necessary if progress is to be sustained and if it is to be unbroken by casual reaction.  In an old country like ours, with vast forces of inertia built up by ages of precedents, by a class system which forms a part of the life of the nation, by a distribution of wealth which even yet scarcely yields to the pressure of graduated taxation, legislation is always in arrear of the needs of the times; the social structure is always old-fashioned and out of date, and reform always tends to be late, and even too late, unless there are agitators with the ability to attract public attention calling on the men in power to take action.

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But this victory of a principle is not a complete victory of the principles of Socialism.  It is a limitation of the power of the capitalist to use his capital as he pleases, and Socialism is much more than a series of social safeguards to the private ownership of capital.  Municipal ownership is a further step, but even this will not carry us far because the capital suitable for municipal management on existing lines is but a small fraction of the whole, and because municipal control does not directly affect the amount of capital in the hands of the capitalists who are always expropriated with ample compensation.

We have made some progress along another line.  Supertax, death duties, and taxes on unearned increment do a little to diminish the wealth of the few:  old age pensions, national insurance, and workmen’s compensation do something towards mitigating the poverty of the poor.

But it must be confessed that we have made but little progress along the main road of Socialism.  Private ownership of capital and land flourishes almost as vigorously as it did thirty years ago.  Its grosser cruelties have been checked, but the thing itself has barely been touched.  Time alone will show whether progress is to be along existing lines, whether the power of the owners of capital over the wealth it helps to create and over the lives of the workers whom it enslaves will gradually fade away, as the power of our kings over the Government of our country has faded, the form remaining when the substance has vanished, or whether the community will at last consciously accept the teaching of Socialism, setting itself definitely to put an end to large-scale private capitalism, and undertaking itself the direct control of industry.  The intellectual outlook is bright; the principles of Socialism are already accepted by a sensible proportion of the men and women in all classes who take the trouble to think, and if we must admit that but little has yet been done, we may well believe that in the fullness of time our ideas will prevail.  The present war is giving the old world a great shake, and an era of precipitated reconstruction may ensue if the opportunity be wisely handled.

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