his absolutely and completely; if, as might happen with some craftsmen, as the tailor or the shoemaker, he wrought on the materials, the cloth or leather, of another, he received a customary price for his labour. There was no employer who made a profit out of his labour. A small qualification only needs to be made to this. From the Middle Ages

onwards, under guild or corporation regulations, a master workman might have two or three apprentices and as many journeymen, the latter at daily wages, in which case the master had, of course, some small profits, and might, perhaps, be considered as an embryonic or potential capitalist in the Socialist

sense.

It is in the next stage, however, that the capitalist proper appears, though only half-fledged. In this stage, which came necessarily with the advantages of division of labour, masters employed men at agreedon daily or weekly wages, generally paying them as low as possible, and being always, as Adam Smith affirms, in a kind of tacit combination for that purpose, so far, at least, as concerned the average rate, though particular individuals sometimes found it to their interest to pay higher. In Socialist phrase, they "exploited the workers "-used them to make a profit out of their labour. Why did the handicraftsman work for them? In general, he had no choice. Either he could not compete with the larger producers, or, as generally happened, there was no question of competition, because only associated labour under an employer was possible. Where the product consisted of many parts, or the process of making involved several successive operations, as in Adam Smith's example of pin-making, or when the commodity itself was large as well as made up of parts, the factory, or workshop, or workyard, necessarily came into existence, bringing with it a large number of men in one place, who received wages from an employer.