But this is by no means the only example of State action.  The Government has established temporarily a State-aided system of marine insurance, by undertaking 80 per cent of the war risk, in order to encourage overseas trade.  It has given substantial aid to the joint-stock banks “for the sole purpose that they might be fit to aid in every way possible the country’s trade and finance."[1] It made arrangements for the direct purchase of forage and vegetables, etc., from farmers.[2] It took over the control of the railways.  When, owing to panic, there was a rush for the purchase of food-stuffs, which was used to force up prices unduly, the Government intervened to prevent exorbitant charges.  Particularly interesting is the action of the State regarding sugar, two-thirds of our supply of which comes from Germany and Austria.  In the days immediately following the declaration of war wholesale prices were trebled.  The Government, therefore, decided to take upon itself the task of ensuring an adequate supply of sugar, and a Royal Commission was appointed.  The leading refiners were approached and an arrangement was made with the whole body of refiners that they should stand aside from the market for raw sugars, leaving it free for the operations of the Government.  The Royal Commission pledged the refiners to buy their sugar from the Commission, i.e. from the State; sugar was to be offered to them at a fixed price, and the refiners were to sell the refined product to the dealers also at a fixed price sufficient to yield the refiners a fair profit on manufacture.  As a result of the corner, a big rise in the price of sugar, which is not only an important domestic commodity but the raw material of several industries, was averted.  This merits the description given of it in The Nation—­“a really dashing experiment in State Socialism.” [3] On the other hand, it has done nothing to increase the world’s supply of sugar, but has merely commandeered a part of the existing stock.  The aid of the State has been invoked in other directions.  Already the Government has assisted experimental cultivation of beet in this country.  The suggestion has been made that the State should build two beet-sugar factories, which would cost about L200,000 each; in this way it is suggested that our home supply of sugar would in the future be assured, and that agriculture would benefit considerably.[4]

[Footnote 1:  Round Table, Sept. 1914, p. 705.]

[Footnote 2:  This was done through the Board of Agriculture for the War Office.  On the other hand, in the purchase of clothing, boots, blankets, etc., the War Office approached the producers directly instead of through the Board of Trade.]

[Footnote 3:  It was reported in the Press on October 8, 1914, that the Home Secretary had purchased 900,000 tons of sugar at about L20 per ton, the transaction involving an outlay of about L18,000,000.]

[Footnote 4:  See an article by Mr. Robertson Scott in The Nineteenth Century, October 1914.]