380 The Effects of Evolution 



road also, let us set up the sign, " No Thoroughfare " ; and 

 look in some more practical direction. 



5. What shall we say of State Socialism or National- 

 ism ? Only that while we can make it look very attractive 

 on paper, we have as yet no experiments in that direction 

 sufficiently successful to promise much of hope. The prin- 

 ciple of Socialism is of course conceded. Every time we 

 permit the government to put its hands in our pockets and 

 take therefrom the smallest sum in the way of a tax ; every 

 time we submit to a war-necessity and concede the right of 

 the State to compel a citizen into the army for the public 

 good; in these, and in many other ways, we admit the 

 supremacy of the general good over the individual. It is, 

 then, only a question of expediency, to be determined in 

 the light of human experience. The battle between private 

 property and State ownership is only a question as to 

 which, in its practical working, will best subserve the public 

 good. • 



It is sometimes said the State manages the Post-Office 

 Department, and does it for the whole people, honestly,, 

 efficiently, successfully ; and the question is asked as to 

 why it might not work as well in all other directions. Two 

 answers are ready. First, the Post-Office Department has 

 never paid for itself, but has always been a drain on the 

 public treasury. And, in the second place, the principal 

 part of the postal-service is still in private hands, and is not 

 the work of the government at all. All the government 

 does is to collect and distribute. All the work of carrying,, 

 and the fact that they can be carried so cheaply, is wholly 

 a matter of private enterprise and private competition. So> 

 this is no example of what the government might do. I 

 have often been inclined to think it might be well for the 

 government to take control of at least the telegraphs and 

 the railroads. But even here the way does not seem quite 

 clear. Certain European governments do control a part or 

 all of the railroads ; but I think I am right in stating that 

 the cost of travel on them is higher than it is with us under 

 our private ownerships and competitive system, — and if I 

 wish to go to Chicago, it is not a question with me as to 

 who owns the road, but as to what the owner is going to 

 charge for taking me there. So I cannot help fearing that 

 the ideal Boston is farther off than Mr. Bellamy has dreamed 



