NOTES AND ABSTRACTS 701
with those obtaining in continental Europe, both as to distance and as to the number of words, would probably result in favor of the latter. In conclusion, one gains nothing in taking away from or in refusing to public authority a service which is nor- mally relevant to it. It may be well to distrust its encroachments ; but if a people trust to private initiative an enterprise which encroaches upon the prerogatives of the state or municipalities, under the pretext of escaping their tyranny, they end simply in creating another tyrant. That is what has happened in the United States in the case of the telegraph system, as in the case of municipal services in a large number of cities. Today it is recognized in the United States that what is necessary is to organ- ize these monopolies in place of prohibiting them, to make use of them in place of let- ting them play the role of robbers. — Paul de Rousiers, " Les services publics et la question des monopoles aux ^tats-Unis," Revue politique et parlementaire, October, 1898.
Anarchism and the Social Movement in Australia. — The social con- dition of Australia, since its first colonization, has been chiefly determined by these cir- cumstances: the uniform mildness of the climate; the absence of dangerous animals, and of numerous, powerful, and hostile natives ; the right of property over the entire soil affirmed by the state before any immigrant population was installed there ; the system of colonization by convicts pursued for a half century by the English govern- ment ; the discovery of gold, and the revolutionary movement of 1848. In these cir- cumstances certain Englishmen, who had conceived the idea of making their fortune in Australia, and of setting up there a landed aristocracy, obtained a law which for- bade the sale of the soil below a price high enough to be prohibitive as regards the common people. After the discovery of gold fields, the existence of a new class necessitated rendering more easy the acquisition of arable soil under certain restric- tions. But the great mass of the people remained always fatally excluded from prop- erty in land. The result has been that the population is concentrated, especially in the great cities, to an incredible degree, while the capitalization of the soil is extreme. There is not a peasant proprietor throughout the continent of Australia. Harvesting and sheep-shearing are the work of nomad laborers, who live, not in the country, but in the cities, and who overrun the pastoral and agricultural districts during the work- ing season. These conditions have been especially favorable to the development of communistic sentiments.
In Victoria the elements are historically different, even to absolute divergence, from those which have operated in the rest of Australia. This part of the country has never known the work of convicts which has elsewhere degraded the proletariat. In the gold fields the conditions of life were necessarily equal, and the population which gathered there was composed principally of emigrants of 1S48, who had con- ceived the hope of founding, on Australian soil, a free and equal community. This moral sentiment has had its baptism of blood. In the first years of the gold fields the miners revolted against the exactions of the government, raising the standard of the Australian republic. Since then the governing classes of Australia have conceived the state as the representation of the social interest, while in the rest of eastern Aus- tralia the state has been for the people only the government, the supreme and abso- lute power over them. Thus in Victoria the socialist idea has always been an element of practical politics. Republican, agrarian, and collectivistic theories have always constituted an integral part of the ideas of the Victorian people. It was from these aspirations, instincts, and thoughts that the anarchistic idea disengaged itself at Mel- bourne a dozen years ago. An anarchistic club was organized in 1886, and several anarchistic newspapers were established. An agitation, more or less successful, has been conducted often in connection with the socialist agitation. The most noteworthy development has been an attempt at reconciliation between anarchism and socialism. This new movement is called communistic anarchism. It was organized by the writer of this article. .-Vs yet, however, an anarchist party can scarcely be said to exist in Australia. It is still merely an agitation. But it has developed both quantitatively and qualitatively during the period of its existence. .\t first it appealed directly to the spirit of revolution, but today anarchists believe that such agitation might lead to a governmental revolution merely, and that it is better to agitate simply for the log- ical acceptance of their principles. — J. A. ANDREWS, " L'Anarchisme et le mouve- ment social en Australie," L' Humaniti nouvelle, August, 1898.
