they only returned 43 members, much to the open joy of the Kaiser. This result made them think hard and organize harder. They strove to show that they were not dangerous people, made a definite bid for the votes of many who were scared by their programme of socialization, and at the next election (1912) fought on an anti-militarist, democratic, and social reform platform. The result confounded the critics. Social democracy polled 4,250,000 votes, and returned 110 members. One-third of the voters accepted the followers of Bebel as their representatives, and if the seats had been distributed at all in accordance with the distribution of population the party might have come back 150 strong in a House of 397.

Success was not limited to the Imperial parliament. In 1914 there were about 240 members in the various state houses, and 12,000 in the city and local governing bodies. This numerical progress was partly the result of thorough propaganda and careful organization. Social democracy had perhaps the most perfect party machine in the world. Its 80 daily papers, its scores of weeklies and monthlies, and its cheap editions reached millions of homes. Its juvenile department brought up the young in the way they should go. Its socialist college in Berlin gave 30 students each year a thorough course of training. Its lectures, cinema and theatrical displays, concerts, excursions, libraries, and big demonstrations all helped to win converts and strengthen the faithful. Discipline within the ranks of the party was well maintained, and although there were strong differences among the leaders about theory and tactics a solid front was maintained on all essential matters until the outbreak of the war.

Theory and Practice. The twenty years before 1914 witnessed important changes both in the aim of the party and in its methods. The first social democrats were violent anti-parliamentarians; they had no desire to help in making laws, but looked upon the Reichstag as a platform for propaganda and protest. Their votes, if cast, were "agin the government, and there was no thought of any alliance with other parties. Gradually, as the party grew, this changed; from the altitude of lofty isolation a cautious descent was made on to the plain-or into the mire-of practical politics. In 1901 a bill was introduced by the party, and passed, much to the disquietude of the old brigade. In the 1909-10 session eleven bills relating to labour, finance, and redistribution were introduced, and 20 resolutions moved. In 1911 the party voted with the Government; in 1912 they joined hands with the Radicals and National Liberals, and nearly succeeded in electing Bebel to the presidency of the Reichstag. In state and especially in local government the party representatives for years played an important part in fostering public enterprise. It had to be recognized that laws would be passed whether the Social Democrats sat silent or not; hence, while not necessarily abandoning the faith in an ultimate ideal, it was necessary to take part in legislation, discuss, propose, amend, and generally guide action into channels as beneficial as possible to the wage-earners. The party still voted persistently against the budget, tariffs, indirect taxation, and increased military, naval and colonial expenditure. But to maintain a policy of complete negation was no longer possible. Critics called this change compromise," "opportunism." They said stronger things when it was suggested, especially after the electoral set-back of 1907, that the Marxian prelude to the party programme needed overhauling. Bernstein's outburst of revisionism and the denial by others of the existence of any "ultimate goal" caused much heart-searching. The small progress between 1904 and

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1907 was attributed to the failure of the Marxian predictions to fit the facts, and the opposition of the peasant and the middle class to a doctrine based on their extermination. Although the Erfurt programme still stood, the prelude counted for very little; little was heard of Marx, much of practical politics and legislation. Whether Marx was right or wrong was a question which worried only a few. What did worry all was the need for drastic reform of the Prussian constitution and the establishment of parliamentary control over the imperial ministers. For social democracy recognized long before 1914 that it was really pitifully weak, in spite of its numbers, so long as ministers were responsible only to the crown. The election of 1912 was fought largely on this issue, but the socialist sweep made little difference to the situation, as the Zabern incident showed. Hence social democracy was driven back after 50 years' effort to the gospel of Lassalle-universal suffrage and democratic control of government. What happened after 1914 we shall see later.

United Kingdom. After the Chartist collapse the British working classes reverted to trade unionism and co-operation. They abandoned any hope of a new heaven, and settled down to make the best of things as they found them. Revolutionary theories possessed little attraction for them, and when Marx expressed his approval of the Paris Commune of 1871 the trade unions severed their connection with the First International. Unionism opened up the way to better wages and industrial conditions, and as employers began to recognize unions and bargain with them on conciliation boards, the bad times of the thirties and forties faded into the background. Trade was growing, wages were rising. Both political parties angled for the working-class vote, using factory laws, the legalization of trade unions, and similar proposals as bait. Hence most workmen were content to leave politics to the old parties, and found in Gladstone their parliamentary hero; for the rest, let the union and the "co-op" do the work. But since the unions were hampered by the unsatisfactory state of trade-union law, it was resolved in 1869 by the Trade Union Congress to work for the return of trade union leaders to Parliament. During the next twenty years about a dozen seats were won, chiefly by trade union officials, who entered parliament as trade unionists and Liberals.

The Ferment of Ideas. In the eighties new ideas were stirring the minds of many. The publication of Henry George's "Progress and Poverty'' in 1879 caused a vigorous outburst of discussion on social problems, and the appearance of an English translation of the first volume of "Capital" in 1884 introduced the British public to the ideas of Marx. The long depression of 1885-7 caused widespread poverty, and the success of the London dock strike in 1889 revealed the strength of organized unskilled labour. Out of this discussion and unrest new organizations emerged. In the early eighties Hyndman organized the Social Democratic Federation to spread orthodox Marxism. William Morris, who could not digest Marx, and sighed for the coming of socialism, or perhaps rather anarchism, as the result of a violent revolution, left the Federation, and in 1884 formed the short-lived Socialist League. Hyndman's organization, which later became the British Socialist Party, clung to the letter of Marx, and never had any big following. Morris's League, after driving its founder out, finally disappeared, leaving no trace beyond Morris's socialist writings, especially "News from Nowhere."

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These early wrangles were largely concerned with questions of method; should political representation be sought, or should the leaders just preach and wait for the day of revolt? "Organize," said Hyndman; "Preach," said Morris; "Permeate," said the Fabians. Of all the bodies formed in the eighties, the Fabian Society has been mose influential and successful. Organized in 1884 by a group of young middle-class intellectuals, it soon made itself a force in discussing and teaching ideas of social reform and socialism. In Bernard Shaw, the Webbs, Annie Besant, and others it found ready speakers and writers, and its "Fabian Essays" and numerous tracts provided powder and shot for British socialists. To the Fabian, socialism involved the introduction of design, contrivance, and co-ordination, by a nation consciously seeking its own collective welfare, into the present industrial scramble for private gain." They were social democrats; socialism meant state ownership, but the state must be fully democratic in shape and character. Socialism and democracy would not come by destructive insurrections. Force might be the agent of progress, but it might equally be the agent of chaos, and chaos the agent of martial law. Fabians therefore turned their backs upon any hope of a catastrophic dawn, and directed their efforts towards the permeation of all classes with the socialistic faith. Instead of seeking to establish a separate political party, they tried to infuse into all men a certain point of view and doctrine. As Bernard Shaw says, "We set ourselves two definite tasks: first, to provide a parliamentary programme for a prime minister converted to socialism, as Peel was converted to free trade; and, second, to make it as easy and matter-of-course for the ordinary respectable Englishman to be a socialist as to be a Liberal or Conservative." In this work of converting people entirely, or of getting them to adopt some specific proposals of a socialistic trend, the society was partly successful. It helped to win to socialism many people to whom Marxism made no appeal, and exerted a great influence over the radical wing of the Liberal Party. By voice and pen, in novel, play, essay, and newspaper article its members upset the complacency of many and exposed the foul spots of British social and economic life.

The Labour Party. From all these varied efforts grew the recognition of the need for a distinct political party, and the Independent Labour Party was formed in 1893. Its moving spirit was Keir Hardie, its object "the collective ownership of all the means of production, distribution, anl exchange.'' Little progress was made for a time, in spite of vigorous propaganda. In 1900 the Labour Representation Committee was formed, containing delegates from the Trade Union Congress, Independent Labour Party, Fabian Society, and Social Democratic Federation. This Committee was to provide parliamentary candidates "sympathetic with the aims and demands of the Labour movement," and in 1900 fifteen were put forward, but only two returned. When, however, the reaction against Imperialism set in after 1902, and the country began to turn from foreign to domestic problems, the new movement made much progress, and in the electorai landslide in 1906 secured 29 seats out of 50 contested. Thus a new coherent Labour Party appeared in the House of Commons, with its own officers and whips, acting independently of other parties. The Labour Representation Committee changed its name to the Labour Party, and in 1907 declared itself in favour of socialism under a democratic state, with complete social and economic equality of the sexes. At the December election of 1910 the representation was increased to 42. Of its members, the chief figures

Snowden, Macdonald, Hardie, and Henderson-were socialists, though the party as a whole did not go so far as one of its constituent parts-the I.L.P. After 1910 the Asquith Government was dependent upon the Labour vote, and a number of proposals affecting wage-earners were dealt with. But the House of Commons was primarily occupied with Ireland, Welsh Disestablishment, and the House of Lords, and Labour voted with the Government où all these matters. In short, the new party, socialist in its ultimate aim, had to take Parliament as it found it, and try to get small economic concessions sandwiched in between political and constitutional reforms. It was the left wing of the House of Commons, and differed from the radicals of the Liberal Party rather in degree than in kind. Hence many of its supporters, who had expected socialism to fall from the clouds as a result of political action, grew restive. Labour seemed to be only Liberal writ large, and the millennium drew no nearer. Prices still went up, poverty still existed, unemployment was still ever present-and yet the Labour members were being compelled to fritter away their energies discussing apparently unimportant matters. Political action meant the treading of a long, perhaps never-ending, road. Was there no short cut? Yes; direct industrial action. Many of the younger men, therefore, began to listen to the words of the syndicalists and advocates of the general strike. This was the position in 1914. So much had been expected, so little done.

France. Until 1871 the labour movement in France was secret in its organization and violent in its methods. From 1880 onwards organized efforts were made to return socialists to parliament. The French Labour Party, organized in 1880 on a Marxian platform by Guesde, speedily shed a faction, from which in turn another faction split. Solidarity and discipline seemed alien to the French character; only after 1905 was any degree of unity realized among the political groups, and then almost at once syndicalism arose to challenge the whole idea of the state and political action. In 1910 the united Socialist Party secured 76 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, out of a total of 590; but in addition there were 34 Independent Socialists, including Briand, Viviani, and Millerand, men who would not be bound by the decrees of the official party or had been evicted from it. Further, there were 250 Socialist Radicals, more Radical than Socialist; but if these three groups combined they could, as a "bloc," control the House.

This union of kindred parties was the great feature of French politics. In 1899 the Radicals and Socialists dominated the Chamber, and Millerand became Minister of Commerce. This raised the fundamental question, "Should a socialist join a non-socialist bourgeois government?'' Guesde said "No." Jaures, the leader of the party, gave a cautious "Yes.'' But when Millerand voted three times against his party, officially received the Czar, repudiated the ideas of class war and social revolution, and proposed legislation for workers' insurance, conciliation boards, a ten-hour day, the socialists became angry, and in 1905 threw him out of the party. Viviani and Briand joined the Ministry of 1906, and automatically ceased to be socialists, and when in 1910 Briand became Premier, he was regarded by the Conservatives as a socialist, and by the socialists as a tool of the bourgeoisie. His suppression of the railway strike of 1910 roused the socialists to intense fury, and strengthened the party so much that in 1914 it secured 102 seats. No socialist could enter a bourgeois ministry-that was the conclusion reached after years of experience with Millerand and Briand. Then came the war, and Guesde, the ultra-Marxian, the arch-opponent of participation

in government, joined the Cabinet with the consent of his party. Another socialist accompanied him, and in 1915 Albert Thomas accepted the post of Minister of Munitions.

Other European Countries. The Belgians began in 1885 "to organize politically against the exploiters," and had to fight by propaganda and general strike (1893) to secure a vote for all males over 25. But the franchise of 1893 allowed plural voting, and this prevented the followers of Vandervelde from making much progress in representation. In 1913 a general strike of 400,000 workers wrung from the Government a promise to appoint a royal commission to enquire into the franchise.

In Italy, where the first political success was scored in 1892, faction strife was worse than in France. The old school was Marxian, the younger school reformist or revisionist, while after 1905 the syndicalists made considerable progress. The movement won a large middle-class support; in no country did so many professors play a prominent part, and in no land did the agricultural labourers rally so strongly round the flag. In 1913 the various socialist sections won 77 seats; progress was not quite checked by dissension as to aims and methods.

Russian socialism came late; it was influenced by the middle-class struggle for political liberty, and the anarchist movement inspired by Bakunin and Kropotkin. Marxism became popular among the industrial workers, and organization followed. The Social Democrats looked to salvation by organizing the industrial proletariat, but divided on questions of tactics into the Bolsheviks (left wing) and Mensheviks (right wing). The Social Revolutionaries sought to gather in peasants as well as urban workers; they also split into left and right wings. Propaganda had to be done in secret, and was therefore more violent in tone. The socialists joined in the revolution of 1905 to secure political and economic reforms; they figured in the various Dumas, and played a large part in the upheaval of March, 1917. Dissatisfied with the policy of the new revolutionary government, which was more middle-class than socialist, the left wing seized its opportunity in November, 1917, and established the Bolshevik régime.

The United States. North America attracted all the Utopians. Here was virgin soil, vast unsettled areas, and a civilization still plastic; an excellent place for the establishment of model communities. Owen visited the country, Fourier's ideas had great vogue, and for a time the New York Tribune devoted much space to advocating communistic experiment. In all, over 400 village communities were established between 1825-50, some of them religious rather than socialistic in their basis. Nearly all failed.

Then came the flood of immigration in the fifties and after the Civil War. In it were many of the revolutionary spirits of Europe, driven out of their native lands. These men brought their rebel ideas with them, and some of them became connected with Marx's International. Marxism became popular among the German immigrants, and in 1876 a Socialist Labour Party was formed with a Marxian programme. But its abstractions failed to win the approval of the wage-earners generally, and it remained largely a German body. It had to struggle against its rival, the anarchists, and yet was generally confused in the popular mind with this body. It quarrelled with the unions, it split in twain, and for a time the two sections denounced each other heartily. Its leading figure was Daniel De Leon.

Meanwhile a more moderate section was growing up west of the Mississippi, and in 1901 established the Socialist Party, with Eugene Debs