BURYING THE DEAD.

     THE original free, unconsciously Anarchist, institutions of our country, which Kemble describes as during the Saxon period "supplying a mutual guarantee of peace, security, and freedom for the inhabitants of a district," have constituted down to the present day the boast of Englishmen. But how changed they are: oh I quantum mutatabillis I

     These originally free institutions of the English people have been attacked on both sides; by the over-growtb of central government, and by the usurpations of that class whose fortune has been the misery of the people.

     The process of such political "enclosures," as it were, was extremely varied. Now the committee of the people's assembly was substituted for the assembly itself; now the function of moderator or executor in such assemblies was invested in a permanent and authoritative official. Again, the oppressive centralised system of criminal justice has gradually grown out of the original -sworn inquest"; just as the police organisation has grown out of the "frank pledge" and "hue and cry," and superseded the old methods of mutual responsibility.

     As property became more and more of a monopoly, property qualifications were more rigorously exacted as the basis of all claim to a right to fulfil public functions, and popular franchises gradually disappeared under a network of self-appointed rulers. Briefly, justice, administration, education, sanitation, roads---even charity-fell into the hands of the propertied class, and became their privilege. A part of the nation ceased to exist, or to appear in public life. The poor were eaten up or condensed in, or, as the language now runs, represented by the rich.

     The process, however, having been brought about by successive encroachments on popular rights and slow alteration of early institutions, has at length become so cumbrous, so hampering, that it is thought fit to introduce in it a little order and uniformity. The Local Government Bill now under the consideration of our legislators, proposes to sink all the irregularities and anomalies of the present system in the more centralised one of 11 County Councils."

     Shall we therefore be better off I Not a wit. To the rule of country gentlemen is to succeed the rule of the trading bourgeoisie, the rule of political parties or big electors. This means the end of one illusion, the beginning of another This means the political Continentalisation of England following on the economical Anglisation of the Continent. This means, however, also that we approach the end, and therefore revert to the beginning-to the free organisation, which was at the bottom of the early English institutions.

COMMUNIST-ANARCHISM.

     A SPEECH DELIVERED BY P. KROPOTKINE AT THE

     FREEDOM GROUP MEETING, MARCH 15th.

     The teachings of Proudhon are taken as a basis for individualistic Anarchism by a number of English-speaking Anarchists. Proudhon is undoubtedly one of the greatest writers who have ever dealt with economical questions; and for one who does not attach importance to his dialectical methods, and looks more at the ideas than at the methods of expressing them, he is one of the most suggestive-may be the most suggestive-amongst those writers who lead men to think for themselves. He has covered in his works nearly the whole field of human enterprise : economics, politics, art, war; and everywhere be has dealt with the subject in the most suggestive way.

     Down to 1869 a large number of French members of the International Working Men's Association were Proudhonians. The now bourgeois senator Tolain, and Fribourg, who represented the French Socialists in the early years of the International, were Proudhonian Mutualists. But since the Commune, Mutualism has virtually disappeared amongst French workmen.

     The modern Individualism initiated by Herbert Spencer is, like the critical theory of Proudhon, a powerful indictment against the dangers and wrongs of government, but its practical solution of the social problem is miserable-so miserable as to lead us to enquire if the talk of "No force" be merely an excuse for supporting landlord and capitalist domination.

     Turning now to Communism, we find that forty years ago, before and in 1848, the theory was put forward in such a shape as to fully account for Proudhon's distrust as to its effect upon liberty. The old idea of Communism was the idea of monastic communities under the severe rule of elders or of men of science for the directing priests. The last vestiges of liberty and of individual idual energy would be destroyed, if humanity ever had to go through such a Communism, especially under the rule of savants.' But this old idea has completely faded before the practical experience of the revolutionary movement.

     The Commune showed the people how a seemingly powerful government can be blown away in twenty-four hours. And though the foe at the gates prevented the development of the social revolution in Paris, enough initiative in social reorganisation was shown by the Parisian workers to mark the immense progress in their ideas since 1848.

     During the last seventeen years that progress has been enormously quickened. The idea of expropriation, of the producers taking possession of the. means of production has sunk deep into the 'hearts of the people all over Europe, and even, during the last six or seven years, into those of Englishmen. The conditions in which a new 1848 will find Europe are thus completely different from what they were when Proudhon wrote. And these new conditions of mind must be taken into account.

     Forty years ago, when the Paris workmen overthrew the Government, they timidly asked for universal suffrage as a means for bringing into life social reforms. They timidly asked State help for productive associations, for experiments in Communism.

     Seventeen years ago, when the Paris workmen proclaimed their Commune, they asked the autonomy of the Commune as a means for permitting social reforms in the autonomic city. But as to those reforms their minds were not settled at all. The word expropriation frightened them. Their respect for bourgeois property was great, especially among the Mutualists. And therefore we saw their elected leaders in the Council of the Commune discussing such matters as divorce between Church and State, communal autonomy, and reduced rents for apartments.

     Quite different will be the condition of men's minds if to-morrow the Commune is proclaimed in several cities of France. The respect for bourgeois property has gone amidst the workers, and even the lower middle class. The Bank of France would be considered as belonging to the nation; the houses as belonging to all inhabitants, and not to their legal owners; the stores of food, clothing, and so on, as the stock of the nation, not as the property of the few. And, so far as we can judge from indications already observable in the last Communal revolution, the workers will consider that nothing has been done as long as each man, woman, and child in the city has not been provided with food, decent lodgings, and clothes.

     especially who are employed in making luxuries for the rich-and we know how numerous they are now-will be thrown out of employment. The means of expenditure of the rich will be curtailed, and they themselves will flee from the disturbed districts; moreover, the raw material required in such costly manufacture will not be forthcoming.

     sities of the population to miss produce to supply the common needs. The need will plainly be common, and common labour the speediest way to supply it.

     The same with industry. The manufacture of plush for West End ladies and silks for Russian courtiers will not be revived, but the needs of the people will force the artisans into co-operation to make warm woollen cloth for the workmen who are now sleeping between two newspapers in the neighbourhood of Trafalgar Square.

     As won as the respect for private property has been shaken, and the very necessities of maintaining life have driven the workers towards Communism, the production must become communal. The workers cannot be persuaded any longer that the millions of horse-power of our steam-engines are the just property of those who possess them now. They will consider them as a common legacy from past generations, and use them for supplying the needs of the community.

     Free workers, on free land, with free machinery, and freely using all the powers given to man by science, could with the greatest easiness grow the necessary food for the whole of the population of the country, even if it should soon be doubled, and supply all the necessaries for a comfortable living for all members of the community.

     The two great movements of our century --- towards Liberty of the individual and Social cooperation of the whole community --- are summed up in Anarchist-Communism.

NOTES

     The Father of rulers, property and lies, has lately inspired his children with some skill in playing to the gallery and creating the delusions by which the victims of oppression are diverted from their wrongs. On the one side, Mr. Goschen conjures so cleverly with his items of finance that the admiring crowd are ready to forget that all taxes, however distributed, are a tribute wrung by force from the workers to support the Government that guarantees property and poverty. On the other hand, Mr. Ritchie produces such dazzling effects of democratic local administration that we are inclined to forget that, in the first place, the Local Government Bill will never be carried out in its present imposing form; and in the second, that if it were, it would only shift authority from one set of men to another, leaving the propertiless workers slaves as before. The object of the whole farce is to smother the social question in a fog of politics. The old, stale trick. Will it succeed once more 7

polists polists are preached by the Chicago Alarm; but the other American Mutualist papers zealously repudiate all but passive resistance to oppression, and cling to the peace-at-all costs doctrine of George Fox, Godwin, Shelley, Proudhon, Leo Tolstoi, and many another spirit touched to fine issues, but blind to the fact that domination is still an aggressive force in society, only to be destroyed by an outburst of energy more active and powerful than itself.

* * *

     Can one do a greater wrong to any human being than consciously to allow him to domineer over oneself or any one else without offering the most vigorous protest within one's power.

* * *

     We Revolutionary Communist-Anarchists differ from our Revolutionary Mutualist comrades in their theory that after the workers have destroyed the existing monopoly of property they will set about creating it afresh-by attempting to secure to every individual neither more nor less than the exact amount of wealth resulting from the exercise of his own capacities. Are not the scandalous inequalities in the distribution of wealth to-day merely the culminative effect of the principle that every man is justified in securing to himself everything that his chances and capacities enable him to lay hands on I

* * *

     If the social revolution amidst which we are living means anything, it means the destruction of this detestable economic principle, which delivers over the more social members of the community to the domination of the most unsocial and self-interested.

* * *

     Jus died last month, singing the swan-song of English Individualism. The hopes of the people are set on Socialism, and the privileged classes have no heart to defy them-so moans the expiring organ of the Liberty and Property Defence League. The whole attention of the propertied classes and their government is strained towards evading social revolution by skilful conjuring with timely concessions. The L. P. D. L. contains fewer conscientious Individualists than could be accommodated in a four-wheeled cab; in fact, it is merely " The Harassed Interests Defence League." It 11 is extremely unpopular amongst working class audiences." It "is credited, justly or unjustly, with a lively respect for the liberty of the wolf to devour the lamb, and a cynical admission of the equal right of the lamb to devour the wolf." A just charge, apparently, to the minds of the aforesaid singleminded Individualists of the staff of Jus, who have thus publicly shaken the dust of the League from their feet.

* * *

     It is reported that they are preparing to revive the paper as an Exponent of Individualist Anarchism. As comrade Hicks says, " We are all Anarchists now," and the defenders of " Liberty and Property," like many State Socialists, believe 11 that the society of the remote future will be held together on the priciple of absolute philosophical anarchy." But---also like State Socialists---they are perfectly prepared to pursue a policy in utter contradiction with their profession of faith -vide Mr. Auberon Herbert's 11 Right and Wrong of Compulsion by the State," and Mr. W. Donnistborpe's criticism thereon in the last two numbers of Jus.

* * *

     Surely an Anarchist is one who adopts Anarchism as the guiding principle of his life, who takes the moral attitude of an Anarchist towards his fellows here and now-not one who believes in a possible Anarchist Millennium in the dim future.

THE WOMEN OF THE COMMUNE

     WE have all been so drilled from our youth up in the prejudices of property and authority that even the workers, for whom property and authority have done so little, are not free from superstitious belief in their necessity. Especially we are all too much inclined to believe that mere confusion must follow on a popular revolt, unless some central or local authority be immediately set up to control social life and reorganise the people.

     During the Commune of 1871, the newly-elected Municipal Government was too deeply engaged by the enemy at the gates to make many attempts at social reconstruction. Was the city, in which so much of the old order had been overthrown, given up to disorder or to merely aimless individual effort 7 Did its social life run down, like a watch with a broken spring?

     Historians-friend and foe-have been almost wholly occupied with the official doings of the Communal Council, and have left unchronicled the spontaneous action of the people. And yet that authoritative Communal Organisation was a mere compromise between the ideas of the past and the new spirit of social revolution stirring in the masses and it is to the free initiative of the people themselves that we must look for the indications of the real meaning and scope of the insurrection.

     Little as we know of the social life of the workers during those few brief weeks of partial freedom from property rule, that little is of a kind to raise high our hopes for the future.

     Take, for instance, the conduct of that part of the people who are generally supposed to have least spontaneous initiative, to be most completely creatures of habit and routine, least strong and courageous, least fit to act for themselves-the women.

     When the treachery or faint-heartedness of the men entrusted with authority by the people allowed the cannon over which the federated

battalions of the National Guard were keeping watch in the name of the city, to be surprised by the troops of the middle-class Government, and the Central Committee knew nothing of the treachery or the danger, the working women of Montmartre waited for no centralised Organisation, no word of command, but marched up the open streets against the levelled muskets of the soldiers, and by their heroic daring won over the wavering hirelings of Thiers to be the allies of the people. Those women seized the critical moment for action, and acted boldly; and Paris was won for the Commune.

     But the working women showed not merely courage and cool promptitude in the face of danger, but, when the fighting was over, bestowed equal energy upon such reorganisation of social life as the terrible conditions of the siege rendered possible. An active official of the Commune writes as follows :

     "The Commune being obliged to fight against Versailles from the very beginning, there was scarcely any room left to women for an official part to take in the movement. However, in my arrondissement, and, I am sure, in several others, some rudimentary steps were taken. For instance, I took possession of the different schools conducted by nuns, and replaced them by lay female teachers. I did the same with the salles d'asile, that is, the buildings where very little children, too young to go to school, are kept. All ambulances were likewise kept by women. So were the cantines, or eating houses, which had been founded during the first siege.

     But in an unofficial capacity their conduct was truly beyond praise. So far as my district is concerned, they had formed committees to inquire into the wants of every family, especially of girls; to organise labour for women as far as the stormy events through which we had to pass would allow, cutting and making flannel shirts for the men who had to fight extra muros; attending at houses where wounded men or patients lay, etc. At night they crowded public meetings, took part in the proceedings, encouraged men to resist, proposed motions interesting their sex, which were afterwards transmitted to the Commune, etc.

You wish to educate labour economically. You know that is not an affair of fine writing. You know that the labourers must work out their own salvation, and that it is by our actual system of intermediary profits that they are beggared. The present co-operative stores are good in proportion to purchasing power, but of little use to those who are fleeced of the profits of their work, outside of it.

     Proudhon conceived that farmers might pool their credits by mortgages with his People's Bank, with a view to reduce interest and extricate themselves by instalments of liquidation during terms of perhaps twenty years.

     Since he wrote capitalism has been carrying matters with a high hand, and probably nothing less than expropriation will meet the exigencies of the case. The co-operative unions I have mentioned are feasible only when the means of production are owned by the pro ducers, and this in a variety of works forming circuits of production with consumption that shall dispense with outside trade. This com pleteness of circuit does not exclude the exchange of surplus products outside, and this, so long as Governments exist, will be necessary to provide for taxes; but otherwise, emancipation from the serfdom to capitalism depends in great measure on a currency different from the Government's legal tender. To withstand the privileged monopoly of money, labour only should buy labour. EDGEWORTH.

FREEDOM DISCUSSION MEETINGS

     Over 200 people crowded the little hall at 13, Farringdon Road, at our second meeting, on March 15th. The debate was to have been on Individualist and Communist Anarchism; but as no Individualists or Mutualists appeared to state their side of the question, the discussion turned chiefly on Free Communism

     test in Limerick jail. They were separately tempted to sign a promise to supply the wants of the police (a refusal to do so had been their offence) instant liberation to be the reward of this denial of their cause. But these poor tradesmen one and all stoutly declined to so purchase freedom, holding firm when taken into the presence of Colonel Turner, who rated them soundly for their obstinacy.

     Chief Baron Palles persists in administering justice. He has quashed the sentence of two months on Edward Walsh, editor of Wexford People, pronouncing it to be utterly illegal and ruling that the Crown should pay all costa.

     The scandalous attempts of the Government to back up the rack-renters in their desire to render the Land Act perfectly useless to the tenants is manifested in the prohibition of all meetings called by the leaders of the people. Balfour and Co. know full well that Win. O'Brien and his confreres will do again what was done so successfully at Mitchelstown, i.e., advise the people to hold out against eviction, and to force their wrongs before the Land Commissioners. The prohibition at Youghal had for net results three meetings instead of one for the people, and a broken head for Captain Plunkett of " Don't-hesitate-to-shoot

     notoriety.

ITALY

     The most important news of the month comes from Rome, where demonstrations of unemployed masons have taken place. Police and soldiers attacked them but the men stood firm, and could not be dispersed. The Italian Government used reinforcements from the provinces to be sent to the already strong garrison of the capital. For almost a week the unemployed kept parading the streets with their hungry faces, and were almost unmolested in their raids. upon bakers' carts and shops, which they emptied for the benefit of the hungriest amongst themselves. The temper of the men was shown in their reception of a peace manifesto issued by a trade union, and torn of the walls by the unionists themselves; and still more when a number of men refused the work offered by the municipality, saying that they would stand by each other, and not allow themselves to be bribed into division. It was not until 4000 of them had been arrested, by daily or rather nightly police raids upon their dwelling houses, and work was provided for the others, that the agitation temporarily subsided. Of the arrested men, the larger part have been conveyed to their native places in the provinces; others are being prosecuted, amongst them many Socialists and Anarchists, who have in the whole course of the affair promptly and bravely acted up to their duty as sentries of Revolution. They issued and placarded manifesto after manifesto to keep up the spirit of the strikers, and were themselves in the midst of the affray. Radical and labour representatives, on the contrary, made themselves conspicuous by their absence.