With these views, the Socialists of the Chair could not fail to take an active concern with the class of topics thrown up by the socialist movement, and exciting still so much attention in Germany under the name of the social question. They neither state that question nor answer it like the socialists, but their first offence, and the fountain of all their subsequent offending, in the judgment of their Manchester antagonists, consisted in their acknowledgment that there was a social question at all. Not that the Manchester party denied the existence of evils in the present state of industry, but they looked upon these evils as resulting from obstructions to the freedom of competition which time, and time alone, would eventually remove, and from moral causes with which economists had no proper business. The Socialists of the Chair, however, could not dismiss their responsibility for those evils so easily. They owned at once that a social crisis had arisen or was near at hand. The effect of the general adoption of the large system of production had been to diminish the numbers of the middle classes, to reduce the great bulk of the lower classes permanently to the position of wage-labourers, and to introduce some grave elements of peril and distress into the condition of the wage-labourers themselves. They are doubtless better fed, better lodged, better clad, than they were say in the middle and end of last century, when not one in a hundred of them had shoes to his feet, when seven out of eight on the Continent were still bondsmen, and when three out of every four in England had to eke out their wages by parochial relief. But, in spite of these advantages, their life has now less hope and less security than it had then. Industry on the great scale has multiplied the vicissitudes of trade, and rendered the labourer much more liable to be thrown out of work. It has diminished the avenues to comparative independence and dignity which were open to the journeyman under the régime of the small industries. And while thus condemned to live by wages alone all his days, he could entertain no reasonable hope—at least before the formation of trade unions—that his wages could be kept up within reach of the measure of his wants, as these wants were being progressively expanded by the general advance of culture. Moreover, the twinge of the case lies here, that while the course which industrial development is taking seems to be banishing hope and security more and more from the labourer's life, the progress of general civilization is making these benefits more and more imperatively demanded. The working classes have been growing steadily in the scale of moral being. They have acquired complete personal freedom, legal equality, political rights, general education, a class consciousness; and they have come to cherish a very natural and legitimate aspiration that they shall go on progressively sharing in the increasing blessings of civilization. Brentano says that modern public opinion concedes this claim of the working man as a right to which he is entitled, but that modern industrial conditions have been unable as yet to secure him in the possession of it; hence the Social Question. Now some persons may be ready enough to admit this claim as a thing which it is eminently desirable to see realized, who will yet demur to the representation of it as a right, which puts society under a corresponding obligation. But this idea is a peculiarity belonging to the whole way of thinking of the Socialists of the Chair upon these subjects. Some of them indeed take even higher ground. Schmoller, for example, declares that the working classes suffer positive wrong in the present distribution of national wealth, considered from the standpoint of distributive justice; but his associates as a rule do not agree with him in applying this abstract standard to the case. Wagner also stands somewhat out of the ranks of his fellows by throwing the responsibility of the existing evils directly and definitely upon the State. According to his view, there can never be anything which may be legitimately called a Social Question, unless the evils complained of are clearly the consequences of existing legislation, but he holds that that is so in the present case. He considers that a mischievous turn has been given to the distribution of wealth by legalizing industrial freedom without at the same time imposing certain restrictions upon private property, the rate of interest, and the speculations of the Stock Exchange. The State has, therefore, caused the Social Question; and the State is bound to settle it. The other Socialists of the Chair, however, do not bring the obligation so dead home to the civil authority alone. The duty rests on society, and, of course, so far on the State also, which is the chief organ of society; but it is not to State-help alone, nor to self-help alone, that the Socialists of the Chair ask working men to look; but it is to what they term the self-help of society. Society has granted to the labouring classes the rights of freedom and equality, and has, therefore, come bound to give them, as far as it legitimately can, the amplest facilities for practically enjoying these rights. To give a man an estate mortgaged above its rental is only to mock him; to confer the status of freedom upon working men merely to leave them overwhelmed in an unequal struggle with capital is to make their freedom a dead letter. Personal and civil independence require, as their indispensable accompaniment, a certain measure of economic independence likewise, and consequently to bestow the former as an inalienable right, and yet take no concern to make the latter a possibility, is only to discharge one-half of an obligation voluntarily undertaken, and to deceive expectations reasonably entertained. No doubt this independence is a thing which working men must in the main win for themselves, and day after day, by labour, by providence, by association; but it is nevertheless an important point to remember, with Brentano, that it forms an essential part of an ideal which society has already acknowledged to be legitimate, and which it is therefore bound to second every effort to realize. The Social Question, conceived in the light of these considerations, may accordingly be said to arise from the fact that a certain material or economic independence has become more necessary for the working man, and less possible. It is more necessary, because, with the sanction of modern opinion, he has awoke to a new sense of personal dignity, and it is less possible, in consequence of circumstances already mentioned, attendant upon the development of modern industry. It is not, as Lord Macaulay maintained, that the evils of man's life are the same now as formerly, and that nothing has changed but the intelligence which has become conscious of them. The new time has brought new evils and less right or disposition to submit to them. It is the conflict of these two tendencies which, in the thinking of the Socialists of the Chair, constitutes the social crisis of the present day. Some of them, indeed, describe it in somewhat too abstract formulæ, which exercise an embarrassing influence on their speculations. For example, Von Scheel says the Social Question is the effect of the felt contradiction between the ideal of personal freedom and equality which hangs before the present age, and the increasing inequality of wealth which results from existing economic arrangements; and he proposes as the general principle of solution, that men should now abandon the exclusive devotion which modern Liberalism has paid to the principle of freedom, and substitute in its room an adhesion to freedom plus equality. But then equality may mean a great many different things, and Von Scheel leaves us with no precise clue to the particular scope he would give his principle in its application. He certainly seems to desire more than a mere equality of right, and to aim at some sort or degree of equality of fact, but what or how he informs us not; just as Schmoller, while propounding the dogma of distributive justice, condemns the communistic principle of distribution of wealth as being a purely animal principle, and offers us no other incorporation of his dogma. In spite of their antipathy to abstractions, many of the Socialists of the Chair indulge considerably in barren generalities, which could serve them nothing in practice, even if they did not make it a point to square their practice by the historical conditions of the hour.
Brentano strikes on the whole the most practical keynote, both in his conception of what the social question is and of how it is to be met. What is needed, he thinks, very much is to give to modern industry an organization as suitable to it as the old guilds were to the industry of earlier times, and this is to be done in great part by adaptations of that model. He makes comparatively little demand on the power of the State, while of course agreeing with the rest of his school in the latitude they give to the lawfulness of its intervention in industrial matters. He would ask it to bestow a legal status on trade unions and friendly societies, to appoint courts of conciliation, to regulate the hours of labour, to institute factory inspection, and to take action of some sort on the daily more urgent subject of labourers' dwellings. But the elevation of the labouring classes must be wrought mainly by their own well-guided and long-continued efforts, and the first step is gained when they have resolved earnestly to begin. The pith of the problem turns on the matter of wages, and, so far at any rate, it has already been solved almost as well as is practicable by the English trade unions, which have proved to the world that they are always able to convert the question of wages from the question how little the labourer can afford to take, into the question how much the employer is able to give—i.e., from the minimum to the maximum which the state of the market allows. That is, of course, a very important change, and it is interesting to know that F. A. Lange, the able and distinguished historian of Materialism, who had written on the labour question with strong socialist sympathies, stated to Brentano that his account of the English trade unions had converted him entirely from his belief that a socialistic experiment was necessary. Brentano admits that the effect of trade unions is partial only; that they really divide the labouring class into two different strata—those who belong to the trade unions being raised to a higher platform, and those who do not being left as they were in the gall of bitterness. But then, he observes, great gain has been made when at least a large section of the working class has been brought more securely within the pale of advancing culture, and it is only in this gradual way—section by section—that the elevation of the whole body can be eventually accomplished. The trade union has imported into the life of the working man something of the element of hope which it wanted, and a systematic scheme of working-class insurance is now needed to introduce the element of security. Brentano has published an excellent little work on that subject; and here again he asks no material help from the State. The working class must insure themselves against all the risks of their life by association, just as they must keep up the rate of their wages by association; and for the same reasons—first, because they are able to do so under existing economic conditions, and second, because it is only so the end can be gained consistently with the modern moral conditions of their life—i.e., with the maintenance of their personal freedom, equality, and independence. Brentano thinks that the sound principle of working-class insurance is that every trade union ought to become the insurance society for its trade, because every trade has its own special risks and therefore requires its own insurance premium, and because malingering, feigned sickness, claims for loss of employment through personal fault, and the like, cannot possibly be checked except by the fund being administered by the local lodges of the trade to which the subscribers belong. The insurance fund might be kept separate from the other funds of the union, but he sees no reason why it should not be combined with them, as it would only constitute a new obstacle to ill-considered strikes, and as striking in itself will, he expects, in course of time, give way to some system of arbitration. Brentano makes no suggestion regarding the mass of the working class who belong to no trade union. They cannot be dealt with in the same way, or so effectively. But this is quite in keeping with the general principle of the Socialists of the Chair—in which they differ toto cælo from the socialists—that society is not to be ameliorated by rigidly applying to every bit of it the same plan, but only by a thousand modifications and remedies adapted to its thousand varieties of circumstances and situations.
CHAPTER VII. THE CHRISTIAN SOCIALISTS.
The idea that a radical affinity exists between Christianity and socialism in their general aim, in their essential principles, in their pervading spirit, has strong attractions for a certain by no means inferior order of mind, and we find it frequently maintained in the course of history by representatives of both systems. Some of the principal socialists of the earlier part of this century used to declare that socialism was only Christianity more logically carried out and more faithfully practised; or, at any rate, that socialism would be an idle superfluity, if ordinary Christian principles were really to be acted upon honestly and without reserve. St. Simon published his views under the title of the "Nouveau Christianisme," and asserted that the prevailing forms of Christianity were one gigantic heresy; that both the Catholic and the Protestant Churches had now lost their power, simply because they had neglected their great temporal mission of raising the poor, and because their clergy had given themselves up to barren discussions of theology, and remained absolutely ignorant of the living social questions of the time; and that the true Christian régime which he was to introduce was one which should be founded on the Christian principle that all men are brothers; which should be governed by the Christian law, "Have ye love one to another," and in which all the forces of society should be mainly consecrated to the amelioration of the most numerous and poorest class. Cabet was not less explicit. He said that "if Christianity had been interpreted and applied in the spirit of Jesus Christ, if it were rightfully understood and faithfully obeyed by the numerous sections of Christians who are really filled with a sincere piety, and need only to know the truth to follow it, then Christianity would have sufficed, and would still suffice, to establish a perfect social and political organization, and to deliver mankind from all its ills."
The same belief, that Christianity is essentially socialistic, has at various times appeared in the Church itself. The socialism of the only other period in modern history besides our own century, in which socialistic ideas have prevailed to any considerable extent, was, in fact, a direct outcome of Christian conviction, and was realized among Christian sects. The socialism of the Anabaptists of the Reformation epoch was certainly mingled with political ideas of class emancipation, and contributed to stir the insurrection of the German peasantry; but its real origin lay in the religious fervour which was abroad at the time, and which buoyed sanguine and mystical minds on dreams of a reign of God. When men feel a new and better power arising strongly about them, they are forward to throw themselves into harmony with it, and there were people, touched by the religious revival of the Reformation, who sought to anticipate its progress, as it were, by living together like brothers. Fraternity is undoubtedly a Christian idea, come into the world with Christ, spread abroad in it by Christian agencies, and belonging to the ideal that hovers perpetually over Christian society. It has already produced social changes of immense consequence, and has force in it, we cannot doubt, to produce many more in the future; and it is therefore in nowise strange that in times of religious zeal or of social distress, this idea of fraternity should appeal to some eager natures with so urgent an authority, both of condemnation and of promise, that they would fain take it at once by force and make it king.
The socialism of the present day is not of a religious origin. On the contrary, there is some truth in the remark of a distinguished economist, M. Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, that the prevalence of socialistic ideas is largely due to the decline of religious faith among the working classes. If there is only the one life, they feel they must realize their ideal here and realize it quickly, or they will never realize it at all. However this may be, the fact is certain that most contemporary socialists have turned their backs on religion. They sometimes speak of it with a kind of suppressed and settled bitterness as of a friend that has proved faithless: "We are not atheists: we have simply done with God." They seem to feel that if there be a God, He is, at any rate, no God for them, that He is the God of the rich, and cares nothing for the poor, and there is a vein of most touching, though most illogical, reproach in their hostility towards a Deity whom they yet declare to have no existence. They say in their heart, There is no God, or only one whom they decline to serve, for He is no friend to the labouring man, and has never all these centuries done anything for him. This atheism seems as much matter of class antipathy as of free-thought; and the semi-political element in it lends a peculiar bitterness to the socialistic attacks on religion and the Church, which are regarded as main pillars of the established order of things, and irreconcileable obstructives to all socialist dreams. The Church has, therefore, as a rule looked upon the whole movement with a natural and justifiable suspicion, and has, for the most part, dispensed to it an indiscriminate condemnation. Some Churchmen, however, scruple to assume this attitude; they recognise a soul of good in the agitation, if it could be stripped of the revolutionary and atheistic elements of its propaganda, which they hold to be, after all, merely accidental accompaniments of the system, at once foreign to its essence and pernicious to its purpose. It is in substance, they say, an economic movement, both in its origin and its objects, and so far as it stands on this ground they have no hesitation in declaring that in their judgment there is a great deal more Christianity in socialism than in the existing industrial régime. Those who take this view, generally find a strong bond of union with socialists in their common revolt against the mammonism of the church-going middle classes, and against some current economic doctrines, which seem almost to canonize what they count the heartless and un-Christian principles of self-interest and competition.
Such, for example, was the position maintained by the Christian Socialists of England thirty years ago—a band of noble patriotic men who strove hard, by word and deed, to bring all classes of the community to a knowledge of their duties, as well as their interests, and to supersede, as far as might be, the system of unlimited competition by a system of universal co-operation. They inveighed against the Manchester creed, then in the flush of success, as if it were the special Antichrist of the nineteenth century. Lassalle himself has not used harder, more passionate, or more unjust words of it. Maurice said he dreaded above everything "that horrible catastrophe of a Manchester ascendancy, which I believe in my soul would be fatal to intellect, morality, and freedom"; and Kingsley declared that "of all narrow, conceited, hypocritical, anarchic, and atheistic schemes of the universe, the Cobden and Bright one was exactly the worst." They agreed entirely with the socialists in condemning the reigning industrial system: it was founded on unrighteousness; its principles were not only un-Christian, but anti-Christian; and in spite of its apparent commercial victories, it would inevitably end in ruin and disaster. Some of them had been in Paris and witnessed the Revolution of 1848, and had brought back with them two firm convictions—one, that a purely materialistic civilization, like that of the July Monarchy, must sooner or later lead to a like fate; and the other, that the socialist idea of co-operation contained the fertilizing germ for developing a really enduring and Christian civilization. Mr. J. M. Ludlow mentioned the matter to Maurice, and eventually a Society was formed, with Maurice as president, for the purpose of promoting co-operation and education among the working classes. It is beyond the scope of the present work to give any fuller account of this interesting and not unfruitful movement here; but it is to the purpose to mark two peculiarities which distinguish it from other phases of socialism. One is, that they insisted strongly upon the futility of mere external changes of condition, unattended by corresponding changes of inner character and life. "There is no fraternity," said Maurice, finely, "without a common Father." Just as it is impossible to maintain free institutions among a people who want the virtues of freemen, so it is impossible to realize fraternity in the general arrangements of society, unless men possess a sufficient measure of the industrial and social virtues. Hence the stress the Christian Socialists of England laid on the education of the working classes. The other peculiarity is, that they did not seek in any way whatever to interfere with private property, or to invoke the assistance of the State. They believed self-help to be a sounder principle, both morally and politically, and they believed it to be sufficient. They held it to be sufficient, not merely in course of time, but immediately even, to effect a change in the face of society. For they loved and believed in their cause with a generous and touching enthusiasm, and were so sincerely and absolutely persuaded of its truth themselves, that they hardly entertained the idea of other minds resisting it. "I certainly thought," says Mr. I. Hughes, "(and for that matter have never altered my opinion to this day) that here we had found the solution to the great labour question; but I was also convinced that we had nothing to do but just to announce it, and found an association or two, in order to convert all England, and usher in the millennium at once, so plain did the whole thing seem to me. I will not undertake to answer for the rest of the council, but I doubt whether I was at all more sanguine than the majority." Seventeen co-operative associations in London, and twenty-four in the provinces (which were all they had established when they ceased to publish their Journal), may seem a poor result, but their work is not to be estimated by that alone. The Christian Socialists undoubtedly gave a very important impetus to the whole movement of co-operation, and to the general cause of the amelioration of the labouring classes.
The general position of Maurice and his allies (though with important differences, as will appear) has been taken up again by two groups in Germany at the present day—one Catholic, the other Protestant—in dealing with the social question which has for many years agitated that country. In one respect the Christian Socialists of England were more fortunate than their German brethren. Nobody ever ventured to question the purity of their motives. The intervention of the clergy in politics is generally unpopular: they are thought, rightly or wrongly, to be Churchmen first, and patriots afterwards; but it was impossible to suspect Maurice and his friends of being influenced in their efforts at reform by considerations of ecclesiastical or electoral interest, or of having any object at heart but the social good of the nation. It is otherwise with the Christian Socialists of Germany. Neither of the two German groups affects to conceal that one great aim of its work is to restore and extend the influence of the Church among the labouring classes; and it is unlikely that the Clerical party in Germany were insensible to the political advantage of having organizations of working men under ecclesiastical control, though it ought to be acknowledged that these organizations were contemplated before the introduction of universal suffrage. But even though ecclesiastical considerations mingled with the motives of the Christian Socialists, we see no reason to doubt the genuineness of their interest in the amelioration of the masses, or the sincerity of their conviction of the economic soundness of their programme.