Calder; Persian carpets are killing Kidderminster; and Californian wheat beats down the price of home-grown corn. If I want books bound, I send them to Bruges; gloves, I write to Brussels; brass-work, I get it from Antwerp; some wine-glasses, they come from Bohemia; a stove, I order it at Aachen; a greenhouse, the frame comes to me from Drontheim; a dish of cherries, they are grown at Sinzig; fresh meat, my butcher is in New York.

In Medieval times a strike was unattended by risk and cost. If the men did not carry their point, they were sure of getting work elsewhere. They had no occasion to lay by for expenses when out of employ. If a rise in wages was refused them, they flung their bundle over their backs, and wafting a kiss to the master's daughter, went elsewhere. Was klinget und singet die Strass' herauf? Ihr Jungfrau'n, machet die Fenster auf! Es ziehet der Bursch in die Weite, Sie geben ihm das Geleite.

As the modern housemaid likes to change her place continually to see more of the world, and the German student to shift his university every year, so the workman in the Middle Ages liked to ramble from town to town, and when he had carried on his flirtations in one place to a dangerous length, he escaped entanglements by going to another, and the easiest way to get off was to demand more wage, and go if it were refused. Wherever he went he was well received and helped on by his fellows. Their purses were ever open to the vagabond artisan, for with what measure they meted this year, they expected to have it measured to them the following year.

Here again the modern workman is at a disadvantage. The unmarried man has but himself to care for if out of work, but the artisan who has wife and children dependent on him must consider his family.

The union to which he belongs will allow him something during the period of strike, but not enough to keep him in comfort, and the object of strike is not now attainable as it was formerly. Every workman does not belong to the union; capital is not bound to one spot; competition is wide as the world. The old monopolies which favoured the artisan at the cost of the consumer are dead as Herod. Trades'-unions of operatives, as they have been for some time conducted, are an organisation unsuitable for modern times-a relic of mediævalism, practicable only where there is protection. An international society can alone meet capitalists and try conclusions with them, but then, is it possible for such a society to embrace the proletariates of the whole world? If it is organised throughout Europe and America, China and Japan will become the resort of manufacturers, the emporiums of trade. In the meantime much mischief may be done by using old engines against modern earthworks; they are likely to explode and injure those who employ them.

Trade is so delicate and subtle that it may be banished by a strike. A slight rise in price made to meet the demands of the artisans may ruin the home manufacture. Foreign goods can be sold cheaper, and English goods will be no longer asked for.

produce collapses.

Thereupon the whole home

And yet trades'-unions are an excellent institution, if not ignorantly or designingly misdirected. Nothing is better than that men should live a corporate life, that they should be made to feel that they are members of a body, that they should have an organised society through which to make their wants and ideas known, and, if necessary, enforce them. But then the masters will league also, and both will face one another as natural foes, maintaining

peace only as truce. In the Middle Ages there was a more excellent way among the so-called 'great industries.' In them there were no separate guilds of masters and unions of workmen, but one association embracing both, with a committee in which sat the masters and the delegates of the men. The affairs of the trade were discussed and regulated by the whole corporation, differences composed by common action. In these trades, disputes between masters and men rarely broke out into overt acts of hostility. In an organisation of this sort harmony is maintained, for the interests of the trade are understood by both parties: whereas in separate organisations, each sees only one side of every question.

On the land in Germany, labour is not likely to combine, for the land belongs to small holders, and few farmers can afford to maintain workmen. A farm tilled by paid labour ruins the farmer. It is usual for the employer to feed as well as pay his men. They expect something to eat and drink every two hours.

The average price of labour in Germany on the land is now, in marks:

CHAPTER XVI.

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY.

Be not over-exquisite

To cast the fashion of uncertain evils.

MILTON: Comus.

THE attempts of Hödel and Nobiling have of late attracted extraordinary attention to German Social Democracy. The imagination of the public and the fears of Prince Bismarck have given to the movement an importance which it scarcely possesses. By a repetition of the mistake of the May laws, the German Chancellor hopes to suppress a power which he dislikes or dreads, but will instead give it consistency, and exasperate it to deeds of violence. Heine said :

Franzosen und Russen gehört das Land,

Das Meer gehört den Britten:

Wir aber führen im Luftreich des Traums
Die Herrschaft unbestritten.

And this is true of German Social Democracy; it is dreamland, fantastic, melting away at the touch of practical life. Better let the dreamer toss in sleep and clutch at air than by putting him in a strait jacket and confining him in a black hole, convert him into a lunatic.

If we want to know the origin of Socialism historically, we must turn to the Corpus Juris Canonici.' It was the Catholic Church which first preached Communism. When she became wealthy she doubted about putting her doc

trine into practice, but she taught it theoretically, and her monasteries were true communistic societies. Canon Law, the flower of medieval science, on the perfecting of which Theology, Jurisprudence, and Philosophy laboured. together during many centuries, lays down the principles of Communism as plainly as Marx and Lassalle. According to the Canonists, the ideal and original condition of things was and is community of goods. Everythingair, light, water, the earth-is common to all. God sent all his creatures into the world with equal rights to life, to all that conduces to life, to the enjoyment of life.' As every man has a right to breathe, so every man has a right to eat. As the air is without an owner, but common property, so the earth and its fruits.2 St. Ambrose rejects the idea that God is the author of difference in men's lots, that He gives wealth to one and poverty to another. Inequality is interference with the law of God. Therefore, he says, let no man dare to call superfluities his own. Whatever is more than satisfies his needs is appropriated by him from the common good.3 Mine and thine are human distinctions, creations of man's unrighteousness. The Fall caused the idea of property to spring into being. When the blight fell on the earth through man's disobedience, and people multiplied on its face, then the soil did not bring forth sufficient to satisfy all. Men were forced to labour at it to increase its productive power, and with labour came in rights of property. What man won by his sweat was his in a special manner. Thus came in acquired rights. Though in an evil world property must exist, yet in cases of necessity the powers that be are justified in 'Decret. Gratian. ii. c. 12. Qu. i. c. 2.

See Erdmann: 'Ueber die National-Oekonomischen Grundsätze der Kanonistischen Lehre,' in Hildebrand, Jahrbücher für Nat.-Oekon. u. Stat. Band i.

Decret. Gratian, i. D. 47, c. 8.