sinking beneath the burden which they have allowed their rulers to impose upon them, despite the opposition of officialism and of the classes interested in keeping up this extravagant expenditure, they will insist on following the wiser and better example set them on the other side of the Atlantic. WILLIAM MAITLAND. III. NATIONAL WORKSHOPS. I. 'WE are tired of abstractions. Let us come to realities.' That is the cry of the modern Socialists when they are confronted with the disquisitions of the older school of Economists. So be it. Let us try and test Socialism and its theories, not by counter theories but by facts. The Socialists have a great many doctrines and counsels of perfection, but their essential principle of practice is contained in the formula which declares that society will only be successfully and happily organized when the sources of wealth and the machinery of production are in the hands of the State-when, that is, the machinery of production is either nationalized or municipalized, and when the community, not the individual in competition, undertakes the production of all the things which man needs, from his clothes to his daily newspaper. When we are confronted with this theory, with the declaration that it ought to be put in practice, and with the demand that it shall be combatted, if it is combatted, with facts, not abstractions, the first thing we must ask is, What does the experience of the past teach on the subject ?-has the plan of making the community the producer and the manufacturer the owner of the machinery of industry and production ever been tried before? The answer is Yes. It has been tried, and was a failure. When did that trial take place? In Paris in 1848, when, under the supervision of the Provisional Government, which accepted the doctrines of modern Socialism, a serious and practical attempt was made to inaugurate the era of State employment and State production. The history of the national workshops of 1848 is, then, whatever its teachings, of the utmost importance to those who are anxious to consider, fairly and reasonably, as I trust I am, the proposals of the Socialists of to-day. If the proposals of the Fabians would solve the social problem, abolish poverty and misery, and build a new heaven and a new earth, I, like every one else I ever heard of, would be a Socialist, and would adopt the doctrine of the nationalization of the sources of production. God hates the poor, and justly punishes them for their wickedness,' is not a doctrine that has ever been seriously held, though it is, I am aware, often represented as the Anti-Socialist's gospel. The question is, Would the realization of Socialism mend matters, or would it not rather make them worse? That is the problem which I propose to consider in the light of the experience of the national workshops of 1848. II. Perhaps it will be said that the Parisian experiment of fortyfive years ago is no guide, because the men who set up the Ateliers Nationaux did not really adopt the Collectivist theory, or because, even if they did, they did not apply it properly, i.e. give the scheme a fair trial. Therefore, it will be urged, the doings of 1848 throw no light on the subject. I accept the challenge. If the precedent is to apply, the intention must have been genuinely Socialistic, and the experiment must have been made consciously and deliberately, and not merely haphazard. Before, then, beginning to read a lesson from the national workshops, it is necessary to show (1) the Socialistic intent of the founders of the Ateliers Nationaux, (2) the fact that they did their best to make the workshops a success. The readiest way of establishing the truth of the first of these propositions is to quote verbatim the Decree of the Provisional Government, in which they laid down the principles that guided |