ery will disappear,
as serfdom disappeared, not indeed imperceptibly, for the world is now
self-conscious, not even so gradually, for the pace of progress is
faster than it was in the Middle Ages, but by a change of heart of the
community, by a general recognition, already half realised, that
whatever makes for the more equitable distribution of wealth is good;
that whatever benefits the working class benefits the nation; that the
rich exist only on sufferance, and deserve no more than painless
extinction; that the capitalist is a servant of the public, and too
often over-paid for the services that he renders.

Again, Socialism succeeds because it is common sense. The anarchy of
individual production is already an anachronism. The control of the
community over itself extends every day. We demand order, method,
regularity, design; the accidents of sickness and misfortune, of old age
and bereavement, must be prevented if possible, and if not, mitigated.
Of this principle the public is already convinced: it is merely a
question of working out the details. But order and forethought is wanted
for industry as well as for human life. Competition is bad, and in most
respects private monopoly is worse. No one now seriously defends the
system of rival traders with their crowds of commercial travellers: of
rival tradesmen with their innumerable deliveries in each street; and
yet no one advocates the capitalist alternative, the great trust, often
concealed and insidious, which monopolises oil or tobacco or diamonds,
and makes huge profits for a fortunate; few out of the helplessness of
the unorganised consumers.

But neither the idle rich class nor the anarchy of competition is so
outstanding an evil as the poverty of the poor. We aim at making the
rich poorer chiefly in order to make the poor richer. Our first tract,
"Why are the Many Poor?" struck the keynote. In a century of abounding
wealth England still has in its midst a hideous mass of poverty which is
too appalling to think of. That poverty, we say, is preventible. That
poverty was the background of our thoughts when the Society was founded.
Perhaps we have done a little to mitigate it: we believe we have done
something to make clear the way by which it may ultimately be abolished.
We do not constantly talk of it. We write of the advantages of Municipal
Electricity, of the powers of Parish Councils, of the objections to the
Referendum; but all the while it is that great ev