industrial betterment to have some mystic or magical effect of itself in uplifting the mass of the people; but, until this betterment occurs, other efforts to help them will be seriously hampered or entirely futile. The very magnitude of the task would prove a magnificent tonic and stimulation to the jaded mind of the community.
An increasing number of middle-class men and women now recognise that this is, not merely the only solution of the problem of poverty, but the most profitable scheme of national life for all who are willing to work. So detached an observer as Mr. Carveth Read, professor of Philosophy at London University, observes that “probably the future lies either with Co-operation or with Socialism” (Natural and Social Morals, p. 211). On the Continent, especially in Italy, France, Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, and Russia, there is a high proportion of cultivated and professional men in the Socialist movement. No one need fear its advance except the idler and the man whose work does not add to the wealth of the community or facilitate its distribution. It is the application of sound and tried business-principles to national life; and, when those principles have first been applied to the governmental machine, and made it an effective and disinterested administration, we shall move more quickly toward the Collectivist ideal.
Some may wonder that a student of science should come to this conclusion. There is a vague idea
