is not possible to make any
satisfactory estimate of the proportion of any value produced which is
due to the individual efforts, and to society respectively, there can be
no limit assigned to the right of society to increase its claim save the
limit imposed by expediency. It will not be for the interest of society
to make so large a claim by way of regulation, restriction, or taxation,
as shall prevent the individual from applying his best efforts to the
work of production, whether his function consists in the application of
capital or of labour. The claims of many theoretic socialists transcend
this statement, and claim for society a full control of all the
instruments of production. But it is not necessary to discuss this wider
claim, for the narrower one is held sufficient to justify and explain
those slow legislative movements which come under the head of practical
socialism, as illustrated in modern English history.

Now while this conscious socialism has no large hold in England, it is
necessary to admit that the doctrine just quoted does furnish in some
measure an explanation of the unconscious socialism traceable in much of
the legislation of this century. When it is said that "we are all
socialists to-day," what is meant is, that we are all engaged in the
active promotion or approval of legislation which can only be explained
as a gradual unconscious recognition of the existence of a social
property in capital which it is held politic to secure for the public
use.

The increasing restrictions on free use of capital, the monopoly of
certain branches of industry by the State and the municipality, the
growing tendency to take money from the rich by taxation, can be
explained, reconciled, and justified on no other principle than the
recognition that a certain share of the value of these forms of wealth
is due to the community which has assisted and co-operated with the
individual owner in its creation. Whether the socialistic legislation
which, stronger than all traditions of party politics, is constantly
imposing new limitations upon the private use of capital, is desirable
or not, is not the question with which we are concerned. It is the fact
that is important. Society is constantly engaged in endeavouring,
feebly, slowly, and blindly, to relieve the stress of poverty, and the
industrial weakness of low-skilled labour, by laying hands upon certain
functions and certain portions of wealth formerly left to priv