Now the present system gives us, if not quite this, amongst the lower classes, yet something near to it, while in addition it is able to tell off a large number for immaterial labour, art, science, letters, philosophy, and very many more to "do nothing gracefully," if it so pleases them: the last not altogether a good result, but with possibilities of good contained in it, and the worst of the evils curable at less cost than a universal life in the phalanstery would involve.

Mill further desired that the different schemes of St. Simon and Fourier should have an opportunity of trial. To this it may be said that at least Fourier's system has had opportunities of trial, and it has invariably failed. Though even if it had had a partial success, this would not have been a conclusive argument against the much stronger and demonstrative economic argument. Fourierism has been tried more than once on the Continent. It was also tried in America in a celebrated experiment, of which Nathaniel Hawthorne speaks in the "Blythdale Romance," in which reasons other than economical are shown against it. Even if it had not rashly innovated with regard to the family, it was bound to fail. Economically, perhaps, it might have been partly possible in 1808, when Fourier first wrote, before the large production had extended itself, though even then the millions of scattered small farmers and proprietors would with difficulty have been induced to give up their homesteads and their family life for the barrack-life, and no privacy of the phalanstery.

There is perhaps one case where the phalanstery or

village community, its nearest realized type, might still be possible, without involving much permanent loss. It might prove a refuge for the unemployed (not likely to be again employed), for the temporarily unemployed, composed of agricultural labourers and artisans, and for those only casually employed, provided, that is, that they would be willing to go to it voluntarily. But one can see that these are not promising materials for our village community; it would not be an ideal one by any means. Even including agricultural labourers and such artisans as might be willing to take their fortune for a period in it (who would not be of the best kind), it would not be very successful economically. Still they might, under certain conditions, make a living in these villages of refuge, spare the public rates, and save to some extent their own dignity. And something resembling the above, though not modelled on the phalanstery of Fourier, seems to have been the village contemplated and recently described by the Rev. Mr. Mills as a refuge for the unemployed, as well as for the recipient of out-door relief and the casual labourer."

There is, however, this further to be said: that if a self-contained, self-sustaining village community would be good, one that did not produce all it needed, but bought from the outside and gave its best products in exchange might be better; from whence it would follow that it might be better to have an association mostly of agricultural labourers, or a mainly agricultua fuller consideration of Mr. Mills' scheme, see

7 For Chapter XI.

ral village with good farming machinery; the clothes and some other necessaries being bought where cheapest. It could give some employment, no doubt, to inferior artisans, as shoemakers and carpenters, and the like. To this extent, perhaps, the village community might be restored, but it would always be in a state of unstable equilibrium, unless the new recruits were enlisted for at least a twelvemonth without the power of leaving it. This, no doubt, would be a sorry ending for the phalanstery, which was announced with confident gravity by the founder as the one means, without doubt, of making labour attractive, mankind happy, and of introducing once again the Golden Age. To come to a sort of semipauper, semi-penal village community without the Fourierist Palace in the centre, would be a lowering of the phalansterian flag. Or if the palace be insisted on, we shall have a building, half barrack, half workhouse, in which the resemblance to the latter would be only too painfully marked.

V.

THE phalanstery shocked and went to pieces on the large system of production, with which it is incompatible. Universalized, it would impoverish a nation, besides being otherwise impracticable. On the other hand, St. Simonism would destroy individual liberty, would weight the State with endless responsibilities, and the whole details of production, distribution, and transportation. It would besides be a despotism if it could be carried out, and not a beneficent despotism,

considering the weakness and imperfection of men. So objected Louis Blanc to St. Simonism, in his

Organisation du Travail" (1840), whilst bringing forward a scheme of his own, which, he contends, would be at once simple, immediately applicable, and of in· definite extensibility; in fact a full and final solution of the Social Problem.

The large system of production, the large factory and workshop, he' saw was necessary. Large capital, too, was necessary, but the large capitalist was not. On the contrary, capitalism—capital in the hands of private individuals, with, as a necessary consequence, unbounded competition, was ruinous for the working classes, and not good for the middle classes, including the capitalists themselves, because the larger capitalists, if sufficiently astute or unscrupulous, can destroy the smaller ones by under-selling, as in fact they constantly did. His own scheme was what is now called co-operative production, with the difference that instead of voluntary effort, he looked to the State to give it its first motion, by advancing the capital without interest, by drawing up the necessary regulations, and by naming the hierarchy of workers for one year, after which the co-operative groups were to elect their own officers. He thought that if a number of these co-operative associations were thus launched State-aided in each of the greater provinces of industry, they could compete successfully with the private capitalist, and would beat him within no very long time. By competition he trusted to drive him out in a moderate time, and without shock to industry in general. But having conquered the capital'st by

competition, he wished competition to cease between the different associations in any given industry; as he expressed it, he would "avail himself of the arm of competition to destroy competition."

The Government, being the founder of the "social workshops," would draw up the statutes which, deliberated on and voted by the national representation, would have the form and power of law. The Government having regulated the hierarchy of functions for the first year, thereafter when the labourers had learned each other's powers from daily contact, and being deeply interested in having the best superiors, "the hierarchy would issue from the elective principle."

The net proceeds each year would be divided into three parts: the first to be divided equally amongst the members of the association; the second to be devoted partly to the support of the old, the sick, the infirm, partly to the alleviation of crises which would weigh on other industries; the third to furnish "instruments of labour" to those who might wish to join the association, so as to allow of an indefinite extension of the principle.

Each association might also have affiliated to it groups of subordinate workers in connected industries, forming different parts of one whole, obeying the same laws, and deriving the same advantages.

Every member might spend his salary as and where he pleased; but the "evident economy and incontestable excellence of the life in common would give birth to voluntary association for wants and pleasures," and thus the better part of Fourier's scheme would be realized.