commerce, or hampering transport and communications. In all these matters once more in contrast with the other political parties, and by no means in the interests of the wageearners alone - the Labour party demands that the very definite teachings of economic science should no longer be disregarded as they have been in the past."

Although labour demands heavier imposts on incomes, assessment by families instead of by individual persons, the raising of the present unduly low minimum income assessable to the tax, raising the excess profits tax, taxing land values, it is recognized that all this will not suffice. Then the subcommittee launches its financial thunderbolt:

"It will be imperative at the earliest possible moment to free the nation from at any rate the greater part of its new load of interest bearing debt for loans which ought to have been levied as taxation; and the Labour party stands for a special capital levy to pay off, if not the whole, a very substantial part of the entire national debt - a capital levy chargeable like the death duties on all property, but (in order to secure approximate equality of sacrifice) with exemption of the smallest savings, and for the rest at rates very steeply graduated, so as to take only a small contribution from the little people and a very much larger percentage from the millionaires."

These are some of the suggestions put forward by the Labour party, and they are undoubtedly signs of the time. It would be madness to disregard them. Industrial unrest had been gathering social and political force for years before this war broke out. In Britain it had reached such a pitch by the spring of 1914 that it threatened the political and industrial systems then in vogue. But the war has given labour an opportunity of seeing many of their socialistic notions put into practice by politicians to whom the term Socialism was formerly anathema. They

have seen their schemes of nationalization adopted in principle by government, and they say, not unreasonably, if it be good to nationalize and control industry in the emergencies of war, why should any one oppose the scheme for good and all? The old reply to this will not do. We cannot put them off by calling them utopian dreamers. War experience has knocked the bottom out of that excuse. Even in America the period of State control we have endured has been sufficient to teach labour and socialists that with some modification nationalization and control of industry may, perhaps, be established for the good of the community. But no one stops in advocating these schemes to consider the altogether exceptional circumstances in which these schemes have been utilized. Does any one imagine, after a moment's sober reflection, that the community would benefit from these schemes, even with modification and certain readjustments, when economic forces are again at work and the nations compete with one another for the old and the new markets? It is one thing to consider these things from a national standpoint; it is quite another when we have to consider them from the international. It must be remembered that during this war at least half the population in Europe have not participated in the international industrial struggle; and the effect of this on the competition for markets has by a great many people been overlooked or ignored. It is high time for us to begin to consider it again. That nationalization has worked comparatively well in some countries cannot be denied, for instance, railways, canals and forests in Germany, but it does not follow that any and every country is adapted politically and socially for nationalization. If people would

try to understand how closely connected German schemes of nationalization are with her military and bureaucratic system they would find reasons enough to make them pause. Then again the communal success of nationalization depends very largely for its smooth working on the way nationalization is brought about. To nationalize the land and plant of a great industry, as has been done during this war, seems simple enough, but the time has been far too short to judge of its success as an established part of government control. Then, in this country the experience of labour in connection with nationalization has been singularly free of any of the disabilities which British labour has suffered. Here it has been a period of wage prosperity. Apart from the men who have been to the front our labour forces have experienced very few of the sufferings of European labour. Whether the problems and lessons of the war as they are known in Europe will be brought home to the industrial forces of this country, time alone can tell. But as things are, we are not yet in a position to judge wisely what bearing on the future our short experience in nationalization will have. Still, professional and amateur reformers write with a predilection for some state control, many basing their ideas, not so much on conditions in America, as upon the recommendation of the manifesto of the British Labour Party. Here there is a great danger, both to labour and capital, in leaving investigation of industrial conditions to political amateurs, men who have had little or no direct experience in the industries they are called upon by government to investigate. This is one of the dangers of the American system. And it must be obvious to the impartial observer that we

in America have neither the personnel nor the methods of procedure for investigating industrial conditions such as they have in Britain. Perhaps the day is come when our captains of industry and intelligent labour leaders will recognize the stupendous error they have made in leaving what are called politics, legislation and administration, to men who make political capital of party issues, seldom clearly defined, and who waste the nation's time and money only too often in mere personal and parochial affairs.

CHAPTER VI

DEMOCRACIES OF THE PAST

"We are going to climb the slow road until it reaches some upland where the air is fresher, where the whole talk of mere politicians is stilled, where men can look in each other's faces and see that there is nothing to conceal, that all they have to talk about they are willing to talk about in the open and talk about with each other; and whence, looking back over the road, we shall see at last that we have fulfilled our promise to mankind. We had said to all the world, 'America was created to break every kind of monopoly, and to set men free, upon a footing of equality, upon a footing of opportunity, to match their brains and their energies. - WOODROW WIL

SON, The New Freedom, Chap II, p. 54.

THE story is told of an old Tory squire whose vicar, during an election in England, urged him not to let the church school-room be used by a certain socialist candidate. The vicar said that he was very much afraid that the villagers would hear what might not be good for them. The squire's reply was, "Please yourself about letting the room, but I don't give a damn what they say so long as they don't know what they want." Not all Tory squires are, however, so wise; indeed a great many imagine political agitators as a rule really know what they want. Still it does seem that the old squire hit the nail on the head, and when we read manifestoes such