bribed into
supporting Socialism. "Two objectionable heads of revenue would find
no place in a Socialist national balance-sheet--the profit from the
Post Office and the stamp duties. Improvements in the wages and
conditions of labour in the lower grades of the postal service would
absorb a considerable part of the present annual profit of
_5,000,000l._ and the rest might, with benefit, be utilised for
cheapening the cost to the public of postal rates and services."[470]

Mr. Snowden, in promising in one phrase the repeal of stamp duties and
cheapening of postage, very likely thought that that step would
relieve the poor. He apparently imagined that duty stamps were
identical with postage stamps. If he had known that stamp duties are
largely derived from Stock Exchange transactions and the sale of every
kind of property on a large scale, from legal documents, &c., he would
probably have proposed that they should be increased tenfold in order
to strike another blow at private property, not that they should be
abolished. Even the policy of confiscation requires an elementary
knowledge of facts.

Furthermore, "The Socialist Budget would provide for a very
considerable increase of the grants-in-aid, retaining for the central
Government just sufficient control or inspection over the expenditure
as would not interfere with the reasonable freedom of the local
authority."[471] "Control which would not interfere" is at present
illogical and impossible, because the one excludes the other. It may
be possible in the Socialist State of the future, because logic will
have to be abolished in it. At all events it seems clear that Mr.
Snowden wishes to secure the support of the local authorities by the
same curious means by which he strives to secure the support of the
Post Office servants.

The foregoing extracts should suffice to show that the Socialists mean
to ruin the owners of property of every kind by indirect confiscation
in the form of extortionate taxation, which is to be constantly
increased and which may be followed by direct confiscation, and that
they rely upon force for achieving their aim. Capitalists may leave
the country, but they must leave their capital behind, and their
disappearance, Socialists assert, will be no loss. "The vast majority
of our employers are routineers, who could no more contribute an
intelligent statement of their industrial function to this paper than
a bee could write the works of Lord Avebu