There is no necessity to-night to plunge into a discussion of the philosophical divergencies between Socialism and Liberalism.  It is not possible to draw a hard-and-fast line between individualism and collectivism.  You cannot draw it either in theory or in practice.  That is where the Socialist makes a mistake.  Let us not imitate that mistake.  No man can be a collectivist alone or an individualist alone.  He must be both an individualist and a collectivist.  The nature of man is a dual nature.  The character of the organisation of human society is dual.  Man is at once a unique being and a gregarious animal.  For some purposes he must be collectivist, for others he is, and he will for all time remain, an individualist.  Collectively we have an Army and a Navy and a Civil Service; collectively we have a Post Office, and a police, and a Government; collectively we light our streets and supply ourselves with water; collectively we indulge increasingly in all the necessities of communication.  But we do not make love collectively, and the ladies do not marry us collectively, and we do not eat collectively, and we do not die collectively, and it is not collectively that we face the sorrows and the hopes, the winnings and the losings of this world of accident and storm.

No view of society can possibly be complete which does not comprise within its scope both collective organisation and individual incentive.  The whole tendency of civilisation is, however, towards the multiplication of the collective functions of society.  The ever-growing complications of civilisation create for us new services which have to be undertaken by the State, and create for us an expansion of the existing services.  There is a growing feeling, which I entirely share, against allowing those services which are in the nature of monopolies to pass into private hands.  There is a pretty steady determination, which I am convinced will become effective in the present Parliament, to intercept all future unearned increment which may arise from the increase in the speculative value of the land.  There will be an ever-widening area of municipal enterprise.  I go farther; I should like to see the State embark on various novel and adventurous experiments, I am delighted to see that Mr. Burns is now interesting himself in afforestation.  I am of opinion that the State should increasingly assume the position of the reserve employer of labour.  I am very sorry we have not got the railways of this country in our hands.  We may do something better with the canals, and we are all agreed, every one in this hall who belongs to the Progressive Party, that the State must increasingly and earnestly concern itself with the care of the sick and the aged, and, above all, of the children.