Mr. Mallock's Lecture on Socialism

Mr. W. H. Mallock, A.M., delivered the third of his lectures on "Socialism and the Allied Social and Economic Questions," in Emerson Hall last night. There will be two more lectures, one tonight and one Thursday, both in the same place at 8 o'clock.

The main part of the lecture dealt with a consideration of the law laid down in the last lecture, that labor was not the chief factor in wealth, but rather was a feature secondary to management. Mr. Mallock stated that the greatest modern thinkers on socialism had abandoned the idea that wealth was due to labor alone, and had agreed with the statement quoted above. These men form a new school of socialism, which undertakes to justify the idea that, notwithstanding the fact that management is the essential in producing wealth, the laborer should receive his just "per capita" average. Four arguments were put forward, and treated by the lecturer.

The first states that, although inequalities in ability exist and give rise to inventions, these should be common property, and not exclusively a source of wealth to the few who happen to find them. Mr. Mallock showed that such intricate inventions as are frequent nowadays would be of no use to men of limited capacity, as they could not understand their uses. Only minds fitted by education can profit by extensive discoveries.

The second contention of the socialists is that inequalities of genius are mere caprices of chance. Some philosophers try to support this theory by the assertion that every great invention which has taken place, has been discovered simultaneously by several minds, while the one to receive the credit was he who was lucky enough to get to the patent office first. That this is untrue, that it was the greatest genius, and not the quickest foot which received the credit, was shown by the examples offered in past history of several men who lived under the same conditions, but of whom one always emerged superior.

The third argument goes to show that the real achievements of genius are merely due to the development of the past generations and not to any especial skill of the individual. The fourth statement closely resembled the third, alleging that inventions, due to the development of the times and not to genius, were due the country at large, and not individuals. The fallacy of these last two statements is easily seen, when it is considered how many men there were in Shakespeare's time, who enjoyed the same conditions under which he worked, but how few real Shakespeares there were. The ideas offered by all these men are not practical in their essence, and therefore do not offer any escape from the present conditions. His own ideas on the remedies for existing conditions, Mr. Mallock will give in his lecture tonight.