s pertaining to them,
which severally require to be used by thousands of men at once, and
which no one of the number can use without reference to the operations
of the others. If the state were to acquire the ownership of all the
steel-mills at Pittsburg, how could it do more than is done by their
present owners, to confer on each of the employes any kind of position
analogous to that of a man "who has his own canoe"? The state could just
as easily perform the literal feat of cutting up the _Lusitania_ into a
hundred thousand dinghys, in each of which somebody would enjoy the
equal opportunity of paddling a passenger from Sandy Hook to
Southampton.

But we will not tie our author too closely to the terms of his own
metaphor. The work from which I have just quoted is a booklet[27] in
which he devoted himself to the task of refuting in detail the
arguments urged by myself in the course of my American speeches. We
will, therefore, turn to his criticism of what, in one of my speeches, I
said about the state post-office, and we shall there get further light
with regard to his real meaning. I asked how any sorter or
letter-carrier employed in the post-office by the state was any more his
own master, or had any more opportunities of freedom, than a messenger
or other person employed by a private firm. Our author's answer is this:
"That the public can determine what the wages of a postman shall
be--that is, they can, if they so choose (by their votes), double the
wages now prevailing." Therefore, our author proceeds, "the postal
employe, in a manner, may be considered as a man employing himself."
Now, first let me observe that, as was shown in our seventh chapter,
wages under socialism, just as under the present system, could be no
more than a share of the total product of the community; and the claims
advanced to a share of this by any one group of workers would be
consequently limited by the claims of all the others. The question,
therefore, of whether the postmen's wages should be doubled at any time,
or whether they might not have to be halved, would not depend only on
votes, but, also and primarily, on the extent of the funds available;
and in so far as it depended on votes at all, the votes would not be
those of the postmen. They would be the votes of the general public,
and any special demand on the part of one body of workers would be
neutralised by similar demands on the part of all the others. Further,
if these "empl