PICTURES OF THE SOCIALISTIC FUTURE.* Now that the genius of
Social Democracy is visible in the House of Commons, and is courted by a Liberal Government as a useful ally, the champions of popular liberty should look to their armour. No longer confining his activities to Hyde Park platforms, and reinforced by his Fabian allies, the enemy within our gates is loudly proclaiming the aggressive pro- gramme of Marx and Lassalle. In the Bismarckian era the supreme Demosthenes of Germany, indeed of Europe, Bebel, published a supplement to his Parliamentary harangues in the shape of a treatise on Collectivism. Thereupon his per- sistent opponent, the late Eugen Richter, the leader of the German Moderate Radical Left, replied in the satirical story now reprinted for the third time in a translation of remarkable excellence, which gives a realistic, humorous picture of the conditions of life in the Empire as rebuilt by the Socialist would-be architects of destruction.
The English version here reissued has the most com- petent of godfathers in Mr. Mackay, whose introduction shows a thorough knowledge of his complex subject. Ile might perhaps have laid more emphasis on one aspect of the story in which Richter combats the foe. Before that politician took up the gauntlet in literary form, the oratorical and written battles of individuality and Collectivism had been chiefly fought on abstract academic lines. It was the merit of his strategy that it captured en masse general readers of all classes. His little dioramia pictures of Berlin life in the folds of the serpent of Socialism furnished such a reductio ad • absurdum of the Utopia of Bebel and his supporters as no previous controversialist had achieved.
Urging on our readers the careful study of Mr. Mackay's most able commentary, we proceed to give a highly com- pressed spicilegium of Richter's treatise, which we have accommodated to English wants by shifting the scene of his story from the Spree to the Thames of the near future. All capital, land, houses, mines, factories, railways, steamers, docks were impounded for the benefit of the State. Bonds, mortgages, shares, savings-bank funds were declared void, and the Mint shut for good.; and all printing establishments closed by order, a single official newspaper being issued for London. The Army was disbanded (a few Territorial relics excepted), taxes abolished, all doctors and lawyers made State employes. Every person of either sex between the ages of twenty-one and sixty-five was compelled to sign a register under police control, obligatory work being then assigned to him or her in localities selected by the central authorities : a Holborn printer was sent to Truro, an Oxford Street paperhanger to Limerick, a Bond Street milliner to Inverness. The union of sexes became largely a voluntary arrange- ment, the old forms of marriage, civil and ecclesiastical, were forbidden, women keeping their maiden names. No one was allewed to leave his centre of work without a permit, • Pictures of the Socialistic Future. By Eugen Richter. Member of the Imperial German Parliament. Authorised Translation by Henry Wright. With an Intrailuction by. T. Mackay. Third (Cheap) -Edition.- London Swan Sonnenschein and Co. rls. net.] or to attempt definite removal without official leave. Windsor Castle, Buckingham, St. James's, and Kensington Palaces, Chatsworth, Apsley House, Stafford House, Welbeck, the Royal Exchange, the Houses of Parliament, and similar edifices, with the great hotels of the kingdom, were annexed for con- version into public establishments, which included dining- halls of gigantic proportions, where the Board of Public Nourishment served daily meals, the allowance being a quarter of a pound of meat with potatoes, greens, and rice. All citizens under twenty-one and above sixty-five had to take up their abode in the public Homes of Rest; the daily living-rooms of the active portion of the population were distributed by lottery, married couples being sometimes able to get adjacent rooms by exchanging their single tickets with residents elsewhere. The old currency was abolished, citizens receiving once a week on demand a booklet of coupons, to which were attached photographs of the holders ; these paper tokens were accepted at all State magazines and shops, when the vendors detached the requisite coupons from the booklet, so as to prevent monetary accumu- lations of, say, more than a.
Under the said regulations there was an end of the London of cabs, tramways, "tubes," outdoor and domestic electrical supply, and the shutters were up in the shops of Regent Street and Piccadilly, Harrod's and Barker's, and the Army and Navy Stores. But even so, many grave problems of civil and criminal legislation, wills, orders of ne meat regno, and other necessary matters remained without solution. Soon the wheels of the motor-car of the new Commonwealth began to skid. The Secretary for Foreign Affairs, when the bulk of our diplomatic and consular representatives abroad left their poets, and the Socialist Powers of the Continent repudiated their Treaty obligations, could not prevent the representative of the Mikado from leaving London after he had lodged a declaration of war, or hinder the Ambassador of the United States from demanding his passports, because, contrary to the veto of his Government, the Commonwealth had arranged for the sale of the contents of the National Gallery, of the British Museum, with the art treasures of Windsor Castle, Stafford House, and so forth, to an American syndicate. Furthermore, "our chief of men," Mr. Burns, resigned his post as Protector, partly from his objection to the limitation of King Edward's pension to £400 a year, and the sale of Windsor Park to a foreign Timber Combine. Next, a quasi-famine ensued. Our output of machinery, metal products, textiles, crockery, &c., suddenly collapsing, we could no longer purchase the foreign foodstuffs, cotton, ores, chemicals, and other importations which gave us the breath of industrial life; the price of the quartern loaf jumped up to 2s. 66., tea to 14s. per pound, sugar cost id. a lump, eggs 6d. apiece, and tobacco 45s. a pound. The end was total eclipse.
The translator has done ample justice to the original ; but he need not have belittled in his accompanying remarks the amusing elements of the stm7. That the Germans do not possess our sense of humour, so irrepressible even in the Courts of Justice, is certain; yet they have had their Jean Paul Richter, whose modern namesake was sometimes able to imitate him with success. We wish the two million pamphlets which the new Middle Classes Defence Organisa- tion are rumoured to be about to distribute could be reinforced by a supply of a suitable English adaptation of this little volume.
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