IN MEMORY OF CHICAGO.

SINCE the death of those Chicago comrades of ours whose names are engraved on the hearts of all those who struggle for freedom, two yearshave passed away, during which the Anarchist cause has advanced by leaps and bounds. In America itself it does not appear to us Euro-peans that great progress has been made, because there have been no stirring events such as have happened on this side of the Atlantic, butthose who know the workers of the United States best know that thenew ideas are ever gaining fresh adherents. and that with the increasing tyranny of capitalist rule has grown up in the hearts of hundreds ofthousand% of the most intelligent of American workmen a determina-tion to be free. The men who will lead the Social Revolution in America are it is true as yet unknown. but the thinkers and the pro-mulgators of the. new ideas are everywhere. Labour literature in the English, French, German, Bohemian and Jewish languages is being scattered in all directions. Some of it is very mild stuff confined to the advocacy of mere Trade Unionism and the demand for a slight improve-ment in wages and the condition of labour, but touch of it is philosophical, theoretical, and revolutionary. The new ideas are fermenting and the revolutionary party is taking form. Meanwhile more than a million of fresh competitor-, in the labour market have arrived from Europe and have learned how unsound was their belief in American prosperity and freedom. The struggle for wealth has grown keener, the wealth possessors have become less numerous, the monopolists have become more powerful and less considerate for the existence of the wage slaves, and the workers themselves have become poorer and poorer. In a word a revolutionary situation is being created, and nothing but a miracle can avert for lot,- the events which will inaugurate the Social Revolution in the territory the capitalist republic. Thosse who know the history of the Pensylvanian revolt of 1877 and of the eight hours movement of 1886 will readily understand how Europe may some dky it the near future be startled by the opening of a new Anti-Slavery campaign on the other side of the Atlantic, to which the Chicago Hay- market and the brave men who were murdered on -Nov. 11, 1887, will stand in the same relation as Harper's Ferry and John Brown did to the war of a generation ago.

Turning to England we see that when the government of Illinois decreed the death of Parsons, Fischer, Lingg Engel and Spies, they give an impulse to the movement here which practically created English revolutionary Anarchism Even those Socialists who are completely opposed to Anarchist ideals were compelled to come forward and recognise the undaunted courage and the true-hearted devotion of our comrades to the workers' cause. And the fact that they were anarchists induced a great many worker, to investigate and to think, in which they were aided by the speeches made before the judge and the articles written in the prison cell by the men who never ceased to work for freedom until they died. Hence it is largely due to them that to-day we have in England quite a number of Anarchist speakers and writers and workers of other kinds. The anniversary of their death has become a red letter day with us as with the Revolutionary Socialists all over the globe, and meetings are to be held here in London, in Norwich and other towns as well as in all the centres of Anarchist Spain, France and Italy, and of course in the United States itself. That these meetings will encourage to still greater efforts those who work to realise the ideal society for which our comrades died we are sure, as sure as we are that very few such anniversary meetings will be held before the Social Revolution of which they were forerunners will have commenced in real earnest.

Henrik Ibsen: --I detest leading men. . . . They are like goats in a young plantation: they do harm everywhere: they stand in the path of a free man wherever he turns But it is "not this sort of people that are the most serious danger of society; it is not they who are the most effective in poisoning our spiritual life or making pestilental the ground beneath our feet; it is not they who are the most dangerous enemies of truth and freedom in our society. . . . The most dangerous enemies of truth and freedom in our midst are the compact majority. Yes. the damned. compact. liberal majority-they it is ! Now you know it. . . .It is this great majority of our society that robs me of my freedom and wants to forbid me to speak the truth. . . . the majority is never right. Never, I say. That is one 0 of those conventional lies against which a free, thoughtful man must rebel. Who are they that make up the majority of a country? Is it the wise men or the foolish? I think we must agree that the foolish folk are at present in a terribly overwhelming majority all around and about us the wide world over. But, devil take it, it can surely never be right that the foolish should rule over the wise! Yes, yes, you can shout me down, but you cannot gainsay me. The majority has might-unhappily-but right it has not. I and a few others are right. The minority is always right." -En Folkefiende.

THE APPROACHING REVOLUTION.

(From our Paris correspondent).

THE great electoral agitation is over. The Government triumphs; Boulangism, conquered for the time being, foams at the mouth, and the worker who has just, according to his habit, again selected his masters. sees with anxiety the approach of winter, that season so hard for the world of the poor. A few days more will see the close of the Exhibition when Paris will be filled with its unemployed clerks and workmen. A critical moment will have arrived, Where will these men find work and bread? All these workless ones entering into deadly competition with one another will render it very probable that serious complications will arise.

To prevent an insurrection of hunger the Government will be very I likely to commence some public works, but the construction of a railway, the making of new streets, will be only a very insufficient palliative. Besides money is not quite so plentiful with out- masters-the elections have cost them dear! A loan is even now being arranged with the house of Rothschild, which is more than ever master of the situation. It appears certain, indeed, that the King of the Jews (we by no means refer to Christ!) insists upon the nomination of his creture Leon Say to the Ministry of Finance or to the Presidency of the Chamber. 'this is the sine qua non of the success of the loan. More than ever does the Orleanist bourgeoisie rule everything, and the anti-Semites of the Drumont type will have great opportunities. If a popular movement breaks out they will be sure to take part in it, and will do their utmost to direct it solely against the financial Jews. The bad side of this is that once thrown against the bankers, the mass which not yet converted to our theories, will, possibly forget entirely the expropriation of the landed and industrial capitalists. Will the people be simple enough to fight against the Jewish exploiters to the profit of the Catholic exploiters? What a sad spectacle it would be to see the working mass take the side of such or such among its mortal enemies, for the great bankers or the Jesuits; for the Orleanist-Republican government or Cesarism!

The mistake of some of our comrades is in not occupying themselves sufficiently with facts and paying too great attention to mental speculations thus leaving the field open to the dirty maneuvers of the politicians. Economic revolts commence always by modest claims, and the smallness of a demand does not constitute a sufficient reason for our not taking part in the fray. The miners of Lens (Pas de Calais) are out on strike and a very little initiative will suffice to give the movement a revolutionary character. A threatening letter has been addressed to the proprietor of the Chartin factory at Chauffailes and stones have been thrown against the windows of that prison. A very trifling incidents would serve to spread the agitation. The police are being used and the troops of Art-as are confined to their barracks. The northern region of France, besides, has felt some of the worst results of the industrial crisis. The wages in the factories and mines in that district are ridiculously low and the regulations are of a revolting barbarity. If the movement at Lens should extend to the neighbouring coal fields, ten thousand miners would be on strike in a few days, and who knows that the agitation might not spread into the Belgian centres. The chief demands of the miners in addition to an increase of wages, are the suppression of overtime and piece-work, the reduction of the fine for absence from two francs to one franc, the right of widows to continue to occupy the cottages they lived in whilst their husbands were alive, and some superannuation payment to be made to old workmen who continue at work. The great capitalist papers. such as the Temps, gravely declare that the continuation of the strike will be an antipatriotic act, as it will favour the importation of German and Belgian products It is thus in the name of the country that these serious journals exhort the miners to bend their backs before their exploiters. Let us hope that the workers will stand firm.

THE PROPAGANDA-

Norwich --J. Blackwell visited the comrades in this city on the 19th inst. and spoken in the course of a discussion on -Strikes at a local society's meeting the same evening Moore and other comrades also took part, The following day (Sunday) Blackwell spoke in the morning in the Market Place, in the afternoon in the Gordon Hall on "Anarchist Socialism," and in the evening in the same hall on 11 The Gospel of Freedom." A great many questions were asked after the last two lectures and the replies appeared to be satisfactory. The 'Norwich Socialists include in their ranks a number of young promising speakers who win without doubt be of great service to the Anarchist cause.

THE WAGE SYSTEM.

By Peter Kropotkin.

I.-REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT AND WAGES.

IN their plans for the reconstruction of society, the Collectivists commit, in our opinion, a double error. Whilst speaking of the abolition of the rule of capital, they wish, nevertheless, to maintain two institutions which form the very basis of that rule, namely, Representative Government and the Wage System.

As for representative government, it remains absolutely incomprehensible to us how intelligent men (and they are not wanting amongst the Collectivists) can continue to be the partisans of national and municipal parliaments, after all the lessons on this subject bestowed on us by history, whether in England or in France, in Germany, Switzerland, or the United States. Whilst parliamentary rule is seen to be everywhere falling to pieces, whilst its principles in themselves and no longer merely the application of them, are being criticised in every direction, how can intelligent men, calling themselves Revolutionary Socialists, seek to maintain a system already condemned to death?

It is well known that representative government is a system which was elaborated by the middle class to make bead against royalty and, at the same time, to maintain and augment their domination of the workers. It is the characteristic form of middleclass rule. It is well known that in their appreciation of it, the middle claw have never seriously contended that a parliament or municipal council does actually represent a nation or a city; the more intelligent are aware that this is impossible. By upholding parliamentary rule the middle class have been simply seeking to oppose a dam betwixt themselves and royalty or betwixt themselves and the territorial aristocracy, without giving liberty to the people. It is moreover plain, that as the people become conscious of their interests and as the variety of those interests increases, the system becomes unworkable. The democrats of all countries, therefore, are searching for different palliatives or correctives and not finding them. They are trying the Referendum, and discovering that it is worthless; they talk of proportional representation, of the representation of minorities, and other parliamentary utopias. In a word they are striving to discover the undiscoverable; that is to say, a method of delegation which shall represent the myriad varied interests of the nation; but they are being forced to recognise that they are upon a false track and confidence in government by delegation is passing away.

It is only the Social Democrats and Collectivists who are not losing this confidence, who are attempting to maintain the so-called national representation; and this is what we cannot understand.

If our Anarchist principles do not suit them, if they think them inapplicable, they ought at least, as it seems to us, to try to discover what other system of organisation could well correspond to a society without capitalists or proprietors. But to take the middle-class system, a system already in its decadence, a vicious system if ever there was one, and to proclaim this system, with a few innocent corrections, such as the imperative mandate, or the -referendum, the uselessness of which has been demonstrated already, eligible for a society that has passed through the Social Revolution, is what seems to us absolutely incomprehensible, unless under the name of Social Revolution, they understand something very different from Revolution, some petty botching of existing middle-class rule.

The same with regard to the wage system. After having proclaimed the abolition of private property and the possession in common of the instruments of production, how can they sanction the maintenance of the wage system under any form? And yet this is what the Collectivists are doing when they praise the sufficiency of labour notes.

If the English Socialists of the early part of this century preached labour notes, that is comprehensible. They were simply trying to reconcile Capital and Labour. They repudiated all idea of laying violent bands upon the property of the capitalists. They were so little of revolutionaries that they declared themselves ready to submit even to imperial rule, if that rule would favour their co-operative societies. They remained middle-class men at bottom, charitable men certainly; and this is why (Engels has said so in his preface to the Communist Manifesto of 1848) the Socialists of that period were to be found amongst the middle class, whilst the advanced workmen were Communists.

If, later, Proudhon took up this same idea, that again is easy to understand. What was he seeking in his Mutualist system, if not to render capital less offensive, despite the maintenance of individual property, which he detested to the bottom of his heart, but which he believed necessary to guarantee the individual against the State? Further, that economists, belonging more or less to the middle class, also admit labour notes, is understandable. It matters little to them whether the worker be paid in labour notes or in coin stamped with the effigy of Empire or Republic. They care to save, in the coming overthrow, individual property in inhabited houses, the soil, the mills, or, at least, in inhabited houses and the capital necessary for the production of manufactures. And to maintain this property, labour notes will answer the purpose very well.

If the labour note can be exchanged for jewels and carriages, the owner of house property will willingly accept it as rent. And as long as the inhabited house, the field and the mill belong to middleclass men, so long will it be requisite to pay them in some way before they will allow you to work in their fields or their mills, or to lodge in their houses. It will be requisite to pay wages to the worker, either in gold or in paper money, or in labour notes exchangeable for all sorts of commodities.

But how can this new form of wages and the labour note, be sanctioned by those who admit that houses, fields, mills, are no longer private property, that they belong to the commune or the nation?

II.-THE COLLECTIVIST WAGE SYSTEM.

Let us examine more closely this system for the remuneration of labour, as set forth by the English, French, German and Italian Collectivists.*

It comes very much to this: Every one works, be it in fields, in factories, in schools, in hospitals, or what not. The working day is regulated by the State, to which belong the soil, factories, means of communication and all the rest. Each worker, having done a day's work receives a labour note, stamped, let us say, with these words: eight hours of labour. With this note he can procure any sort of goods in the shops of the State or the various corporations- The note is divisible in such a way that one hour's worth of meat, ten minutes' worth of matches, or half-an-hour's worth of tobacco can be purchased. Instead of saying: "two pennyworth of soap," after the Collectivist Revolution they will say: "five minutes' worth of soap.

Most Collectivists, faithful to the distinction established by the middle-class economists (and Marx also) between qualified (skilled) and simple (unskilled) labour, tell us that qualified or professional toil should be paid a certain number of times more than simple toil. Thus, one hour of the doctor's work should be considered as equivalent to two or three hours of the work of the nurse, or three hours of that of the navvy. "Professional or qualified labour will be a multiple of simple labour," says the Collectivist Gronlund, because this sort of labour demands a longer or shorter apprenticeship.

Other Collectivists, the French Marxists for example, do not make this distinction. They proclaim "equality of wages." The doctor, the schoolmaster and the professor will be paid (in labour notes) at the same rate as the navvy Eight hours spent in walking the hospitals will be worth the same as eight hours spent in navvies' work or in the mine or the factory.

Some make a further concession; they admit that disagreeable or unhealthy labour, such as that in the sewers, might be paid at a higher rate than work which is agreeable. One hour of service in the sewers will count, they say, for two hours of the labour of the professor.

Let us add that certain Collectivists advocate the wholesale remuneration of corporations. Thus, one corporation may say: 11 Here area hundred tons of steel. To produce them one hundred workers of our corporation have taken ten days; as our day consisted of eight hours, that makes eight thousand hours of labour for one hundred tons of steel; eight hours a ton." Upon which the State will pay them eight thousand labour notes of one hour each, and these eight thousand notes will be distributed amongst the mates in the foundry as seems best to themselves.

Or again, one hundred miners, having spent twenty days in hewing eight thousand tons of coal, the coal will be worth two hours a ton and the sixteen thousand notes for one hour each, received by the miners' corporation, will be divided amongst them at their own valuation.

If there be disputes: if the miners protest and say that a ton of steel ought to cost six hours of labour instead of eight; if the professor rate his day twice as high as the nurse, then the State must stop in and regulate their differences.

Such, in a few words, is the organisation which the Collectivists desire to see arising from the Social Revolution. As we have seen, their principles are: collective property in the instruments of labour and remuneration of each according to the time spent in productive toil, taking into account the productiveness of his work. As for their political system, it would be parliamentary rule, ameliorated by the change of men in power, the imperative mandate, and the referendum, i.e., the general vote of Yes or No upon questions submitted to the popular decision.

Now we must say, to begin with, that this system seems to us absolutely incapable of realisation.

The Collectivists begin by proclaiming a revolutionary principle -the abolition of private property-and, as soon as proclaimed, they deny it by maintaining an organisation of production and consumption which itself springs from private property.

They proclaim a revolutionary principle and-inconceivable forgetfulness-ignore the consequences which a principle so different from existing principles must necessarily bring about. They forget that the very fact of abolishing individual property in the instruments of production (land, factories, mean of communication, capital) must launch society upon an absolutely new track; that it must change production from top to bottom, change not

The Spanish Anarchists, who continue to call themselves Collectivist, understand by this term common possession of the instruments of laboar and liberty for each group to share the produce of labour as they think fit"; on Communist principles or in any other way.

only its methods but its ends; that all the everyday relations between individuals must be modified immediately that land, machinery and the rest, are considered as common possessions.

They say: "No private property," and immediately they hasten to maintain private property in its everyday manifestations. 11 You am a commune for productive purposes," they say, "the fields, the tools, the machinery belong to you in common. All that has been made up to this day-these manufactures, these railways, these wharves, these mines-belong to all of Ton. Not the slightest distinction will be made concerning the part which any one of you may have taken in the past in making these machines, digging these mines, or constructing these railroads.

11 But from to-morrow you are minutely to discuss the part that each one of you is to take in making the new machines, digging the new mines. From to-morrow you are to endeavour to weigh exactly the portion which will accrue to each one from the new produce. You are to count your minutes of work, you are to be on the watch lest one moment of your neighbour's toil may purchase more than yours.

"You are to calculate your hours and your minutes of labour and since the hour measures nothing, since in such and such a manufactory a workman can watch four frames at once, whilst in some other mills he only watches two, you are to weigh the muscular force. the energy of brain, the energy of nerve expended. You are scrupulously to count up the years of apprenticeship, that you may value precisely the share of each one amongst you in the production of the future. And all this after you have declared that you leave entirely out of your reckoning the share be has taken in the past."

Well, it is evident to us that if a nation or a commune were to give itself such an organisation as this, it could not exist for a month. A society cannot organise itself upon two absolutely opposing principles, two principles which contradict one another at every step. And the nation or the commune which should give itself such an organisation, would be forced, either to return to private property or else to transform itself immediately into communist society.

III-UNEQUAL REMUNERATION.

We have said that most Collectivist writers demand that, in a Socialist society remuneration should be based upon a distinction between qualified or professional labour and simple labour. They assert that an hour of the engineer's, the architect's or the doctor's work should be counted as two or three hours' work from the mason or the nurse. And the same distinction, say they, ought to be established between workers whose trades require a longer or shorter apprenticeship and those who are mere day labourers.

This is the case in the present middle-class society; it must be the case in the future society of Collectivism.

Yes, but to establish this distinction is to maintain all the inequalities of our existing society. It is to trace out before-band a demarcation between the worker and those who claim to rule him. It is still to divide society into two clearly defined classes; the aristocracy of knowledge placed above the horny-handed plebeians; one class devoted to the service of the other; one class toiling with its hands to nourish and clothe the other; whilst that other profits by its leisure to learn how to dominate those who toil for it.

It is more; it is to take the distinctive features of middle-class society and sanction them by a social revolution. It is to erect into a principle an abuse, which to-day is condemned in the ancient society that is passing away.

We know very well what will be said in answer. We -hall be told about "Scientific Socialism." The middle-class economists, and Marx too, will be cited to prove that there is a good reason for a scale of wages, for the "labour force" of the engineer costs society more than the "labour force" of the navvy. And indeed have not the economists laboured to prove that, if the engineer is paid twenty times more than the navvy, it is because the "necessary" costs of producing an engineer are more considerable than those which are necessary to produce a navvy? They could not do anything else once they had taken upon themselves the thankless task of proving that products exchange in proportion to the quality of the work socially necessary to produce them. Without that Ricardo's theory of value, taken up and turned to his own account by Marx, could not hold water.

But we know also how much of all this to believe. We know that if the engineer, the scientist and the doctor are paid to-day ten or a hundred times more than the labourer, it is Dot because of the "cost of production" of these gentlemen. It is because of the monopoly of education. The engineer, the scientist, and the doctor, simply draw their profits from their own sort of capital their degree, their certificates-just as the manufacturer draws a profit from a mill, or as a nobleman used to do from his birth and title, A University degree has replaced the birth roll of the noble of old times.

As for the employer who pays the engineer twenty times more than the workman, he makes this very simple calculation: if the engineer can save him £4000 a-year in the cost of production, be pays him £800 a-year to do it. And when he sew a foreman who is a clever sweater and cam save him £400 in hand work, he hastens to offer him £80 or &poound;90 &-year. He expands £100 where he counts upon gaining £1000; and that is the essence of the capitalist system.

What then is the good of talking of the cost of production of labour force and saying that a student who passes a merry youth at the University, has a right to ten times higher wages than the son of a miner who has pined in a pit since he was eleven? There is just as much reason for saying that a merchant, who has passed through twenty years of "apprenticeship" in an office, has a right to his £4 a-day, whilst he pays each of his workmen 4s. 2d.

No one has ever estimated the real cost of production of labour force. And if an idler costs society much more than an honest workman, it still remains to be known if, when all is told (infant mortality amongst the workers, the ravages of anemia the premature deaths) a sturdy day labourer does not cost society more than an artisan.

Are we to be told that, for example, the Is. 3d. &-day of a London workwoman and the 3d. &-day of the Auvergne peasant who blinds herself over lace-making, represents the cost of production of these women? We are perfectly aware that they often work for even less, but we know also that they do it entirely because, thanks to our splendid organisation, they would die of hunger without these ridiculous wages.

The existing scale of wages seems to us a complex product of taxation, government interference, capitalist monopoly, in a word, of the State and capital. In our opinion all the theories made by economists about the scale of wages have been invented after the event to justify existing injustices. It is needless to regard them.

But we shall not fail to be told that the Collectivist wage scale will, at all events, be an improvement. It will, at least, be better it will be urged, to have a class of people paid at twice or three times the ordinary rate than to have Rothschilds, who put into their pockets in one day more than a workman can gain in a year. It will at least, be a step towards equality.

To us it seems a step away from it. To introduce into a 'Socialist Society the distinction between simple and professional labour would be to sanction by the revolution and erect into a principle a brutal fact, to which we merely submit to-day considering it all the while as unjust. It would be acting after the manner of those gentlemen of the Fourth of August 1789, who proclaimed in high sounding phraseology the abolition of feudal rights, and on the Eighth of August sanctioned those very rights by imposing upon the peasants the fines by which they were to be bought back from the nobles. Or again, like the Russian Government at the time of the emancipation of the serfs, when it proclaimed that the land henceforth belonged to the nobility, whereas previously it was considered an abuse to make over lands which belonged to the peasants.

Or to take a better known example; when the Commune of 1871, decided to pay the Members of the Communal Council 12s. 6d. a day, whilst the National Guards on the ramparts had only Is. 3d., certain persons applauded this decision as an act of grand democratic equality. But in reality, the Commune did nothing thereby but sanction the ancient inequality between officials and soldiers, governor and governed. For an Opportunist parliament, such a decision would have been splendid; but for the Commune it was -a lie. The Commune was false to its own revolutionary principle, and by that very fad condemned it.

In the present state of society, where we see a Balfour or a Salisbury paying themselves thousands a year, whilst the workman has to content himself with less than a, hundred; when we see that the foreman is paid twice or three times as much as the workman, and that amongst workers themselves, there are all sorts of gradations from 7s. or 8s. a day, down to the 3d. of the sempstress,-we are disgusted.

We condemn these grades. We disapprove, not only of the high salaries of the Ministers, but of the difference between the 8s. and the 3d. The one disgusts as much as the other. We look on both as unjust, we say away with privileges of education as with privileges of birth. We are some of us Anarchists, some of us Socialists, just because these privileges revolt us.

How can we then raise these privileges into a principle? How can we proclaim that privileges of education are to be the basis of an equal Society, without striking a blow at that very Society. What is submitted to to-day, will be submitted to no longer in a society based on equality. The general above the soldier, the rich engineer above the workman, the doctor above the nurse, already disgust us. Can we suffer them in a society which starts by proclaiming equality?.

Evidently not. The popular conscience, inspired by the breath of equality, will revolt against such an injustice, it will not tolerate it. It is not worth while to make the attempt.

That is why certain Collectivists, understanding the impossibility of maintaining a scale of wages in a society inspired by the breath of the Revolution, are zealously advocating equality in wages. But here they stumble against difficulties as great, and their equality of wages becomes a Utopia, as incapable of realisation as the wage scale of the others.

A society that has seized upon all social wealth, and has loudly answered that all have a right to this wealth, whatever may be the part they have taken in creating it in the past, will be obliged to give up all ideas of wages, either in money or labour notes.

To be concluded.

ANARCHIST COMMUNISM DEFINED AND DEFENDED.

[Comrade H. Davis or the Socialist League, delivered a lecture having this title, at 13 Farringdom Road, under the auspices of the Clerkenwell Branch ofthe Socialist League, on the 22nd of last month.]

IN all discussions on this subject, said be, whether our opponents be of the most generous or the most hostile sort, Anarchy, is, they admit, the highest form of civilisation conceivable. Anarchy has been defined by an intelligent opponent as "a state of Society in which each individual is a law unto himself." A grand, but an impossible ideal, we are told, this is when looked at from the imperfections of to-day. Now opposition to most schemes for a reorganisation of Society are urged from a more or less well defined knowledge of the imperfections, and therefore, the unjustice that would probably follow from their practical application. But in this case Anarchy is opposed for the very opposite reason-its perfection and unmistakable expression of individual liberty. Industrial organization, it is said, would bean impossibility where anarchy prevailed, because individuals would not give up their opinions which would often be in opposition to either a minority or a majority. This presupposes men incapable of perfecting any work whatever without the lash of Authority. Indeed it seems to be assumed by many that we not only ignore, but are actively hostile to, organisation and co-operation; thus do they build their seemingly strongest arguments against our position on a fallacy of the most rudimentary character. The fact is that organisation not only has no fears for us, but indeed we rely mostly on it for the production of the commodities upon which we live, and for an efficient exchange of those services which make up all that is pleasant and ennobling in life. We only claim for organisation what we affirm is our right in every other connexion, that it shall be voluntary and free from that domination by which it is controlled And hindered to-day-authority, the creature born of the tyranny of the strongest. Of course we cannot confidently predict the entire satisfaction of every whim and caprice for every member of the community in every detail of life; but then, neither can anyone else whatever be his scheme of re-organisation. The most comprehensive system of society present-, its difficulties; but under Anarchy, while we admit the existence of difficulties, we are assured of the entire absence of dangers which would menace the special status of the people. Doubtless the difficulties will only be adjusted by small and unimportant sacrifices made by each individual as the occasion may arise; a system of "give and take," as another comrade has put it, will probably prevail. It may be as well at this juncture to refer to the difference between Anarchist Communism and Collectivism, or, as it is most often called, Social Democracy. This is the more necessary as we are often assured that there is no difference in principle, between them. all differences arising in the method of attainment. The clearest definition, as well as the sharpest contrast between the two positions, was given by A. R. Parsons, in his speech before the Court in Chicago. "There are" he said, "two distinct phases of Socialism in the labour movement throughout the world to-day. One is known as Anarchism, without Political Government or Authority, the other is known as State Socialism or Paternalism or Governmental control of everything. The State Socialist seeks to ameliorate and emacipate the wage labourers by means of law, by legislative enactments. The State-Socialists demand the right to choose their own rulers.,' Anarchists would have neither rules nor law-makers of any kind, The Anarchist seeks the same ends by the abrogation of law, by the abolition of all Government, leaving the people free to unite or disunite. as fancy or caprice may dictate, coercing no one, driving no party. Social Democrats demand the abolition of monopoly; and yet the method by which they propose to achieve their object is an unmistakable intensification of the very thing they wish to destroy. The Joint Stock Company is often pointed to by them as the worst form of Capitalism, which indeed it is, and by far the worst sort of employer; and yet,strange to say, so obscured is their view of the situation that they often raise a cry of triumph at a new development of the trust or syndicate and claim that it is a step in their direction ;they fondly hope, and wait for the last triumph of capitalist exploitation which will result in the total concentration of capital in the smallest number of bands, the eventual realisation of the Social Democratic State. History is one long record of the struggles of the workers against governments, all of which have ever protected the propertied and most powerful portion of the community in their privilege and power. We aim at the entire destruction of classes, which can only be achieved by the destruction of government-the raison d'etre of clam society. Our ideal is the total absence of possessors and non-possessors, which is best expressed in the welding of all classes in one working and enjoying community. Thus, then, while Social Democracy clamours for more law, we demand its abolition: leaving the people entirely free to work out their own course of life.

The lecturer, who was listened to with marked attention, was then asked questions which raised some very interesting discussion. First be was asked whether editorship would be regarded as an exercise of authority which ought not to prevail under Anarchy? To this he replied, that editorship would not be regarded As an undue exercise of authority, any more than would the control of a steam engine by a skilful engineer; or the navigation of a ship by a skilful captain. He we.,; then asked, would the exercise of certain rites amongst religious bodies such as circumcision be permitted? His answer was that Anarchists consider all such usages as the outcome of ignorance, against which they protest wherever it is found regardless of the form it may take. Even to-day force is not used for its repression, notwithstanding most men do not agree with it, and certainly except through educational methods, no interference would take place. Another question was, "Would education be compulsory." Comrade Davis said: We are ardent educationalists, and claim the free and equal opportunity for all alike in the process of inquiry and the exercise of the faculties; we do not regard the present system of education as affording due opportunity to all, but rather as the institution of caste---one section of the community being educated At the expense of the other. In this connection he was in agreement with Michael Bakounine. The notion that the education of men can be completed within the four walls of the school, he regarded as simply ridiculous. Men receive their lasting impressions of the world long after they have left the school, and form their life ideas when they enter the world. In fact our position can be best gauged by the expression, "the best teacher of men is man; the best school is the world." We, however, would not compel even so good a thing as education, and we have never yet been shown the necessity for this compulsion. Fathers are often compelled to send their children to work, long even before these children have completed their scanty school education of to-day, in order to add to the insufficient income of the family; thus poverty acts as a deterrent to education. When the free conditions of society prevail which we are striving for, the interest of one will be the concern of all; then indeed will the opportunity for free education be afforded to all and its necessity be recognised by every member of the community.

PROPAGANDIST LITERATURE.

Our Pads comrades who carry on the publication of La Revolte (The Rebel) the weekly Anarchist-Communist organ. hare just recently issued two new pamphlets. 11 La Societe an Lendemain de la Revolution'" (Society on the Morrow of the Revolution) by Jehan Le Vagre, is a volume of 165 pages based on the small brochure of the same title by the same author, published some years ago. It also includes another of his smaller brochures "Autonomie according to Science." Those of our comrades who read French and desire to gain some idea of the future organization of Society from an Anarchist point of view cannot do better than send 75 centimes to comrade Grave, 140 Rue Mouffetard, Paris, for a copy. 11 The Salariat" (The Wage System) is a penny reprint of a series of articles from the pen of P. Kropotkine, which have appeared in La Revolta. We commence the reprint of an English translation in the current number of Freedom, which will be personally revised by Comrade Kropotkine.

"Philosophie de L'Anarchie" (The Philosophy of Anarchy) is another work which readers of French should procure, as it deals with many of the differences between Anarchists and Authoritarian Socialists in a most able and exhaustive manner. It consists of 144 pages, the price being I fr. 2.5 c. It is written by Comrade Charles Malato, who supplies us with the news about France which appears in Rpedont, Copies may be obtained from the author at 7 rue de Paris, Saint leu Seine et Oise.

Another French pamphlet worthy perusal by thinkers is "L'Anarchie et Is Revolution," by Jacques Roux Price 15 c. at 16 rue de Croissant, Paris. The author is largely individualistic in his views.

"Entre Campesinos" is a Spanish translation by Ernesto Alvarez of Malatesta's excellent pamphlet "Between Peasants." This little book. which is written in the form of a conversation, has already bad a large circulation in its French, Italian and Jewish editions. An English translation has been made, but principally through lack of funds it has not yet been published. I I Entre Campesinos can be had at the office of El Productor, Barcelona, Spain, for 10 c.

"A Free Currency; what it means. how it can be established, and what it can accomplish," by Albert Tarn, is published by the Labour Press, Limited, 28 Gray's Inn Road, W.C., at 2d. Those interested in paper money schemes should invest.

"An Anarchist Plan of Campaign," by David A. Andrade, 47 Victoria Avenue, Albert Park, Melbourne, is a contribution by an Australian comrade to the literature of Individualist Anarchy. It advocates paper money and co-operation on Anarchist lines. Reeves, of Fleet Street. supplies English purchasers at 4d. a copy.

"Law and Authority" has recently been translated into Jewish, and is sold at 2d. by our comrades at 40 Berner Street, Commercial Road, E.

"Facts for Londoners" (Fabian Tract No. 8) is an exceedingly useful collection of facts and figures compiled from the most trustworthy Sources, wherein the abuses and wrongs of London are set forth plain for all men to see. It can be obtained from the Secretary of the Fabian Society, 180 Porstdown Road, W., and of W. Reeves, 185 Fleet Street. We heartily recommend all our readers to invest 6d. in this pamphlet and drawing their pens through the first page. which suggests various futile measures of parliamentary reform, study carefully the details of the gigantic system of robbery and exploitation under which we' are groaning, and lend the book afterwards to any of their acquaintances who say they can't see what we want with Socialism. With the usual studied moderation of Fabianism the lowest estimate is taken of all figures and the most orthodox bourgeois authorities quoted. The frightful extent of the evils laid bare is therefore all the more start-ling. We only regret that the author is not as much alive to the Me resulting from authority as to those of economic exploitation, and that his idea of public ownership is state administration.

CARLYLE on REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT." Or is it the nature of National Assemblies generally to do with endless labour and clangour, Nothing? Are Representative Governments mostly at bottom tyrannies too? Shall we say, the Tyrants, the ambitious contentious persons, from all corners of the country, do, in this manner, get gathered into one place, and there with motion and counter motion, with jargon and hubbub cancel one another, like the fabulous Kilkenny cats and produce for net result, zero; the country meanwhile governing or guiding itself by such wisdom, recognised or for most part unrecognised as may exist in individual heads here and there I Nay, even that were a great improvement: for of old with their Guelf Factions and Ghibelline Factions, with their Roses and White Roses, they were wont to cancel the whole country as well- Besides they do it now in a much narrower cockpit; within the four walls of an Assembly House, and here and there an outpost of Hastings and Barrel beads; do it with their tongues too, not with swords: all which improvements in the art of producing zero, axe they not great? Nay, best of all, some happy Continents as the Western one with As Savannahs (where whosoever has four willing limbs, finds food under his feet and an infinite sky over his head) can do without governing. What Sphinx questions; which the distracted world, in these very generations, must answer or die I

Freedom Publication Fund.-H. G. (Cape Colony) 10s.; G., 6d,

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