Agreeing in their aims, their differences which seem to most persons to place them as wide apart as the poles-really consist in choosing different means of accomplishing their ends. The ordinary hustler for wealth, without or within the stock market, may have no definite moral restraint except the fear of the law (in fact, he may even contrive to escape the law), and he accepts existing institutions; but he plans to gain his end, if honest, by productive processes and trade; or, if dishonest, by a thousand ingenious ways of transferring to himself the wealth created by others. On the other hand, the socialist proposes to overturn industrial competition and the institution of private property in the hopevaguely outlined and not economically analyzed of transferring the use of wealth from those who have to those who have not. If he does not now have wealth, from whom is he expecting to get it, when socialism has come to its own? Possibly he has a dreamy belief that wealth can be created and maintained in existence by the public will, and should be equally distributed like water from a municipal reservoir. Clearly enough, while planning for a more even distribution of wealth, the essence of socialism is to be found in the means which it proposes for accomplishing an end desired by most of us. In brief, the means are the abolition of competition and of private property. By these tools the fabric of idealism is to be builded in the future land of dreams.

II

SOME evidence as to the truth of the observation that socialism is the outcome of a state of mind, rather than of a logical system of thought, is, to my mind, to be found in the failure of the socialists to recognize the actual conditions under which we are forced to live on this globe. It is characteristic of devotees of any system based more or less on feeling to be so absorbed in a priori and agreeable theorizing as to be utterly oblivious to the actual and disagreeable facts of our daily existence. Grant that we all wish the comforts and satisfactions which material wealth gives, we are obliged to face the real question, no matter how bald and disagreeable it may be: How can we get possession of this wealth? Leaving fraud, robbery and force aside, by what

methods can men produce and possess material wealth in a free country like ours, which is unburdened by a feudal system and in which life and property are protected? Is it not possible that, at this point, the socialists have omitted to consider some matters of fact which can be observed by any one? Indeed, have they been quite fair with themselves, in passing by considerations-which we may here proceed to point out?

In the first place, we can get our material satisfactions only by producing them in the ways set by the conditions of life on this globe. These are of a kind not to be lightly brushed aside. We are not living on Mars. On this planet, the earth yields its products only on terms which require ability to overcome and use the forces of nature; to foresee and discount the future, and to collect present goods in order to gain a larger future product in operations requiring a considerable period of time; to use human effort both manual and mental; and to devise means by which the coöperation of all these powers may be united for the most efficient conduct of industry. No matter whether we like it or not, the actual wealth in existence to-day-whether distributed unjustly or not-has come into being only by the operation of these forces. Destroy, or minimize, any one of them, and the total sum of material well-being will be reduced. As to this point there will be little difference of opinion between socialists and non-socialists. But it will be retorted that, although wealth is produced only by the above painful processes, the acquisition of wealth-or its distribution after it is produced-is mainly unjust; that it is the illegitimate acquisition of the world's great output of wealth which is the true cause of the belief that the existing system of society is out of joint. If, however, we admit the general conditions only under which wealth can be produced, we must also be ready to assign distributive shares to those who have contributed the forces, or means, necessary to bringing the wealth into existence. We may grant that not all wealth is to-day the property of those who have gone through the efforts and sacrifices of production; but it still remains true that wealth-no matter who owns it is turned out only by the exercise of what are sometimes slightingly dubbed the bourgeois virtues. It still re

mains true that the existing income of society depends upon the exercise of the qualities of effort, sacrifice, patience, persistence, courage, honesty, integrity, truthfulness, skill, thrift, application, foresight, judgment, common-sense, business honor, long experience, observation of men's wants, precise information, knowledge of human nature, capacity for managing men, executive ability and organizing power. Any man who has had business experience knows this to be true. Yet, the socialist may grant all this; he may admit that wealth can be produced only under the severe conditions just described; but he may rest his whole case on the claim that this wealth is unjustly distributed. No doubt, the state of mind which in these days is called socialistic arises from a belief that the present competitive system of industry inevitably results in inequality of possessions and in injustice in the distribution of what is produced. Hence the central point in the socialist philosophy is a demand for the abolition of competition and a recourse to state control.

III

IN all fairness, we must recognize that things economic are not perfect; that human beings do not always do what is right and just; and that we must accomplish our industrial work on this globe with faulty men. Looking at the matter thus, we find much to sympathize with in the fundamental causes which stir the socialists to action. They find things wrong, and they have set to work with burning zeal to make them right. In this desire of theirs to improve the world every one must sympathize. Without radicals to break up wrongs to which we have grown accustomed we shall have little progress. Conservatism is too often the refuge of unjust privilege. The only question, therefore, in regard to socialism is: Is it a means appropriate to the end? Let us face the matter calmly, as practical men. Many schemes, from the times of the crusades to the present day, have been devised for making the world better. We have had many Utopias pressed upon us. In the one particular scheme known as socialism, the remedy proposed is the abolition of competition and private property. Will this remedy remove the ills of which society is sick?

At the outset we must face the fact of the imperfection of human nature. With or without socialism this fact remains; it cannot be dodged. Is socialism, like Christianity, a proposed means of changing the ethics of the human race? On the contrary, it is based on a materialistic conception of life. It proposes a change in externals, in the forms of society, as a means of eliminating evils which have their roots in faulty human nature. It is, so to speak, an insistence on only partial-not complete changes in environment as the sole power to cause a recrystallization of human mind in a new ethical form. Socialism obviously proposes no practical process for changing the elements of human nature; invariably the reforming spirit of socialism is taken up with the detailed schemes which for the time seem to need a cure. One does not need to be a socialist to help reform any particular existing abuse. Consequently, unless socialism can modify the essential elements of imperfect human nature-and modify it not in a few instances, but in the whole mass of men-it cannot in itself expect to relieve the world of any injustice in the distribution of property due either to the inequality or iniquity of men. Unless socialism can convince us that merely by the abolition of competition and private property there would be created a new and fundamental virtue in human nature, there would be no reason to look upon it as anything more than another of the well-meant but useless panaceas proposed by emotional reformers.

Since imperfect human nature, the bad mixed with the good, is absolutely certain to remain much the same under socialism as under existing society, what can the socialist expect to gain by the removal of competition? Will inequalities in ability and power be unknown? Of course not. Then, will inequalities of reward be unknown? Of course not. Under any legitimate system of production men will show unequal industrial powers. Some are energetic, others lazy; some are quick, others are dull; some are thrifty, others are wasteful; some are born organizers, others are born to follow; only a few are leaders of men, while the masses are inevitably managed by the few. Consequently, under any form of society, we are certain to have as many different results from industrial

effort as there are kinds of men. Inequalities of wealth are logical, not abnormal. While some men-no doubt high-minded, artistic or creative-are failures in accumulating wealth, others possibly of less value for the improvement of society-are successful in gaining large fortunes. It depends on the aim in life. If wealth is the only test of success, then the world is indeed out of joint.

As a cure for the ills of this world, however, socialism proposes a scheme-whether practical or not is not here the questionbased on a change in the possession of material wealth. That is, will the spending of more money directly lead to the improvement of character? All history, and the present conduct of our richer classes, seem to show that greater self-indulgence followed by a weakening of fibre, with a lowered moral purpose, are the inevitable results of unrestrained expenditure. This holds true, in spite of the theory that, by equalizing the expenditure of all classes, the poor would be elevated in the moral scale by having more to expend, and that the wrong-doing of the rich would be reduced by taking away the power of selfindulgence. It cannot be overlooked that human nature is much the same in all classes. Increased expenditure in itself will not provide the character to govern the spending; so that self-indulgence will be only transferred. Clearly, an increase of material rewards-while a gain to those already having a moral sense-would give only wider play to the existing defects of human nature. If spending is made possible to those who have not earned it, deterioration is inevitable. What we should hope to see instituted is a proper means of increasing the productive efficiency of those who have little, so that their opportunity for enlightenment may be larger without the destruction of fibre.

The radical weakness of socialism is in its attempt to coin idealism out of materialism. In the proposed abolition of competition and private property, socialism would take away most of the present incentives to energy and productivity. More than that, it stakes everything on the assumption that a partial change in external environmentsuch as would be produced only by the disappearance of competition and private property-would overcome all the faults of

human nature which now disturb our social content. To take a child away from its surroundings in infancy, although it may not remove its hereditary nature, may establish new habits which will influence its conduct; but socialism does not provide for any such extended removals. People are to be left in the same general environment, while, of all the varied conditions of life, only competition and private property are to be removed. Is there any such virtue in the abolition of these two as will reform all human nature? That it will, we have no evidence but the glorious hopes of the enthusiasts.

Since the socialist grieves at the unequal distribution of material wealth, and regards a better distribution as essential to the reformation of society, one is obliged to ask at once why the socialist does not himself set to work and accumulate wealth as well as others? In our country there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of cases where men have begun with nothing and accumulated a competence. Why do not the socialists do the same? If material wealth is the cure-all, why not go in at once and get it? The answer is not far to seek. They claim that they have no chance of success in the competitive struggle with others. They wish wealth, but they do not possess the bourgeois virtues necessary for its acquisition under existing conditions. Therefore, they wish to rearrange society so that those who do not now have the industrial qualities may obtain wealth as well as those who do have them. Of course, they do not explain who is to produce the wealth they are to share, and which they are incompetent to produce. That is supposedly an insignificant detail. However this may be, the central point in the question is this: having admitted their failure to achieve success in accumulating material wealth in a competitive struggle open freely to all, they propose the abolition of free competition. State control is to take its place. Here we have socialism confessedly as a philosophy of failure. Just to the extent that the socialists insist on their inability to accumulate as much wealth as others, under existing conditions, they are unconsciously advertising their own industrial inefficiency. They clamor for a philosophy of failurefor a system in which they shall be relieved from the inevitable results of their relative

inferiority in obtaining the material means which they regard as essential to their idealistic ends. Those resort to it who are unequal to the competitive struggle and to the survival of the fittest in gaining material wealth. For instance, if Harvard were always victorious over Yale in foot-ball, and, if, then, Yale should propose an existence in which there should be no foot-ball, Yale would be generally regarded as having failed, in that particular sport, in holding her own on equal terms. She would be regarded as having fallen back on a philosophy of failure. But it would still not prevent Yale men from gaining success in other things than foot-ball. Likewise, it should be observed that gaining other things than wealth, such as character and lofty conduct, has little or no emphasis in the philosophy of socialism. In short, the appeal to socialism is an appeal against the inequality and imperfection inherent in human beings; and the ineradicable weakness of socialism is that it chapes upon the external forms of society what should be charged upon poor human nature. Only too often, socialists seem to be incapable of seeing this gap in their logic.

In spite of all this elementary truth, every one is aware that a stimulus to the socialist propaganda is found in the constant iteration upon special privileges obtained under present conditions. Vehement assault is made upon the grant of legislative favors and monopolies by which some persons are believed to have accumulated great wealth at the public expense. Therefore, say the socialists, abolish competition and private property. Any system is wrong, they say, which permits any one man to accumulate a colossal fortune. Yet here is an obvious non sequitur. Grant that these wrongs are as they are represented; yet it does not follow that we need to change the forms of society to rid ourselves of the evils. On calm examination, this criticism of society, as it now goes on, seems to be directed not against the intention and purpose of modern society, but against the failure to carry out the intention and purpose of society as now expressed in existing institutions. If it is the general intention not to allow injustice, there is nothing, as things are now, to prevent the public from carrying out its intention. The remedy for these wrongs, granting their existence, is to be found,

VOL. XLV.-67

therefore, not in the destruction and reconstruction of society, but in the active cooperation of all well-meaning men in enforcing the admitted purposes and capabilities of the existing forms of society. That is, equality of treatment before the law and equal justice in the courts are entirely the outcome of public opinion. If public opinion does not demand them, socialism may pass resolves until the crack of doom without accomplishing anything. The only real remedy for such ills is always in the hands of society as it now exists. If they are allowed to go on, it is because men are indifferent; not because the forms of society through which they act are necessarily inadequate.

Moreover, the touch-and-go way of proposing to topple over the long-established institutions of society because some things are not done as we like is another evidence of the emotional and unpenetrating methods of some modern reformers. These institutions are the growth and outcome of the very inner nature of mankind; and this has been confirmed by the instincts which have been created by the long-continued existence of these institutions. For ages men have been working out representative and local self-government solely by dint of the experience of the race, and not by the light of any a priori theory of the dreamers. This is the teaching of the whole history of free and constitutional government. We have come where we are to-day solely because, in free countries like ours, we have succeeded in repressing inequality due to injustice, tyranny and force. In truth, great accumulations of capital were never possible until equality and justice of treatment were secured to all. The socialist side-steps the essential lesson drawn from the political development of the racechiefly because he finds that men are not yet perfect. It is no argument against the existing forms of society that absolutely perfect justice and equality are not always obtained. Present institutions reflect fairly well the qualities of erring human nature. Only as a race grows in ethical standards will its institutions respond. The cause of change must be in the qualities of man and not in the institutions which grow out of those qualities. Frail human nature cannot be made perfect by the limited programme of socialism, any more than a frog

can be made to grow fur by legislation. The detachment of socialism from the facts of life is here again apparent. Present society is what it is, historically and evolutionally, solely because it is conditioned by the very human nature given to us to work with on this planet. It is absurd to reason as if we were perfect angels in a perfect paradise. Socialism is a dream of perfection suited only for a perfected human nature.

IV

YET the more practical of the socialists may with propriety reply that the conditions of living on this planet do not oblige society to give special opportunities to some and deny them to others; that society can do as it pleases with the free gifts of nature; and that private property is not necessary to securing the highest efficiency and happiness of man. There is force in this criticism. There is no divine right in private property; it is a creature of the social will. It has come into existence by the consent of society, and is what it is as the outcome of the experience of the race. It is not an accident; it is an expression of the wishes of the race as they have been developed by time and evolution. It is with us because men believe, for good or for ill, that the institution has best served their purposes through many centuries. It remains, and will remain, solely because men believe that they get more good than evil out of it. It is not pretended that imperfect human beings will make out of private property in land an institution so perfect in every respect that no one in all conditions will meet with inconvenience or unequal opportunity. Even though there are things which weigh against it, enormous gains have come from private property, which send the scales down in its favor. It has given a stimulus to effort, thrift, and improvement of the soil by the owner which could never have been known under a temporary tenure. All scientific rotation of crops, all planting of orchards, all drainage of land, all permanent buildings and fixtures, all improvements which become incorporated with the soil, all lasting private docks, all costly business structures in the midst of great cities, all railway investments of private capital-all these would be made impossible without the expectation of

permanent possession implied in the private ownership of land. And the recent transfer of ownership to former Irish tenants, which has admittedly brought out new thrift and industry, is a practical testimony to the magic of private property in land. Lasting improvements on groundrents are made possible only by a tenure so long as practically to give possession during the life of the improvement and for several generations of improvers. To the intelligence of society as a whole these are preponderating advantages.

This justification of the action of the race as shown in the institution of private property in land, does not imply that no disadvantages exist when the matter is carried to an extreme. Under the general protection to private property a man may so accumulate and control land as to work a disadvantage to society; he may keep vast tracts out of cultivation, to the damage of others. Hence, just as soon as the act of any one person infringes on the rights of others, society would have a right to interfere. In South America, especially on the west coast, the Indians of a low order of civilization have possession of a large part of the land. The suggestion there comes from those who are well-to-do and intelligent to dispossess the ignorant native of the soil in the interest of progress and greater productivity. With us the suggestion of limiting private property comes from the proletariat. Whoever may be the offender, it lies in the power of society to preserve the general mass of gains from the institution, and yet to establish rules by which the disadvantages may be minimized. If so, it would be unnecessary to resort to the remedy proposed by socialism and destroy all the vast gains to the race of private property in order to remove only lesser disadvantages.

Private property, of course, is not ideally perfect; it contains a composite of various possibilities. Under it, great and unexpected wealth may come to a man without any foresight or skill. A pioneer squatter in his log-house, living on scanty crops from a poor soil, may awake some morning to find he is living over a rich deposit of oil, or copper, or zinc. Possibly such discoveries may be regarded as partly belonging to the state, if the state is poor; but, as a rule, under private property, they belong to the owner of the land. It may thus throw opportunity