WORKING MEN AND THE POLITICAL SITUATION. By Thomas Burt, THE CREED OF A LAYMAN. By Frederic Harrison . HOLLAND AND THE TRANSVAAL. By W. H. de Beaufort, Member of THE MILITARY IMPOTENCE OF GREAT BRITAIN. By Captain Kirch- LA PHILOSOPHIE DE DIDEROT. By Paul Janet, Member of the In- BUSINESS IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. By Lord Sherbrooke THE SILVER STREAK.' By Admiral Lord Dunsany By H. 0. A REVISER ON THE NEW REVISION. By the Rev. G. Vance Smith. WHAT IS A POUND? By Henry R. Grenfell . THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. No. XLVII.-JANUARY 1881. THE DAWN OF A REVOLUTIONARY EPOCH. THERE have been several periods in the history of Europe when all thinking men have felt that remarkable events could not long be postponed. Even within the last hundred years the French Revolution and the great Continental movements of 1848 were preceded by changes which betokened a serious shock to existing institutions. Careful observers predicted the approach of both the one and the other, though neither took precisely the anticipated shape. But never, perhaps, has the certainty of approaching trouble, social and political, been more manifest than it is to-day.' The issues are more complicated than ever before, and that they can be settled without grave disturbance is scarcely credible. Of the political dangers by which Europe is threatened we hear daily. They are serious enough. With the whole Eastern Question reopened in a most dangerous. shape-with Russian Panslavism and German ambition to reconcilewith Italian aspirations and French yearning for the lost provinces to gratify all the nations being armed for war as they never were Since this was written, Baron Hübner has delivered his remarkable speech in the Austrian Delegations. From his ultra-Conservative point of view, he regards all Republican or Democratic ideas as proceeding direct from the Author of Evil, and proposes an immediate renewal of the Three Emperor League, or Holy Alliance, to stem the flood of revolution ere it is too late. Has not the time almost gone by for this combination of Governments against peoples? VOL. IX.-No. 47. B before--it will be strange indeed if the next few years pass over peacefully. The era of redistribution of territory and power has perhaps even yet barely begun. These matters, it is true, all lie on the surface, and are possibly susceptible of arrangement by mutual compromise or by general disarmament. But there is no appearance of this at present, and meanwhile the social danger which underlies and intensifies the political is becoming more difficult of solution each day. Those schemes for the reorganisation of society which Fourier, Saint Simon, Owen, Lassalle, Marx, and others propounded are no longer the mere dreams of impracticable theorists or the hopeless experiments of misguided enthusiasts; they have been taken down from the closet of the Utopian investigator into the street, and move vast masses of men to almost religious exasperation against their fellows. Ever and anon some accident shows what men are really thinking of; an election, a strike, a prohibited meeting give the opportunity, and we see what manner of difficulties those are which have to be faced by foreign statesmen, and which we in our turn may have to deal with here. For the questions now being discussed by hundreds of thousands on the Continent go to the very foundation of all social arrangements. It is no longer a mere barren argument about the rights of man to political representation: it is a determined struggle to change the basis of agreements which have hitherto been considered absolutely essential to the prevention of anarchy. What is more, those who hold these opinions are gaining in numbers and in strength each day, though the fear felt and expressed of their doctrines compels them to more or less of secrecy in the propaganda which they steadily carry on. Ideas which a few years ago would have caused laughter or contempt, now arouse fear and indignation, and to-morrow will stir up hatred and ferocity; for events move fast in these days, and alike in Germany, France, Italy, and Russia, not to speak of other countries, we can now see clearly that a large portion of the urban population are being surely if slowly indoctrinated with notions that cannot be put in practice save at the expense of those above and around them. Though the ideas vary with race and climate, the principle is everywhere the same, and it is one which, if pressed to its logical conclusions, must shake the whole structure of modern society. Nor can we be altogether surprised that this should be so. In the machinery of our daily life the real producer has as yet counted for little. The crowded room, the dingy street, the smoky atmosphere, the pleasureless existence, the gradual deterioration of his offspring— these things are noted and brooded upon by men who are being steadily educated to understand the disadvantages of their position, and are also being drilled to right them. A self-sacrificing enthusiast like Delescluze does not deliberately throw away his life at the top of a barricade for nothing; even miscreants such as Hödel and Nobiling stir men's minds to ask why they thus put themselves forward as martyrs under circumstances where they could not hope for escape. Visionary and mischievous as are their opinions, we can at least recognise that they believed in the truth of that which they professed, and that the conditions of life for the multitude do need reform, even if it be brought about by some sacrifice of the ease and comfort now the sole appanage of the wealthier classes. Once more we are brought to consider the right of man to live, and that right being granted or confirmed, that he should have the further privilege to live in such wise as not to deteriorate himself or his progeny. It can scarcely be doubted that, in Germany at any rate, there are all the elements of a conflagration ready to hand. This has of late been so apparent that we may fairly take it into account in estimating Prince Bismarck's policy. But the growth of the party of the Social Democrats in Germany is in itself a remarkable fact in modern politics. For there alone have the theorists begun to organise themselves with a definite object, and there alone are they sufficiently educated, and, what is more to the purpose, sufficiently trained in military affairs, to be really formidable. This militarisation of the mob, however viewed, is a strange piece of business in On the one hand, strong repressive measures have been passed which keep turbulent Berlin in a permanent state of siege, which render it impossible for workmen to form any union, to publish any paper, to hold any meeting to canvass for political purposes. At the same time, the factory laws which had been carried to restrain the undue employment of children, and to prevent abuse of their power by capitalists, have been gradually set aside. The pressure of the times has rendered the position still more grave than it would otherwise have been. And yet, with men thus exasperated at the denial of all freedom and the underhand suspension of laws passed with difficulty for their benefit, the military conscription is still in full force. The malcontents are passed steadily through the army exposed to the hated Prussian discipline at the hands of that hardhanded and hard-headed Junker class whom they are learning to look upon as more bitter enemies than any foreign foe, and return to their homes-such of them as do not seek refuge across the Atlantic— to remember that a million more trained soldiers hold the same opinions that they do, and await only a favourable opportunity to show their real strength. At the polls they have been asserting themselves, and their successes are no longer confined to the capital or to the few manufacturing centres. Hartmann the shoemaker's election at Hamburg, when he polled twice as many votes as his two competitors, was more remarkable even than the mere numbers showed, for his opponents were directly antagonistic to the Socialist laws, and were both Liberals. In the debates, Liebknecht, Bebel, Hartmann, and the other Socialist deputies, are now listened to with attention, as representing a force which has to be reckoned with henceforth as a strong political influence. They are the representatives not merely of their own cities, but of that revolt of industrialism against militarism which can in the end have but one result. Not even the Prussian bureaucracy, with its marvellous organisation, can in the long run make head against the growing discontent which is now finding voice in so many quarters. All the repressive measures in the world will not prevent men from voting under the ballot in accordance with what they really think. The desire of excluding from the polls all who had taken advantage of the free State education, did not prevent the Social Democrats from casting 600,000 votes at the last general election, nor will prevent them from largely increasing that number at the next. Persecution has but inflamed the enthusiasm of the whole party. They are now striving, not merely for the strange programme which their leaders put forward, but on behalf of that common freedom, that right to ordinary liberty, which can no longer safely be denied either to Catholics or Socialists. But their objects are none the less clearly defined that for the moment they are hidden from our view by the blunders of the executive. That tyranny of capital which has so often been denounced as if it were an embodiment of the evil spirit in a new and dangerous shape, and which Lamennais inveighed against as the modern incarnation of the slave-driver without the slavedriver's interest in the life of his property-this it is which the Socialists are striving to overthrow. Though they recognise, in Germany at least, the family ties, they are determined, when the opportunity offers, to do away with that vast influence of individual accumulation which they look upon as wholly harmful. Thus the State, the Republic, the Municipality, the Commune, each in its way is to be the sole capitalist acting for the benefit of all. A higher ideal of duty, a nobler view of the future of mankind, will thus be brought about when each is ready to use his faculties to the fullest extent for the benefit of his fellows; when, the privilege of individual inheritance being done away, the State shall be the universal legatee, and all shall work together and in concert, where now the general advantage is endangered by the perpetual occurrence of selfish conflicts. Then, too, the education of children from their cradle to their manhood shall no longer be an accident, in which the poor become more wretched and more ignorant, the rich more luxurious and more proud. In that reign of equality the full development of human energies shall be the sole object, and general advantage the common end. The wiser heads admit that the realisation of this their materialist Utopia must be gradual, that |