THE CALL OF THE LAND 



grave. Usually socialists do not over- 

 magnify them. If such distresses are cur- 

 able, all wish to know how. 



Most wise people, whatever their style 

 of social thinking, sympathize with social- 

 ism in wishing the public power, when 

 necessary, to extend more or less its eco- 

 nomic function. Now and then, of course, 

 some one still denounces as dangerous, per 

 se, disregarding place, circumstance, and 

 the state of the civil service, the municipal 

 ownership of street railways. It is hard to 

 see why this is more a peril than the owning 

 of schools, or of water or gas works by cities. 

 There is nothing alarming, either, in the 

 proposal that government should purchase 

 and work mines. Not another foot of min- 

 ing land now owned by the government 

 should ever be sold. Public ownership of 

 mines is in continental Europe the regular 

 thing, as is the public ownership of rail- 

 ways. All municipal functioning that 

 involves money is dangerous unless the civil 

 service is right. This condition given, the 

 question how far the corporate people may 



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