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CONTENTS

Introduction by William Murchison

Preface

CHAPTER 1

English Representative Government in the Eighteenth Century

Objects to be attained

Taxation and representation

Power of landed property

And of the commercial classes

Aristocratic influence

Diversities in the size of constituencies and qualification of electors

The small boroughs

Dislike to organic change

Merits of English government

The founders of the American Republic aimed at the same ends

Judge Story on the suffrage

Rousseau's conception of government essentially different

Review of the French constitutions, 1789–1830

Ascendency of the middle class in France, 1830–1848

English Reform Bill of 1832—Its causes

Fears it excited not justified by the event

Place of the middle class in English government

The period from 1832 to 1867

Votes not always a true test of opinion

Motives that govern the more ignorant voters

Dangers of too great degradation of the suffrage

Growth of Rousseau's doctrine in England—The Irish representation

University representation

The new form of sycophancy

Attacks on plural voting

Equal electoral districts

Taxation passing wholly under the control of numbers

Successful parliaments mainly elected on a high suffrage

Instability of democracies

When they are least dangerous

French Democracy

Favourable circumstances under which it has been tried

Manhood suffrage in 1848

Restricted in 1851

Re-established by Louis Napoleon—The Coup d'Etat and the plebiscite

Universal suffrage under the Second Empire

Last days of the Empire

Democracy and the Franco-German War

The Third Republic

Weakness of the President

Decline of political ideals

Ministerial instability

The permanent service

The Republic and liberty

French Finance, 1814–1878

French Finance during the Republic

Forms of corruption and extravagance

Good credit of France

Financial dangers

Scherer on French political life

Lowered political tone

American Democracy

Characteristics of the American Constitution

Its framers dreaded democracy

Advantageous circumstances of America

Growth of democratic influence in the Presidential elections

Elections for the Senate—Characteristics of that body

The lowering of the suffrage

Elected judges—The ‘Molly Maguires’

Corruption of the judicature

Growth of the spoils system

Political assessments on office-holders

Connection of the spoils system with democracy

American party warfare

Attempts to restrict the spoils system

The ballot in America

Lax naturalisation—The Know-nothing party

The Irish vote

Enfranchisement of negroes

Corruption in New York

Municipal corruption general in the great cities

Measures of Reform

Judges made more independent

Power of local legislatures limited

Increased authority of the mayors

Mr. Bryce on American corruption

American acquiescence in corruption

The best life apart from politics

Summary by Mr. Bryce

Protective strength of the Constitution

American optimism

Influence of the separation of Church and State on political morals

Public spirit during the War of Secession

And after its conclusion

Excellence of general legislation in the United States

Tocqueville's judgments—Changes since he wrote

Corruption in railroad management

Abolition of slavery—Its influence on foreign policy

Intellectual side of American civilisation

Democracy not favourable to the higher intellectual life

The prospects of the Republic

Protection

The Pension List

Lessons to be drawn from American experience

CHAPTER 2

Majorities required in different nations for constitutional changes

Attempt to introduce the two-thirds majority system in New South Wales

Small stress placed in England on legislative machinery

The English belief in government by gentlemen

Declining efficiency of parliamentary government throughout Europe

England has not escaped the evil

Increasing power and pretensions of the House of Commons

The Parish Councils Bill of 1894

Excess of parliamentary speaking—Its causes

Its effects on public busines

Growth of the caucus fatal to the independence of the House of Commons

The relation of the House to Government—Disintegration of parties

Results of the group system

Increase of log-rolling

And of the appetite for organic change

Both parties have contributed to this

Conservatism in English Radicalism

Growth of class bribery

Rendered easy by our system of taxation

Sir Cornewall Lewis on the best taxation—Indirect taxation

Remissions of direct taxation sometimes the most beneficial

Exaggeration of Free Trade— The corn registration duty—The London coal dues

The abolition of the income tax made an election cry in 1874—History of this election

Appeals to class cupidity by the Irish Land League

Its success has strengthened the tendency to class bribery

Irish Land Question

Peculiar difficulties to be dealt with in Ireland

Tenants' improvements—Sharman Crawford's proposals

The Devon Commission

Abortive attempts to protect improvements

Land Act of 1860

And of 1870—Its merits and demerits

Paucity of leases and tenants' improvements—How viewed in Ireland

Rents in Ireland before 1870 not generally extortionate

But such rents did exist, and most tenancies were precarious

The Act of 1881

Absolute ownership of land under the Incumbered Estates Act

Circumstances under which this Act had been car ried—Its nature

It guaranteed complete ownership under a parliamentary title

Confiscation of Landlord Rights by the Act of 1881

The purchased improvements

Fixity of tenure given to the present tenant

Which could not honestly be done without compensating the owner

Inseparable rights of ownership destroyed

The New Land Court and its proceedings

‘Judicial decisions’. .

Rights of the Legislature over landed property—Mill

Dishonest character of Irish land legislation

The defence of the Act of 1881

Misconception of its effects

The language of Mr. Gladstone

The Act failed to pacify Ireland—Effects of the Home Rule agitation

The Land Act of 1887

Tendency of subversive principles in legislation to grow

Landlord claim for compensation

Effects of the land legislation on Irish capital and contracts

On the ultimate position of tenants

Moral effects of this legislation

The Evicted Tenants Bill

The worst form of robbery, legal robbery

Dangers of the Irish precedent

Mr. George's comparison of Irish and American landlordism

Where should State intervention stop?

Other Attacks on Property

Theories of Mr. George

Mill's doctrine of the ‘unearned increment’

English land no longer the source of English food

Attacks on national debts

On mining royalties

On literary property

Nationalisation of railroads, &c

Cautions in dealing with such question—Is democracy suited to the task?

The worship of majorities

Old and New Jesuitism

Influence of philosophical speculation on politics

Character in public life—How far democratic election secures it

The Home Rule alliance—Compared with the coalition of North and Fox

Effects of the lowering of the suffrage on political morality

And of the increased hurry of modern life

Personal and class interests in politics

Inadequate sense of the criminality of political mis deeds

The ethics of party

Nonconformist ministers and Mr. Parnell

Relative importance of private and public morals in politics

Growth of the professional politician

Democratic local government—Its good and evil

Place of wealth in modern politics

Measures that must strengthen the professional politician

High standard of political integrity in Great Britain

Probity of the permanent service

Better side of the House of Commons

Competitive examinations—Their drawbacks

Their great use in restraining corruption

The character of a nation not always shown by its public life

Evidence that English character has not declined— Its moral and philanthropic side

Its robuster qualities

The governing capacity—Egypt and India

Dangers to India in democratic government

High character of English municipal government

Political influence of the provincial towns

Influence of the telegraph on politics— Provincial press

Modern England not barren in great men

CHAPTER 3

Democracy an inevitable fact

Is not uniformly favourable to liberty

Illustrations from Roman and French history

Equality naturally hostile to liberty

Love of democracy for authoritative regulation

Effects of the increase of State power—Taxation and liberty

Other dangers to liberty

Party system hastened the transformation

Some Suggested Remedies

Change in the Irish representation

Class representation—Its history and decline

Representation of minorities

An educational franchise

Mill's suggestions for mitigating dangers of universal suffrage

Repudiated by modern Radicalism—The ‘fancy’ franchises

The Swiss Referendum—Its history and influence

Its recent adoption in the United States

Attempt to introduce it into Belgium

Arguments for and against it

Belief that a low suffrage is naturally conservative

Extension of the power of committees—The American committee system

The French system

English parliamentary committees—Devolution

Proposal that Governments should only resign on a vote of want of confidence

Arguments against it

Probability that democratic Parliaments will sink in power

Democratic local government—Success of English local government

Largely due to property qualifications

Almost all of them now abolished—Act of 1894

This is the more serious on account of the great increase in taxation

The local debt

Increase of State Taxation in Europe—Its Causes

Military expenditure—Standing armies

Buckle's prediction of the decline of wars

The commercial spirit now favours territorial aggrandisement

Growing popularity of universal military service

Arguments in its defence

Importance of the question to the English race

Arguments against it

Conscription and universal suffrage connected

But the military system may come into collision with the parliamentary system

National education—Its social and political effects

Primary education assuming the character of secondary education

Sanitary reform

Reformatories and prison reform

Increased taxation due to increased State regulation—Herbert Spencer's views

Necessity for some extension of State control

Advantages of State action in some fields

Government credit—Enterprises remunerative to the State

Unremunerative forms of literature and art

Subsidies to the theatre

Dangers of State regulation and subsidies

Change in the character of democracy since Joseph Hume

Motives that have led to State aggrandisement

Mr. Goschen on its extent

Attempts to push it still further—The Manchester school repudiated

Tendency to throw all taxation on one class

Tocqueville and Young on English taxes in the eighteenth century

Progressive taxes of Pitt

Abolition of taxes on the necessaries of life

Bentham, Mill, and Montesquieu on exempted incomes

Lord Derby's description of English taxation

Taxation mainly on the rich and chiefly for the benefit of the poor

Adam Smith on the rules for taxation

Thiers on the same subject

Advantages of taxation of luxuries

Growing popularity of graduated taxation—Its early history

Taxation in Switzerland, the Netherlands, and New Zealand

In France and the United States

Arguments against graduated taxation

Probability that it will increase

Its effect on the disposition of landed property

On the position and habits of the upper classes

On personal property

Wealth dissociated from duties

Democracy not indifferent to wealth

CHAPTER 4 ARISTOCRACIES AND UPPER CHAMBERS

Dangers of government by a single Chamber

Countries where it exists

Lessons derived from the Commonwealth

From the United States

From France

Early History of the House of Lords

Effects of the Reformation and the Rebellion

Of the Revolution of 1688

Importance of the small boroughs in sustaining its influence

The Peerage Bill of Stanhope

The Scotch Union

The Resolution of 1711

Creations of George III.—The Irish Union

Position of the spiritual peers

The House of Lords under George III. not unpopular

Power of personal interest on its members before 1832

Their influence in the House of Commons

Attitude of the peers towards the Reform Bill of 1832

Change in their position effected by the Bill

Importance of the House of Lords in making legislation harmonise with the popular will

In diminishing the too great influence of party in legislation

In protecting minorities

Its ecclesiastical policy

Its general moderation

Attacks on the Lords after the Reform Bill of 1832

The Hereditary Element

Advantages of special education for politics

Influences that maintain the character of the British aristocracy

Their energy and power of adaptation

Large amount of ability among them

Advantages the nation derives from an aristocracy

Representative character of the House of Lords

Popularity of the aristocracy in England

Its good and evil sides

Aristocracy and plutocracy

Debility and apathy of the House of Lords

Causes of Its Debility

The small quorum—Proxies

Discouraging influences in the House

Jealousy of the House of Commons of Bills originating in the Lords

Financial impotence of the Lords

Sole right of the Commons to originate Money Bills

The Lords deprived of their old right of amending them

Difficulty of maintaining this rule—Its relaxation

The right of rejecting Money Bills

Repeal of the paper duties in 1860

The different provisions of the Budget combined in one Bill

Connection of taxation and representation

Powers of foreign Senates over finance

Dangers of the concentration of all financial power in one House—Its mitigations in England

The House of Lords cannot overthrow Ministers

Its Judicial Functions

Its origin and abuses

Attempts to make lawyers life peers

The peerage of Lord Wensleydale (1856)

Later attempts to create life peers

Lord Selborne's Court of Appeal (1873)

Lord Cairns's new Appellate Court in the House of Lords

Success of this measure

Its modification in 1887

Excessive and increasing number of new peerages

Elements from which they are drawn

Imperfect recognition of non-political eminence

One-sided political influence in the House of Lords

This fact a recent one—Its causes

Parliamentary history, 1892–1895

The crusade against the Lords

The election of 1895, and its lessons

The importance of a reform of the House of Lords not diminished

Foreign Upper Houses

The Roman Senate

The Senate of the United States

The French Senate

The German Bundesrath

Upper Houses in Prussia, Austria, and Italy

In Spain and Switzerland

In the Netherlands

In Belgium

Colonial Constitutions

Their general character

The Canadian Senate—The Newfoundland Constitution

African colonial Governments—The island colonies

Upper Chambers in Australia and New Zealand

Proposals for Reforming the House of Lords

Advantages of retaining a limited hereditary element

Life peers

Proposals for a larger introduction of the representative principle

The limitation of the veto

Right of ministers to sit in both Houses

Advantages and disadvantages of carrying unfinished legislation into a second session

This should at least be done in the case of amendments in the Lords

CHAPTER 5 NATIONALITIES

Changes in the basis of international politics

The rights of nationalities in the French Revolution

Completely ignored after the fall of Napoleon

Signs of revival before 1830—French Revolution of that year

And of 1848

Italian writers on nationality

Nationality not necessarily a democratic idea

Ambiguities about the elements that constitute it

Plebiscites

Good and evil sides of the doctrine of nationalities

Not applicable to uncivilised nations

Plebiscites frequently deceptive

Dangers of pushing the nationality doctrine to its full consequences

America a Test Case

Its annexations

The secession of the South

Analysis of English opinion on the War of Secession

The Northern case for repressing the revolt

Nearly all European predictions about the war proved false

The Italian Question

Impulse it gave to the doctrine of nationalities

Invasions of Naples and Rome

The Peace of Villafrance and the Roman question

The Italian policy of England

Lord J. Russell's estimate of the plebiscites

Success of the English policy

Policy of Napoleon III.—And of England

The unity of Italy dearly purchased

The unity of Germany—The agglomeration of race elements

Conflicting tendencies towards agglomeration and towards local unities

Increased value attached to national languages

The military system accentuates national differences

Difficulties of reconciling local aspirations with imperial interests

Influences that are weakening the nationalist spirit

CHAPTER 6 DEMOCRACY AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

Nations differ in their conceptions of liberty and in the kinds of liberty they value

Importance of taking stock of our conceptions of liberty

Religious Freedom

Its growth in English law

And in public opinion—Causes of increased tolerance

Contrast between Catholic opinion in England and that in Rome and Canada

Abolition of religious disqualifications in the United States

In France, Belgium, and Prussia

Slow progress of the movement in England—The Catholic question

Disqualifications of Nonconformists, Jews, Atheists, &c., gradually abolished

Higher education thrown open to Dissenters—Its effects

The Established Church—Arguments for and against it changed

The modern case for an establishment

Strengthened by abolition of disqualifications

Enlargement of the limits of the Church—Relation of Nonconformists to it

Subscription to Articles—Indelibility of orders—Decisions of Privy Council

Decline of intolerance in continental legislations—Sweden

Austria

Spain and Portugal

Limitation or modification of religious liberty

India

Early religious policy of the East India Company

Admission of missionaries in 1813

Prohibition of infanticide and human sacrifices

Abolition of the suttee

Attitude of Government towards caste and idolatrous worship

Measures of 1833 and 1838

Changes in the laws of inheritance and marriage

Memorandum of Colonel Herbert Edwardes

Queen's Proclamation in 1858

Philanthropic tendencies hostile to the old beliefs

Indian education and its effects

Mormonism

Polygamy not its original doctrine

Early history of Mormonism

Murder of Joseph Smith

Emigration to the Salt Lake

Utah becomes an American Territory—Its early history

Should polygamy be tolerated?

Congress undertakes to stamp it out—The Edmunds law

Other measures against polygamy

Conflicting opinions about their success

Influences within Mormonism hostile to polygamy

Polygamy abandoned by the Mormons

Utah made a State

Anglo-Saxon democracy favourable to religious liberty

The sentiment of nationality sometimes hostile to it

The Anti-Semite movement

The Russian persecution

Catholicism and Democracy—Ireland

Growth of priestly influence in Irish politics

Historical causes that have contributed to it

Sacerdotal tyranny in 1826

The Emancipation Act of 1829

Palmerston and Clarendon on the conduct of the priests in 1847

Character of priestly influence in Ireland—Complicity with crime

Perversion of Irish Catholic opinion

Recent legislation favourable to priestly influence

How it is exercised

Continental Catholicism

Causes that have favoured the Ultramontane spirit

Disendowment and loss of temporal dignities strengthen sacerdotalism

Increased dependence of the priest on the bishop

Growth of Catholic enthusiasm—Pilgrimages, &c

Centralisation of Catholicism—Triumph of Ultramontanism

Which has made it more fit to act on democracies

Continued intolerance of the Church

Its action on recent politics

It constitutes a State within a State—Its claims and powers

Dangers to be feared from it

The general current not in the direction of priestly power

Illustrations from Rome, Brazil, and France

Conflicts with the lay power produced by the declaration of infallibility

Austrian legislation

Conflict in Switzerland

In Germany

Serious persecution of Catholics

Bismarck retraces his steps

Enters into alliance with the Pope

Victory of the Vatican

France—The battle of education: Its early phases

Educational policy of Napoleon I

Of the Restoration

Of Guizot

Of the Second Republic

Popular education passes mainly into the hands of the religious orders

The law of 1875

Challemel-Lacour on the danger of priestly education

Recent French Ultramontanism—Veuillot

The Catholic party conspire against the Republic, May 1877

Defeated at the elections—Anti-Clerical reaction

The Supreme Council of Education remodelled

Law expelling Jesuits, &c., from the schools

Rejected by the Senate—The Ferry decrees

Violent measures that followed

Partial relaxation of the laws against unauthorised corporations

Tests of competence—Public schools made gratuitous and secular

Laws of 1881 and 1882

Primary education made obligatory

The case for purely secular State education

National education ought to be an elastic thing admitting different systems

Undenominational and united religious teaching in Protestant countries

The English school board

Advantages of simple Bible reading

The American common schools

Education in the British colonies

The conflict between united secular and denominational systems

Religious result of the school-board system

The struggle for denominational State education in the Netherlands

And in Ireland

The English compromise

Not likely to be permanent—Danger to the voluntary schools

Principles on which the Legislature should act—The opinion of parents to be most considered

The English compromise not possible in Catholic countries

Unsuccessful conflict with the Church in Belgium, 1878–84

Secular education stringently enforced in France

Hostility shown to religion—Attempt to de-christianise the nation

Arguments of the supporters of the system

Their violence defeated their ends

Sceptical Frenchmen often support religious education

Anti-Catholic spirit in French legislation

Divinity students and military service

The tension in education diminished—The irreligious spirit diminished

But ecclesiastical interference with politics stringently repressed

Review of the principles at issue

Catholicism likely to ally itself more and more with democracy

The downfall of the temporal power strengthens the tendency

Socialistic sympathies in the Church

Best remedies against undue priestly influence in politics

CHAPTER 7

Sunday Legislation

Sunday not the Sabbath

Its observance in the early Church

Laws of Constantine and Theodosius

Sunday observance in the Middle Ages

The Reformers clearly distinguish it from the Sabbath

Cranmer and Elizabeth

Growth of Sabbatarianism at the close of her reign

Strengthened by the prevalent disorders on Sunday

Signs of increasing Sabbatarianism—Dr. Bownd

Conflict between the two parties under James I

Laws suppressing Sunday amusements under Charles I

The ‘Book of Sports’

Triumph of Puritanism

The Elizabethan Sunday not revived at the Restoration

Observance of Sunday in the eighteenth century

Effect of the Evangelical movement

It has now spent its force

Restriction of Sunday labour passing from a theological to a utilitarian foundation

Tendency to enforce it by law and custom on the Continent

Advantages of the Sunday rest

Suppression of Sunday amusements—The Puritan Sunday

Its gradual mitigation in England—Sunday opening of museums, &c

State of public opinion on the subject

Sunday opening of theatres

Sabbatarian provisions in the game laws

Wise legislation following opinion is seldom strictly logical

Relations of moral and penal legislation

The province of restrictive laws—Kant, Herbert Spencer, Mill

Their doctrines correspond to the Free Trade doctrine of Adam Smith

Arguments against legislative interference with acts not directly injurious to others

True as a general rule, but the prevailing tendency is to multiply exceptions

Examples of them in English law—How far law strengthens morals

Grounds on which laws suppressing immoral acts were originally proposed

Gambling

Craving for excitement the secret of its popularity

An increasing evil

Capriciousness of English law in dealing with it

Suppression of public gambling-houses

Intoxicating Drink

Difficulties of legislating on this subject

Drunkenness not an increasing evil

Largely due to bad houses and bad cooking

To unhealthy or excessive labour

To the absence of other tastes and pleasures

To the want of provident habits

To noxious adulteration

Judicious taxation can encourage sobriety

Distinction to be drawn in temperance legislation

Should simple drunkenness be treated as a crime?

Drunkenness sometimes preventible, sometimes not

Drunkenness a disease—Its medical treatment

American views of the subject

Detention of inebriates in retreats—The Commission of 1893

Inutility of short sentences—Proposed reformatory treatment of drunkenness

Law of Massachusetts

Connection between drunkenness and crime

Local veto proposals

Less popular in England than in other English-speaking countries

Sunday closing—Shorter hours in public-houses

Too numerous drink-shops

Liquor legislation in the United States

In British North America

In New Zealand

In Australia

In the Scandinavian countries—The Gothenburg system

In Switzerland

Experiment in South Carolina, 1892

Desire to diminish by law the temptation to drink—The Parish Councils Act

How far legislation should deal with spectacles or other amusements leading to vice

With noises and disfigurements in the streets

Distinction between things that are obtruded on the notice of all and things that are not

Marriage Laws

Early history of Christian marriage

Council of Trent first made a religious ceremony necessary

Survival of the old doctrine that simple consent constitutes marriage

Claims of the Catholic Church to rule marriage

Opinions of Catholic divines about Protestant marriages

The State considers marriage a civil contract

Legislation in France before the Revolution

Marriage Law of Henry VIII.—English common law

Divorce in England—Case of Lord Northampton

Commission under Edward VI

Divorce by special Acts of Parliament

The Marriage Act of 1753

English legislators treated as null marriages which were ecclesiastically valid

Marriage Act of 1836

Purely civil marriage established by the French law of 1792

Its effect in simplifying marriages and removing disabilities

Various Forms of Imperfect Marriages and Marriage Disabilities

Patrician and plebeian marriages

The Roman concubinatus

Priestly connections in the Middle Ages

Morganatic marriages

Disabilities in Germany—Prohibition of marriages without sufficient means

Invalidity of Protestant marriages in France

Of marriages celebrated by Nonconformist ministers in England

Of some marriages celebrated by priests in Ireland

Of purely religious marriages in some continental countries

Invalidities created by differences of belief

By the profession of an actor

By spiritual relationship

By vows of celibacy

By differences of race or colour

Civil Marriage

Began in the Netherlands

In French law—Its rapid spread

Two different systems

Hostility of the Catholic Church

Character of civil marriage in England

In Germany, Italy, and Switzerland

Marriage laws in Spain

In the Austrian Empire

In South America

In Scandinavian countries, Russia, Roumania

Divorce

Arguments for and against its permission

The Council of Trent absolutely condemned it

Catholicism admits many grounds of nullity

Divorce of Napoleon from Josephine

Divorce established in France on the widest system in 1792

Regulated and restricted by the Civil Code

Abolished in 1816, but retained in Belgium, the Rhenish Provinces, and Baden

Re-enacted in 1884

Admitted in Austria for non-Catholics

Swiss and German laws

Its increasing popularity in France

The Protestant and Greek Churches never wholly condemned it

Absurdity and injustice of the English system of granting it

Remarks of Justice Maule

The Divorce Act of 1857

Its imperfections

Compared with Australian legislation

Examination of the effects of the Act

Divorce laws not a cause of national demoralisation

Their different types in Europe—Statistics of divorces

Divorce in the United States

Chiefly asked for by women

Laws on illegitimacy

The natural right to marriage accompanies the secularisation of marriage

Restrictions only justified by grave dangers

Marriage with a deceased wife’s sister

CHAPTER 8 SOCIALISM

Archaic element in modern Socialism

Common property in land

Condemnation of loans at interest

Industrial corporate monopoly

Absorption of individual rights by the State

Greek communism

The Sabbatical and Jubilee years of the Hebrews

Common property in the early Church

Socialistic tendencies of the Fathers

Influence of the monasteries—Mediæval organisation of industry

Causes that broke it up

Social and economical convulsions at the Reformation

The Anabaptists

Literature of Utopias—More, Campanella, &c

Socialistic doctrines in Montesquieu

Rousseau

Mably

Morelly and Warville de Brissot

Economical effects of the French Revolution

Abolition of the jurandes and communautés

Anticipated by Turgot

Rights of property recognised at the Revolution

Its hostility to all corporate industry

Attacks on the rich in 1793

Conspiracy of Babeuf

Godwin

Saint-Simon

His followers

Their connection with the Suez Canal

Fourier

Robert Owen

His part in primitive co-operative industry

The Rochdale Pioneers

Socialist writings in France between 1830 and 1848

May be traced in Béranger and George Sand

Lamennais

Louis Blanc, ‘Organisation du Travail’

The word ‘Socialism’ invented

Socialistic character of the Revolution of 1848—Its first measures

The national workshops

Paralysis of industry—Depreciation of property—Growing anarchy

Attempts to dispose of the unemployed workmen

The Paris insurrection of June

Hatred of Paris in the provinces

Socialism produces reaction towards despotism

The Coup d'État, December 1851

Socialism in Germany

The centre of the movement passed from France to Germany

Lassalle

Marx—Foundation and progress of his doctrines

The International

Bakúnin

Socialist element in the French Commune

Decadence of the International

Programme of the Congress of Gotha, 1875

Socialists divided about the means of attaining their ends

The Congress of Wyden

No real difference in principle between the more and less violent sections

Marx on Capital

Criticism of his views—Giffen on English working-class progress

Leroy-Beaulieu on progress in France

Wages and moderate fortunes most rapidly increase

Conditions of working-class prosperity

Fallacies of Marx—Part played by capital in industry

Risks in industry

Its intellectual element

The elements that contribute to wealth

Growth of Socialism in Germany

More slow in France—Profit-sharing industries

Programme of the Congress of Marseilles, 1879

Subdivisions of French Socialism

Economical condition of France not favourable to Socialism

Yet it has grown rapidly of late years

M. Gabriel Deville

Continental Socialism differs from English Socialism in its attacks on religion and marriage

The moral aspects of Socialism

Socialism in Belgium

And in other continental countries

And in the United States—Writings of George

How far Socialism is likely to spread in the United States

State purchase of railroads

Proposed extension of the industrial functions of municipalities

Bellamy’s ‘Looking Backward’

Fallacies that underlie such utopias

Socialism incompatible with free trade and international commerce

Limits of possible Socialism

CHAPTER 9 LABOUR QUESTIONS

Socialism in England has not chiefly emanated from the working class

The Social and Democratic League

Secessions from it

The Fabian Society

Tendencies that favoured Socialism

Rise of the New Unionism

Socialist successes—Trade-union congresses

The Eight Hours Bill

‘Nationalisation’ doctrines sanctioned by the Congress of Norwich, 1894

Exaggerations of the power of the New Unionism

Some doctrines of English Socialists

Connection of English Socialism with the agrarian movement in Ireland

Proposed absorption of railways, &c., by the State

Absorption of rent and interest by means of taxation

Effects of such a measure on national prosperity

Effects of taxation on the poor

Danger of exaggerated municipal employment

Some measures of the London County Council

What industries Government can manage

Effect of the free propagation of revolutionary opinions

Moral and religious aspects of English Socialism

Its denationalising influence

The Socialism of fashion

The Factory Laws

For the protection of children

Of ‘young persons’

Of women

Sanitary laws

Laws for protecting adults against their own imprudence

Limiting the hours of labour of adults

The longest hours and least paid labour not the most productive

The eight hours day—Objections to it

The textile manufactures

Coal mines

Conflicts in poor men’s interests

Doctrine that inefficient labour increases employment

Trade-union policy tends to multiply the unemployed

And to constitute monopolies

International agreements about hours of labour—Foreign hours

Workmen usually prefer higher wages to shorter hours

The Berlin Labour Conference

Useful functions of trade unions

They have not, however, been the chief cause of the rise of wages

Supply and demand and ‘the living wage’

Repeal of the combination laws

Trade Union Act of 1871

Trade unions as corporations in most respects unrecognised by law

Some of the Labour Commissioners would change this

Growth of trade-unionism accompanied by increased legal regulation of industry

The good and evil of this regulation

Continental experiments—The Austrian guilds

Legislation to protect workmen from intimidating each other—General principles

Instances of intimidation

The older trade unions usually in favour of peace

Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1871

Repealed in 1875—A new Act carried

Objections to the Act of 1875

Recommendations of the Labour Commission

Different forms of intimidation practised

Federations of employers

The Free Labour movement

Labour disputes likely to play a large part in municipal government

The Paris Municipality

Efforts of trade unions to control municipal labour in England

Relations of employers to trade unions

Methods by which labour war is carried on by employers

And by trade unions

The effects of strikes

Desire to use political power to handicap employers in labour disputes

Immigration of foreign pauperism

Legislation to help workmen in labour disputes

This policy one form of the prevailing spirit of Protectionism

Connection of Protectionism and wage questions in America

In Australia and New Zealand

Strength of the conservative influence in English labour

Diffusion of working men’s property in France and England

This is the best guarantee against social revolution

Large number of the real owners of the soil

Value of the joint-stock system in diffusing capital

Co-operative industries—Causes of their frequent failure

More successful in distribution than production

Productive co-operation has, however, proved successful and useful

The industrial effects of education

The profit-sharing system

Specially successful in France—Trade-unionism little developed there

The profit-sharing system favours large industries

Other Methods of Conciliation

The sliding scale

Piecework—Payment by the hour—Conciliation and arbitration boards

Continental methods of settling labour disputes

English legislation about arbitration

Government encouragement of thrift

Division of land—Its difficulty and its necessity

England not well suited for peasant proprietors

The creation of peasant proprietors in Ireland

Changes in American agriculture

Peasant proprietors on the Continent

Influences likely to divide land in England

Attempts to multiply small proprietors by law—The Small Holdings Act of 1892

Attempts to bring back manufacturers to the country

The town properties—Desirability of multiplying freeholds

Socialists hostile to this policy

Moral Element in Labour Questions

Increased sense of the inequalities of fortune

The impatience of inexperienced democracy

Strengthening of the philanthropic side of religion

New sources of pleasure opened to the poor

Unearned incomes often the best used

Abuse of wealth that most endangers society

CHAPTER 10 WOMAN QUESTIONS

Inconsistency of Rousseau about women’s rights

His estimate of the position of women

Condorcet

Women during the Revolution

Mary Wollstonecraft

Fox on female suffrage

Bentham and Bailey

Effect of the destruction of domestic industries and growth of factories

Separate female interests in factory legislation

Turgot

Causes of the lower wages of women

Restrictions in their work partly due to trade jealousy

Present position of female labour—Case for a voice in legislation

Women under the factory system much affected by politics

Growth of gigantic shops

In some respects unfavourable to women—New female employments

Woman’s part in nursing and medicine

The teaching profession—Opening of British universities to women

Continental universities opened

Effects of this movement

Change of manners in the upper class

How far it is likely to influence character

Growing female influence in political life

Educational grievances

Legal position of mothers—Acts of 1839, 1873, 1886

Protection of married women’s earnings

And of their other property

Continental laws on married women’s earnings and property

Intestacy

The law unduly favoured the rich

Disparities of property—Religious education

Austrian law on mixed marriages

Obstacles to opening professions in England—Laws favouring women

Mill’s advocacy of female suffrage

Large number of suffrages conceded to British women

Arguments against Female Suffrage

Alleged incapacity

Part played by women in public life

Other fields of female administration

Argument from deficiency of physical force

The alleged danger to female character

Women already prominent in politics

Effects of the ballot on the question

Anomaly of the exclusion of women from the franchise

Position of married women

Women and clerical influence

Early history of female suffrage

Countries in which it has been adopted

Its probable good and evil effects in England

Too much expected from it

Its prospects of success

Index

Biographical Note