British Socialism Part 37

[848] Quelch, _Economics of Socialism_, p. 16.

[849] Blatchford, _Britain for the British_, p. 127.

[850] Quelch, _Economics of Socialism_, p. 16.

[851] Davidson, _The Old Order and the New_, p. 107.

[852] Blatchford, _Britain for the British_, p. 129.

[853] See p. 53 ff, _ante._

[854] Keir Hardie, _Can a Man be a Christian on a Pound a Week?_ p.

13.

[855] Leatham, _The Cla.s.s War_, p. 8.

[856] Davidson, _The Old Order and the New_, p. 105.

[857] Bliss, _Encyclopedia of Social Reform_, pp. 358 and 1195.

[858] _Labour Gazette_, December 1907.

[859] Bax, _Religion of Socialism_, p. 94.

[860] Quelch, _Trade Unionism_, p. 10.

[861] _Ibid._ p. 13

[862] Davidson, _The Old Order and the New_, p. 109.

[863] Gronlund, _Co-operative Commonwealth_, p. 51.

[864] Muse, _Poverty and Drunkenness_, p. 3.

[865] Leatham, _Was Jesus a Socialist?_ p. 11.

[866] Muse, _Poverty and Drunkenness_, p. 12.

[867] Glyde, _Britain's Disgrace_, p. 20.

[868] _Ibid._ p. 20.

[869] _Forward_, November 16, 1907.

[870] Kirtlan, _Socialism for Christians_, p. 15.

[871] Vandervelde, _Drink and Socialism_, pp. 3, 8.

[872] _Social-Democrat_, October 1907, p. 620.

[873] _Die Neue Gesellschaft_, November 1907, pp. 332, 337.

CHAPTER XXIV

SOCIALIST VIEWS ON LAW AND JUSTICE

Most Socialists have a very strong objection to the existing laws.

"Law is only a masked form of brute force."[874] "The laws to-day are defences of the foolish rich against the ignorant and hungry poor. The laws to-day, like the laws of the past, make more criminals than they punish. The laws keep the people ignorant and poor, and the rich idle and vicious."[875] "The laws were made by ignorant and dishonest men; they are administered by men ignorant and selfish; they are dishonest laws, good for neither rich nor poor; evil in their conception, evil in their enforcement, evil in their results."[876]

Most Englishmen are proud of the English judges because of their learning, high character, and integrity. To many Socialists the judges are the most contemptible and mercenary of men. The philosopher of British Socialism informs us: "It is an undoubted truth that no judge can be strictly an honest man. The judge must necessarily be a man of inferior moral calibre. A judge, by the fact of his being a judge, proclaims himself a creature on a lower moral level than us ordinary mortals, and this without any a.s.sumption of moral superiority above the average on our part. He deliberately pledges himself, that is, to be false to himself. He may any day have to pa.s.s sentence on one whom he believes to be innocent. He lays himself under the obligation of administering a law which he may know to be bad on any occasion when called upon, merely because it is a law. He makes this surrender of humanity and honour for what? For filthy lucre and tawdry notoriety.

Now, I ask, can we conceive a more abjectly contemptible character than that which acts thus?"[877]

The cause of the hatred with which the British Socialists contemplate the law and the judges is obvious:

They're blocking up the highway; yes, they think to keep us back By piling barriers of law and falsehood on the track; We'll break the barriers down, and burn them into cinders black, As we go marching to liberty.[878]

Come every honest lad and la.s.s!

Too long we've been kept under By rusty chains of fraud and fear-- We'll snap them all asunder!

That robbers' paction styled the Law To frighten honest folk, sirs, We'll set ablaze and fumigate The country with the smoke, sirs.[879]

When Jack Cade, whom the Socialists praise as a social reformer, marched at the head of the insurrectionists into London, one of his first acts was to burn the stored-up doc.u.ments of the law, an act which Shakespeare immortalised in his "Henry VI." in the following words:

"Cade: Is not this a lamentable thing, that of the skin of an innocent lamb should be made parchment? that parchment, being scribbled o'er, should undo a man?... Away, burn all the records of the realm: my mouth shall be the parliament of England.

"John (_aside_): Then we are like to have biting statutes, unless his teeth be pulled out.

"Cade: And henceforward all things shall be in common."[880]

Socialism will abolish the law: "The great act of confiscation will be the seal of the new era; then, and not till then, will the knell of Civilisation, with its rights of property and its cla.s.s-society, be sounded; then, and not till then, will justice--the justice not of Civilisation but of Socialism--become the corner-stone of the social arch."[881] Therefore one of the first acts of Socialist government will be "the abrogation of 'civil law,' especially that largest department of it which is concerned with the enforcement of contract and me recovery of debt."[882]

Socialists never tire of denouncing the barbarity of the existing law.

According to their religious views given in Chapter XXVI. (see p.

360), man is an irresponsible being. He does not know the difference between right and wrong, between good and evil. Therefore it is according to their opinion unjust and cruel to punish criminals. "The Christian regards the hooligan, the thief, the wanton, and the drunkard as men and women who have done wrong. But the humanist regards them as men and women who have been wronged."[883] "Human law, like divine law, is based upon the false idea that men know what is right and what is wrong, and have power to choose the right."[884]

"Man becomes that which he is by the action of forces outside himself."[885] "All human actions are ruled by heredity and environment. Man is not responsible for his heredity and environment.

Therefore all blame and all punishment are unjust. Blame and punishment, besides being unjust, are ineffectual."[886]

"To the Socialist, for every crime committed the State, or the society in which it is committed, is as much or more responsible than the individual."[887] "A society that employs the gallows and the 'cat'

pretty much deserves all it gets at the hands of criminals. If the criminal, when he gets the chance of doing so with impunity, commits the crime for which the gallows or the lash is reserved, society has only itself to thank."[888]

From the foregoing considerations it logically follows that "a Socialist administration would treat delinquents with the utmost leniency consistent with the existence of society."[889] "A man of average sense ought to be able to protect himself against fraud. Theft only requires the rest.i.tution of the stolen property plus an addition, such as the Roman law provided. The ideal condition of a community is that the remorse following the commission of a crime should be an adequate preventive of its commission"[890]--By its att.i.tude towards crime, Socialism should secure for itself the enthusiastic support of the criminal cla.s.ses. By abrogating the enforcement of contract and the recovery of debt, it should secure for itself the equally enthusiastic support of all fraudulent debtors. Conspirators and revolutionaries since the time of Catiline have opened the gaols and have relied on criminal desperadoes for the realisation of their ambitions. It is worth noting that most Anarchists also recommend the abolition of law and the law courts.[891]

Until the ideal Socialist commonwealth has been firmly established, and "until the economic change has worked itself out in ethical change, it is clear that a criminal law must exist. The only question is whether its basis shall be a ma.s.s of anomalous statutes and precedents or a logical system."[892] Bax decides that the logical system and the Code Napoleon is to be introduced after the Socialist revolution.[893] The fact that the people do not know the French laws apparently does not matter.