In the effort to restore private property as a general institution normal to the family and giving its tone to the whole State, we must remember one very grievous proviso: the task is impossible unless there be still left in the mass of men a sufficient desire for economic independence to urge them towards its attainment. You can give political independence by a stroke of the pen, you can declare slaves to be free or give the vote to men who have hitherto had no vote, but you cannot give property to men or families as a permanent possession unless they desire economic freedom sufficiently to be willing to undertake its burdens. [ The Crisis of Civilization, Being the Matter of a Course of Lectures Delivered at Fordham University,1937 . Rockford, Illinois: Tan Books and Publishers, Inc., 1991, p. 174.]
Capitalism is an evil not because it defends the legal right to property, but because it is of its nature the use of that legal right for the defense of a privileged few against a much greater number who, though free and equal citizens, are without economic basis of their own. Therefore the root evil which we roughly term “Capitalism:” should more accurately be termed “Proletarianism”; for the characteristic of the bad state of Society which we call today “Capitalist,” is not the fact that the few own, but the fact that the man, though politically equal to their masters and free to exercise all the functions of a citizen, cannot enjoy full economic freedom. [ The Crisis of Civilization, Being the Matter of a Course of Lectures Delivered at Fordham University, 1937 . Rockford, Illinois: Tan Books and Publishers, Inc., 1991, p. 139.]
Coupled with Usury, Unrestricted Competition destroys the small man for the profit of the great and in so doing produces that mass of economically unfree citizens whose very political freedom comes in question because it has no foundation in any economic freedom, that is, any useful proportion of property to support it. Political freedom without economic freedom is almost worthless, and it is because the modern proletariat has the one kind of freedom without the other that its rebellion is now threatening the very structure of the modern world. [ The Crisis of Civilization, Being the Matter of a Course of Lectures Delivered at Fordham University, 1937 . Rockford, Illinois: Tan Books and Publishers, Inc., 1991, p. 133.]
Under the old social philosophy which had governed the Middle Ages, temporal, and therefore all economic, activities were referred to an eternal standard. The production of wealth, it distribution and exchange were regulated with a view to securing the Christian life of Christian men. In two points especially was this felt: First in securing the independence of the family, which can only be done by the wide distribution of property, in others words the prevention of the growth of a proletariat; secondly, in the close connection between wealth and public function. Under the old philosophy which had governed the high Middle Ages things had been everywhere towards a condition of Society in which property was well distributed throughout the community, and thus the family rendered independent. [ The Crisis of Civilization, Being the Matter of a Course of Lectures Delivered at Fordham University, 1937 . Rockford, Illinois: Tan Books and Publishers, Inc., 1991, p. 107.]
Let us then repeat and firmly fix this main point: the evil, the root evil, of that to which the term Capitalism has come to be applied, is neither its functioning for profit nor its dependence upon legally protected private property; but the presence of a Proletariat, that is of men possessing political freedom, but dispossessed of economic freedom, and existing in such large numbers in any community as to determine the tone of all that community. [ The Crisis of Civilization, Being the Matter of a Course of Lectures Delivered at Fordham University, 1937 . Rockford, Illinois: Tan Books and Publishers, Inc., 1991, p. 141.]
Political freedom without economic freedom is almost worthless, and it is because the modern proletariat has the one kind of freedom without the other that its rebellion is now threatening the very structure of the modern world. [ The Crisis of Civilization, Being the Matter of a Course of Lectures Delivered at Fordham University, 1937 . Rockford, Illinois: Tan Books and Publishers, Inc., 1991, p. 133.]
But if we are to retain freedom, then we can only do so by keeping the determining mass of the citizens the possessors of property with personal control over it, as individuals or as families. For property is the necessary condition of economic freedom in the full sense of that term. He that has not property is under economic servitude to him who has property, whether the possessor of it be another individual or the State. [ The Crisis of Civilization, Being the Matter of a Course of Lectures Delivered at Fordham University, 1937 . Rockford, Illinois: Tan Books and Publishers, Inc., 1991, p. 145.]
Capitalism had arisen through the misuse and exaggeration of certain rights, notably the right of property — the basis of economic freedom — and the right of contract, which is one of the main functions of economic freedom. Therefore, even under Capitalism, so long as the old principles were remembered it was possible to recall the principles whereby Society had once been sane and well ordered. But as a Godless greed pursued its career from excess to excess, it provoked a sort of twin hostile brother, equally Godless, born in the same atmosphere of utter disregard for the foundational virtues of humility and charity. This hostile twin brother of Capitalism was destined to be called Communism, and is today setting out to murder its elder. [ The Crisis of Civilization, Being the Matter of a Course of Lectures Delivered at Fordham University, 1937 . Rockford, Illinois: Tan Books and Publishers, Inc., 1991, p. 152.]
It is Mind which determines the change of Society, and it was because the mind at work was a Catholic mind that the slave became a serf and was on his way to becoming a peasant and a fully free man—a man free economically as well as politically. The whole spirit of the Church was for small property, and that spirit was slowly, instinctively, working for the establishment of small property throughout Christendom. It was small property subject to servitudes, paying heavy dues to others; but it was small property just the same, and it had struck permanent root. [ The Crisis of Civilization, Being the Matter of a Course of Lectures Delivered at Fordham University, 1937 . Rockford, Illinois: Tan Books and Publishers, Inc., 1991, p. 57.]
For a time the government, while keeping itself informed of his activities, left him alone; for it suited the Directory to let the socialist agitation continue, in order to frighten the people from joining in any royalist movement for the overthrow of the existing regime. Moreover the mass of the _ouvriers_, even of extreme views, were repelled by Babeuf's bloodthirstiness; and the police agents reported that his agitation was making many converts--for the government. The Jacobin club of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine refused to admit Babeuf and Lebois, on the ground that they were "_égorgeurs_." With the development of the economic crisis, however, Babeuf's influence increased. After the club of the Pantheon was closed by Bonaparte, on the 27th of February 1796, his aggressive activity redoubled. In Ventôse and Germinal he published, under the _nom de plume_ of "Lalande, soldat de la patrie," a new paper, the _Éclaireur du peuple, ou le défenseur de vingt-cinq millions d'opprimés_, which was hawked clandestinely from group to group in the streets of Paris. At the same time No. 40 of the _Tribun_ excited an immense sensation. In this he praised the authors of the September massacres as "deserving well of their country," and declared that a more complete "September 2nd" was needed to annihilate the actual government, which consisted of "starvers, bloodsuckers, tyrants, hangmen, rogues and mountebanks." The distress among all classes continued to be appalling; and in March the attempt of the Directory to replace the _assignats_ (_q.v._) by a new issue of _mandats_ created fresh dissatisfaction after the breakdown of the hopes first raised. A cry went up that national bankruptcy had been declared, and thousands of the lower class of _ouvrier_ began to rally to Babeuf's flag. On the 4th of April it was reported to the government that 500,000 people in Paris were in need of relief. From the 11th Paris was placarded with posters headed _Analyse de la doctrine de Baboeuf_ (sic), _tribun du peuple_, of which the opening sentence ran: "Nature has given to every man the right to the enjoyment of an equal share in all property," and which ended with a call to restore the constitution of 1793. Babeuf's song _Mourant de faim, mourant de froid_ (Dying of hunger, dying of cold), set to a popular air, began to be sung in the cafés, with immense applause; and reports were current that the disaffected troops in the camp of Grenelle were ready to join an _émeute_ against the government. The Directory thought it time to act; the _bureau central_ had accumulated through its agents, notably the ex-captain Georges [v.03 p.0094] Grisel, who had been initiated into Babeuf's society, complete evidence of a conspiracy for an armed rising fixed for Floréal 22, year IV. (11th of May 1796), in which Jacobins and socialists were combined. On the 10th of May Babeuf was arrested with many of his associates, among whom were A. Darthé and P. M. Buonarroti, the ex-members of the Convention, Robert Lindet, J. A. B. Amar, M. G. A. Vadier and Jean Baptiste Drouet, famous as the postmaster of Saint-Menehould who had arrested Louis XVI., and now a member of the Council of Five Hundred. Entry: BABER
It was the attempts of the Directory to deal with this economic crisis that gave Babeuf his real historic importance. The new government was pledged to abolish the vicious system by which Paris was fed at the expense of all France, and the cessation of the distribution of bread and meat at nominal prices was fixed for the 20th of February 1796. The announcement caused the most wide-spread consternation. Not only the workmen and the large class of idlers attracted to Paris by the system, but _rentiers_ and government officials, whose incomes were paid in _assignats_ on a scale arbitrarily fixed by the government, saw themselves threatened with actual starvation. The government yielded to the outcry that arose; but the expedients by which it sought to mitigate the evil, notably the division of those entitled to relief into classes, only increased the alarm and the discontent. The universal misery gave point to the virulent attacks of Babeuf on the existing order, and at last gained him a hearing. He gathered round him a small circle of his immediate followers known as the _Société des Égaux_, soon merged with the rump of the Jacobins, who met at the Pantheon; and in November 1795 he was reported by the police to be openly preaching "insurrection, revolt and the constitution of 1793." Entry: BABER
Austria ultimately consented to negotiate on this basis. In October 1907 an agreement was attained, thanks chiefly to the sobering of Hungarian opinion by a severe economic crisis, which brought out with unusual clearness the fact that separation from Austria would involve a period of distress if not of commercial ruin for Hungary. Austria also came to see that separation from Hungary would seriously enhance the cost of living in Cisleithania and would deprive Austrian manufacturers of their best market. The main features of the new "customs and commercial treaty" were: (1) Each state to possess a separate but identical customs tariff. (2) Hungary to facilitate the establishment of direct railway communication between Vienna and Dalmatia, the communication to be established by the end of 1911, each state building the sections of line that passed through its own territory. (3) Austria to facilitate railway communication between Hungary and Prussia. (4) Hungary to reform her produce and Stock Exchange laws so as to prevent speculation in agrarian produce. (5) A court of arbitration to be established for the settlement of differences between the two states, Hungary selecting four Austrian and Austria four Hungarian judges, the presidency of the court being decided by lot, and each government being represented before the court by its own delegates. (6) Impediments [v.03 p.0025] to free trade in sugar to be practically abolished. (7) Hungary to be entitled to redeem her share of the old Austrian debt (originally bearing interest at 5 and now at 4.2%) at the rate of 4.325% within the next ten years; if not redeemed within ten years the rate of capitalization to decrease annually by 1/12% until it reaches 4.2%. This arrangement represents a potential economy of some £2,000,000 capital for Hungary as compared with the original Austrian demand that the Hungarian contribution to the service of the old Austrian debt be capitalized at 4.2%. (8) The securities of the two governments to rank as investments for savings banks, insurance companies and similar institutions in both countries, but not as trust fund investments. (9) Commercial treaties with foreign countries to be negotiated, not, as hitherto, by the joint minister for foreign affairs alone, but also by a nominee of each government. (10) The quota of Austrian and Hungarian contribution to joint expenditure to be 63.6 and 36.4 respectively--an increase of 2% in the Hungarian quota, equal to some £200,000 a year. Entry: A
The Company of Adventurers had built a fort near the mouth of the Gambia. This was superseded in 1664 by a fort built by Captain (afterwards Admiral Sir Robert) Holmes on a small island 20 m. from the mouth of the river and named Fort James, in honour of the duke of York (James II.). This fort was built expressly to defend the British trade against the Dutch, and from that time the British remained in permanent occupation of one or more ports on the river. In 1723 Captain Bartholomew Stibbs was sent out by the Royal African Company, which had succeeded the earlier companies, to verify Vermuyden's reports of gold. He proceeded 60 m. above the falls, but the land of gold was not found. The French now became rivals for the trade of the Gambia, but the treaty of Versailles in 1783 assigned the trade in the river to Britain, reserving, however, Albreda for French trade, while it assigned the Senegal to France, with the reservation of the right of the British to trade at Portendic for gum. This arrangement remained in force till 1857, when an exchange of possessions was effected and the lower Gambia became a purely British river. In the period between the signing of the treaty of Versailles and 1885 the small territories which form the colony proper were acquired by purchase or cession from native kings. St Mary's Isle was acquired in 1806; McCarthy's Isle was bought in 1823; the Ceded Mile was granted by the king of Barra in 1826; and British Kommbo between 1840 and 1855. During this period the colony had gone through an economic crisis by the abolition of the slave trade (1807), which had been since 1662 its chief financial support. The beginning of a return to prosperity came in 1816 when some British traders, obliged to leave Senegal on the restoration of that country to France after the Napoleonic wars, founded a settlement on St Mary's Isle. From that year the existing colony, as distinct from trading on the river, dates. The Gambia witnessed many administrative changes. When the slave trade was abolished, the settlement was placed under the jurisdiction of the governor of Sierra Leone, and was formally annexed to Sierra Leone on the dissolution of the Royal African Company (1822). It so remained until 1843, when the Gambia was made an independent colony, its first governor being Henry Frowd Seagram. Afterwards (1866) the Gambia became a portion of the officially styled "West African Settlements." In 1883 it was again made a separate government, administered as a crown colony. Between the years last mentioned--1866-1888--the colony had suffered from the retrograde policy adopted by parliament in respect to the West African Settlements (_vide_ Report of the Select Committee of 1865). Entry: GAMBIA
In another direction the increased activity in the rural districts of the Socialists, who hitherto had chiefly worked in the industrial centres, indicated that they looked for support from the peasant proprietors, whose ownership in the soil had hitherto opposed them to the practice of collectivist doctrine. In the summer of 1907 an economic crisis in the wine-growing districts of the South created a general discontent which spread to other rural regions. The Clémenceau ministry, while opposing the excesses of revolutionary socialism and while incurring the strenuous hostility of M. Jaurès, the Socialist leader, adopted a programme which was more socialistic than that of any previous government of the republic. Under its direction a bill for the imposition of a graduated income tax was passed by the lower house, involving a scheme of direct taxation which would transform the interior fiscal system of France. But the income tax was still only a project of law when M. Clémenceau unexpectedly fell in July 1909, being succeeded as prime minister by his colleague M. Briand. His ministry had, however, passed one important measure which individualists regarded as an act of state-socialism. It took a long step towards the nationalization of railways by purchasing the important Western line and adding it to the relatively small system of state railways. Previously a more generally criticized act of the representatives of the people was not of a nature to augment the popularity of parliamentary institutions at a period of economic crisis, when senators and deputies increased their own annual salary, or indemnity as it is officially called, to 15,000 francs. (J. E. C. B.) Entry: A
Notwithstanding the concessions, obstruction was continued by the Clericals and the extreme Independents, partly in the hope of compelling the crown to grant the Magyar words of command and partly out of antipathy towards the person of the young calvinist premier. In March 1904, Tisza, therefore, introduced a drastic "guillotine" motion to amend the standing orders of the House, but withdrew it in return for an undertaking from the Opposition that obstruction would cease. This time the Opposition kept its word. The Recruits bill and the estimates were adopted, the Delegations were enabled to meet at Budapest--where they voted £22,000,000 as extraordinary estimates for the army and navy and especially for the renewal of the field artillery--and the negotiations for new commercial treaties with Germany and Italy were sanctioned, although parliament had never been able to ratify the Széll-Körber compact with the tariff on the basis of which the negotiations would have to be conducted. But, as the autumn session approached, Tisza foresaw a new campaign of obstruction, and resolved to revert to his drastic reform of the standing orders. The announcement of his determination caused the Opposition to rally against him, and when on the 18th of November the Liberal party adopted a "guillotine" motion by a show of hands in defiance of orthodox procedure, a section of the party seceded. On the 13th of December the Opposition, infuriated by the formation of a special corps of parliamentary constables, invaded and wrecked the Chamber. Tisza appealed to the country and suffered, on the 26th of January 1905, an overwhelming defeat at the hands of a coalition composed of dissentient Liberals, Clericals, Independents and a few Bánffyites. The Coalition gained an absolute majority and the Independence party became the strongest political group. Nevertheless the various adherents of the dual system retained an actual majority in the Chamber and prevented the Independence party from attempting to realize its programme of reducing the ties between Hungary and Austria to the person of the joint ruler. On the 25th of January, the day before his defeat, Count Tisza had signed on behalf of Hungary the new commercial treaties concluded by the Austro-Hungarian foreign office with Germany and Italy on the basis of the Széll-Körber tariff. He acted _ultra vires_, but by his act saved Hungary from a severe economic crisis and retained for her the right to benefit by economic partnership with Austria until the expiry of the new treaties in 1917. Entry: J
JAMESON, LEANDER STARR (1853- ), British colonial statesman, son of R. W. Jameson, a writer to the signet in Edinburgh, was born at Edinburgh in 1853, and was educated for the medical profession at University College Hospital, London (M.R.C.S. 1875; M.D. 1877). After acting as house physician, house surgeon and demonstrator of anatomy, and showing promise of a successful professional career in London, his health broke down from overwork in 1878, and he went out to South Africa and settled down in practice at Kimberley. There he rapidly acquired a great reputation as a medical man, and, besides numbering President Kruger and the Matabele chief Lobengula among his patients, came much into contact with Cecil Rhodes. In 1888 his influence with Lobengula was successfully exerted to induce that chieftain to grant the concessions to the agents of Rhodes which led to the formation of the British South Africa Company; and when the company proceeded to open up Mashonaland, Jameson abandoned his medical practice and joined the pioneer expedition of 1890. From this time his fortunes were bound up with Rhodes's schemes in the north. Immediately after the pioneer column had occupied Mashonaland, Jameson, with F. C. Selous and A. R. Colquhoun, went east to Manicaland and was instrumental in securing the greater part of that country, to which Portugal was laying claim, for the Chartered Company. In 1891 Jameson succeeded Colquhoun as administrator of Rhodesia. The events connected with his vigorous administration and the wars with the Matabele are narrated under RHODESIA. At the end of 1894 "Dr Jim" (as he was familiarly called) came to England and was fêted on all sides; he was made a C.B., and returned to Africa in the spring of 1895 with enhanced prestige. On the last day of that year the world was startled to learn that Jameson, with a force of 600 men, had made a raid into the Transvaal from Mafeking in support of a projected rising in Johannesburg, which had been connived at by Rhodes at the Cape (see RHODES and TRANSVAAL). Jameson's force was compelled to surrender at Doornkop, receiving a guarantee that the lives of all would be spared; he and his officers were sent to Pretoria, and, after a short delay, during which time sections of the Boer populace clamoured for the execution of Jameson, President Kruger on the surrender of Johannesburg (January 7) handed them over to the British government for punishment. They were tried in London under the Foreign Enlistment Act in May 1896, and Dr Jameson was sentenced to fifteen months' imprisonment at Holloway. He served a year in prison, and was then released on account of ill health. He still retained the affections of the white population of Rhodesia, and subsequently returned there in an unofficial capacity. He was the constant companion of Rhodes on his journeys up to the end of his life, and when Rhodes died in May 1902 Jameson was left one of the executors of his will. In 1903 Jameson came forward as the leader of the Progressive (British) party in Cape Colony; and that party being victorious at the general election in January-February 1904, Jameson formed an administration in which he took the post of prime minister. He had to face a serious economic crisis and strenuously promoted the development of the agricultural and pastoral resources of the colony. He also passed a much needed Redistribution Act, and in the session of 1906 passed an Amnesty Act restoring the rebel voters to the franchise. Jameson, as prime minister of Cape Colony, attended the Colonial conference held in London in 1907. In September of that year the Cape parliament was dissolved, and as the elections for the legislative council went in favour of the Bond, Jameson resigned office, 31st of January 1908 (see CAPE COLONY: _History_). In 1908 he was chosen one of the delegates from Cape Colony to the intercolonial convention for the closer union of the South African states, and he took a prominent part in settling the terms on which union was effected in 1909. It was at Jameson's suggestion that the Orange River Colony was renamed Orange Free State Province. Entry: JAMESON