That no branch of Industry should be carried on at a profit by the
   central administration.

That the Public Revenue should be levied by a direct Tax; and that the central administration should have no legal power to hold back for the replenishment of the Public Treasury any portion of the proceeds of Industries administered by them.

That the State should compete with private individuals—­especially with parents—­in providing happy homes for children, so that every child may have a refuge from the tyranny or neglect of its natural custodians.

   That Men no longer need special political privileges to protect them
   against Women, and that the sexes should henceforth enjoy equal
   political rights.

   That no individual should enjoy any Privilege in consideration of
   services rendered to the State by his or her parents or other
   relations.

   That the State should secure a liberal education and an equal share
   in the National Industry to each of its units.

   That the established Government has no more right to call itself the
   State than the smoke of London has to call itself the weather.

   That we had rather face a Civil War than such another century of
   suffering as the present one has been.

It would be easy in the light of thirty years’ experience to write at much length on these propositions.  They are, of course, unqualified “Shaw.”  The minutes state that each was discussed and separately adopted.  Three propositions, the nature of which is not recorded, were at a second meeting rejected, while the proposition on heredity was drafted and inserted by order of the meeting.  I recollect demurring to the last proposition, and being assured by the author that it was all right since in fact no such alternative would ever be offered!

The persistency of Mr. Shaw’s social philosophy is remarkable.  His latest volume[10] deals with parents and children, the theme he touched on in 1884; his social ideal is still a birthright life interest in national wealth, and “an equal share in national industry,” the latter a phrase more suggestive than lucid.  On the other hand, he, like the rest of us, was then by no means clear as to the distinction between Anarchism and Socialism.  The old Radical prejudice in favour of direct taxation, so that the State may never handle a penny not wrung from the reluctant and acutely conscious taxpayer, the doctrinaire objection to State monopolies, and the modern view that municipal enterprises had better be carried on at cost price, are somewhat inconsistently commingled with the advocacy of universal State competition in industry.  It may further be noticed that we were as yet unconscious of the claims and aims of the working people.  Our Manifesto covered a wide field, but it nowhere touches Co-operation or Trade Unionism, wages or hours of labour.  We were still playing with abstractions, Land and Capital, Industry and Competition, the Individual and the State.