wise be held to be defamatory and actionable may be justified by showing that they are "privileged." Thus, statements made. to a person interested in their being made, fair reports of trials or legislative debate, fair comments on public men, are held to be privileged. The latter class, statements about public men, and especially candidates for office, affords the most fruitful source for newspaper libels. In the heat of a campaign, the qualifying adjective is liable to be forgotten, and statements are made which no judicious person could pronounce "fair." Party spirit, generating as it inevitably does, a low opinion of opponents personally, affords a protection to charges which cannot possiby be justified in reason. The importance of elections has greatly increased in the last half century. A general election in the United States secures to some four hundred persons the spending of some $400,000,000 a year, the appointment of more than 100,000 office-holders, the control of fleets and armies, power compared with which that of the most potent monarchs of past times would be of little importance. Perhaps the most potent agency in determining the selection of these four hundred is the press. That unscrupulous men, having in their hands an engine of such power, should use it unscrupulously is not surprising. The temptation to resort to any insinuation or accusation that can possibly influence votes is almost irresistible. That the press of the country is for sale, and that, too, pretty cheap, was recently proved for one State in not a very honorable way, and there is no reason to suppose that the press in that State is any more venal than in other States. An election has become a civil conflict; each party speaks of its opponents as "the enemy"; a person who, having previously voted with one, votes with the other, is dubbed "deserter" or "traitor" or "renegade"; and the feelings and unscrupulousness of actual warfare are cultivated.

Here, then, is an evil partly caused, at

any rate greatly intensified, by the magnification of the part which government plays in our national life. Two or three times as much revenue is collected and expended as would be necessary for performing — and performing them better than they are performed at present - the essential duties of government. There are three or four times as many office-holders as would be required to do the work which could be done by the government better than by any other agency. There would obviously be a less intense contest for the power to spend $150,000,000 than for $400,000,000, and it would be kept more within bounds, would be less of a periodical disgrace to the country. A few centuries hence, and very likely men will read of our Presidential contests with something of the same feelings we experience in reading of the contests of more savage tribes of their torturing prisoners, of their devouring raw parts of their slain enemies.

The conclusion is unavoidable that the government, as it is now, is in part indirectly responsible for one of the evils it attempts, and rightly, though less efficiently than is desirable, attempts to repress. It may be said that this is a small evil; that everybody whose opinion is worthy of respect knows that charges made by partisan newspapers against public men are absolutely without weight; but it is not a small evil; the certainty of being exposed to abuse from half the press of the country operates to repel many of the best men from public life, and thus, indirectly, as well as directly, lowers the tone of politics. Moreover, not any immoral practice can exist extensively in a community without doing harm. It may be said that the newspapers only reflect the average morality, or rather immorality, of the community, and there is some truth in the contention; at any rate, in a community with a keen sense of morality, newspapers which were in the habit of making unfounded charges and insinuations would not flourish. But, also, a community with a highly developed intelli

gence and morality, would not try to do in its corporate character what it could do better in its individual character; the injustice which such attempts necessarily involve would be perceived, and would be resisted not only by those who might be injured by the injustice, but by those who might profit from it. As it is, the government, or rather its abuse, having corrupted the press, offers an obstacle to improvement in recognizing and respecting a man's right to his good name, as in so many other directions.

HISTORICAL REFLECTIONS.

The Forum for July contains a very interesting paper by Dr. Lyman Abbott on a subject about which much is being written at present, The Wages System." Two things are necessary to the full development of the productive forces of a society: freedom of labor, and freedom of personal property. Perhaps in no place have the limitations which the wages system, as it exists among us, places upon the laborer been more clearly set forth than they are in this article:

"The capitalist no longer has a lien on the laborer; feudalism is abolished. But the capitalist owns substantially all the tools and implements of industry, and the laborer employs them in productive work. The two classes under this system are mutually dependent. The owner of the tools cannot get any product out of them unless he can find laborers who are willing to work with them; but the laborer, how ever willing he may be to work, can have no opportunity unless he can find some tool-owner willing to allow him the use of the necessary tools. . . . The new system has this charactistic, that one set of men, few in number, own all the tools, and another set of men, large in number, are dependent upon these tool owners for an opportunity to use the tools, and therefore to engage in productive industry.”

used in production by those who direct industry. And the reason why this system has superseded the old system of production on a smaller scale where the managers were much more numerous, is because it is much more effective. The reason why "the shoe factory crowds out of existence the cobbler in his stall," is because shoes can thus be more easily and abundantly produced. The reason why "the sewing machine turns the tailor into a unit in a great shop," is because there is a great economy of labor in great shops. So with all other branches of production. Mr. Wells quotes some very striking estimates of the comparative cost of growing wheat in California on ranches, or farms of different sizes. "On ranches of 1,000 acres, the average cost is reported at 921 cents per 100 pounds; on 2,000 acres, 85 cents; on 3,000 acres, 75 cents; on 15,000 acres, 60 cents; on 30,000 acres, 50 cents; and on 50,000 acres, 40 cents. will have a tendency to crowd agriculturists with limited capital out of the business of wheat-growing. The minute subdivision of land in Germany has been recognized as increasing the cost of wheat grown there.

These facts

The contention is, that the individual laborer has become helpless before this system, and it seems impossible to escape the conclusion. That cases of hardship arise under the system cannot be denied. In America, Dr. Abbott tells us, nearly one million willing workers were thrown out of employment in 1885. And a system which is responsible for such a state of things cannot be right. Again, "Under the wages system the greater part of the products of industry go into the hands of the few toolowners. . . . That system cannot be right which gives the profits of industry to the few and compels the many to live always praying, 'Give us this day our daily bread."" "Unless, however, some better system can be devised and put in operation, to assert that the wages system is not right is very like asserting that the constitution of the world is wrong. The system of slavery

I suppose, was never absolutely right, but it was probably the best system practicable at one time. So with feudalism; so with almost every great system that has passed away.

If by any artificial appliances or institutions the lot of the laborer, of the great majority of mankind, is made harder, those appliances or institutions should be done away. The wages system is certainly not an artificial system. We have either to leave every man born into the world free to do the best he can for himself in the struggle for life, with such incidental assistance as he receives from those near him, or not to leave him thus free. In the past he has not been left free. Men have been forbidden to leave their own country and even their own parishes in search of better-paid employment; forbidden to receive more than a stated sum for their services; there is hardly a conceivable limitation which has not at some time been imposed upon men's freedom to do the best they could for themselves. If any such limitations (except those imposed by nature) still remain, let them by all means be abolished; but to do more than this seems impossible.

Dr. Abbott does not advocate any improvements in the system. He suggests a system of industrial partnership

some

thing not identical with socialism - which he promises to discuss in a future article. From the tone of the present paper and from the author's other writings, however, we may guess that the system he advocates is a species or modification of socialism. Socialism is by no means a thing just of yesterday and to day, but is a disease which has frequently affected the minds of men and includes many schemes for the alleviation of social ills. As new words are formed by modifications of old roots, so new plans for social regeneration are very likely to prove to be modifications of old socialistic ideas. A German economist, Roscher, thinks that in the following four periods of the world's history, socialistic

ideas have been most widespread: among the ancients at the time of the decline of Greece, and in that of the degeneration of the Roman Republic; among the moderns, in the age of the Reformation, and again in our own day.

The socialism of Plato's Republic may not have been a mere fancy sketch; in his time it had become the usual practice for the State to contribute largely to the subsistence of the multitude. Every act of public life was paid for; citizens were paid for attending public meetings; the number of magistrates was very large, that many might have a share in the remuneration. It is estimated that when Athens had 20,000 inhabitants, 6,000 of them were judges,— an estimate which seems absurdly high, as there could hardly have been 6,000 adult males in a population of only 20,000. Besides all this there were numberless feasts, plays, banquets, furnished to the people at the expense of the State. The expense was in reality, of course, borne by the rich. This state of things amounted almost to a semi-community of goods, and production did not equal consumption.

At Rome, during the decline, matters were much the same. The masses lived largely by the sale of their suffrage to the highest bidder. Very large sums were offered to the Century called on to vote first. In the reform of the younger Gracchus, two notable provisions were, the sale of wheat under the market price to inhabitants of the city, and the public construction of great highways in Italy. Clodius introduced the free distribution of wheat, which, according to Cicero, required nearly a fifth of the public revenues. For a long time over three hundred thousand people were supported in this way. Other articles of food were also distributed. The distributions of money under Augustus were very large.

In the Middle Ages the transition from the peasant system of farming to the larger and more modern system which succeeded a transition something like that which is

going on now with us upon the lower classes.

bore very heavily The fall in price of gold and silver at that time probably intensified the evil. At any rate there can be little doubt that the condition of those

who earned a living by manual labor deteriorated in the sixteenth century; this is testified by the activity of public charity at that period. It is stated that, in 1599, the Saxon laborer earned, in corn, only half as much as in 1455. In Italy the contrast between the rich and the poor had been developed for several centuries, but at about 1650 it became much more oppressive, owing to the general impoverishment of the country.

What we call the history of the world is only a very small portion of history. Greece and Rome are apt to seem to us nearly the whole of antiquity. Still, what

has been recorded is sufficient to afford a presumption that, when a general movement towards socialism occurs, it is a symptom of disease in the body politic. The most striking feature of the periods distinguished for such movements is a great contrast between the rich and the poor, and the absence of a large middle class between them. In Greece and Rome the disease indicated by the prevalence of socialistic measures, together, doubtless, with other diseases, proved fatal. In Europe, a series of industrial inventions bringing about a great development of productive forces, aided perhaps by the discovery of new continents, enabled some of the nations to throw off the disease for a time. It is difficult to estimate force which now makes for socialism. That force is certainly greater in this country than it was half a century ago. It is shown no less by the socialistic measures which are advocated by politicians and adopted by the government, without any clear knowledge that they are socialistic, than by societies and individuals who wish to effect an equal distribution of goods, or to nationalize industry, or to supplant the wages system by an industrial partnership, say.

EVOLUTION vs. REFORMATION.

It is notorious that England, prompted no doubt by the beautiful results of having governed Ireland in strict accordance with English ideas, is preparing now to initiate the development of a system of peasant proprietary. The time was when the landlord system seemed to the Englishman, high or low, specially the high, one of the perfections of the world. Granting that there might be seven other perfections, the average Englishman was firmly convinced that the landlord and entail system was the eighth and added perfection which completed the sum of God's gifts, to His greater glory and the happiness of mankind. They knew quite well that there were landlords and landlords, systems and systems; so they looked with pity on their poorer neighbors across the channel, and resolved to go over and confer a British blessing on them. The Creator had evidently overlooked Ireland, for whence the wealth of England, unless from English landlords and corn laws?so England, in the kindness of its muttony heart, determined to correct the oversight, and proceeded to give Ireland not only the perfect English system, but English landlords into the bargain. The system has worked so admirably while it has existed, and Ireland has been moved to feelings of gratitude so intense, that England now proposes to continue her good offices, and send over a new edition of her rules of the world a revised and muchaltered edition, brought down to date by Mr. Balfour indeed.

For the landlord system, the English landlord system, annotated, too, by English landlords, although perfect in its way, at the time of publication, having already exhausted its benefits for Ireland, has become somewhat obsolete. This is not at all the fault of the system, nor of England; but foolish men persist in changing and presently reject the very methods which were once so prized and so efficient. The English land tenure was, no doubt, in its time,

the eighth perfection of the world the other seven might be construed somewhat as follows: beef, beer, bribery; factories, flogging, flunkies, etc.; but the times have changed as some say, have improved — - industry has developed, business has expanded, commerce has flourished. Relations have changed - and then there are more of us in the world; so, admirable as is (or was, if you like; it is merely a matter of moods and tenses, which Eton and Harrow boys learn to look after better than gentlemen of the Commons can find time to do), admirable as the landlord system was, why should not evolution (fine word, that) bring us, in the fulness of time, a Ninth Perfection? Yes, we may imagine Mr. Balfour to say, since he will not hear us in his scorn, England has conferred many blessings on Ireland: a constabulary unsurpassed, a judiciary incomparable, a religion (to a certain extent, gentlemen, a religion) irreproachable and landlords galore. The logic of events, he may continue, now brings us to the consideration of what shall be done next. Let the dead bury their dead; let by-gones be by-gones; what shall we do now for Ireland? For instance, there are the landlords; the by-gones, to which I merely allude in passing, have rendered the conditions, under which they once labored for the benefit of our Irish wards, different from those which formerly prevailed. The thing for us to do now is to continue our benevolent and efficient regulations, to restore the favorable conditions under which Ireland once rejoiced; and as to the landlords but on this I would not dwell too long and as to the perfect English system, why, to be brief, and not to put too fine a point upon the matter, as I know you wish to adjourn for the holidays as soon as possible, and I may have more to say on the same head hereafter, why, as I said, or was about to say, as to the perfect landlord system, the best thing we can do is to extend its operation and amplify its details. Now as to the extension: it were better, if you will listen to me, to make a very great

extension. I propose that we extend the system so that every man shall become his own landlord. Some ill-disposed persons, seeking to cast reflections on your past conduct, will tell you that this proposition is really, as they will say, to establish a peasant proprietary, to abolish the lan llord system, to reverse your previous beneficent policy. But, as my noble friend, the Marquis of Salisbury, remarked the other day in the Lords, do not let yourselves be deceived by words; and this is a question of words. Is the system impaired by its extension? Not at all, it is only perfected.

"The method employed I would gladly explain, While I have it so clear in my head,

If I had but the time, and you had but the brain But much yet remains to be said."

-

Let every man become his own landlord. And as to the amplifications, there is a question of expense and guarantees: but I see you are weary, and I will only say that I have worked them all out in my head, and it only remains to shower them on Ireland as quickly as possible.

If we wish to put a favorable construction on the motives of Englishmen in their dealings with Ireland, the above is a sample of what we may imagine them to be saying to each other on the eve of embarking on a new venture for regulating and controlling that unhappy country. True, this construction does not read very favorably for their intelligence, but that is their dilemma, not mine. They have left themselves the choice of being called knaves or fools; for if the failure of the attempt to transplant an English system and English landlords to Irish soil be once confessed, then what point of view, what method of reasoning, can possibly justify the proposed attempt to tear this system out and implant another in its place? What evidence, then, that this socalled peasant proprietary is really adapted to flourish in Ireland? Surely not half as much evidence as there was a hundred years ago that the landlord system was adapted to Ireland. Now, if this engrafted system, with the accessories that clung to it, has