Vol. 1 -- No. 8 | MAY, 1887 | MONTHLY; ONE PENNY |
THE HYDE PARK DEMONSTRATION. 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!"
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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.
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already has in 1848 and 187l, new and quite different features to the movement.
To dream that the next revolution may follow one single programme all over Europe, is thus a fallacy. But again, to imagine that in each separate State, all the nation will rise at a given moments as one man, with one uniform practical programme, would be also to cherish an illusive and dangerous dream. Of course, all that is possible will be done by Socialists to awaken everywhere, in their respective countries, the consciousness of the masses; to enlighten them as to the bad effects of the present monopolisation of land and capital. When general interest in public affairs will be more awakened by great events, these ideas will spread still speedier than they spread now. But, nevertheless, there still will be wide differences in the views held in different parts of each country as to how far, and at what a speed, the abolition of monopolies must go, and to what measures most urgently need to be taken in hand at once. A nation is a complex being, and to expect uniformity where multiformity reigns would be to take an utterly erroneous view of public affairs. One of the deputies of the Scotch miners to the last Miners' Congress loudly proclaimed the other day that whatever the palliative measures they might discuss at their Congresses. the Scotch miners consider that justice will be only done to their claims when they come to be in possession of the mines they are now working in. Suppose that after a serious discussion of the whole question in their small clubs and in their local congresses, the Scotch miners come to the conclusion that the time has arrived to take possession of the Scotch mines, and elaborate some scheme as to the working out of these mines, sharing the produce of their labour with none of the land-grabbers, nor profit-grabbers. And suppose that the Northumbrian, or the Welsh miners, the Sheffield cutlers, and the Manchester weavers, cannot yet be brought to the same views. Must the Scotch miners wait until the whole of the British nation be converted to their ideas? Must they wait until a representative body, composed of heterogenous elements mostly looking towards the past, happens to elaborate some scheme for the transfer of the mines into the miners' hands? Is it not preferable that they should act for themselves, make a new start, lay down the basis of a new organisation, and preach by example? And is it not moat probable that they really will do so? All human progress has been realized in this way. A practical application of new principles is the only possible means of convincing most people of their applicability, showing at once their advantages and their possible defects. Or, suppose again, the inhabitants of Paris, discussing the dwelling question with all the eagerness it deserves, come to this conclusion --- that the houses of Paris cannot continue to belong to their present owners, not having been built by them, and deriving their immense value, not from the improvements the present owners have made in these houses but from the labour which has been expended on Paris by generations past and present, as well as from the very presence of two million of people at Paris. Suppose they arrive at the conclusion that these houses must become like the streets the common property of all the inhabitants --- and the probabilities are that they soon will --- must they wait until thirty-five millions of Frenchmen arrive at the same conclusion? Or, having proclaimed their independent commune, will they not act much more wisely if they organize themselves in order to take possession of these houses and for making use of them in the most equitable way for the greatest benefit of all the community? People may write as much as they like about discipline; they may dream as much as they like about uniformity. Practical life takes another course. The inhabitants of Paris will take possession of the Paris houses, whatever be the course taken by the inhabitants of Bordeaux; and they will organise themselves for the best use of the houses; and if the above-mentioned ideas grow with the Scotch miners, it is most probable that they will act in that direction. Separate cities, mining basins, and industrial regions will make independent starts, and then --- but only then --- they will enter into agreements with their neighbours, for deriving from their local action, the best possible advantages for the whole of the commonwealth. We might multiply the examples; we might go further on into this study; but what has already been said will probably convince most of our readers that during the next great movements separate cities and separate regions will make attempts at abolishing within their own spheres the monopolies of land and capital which are now so many obstacles in the way towards freedom and equality. The abolition of these monopolies will not be done by acts of national parliaments: it will be done, first, by the people of each locality; and the agreement between different localities will be the result of the accomplished facts. As to the aims and the character which these movements may assume and ought to assume, they will form the subject of our next article. "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. |
From an Anarchist point of view, the present outcry against Coercion is amusing. The gentlemen whose blood is now running cold at the Act (which will probably make the blood of many persons --- not gentlemen --- across St. George's Channel run warm), have themselves, when in office, passed Coercion Acts quite as immoral, if not quite so impudent as the "Criminal Law and Procedure (Ireland) Act, 1887." MODERN CIVILISATION. --- The chief source of the evils that affect man is man himself: Man to man is wolf. Whoever keeps this fact in view, beholds the world as a hell, worse than Dante's in this, that one man is the devil of another. How man deals with roan is shown by negro slavery, the final end of which is sugar and coffee. But we need not go so far: at five to enter a cotton or other factory, and thenceforth to sit there daily, ten, twelve, or fourteen hours, performing the same mechanical labour, is to purchase dearly the satisfaction of drawing breath. But this is the fate of millions, and that of millions more is analagous. --- Schopenhauer. |
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ROUSSEAU. 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.
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us of, is pure fiction. But this is not the defect of their theory, when understood aright, and according to the intention of the propounders. Their purpose was to answer a question as to right, not as to fact. What was the only possible justification of societies as they found them constituted? That was the question. The answer was, there is no semblance of justification to be discovered unless the states or societies we find existing be taken and considered as if they had been founded in agreement.
The flaw of all these theories of social pact or contract is their assumption of rights, liberties, persons, or humanities apart from and before society. Cleared of this error, and taken rightly as an ideal, or as a statement of the universal ground implied in any society that can claim to be human and to confer rights, duties, freedom, and satisfaction, the theory of Rousseau is a presentment of Anarchist doctrine. The adaptive and plastic unanimity which he demands can only be realised in small communities. His principles justify rebellion in any civilised state of his time or ours. His conditions of conjoint humane life can only find their fulfilment in a federation of home-ruling communes. Somewhere in his 'Discours sur l'Inegalité' he has said that if there were angels we might accept rulers; but there being none --- Any reader can finish the sentence. A DUTCH SOCIALIST MEETING. 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.
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VII. --- " VI ET ARMIS." The Parliamentary farce was not played during the reign of Edward VI. Dublin officials found the progress hoped for from the administration of the Common law too slow. Martial law was substituted, and "sundrie persons" were authorised by the Lord Deputy to execute it where and whensoever it seemed best unto them. The warrant f or this proceeding is difficult to find. Not even the attempts to thrust a new form of worship upon the people had stirred them into anything like revolt. The chiefs enriched by the plunder of the monasteries had taken the oath of supremacy with characteristic suppleness. To the majority of them prayers read in English sounded as mystic as if they had been in Latin. So that it was not the charge of heresy which sharpened the swords of the English Executive. The "rough handling "to which some of the chiefs were subjected by Sir Edward Bellingham - at fast induced a rebellion that was only lulled by the withdrawal of the garrisons (through lack of means of support). The next step of the government was to try the system of "plantation" which had been rejected over and over again by Henry VIII. as the one of all others most fatal to the policy of conciliation that he had initiated and I striven to carry out. Lord Sussex, entrusted with plenary powers by Mary Tudor, forcibly depopulated the territories of Sets and Offally (the land of the O'Connors now known as King's and Queen's County). The land was divided I amongst English settlers, and it was hoped that the rents of the farms so made would add £500 per annum to the English revenues. But the dispossessed tribes-men naturally seized every opportunity of retaking their lands that presented itself. A guerrilla warfare was waged for nine years, when the Government under good Queen Bess once more interfered and effected the plantation thoroughly by the complete extermination of the recalcitrant natives. Without variation during time whole of Elizabeth's long reign the policy was treachery, murder, wholesale massacre, and deliberately created famine. But for the distractions in the shape of revolution at home, and menaces from Scotland, France, and Spain, which left but little money and few men for purposes of destruction in Ireland, the pacification of that unlucky island would doubtless have been gloriously completed under the sway of the "most unspotted lily." Shortness I of money Elizabeth strove to obviate by quartering on the people the soldiers she sent to slay them. She grudged every shilling spent on Ireland, and continually demanded schemes from her deputies for making the Irish Government I self-supporting. Lord Sussex had tried the appointing of a president to each province, supported by a small standing army principally composed of native contingents and maintained by "coyne and livery." This scheme failed through I the determined resistance of those lords whose lands suffered for the maintenance of the soldiers. It was found, too, that whenever the standard of revolt was raised, the Irish who had enlisted in the Queen's service, having become drilled and disciplined, used to desert carrying their arms with them to the armies of their native chiefs. There were three great revolts in Elizabeth's thus, which were suppressed by cruelty outrivalling Alba's in the Netherlands. The first was under Shane O'Neil, in Ulster, and so well was he supported and so poor was the Executive, that a treaty was entered into with him by which Lord Sussex thought he could keep the Ulster men quiet until a more convenient season. Shane observed his share of the treaty rigorously, keeping well within his borders, expelling the Scotch settlers, ruling with a rough justice and encouraging "all kinds of husbandry and the growing of wheat." Sussex first tried to remove Shane by the knife of a hired assassin, who was to be rewarded with land to the value of 100 marks. This failing he sent bins a present of poisoned wine, which almost succeeded. Finally, Sir Henry Sidney superseding Sussex, the treaty was openly broken. O'Neil's rivals were encouraged to attack him within his borders, the English army advanced from the Pale, and Shane bereft of his Scottish adherents by the policy of Sussex, was attacked on all sides. His army after a gallant fight was cut to pieces, and he himself slaughtered by some of .the Scotch he had insulted to flatter the English deputy. Sidney followed up his victory by an indiscriminate slaughter of men, women, and children, seeking out even those who dwelt peaceably in the isles along the northern coast. In the island of Rathlin alone the English soldiers slaughtered women and children to the number of a hundred and fifty. A feeling of uneasiness sprang up amongst even the least patriotic of the chiefs. They felt that no amount of loyal professions could ensure them from treachery. The King of Spain's offers of assistance was accepted, and in the south, where men and arms were expected to arrive from Spain, Earl Desmond prepared to receive them and gave his name to the movement. At that time the Spanish scare was gaining strength in England. THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM. GREAT BRITAIN. The distress was terrible in Northumberland. Starvation-wages, short hours during the last few years, all contributed to increase it. 7here is now one cause more --- the strike to which the miners were compelled by the coal-owners' attempt of still reducing the wages. The miners resist, notwithstanding the terrible privations they suffer from, and the proposed reduction may be avoided for this time. As to the misery which prevails in the district, it may be judged upon from the numbers of miners' wives and children who are compelled to wander in quest of alms. Those who produce all riches must beg pennies from the idlers. The strike has had another serious consequence. Socialism found fervent followers among the miners. Their demonstration on Easter Monday at Horton was a decided success. The Democratic Federation and the Socialist League joined together in the demonstration. The resolutions carried are revolutionary; time cheers of the miners were for the Social Revolution. |
The affair of our eight comrades condemned to death at Chicago for having not thrown a bomb, came again before a Court. Three counsels of the condemned, and three counsels of the middle-classes, were heard by the people whom they call judges. One of the prosecutors made a remarkable avowal. "There is me indication," he said," for bringing the accused into connexion with the bomb thrown at Haymarket. But they are guilty of a general conspiracy for overthrowing the existing order of things" (i.e., for putting an end to the spoliation of the workers by the monopolists). Another explained that all Internationalists. are guilty of the same conspiracy, and the third went on to say that our comrades must be executed, because Anarchy as a whole is on the trial and must be condemned as such by the Court. The decision of the Court will not be known before three months if the former verdict is not confirmed, and in September next if legal assassination is maintained. (From a Correspondent.) "Tristan d'Acunha and Gough Island are the principal of a group of islands lying in lat. 37 deg. 6 min. S. and long. 12 deg. 2 min. W. It was taken possession of by a military force during the residence of Napoleon at St. Helena. Upon Isis death the garrison was withdrawn, with the exception of three men, who,. with certain shipwrecked sailors, became the founders of the present settlement. For a long time only one of the settlers had, a wife, but subsequently the others contracted with a sea captain to bring them wives from St. Helena. The population has since increased to about a hundred, and remains practically stationary, as the younger and more ambitious settlers migrate in batches to the Cape. The inhabitants practically enjoy their possessions in common, and there is no strong drink on the island, and no crime. It was at one time proposed to give them laws-and a regular government, but this was found unnecessary for the above reasons, and they remain under the moral rule of their oldest inhabitant, Governor Green, successor to Governor Glass, Corporal in the Royal Artillery, and founder of the settlement. The inhabitants are spoken of as long-lived, healthy, moral, religious, and hospitable to strangers. A supply of stores and provisions was provided out of a grant voted by Parliament, and sent out by a man-of-war in 1886, nearly all the a le-bodied men having been drowned while attempting to board a vessel in December 1885. There are 300 cattle and 200 sheep on the islands, and crops of potatoes are raised." The English Government has recently published a Bluebook of correspondence about this settlement (C 4959) from which we learn that its flourishing condition continues, in spite of the recent loss of life. The 97 inhabitants were found to have a year's food in store, besides 600 bushels of seed potatoes and 500 head of cattle and sheep. We are glad to see that the Treasury has forbidden any more grants being made to them. They are better without our interference, and why should the English worker at home be taxed for these prosperous and independent islanders? Annual Subscription, including postage, is. 6d. All communications to be acid-ceased to The Editor of FREEDOM, 34 Bouverie Street, Fleet Street, E. C. FREEDOM can be obtained in London from W. Reeves, 185 Fleet Street; the Freethought Publishing Company, 63 Fleet Street; the Socialist League Office, 13 Farringdon Road, E.C.; or ordered through a newsagent. |