738 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



other trades. Even now, besides erecting its naval and military es- 

 tablishments, and building harbors, docks, breakwaters, etc., it does 

 the work of ship-builder, cannon-founder, small-arms maker, manufact- 

 urer of ammunition, etc., etc.; and, when the railways have been 

 appropriated "with or without compensation," as the Democratic 

 Federationists say, it will have to become locomotive-engine builder, 

 carriage -maker, tarpaulin and grease manufacturer, passenger-vessel 

 owner, coal-miner, stone-quarrier, omnibus-proprietor, etc. Meanwhile 

 its local lieutenants, the municipal governments, already in many 

 places suppliers of water, gas-makers, owners and workers of tram- 

 ways, proprietors of baths, will doubtless have undertaken various 

 other businesses. And when the state, directly or by proxy, has thus 

 come into possession of, or has established, numerous concerns for 

 wholesale production and for wholesale distribution, there will be 

 good precedents for extending its function to retail distribution : fol- 

 lowing such an example, say, as is offered by the French Government, 

 which has long been a retail tobacconist. 



Evidently, then, the changes made, the changes in progress, and 

 the changes urged, are carrying us not only toward state-ownership 

 of land and dwellings and means of communication, all to be adminis- 

 tered and worked by state-agents, but toward state-usurpation of all 

 industries ; the private forms of which, disadvantaged more and more 

 in competition with the state, which can arrange everything for its 

 own convenience, will more and more die away just as many volun- 

 tary schools have, in presence of board-schools. And so will be 

 brought about the desired ideal of the socialist. 



And now when there has been reached this desired ideal, which 

 " practical " politicians are helping socialists to reach, and which is 

 so tempting on that bright side which socialists contemplate, what 

 must be the accompanying shady side which they do not contem- 

 plate ? It is a matter of common remark, often made when a marriage 

 is impending, that those possessed by strong hopes habitually dwell 

 on the promised pleasures and think nothing of the accompanying 

 pains. A further exemplification of this truth is supplied by these 

 political enthusiasts and fanatical revolutionists. Impressed with the 

 miseries existing under our present social arrangements, and not re- 

 garding these miseries as caused by the ill-working of a human nature 

 but partially adapted to the social state, they imagine them to be 

 forthwith curable by this or that rearrangement. Yet, even did their 

 plans succeed, it could only be by substituting one kind of evil for 

 another. A little deliberate thought would show that under their pro- 

 posed arrangements their liberties must be surrendered in proportion 

 as their material welfares were cared for. 



For no form of co-operation, small or great, can be carried on 

 without regulation and an implied submission to the regulating 



