The Dominion. SATURDAY, MAY 17, 1913. SOME ANCIENT SOCIALISTIC EXPERIMENTS.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1752, 17 May 1913, Page 4

The Dominion. SATURDAY, MAY 17, 1913. SOME ANCIENT SOCIALISTIC EXPERIMENTS.

In last, Saturday's issue of The Dominion wc gave an .outline of the argument of Dk. A. J. Hubbard's book entitled The Fate of Empires, in which the author , contends that the turning point in past civilisations has been marked again _ and again by the appearance of Socialism coincidently with a failure of the birth-rate. He argues that in order to counteract these tendencies there must be some supra-rational principle or motive which will secure tho subordination of the present to the future, and justify that self-sacrilice of a rational being which the stress of competition and the nurture of a family necessarily involve, and ! which cannot be justified 011 purely rational grounds. This motive is found in a cosir.ocentric religion— that is, a faith which brings us into relation with the infinite—as distinct from a geocentric religion, which is limited to earthly conditions and tho present life. In support of his theory Dr. Hubbard gives a very striking sketch of life under the lloman Empire, /with special reference to Socialistic experiments and family life. Commenting 011 tho picture drawn by Sir Samuel Dill in his work on Roman Socicty from Nero to Marcus Aitrclms, Dr. Hubbard remarks that carpe iliem, (enjoy the present day) was the rule of life; to exercise restraint was to waste the fleeting days; gratification of the senses was tho aim of life. As regards the industrial life of the nation, one is struck by the measures taken to eliminate competition. Socialism steadily grew until by the beginning of the fourth century it had become a highly developed system. All trades were organised into corporations, or trades unions, recognised by the Government. There seems to have been a system of compulsory unionism, but somewhat different from that of our own times. The trades were in tho hands of the smaller men, the mechanic being usually a slavo whoso labour was economically the equivalent of machinery at the present day. In this way all competition between traders was eliminated, and in return for this monopoly the State required that certain work should be done for the poor eithor for nothing or below cost, By such means tho competitive stress was relieved both to those within the union and to those without it. Each member'of a union was assessed on tho basis of his capital and trade returns, and had to do cheap work for the populace in. proportion. The result 01 this was that traders naturally carried on business with as little capital as possible, investing all spare money elsewhere, arid business was in consequence badly worked. Drastic legislation was passed to prevent this withdrawal of capital, and also to prohibit traders from retiring from business, as there was a general decline of commerce and industry. Eventually Aurelian made unionism compulsory for life, also giving a wine dole, and bread in place of corn to save the wastrel the trouble of baking. As time went on the posi-' tion became so oppressive that traders would do almost anything to get out.of the bondage of unionism, but severe legal precautions were taken to prevent this, until at last "tho Empire was an immense gaol where all worked, not according to taste, but by force." The system was r/ompleted by what Professor Flinders Petrie calls "the vast Socialistic decree of Diocletian regulating all priccs'and wages throughout the Empire." This great effort to do away with the stress of competition ended in disaster.

Dr. Hubbard goes on to deal with tho effort of Roman, society to crefc rid of the other stress—the racial stress of reproduction. This resulted in the degradation of marriage and tho break up of the family. The conditions of the marriage contract became less and less exacting, until most marriages became dissoluble at pleasure, and divorcc was obtained on the slightest pretext. In fact the large majority of men never married at all. Augustus, seeing that tho .State was in serious danger, made every effort to check this revolt against the racial stress. Appeals to tho great traditions of Rome, tho splendour of tho Empire, and the patriotism of the people fell on deaf ears, and then lie tried to resuscitate religion. Tho Roman religion was, however, not equal to the demand made upon it. It was geocentric—that is, simply part of tho polity of the State. "Piety towards tho Gods and obcdicnce, to the Magistrate • were,'' says Dr. Inge, "duties of the same kind." Roman religion found its end within the borders of the existing civilisation, whereas as cosmoeentric religion such as Christianity regards the existing world as merely an instrument and not an end: and implies a conscious relation to the infinite which iinds expression in f.pll'-'-nentiriii;; novice and subordination of the present. to the future.

There was no motive available, sufficiently powerful to counteract tho failure of the Roman birth-rate, or the growth of luxury and self-indul-gence, and legislation proved quite unable to check these evils. Pethonius tells us that "no one acknowledges children; for the ir.an who has heirs is never invited to any festive gathering, but is left to associate with the dregs of society." Augustus, amongst other things, tried to iwrnbat the tendency to celibacy and sterility by a system of penalties and rewards, and also endeavoured by legislation to ensure t-luit property, instead'of being dissipated by extravagance, should pass to children; but all such efforts failed, with the result that fifty years after the death of Augustus "nearly all the Equites and the greater number of the Senators betrayed a servile origin." The equivalent of this in our own day would be, says Dr. Hubbard, if "the financial department of our Civil Service were manned by tho naturalised sons of aliens and the greater number of the members of our House of Lords betrayed a similar origin." The framework of tho Roman St-ate was maintained by the influx of aliens and the manumission of slaves. At last, twenty-six years after Diocletian ceased to reign, Constantine removed the seat of Imperial power from the Tiber to the Bosphorous, while Lictantius bewailed the "ominous depopulation of Italy," and the crushing taxation which fell on the few survivors. In contrast to all this Dit. Hubbakd points to Chinese civilisation which arose at a time long anterior to that of Rome, and yet to-day China is the youngest as well as the most ancient of nations. He attributes tho persistence of Chinese civilisation to a cosmocentric religion, the sacrcdness of the family, and the strict observance of racial duty.

In applying the lessons from the history of Rome to our own times, it would be quite a mistake to jump to the conclusion that the British nation or European civilisation is doomed. There is no inevitable law in operation that makes it impossible for a nation .or race to cscape decay and ultimate extinction. Our fate is in our own hands. There is undoubtedly at the present time a tendency to avoid the racial stress and the stress of competition, and if this is not chcckcd disaster must result; but there arc also strong moral influences at work in-every British community, and the heart of the nation is still sound. Herein lies our hope for the future. It may be contended that Dr. Hubbard lays too much stress on evils of Roman civilisation which may have been largely confined to a section of society, and Mr. Sidney Low, in an article in the Forinightly Review, endeavours to discount the effects of some of Dr. Hubbard's facts and inferences; but a mere general disagreement is not sufficient to overthrow the array of leading authorities quoted in the book. After l making every allowance for adverse criticism, the Fate of Empires contains many wholesome warnings for our own day and generation; and the fall of Rome ought to remind us that, as Mr. M'lver points out in an.interesting article in the International Journal of Ethics, "it is in the spiritual activity of society that the nature of social progress and decaocnce is found." Mr. M'lver goes on to say that "this inevitable conclusion is also one full of hope. It relieves the mind from the fatalistic doctrine

. . . that societies grow old and clecay inevitably by mere lapse of time, with no hope against an inexorable law. In truth, societies grow in experience, in knowledge, and in power, as each generation hands down its gains. They do not grow in age, for each generation is new, now as was the inconceivable beginning of life, indeed with an increased capacity of life in so far as past generations have striven to improve it. We can discover no law which burdens the new generations with an inherited weight of age."