I.

'WE are tired of abstractions. Let us come to realities.'—That is the cry of the modern Socialists when they are confronted with the disquisitions of the older school of Economists. So be it. Let us try and test Socialism and its theories, not by counter theories but by facts. The Socialists have a great many doctrines and counsels of perfection, but their essential principle of practice is contained in the formula which declares that society will only be successfully and happily organized when the sources of wealth and the machinery of production are in the hands of the State—when, that is, the machinery of production is either nationalized or municipalized, and when the community, not the individual in competition, undertakes the production of all the things which man needs, from his clothes to his daily newspaper. When we are confronted with this theory, with the declaration that it ought to be put in practice, and with the demand that it shall be combatted, if it is combatted, with facts, not abstractions, the first thing we must ask is, What does the experience of the past teach on the subject?—has the plan of making the community the producer and the manufacturer the owner of the machinery of industry and production ever been tried before? The answer is Yes. It has been tried, and was a failure. When did that trial take Edition: current; Page: [88] place? In Paris in 1848, when, under the supervision of the Provisional Government, which accepted the doctrines of modern Socialism, a serious and practical attempt was made to inaugurate the era of State employment and State production. The history of the national workshops of 1848 is, then, whatever its teachings, of the utmost importance to those who are anxious to consider, fairly and reasonably, as I trust I am, the proposals of the Socialists of to-day. If the proposals of the Fabians would solve the social problem, abolish poverty and misery, and build a new heaven and a new earth, I, like every one else I ever heard of, would be a Socialist, and would adopt the doctrine of the nationalization of the sources of production. 'God hates the poor, and justly punishes them for their wickedness,' is not a doctrine that has ever been seriously held, though it is, I am aware, often represented as the Anti-Socialist's gospel. The question is, Would the realization of Socialism mend matters, or would it not rather make them worse? That is the problem which I propose to consider in the light of the experience of the national workshops of 1848.