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Rh O M M U N I S M he believed to be associated with every circumstance that favoured the accumulation of capital in private hands. Co operation, he urges, is only improved capitalism, and the very improvement by making it more formidable seemed only to make it more hateful to him. mpt la the same spirit of bitter hostility to all means of itical improving the existing condition of society without chang- 1- ing the basis on which it rests, communists have often shown great contempt for political liberalism. The changes proposed and carried out by political liberals are condemned by the communists as a mere patching up of an essentially worthless fabric which must be got rid of before anything better can be substituted in its place. At the time when the agitation for the Reform Bill carried in 1832 was uppermost in the minds of all English politicians, Robert Owen took an opportunity of pro claiming in public his belief in the utter futility of all political reform. The German communists, or socialists as they are often called, have, generally speaking, been very emphatic in expressing themselves in a similar strain. The following passage, taken from the writings of Karl Marx, a member of the International Society, is scarcely an exag geration of the views of the German school of communism on the value and results of political liberalism : &quot; Although the liberals have not carried out their principles in any land as yet completely, still the attempts which have been made are sufficient to prove the uselessness of their efforts. They endeavoured to free labour, but only succeeded in subjecting it more completely under the yoke of capital ; they aimed at setting at liberty all labour powers, and only riveted the chains of misery which held them bound ; they wanted to release the bondman from the clod, and deprived him of the soil on which he stood by buying up the land ; they yearned fora happy condition of society, and only created superfluity on one hand and dire want on tho other ; they desired to secure for merit its own honourable reward, and only made it the slave of wealth ; they wanted to abolish all monopolies, and placed in their stead the monster monopoly, capital ; they wanted to do away with all wars between nation and nation, and kindled the flames of civil war ; they tried to get rid of the state, and yet have multiplied its burdens ; they wanted to make education the common property of all, and made it the privilege of the rich; they aimed at the greatest moral improvement of society, and have only left it in a state of rotten immorality ; they wanted, to say all in a word, unbounded liberty, and have produced the meanest servitude ; they wanted the reverse of all which they actually obtained, and have thus given a proof that liberalism in all its ramifications is nothing but a perfect Utopia.&quot; gs of The condition of England is often pointed at triumphantly by communists of other countries as a complete condemaa- tion of the principles of private property, capitalism, and competition. Lassalle, Marx, Louis Blanc, and others quote passages from bluebooks, speeches of English statesmen, and writings of our public men in which the condition of the English poor is painted in the darkest colours. In England, they say, for the last half century you have had liberalism in the ascendant ; you have had free trade, you have had an energetic and industrious people ; the amount of capital eager for employment is practically unlimited ; competition has had in nearly every branch of trade the most unrestricted development. In England, if anywhere, we may surely look for the nearest approach to perfection of which the present economic condition of society is capable. Then they proceed to quote passages from parliamentary speeches and official reports, and from English writers on political economy, all bearing witness to the terrible poverty and squalor in which a large ion

proportion of the labouring class in this country spend their lives. M. Louis Blanc, in the book already referred to, quoted from Lord Lytton s England and the English & passage showing that the amount and quality of nutriment consumed by the inmates of our jails and workhouses were at that time far in excess of what could be obtained by the wages of the frugal and industrious working-man. Marx cites the following passage from Dr Hunter s report to tho Privy Council (1862-3) on the domiciliary condition of tho agricultural labourer :&quot; The means of existence of the hind are fixed at the very lowest possible scale. What he gets in wages and domicile is not at all commensurate with the profit produced by his work. His means of subsistence are always treated as a fixed quantity ; as for any further reduction of his income he may say nihil halco, nihil euro. He is not afraid of the future ; he has reached zero, a point from which dates the farmer s calculation. Come what may he takes no interest in either fortune or misfortune.&quot; Whatever may be the value of the remedy -which communism suggests for so melancholy a condition as that here described, it is surely useful that the attention of people who have &quot; much goods laid up for many years :&amp;gt; should be forcibly arrested, and that they should be made to consider why it is that in the richest country in the world the condition of a large proportion of the labouring classes is so bad that it can hardly be made worse. But at present there is a general conviction that the remedy proposed by communists is one which it would be over whelmingly difficult to apply, and it is also believed that even if it were applied it would be of doubtful efficacy. Some of the most obvious difficulties associated with the practical adoption of communism have been already adverted to. The social, political, and industrial edifice whieh is the outcome of centuries of effort and sacrifice would be destroyed by the adoption of communism ; it would be necessary to reconstruct society from its very foundations ; and society, like a constitution, is one of those things which cannot be made it must grow. Then also the efficacy of communism as a remedy for the miserable condition of the poor is, to say the least, doubtful. To what cause may be assigned most of the pauperism, misery, and squalor which hang like a cloud over the lives of so many of the labouring classes 1 W T hat was the principal agency which brought about calamities like the Irish and the Orissa famines 1 There can be but one answer to these questions, the pressure of population on the means of subsistence. Many communistic writers have passionately denied this, and have denounced with all the fervour of emotional natures the doctrine laid down by Malthus that population tends to increase faster than subsistence is capable of being increased. No one, however, has Checks on attempted to throw doubt on the main fact on which the PP ula - Malthusian doctrine rests, that everywhere, except in very * new countries with a large extent of unoccupied fertile land, checks on population are in active operation. These checks must exist everywhere where population does not increase at its greatest possible speed. Under favourable conditions population sometimes has doubled itself in 20 years. Professor Cairnes has stated that in Ireland the population more than doubled itself in the 38 years between 1767 and 1805. At the rate of increase c/ the ten years ending 1870, the population of England would double itself in 63 years, that of France in 265 years. In France and England, therefore, checks on popu lation are, in a varying degree, in active operation ; and the same may be said of all old countries. It is important, however, to inquire into the nature of the checks on population in actual operation. They may be divided into two classes, the first carrying with it nothing but misery and degradation, the second implying a high degree of self-