the carrying out of its demands, because that, in the words of its most prominent spokesmen, would have 'imperilled Home Rule.' Between the Trade Disputes Act of 1906 and the Trade Union Act of 1913, Labour was politically flouted and ignored, and the Parliamentary Labour Party, in the mass, extinguished.

No one is satisfied with the present position or activities of the Parliamentary Labour Party, but the complaint against it now is rather different. It is based largely upon the charge of irregular attendance, and for that, in many individual cases, there is a very good excuse, since a large proportion of Labour members are also trade union officials, and have often to be absent on urgent trade union work. Doubtless, this is a flaw in the sheer organisation of Labour; but it is not, to the same extent as before, a reflection on Labour's spirit and solidarity. And, whereas, before the war, dissatisfaction with the Labour Party was confined, as far as could be told from its open expression, to a numerically small and theoretically extreme portion of the movement, to-day such dissatisfaction as exists finds much wider and more authoritative expression.

The Labour movement, in a word, is becoming more and more class-conscious. The causes of this are many. There is the spread of education, the influence of the study of economics at Ruskin College and the Central Labour College,1 from which centres. come so many of the young 'advanced' men of the movement, such as Mr Frank Hodges, the secretary of the Miners' Federation. There is the provocation,

1 I am well aware of the extreme difference in point of view between the two places: my point simply is that good men come from both.

deliberately employed, as at the General Election and during the Railway Strike, by so-called Liberals and Conservatives, who unite to stigmatise staid, reputable trade unionists as 'Bolsheviks' and enemies of their country. But, above all, there is, exactly as Marx foretold, the iron and inexorable pressure of facts the sheer financial facts of the rise in the cost of living and the huge profits of capitalist combines.

The workers see that the Government will almost always guarantee his dividend to the capitalist, but almost always oppose any demand on the part of the wage-earner, even the bare demand for the maintenance of his pre-war standard of living.

They realise, because they are forced to realise, that there is only so much wealth available, and that, while the monopolists get so much, the workers will get so little. They face the fact, because it is forced upon them, that only a radical redistribution of wealth, and of the means by which wealth-production is controlled, will alter their state for the better.

They have been preached to by the capitalist Press about the vicious circle' until they have inquired into the vicious circle and discovered what it is. They have been told that wages must not go up, because that will put up prices. They have seen that that argument apparently does not stop the putting up of profits. They have asked themselves whether it is a fact that high prices are caused by high wages; and they have come to the conclusion that, on the contrary, high wages are necessitated by high prices. They have decided that the only way in which to get control of capital out of the hands of the private profit-maker and into the hands of the whole community is to nationalise industry.

That is Socialism-not theoretical Socialism, but simple common-sense Socialism, which cannot be avoided by those who face the facts.

And, if the carrying out of that Socialism is resisted by the owners of private capital, there will be the wrong sort of revolution.

C.R.

N

XVII

THE POVERTY LINE

'BUT,' it may be said, 'what is the use of this practical conversion of Labour to Socialism? Admitted that you have a vast political party, a vast industrial power, demanding that the product of all industry shall be available for all, and therefore equally available for each-what then? Does it not remain true that no redistribution can distribute what is not there? There is not enough to go round; and that is the answer to your Socialism.’

To these objections I would reply: If there were indeed not enough to go round, that would be no argument against equal distribution. If there is only a shilling between two men who need eighteenpence in order to buy enough food for the two of them, they will be better off if each can spend sixpence than if one has to do with a penny because the other has taken possession of elevenpence. In abstract justice, and for the purposes of national health and efficiency, if there is not enough to 'go round,' it ought to be equally distributed and if there is enough to 'go round,' it ought to be equally distributed. That, at any rate, is Labour's view, and the implication of Labour's activities.

But there is no need to argue the matter in the abstract. In spite of all statements to the contrary, there is enough to 'go round.'

I shall show statistically that, even as production

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stands at present, there is produced by this country enough, though not more than enough, for every family to have a decent life to live above that 'poverty line' at which wages are only just sufficient to assure proper food, housing, clothes, and conditions of health. I shall show-but indeed it does not need showing, being obvious to the simplest-that, if there is only just sufficient for each to have enough if all have equal, then such a redistribution cannot be effected without taking away a great deal from those who at present have more than enough.

So much is produced. If some have more than their share, others will have less. What is produced, is produced by human labour: the richest soil lies idle till some one gets to work on it, the most miraculous machine is unproductive till human activity sets it going. If you and I enjoy more than our share of the national income, then, in whatever form we enjoy it, we are taking toll of the labour of others.

Any redistribution of the national product, however, would prove useless unless it were accompanied by a radical alteration of the system which made the present inequalities and would, if allowed to operate unchecked, inevitably make inequalities again.

Now a radical alteration of the system of production and distribution of national wealth is precisely what we mean by a revolution. That there was a tendency towards such revolution before the war will scarcely be denied. But the war has made the problem much more acute and much more obvious. It has, as we shall see, removed the limitations on high prices and given a new reality to the 'vicious circle.' Let us consider what whis means.

Sir Leo Chiozza Money, giving evidence at the Dockers' Inquiry, put the 'poverty line' at, roughly