.

What then is the Socialist complaint against the existing constitution of society? It may be summed up in the one word, inequality. Quoting from Karl Marx, Schaffle speaks of 'a growing mass of misery, oppression, slavery, degradation, exploitation.' Schaffle himself speaks of 'the plutocratic process of dividing the nation into an enormous proletariat on the one side and a few millionaires on the other.' If any one wants to be saturated with boiling rhetoric on this topic, let him open the Fabian Essays at random, or dip into the pages of Henry George's Progress and Poverty and Social Problems. Or, if the reader is in search of quite as good rhetoric, but tempered by a good deal more common sense, let him carefully read through The Social Problem, by Professor William Graham, especially chapter vi, 'The Social Residuum.' Mr. Graham does not hold that what he calls the social residuum is an increasing mass. The Fabian essayists and the Continental Socialists always affirm that it is, and Dr. Schaffle in the quotation already given appears to accept Marx's view. [From: The Impracticability of Socialism, by Edward Stanley Robertson, Para. I.8]

Surely it is the absence of all these a priori vapourings, common to Locke, Rousseau, and Henry George, which renders the writings of Hobbes so fascinating and so instructive. [From: The Limits of Liberty, by Wordsworth Donisthorpe, Para. II.5]

Yet a man will hardly travel right round the world without learning that there is something to learn, and Sir Charles Dilke has done one service to the reading and thinking public here by discovering, and then frankly and clearly pointing out that State Socialism entirely permeates the ruling classes in Australia, and inspires the policy of ministries and legislatures there. 'In Victoria,' he says (i. 185), 'State Socialism has completely triumphed.' Nearly all previous writers on Australasia have failed to see that, and have discussed colonial borrowing. Protective Tariffs, hindrances to immigration and to the growth of population, the Labour question, Free State Education, &c., as though they were so many isolated or detachable phenomena. They are not isolated or accidental, but have all the same origin, being in their later phases merely the necessary product of half-digested socialistic ideas and theories. Sir Charles Dilke makes Victoria his principal text, no doubt because it is easier to get information, good or bad, about the finances, administration and general condition of that colony than of the others. Such facilities are mainly due to what might be called accident, that is to say, to the superior status and activity of the newspaper Press, in a country where newspapers may exercise immense influence. In New South Wales the daily Press is virtually represented by one enormously wealthy journal, 'The Sydney Morning Herald,' which now prudently expounds a dull opportunism, as far as colonial problems are concerned. It would be harsh and almost inhuman to criticise seriously the Adelaide (South Australian) newspapers. There is a true saying in the antipodes that 'nothing ever happens in South Australia,' although Mr. Henry George announces frequently that his views are making great progress there. The Brisbane newspapers perhaps cannot - they certainly do not - lead or direct public opinion intelligently. In New Zealand there is no single town population wealthy enough to support a really great newspaper, and the Press is poverty-stricken and uninfluential. In contrast to all this, during the last twenty years the people of Victoria have chanced to be served by two daily newspapers, as ably conducted, wealthy, and powerful as any printed in the English language. Englishmen are beginning to forget that it was once asserted, with some truth, that the London newspapers 'governed England.' While our innumerable London newspapers are, perhaps, wisely abandoning the attempt to steer English opinion, the Melbourne 'Argus' and the Melbourne 'Age' still conscientiously keep up the old fiction, and between them do govern and misgovern the colony. Their rivalry has been in many ways profitable to the colony. They make certain blunders and abuses - allowed to pass in the neighboring colonies - impossible, and try to keep a search-light turned on to the administration. They do not quite succeed. Sir Charles Dilke, adopting views put forward by masters of 'bounce' and reclame here, who have done so much to finance colonial State Socialism, asserts (i. 243) that we in England 'understand the way in which they float their loans' (in Victoria), 'and their system of bookkeeping;... and we are well informed as to the objects on which their debts (sic) are spent'; adding (ii. 230), 'that no one who knows the public offices of South Australia, Victoria, or Tasmania can accuse them of more laxity in the management of public business than is to be found in Downing Street itself.' [From: State Socialism in the Antipodes, by Charles Fairfield, Para. IV.7]

Victorian Trade Unionists concentrated in one or two large towns have of late years been allowed by the cowardice or apathy of all other classes in the colony to monopolize political power. Although Trade Unionists still jealously dislike to see men belonging to their special class in Parliament they have long 'owned' ministers and legislators, and thus obtained peaceable but complete control over the public purse.* They can pledge the credit of the colony in order to finance railways and public works which provide them, on their own terms, with 'State' employment and set the market rate of wages. In the course of a debate on Protection versus Free Trade held in the Concert Hall of the Melbourne Exhibition building before 2,000 people on the 8th April, 1890, between Mr. Henry George and Mr. Trenwith, the latter - a member of the Legislative Assembly for one of the Melbourne divisions and President of the Trades Hall Council-boasted, with truth, that 'The Trade Unionists, wanting respectable houses, with a carpet on the floor and a piano, as well as good clothes and education for their children, told the legislators - their servants: - "Put a duty on such and such goods for us." ' Sir Charles Dilke notices (ii. 275), that 'there is no timidity in the South Sea Colonies with regard to taxation upon land,' and intimates (i. 193), that the Victorian land tax - turned into a penal enactment by the radical party after their triumph in 1877 as an act of vengeance on their opponents - 'is certain to be extended whenever the colony is in want of money.' This tax, our author truly says (ii. 275), has caused 'a certain depression' - subjective timidity perhaps. Colonial ministries now find easier ways of raising money than by a land tax; but as long as the power remains of imposing taxes on large landowners, in order to payoff loans contracted and expended without the latter's consent or approval, the setting up of barricades, burning cities, and shooting hostages will always be, for Australian State Socialists, works of supererogation. [From: State Socialism in the Antipodes, by Charles Fairfield, Para. IV.11]

If our domestic socialists 'in the French and English sense,' effectually controlled the Imperial Treasury, they might renounce felonious talk, cease to foment mutiny in the British Army and become Conservatives - in the best sense of the term. Sir Charles Dilke seems at one moment to realise how thoroughly practical are the aims and aspirations of the ruling class in Victoria, for he says (ii. 303), 'The Christianity that they understand is an assertion of the claim of the masses to rise in the scale of humanity.' This kind of Christianity has been understood in the same sense by the dominant classes in all ages and countries - from landowners, lay and clerical, in mediaeval times, down to British middle-class employers and capitalists of a couple of generations ago - who controlled the national purse strings. All those people honestly believed in turn that they were 'the masses' - in the best sense of the term - and they raised themselves in the scale of humanity, at the public expense, accordingly. Meanwhile our author fails to see that Colonial Federated Labour or Trade Unionism cares little for abstract ideas. It is doubtful whether British artisans anywhere have hitherto cared much about them; the founders of the International and the leaders of the Comteist movement in this country at all events considered it doubtful after years of experiment. Australian Trade Unionists - if occasionally given to violence and prone to break their engagements - are as good-natured, friendly, affable and well-conducted as the representatives of any dominant class of Britons that history tells of. They are fond of amusement, manly sports, and betting on horse races. The same might have been said of that large class who at the end of the last century lived and thrived on the Irish Pension List. Sir Charles Dilke seems further to have imagined that even if Australian working-class democrats abjured 'Revolutionary' Socialism 'in the French and English sense,' they must at least hanker after land nationalization. He is pleased to find that they do not. Yet why should they? Unless the Australian Trade Unionist sees 30s. a week extra for himself in any State Socialistic movement he takes no interest whatsoever in it. There is no profit, direct or indirect, for any human being in nationalization of the land, hence in Australasia land nationalizers, or single tax leaguers, are, politically, about as influential and important a body as, let us say, the Swedenborgians in this country. In March 1890, Mr. Henry George visited Australasia. He became an object of curiosity and attention there, partly because of recent years many colonial politicians, especially in Queensland and New Zealand, have suffered from a chronic indigestion of his theories. Sir Robert Stout, Mr. Ballance, Mr. Dutton and Sir S. Griffith have each tinkered, in fragmentary, mischievous and futile fashion, with the Land Legislation of their colonies on Mr. George's lines. Colonists however insisted, in 1890, on studying Mr. George as a Free Trader, and the local socialists, who are perhaps more logical than Mr. George is, refused to believe that Free Trade - which is so wrapped up with equal liberty to make contracts, unrestricted competition, self-help, cheap necessaries and other 'individualist' delusions - could work in with Nationalization of the Land, one of the most extreme developments of State Interference and State Socialism. Mr. Henry George, as an incoherent Free Trader, managed to puzzle and offend, instead of converting, Australian socialists who, quite logically, are Protectionists also. The fact, noticed by Sir Charles Dilke, that masses and classes in the colonies are now alike deeply interested in land 'booms' and in keeping up the value of freeholds, further explains Mr. Henry George's recent decisive rebuff there. [From: State Socialism in the Antipodes, by Charles Fairfield, Para. IV.12]

To show what is asked for in France, we may state that an administrative commission was appointed, in 1883, by the Prefet of the Seine in order to study the question relative to the creation in Paris of cheap dwellings. A score of projects and petitions were examined by this commission, a labour which has not yet borne fruit. Nationalisation of the soil according to the gospel of Henry George, and schemes for lotteries were agreeably mixed. One councillor demanded in the interest of the town of Paris the confiscation of the soil within the circle of fortifications, and the compensation of landlords by means of communal bonds secured by mortgage and redeemable. M. Lerouge proposed the construction, by the town, of three-storied houses on the land adjoining the fortifications within the walls by means of capital raised (1) by a loan of 300 millions of francs, (2) by a tax of 2 francs per head on every one coming to Paris from a distance greater than twenty-five kilometres. The Federative Socialist Union of the Centre demands the application of the surplus of the forthcoming budget, to the construction by the town of Paris of workmen's dwellings, and the establishment of a tax of 20 per cent. on dwellings remaining unoccupied for a month. We meet also many proposals for a lottery with a capital of a milliard of francs, for the purpose of making dwellings for those members of the Parisian proletariat whose income does not exceed a certain figure. [From: The Housing of the Working-Classes and of the Poor, by Arthur Raffalovich, in Para. VIII. 17]

50. Mr. Mathew Macfie, in a paper read before the Colonial Institute, Dec. 10, 1889, designed to show that the Australian colonies were crippled and restricted by lack of population, and efficient labour, says, 'The operatives in Victoria are organized into a compact phalanx under leaders who have succeeded by dogged persistence in imbuing the colony with the notion that they constitute the party which controls voting power at elections. So widely is this assumption believed that candidates at a Parliamentary Election, to whom salary or political influence is a consideration, defer with real or affected humility to the wishes of the Trades Hall Council in Melbourne. The inevitable outcome of this state of political subjection on the part of the members of the House, and in many cases of the Government also, is the injustice of class legislation.' Sir Charles Dilke, writing perhaps from the point of view of an 'inhabitant' of a quarter of a century ago, describes (ii. 316), the great respect felt for the Trades Councils, and their almost invariable wisdom, moderation, sense of responsibility, and marked spirit of justice.

Mr. Macfie, who spent several years in Victoria, and only returned in 1889, is however a specially valuable witness, because he lived right in the centre of the Protectionist and State Socialist camp, having been editor of a powerful weekly journal, mainly owned by the same gentleman whom Sir Charles Dilke styles (ii. 272) 'the Founder of Australian Protection,' adding that 'he might easily, had chance so willed it, have made in the world the same name that has been made in later days by Mr. Henry George, having put forward in most eloquent and powerful language the same principles at a much earlier date.' In the Antipod Evolution, of course, proceeds a rebours, and the Founder of Protection in question, who might, had chance so willed it, have become the rival of Mr. Henry George, although he still diverts his admirers, whose pennies and patronage are making him a millionaire, with cheap denunciation of capitalism and landlordism, is today the wealthiest landowner in the colony.