Monopoly by a class of land, of machinery, of capital, of credit, dominates the globe. But if the power of capitalism is thus world-wide, so also is the power of Socialism, which is slowly but surely organising for its overthrow. Throughout the civilised world the workers are learning slowly that they at least have no interests at variance. The commercial wars which are waged in Asia, in South Africa, in Cochin China, in Egypt, do not profit them; the returns they bring to the capitalist class do but strengthen the domestic tyranny. In every country new associations of workers and thinkers are being formed to-day, and old associations are gaining strength, which have for their sole object to bring mankind together on the safe ground of a common interest. That there are different schools, some of which desire at once to resort to that destruction which modern explosives so readily lend themselves to, is undoubted. But the desire for common social organised action grows with working-class education, just as mere individual anarchism has its foundation in middle-class ideas and middle-class ignorance. It is true that the great International organisation of 1864 fell to pieces after the Paris Commune, but the basis of international agreement remains, and common action is being everywhere prepared for which cannot but have stupendous results. We are approaching the end of the century; 1889 is the centenary of the great French Revolution. The ideas of the enfranchisement of mankind from capitalist domination are everywhere abroad among the working men. In these days, when communication is so rapid and news spreads so fast, simultaneous action has a cumulative effect, economical, social, and political. It is childish to overlook class antagonism as the great factor in all human progress throughout history from the break-up of village communities to our

own time. Rather is it wise to reflect that the present capitalism, with its attendant mercenary militarism and dominant officialism, bears with it the certainty of early destruction; rather is it well to make ready, soberly and scientifically, for the Socialist organisation of production, exchange, and international relations which—however threatening the aspect of affairs at this moment—must inevitably take its place as the future of our race. It is in no spirit of narrow patriotism or petty jealousy of other peoples that I long to see my own country cut out the canker that gnaws away her prosperity, and stand forth before the world as the leader in a reorganisation which will mean enlightenment and happiness for the entire human

race.

APPENDIX.

THE opinions of Rodbertus are almost unknown to English economists, and as his views are of importance to the study of modern socialist economy, I here give an abstract of his opinions translated from Dr Rudolph Meyer's learned work, "Der Emancipations kampf des Vierten Standes." In brief, Rodbertus' view was that, under unrestricted free trade and free contract, present social arrangements for the production and distribution of wealth result in giving to the workers in the shape of wages a smaller and smaller proportional share of the wealth created by improved methods of production. This position he thus maintains :

1. The wages of labour, Rent, ground-rent, profit on capital are social facts and ideas which only exist because the individuals who are interested in them are united in a single society by the lord of division of labour.

2. Rent is all income which is received without a man's own labour solely on the ground of a possession.

3. Since there can be no income which has not been created beforehand by labour, Rent rests on two absolutely essential preliminary conditions. First, there can be no Rent unless labour produces at least more than is needed for the labourers to continue their labour-for it is impossible for anyone to have an income regularly without working himself, unless such a surplus exists. Secondly, there can be no Rent unless institutions exist which deprive the labourers wholly or in part of this surplus, and hand it over to those who do not labour-for the labourers are naturally always in possession of their product in the first place. That labour should yield such a surplus is due to economical causes which increase the productiveness of labour. That this surplus should wholly or partly be taken from the labourers and given to others is due to positive law,* which, as it is allied with physical force, enforces this abstraction by constant pressure.

* "Positive law" is a vile phrase, but it is an exact translation.

"4. Originally slavery, an institution whose development coincided with agriculture and landed property, practised this compulsion.* Labourers who produced such a surplus by their labour became slaves, and the master who owned the labourers as well as their product gave the slaves only just so much of it as was needful for them to carry on their work; the remainder, or the surplus, he took himself. If all the land of a country and all the capital in a country have become private property, landed property and capitalist property exercise similar compulsion on the free labourers. For this will have the same effect as slavery first, inasmuch as the product belongs not to the labourers, but to the owners of the land and capital; and secondly, because the labourers who own nothing as against the masters who own land and capital will be glad to take a part of the produce of their own labour to keep body and soul together, that is to carry on their labour. Thus, instead of the mastery of the slave-owner, the free-contract of the wage-labourer with his employer is introduced; but this contract is only nominally and not really free, and hunger fully makes up for the scourge. What then was called sustenance is now called

wages.

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5. Rent and wages are thus shares into which the product is divided so far as it is income. Whence it follows that the larger one share is the smaller must the other be. If the Rent takes a larger share of the product, a smaller share must remain for wages. As one share varies in size, so must the other in inverse ratio. Since the size of the share of the product rules at the same time the rate of value, the expressions 'high' and 'low' and 'rise' and 'fall,' which are relative ideas, are used in this connection for the permanence and variation of Rent and of wages. We say Rent is high or rises, and wages are low or fall, if the one takes a greater or increasing share of the product, and consequently the other a smaller or diminishing share of it.

"6. Wages, however, are spoken of in another connection than as regards a high or low level, or with respect to a rise or a fall. The degrading conception of a necessary wage has been introduced into the theory of wages-a wage, namely, which contains in itself only just so much as the labourer needs to reproduce his labour force; and thus insensibly the free labourer is regarded from the point of view of a slave, who, in fact, costs just so much susten

* Slavery existed in the nomadic state, and this Rodbertus should have recognised.