THE COMING SLAVERY. 733 



railway communications." They condemn " above all, the active capi- 

 talist class, the loan-mongers, the farmers, the mine-exploiters, the 

 contractors, the middlemen, the factory-lords — these, the modern slave- 

 drivers " who exact " more and yet more surplus value out of the wage- 

 slaves whom they employ." And they think it "high time" that 

 trade should be " removed from the control of individual greed and 

 individual profit." * 



It remains to point out that the tendencies thus variously dis- 

 played are being strengthened by press-advocacy, daily more pro- 

 nounced. Journalists, always chary of saying that which is distaste- 

 ful to their readers, are some of them going with the stream and add- 

 ing to its force. Legislative meddlings which they would once have 

 condemned they now pass in silence, if they do not advocate them ; 

 and they speak of laisser-faire as an exploded doctrine. " People are 

 no longer frightened at the thought of socialism," is the statement 

 which meets us one day. On another day, a town which does not 

 adopt the Free Libraries Act is sneered at as being alarmed by a 

 measure so moderately communistic. And then, along with editorial 

 assertions that this economic evolution is coming and must be accept- 

 ed, there is prominence given to the contributions of its advocates. 

 Meanwhile those who regard the recent course of legislation as disas- 

 trous, and see that its future course is likely to be still more disastrous, 

 are being reduced to silence by the belief that it is useless to reason 

 with people in a state of political intoxication. 



See, then, the many concurrent causes which threaten continually 

 to accelerate the transformation now going on. There is that spread 

 of regulation caused by following precedents, which become the more 

 authoritative the further the policy is carried. There is that increas- 

 ing need for administrative compulsions and restraints which results 

 from the unforeseen evils and short-comings of preceding compulsions 

 and restraints. Moreover, every additional state-interference strength- 

 ens the tacit assumption that it is the duty of the state to deal with 

 all evils and secure all benefits. Increasing power of a growing ad- 

 ministrative organisation is accompanied by decreasing power of the 

 rest of the society to resist its further growth and control. The mul- 

 tiplication of careers opened by a developing bureaucracy tempts 

 members of the classes regulated by it to favor its extension, as add- 

 ing to the chances of safe and respectable places for their relatives. 

 The people at large, led to look on benefits received through public 

 agencies as gratis benefits, have their hopes continually excited by the 

 prospects of more. A spreading education, furthering the diffusion of 

 pleasing errors rather than of stem truths, renders such hopes both 

 stronger and more general. "Worse still, such hopes are ministered to 

 by candidates for public choice to augment their chances of success ; 



• " Socialism made Plain," Reeves, 185 Fleet Street. 



