Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/241

Rh C M M U N I S M 213 the anomaly of slavery existing side by side with institu tions which otherwise embody the most absolute personal, political, and religious freedom. The presence of slaves in Utopia is made use of to get rid of one of the practical difficulties of communism, viz., the performance of disagree able work. In a society where one man is as good as another, and the means of subsistence are guaranteed to all alike, it is easy to imagine that it would be difficult to ensure the performance of the more laborious, dangerous, and offensive kinds of labour. In Utopia, therefore, we are expressly told that &quot; all the uneasy and sordid services &quot; are performed by slaves. The institution of slavery was also made supplementary to the criminal system of Utopia, as the slaves were for the most part men who had been con victed of crime ; slavery for life was made a substitute for capital punishment. In many respects, however, More s views on the labour question were vastly in advance of his own time, and indeed of ours. He repeats the indignant protest of the Republic that existing society is a warfare between rich and poor. &quot; The rich,&quot; he says, &quot; devise every means by vhich they may in the first place secure to themselves what they have amassed by wrong, and then take to their -own use and profit, at the lowest possible price, the work and J.ibour of the poor. And so soon as the rich decide on adopting these devices in the name of the public, then they become law.&quot; One might imagine these words had been quoted from the programme of the International Society, so completely is their tone in sympathy with the hardships of the poor in all ages. More shared to the full the keen sympathy with the hopeless misery of the poor which has been the strong motive power of nearly all speculative communism. The life of the poor as he saw it was so wretched that he said, &quot; Even a beast s life seems enviable ! &quot; Besides community of goods and equality of conditions, More advocated other means of ameliorating the condition of the people. Although the hours of labour were limited to six a day there was no scarcity, for in Utopia every one worked; there was no idle class, no idle individual even. The importance of this from an economic point of view is insisted on by More in a passage remarkable for the importance which he attaches to the industrial condition of women. &quot; Arid this you will easily apprehend,&quot; he says, &quot; if you consider how great a part of all other nations is quite idle. First, women generally do little, who are the half of mankind.&quot; Translated into modern language his proposals comprise universal compulsory education, a reduction of the hours of labour to six a day, the most modern principles of sanitary reform, a complete revision of criminal legislation, and the most absolute religious toleration. The romantic form which Sir Thomas More gave to his dream of a new social order found many imitators. The Utopia may be regarded as the prototype of Campanella s City of the Sun, Harrington s Oceana, Bacon s Nova Atlantis, Defoe s Essay of Projects, Fenelon s Voyage dans I He des Plaisirs, and other works of minor importance. iversal It is remarkable that all communists have made a cation, great point of the importance of universal education. All ideal communes have been provided by their authors with a perfect machinery for securing the education of every child. One of the first things done in every attempt to carry communistic theories into practice, has been to establish a good school and guarantee education to every child. The first impulse to national education in the present century probably sprang from the very marked success of Robert Owen s schools in connection with the cotton mills at New Lanark. At a time (180G) when popular education was in the lowest possible condition, Owen, as manager and part owner of the New Lanark Mills, proposed to his partners to spend 5000 upon new schools. They not unnaturally objected to an expenditure at that time quite unprecedented ; whereupon Owen bought his partners out for 84,000, and took his own course upon the educational system he had brought forward. It is to be observed that communists have seldom or never relied on their peculiar system alone for the regeneration of society. Community of goods has indeed been their central idea, but they have almost invariably supported it by other projects of less questionable utility. Compulsory education, free trade, and law reform, the various movements connected with the improvement of the condition of women, have found their earliest advocates among theoretical and practical communists. The communists denounce the evils of the present state of society ; the hopeless poverty of the poor, side by side with the self-regarding luxury of the rich, seems to them to cry aloud to Heaven for the creation of a new social organization. They proclaim the necessity of sweeping away the institution of private property, and insist that this great revolution, accompanied by universal education, free trade, a perfect administration of justice, and a due limitation of the numbers of the community, would put an end to half the self-made distresses of humanity. Has it never occurred to them that a similarly happy result might be attained if all these subsidiary reforms were carried out, leaving the principles of private property and competition to their old predominance in the economic world 1 If the principles of communism and of private property are to be fairly compared, the comparison must not be between communism as it might be and private property as it is. Communism to be successful requires to be accompanied by important reforms, towards which existing society founded on private property is gradually finding its way. The power which society, as at pre sent constituted, has shown of adapting itself to altered circumstances, and of assimilating by slow degrees the more valuable concomitants of the most revolutionary theories, is strong proof that it does not deserve to be dealt with in the summary manner advocated by the communists. We find in many socialistic writings of thirty or forty years Louis ago the assumption expressed or implied that, in society as it B1 | in ^ is, the most valuable and essential reforms are impracticable, M. Louis Blanc, for instance, in his book called L Oryanisa- tion du Travail, first published in 1839, says that in the existing order of society the spread of education among the masses would be dangerous, would, in fact, be impossible. This, if true, would be the strongest possible indictment against the existing order of society. But how have events falsified the assumptions made in the following passage 1 &quot; On a vu pourquoi, dans le systeme actuel, 1 education dca enfants du peuple etait impossible Beaucoup d esprits serieux pensent qu il serait dangereux aujourd hui de repandre Instruction dans les rangs du peuple, et ils ont raison. Mais comment ne s apercoivent-ils pas que ce danger de 1 education est une preuve accablante de 1 absurdite de notre ordre social 1 Dans cet ordre social, tout est faux : le travail n : y est pas en honneur ; les pro fessions les plus utiles y sont dedaignees ; un laboureur y est tout au plus un objet de compassion, et on n apas assez de couronnes pour une danseuse. Yoila, voilh pourquoi 1 education du peuple est un danger!&quot; (p. 100). Hence, he concludes, a social revolution ought to be attempted ; a new system of society ought to be introduced ; the old system of society is, he says, so &quot; full of iniquities &quot; that it cannot co-exist with a diffusion of education among the people. Even at the time when these words were written there was much to show that they were not true. Since they were written the spread of education has been most general in those countries in which the old social order, founded on private property and competition, is unshaken.