the healthy fructification of industry. it diminishes the consuming and productive energies of the people, and it rests with the State to prove at every moment that the employment of the money which it raises conduces to a greater commercial profit than if it had been left to private persons to use, or else that the money is needed for purposes which have to be justified on grounds of necessity quite apart from economic ones." The quotation is from an address by Mr. Winston Churchill, and it would be difficult to put the point more clearly or more concisely.

I have thus far assumed that the fiscal demands of the State are met by a deduction from current expenditure. They may, on the other hand, be met by inroads upon savings, potential or actual. It requires no demonstration to prove that in that case the effect upon labor-employment would be still more deplorable, though there are politicians who would appear to regard the matter with indifference. "My proposals resolve themselves into this—that the rich should have less to hoard up or to squander on riotous living, whilst the poor should have more wherewith to purchase the common necessaries of life." The words form the conclusion of an article on A Labor Budget from the pen of Mr. Keir Hardie. With his aspiration that the "poor may have more to spend" everyone will sympathize.

This eminently desirable end is to be attained, be it observed, either by a deduction from the "hoards" of the wealthy, or from the amount squandered upon riotous living. Whether the money is derived from the one source or the other would seem to Mr. Hardie to be a matter of indifference. And yet, as we have seen, the distinction is one of vital importance to the wage-earning class. Deduct the money

To the Financial Reform Association at Liverpool in 1908.

↑ "Popular Financial Booklets " vii, p. 14.

destined for the poor from the amount "squandered upon riotous living," and you will do no permanent harm to anybody. You may, indeed, inflict some inconvenience, or even hardship, upon the producers and purveyors of luxuries, and upon those who, in their several ways, minister to the riotous livers; but the hardship may be temporary, while the advantages may be enduring. If, on the contrary, you deduct it from the "hoards of the wealthy," the result will be very different. "Hoarding" is a word of ugly and ill-omened connotation. It conjures up a vision of some wicked medieval baron piling up ill-gotten booty in the strong room of his ancestral castle, or of a modern miser hugging his bags of gold. And yet I take it to be nothing else than a synonym for commonplace capital.

My proposals [says Mr. Hardie with refreshing ingenuousness] would not tax savings or in any way penalize thrift. They would, however, prevent the accumulation of very large fortunes. . . . A person of average intelligence does not require to be a Socialist to understand that if a disproportionate share of the wealth which is yearly produced by the industry of the nation is allowed to accumulate in the hands of families to an extent far beyond their capacity to spend, trade must suffer to that extent. 8

It may be thought that I owe an apology to the readers of this Review for quoting a sentence so transparently fallacious. I make no apology, for I believe that these words are extraordinarily representative of a confusion of thought which is not peculiar to Mr. Hardie and his immediate associates. How he would propose to avoid the taxation of "savings," and at the same time discourage and dissipate the "hoarding" of the rich, I leave it to him to explain. But I invite attention to the words which I have italicized. What 8 Op. cit. p. 14.

is the idea connoted by them? Is it not that of wealth withdrawn by some malignant and mysterious process from "circulation"? If families "accumulate" wealth "beyond their capacity to spend," they must, we are to assume, put it away in an old stocking! But I do Mr. Hardie an injustice: there is another alternative; they may put it out to "usury"! "Trade," says Mr. Hardie, "is dependent upon the circulation of commodities, and when large sums are yearly extracted from the national income and put out to usury either at home or abroad, just to that extent is the spending power of the people crippled." There would be something pathetic in the confusion of thought revealed by such language, were it not employed by one who is sufficiently confident of his financial skill to formulate a cut and dried Labor Budget. But the real significance of such sentiments lies not in the fact that they are enunciated by Mr. Hardie, but that they are to-day accepted as economic gospel by hundreds of thousands of our fellow-citizens. One point may be gladly conceded to Mr. Hardie. We should prefer to see ten thousand men each in possession of 1000l. of capital than one man in possession of 10,000,000l. But the essential point, in the interest of the community, is that whether in the hands of one individual or of ten thousand, it should exist as "capital" or "hoard," and not be expended as revenue. This is a truth which is unfortunately hidden from many people besides Mr. Hardie. It is fortunate that his ingenuousness allows him to reveal a fallacy which lurks unsuspected in many more elaborate and sophisticated arguments. This brings us back to Canon Barnett.

IV.

Canon Barnett's article raises an issue even wider than those which I

have, thus far, discussed. "Poverty," in his view, "is at the root of our present discontent, not the poverty which the Poor Law and Charity are to relieve, but the poverty of the great mass of the workers." Is he right?

The existence of "poverty" cannot be denied. The term itself is a relative one, but it is an undeniable and deplorable fact that a considerable section of the population-not "the great mass of the workers"-live habitually on the border line of subsistence. No one doubts that it would be an immense gain, ethical, political, and economic, if this section could be permanently lifted well above that line. Incidentally, I would remark that the significance of much statistical argument is discounted by a common and very natural error. In such statistics it is assumed that the economic unit is the individual wage-earner. One who is personally familiar with the conditions of life among the wage-earners knows that in many parts of England the real economic unit is the family. That is more particularly the case in the great districts where textile manufactures form the staple industry. At the opening of the present Session, Mr. Snowden greatly impressed the House of Commons by pointing out that "even in the greatest of manufacturing industries, the cotton trade, where trade unionism had become a tradition, 21 per cent. of the adult men for full time earned less than 11. a week, and 48 per cent. of the adult men received for full time less than 258. per week." The argument was singularly infelicitous as urged in support of a demand for a legal minimum wage. For everyone who is acquainted with Lancashire knows that there is not, in the whole world, a more highly organized industry than the Lancashire cotton trade, that in no trade are profits cut more fine, and that nowhere is the earning of the individual a less accurate index

to the income of the economic unit. But this is an incidental point.

Canon Barnett argues that poverty is the root cause of discontent, and that poverty is due to unsatisfactory legislation. "Law" (he writes), "which has determined the lines which the present distribution of the national income follows, might determine others which would make the poor richer and the rich poorer." Does he really suppose that the existing distribution of the national income depends upon the enactments of the Legislature? If so, what are the laws to which he more particularly refers? It is true that the law recognizes, within certain limits, the right of testamentary disposition and the right of inheritance. Is it seriously suggested that these laws are responsible for wealth on the one side and poverty on the other? Has he never heard of the Lancashire aphorism: "Clogs to clogs in three generations"? And it is not only in Lancashire that a fool and his money are soon parted. "Clogs to clogs" implies more than this. It means that there is no caste system in trade. Of course the inheritor of capital gets some advantage in the race; but he is frequently handicapped in other directions. It would surprise a great many people to learn how many of the successful men of business have started at the bottom, still more, how many of their grandchildren or great-grandchildren sink again to the same level. There is still in trade a career open to talent, if not absolute equality of opportunity. What Canon Barnett seems to be aiming at is a further restriction of the right of inheritance or, in plain words, an increase in the "death" duties. Such duties have doubtless taken a permanent place in our financial system, but it is not impertinent to ask how the manual workers are to be benefited by a transformation of capital into revenue? All classes of

the community are vitally interested in the abundance of cheap capital: most of all the classes who live by manual labor. But how will capital be cheapened by treating large lumps of it as revenue? If the revenue derived from the death duties were consistently applied to the extinction of debt, there would be nothing to be said against them on economic grounds. To treat accumulated capital as income can only lead, in the long run, to financial confusion, if not disaster. The value of capital has appreciated to the extent of something like 25 per cent. in the last fifteen years, and that in spite of a rapid increase in its aggregate amount. Many explanations of this appreciation have been suggested. Has sufficient account been taken of the gradual but continuous attrition of capital by contemporary methods of taxation?

I have ventured to question the accuracy of Canon Barnett's assertion that "the great mass of the workers" are living in a condition of poverty. But poverty is a relative term, and I admit that it is as difficult to disprove as to prove the statement. Even were it proved, however, I should nevertheless dispute the force of the argument which is founded upon it. Is it true to say that it is "the poverty of the great multitude of work-people

which is the chief source of the pres ent discontent"? To those who hold that it is I venture to submit the following questions:

Is it not the case that discontent is most noticeable to-day in the best-paid occupations, and among workers who are admittedly well above the povertyline? I do not, of course, suggest that during the last few years "unrest" has been confined to these classes. The phenomenon has been well-nigh universal in the ranks of "labor." But no one who has any intimate knowledge of those ranks can doubt that the discontent has been and is most deep-rooted

among the comparatively well-to-do: the miner, the railway-worker, and the highly skilled artisan.

How is this to be explained? Not so much, I believe, by poverty, as by a sense of incongruity between the industrial status of the manual worker on the one hand, and, on the other, his political status and intellectual outlook. Thanks to the provision of educational facilities, the intellectual horizon of the manual worker has been, to an amazing extent, widened during the last thirty years. Politically, also, he has attained to the full stature of manhood. Industrially, however, he is still under authority, bound to take his orders from men who are his political equals, and in educational attainment not markedly his superiors. Between the ordinary "private" in the ranks of labor and his immediate superior, the non-commissioned officer-the overlooker or foreman,-there exists a very great deal of friction. Nor is the fault all on one side. To the fully enfranchised citizen the sense of industrial discipline becomes increasingly irksome, while the foreman finds his subordinates increasingly "awkward," suspicious, and sensitive. Further, the manual worker has another complaint against "authority." It is not merely harsh and overbearing, but in some cases grossly incompetent. When that is the case, the worker sees his economic position jeopardized by causes which he has no sort of control. partly this sense of impotence to avert industrial disaster which has given strength to the Syndicalist movement. The Syndicalist is no doubt primarily concerned to transfer the employer's profits to his own pockets; but a secondary motive is a desire to obtain industrial control: to get rid of the "boss"; to make the manager or entrepreneur his nominee instead of his The Nineteenth Century and After.

over

It is

master. The Syndicalist sees no reason why labor should not in future hire "directors," just as at present directors hire labor. Nor, indeed, is there any reason. If the Syndicalist will go a step further and hire not only brains but land and capital as well, he may make as many experiments as he chooses, and most people will, with all sincerity, wish him success.

The meaning and aim of Syndicalism I have, however, recently discussed in some detail in the pages of this Review. My immediate purpose is a different one. It is to express a very serious doubt as to the accuracy of Canon Barnett's diagnosis of the social diseases of our day, and still more seriously to question the efficacy of the remedy which he prescribes. That the poverty of certain sections of the laboring population is one of the contributory causes of the prevailing unrest I do not for a moment deny; but I submit that to describe "the great multitude of the working people as steeped in poverty" is a palpable exaggeration; that conditions in this respect are not deteriorating but improving, though less rapidly than one could wish; that it is not the wealth of the wealthy which can be held responsible for poverty; and, finally, that of all possible prescriptions for the extinction of poverty the most preposterous and the least efficacious is an attack upon accumulated wealth. It would be affectation to deny that the spoliator may get some fun out of the fruits of plunder; but his merriment will be shortlived. The game is not one which can be frequently repeated, still less can it be played indefinitely. Is it worth while to play it at all? Still more: is it wise or right for men in authority to incite to such profitless and ephemeral amusement?

J. A. R. Marriott.

9 "Syndicalism and Socialism," November, 1912.

Not until events have assumed their place in history is it possible to see them in proper perspective or to appreciate their true significance. But it is commonly felt, and there would seem every evidence to foster the belief, that as a nation we are passing through an unprecedented revolution.

During the last two decades the old order has been consistently yielding place to the new in every department of man's thought and activity. The spread of science, the growth of popular education, and the resultant advance of democracy have been busily working upon the plastic life of society, moulding it, with alarming precision, into the new shapes which are manifesting themselves, firm and fixed, to-day. Old standards have been ruthlessly torn into shreds by impetuous hands; new beacon lights have begun to glow upon the horizon, and new war-cries to echo from the house-tops. Science and education, hand in hand, the former weeding out the tares of superstition and the latter carrying with her the seed of a new assurance, have ploughed deep into the national mind, and from the furrow there has sprung an all-conquering demand for freedom in life and thought.

There is, perhaps, no better thermometer for gauging any change in the national temperature than the literary thermometer; and the new movement in literature of which the last twenty years have seen the birth is the clear reflection of the new aspirations that are stirring the heart of the country. Poetry, the intensest selfexpression of man's aspirations, was, of course, especially bound to feel the spark. Tennyson, as it has been truly said by Mr. Gosse, kept poetry stable throughout an entire generation. No sooner was Tennyson's influence re

and

moved, however, than poetry began to grow restive, and with a sudden outburst of preciosity to adventure into hitherto unexplored regions. England was just beginning to emerge from the shadow of Puritanism under which she had sat for so many years, and poetry began, instantaneously automatically, to fret against the bars of Puritanism in which, too, her independent, though hitherto shy spirit, had been cramped. The great Victorian poets, one can imagine, would have scoffed at the charge of Puritanism. But we are only just beginning to realize how completely Puritanism had wormed her great tentacles into almost every nerve and fibre of the nation's being. And if the great Victorian poets were not Puritanical in their outlook upon life, they were certainly Puritanical in their attitude towards their art. Just as, for instance, a Puritanical parent might guard his child, preferring him to lead a life of narrow seclusion and to forego the greater glories that he might win upon a wider field, because of the inevitably greater temptations to excess which the wider field must always affordso exactly the Victorian poets guarded their Muse. They were inordinately timorous for her safety. She must be allowed to run no risks. "Thus far, and no farther," must always be her guiding principle. And so, sometimes consciously, but more often, perhaps, unconsciously, they held her captive and made her always more or less exclusive. How little they dreamt (as how little does the too fond and fearful parent often dream!) that as soon as their backs were turned their child, so carefully cabined, would break forth into revolt and secure for herself the full and free light of heaven which it is the rightful heritage of every man