to be insisted on is that even with the meager present irrigation there has never been lack of food in India. There is famine there for the same reason that there is in the United States-because people are too poor to buy. In the worst famine years food has been exported, and the ridiculousness of the whole situation becomes evident when one is told that famine sufferers are often relieved, not by gifts of food, but of a few pennies to buy with.

As to the cry of over-population, that is effectively silenced by the statements that the birth-rate and population are lower than in many European countries and that great tracts of land are as yet uncultivated.

In assigning poverty as the real cause of panics in India Dr. Sunderland adduces some startling facts. Forty million Hindus are constantly on the brink of starvation. Deaths from plague-largely due to under-nutrition-increased steadily from 272,000 in 1901 to 1,000,000 in 1904. The average income the country over is two or three cents a day. The reasons assigned for this poverty are foreign exploitation, heavy taxation and the destruction of native manufacturers. The tax on salt is 2,000 per cent! As to what is done with the money we are enlightened when we are told that about $70,000,000 goes annually to pay English officials and the Hindus have been forced to pay for military_campaigns in Afghanistan, Beluchistan, Burmah, the Soudan and Egypt. For outside wars they have turned over to their masters during the nineteenth century $450,000,000.

But of course the chief cause of India's poverty is "direct tribute." When the British came to India it was "one of the first manufacturing countries of the world." Indian cotton goods, silk goods, shawls, etc.. were famed throughout the world. Now a poor Hindu writes: "You know it was our humble charka, or spinning-wheel, which in days gone by spun the thread not only for our own people, but for those of Europe and other countries. The charka has, however, entirely disappeared, except in the Punjab, before the influx of machine-made threads. It is impossible for us, poor as we are, to start many mills." Another writes: "If we could only get a cheap, simple home spinning-machine which will turn out at least six threads at a time this will go far towards restoring our ancient industry to its one-time prestige." Both these letters appeared in the New York Evening Post for April 3.) The significance of these statements is unmistakeable. Through the power which capital gives them the English have forced the Hindus from their position as an industrial nation and made of them mere producers of raw material. In addition to paying for English wars and supporting an army of English officials they are obliged to send fabulous sums to England as interest on invested funds or in payment for imported manufactured goods. It is estimated that this "direct tribute" amounts to $150,000,000 annually. It is stated on good authority that for the last twenty-five years of the nineteenth century this English drain on India amounted to $2,500,000,000. And in return for this the British government expends annually for the education of Hindus one penny and a fifth a head!

I said above that it is in their prescriptions that the philanthropic and Socialistic doctors disagree. After his masterly arraignment of British rule Dr. Sunderland suggests, under the heading "The Remedy," a number of reforms, presumably to be instituted by the same government which brought India to her present terrible pass. Those longtime robbers, the imperial statesmen, are now advised to ge good, and to give proof of their new discovered virtue by no longer using Indian money to carry on outside war, by reducing the expenditure on the army, by pushing forward irrigation, by draining uninhabitable regions, by giving offices to Hindus, by reducing taxation, by building up ruined

native manufactures, etc., etc. Just how these ancient sinners are to be brought to repentance we are not told.*

Needless to say the speech of our English comrades has a different ring. Even though Keir Hardie does maintain that "there is no sedition in India," and the government has constantly on hand "moderate" Hindus willing to swear that everything is lovely on their native strand, John Bull is never allowed to forget the real state of affairs. In season and out of season, in parliament, on the hustings and in the newspapers English Socialists are displaying the awful results of the imperial policy. And not only so. The significance of the facts is driven home. English workers are brought face to face with the fact that their sufferings and those of the Hindu proletarian are the same and flow from the same source. So the appeal is not to the robber to give up his spoils, to the oppressor to cease from his oppression, but to the British workingmen all over the empire to rise and throw off a common despotism.

American Socialists will naturally follow the course of events with keen interest. The situation has now become so tense that any day may witness the precipitation of a conflict. The native press, hitherto quite unnoticed by Europeans and Americans, exercises great influence and is unanimously for a larger measure of home-rule. The English capitalistic sheets clamor frantically for violent repressive measures. Indeed an Explosives Bill has already been drafted, and it has been decided to put in force a stringent censorship of the press. Such measures cannot but arouse renewed opposition. There are in Hindustan about 200,000 foreigners as against 300,000,000 Hindus. When one considers that there are thousands of isolated, unprotected British officials and great stretches of railway with telegraph, bridges. etc., inviting attack, it is not difficult to imagine the result of an ultimate struggle on race lines.

England. In the north of England a great industrial tragedy has just drawn to a close. Some time ago the ship-builders along the Tyne announced to their employes a cut of eighteen pence a week. The men agreed to give up a shilling of their slender wage, but insisted that the other six pence be made a matter for arbitration. The employers were obdurate, even abusive. About 15,000 workers went on strike. Finally the employers conferred with their fellow ship-builders on the Clyde, and it was announced that unless the men capitulated by May 2nd all their comrades in the north of England would be sent to keep them company in the streets. Committees representing the unions have undergone all the humiliation to which labor has grown accustomed. For days in London they have gone from the board of trade to the House of Commons begging for their six pence and all to no avail. Now comes the news that the men have capitulated. Most of them were too disheartened even to vote on the matter. A war correspondent describes processions of starving women and children to be seen along Tyneside and men with the wolf-stare in their eyes. No wonder the strike failed. But labor's defeats are often her greatest victories, and there are not wanting signs to show it is so in this case.

Germany. Since January 3rd friends of liberty the world over have been rejoicing at the success of the Prussian Socialists in the Landtag elections. Seven seats when three or four at most had been hoped for! But to one who has been reading the German papers during

In justice to the Society for the Advancement of India it should be added that they have undertaken the encouragement of industrial education in India. They are making special efforts to bring promising young Hindus to America, see that they are properly edu cated, and then send them back prepared to do something to increase the independence of their countrymen.

the campaign it is not the number of seats that gives the result its chief importance. The pre-election propaganda was one that went deep into the national life, deep into the racial conscience. The bungling incompetence of the Junker Landtag was pitilessly revealed. Relentlessly the Socialist papers displayed pictures of Prussia's shame. The miserable incomes of the poor, their heavy taxes and their lack of political power were made to speak in thundering accents. If you hold to your principle, the government was asked, and those who pay should rule, who should hold power but those who produce the wealth? So the result means, not merely that seven Socialists have broken into the sacred chamber of the Landtag, but that thousands upon thousands have become class-conscious revolutionists. And it was the so-called Free-Thinker (Freisinnige) party that lost most of them. This indicates another step in the drawing of sharp class lines in politics. A comic note is added to the affair by the conservative papers, which now cry with one voice: "Behold, since you have gained representation our electoral system is justified."

Belgium. The news from Belgium, if less startling, is not less agreeable. In the election held on May 24th the Socialists gained five seats. When one takes into account that only half the whole number of representatives was voted for and that the poor of Belgium are still smothered under a class electoral system the victory seems signifidant indeed. The issue was the government's bill for the taking over of the Congo region from the King. Just what effect the vote will have is difficult to forecast. It is evident that the bill is unpopular, but the Catholic party, which backs the government, still has a majority of eight and two years in which to carry out its policy. Probably the bill will be passed with some modifications. Its enemies insist that the philanthropic Leopold receive some definite directions as to the disposition of the $250,000,000 which he is to receive in part payment for the colony.

Italy. Early in May a strike was declared among the farm laborers of Parma. The demands were a certain scale of hours ranging from five in winter to ten in summer and a wage scale running from four cents an hour to eight, according to difference in work and conditions. The good order and firm solidarity of the strikers were remarked on by capitalist papers everywhere. Nevertheless the landlords were permitted to form bands of ruffiians to start trouble. Though they failed conspicuously in this the government finally detailed troops to the region. A number of sympathetic strikes have been called, till at the present time about 30,000 men are involved. When the landlords tried to recruit scabs from a neighboring province 25,000 laborers of this province were immediately called out in protest; needless to say the attempt was given over and the temporary strike was called off. The Socialist party is in active co-operation with the strikers, assisting in the determination of their policies and aiding in their support. Only 3,000 men can be found to take the place of the 30,000 who are idle. All this goes to show what labor can do when it is organized and sticks together.

The difficulties which confront the editors of an encyclopedia are not unlike those which worry the nerves of the women of certain social positions, who, when they entertain, must face the difficult problem of being "exclusive" enough to maintain the tone of their functions, and yet inclusive enough to avoid omitting anyone whose feelings might be hurt or who might become an enemy. It is generally easy to find flaws in an encyclopedia, and to disagree with the choice of its editors, alike as to the things admitted and the things omitted. The New Encyclopedia of Social Reforms, edited by the Rev. W. D. P. Bliss and published by Funk & Wagnalls Company, New York, is no exception to the rule.

It is easy to find fault with the work. Many of the biographies have apparently been copied from the old edition and no attempt made to bring them down to date. In some instances the fact that the subjects of the biographies have been dead some years is not noticed. Some very notable men have been omitted and some very insignificant included. There is a lack of perspective and mature judgment about the biographical contents of the volume which seems most unforLikewise the carelessness of the proofreader has sprinkled the with errors of varying degrees of importance. In general great caution should be observed in quoting from the book, and dates and statistical data should be first of all verified by reference to the original

ones

tunate.

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sources.

Lest these criticisms seem too sweeping and too numerous, let me hasten to add that, with all its defects, the volume is, one which every Sociological student and every Socialist speaker and writer should own, or at least have access to. It is an invaluable and indispensable work of reference. The earlier edition of the same work, though likewise marred by many shortcomings, has been for me personally an inexhaustible mine of information and suggestion—especially suggestion. The new edition is not merely a revision of the old; it is almost entirely work, so that the old will still have its own value. Socialism in all its phases, and matters relating to the Socialist movement all over the world, are generously treated, and a copy of the work ought to be in every Socialist Club library. Comrades who are unable to afford to purchase such an expensive volume for themselves would do well to see that it is secured for the public libraries in their respective localities.

a new

* * *

A batch of books from various English publishers bears eloquent witness to the growth of the Socialist movement in that country. England is getting a literature of Socialism quite distinct from that of the "eighties" and "nineties" in that it deals in a more concrete way with

the vital problems of English life. First of all, there is a little primer, entitled Socialism, from the pen of my good friend, J. Ramsay Macdonald, M. P., the "Whip" of the Labor party in the House of Commons and Chairman of the Independent Labor party. Its tone is that of the "Opportunist" element in the movement, and one could wish for a little more of the revolutionary spirit and a more virile appeal, but it must be admitted that, as a primer, it is a very useful statement of the main arguments for Socialism. Its style is lucid and direct. The book is one of a series published by T. C. & E. C. Jack, London.

Not long ago I noticed a book dealing with English Socialism from the pen of one Brougham Villiers. Similar in many ways is a volume published in this country by the Scribners, British Socialism, by J. Ellis Barker, author of a work on German economic problems, in which the writer's bias against Socialism is plainly manifested. In the present work of more than five hundred pages Mr. Barker has gathered together a mass of material in the shape of quotations from the writings and speeches of Socialists, which he presents as the case against Socialism.

This method of arguing is doubtless very effective in some cases, especially among people of "piffling" temperaments and mental processes. It is so easy to detach a phrase or a sentence from its context and thus make the writer say something he never did say nor dream of saying. Mr. Barker has developed the art of so quoting as to make writers misrepresent themselves to a high state of perfection. He is not above quoting, as the opinion of Marx, that labor is the sole source of wealth, just because he finds the statement made in a penny pamphlet, not by Marx, but by our friend A. P. Hazell, and in spite of the very vigorous protest of Marx against the folly of such a statement. Poor verse by would-be poets, wherever it contains a notably silly picture of the future state, or a crude or coarse jest, is used as an argument against the whole Socialist movement. All the old and time-worn "quotations" are here to prove that Socialism will destroy the family and the home and that Socialists would abolish God. We are familiar with them all. Socialism in Great Britain will not be hindered by Mr. Barker!

Another English Savior of Society from Socialism enters the lists in the person of Mr. St. Loe Strachey, editor of that classic organ of British respectability, The Spectator. While the great literary weekly is a paper not widely read by the workingmen of England, Mr. St. Loe Strachey has addressed to one of them a series of letters on Socialism, which the Macmillan Company of London and New York has published in a cheap paper-bound volume of 126 pages, entitled "Problems and Perils of Socialism." The book is dedicated to President Roosevelt as "one of the most convinced and most powerful opponents of Socialism living"-a bit of characterization which some of our comrades who are inclined sometimes to class the President with the "near-Socialists" will do well to observe.

The workingman to whom Mr. St. Loe Strachey addresses himself -he assures us that the letters are genuine-is a type to occasion remark. He is not a typical proletarian. He is a man who began life as a small boy working in a coal-mine. To-day his work "is in a shop doing a large retail business" in a small Somersetshire village. Somehow, the description does not seem quite ingenuous. Is the "shop" Mr. Harvey's own, I wonder, or is he a hired clerk or manager? The status of the "workingman" is not quite clear from the description! The only other information we have concerning this "workingman" is that he is quite as bitterly opposed to Socialism as Mr. St. Loe Strachey, and that he reads and sometimes writes for The Spectator. He is, in a word, an extraordinary British workman!

Given a self-made man of this type, proudly conscious of having