to what Socialists expect and intend
for the future--especially in those matters where there is practical
unanimity among them, may be justified, and may help to define their
present aims. There are certain matters where Socialists have as yet had
no opportunity to show their position in acts, and yet where their
present activities, supported by their statements, indicate what their
course will be.

First, how do Socialists expect to proceed during the transitional
period, when they have won supreme power, but have not yet had time to
put any of their more far-reaching principles into execution? The first
of these transitional problems is: What shall be done with those
particular forms of private property or privilege which stand in the way
of an economic democracy? How far shall existing vested rights be
compensated?

"And as for taking such property from the owners," asks Mr. H. G.
Wells, "why shouldn't we? The world has not only in the past taken
slaves from their owners, with no compensation or with meager
compensation; but in the history of mankind, dark as it is, there
are innumerable cases of slave owners resigning their inhuman
rights.... There are, no doubt, a number of dull, base, rich people
who hate and dread Socialism for purely selfish reasons; but it is
quite possible to be a property owner and yet be anxious to see
Socialism come into its own.... Though I deny the right to
compensation, I do not deny its probable advisability. So far as
the question of method goes it is quite conceivable that we may
partially compensate the property owners and make all sorts of
mitigating arrangements to avoid cruelty to them in our attempt to
end the wider cruelties of to-day."[292]

Socialists are, of course, quite determined that either the vested
interests of all persons dependent on small unearned incomes and unable
otherwise to earn their living shall be protected, or that they shall be
equally well provided for by other means. No practical Socialist has
ever proposed, during this transitional period, to interfere in any way
either with savings bank accounts or with life insurance policies on a
reasonable scale, or with widows and orphans who are using incomes from
very small pieces of property for identical purposes.

As to the compensation of the wealthier classes, this becomes entirely a
secondary question, a matter of pure expediency.