out of the field in many places, although spirits when used as a food are generally admitted to be a poison. For an entire century the governments strove vainly against the European opium; economy gained the day, and gave the word of command to consumption.

"Why, then, are cotton, potatoes, and spirits the pivots of bourgeois society? Because less labour is needed to produce them, and they are consequently at the lowest price. Why does the minimum price decide the maximum consumption? Would it by chance be on account of the absolute utility of these articles, of their intrinsic utility, of their utility in so far as they correspond in the most useful manner to the needs of the workman as man, and not of man as workman ? No; it is because in a society founded on misery, the most miserable products have the fatal prerogative of serving for the use of the greatest number.

"To say now that because the least costly things are most largely consumed they must be of the greatest utility, is to say that the wide consumption of gin on account of its small cost of production is conclusive proof of its utility; it is to tell the wage-earner that the potato is more wholesome for him than meat; it is to accept the existing state of things. In a society to come where the antagonism of classes would cease, where there would be no more classes, consumption would no longer be determined by the minimum time of production; but the time of production that would be devoted to an article would be determined by its degree of utility."*

Whatever, then, is the least costly in point of food, clothing, and housing, becomes a portion of the "standard of life," towards which the working classes tend under our * Marx, "Misère de la Philosophie," pp. 41, 42.

great capitalist system; and though special causes may for a time prevent the minimum from being reduced to as low a level as is most conducive to the capitalist's view of utility, when once the tendency has resulted in actual fact, the standard is rarely raised again. Shoddy clothing, adulterated bread, poisonous gin are, as we can all see, the main supports of a large population in the great cities. It has been urged that a change might be brought about by influencing the nature of the demand for commodities, by inducing men and women to adopt greater simplicity of life, and thus by directing the work of the world in a better direction, to mitigate the injustice, and do away with the waste of labour which now prevails. But this is really a metaphysical view of the situation, and presumes a complete change in society itself, such as can only be the result of a great historical evolution or revolution in the methods of production, exchange, and education extending perhaps over generations, and ending in the final victory of the producing class, which will then be the entire community.*

Even while we are discussing the conditions around us, the historical movement, which, if neglected, renders all political economy utterly worthless, is pressing steadily onwards. The utopian socialists and reorganisers of society passed over the details of growth almost as lightly as the bourgeois economists. The eagle eye of the idealist" saw the imperfections of the society of his own day, and could suggest a better form for the future, but the development proceeding from the past and going on relentlessly

* It is amusing to note that writers in the capitalist press call our shallow middle-class political economy, which does not even rightly analyse how the spoils of the workers are divided, a science. It is a science in much the same sense that alchemy and astrology were sciences.

through the present into the future, was too often hidden from even his gaze. The really scientific process takes account of the past and of the present, knowing right well that in this way alone is it possible to forecast, in any sound sense, the economy of the future. Those who desire to trace the origin and the effect of the machine industry must first grasp that antagonism of classes which has led irresistibly to our existing anarchy. Alike in agriculture and in manufacture, the constant improvements of machinery, the incalculable revolutions which may be wrought by new discoveries and inventions, render absolute plans or forecasts impossible. But this we can discern, that by great corporations, made up of many shareholders, who employ salaried officials to organise production or distribution; by the growing disposition of the State, even in its present bourgeois form, to take control of various departments also with a hierarchy of salaried officials, the old individualism, pure and simple, is being broken down, and collective in some degree substituted for individual effort. The revolt of the organised method of production, where each worker is more and more dependent on his fellow, against the anarchical system of exchange, where each is against all, becomes more pronounced with every successive crisis. The middle-class is incapable of handling its own social system, and the proletariat must at last come by its own. From the worse side of our existing civilisation a new and better form must be evolved, if any beneficial change takes place.

Thus, then, the examination of the existing conditions of capitalist production with the great machine industry, where wealth consists in a vast accumulation of commodities, and articles are produced with a view to their exchange for profit on the markets of the world, where also the

means of production, and the control of the exchange of products, are in the hands of one class, and nothing beyond bare subsistence is accorded to the other this analysis, which takes account of the fierce competition that goes on among the capitalists for gain above, gradually crushing out the less powerful, and the yet fiercer competition among the wage-earners below, for the privilege of gaining an uncertain livelihood, gradually crushing the weaker there too-all proves clearly that the domination of capitalism must involve perpetual uncertainty and inferior production for profit, whilst the wealth created through improved machinery, instead of giving increased well-being to all, serves but to depress the mass of the people more and more relatively to the well-to-do.

CHAPTER VII I.

THE PERIOD OF APATHY.

WITH the collapse of the Chartist movement on the 10th April 1848, through the want of thorough education and combination among the working-classes, anything like organised resistance, on the part of the proletariat, to the domination of the landlords and middle-class came to an end.* Henceforth, the trifling changes brought about have been due rather to the unavoidable advance of society than to any special activity. Freedom of the press, freedom of speech and right of public meeting had been secured by the Chartists and their sympathisers; the right to combine had been partially conquered by the Trade Unionists; some of the more grievous evils of the factory system had been checked by the Ten Hours Bill; but no definite step had been taken towards the organisation of labour in the interest of the workers themselves, nor had any restriction been placed upon the power of the landowners and capitalists to avail themselves to the fullest extent of freedom of contract within the limits prescribed. Freetrade, as the abler thinkers on the side of the people had predicted would be the case, if that measure were carried

* Of course Chartism long survived this date, and many of its active supporters did admirable work in securing a really free press. But, as an effective revolutionary force, it died down after the meeting at Kennington.