Page:William-morris-and-the-early-days-of-the-socialist-movement.djvu/34

Rh on a large community or national scale possible by means of political organisation.

Already by the time of the formation of the Democratic Federation there was a widespread unrest in thoughtful minds with the existing conditions of society, and heralding voices of the coming Socialist movement were heard in every land. Robert Owen in this country, and St. Simon and Fourier in France, and Fichte and Weitling in Germany, had earlier in the century brought forward their various schemes of co-operative workshops and communistic associations, and in the revolutionary outbreaks of 1848 abroad, and in the Chartist agitation at home—notably by the voice and pens of Bronterre O'Brien and Ernest Jones—the cry of 'the Wealth for the Workers' in almost clear, class-conscious notes had resounded throughout the world. But the extraordinary advance of capitalist industry, aided by steam production and transport, together with the great exodus to America, Australia, and other colonies, had distracted the attention of the people from their misery, and aroused hopes of more prosperous days. Nevertheless, the gathering currents of Socialist thought were pressing on and rinding fitful expression in the writings of Carlyle, Disraeli, Ruskin, Mill, and the more earnest Radicals, and in the Christian Socialist movement of Kingsley, Maurice, Ludlow, and Mackay. Lastly, there came upon the scene about 1880 the outbreaks of the Irish and Highland Land Leagues, and the 'Land for the People' propaganda of Henry George, Michael Davitt, Alfred Russel Wallace, and Philip Wicksteed, which aroused widespread discussion.

But as yet, notwithstanding these signs of social insurgency, Socialist ideas had not assumed any definite political form in this country. The working-class in the bulk were completely under the sway of the capitalist political parties—whose most advanced projects were embodied in Mr. Gladstone's Midlothian speeches of 1879–1880, in which no reference whatever to Socialism, or even to