French and German Socialism in Modern Times

by Richard T. Ely

“And, continuing to deceive them in the same manner, the wicked man ever increased their labor and ever diminished their wages.

“And they died for lack of the necessaries of life, and others pressed forward to take their places; for poverty had become so terrible in the land, that entire families sold themselves for a morsel of bread.

“And the wicked, cruel man, who had lied to his brothers, amassed a larger fortune than the wicked man who had enslaved them.

“The name of the latter is tyrant; but the former has no name save in hell itself.”[206]

The Christian socialism of England has peculiarities which render it exceedingly interesting in connection with an account of French and German Christian socialism, furnishing, as it does, opportunities for instructive comparisons.

It arose about thirty years ago. Its founders were men like Charles Kingsley, Frederick Maurice, and Thomas Hughes. They were filled with horror at the wrongs and hardships of the lower classes, and rejected with lofty moral indignation the theory of the Manchester men that state and society were to do nothing about it. They refused to believe that the action of self-interest led to the most perfect social harmony, or that government should do nothing to alleviate suffering and elevate the masses. Some of their expressions might have satisfied even a social democrat. Kingsley expressed his opinion of economic liberalism by describing the Cobden and Bright scheme of the universe as the worst of all narrow, hypocritical, anarchic, and atheistic social philosophies; while he predicted the coming of good times to the poor, and the overthrow of mammonism, in these words: “Not by wrath and haste, but by patience made perfect through suffering, canst thou proclaim this good news to the groaning masses, and deliver them, as thy Master did before thee, by the cross and not the sword. Divine paradox! Folly to the rich and mighty—the watchword to the weak, in whose weakness is God’s strength made perfect. ‘In your patience possess ye your souls, for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.’ Yes, he came then, and the Babel-tyranny of Rome fell, even as the more fearful, the more subtle, and more diabolic tyranny of mammon shall fall ere long—suicidal, even now crumbling by its innate decay. Yes; Babylon the Great—the commercial world of selfish competition, drunken with the blood of God’s people, whose merchandise is the bodies and souls of men—her doom is gone forth. And then—then—when they, the tyrants of the earth, who lived delicately with her, rejoicing in her sins, the plutocrats and bureaucrats, the money-changers and devourers of labor, are crying to the rocks to hide them, and to the hills to cover them, from the wrath of him that sitteth on the throne; then labor shall be free at last, and the poor shall eat and be satisfied, with things that eye hath not seen nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive, but which God has prepared for those who love him.”[207]

Kingsley and his confrères held that modern competition was only one kind of warfare, and consequently sinful. They sought to replace it by co-operation, in which they found a practical carrying-out of Christian principles. Mr. Ludlow, Maurice, and others talked the matter over, and finally formed a society in London to promote co-operative undertakings and the education of the lower classes. They assisted laborers to found productive co-operative associations. They established also a newspaper, the Christian Socialist, in which they made propaganda for their faith. They thought they had discovered the panacea for all social evils: “I certainly thought,” said Mr. Hughes afterwards—“and, for that matter, have never altered my opinion to this day—that here we had found the solution of the great labor 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.”[208]

The Christian socialists established seventeen co-operative societies in London and twenty-four in other parts of England, but chiefly, if not wholly, in the south, before their organ ceased to appear. These, however, all failed. But about this time there began to spring up in the north of England distributive co-operative societies, not designed to produce commodities, but, as their name implies, to distribute them by establishing stores. These associations, which have prospered greatly, furnished an opportunity for some of the Christian socialists to exert themselves in behalf of the laborer. So far as there is to-day any active Christian socialism in England, it is to be found in the Co-operative Union. Indeed, Mr. Thomas Hughes seems to identify the two movements in a letter,[209] which he was kind enough to write me about Christian socialism. As it is interesting, and Americans are always glad to hear what the author of “Tom Brown at Rugby” has to say, I will take the liberty of quoting such parts of his letter as bear on our subject:

“The details of the Christian socialist movement may still be gathered from The Christian Socialist newspaper, and tracts, The Journal of Association, its short-lived successor, and Politics for the People, its more short-lived predecessor.... The leaders are quite scattered—Maurice, Kingsley, and Mansfield dead; Lord Ripon, Governor-general of India; Ludlow, Registrar of Friendly Societies; Ellison, a metropolitan magistrate; I a county-court judge. The only one left actively in this movement (which I have left only two months since) is E. Vansittart Neale, who is general secretary (and backbone and conscience) of the Co-operative Union. I was chairman of the southern section till I took this judgeship.