THERE is something cruel in the part which is assigned to the people in the present political system. Their advice is never asked on a purely and simply defined question. Even the few who are called upon to take part in an election are asked to choose a representative simply as an expression of sympathy and confidence, and if any question at all is put to them, it is so involved in personal and party wranglings that the intrinsic merit of it is quite lost sight of. The usual course, however, is to simply ignore them, and they are only called upon when the time comes for one party to deal an effective blow at another in order to turn it out of office. Then the whole machinery of party is put in motion, all energies are exerted, all resources exhausted, all strategies and devices adopted in order to bring about a great and imposing demonstration, in which the cause of a party may be identified with the cause of the people, or the cause of the people may be exploited in the interests of a party. Handbills are distributed, renowned speakers engaged, class rivalries evoked, passions inflamed, hopes kindled, popular preferences courted. Every helping band is welcomed, and then, but only then, every allowance is made for differences of opinion; the demonstrating politicians, and the demonstrative people, being for the time allies. At the same time due care is taken that the people, when they have served the purpose for which they were needed, should disperse and depart as quietly as they came, leaving the matter in the hands of the self-constituted political leaders who claim, in and out of Parliament, a right to speak and act for them. The joke is repeated until the point is carried, and the unemployed politicians, once safe in office, may utter the exulting exclamation of the dying Augustus: "Friends, the comedy has been successfully played!"
     The comedy is too well known to need description in detail, but mention it we should in order to come to some conclusions of our own which appear to us to be more far-reaching and better worth thought than those with which most people content themselves.
     The first conclusion to be drawn from these public performances of political parties is, that as a means to ascertain the sentiments of the people on a given question they are quite worthless. The English masses sympathised with the Irish peasantry long before the late demonstration, while it is not in the least doubtful that many members of the Liberal and Radical Associations which took part in the Hyde Park meeting were only brought over to the side of Home Rule by the watchword of their leader--himself a quite recent convert--and the perhaps more persuasive voices of ambition and self-interest.
     On the contrary, and this is a second inference from the same facts, there is not in the present political system, there never will be in any political system which after having centralised the chief interests of millions of people commits them to the arbitrary will of a few, any means to test the feelings of the multitudes, or to enable them to come forward except when exercised by political priests and pontiffs.
     Moreover, a popular sentiment or will, even on matters of great and undoubted general interest, is not made to form itself, as people are, by the centralisation of affairs and their own economical condition (maximum of requirement with minimum of force), together with other secondary influences, kept aloof from public questions, and only called upon to consider them in a very summary manner when the time has come for them to play into the hands of political factions.
     Then the only means by which their ascertained will is to be carried into effect is not by a direct appeal to their delegates, not by a request to their servants to do so and so, not even by a humble petition, but only by an indirect moral influence on the deputies, such influence being diluted in the process by the other interests and views of the said deputies, and has to come at last, if at all, to the legislature (we say nothing about the executive, or the officials on whose help the executive depends) in a very unrecognisable garb and at a very reduced expression.
     Just think of this, the whole nation rendered incapable of address-to its so-called representatives any decisive opinion on any subject affecting its welfare or even its existence; this same people convened huge concocted meetings in order to procure for one of the two rival parties a few more votes at the next election. There must be something rotten in a system which makes the people a mere instrument of Party intrigues, and leaves them victorious or vanquished --- slaves still!

BEFORE going further, let us sum up the conclusions at which we have arrived in our preceding articles. They are two, and each of them is of importance in enabling us to see what we bave to do.
     We have established --- and if space permitted we might do so with a much greater display of arguments --- that we must rely for the accomplishment of the Social Revolution which we feel approaching all over the civilised world, neither on the present parliaments, nor on any representative bodies which might be summoned during a more disturbed period than the present. A mere change of Government would not necessarily be a revolution, even though the overthrow of the Government might be accompanied by acts of violence. European society is in need of a deep, thorough, economical transformation, and this cannot be accomplished by mere decrees. To have any chance of life, any change accomplished in the economical conditions must come from the very depths of the popular life itself --- it must result from the popular initiative.
     To accomplish an economical revolution is not the function of a body of representatives. All that can be hoped from such a body is that it will not oppose strong resistance to the action of the people, but under due popular pressure give its final sanction to accomplished facts. Never will such a body be capable of taking the initiative, for it is itself a compromise with the past and cannot even claim to be an outpost of the future. The French Convention of 1793 --- the ideal of so many Jacobinists --- did not do more than give its sanction to what the peasants already had accomplished, since they had retaken possession of the communal lands enclosed by the landlords, had ceased to pay the redemption for the feudal taxes, and had burned the charters by which they had formerly been bound. All these things being already done, the Convention --- under due pressure of the Paris workmen and clubs --- gave its sanction in the form of laws, consecrating the results of the peasants' revolt, it could not do more than that, because a body of representatives is a dead weight attached to the revolution --- not the leader of it.
     Another conclusion which we arrived at was, that the tree action of the people towards the abolition of the existing monopolies on land, dwellings, railways, and capital will, in every way, be favoured by the movements which will necessarily break out all over Europe before this century has come to an end. The immediate cause of these movements cannot be foreseen, and there is no need to know it beforehand. All we can and must know is, that thousands of causes contribute towards creating a revolutionary situation in Europe, and that there being such a situation, any cause may be the signal of widely spread revolts. The mass outbreaks which we have witnessed during the last few years are unmistakable tokens of the approach of the disturbed period.
     These two conclusions being kept in mind, we may proceed further, and add now a third conclusion to the above.
     Although no revolutionary movement can break out in Europe --- be it in France, Germany, Austria, or Russia --- without being closely followed by like outbreaks in other countries of Europe, we must be prepared to see these outbreaks taking very different characters in different countries. Germany most probably will try to overthrow the Monarchy and to introduce a Republican form of Government; and it is most. probable that attempts at substituting the present private ownership of land and great industrial concerns by State ownership will be made in the same country. But State ownership and State help to associations of workmen would not find much echo in this country, and still less in France, or in Spain. In France, the revolution will almost. undoubtedly proceed by proclaiming independant communes which communes will endeavour to accomplish the economical transformation within their walls, or rather within their respective surroundings. And in Spain, the whole history of the country is an unceasing struggle for the independence of provinces and municipalities --- a struggle which has its causes deeply rooted both in the former history and in the present wide differences of economical conditions in different parts of that country. State ownership and State's rule find no support even from the present political parties of Spain, still less will they find it in the new economical conditions. Add to these another example; while in this country we see the middle-classes seeking the support of working men in order to break down the power of the landed aristocracy, no such coalition is possible any longer in France. There the upper middle-classes stand in open and direct conflict with the Socialist working-men --- a circumstance which obviously will impart, as it

     "Command and obedience are but unfortunate necessities of human life: society in equality is its normal state. Already in modern life, and more and more as it progressively improves, command and obedience become exceptional facts in life, equal association its general rule. The morality of the first ages rested on the obligation to submit to power; that of the ages next following, on the right of the weak to the forbearance and protection of the strong. How much longer is one form of society and life to content itself with the morality made for another? We have had the morality of submission, and the morality of chivalry and generosity; the time is now come for the morality of justice. Whenever in former ages any approach has been made to society in equality, justice has asserted its claims as the foundation of virtue." --- J. S. Mill.

ROUSSEAU was not a Socialist in any scientific and definite way, simply because he was not a political economist. Yet there was in himself amid to a great extent in his works also, all the emotional material of Socialism. And, inasmuch as the Anarchist faith and formula distinguish themselves from general Socialism, in that they affirm entire equality and freedom in association, not merely saying of the members of society that each is for the whole, but adding with the same emphasis that the whole is for each one, and that he, in and through the whole in which he lives and moves and has his being, is an end to himself and never merely a means to any alien end or good that does not include him and is not his very own: this being Anarchism in its distinction, Rousseau may be rightly claimed as our precursor and herald, whether we have regard to his manner of stating the problem of politics or social life, or to the leading features of his solution.
     For the question is put by him in this fashion ('Contrat Social,' I. 6) "To find a form of association which guards each associate with the whole combined power, and in virtue of which each individual, while placing himself at one with all, yet obeys himself only, and is as free as before."
     The conditions which he considers requisite for the constitution of such a society, of such a thoroughly individualised social whole, an organic unity, organic alive and free in all its parts or members, are these: "Each of us must throw into the common fund himself and all his powers under the supreme guidance of the general (unanimous) will; each member being accepted as an individual part of the whole. . . There is then a collective moral (human) body, compounded of as many members as there are voices in the meeting, which body gets from this act its unity, its corporate self, its life, and its will." The unanimous assembly does not set up a sovereign or ruling power, but is itself "the sovereign people," and so continues ever after, so long as it is of one mind and will. It is while thus settled in unanimity, a law unto itself; yet there are no self-imposed laws or rules of joint conduct which may not be cancelled at once by the universal consent and will.
     The polity or commune is formed only of the individuals that freely unite to constitute it, and, therefore, can have no other interest than what is theirs. The man or woman entering into the comradeship of such a free society, becomes there and then free in the true sense of human freedom, for the first time. He at once acquires rights and duties, without which correlatives there is no true human freedom. For mights, whims, impulses, appetites, and self-seeking desires --- in a word, for the propensities and pleasures of the sub-human animal, which he renounces in the act of association, he acquires the substantial and permanent delights and satisfactions of that genuine human freedom, which is the loyal observance of self-imposed regulations for the common good. In such service and obedience alone is perfect freedom and real "independence." All true human independence is in reality interdependence.
     In such community, "Ought to," which was before confounded with, and was indeed all the same with a mere "Must," has now realised in each breast its own true clear and distinct significance and force. The practical reason of each person is now consciously the author of the I law which each obeys with joy and benefaction. This entirely disinterested conscience of each and all is what Rousseau evidently means by the "volonté genérale."
     Another anarchist feature of Rousseau's political doctrine is its denial of the theory of "representative government." The sovereignty of each and all "can never be alienated." "The sovereign . . . can only be represented by himself." Lasting and perfect, or even substantially practical agreement of representative and represented persons, is, he says, impossible. Putting this point another way, he says the general will is obviously "indivisible."
     Further in the direction of an Anarchist polity, is his insistance upon frequent meetings, that the initial unanimity may not get out of joint, or the sovereignty of the unanimous assemblage of persons may not fall into abeyance ('Contrat Social,' III. 18). Without such meetings and conferrings there can be no "general will" in act, and so no real freedom. He tells the English they vainly suppose themselves free, except, perhaps, at "general election" times! For once time members of the Commons are duly elected, the people lapse into their customary bondage! (III. 15). The British Anarchist will endorse this satire, which is only the truth, and all the keener on that account, with all his heart and full understanding. It is especially noteworthy that Rousseau's condition and criterion of the "generality" disinterestedness and goodness of the popular "will," is Unanimity. The "citizens" are those who agree; others are "strangers" But he I expects that unanimity will be attained by each thinking of the common good and interest rather than of private ends, and by a certain amount. of just and amiable yielding and modesty. "Long wranglings show that private interests are in time ascendant." The good-will of each is what he trusts in to put these particular and contentious ends in the background, and keep them there. But all this suppression and renunciation must be voluntary; for full and free consent is the only possible human ground of obligation and obedience.
     Now, it cannot be supposed that Rousseau was so foolish as to think lie was describing an historical transaction in his account of the contrat social, or social covenant. He, equally with Hooker, Grotius, Hobbes, Locke, and Spinoza, knew perfectly well what he was about. He was proposing an idea!, and laying down the conditions, or presuppositions and implications, of a really human society, state, or commune. From a mere historical standpoint, what all these political philosophers tell

I WAS at the Hague, casually drifting for a few days' holiday through Holland. I had seen Paul Potter's Bull, and Rembrandt's "Anatomy"; all the Princes of Orange, and the prison where De Witt was torn to pieces by the mob. I was a little tired of the sleepy beauty of the Hague, and was languidly scanning the advertisement bills, in choice for the evening's entertainment between a Dutch tragedy and a Parisian operette. Suddenly my eyes rested on the announcement of a Socialist lecture, and my indecision and langour came to an end.
     I had some trouble in finding Westerbaenstraat 154, where the "Walhalla," the Socialist meeting hall is situated, and I place on record that it is marked as "Westerlaanstraat" on Baedeker's plan. The hall was a bare room behind a row of workman's houses, which (like everything at the Hague) are exceedingly clean, airy and spacious. There were only two or three benches seating a score of people, and the audience of 200 to 300 stood during the whole meeting. The walls were bare, except for a diagram and a large and good representation in sepia of the Laokoon, which spoke well for the intelligence and artistic knowledge of the frequenters.
     The diagram represented the Marxian view of capitalism in a graphic manner, and is well worth reproduction. It depicted the separation of surplus-value from wages, and then its division into rent, interest, and taxes among the several sharers, who were thereby enabled to accumulate the "great capital."
     The audience, who had all paid 5 cents for admission, consisted chiefly of artisans, with a few wives and daughters, and a sprinkling of clerks and small traders. I cannot give any adequate idea of the patient attention with which these people stood in the close room, to listen in absolute stillness to the long oration of the speaker.
     I am sorry to be unable to record the name of this orator. On the platform was a circular wooden pulpit, breast high, exactly similar to those in old English and Dutch churches, and from this pulpit he read for an hour and a half, with perfect elocution, as eloquent a lecture as I have ever heard. I am unable to give any idea of this discourse, which was loudly applauded. The orator referred to the decorations at that moment adorning the streets of Amsterdam in honour of the king, as the hosannas of capitalism, which would be turned into abuse if the king ever had the idea of taking up the cause of the people. After a rapid sketch of the existing evils of industrial life, he referred to the attempts made by English co-operative enthusiasts to mend these evils, and explained how these failed to reach the masses, who had become mere parts of the great industrial machine over which they had no control. The working of this machine in speculations, crises and panics, was then explained, and the destructive result of this action and reaction on the proletariat was demonstrated. The influence of machinery was then dwelt upon, and it was explained in what way invention could become the friend instead of the enemy of the wageworker. An eloquent invocation of Socialism as the only hope and refuge for the worker, and the only remedy for social evils, closed this Impressive discourse. Discussion followed, the speakers speaking from time body of the standing crowd, and as I could not hear them clearly enough to understand their Dutch, I came away, after examining time literature stall, which contained some tracts by Marx and Engels, and pamphlets by and photographs of Dutch Socialists.
     Here we have a curious mixture of likeness and unlikeness to English Socialism. Is it possible yet to lay anything beyond the foundation of an international party? The social consciousness of the ordinary worker does not at present comprehend the world beyond his own narrow valley, and until the international organism is conscious of itself, it can never consciously unite. We are apt to exaggerate the spread of that wide cosmopolitism which makes of no account those national cleavages still separating the world. Friends we may find in foreign cities, but hardly acquaintances; and for several generations yet the world must advance mainly in sections according to the particular circumstances of each national group.
     Nevertheless, since science is universal, and nowadays also, capitalism, we find, from these two arising, Socialism also universal. S. W.