occupiers in territorial areas whose traditional business it is to relieve the owners of property of all hindrances to the enjoyment of their possessions, to enlarge the bounds of their personal liberty, to arrange for the defence and protection of the said property owners both at home and abroad, whether from enemy aggression, social discontent, or, latterly, disease and famine which were formerly deemed to be within the province of the State Church as being "acts of God."
The whole idea of government has until recently had nothing to do with the organization of production, and now that circumstances have made it necessary for the State to engage in industry on a gigantic scale, the owners of existing undertakings have been quick to assist in this new development so as to build it up on lines which should conform with their class interests. The new system has been developed apart from parliamentary supervision and with capitalist assistance and advice. Certain sections of the capitalist class are, indeed, clamouring for a greater measure of parliamentary control, or, better still, destructive action, but these, especially the noisy merchant community, are socially wasteful and economically unnecessary. It is their economic weakness which explains their exclusion from the spoils, and this forced exclusion which produces the amusing chorus of howls and warnings to which some Socialists are paying an unwarrantable attention. Merchants, shopkeepers' brokers and all kinds of traders now become enthusiastic champions of civil liberties and parliamentary government because conditions are making them economic reactionaries and potential, but extremely dangerous, allies of the working class. The doomed middle class will do its utmost to give new life and impart new vigour to Parliament, which is its natural weapon of attack and defence, but the days of both are well nigh numbered, since the Capitalists and the Workers will neither of them have a use for it in their administration of things.
The Workers and the State.
The State was called into existence after the institution of private ownership of such social wealth as up to that time had been accumulated, to defend the new order and to further the interests of those who, at different periods, were the dominant class. The property owners maintained this, their
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