THE SOCIALIST'S STATE OF MIND.

Otago Witness, Issue 2817, 11 March 1908, Page 81

THE SOCIALIST'S STATE OF MIND.

{By Hubert Bland.) The Daily Mail has also taken up the subject, and has undertaken "to submit to the public an exposition of the Socialist doctrines and programme by writers of acknowledged preeminence on the Socialist side. With euch documents before the country, it will be impossible for Socialists to allege that their views are misrepresented by their opponents. The public can read and judge for itself the danger of the revolution proposed." Th© first of bhe series of articles given below is by Mr Hubert Bland, an original and leading member of the Fabian Society. The Socialist's state of mind is one of deep discontent, tempered, relieved even, by a certain cheery hopefulness. He sees vividly, he feels poignantly, the evils of the world, but in a sort of prophetic vision, with the eyes of faith, he sees the evils pass. So he is on the side of the angels and the optimists. He believes intensely, perhaps unwarrantably — out that is neither here nor there — in the power of human will to overcome c*ll obstacles, and in the adequacy of human intelligence for the solving of all problems. It is quite idle to speak to him of irremovable ills, of irremediable diseases. For him an ill is there juet that it may be removed ; a disease just that it may be cured. That's what the blessed evil's for, he says with Browning. But the world, as it is, is an uncomfortable place to him all the same. His discomfort begins as soon as he is up in the morning. It begins with his letters, for there is pretty sure to be one at least asking for help, the organised relief of poverty, or making some more instant, some more individual, appeal. Here is one, for instance, among my letters this morning. It tells me of a- young workman of 25, stricken with incurable blindness. He has been a hard-workicg young fellow hitherto, earning "good wages," so the letter says, and so far he^ has been able to support his mother. Now that is all over for ever — the work, the wages, the home. Unless a small fund can be raised there is nothing for the son but a charitable institution for the rest of his long life, nothing for the mother but the workhouse for the remainder of her short one. And this calamity has fallen upon the pair "out of the blue" as it were. They have been guilty of no fault, of no shortcomings even. * It has simply happened. A day begins badly that begins with a letter like that. — Daily Tragedies. — Then there follows the daily paper ; a record of horrors; nine-tenths of them born of poverty. There has been a ghastly murder at Lambeth. A young fellow, out of work and out of halfpence, went to call on his married sister to borrow three shilling. The sister, whose husband, too. was out of work, had not a shilling in the house^-in the room rather —and told her brother so. Whereupon he killed her sans phrases. For which deed society, which obviously cannot tolerate sororicide, will hang him most righteously. „ In the next column, under the heading "The Arctic Weather— More Deaths," our newly risen, bathed, and about-to-oreak-fast Socialist reads: "At Birmingham yesterday an old woman died of starvation consequent on the severe weather. She was apparently on her way to the workhouse "_ w hen kindly death interposed. Somewhere up in one of those northern towns, some great industrial centre, one of the fertile sources of England's prosperity, a child of four has fallen into the fire and been burned to death. The mother was out— not at the publicnouse, as you might suppose, but in the workshop. Then there is the usual suicide. "The deceased having twopence halfpenny in his pocket, no cause can bo assigned for the rash act," remarks the perceptive reporter. And so the morning paper takes a little of the crispiwss out of the bacon, something of flavour out >f the coffee. Episodes of this sort disturb the Socialist's mind, which declines to comfort itself with the reflection that they are

"necessarily incident*! to our complex civilisation." A civilisation, it seems to him, to which this sort of episode is necessarily incidental is a civilisation which it were highly desirable to^estroyx; or, if downright destruction be avoidable,' at least to readjust. For this sortoof episode is buf a symptom, a sample^ ffiSd-if.^is-'; incidental to our complex v civifisaffctem.;'That is the- worst of it. : - -'- "• -'< — The Desire of the Socialist. — So long as economic arrangements permat a sm*B number of persons to enjoy wealth which they have done nothing whatever to create or "to distribute, rt aa* ' ' compel ' a Wry large number of people to surrender, . under the ~ forms -of rent and interest, wealth which .they are. dsxhy creating and distributing," just so long will the morning post and- the morning paper come with, their budget of horror and ehame. The Socialist knows this. So he wants t« get rid of all this unpleasantness, not .only because it is unpleasant to others, but because it is so" acutely unpleasant to hinh -Be wants- to be able ! to open his letters Without misgivings, and to eat his breakfast .with an unruffled soul; If lie t>a not of a philosophic turn oi mind, if he be not given to introspectisn, he does not trouble to ask himself why the misery of other people, the starvation of old women in Birmingham, the burnings of young children in the north, and all the rest of it, so painfully afflict him. He is just content with the fact that they do. He seeks no metaphysical basis r or his Socialism. With him it is an entirely practical affair. The people- are wretched, j anxious, vulgar, cringing, degraded, i drunken, wicked, because they are poor — too poor to be aught else. They are poor because, taking tliem in the lump, they get only a. fraction of the wealth they make. So this poverty 'is one of the conditions by which the industrial system, as we know it, exists. This poverty of the workers is not an accident of the industrial system. It is of its very essence. So long as we go on making things — that is what the industrial system means, it means making things — as we make them now, by private enterprise, by joint stock companies, by trusts, just so long we shall always have a few people who are very rich and quite idle ; more who are rather rich and rather industrious ; more still who are tremendously busy and fairly well to do; and vast hordes — 13 millions, I think it is, about a third of the population — who aTe sometimes desperately hard worked and sometimes degradingly idle, but who are > always disgustingly poor. Poveity is disgusting; the sight of !t, the touch of it, the very thought of it ; tbe knowledge that, like Miss Lavinia Wilfer's flannel petticoat, it is " there " ; there in such yeasty, corrupting, evil- | breeding swamps. One cannot walk down i a street, not even a fine, rich street such as Bond street or Piccadilly, without meeting it at every turn, without meeting the whining beggar, the shabby, tired workgirl. And when one comes to the mean streets . . . pah! — The Stupidity of Poverty. — I Poverty is disgusting because it is dirty, sordid, smelly, but it is disgusting, too, because it is stupid. The evistence of it is stupid, I mean ; the existence of it in such masses. Honestly, I do not believe the world puts up with it so much becaiifce the world is hard-hearted as because the world is stupid. It is always stupid to endure the removable, to suffer the remediable. And it is because Socialists see quite clearly the causes of this disgusting poverty, this reckless disorder, this futile waste, and 6ee, almost as clearly, the- cure, that — well . . . that they are Socialists. There is a certain pleasure in the Socialist's state of mind, too, you know ; a j pleasure which is in some sort an off-set to the discomfort and the disgust. It is I exhilarating to be up against a big proj position, as the Americans are said to i 6ay ; and the destruction or, let us ca' l it, the transformation of the present economic structure is a big proposition indeed. I There is a joy in doing battle for j Socialism untasted of those who strive ! for only political things. It is a rare feeling that, the feeling that though you are outnumbered you are going to win : that you are going to win because God and the anjjels, oi the streams of tendency that make for righteousness, or the inevitable development of economic and democratic forces (it matters not what you call them, but I prefer God and the angels) are on your side. It i is good, too, to know that you may always \ safely engage in argument with, an intelt lectual superior — if you are a Socialist and j h© is not — because you aTe sure to beat ! him ; to silence if not to convince him, ' to drive him from all his positions one i after tbe other, right back into the last i ditch of dogmatic assertion and inarticuj late splutter. Then again, ideas! If you have a fondness for ideas, if you like tc live with ideas as a connoisseur likes to live with masterpieces, you find ideas wherever Socialists foregather. Really, so far as political ideas aTe concerned j-ou do not find them anywhere else. There is only ■ one idea left alive in the ToTy paTty and • none whatever in the Liberal. Now, the Fabian Society, to name no other Socialist body, has almost a plethora of ideas. So, you Pee, the Socialist's state of mind is an enviable one ; one which it is well I worth an intelligent person's while to , attain.