F LYMAN BRYSON ROM dawning the joy of your spirit Of the wan hidden hand stretching near it, From those who have struggled before you, Behind the high piles of fine raiment You dream of your own limbs' adornment, With the first growth of infamy's planting, When your sweet body, spent and toil broken, And the words of your soul, yet unspoken, And the heart that God gave you for loving Then they that have kissed you shall curse you, And invoke from their lair Their own sheltered women, who loathe you, Who see snakes in your hair, Who drive you to hide with Medusas And prison you there. Your brothers who boast of their city, For you have no name: Too busy with progress for pity, Too careful for blame, They weave your red shroud out of silence, Their cost-and their shame. E A New Study in Political Economy HUGH H. LUSK VERYBODY in these days has heard of Socialism, and many people, no doubt, think they understand what it means. To some it takes the form of a terrible revolution that would overturn society; to others it appears like an impossible dream which, if it could be realized, would result in confusion and failure; while to some, and it must be admitted a rapidly increasing part of our people in every country of Western civilization, it holds out a hope of better conditions, vague, perhaps, but not the less attractive on that account. The truth is that to almost everybody who uses the word, Socialism represents a theory, and nothing but a theory. There are many brands of Socialism on the market; but while each is recommended by its disciples as the only cure for evils that demoralize society, none of them has been tried on any considerable scale, and all of them therefore remain merely problematical. As nobody questions the fact that civilization to-day is disfigured by many evils, some at least of which seem to be increasing, something more practical than this appears to be needed. No great reform has ever yet been brought about by an untested theory, while many, probably all of which we have any record, have been the result of practical experiment. Experimental Socialism, on anything like a national scale, has not up to this time been attempted in any European or American country, and it is probably fortunate that it has not. Practical experiments in social reform can be made not only more easily but also more safely on a small than a large scale; and it is also well that the laboratory in which they are conducted should be sufficiently isolated to avoid outside interference. One such experimental station, and only one, has now been in operation for more than twenty years, and it may fairly be said that the time has been long enough, and the results have been sufficiently definite, to make them not only interesting, but valuable, to the rest of the civilized world. The country referred to is New Zealand. New Zealand has but just celebrated its seventy-second birthday as a country occupied by a race of civilized men. It is the youngest, as well as the most distant from the mother country, of all the self-governing colonies of Britain, and lies about a thousand miles to the south-east of Australia, its nearest neighbor. The country consists of two islands, lying almost due north and south, between 34 and 47 of south latitude, and contains about a hundred and four thousand square miles of territory. In the year 1890 its population consisted of about six hundred and thirty thousand people, almost entirely of British origin; last year its white population numbered about a million and ten thousand persons. Its people have governed themselves, entirely without interference from England, for more than fifty years, and are therefore entirely responsible for the legislative experiments that have set them apart in many ways from other English-speaking communities. It will be observed that this distant island country presents nearly all the features that were specially needed for a land of social experiment: it is isolated in position, singularly uniform and temperate in climate, and wholly self-governing in its political life. Its In the year 1890 New Zealand could hardly be said to be even fairly prosperous. Young as the country was, it had already become subject to some of the evils of older countries. land, or at least the best and most accessible of its land, had been largely bought up by corporations and capitalists, who intended to hold it in great estates till the increase of population should greatly add to its value. The people were heavily taxed to pay the interest on the loans raised to carry on the wars against the native tribes between the years 1861 and 1868, and the still larger loans raised between 1870 and 1880 to carry out a policy of immigration and public works, and to extinguish the title of the native tribes to the public lands of the country. The industries of the country were few in number, but they were carried on as they had so long been in England, and as they still are in America, by the employers insisting on the greatest possible amount of labor to be paid for at the lowest possible rate. The result was that New Zealand had grown stagnant, and during the ten years between 1880 and 1890 immigration had practically ceased. It was under these conditions that the people of New Zealand first tried the experiment of a system of practical Socialism, which they have carried out steadily ever since. This policy, to which for convenience we may give the name of "State Socialism," has grown up gradually, till it now embraces many things that are unfamiliar to other countries, but cannot be dealt with in the limit of this article; it has, however, dealt mainly with three things that seem to be of primary importance to the well-being of a people-the land, the public utilities, and the wages and general conditions of the Workers. Of these three, the land was the one that first claimed the attention of the representatives of the people, as apparently the most urgent. There were not, it is true, any vast concessions of the public estate, such as have become familiar in the experience of this country and Canada, made in favor of great railroad corporations by the Government; but there were already a good many estates containing from fifty to a hundred thousand acres or more, that had been purchased at the rate of two and a half dollars per acre and were held by English corporations or capitalists. Many of these estates practically shut off settlement from the back country by greatly increasing the cost of transportation. Attempts had been made by taxing the lands of the large estates on a graduated scale to induce the owners to place them on the market, but with little or no effect. The lands could be used for grazing purposes at a profit which enabled the taxes to be paid, and the holders were willing to wait till the increase of population should secure them much higher prices than they could obtain at the time. This led to New Zealand's first definite step in a policy of State Socialism. The step taken appeared to be an extreme one, and it was universally condemned on economic grounds by those who were supposed to be authorities on such questions. It was, in fact, the application of the old law of Eminent Domain to a new and widely extended purpose. Under its provisions all landed estates exceeding five thousand acres in extent became liable to resumption by the Government as soon as it appeared there was |