g development has taken place. The
independent producer, owning his own tools and knowing no master, has
given way before the more effective productive powers of huge capital,
concentrated in the hands of the great capitalist. The latter,
recognising no rights in his workers, ruled as an absolute monarch in
his factory. But within the realm of capital developed a revolt
against the power of the capitalist. This revolt, taking the form of
trade unionism, has pursued in the industrial field the same line of
development as the movement for political freedom has pursued in the
sphere of national government. It first contented itself with protests
against excessive exactions, against all undue stretchings of the
power of the capitalist; then its efforts broadened out to demands for
restrictions upon the absolute character of such power, _i.e._, by
claiming for trade unions the right to make rules for the workers in
the workshop; then it sought to still further curb the capitalist's
power by shortening the working day, and so limiting the period during
which the toiler may be exploited. Finally, it seeks by Boards of
Arbitration to establish an equivalent in the industrial world for
that compromise in the political world by which, in constitutional
countries, the monarch retains his position by granting a parliament
to divide with him the duties of governing, and so hides while
securing his power. And as in the political history of the race the
logical development of progress was found in the abolition of the
institution of monarchy, and not in its mere restriction, so in
industrial history the culminating point to which all efforts must at
last converge lies in the abolition of the capitalist class, and not
in the mere restriction of its powers.

The Socialist Labour Party, recognising these two phases of human
development, unites them in its programme, and seeks to give them a
concrete embodiment by its demand for a Socialist Republic.

It recognises in all past history a preparation for this achievement,
and in the industrial tendencies of to-day it hails the workings out
of those laws of human progress which bring that object within our
reach.

The concentration of capital in the form of trusts at the same time as
it simplifies the task we propose that society shall undertake, viz.
the dispossession of the capitalist class, and the administration of
all land and instruments of industry as social property, of which all