Lippincott's Magazine, page 199 by Various Authors
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of the kindly, old-fashioned school: his younger brother has become an advanced Liberal, an enthusiastic promoter of workingmen's associations, and a leading spirit among the so-called Christian Socialists. Needless to add that, though never for one moment sundered one from the other in heart or affection by differences of opinion, the two could not work together in this field. Downright, practical George has his objections, and states them. Listen: "'You don't want to divide other people's property?' 'No.' 'Then why call yourselves Socialists?' 'But we couldn't help ourselves: other people called us so first.' 'Yes, but you needn't have accepted the name. Why acknowledge that the cap fitted?' 'Well, it would have been cowardly to back out. We borrow the ideas of these Frenchmen, of association as opposed to competition, as the true law of industry and of organizing labor--of securing the laborer's position by organizing production and consumption--and it would be cowardly to shirk the name. It is only fools who know nothing about the matter, or people interested in the competitive system of trade, who believe or say that a desire to divide other people's property is of the essence of Socialism.' 'That may be very true, but nine-tenths of mankind, or, at any rate, of Englishmen, come under one or the other of these categories. If you are called Socialists, you will never persuade the British public that this is not your object. There was no need to take the name. You have weight enough to carry already, without putting that on your shoulders.... The long and short of it is, I hate upsetting things, which seems to be your main object. You say that you like to see people discontented with society as it is, and are ready to help to make them so, because it is full of injustice and abuses of all kinds, and will never be better till men are thoroughly discontented. I don't see these evils so strongly as you do, don't believe in heroic remedies, and would sooner see people contented, and making the best of society as t