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    lute necessity to those who can only live by working ; they , the all-powerful capitalists , whether granting or withholding such boon , remaining idle themselves , yet enjoying all the comforts which can only be produced by labour . Capitalists are the barons of modern industrial feudalism , and labourers are their vassals . ' « But what is the origin of this capital" ask the workers , " which is estee med so sacred that labour , if not required by it , must perish ? Capital—the fashionable political economists tell us—is but hoarded labour , but how comes it to pass , then , that labourers who become capitalists , when they cease working , and must , consequently , live upon a constantly-decreasing hoard , as we should think , not only do not grow poorer but continue to grow richer t Granting for the moment that a workman may possess as his own the savings of his own

    industry and may make over these savings , by gift or bequest , to some other person ( who thus may be rich without ever having worked at all ) , how does it happen that a man can start out from the ranks of the labourers , and—receiving no gift , no bequest—become richer and richer by merely directing the labour of others , until perhaps he attains to the full-blown honours of a millionaire ? It is by the ' system of unequal exchanges ; by the right which modern society secures to the capitalist of taking advantage of the labourer ' s necessity to give him , in in the form of This

    exchange for his labour , less than its just value , wages . right , possessed by all who have over all who have not , enables the capitalist to abstract from the fruits of the working-man ' industry that which he calls his profit ; which profit he again uses to set more labour in action , in order that more profit may be abstracted . He , therefore , pays the workman to-day by a part of the produce which he has taken from him yesterday ; and this process , carried on day after day , and exerted on a larger and larger number of labourers , sufficiently accounts for the millionaires of our existing social system .

    " But , apart from the matter of unequal exchanges , " say these philosophers , " we cannot allow that a man has even a right to the savings of his own industry . It is seen at once that this right might be exerted , by gift or bequest , so as to raise into the position of rich men those who had never worked in their lives ; but we deny the right in itself , even if gift or bequest were prohibited . Private property is an usurpation on the part of the individuals who hold it . All property can only justly belong to the People , who , through the medium of their Government , must superintend all the operations of production and distribution , for the equal benefit of all the citizens of the state .

    " It is evident , " say they , " that the earth exists for the benefit of the creatures who are produced upon it ; and from the earth comes all wealth , either directly fitted for use , or to be afterwards worked up into various conditions by the industry and ingenuity of mankind . We have , therefore , to learn by who * : right certain men originally appropriated certain portions of land , and shut out their fellow-creatures for ever afterwards from these . If it be argued that cultivation of land , not at first usefully productive , gave a fair claim to the land , we admit that , if the state of society were benefited by individual occupation , and consequent cultivation , a legitimate claim at once is set up for the fruits of such cultivation ; but no society could justly do more than guarantee a

    tern-THE RADICAL ASPECT OF SOCIALISM . The Trench Revolution of 1848 brought into the light of day a fact which had long been known to those who watch the growth of opinion—that the discussions of Innovatives and Conservatives must now bear much more upon Social laws than political forms . Where freedom of tongue and pen and printingpress had been allowed , the right of the people to make the laws which were to govern them had been tacitly or directly admitted—and the question had dwindled into one of mere time—one party asserting that the acknowledged right should at once be universally granted , the other begging for delay , selecting this class as fit , rejecting that class as not yet fit , and practising the other " official" shufflings and condescensions usual with little great men .

    The principle of Democracy is ceded . No sane King now asserts a " divine right" to rule : he reigns by " the will of the people . " No nobleman of sagacity now confesses himself noble for any other reason than " the good of the whole community . " The people is everywhere acknowledged as the source of all legal power . Wherever political thought has been free this has been the result ; and the adult male population has either come actually to exercise power , or has come to the prospect of being soon able to exercise it . Democracy thus being established as the dominant principle of western the

    society , and discussion on the principle being almost at an end , question which next presents itself for settlement is the organization of Democracy . « s Certainly , " says the working-man , " I have my vote , or shall have it soon , they say . But what must I vote for ? This society of rich and poor , of high and low , of wise and ignorant , of good and bad , in which I find myself working for my bread—or trying so to work—how came it to be ? Is it the " best of all worlds" ? for really I can ' t think it very good ! Most certainly it was not formed under the system of Democracy , but under the very opposite system . It is the business of Democrats , then , to examine—and unsparingly , toointo the old aristocratic society which is existing around us in this day of

    Democracy . And , with the candour of newly-felt power , have the working classes and the friends of the working classes , devoted themselves to this great enquiry . Religion , government , ethics , industrial arrangements , sexual arrangements , have been studied from their new point of view ; and on all these departments of society , their conclusions have been startlingly different from those which have hitherto passed current . The method in which democracy proposes to organize itself , is found to be in an entirely new system of society . This threatened organization of democracy , known as Socialism , is the existing fact which has frightened aristocracy all over the western part of the world .

    Now , in Socialism , as in every other subject of human thought , there are two parties—the extreme and the moderate—the uncompromising and the compromising—the radical and the conservative . Though Socialism is itself the organization of democracy , it has yet its aristocratic and democratic teachers . These two modes of mind will , of course , suggest different views on all departments of society—but , practically , the discussion narrows itself to the

    consideration of the law of property—for upon the understanding of this matter it is felt that nil the rest depends ; and it comes naturally first , inasmuch as subsistence is the first need of mankind . The radicals of Socialism , profess Communism , and are , in theory , opposed to all private pretensions whatever ; the conservatives of Socialism maintain that the capitalist—the holder of private property—must over exist ; and , that to attempt to organize labour without regard to this truth is , in fact , to plant ji tree with its roots in the air . Let us first glance at the

    creed of the Communists . When u man who lives by his labour in the present day considers his social position , lie finds that ho is one of a largo number of men who are dependent for their very food on a small number of men called " capitalists , " who can , with impunity , grant or withhold the boon of work—notwithstanding its

    ubsoporary individual occupation of the land—and , consequently , of the fruits of the cultivation of it—and , consequently , of the institution of private property itself . Other generations of human beings , succeeding the generations who granted to individuals the occupation of certain portions of land , may revoke thsse grants ; and revoke them with even more justice than they were originally granted . Private property is , therefore , a conventional , not a natural right . It continues as long as the People wills that it shall continue , and ceases when the People wills that it shall cease . As long as it is considered good that competition should be the basis of the social system , the institution of Private Property is upheld as the great stimulus to competition ; but when cooperation , in the progress of mankind , comes to be viewed as a more noble social basis , is establishedand the next hase of

    then the institution of Public Property , p human development commences . All are born equally the children of the State , and are treated equally . Labour , being shared by all , is held in the highest honour It is , besides , rendered as attractive as possible by spacious and beautiful workshops—by the most perfect appliances in each operation—by short duration and alternation of employment—by agreeable companionship-and by its unimportant amount , in consequence of the extensive use of the most improved machinery , thus made to work with the workman , instead of against him , as at present Society , so organized , views its citizens not primarily as individuals , but as units of the great total Humanity ; the weak being supported by the strong , the ignorant enlightened by the wise , and all moved on to a still higher development by the collective activity . "

    This is the way in which we may imagine a Communist to enforce his creed . That Communism is a logical development of admitted truths in Political Economy , we believe ; and , now that Communists are ceasing to ignore all writers of the orthodox school , their position will most certainly be greatly strengthened . The methods in which Socialist teachers have presented the doctrines of Communism have varied , of course , according to the nature of the teachers . the

    Some have addressed themselves more to the feelings ; others to reason . Owen has contented himself with the constant and monotonous utterance oi a few valuable axioms . Cabbt has constructed a whole Communist world on paper , and stimulated , with great success , the imaginations of his readers . Louis Blanc has eloquently denounced the horrors of competition , and devoteu himself to the organization of workmen for the cooperative life . Proudkonthe intellectual , self-willed Puouduon , who refuses the name of Communist , and yet whom we must claim for Communism-has proved the most terrible oncmy to the institution of private property who has yet appeared , ixis " Qu ' est-ce quo la propriete " has damaged the capitalists beyond repair ; wluisc in this , and his other works , ho has done no less good for the cause ot

    Communism , by demolishing many errors of its promulgators . In a subsequent paper we shall show what the conservatives of Socialismthe advocates of the " rights of the capitalist "—have to say for themselves ,

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    Jemima , whose fanaticism had gradually melted all away , saw the mistake lie was in . She said , plainly and earnestly , what she thought ; but , when she saw that her husband ' religious feelings were engaged in the matter , and that his will was roused , she let the subject drop . When the child could run about and prattle , and was so pretty that the Quaker-like young mother actually put the glossy hair in papers , and made dressy pinafores for her darling , the dreaded smallpox appeared . The child escaped death , but very narrowly ; and her face was pitted and seamed so as to leave no trace of beauty . It did not lighten the affliction , that Richard still declared he was right . She bore it quietly , and . there was little alteration in her cheerful voice when she spoke of the ravage .

    They rose steadily , on the whole , with occasional drawbacks . There were more children ; there was a larger business . At last , on Saturday nights , there was a respectable shop-front to close , and a considerable stock to arrange for Monday morning . On Sundays a group of children came out to walk hand-in-hand to chapel , with their father in good broad cloth , and their mother in black silk behind them . The Barclays left the city long ago ; but , when one of them pays an occasional visit in the neighbourhood , the brisk little woman , in black silk , is sure to be seen presently coming up to the house ; her innocent face looks in eagerly at the window , and the chirping voice is heard in the hall . There was nothing in her young days so impetuous as the grasp of the hand that the Barclays have from her when they meet at intervals of years .

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• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 14, 1850, page 908, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1862/page/20/