sent day will, with some
reason, insist ought to be taken over by the State for the profit of
the taxpayer? This view is frankly put forward by those advocates of a
Socialistic organisation of society, who say that the modern tendency
of industry towards combinations, rings and trusts is rapidly bringing
the Socialistic millennium within their reach without any effort
on the part of Socialistic preachers. They consider that the trust
movement is doing the work of Socialism, much faster than Socialism
could do it for itself; that, in short, as has been argued above
in regard to banking, the tendency towards centralisation and the
elimination of competition can only end in the assumption by the State
of the functions of industry and finance. If this should be so, the
future is dark for those of us who believe that individual effort
is the soul of industrial and financial progress, and that industry
carried on by Government Departments, however efficient and economical
it might be, would be such a deadly dull and unenterprising business
that all the adaptability and tendency to variation in accordance with
the needs of the moment, which are so strongly shown by individual
enterprise, would be lost, to the great detriment of the material
progress of mankind.

As things are at present, there is little need to fear that
Socialistic organisation of industry could stand up against competent
individual effort. Anybody who has ever had any business dealings
with a Government Department will inevitably shudder when he tries to
imagine how many forms would have to be filled up, how many divisions
of the Department the inevitable mass of papers would have to go
through, and how much delay and tedium would be involved before the
simplest business proposition could be carried out. But, of course, it
is argued by Socialists that Government Departments are only slow and
tied up with red tape because they have so long been encouraged to do
as little as possible, and that as soon as they are really urged to do
things instead of pursuing a policy of masterly inactivity, there is
no reason why they should not develop a promptitude and elasticity
quite as great as that hitherto shown by the business community.
That such a development as this might take place in the course of
generations nobody can deny; at present it must be admitted that with
the great majority of men the money-making incentive is required to
get the best out of them. If t