The Labor enquirer., 1888-02-11
Tells Why She is a Socialist
Our Civilization q
Failure.
IT is A VHITRD SEPULCHRE.
Progress Of Socialism In England
The Host Intelligent Accept
Its Teachings.

lJ0AIN1e ~ O0 WeSeN e1UsttSNI1CW.
In an article which appeared in
the July number Of the Westmin.
ster R<vixa0 After alluding to Prof
lessor Huxley's. declsTtlion that
he would rather have been born a
savage in one of the FIJI islands
than have been born in a London
slum, l put the following question,
which / will venture to quote
here. "Is it rational that the pro-
gress of society should be as lop-
sided as it is2 Is it necessary
that, while civilization brings to
some art, beauty, re6nement-all
that makes life fair and gracious
it should bring to others drudg-
cry, misery, degradation, such as
no uncivilized people know7 and
these emphasized and rendered
the bitterer by the contrast of
what life is to, many, the dream
of what it might be to all. For
Professor Huxley is right. The
savage has the forest and the open
sea, the JOY of physical strength.
food easily won, leisure sweet af-
ter the excitement of the chase;
the civilized toiler has the monot-
oncus drudgery of the. stuffy
workshop, the hell of the i in
palace for his pleasure-ground,
the pandemonium of reeking
court and sitting alley for his lul-
laby; civilization has robbed him
Of all Natural beauty and physical
joy, and has given him in ex
change-the slum. 1t is little
wonder that, under these circum-
stances, there are many who have
but scant respect for our social
fabric, and who are apt to think
that any change cannot land them
in a condition worse than that in
which they already find them
selves.
Now if this view should spread
widely among the inhabitants of
the slums, it is obvious that the
present civilization would stand
in very considerable peril, and it
would be likely to sink, as feudal-
ism sank in France, beneath the
waves of a popular revolution.
But such a revolution, sweeping
from the slums over the happier
parts of the towns, would not be
a revolution set going by men of
genius, directed by men of expert
ence and of knowledge, as was
the French Revolution of 1880.
1t would be a mad outburst Of
misery, of starvation, of reckless
ness, which would for a brief
space, sweep everything before it,
and behind it would leave a desc
late wilderness. Walk at mid
night through the streets near the
Tower. along Shadwell High
street, or about Tiger Bay" and
imagine what would happen if
those drunken men and women,
singing, shouting, fighting, in the
streets, were to burst the barriers
that hem them in, and were to
surge westwards, over London,
wrecking the civilization which
had left them to putrefy in their
misery, and had remained callous
to their degradation. Is it not the
part of a good citizen to try to
change a social system which
bears such products as these in
every great city9
The slum population, however.
is not wholly composed of such
persons as ! have spoken Of,
Large numbers of honest, tenn
perate. industrious people are
forced by poverty, and by the
necessity of being near their work.
into the dismal fate Of living in
the slums. And among them is
spreading a discomfort which is
pregnant with change. Educa-
ton is awakening in them desires
and hopes which find no satisfac-
ton in the slums. 1t is opening
to them wider views Of human