pale-faced colony from the 'East End,' and settled each family in its own allotment. What next? Is it to be expected that the pale faces will at once assume the hue of health, and that in due time a crop of potatoes and cabbages will reward the diligent crofter? The colonists might spend a summer day in the ducal park, with pipes in their mouths if they had them, and their hands in their pockets as usual—or, may be, in the pockets of their philanthropic friends, if any accompanied them to witness the experiment. But, when the night of difficulty came on, they would find their way back again to their old haunts. Some moralised modification of Mr Henry George's treatment may do when society has reached the convalescent stage. It would be deadly to adopt it during the acute stage. We send fever patients first to the Fever Hospital, and afterwards to the Convalescent Home. Mr George would send them all at once to the Convalescent Home-an indiscriminate host of suffering humanity, to be conveyed with flying banners to picnic for the rest of their lives on other people's property. Neither is there much consolation in an Eight Hours' Bill for people whose maximum hours of labour are much less than that already. Shortened hours of

labour will be a great boon to the over-diligent when they come about in the natural way. But the working man would not sympathise much with his toiling wife's desire for an eight hours' day, if it left the fireside untidy and supper uncooked when he came home in the evening. Society has to practise housewifery as well as his wife; and he might find it to his own serious discomfort if the good dame who keeps house at Westminster were to humour his desire for a shorter day before the family arrangements admitted of its being carried

out.

"At present, however, we have to do, not with the workman, but with the knighthood of the Castle of Indolence and Want. In another aspiration, the working man has been forestalled by the inferior grade. They have attained long ago to State regulation of wages. That was effected for them in the Poor Law. The results of State interference to secure and determine the remuneration of the unemployed can be no great encouragement to hope for its success in the case of the industrious. The evil effects of the Poor Law upon the well-to-do on the one hand, in drying up the springs of spontaneous sympathy, and placing them out of touch with the poor, and on the other hand in paralysing

moral action among the recipients of the State's questionable bounty, may be parallelled by a similar widening of the breach between employers and employed, and a like emasculation of the energies of the people, if the wish of the workmen for State regulation of wages and other matters should ever be gratified. The nationalisation of mining capital would certainly be followed by a demand for the nationalisation of all capital. That raises the whole question of Socialism. But, as far as the needs of the proletariat are concerned, the same objection applies to it as to the nationalisation of land. To adopt the methods of Socialism in any circumstances would be a great mistake. Doubtless in many cases Socialists are as nobly patriotic in their aim as any who see the evils of society and insist on a remedy. But many Socialists say foolish and mischievous things.

"Liberty, Fraternity, and Equality are the socialist ideals, and the great difficulty for Socialists consists in maintaining proper balance between them. The Socialist allows that there are inequalities among men in capacity, mood, temper, and desire. He considers such natural inequalities to be no bar to equality of condition. It is difficult to understand how he makes this out. So long as

men differ in capacity and desire, the person who has the greater capacities will always be able to obtain for himself the larger share of this world's goods. It is so even now, when men start from very unequal conditions, with such modifications of result as are caused by prevailing inequality. It would be far more so if by any coup d'état a momentary equality of condition could be brought about. Then all men would start abreast, and the race would surely be to the swift and the battle to the strong. How, in such circumstances, could equality of condition be made permanent? There seems to be only two ways of doing so-either by arbitrarily compelling all men to a dead level of activity, or by taking from the able man the surplus product of his strength and handing it over to be enjoyed by his weaker brother. The former alternative is inadmissible, as it would involve a suppression of human force which is neither desirable nor possible. No thinking person would dream of giving the weakest the stroke oar in the race's progress. The interests of neither strong nor weak would be served thereby. A long pull and a strong pull and a pull all together, each man doing to the best of his powers, is what is needed for the well-being of all. Nor is the other alternative of an equal division of

the products of industry any more practicable. Such a division must be either with or against the will of the individuals. If it went with the will of all, the human race must have attained to such a realisation of the ideal of fraternity that no social arrangement would be called for to meet the necessities of any one. Altruism, or supreme regard for others, would be the dominating principle of society, and Nihilism itself would be brought within the sphere of practical politics. But if the weak should by some mysterious process acquire the ability to compel the strong to share equally with them, Liberty, the other element in the social ideal, would be sacrificed. Working men will be the last to question the right of every man to the produce of his own labour. Yet this is the right which the Socialist would deprive him of in the interest of those who may be unable or unwilling to do for themselves. The Socialists' own clients have good reason to protest against his teaching. So far as they cannot reach an average production, they must be more or less dependent on the kindness and compassion of those who are more capable than they. But it is a strange mode of exciting a man's compassion to despoil him of what he rightly considers to be his due. On the other hand, if the less