Show A SOCIALISTIC HERESY The political heresy that governments govern-ments are to provide work for the unemployed un-employed and that they are to support sup-port the people instead of the people supporting them is not a new theory under the sun It has been tried with failure as the result The gathering of the crowds moving towards Washington Wash-ington is the result largely of ignorance ignor-ance and to some extent of false political politi-cal teachings for which Republicanism and its offshoot Populism are to be debited The establishment of national workshops work-shops in France In 1818 the circumstances circum-stances attending their commencement and the disastrous failure resulting I are related in a succinct and convincing convinc-ing manner by Mr St Loe Strachey whose effort is summarized by the New York Pont which says that from contemporary documents and witnesses he shows in the clearest light what I was the method and what were the results of this famous attempt of the state to guarantee work and gives usa us-a sure indication of the pit into which our latterday Louis Blanes would cast I us if allowed to solve the problem of I I poverty in their delightfully easy fashion fash-ion The Post gives the following epitome I of that mistaken movement The system as described by Emile I Thomas who was himself president and director of the national workshops and a firm believer in them until tne hard fact made shipwreck of his faith was for all those who wished to accept ac-cept the governments offer of work to make proper declarations before the officials of their arrondissement Thereupon There-upon orders of admission to a national workshop were granted them If they found work in any of them well and good if not well and good also as thirty sous a day could be drawn while waiting for a vacancy or for some work to turn up that the applicants ap-plicants were able to do Thirty sous a day as Mr Strachey remarks is not high pay but it was to be had for doing nothing And besides bread was distributed to the families of the workingmen in proportion to the number num-ber of children On these terms the government found no lack of workingmen working-men In the Faubourg St Antoine alone they were enrolled and certificated certifi-cated at the rate of a thousand a day By the middle of June 125000 were enrolled en-rolled in the whole of Paris representing represent-ing at four to a family 600000 persons lor more than half the population of the city Never was poverty abolished at such a rate But profits aud industry and selfre spect were abolished too and even at thirty sous a day the government found that it was paying too dear for the millennium The correspondent of the London Economist then in Paris gave an edifying description of the way the thing was working in one typical case This was the national tailorshop set up in the Hotel Clichy I I transformed with great propriety from a debtors prison into this happy home i of the states workingmen The government gov-ernment furnished the building rent I free and also provided the capital Iti I at once placed also an order for 25000 uniforms for the National Guard with I more tor the Garde Mobile and the regular troops in the background Then inquiry was made of the contractors who had formerly done the work and it was found that they had been paid eleven francs a uniform Out of this they had paid rent and interest and made a profit What a fine thing it would be to give to the tailors the legitimate le-gitimate fruits of their toil when the government would pay the rent and furnish the capital and give to the workingmen all the profits The thing was entered upon amid enthusiasm on all hands A living wage was paid the men pending the completion of the contract and the division among them of the magnificent profits But alas when the day came for figuring up it was found that each uniform had cost sixteen francs instead of eleven and the only problem was how to divide di-vide a minus quantity The reason is not far to seek As Senior said with his eye on this very phenomenon All eleemosynary employment em-ployment all relief work all parish work Is in fact nominal The report of the commission appointed by the French government to inquire into the operation of the national workshops i Ji was explicit on this point At the very moment of recommending the appropriation ap-propriation of enormdus sums to go on with the experiment it had to admit that the revolutions which found the workmen of Paris contented in their proper sphere has been by treating them like spoiled children the cause of that change in their character which makes every one now dread the excesses exces-ses of which they may be guilty What those excesses presently ran into every one knows To avoid bankruptcy the national assembly was forced to close the workshops The workmen rose in fierce insurrection and the blessed socialistic experiment came to a close with the killing of 12000 men to restpre order and sanity We know that it is a waste of breath to cite historical experience in the presence pres-ence of Coxey or the creators of Coxey Harrison and McKinley and the thirty years of Republican paternalism They are making history not studying it But Mr Strachey has done well in giving his story of the way socialism cured all the ills of society in 1848 in France He will convert no Coxeyite but he will lead many to agree with him in his plain reasons why plain men should not be Socialists It is not because Socialists are innovators inno-vators or agitators or preach things contrary to the Book of Daniel or are this that or the other but simply and I solely because socialism is nonsense |