tion. For this cheapening is due to the very cause which reduces the purchasing capacity of the masses of consumers, namely the saving, or more correctly, the non-payment of wages, which alone give the workers a purchasing capacity, and consequently enable them to contribute to make up the market demand.

All production is in the long run limited to the market demand. If production exceeds this to any considerable extent, it must be stopped until the demand catches up; otherwise the product would be wasted and bankruptcy ensue.

The purchasing capacity of consumers is the limit of the market demand; and therefore this same purchasing capacity is the limit of production. To decrease this purchasing capacity by any means, is to proportionately decrease the market demand and to consequently lessen production. No matter, therefore, how great may be the capacity of the productive forces, their operation must always, owing to the operation of the causes above explained, be thus limited by the purchasing capacity of the masses; and under our unfortunate system, the more this productive capacity is increased, the smaller will be the amount of wages paid; and consequently the greater will be the reduction of this purchasing capacity and the less the demand for products. It is therefore, under the present system, the capacity to realized abundance, which causes poverty.

All the economic phenomena of to-day prove the truth of these propositions.

Notwithstanding our unbounded productive capacity, the actual yearly product in the United States is, at retail prices, only about fifty cents in value per day per head of the population. The inequitable division of this amount leaves millions in penury. Even if it were equally divided among all the population it would not raise any one above poverty. And the reason of this small production is, not that the country is not capable of producing more, yes, ten times more, but because a greater production is not warranted by the market demand. The average wages are but $300 per year for those who work; but millions of able and willing workers are constantly kept in compulsory idleness and receive no pay at all. Factories run, it is said, on the average but six months in the year. In all parts of the world the cry goes up for a market for products. Almost every country struggles by its tariff legislation to retain its home market for its home producers. Commercial and agricultural depression is universal, and profits and interest, except where they are kept up by artificial combinations, are everywhere decreasing. The anxiety of the man of business is how to dispose of his products; and armies of salesmen are employed to capture markets and displace competitors.

It is estimated that it costs from ten to twenty per cent of the products to merely sell them-that is to say-of the ten billion of dollars worth of yearly product, from one to two billions worth is consumed in merely selling it.

Another effect of the increased productive capacity without proportionately increased demand is, that the production so presses upon the markets that the result is what is indefinitely called over production ;"

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that is production in excess of the market demand. Of course there is no production in excess of the wants of the people.

This excessive production so reduces profits that it is only the man who has large capital and can do a very large business who can sustain himself. It is for this reason that the large capitalist producer, whether farmer, manufacturer or merchant, crushes, and must continue to crush, and survive the smaller one by underselling him. Hence business concentrates itself continually in few and fewer hands. The trust and combine are only a manifestation of this tendency and mark the transition period from small to large production. The greater capitalists in the trusts and combines will sooner or later freeze out the smaller capitalist, who are forced to combine with them; and commercial depostic power will be vested in the hands of a still more limited circle than at present.

Thus with the enrichment of the few and the impoverishment of the many, will inevitably come that same state of things which has heretofore caused the destruction of systems and of empires. Demoralization and depession will cause the starving multitudes to seize upon property and plunder and destroy. The whole modern and commercial system is a thing of confidence. It may be justly said that capital is confidence. Once let that confidence be destroyed by vandalism and our civilization is at an end. It may be destroyed in an hour; and then the delicate and intricate commercial system being gone, those who survive it will be able to gain a living only by tilling of the soil in the rude manner of barbarians, until civilization shall again, after hundreds of years perhaps, slowly arise.

Such are the inevitable tendenceies of our present system of production for profit. Under it there is absolutely no means of increasing the purchasing capacity of the producers, and hence no means of increasing, with increased productive capacity, the market demand, which is the life of production.

There must be under that system a motive for capital to invest itself, and that motive is and must be profit.. To realize this profit, there must be a profitable remunerative market, which can be obtained only by taking from the producer more than is returned to him in exchange for his product. In this way only can profit be realized. The producer, therefore, is necessarily allowed to consume only a small part of what he produces, and the employing classes have not the capacity to consume the rest. Hence there must be production in excess of demand, and all the evils above described necessarily follow. Labor-saving machinery appliances and competition intensify the evil.

The end is at hand. Civilization can scarcely endure another ten years of such development as the last twenty-five years have produced. Either a remedy must be applied, or civilization will perish.

There is but one true remedy. All others are not even palliatives.

The purchasing power of the producer must be made equal to his producing capacity.

That is, men must be allowed to have and consume the equivalent of what they produce. In no other way than this, can the productive forces be allowed their full scope to produce enough to give to every one the full

est possible results of their beneficient and unlimited power. This power, this productive capacity, when unrestricted, is certainly amply sufficient to give to every one, men, women and children, every known comfort and desirable luxury.

To accomplish this result, it is necessary to establish a system under which each individual can co-operate with every other on equal terms; securing to each the full equivalent of his production. This can be done only through the agency of the whole people acting together as a corporate unit, and carry on production for the equal benefit of all. The State is the corporate unit which alone can do this. For any organization of the people less than a complete and universal one, such as is found in the State, must inevitably fail, because of the very disadvantages which operate un der the present system.

Mr. Bellamy has demonstrated how complete and simple, and yet how effective such a State organization of industry can be made. He has met every objection which cavilers have raised against it. The suffering people who have read his book, hail it with delight as a new evangel, the economic gospel of brotherhood, which shall relieve mankind from the horrible burdens which have so long made life well nigh unendurable to the many, and undesirable even to the privileged few.

Those who erroneously believe that the present system has always been as it now is; who argue that the degrading antagonism of interest which make all men enemies of each other, are necessary to provoke human effort, and produce even the present stinted product of labor; who, shutting their eyes to the tremendous and increasing obstacles in the way of human happiness under the present system, dream that that system can forever continue as now; and that all hope of any considerable human betterment in the near future is illusory and chimerical; those who even desire a fraternal commonwealth, yet are unworthily incredulous of the success of the effort to establish it; all these should learn that it is economic necessity which establishes and overthrows industrial systems; that when such necessity demands a change it enforces such demand with a reward for obedience, and the most terrible penalties for disobedience. If, therefore, necessity points to Nationalism as the only remedy for present and coming evils, then the theoretical, fancied objections made to it are but wasted breath. Man cannot stand still. He must progress or retrograde. And he has now reached a point where he must choose the forward or the backward path. There is no middle course. Our industrial system is too old and too rotten to bear patching; we must erect a new one or suffer the penalty for our refusal to do so.

NATIONALISM;

AS PROPOSED BY EDWARD BELLAMY.

BY J. SEYMOUR CURREY.

"Socialism proposes that all production and all distribution shall be done by the State, the State to direct everything and everybody; people are to eat what is set before them, wear what is issued to them, and to do the tasks assigned them." This is the language of Colonel Jacobson in his recent book" Higher Ground," and may be taken as a fair statement of its aims. Socialism moreover proposes antecedent to this to divide all property equally among the individual members of society and remunerate equally. In some of its aspects Nationalism resembles Socialism, but without its impracticable features and proposes reforms that will be gradual and carefully tested at every step as to their practicability. The advocates of Nationalism strongly insist that competition is an evil, and the industrial and social system based on it must give way to a system based on the nobler principle of association. Quoting from a "Declaration of Principles" found in the "Nationalist," it is said: "The principle of competition is simply the application of the brutal law of the survival of the strongest and most cunning. Therefore, so long as competition continues to be the ruling factor in our industrial system, the highest development of the individual cannot be reached, the loftiest aims of humanity cannot be realized. * * The present system proves itself wrong by the immense wrongs it produces; it proves itself absurd by the immense waste of energy and material which is admitted to be its concomitant." But they say further: "But in striving to apply this nobler and wiser principle [association] to the complex conditions of modern life, we advocate no sudden or ill-considered changes; we make no war upon individuals; we do not censure those who have accumulated immense fortunes simply by carrying to a logical end the false principle on which business is now based."

*

It cannot be denied that many departments of human activity and institutions of general scope and bearing are or would be more beneficial to the poorer members of society were they controlled exclusively by the State. It cannot be doubted that the postal system is of much greater utility than if subject to the vicissitudes of competition. For the govern

ment to control the postal service of the country is Nationalism. Could it be done as well by any private firms or companies? The public school system is another instance of the vastly superior method of public to private conduct of a great institution. Why should not the telegraphs and railways be similarly conducted? The street car lines of our cities should be controlled by the municipality where such lines are operated. They make use of public streets and possess special privileges-all for private gain. If they were conducted like the systems of water works—that is by the municipality-the people could ride for half the present rates and perhaps less. The railroads of the country if under governmental management could carry passengers at least, and perhaps freight, at a much lower rate, and thus by increasing the business make better returns which would operate towards a continued reduction of fares.

Many associate Socialism with Nationalism. As Lord Salisbury recently said, all legislation nowadays is socialistic. "Viewed as a whole," says a writer in the American Cyclopædia, "socialistic doctrines have dealt with everything that enters into the life of the individual, the family, the church, or the State, whether industrially. morally or spiritually. The origin of all is to be sought in the desire to ameliorate the concondition of the less favored classes, and in the attempt to overcome by association the deprivations to which individuals, especially those without rank, culture and capital are exposed." If benefits to the masses of the people are obtained by furnishing service of the character referred to at court, if this is socialistic, it is a good thing. The poor and defenceless portions of society are finding many champions in these days, but no method of alleviating their condition has been proposed more effective than furnishing such classes good service in transportation at cost. The proposals of Colonel Jacobson in providing manual training for the youth of all classes, are entitled to the most careful consideration, and his plan, it is hoped, will be given a fair trial. It will not conflict with any of the plans of the Nationalists and indeed will coincide admirably with them.

Supposing the public control of railways be found successful, it would in all probability open the way to the public control of some of the leading industries. This is the proper method of bringing about reforms. Only one step at a time should be taken and a thorough test of its practicability and adaptation to our people and institutions made; and so long as we are controlled by public opinion, this is the only way of making progress in reforms that we can or should hope for. Those reformers who impatiently demand all they happen to deem desirable for themselves or their fellow men, seldom secure effective or lasting support for their ideas. "Calm demand brings all good things in time; impatient demand drives them away." Therefore the proverb, "make haste slowly," is the motto of the Nationalist as it is of all other well regulated enterprises.

The undoubted success of State management of the post office, public schools and water works, is an argument for believing that the telegraph and express business, transportation, gas and electric lighting, would all be better for the people under State control. It has been shown by several writers of late that systems of gas and electric lighting are being operated