, and the wretchedness and
the human degradation which always follows in its camp, will be as
remote from the people of this country as the wolves which once
infested its forests."

Mr. H. G. Wells, who has been a leading figure in the British reform
world and in the Fabian Society for many years, speaks on this reform
movement not merely as a keen outside observer. As an advocate of more
radical measures, he argues that there is nothing Socialistic about "the
national minimum." This "philanthropic administrative Socialism," as Mr.
Wells calls it, is very remote, he says, from the spirit of his own.[69]
Yet, critical as Mr. Wells is, he also advocates a policy that could be
summed up in the single phrase, "industrial efficiency." "The advent of
a strongly Socialistic government would mean no immediate revolutionary
changes at all," he says. "There would be no doubt an educational
movement to increase the economic value and productivity of the average
citizen of the next generation, and legislation _upon the lines laid
down by the principle of the 'minimum wage'_ to check the waste of our
national resources by destructive employment. Also a shifting of the
burden of taxation of enterprise to rent would begin." (My italics.) The
Liberals who are already setting these reforms on foot disclaim any
connection whatever with Socialism, but Mr. Wells argues that they do
not realize the real nature of their policy.

The establishment of this paternal "State Socialism," whether based on a
philanthropic "national minimum" or a scientific policy of "industrial
efficiency," many other "Socialists" besides those of Great Britain
consider to be the chief task of Socialism itself in our generation.
Among the latter was the late Edmond Kelly, a member of the Socialist
party in this country at the time of his death, who, in his posthumous
work, "Twentieth Century Socialism," has summed up his political faith
in much the same way as the anti-Socialist reformer might have done. He
says that three of the four chief objects of Socialism are the
organization of society, first "to prevent that overwork and
unemployment which lead to drunkenness, pauperism, prostitution, and
crime"; second, "to preserve the resources of the country"; and third,
"to produce with the greatest economy, with the greatest
efficiency."[70] Yet Mr. Carnegie and Mr. Rockefeller, as well as Mr.
Roosevelt, agree to all three of these policies. They are