Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 1.djvu/657

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WORKERS AND THINKERS
645

poses to raise an organization fund of $50,000 with which to organize branches throughout the kingdom. It will offer no universal panacea for labor troubles, but will "try to acquire exact information, and then to throw light on the practical issues involved when those great problems arise which workmen and employers together alone can settle." The two pamphlets add much to available knowledge about the working of industrial arbitration and conciliation. The Union itself is likely to be useful in promoting industrial peace. (Price six pence each. Address Mr. Edwin Rainbow, secretary. The Butts, Coventry, England.)

Civil Service in Chicago.—The first annual report of the commissioners is a pamphlet of 144 pages. Contains text of Illinois Civil Service Act; account of organization of the commission; classification and rules; rulings, precedents and official opinions; statistics; financial statements and other matter of importance to students of municipal government. (Chicago. Printed for the Commissioners. Limited number for gratuitous distribution. Address: Civil Service Commission, Chicago.)

Socialism.—The social sciences, as all other sciences, are largely indebted to the past. There are many in recent times, however, who would break all bonds which unite past, present and future ; who would abolish inheritance in the intellectual world. This is especially true of economic principles. This hatred of principles is an incentive to social disorder. Such skeptics compose the advance guard of socialism. This evil tendency is promoted by the socialists of the chair, the Christian socialists, and the motley crowd who speak on these subjects without having any knowledge of them. On the other hand, there are those who claim to be philosophical, scientific and historical, who base socialism on the organic concept of society. The true socialists are these pantheists and doctrinaires of the evolutionary school. There is nothing more doctrinaire than scientific socialism, originating as it does in the Hegelian philosophy. It repeats to satiety the thesis, that the workmg-classes toil in a capitalistic world, excluded from the pleasures of civilization by moral and political laws and institutions which deliver the poor to the exploitation of the rich. Its insufficient and inefficient remedy is to transform man by a change in his environment. (Leon Say, in Journal des Economistes, December 1895.)

The Social Question in France.—Socialism is the historical outcome of democracy; for political equality being secured, the next step was naturally towards social equality, or equality of opportunity At the same time theoretical social reform was quickened in France by the French fondness for the ideal. In the legislature the double aim of the socialists is to modify by present measures the pressing grievances of labor, and to prepare step by step for the substitution of "la propriété sociale à la propriété capitaliste." An outline of the general programme of the socialists is here given. Socialism is not likely to be carried to an excess in France, because in no country is there so little inequality of riches. Present abuses in France are due to a want of experience in self-government, and to the absence of traditions of civic duty under a democratic form of government. Through the industrial revolution the old guilds decayed, and the laborer; who was formerly owner of his own tools, found himself dependent upon the capitalist. In this case demand always had the advantages, because supported by the possession of capital ; and, as hopes of advancement decreased, the laborers began to look to the state for that liberation which voluntary action could not obtain. The chief ideas underlying the social question in France are the strengthening of individual effort, the increase of social equality, or rather equality of opportunity, and the saving of waste by means of coöperation. (Theodore Marburg in The Economic Review, January 1896. London: Rivington, Percival & Co.)

The Importance of the Home.—The particularist type, in contrast with the communistic type, is better adapted to the present form of society; it is more resistant; it gives to men a greater energy for surmounting the difficulties of life. It is an evolution from the communistic type. The first step in this evolution is to change the type of the home. The particularist type is more prevalent in the United States and Great Britain, but especially in the latter country can be studied in contrast with