s alleged nepotism, dishonesty, and corruption. He
ended one such article with, "There is nothing but a trumpet at
midnight, calling for volunteers." The New Statesman then published an
article, "Trumpets and How to Blow Them," suggesting, among other
things, that there was little use in being merely destructive. It is
typical of what I have called the decadence of Chesterton that he
borrowed another writer's most offensive description of a lady
prominently connected with The New Statesman in order to quote it with
glee by way of answer to this article. The Syndicalist hates the
Socialist for his catholicity. The Socialist wishes to see the world a
comfortable place, the Syndicalist merely wishes to work in a
comfortable factory. Chesterton seized the opportunity, being mildly
rebuked by a Socialist paper, to declare that the Fabians "are
constructing a man-trap." A little later on he writes, with reference to
a controversialist's request, that he should explain why, after all, he
was not a Socialist:

If he wants to know what the Marconi Scandal has
saved us from, I can tell him. It has saved us
from Socialism. My God! what Socialism, and run by
what sort of Socialists! My God! what an escape!
If we had transferred the simplest national
systems to the State (as we wanted to do in our
youth) it is to these men that we should have
transferred them.

There never was an example of more muddled thinking. Let us apply it to
something definite, to that harmless, necessary article of diet, milk,
to be precise, cow's milk. To-day milk is made expensive by a
multiplicity of men who have interests in keeping milk expensive. There
are too many milkmen's wages to be paid, too many milk-carts to be
built, too many shop-rents paid, and too much apparatus bought, simply
because we have not yet had the intelligence to let any municipality or
county run its own milk-service and so avoid all manner of duplication.
Chesterton's answer to this is: "I used to think so, but what about Lord
Murray, Mr. Lloyd George, and Mr. Godfrey Isaacs?" It would be as
relevant to say, "What about Dr. Crippen, Jack Sheppard, and Ananias,"
or, "But what about Mr. Bernard Shaw, the Grand Duke Nicolas, and my
brother?" The week later Chesterton addresses the Labour Party in these
words:

Comrades (I mean gentlemen), there is only one
real result of anythin