i6 
LAND & WATER 
November 2, 1916 
lived near Toulouse." That is quite a sufficient basis for 
a friendship ; the convalescent sits by the bedside of his 
new comrade, holding the man's handi whilst his wounds 
are being dressed, telling him he knows of the pain, that 
he, too, has suffered, and that soon all will be well. 
Lions to light, ever ready to answer to the call of the 
defence of their country, yet these men of France are 
tender and gentle. In one hospital through which I passed 
there was a liaby. It was a military hospital, and no 
civilian had any i-ight there, but the medical olhccrs who 
inspected the hospital were remarkably bhnd — none of 
them conld ever see the baby. One of "the soldiers pass- 
ing through a bombarded village saw a little body lying 
in the mud, and although he believed the child to be dead 
he stooped down and. picked it up. At the evacuating 
station the baby and the soldier were scut to the hospital 
together ; the doctors operated upon the baby and took a 
piece of sluapnel from its back, and once well and strong it 
constituted itself lord and master and king of all it survey- 
ed. When it woke it the morning it would call " Papa " 
and twenty fathers answered to its call. All the pent- 
up love of the men for their own little ones from whom 
they had been parted for so long they la\ished on the 
tiny stranger, but all his affection and his whole heart be- 
longed to the rough miner soldier who had brought him 
in. As the shadows fell one saw the man walking up 
and down the ward with the child in his arms, crooning 
the Marseillaise until the tired little eyes closed. He had 
obtained permission from the authorities to adopt the 
child as tlie parents could not be found, and remarked 
humorously : -" Mademoiselle, it is so convenient to 
have a family without the trouble of being married ! " 
What we must remember is that the rough soldier, 
himself blinded with blood and mud, uncertain whether 
he could e\'er reach a point of safety, yet had time to stoop 
and pick that little flower of France and save it from 
being crushed beneath the cannon wheels. I told General 
Nivelle that the hospital staff intended to keep the child 
for the soldier until after the end of the war and we all 
hoped that he might grow up to the glory of FVance and 
to the eternal honour of the tender-hearted fighter who 
had rescued him. 
After lunch we stood for some time watching the un- 
ending stream of camions proceeding into Verdun. I 
believe it has been stated that on the average one passed 
through the \illage every fifteen seconds, and that there 
arc something like twelve thousand motor vehicles used in 
the defence of Verdun. The splendid condition of the 
roads and the absence of all confusion in the handling of 
this immense volume of traffic form a great tribute to the 
organising genius of the chiefs of the French Army. 
We left General Nivelle, as General Petain predicted 
we should tind him — smiling. 
{To be concluded) 
Property and the State 
By Arthur Kitson 
SINCE the rise of the Labour party, the demand 
for increasing the power of the State over pro- 
perty has grown amazingly. In almost evefy 
journal one reads nowadays dealing with trade, 
industry, labour and capital, writers of all shades 
of political opinion suggest or insist upon the necessity 
for the State taking a more active interest in economic 
affairs which formerly were regarded as entirely outside 
the scope of Government control. 
The cla:ssical school of Mill and Spencer with its 
doctrine of laissez-faire, seems to have dwindled to 
microscopic proportions. The old bogey of State 
Socialism — with which members of the various individ- 
ualistic schools were wont to frighten the public — seems 
to have lost its terrors. Indeed, we are now experienc- 
ing a degree of State interference in every department 
of life which would have seemed incredible a decade 
ago, and which if attempted half-a-century ago would 
have driven our fathers and grandfathers into revolt. 
This encroachment on tho part of the State is not con- 
fined to this country. It is part of a world-wide move- 
ment in which every Government has found it essential 
for economic- reasons to identify itself more and more 
with the trade and industry of its own people. More- 
over, it is certain that this movement is bound to in- 
crease as the war proceeds. Whether we like it or not 
we are in for an era of State control over hundreds of 
matters which formerly were regarded as purely per- 
"sonal. Let us then inquire what we mean by the 
terms State and Property as well as the cause of this 
momentous change which has led the public — including 
many who were formerly classified as individualists — 
to regard the increased powers of Government with 
complacency if not with favour. 
By the word State, broadly speaking, we usually mean 
the governing power, consisting of the three Govern- 
mental departments. Administrative, Legislative, and 
Judicial. In this country it would comprise King, 
Cabinet, Parliament, Judiciary and Governmental 
officers, including the military and piolice. . But since 
the Cabinet of late years has become practically 
supreme, one frequently speaks of this body, which 
wields entire political power, as alone representing the 
State. In Germany, where the Kaiser is an autocrat, 
he might with trutli define the State in thfd words of 
another despot, " L'Etat, c'est moi ! " 
In the minds of some, the word has a much more 
comprehensive meaning. The advocate of State 
Socialism, for instance, regards liimself and every other 
citizen as a j)art of tlie State. He considers the State 
officials and members of Parliament as merely directors 
of the State which comprises the entire nation. There- 
fore when he asks the Government to nationalise the 
land, and the implements of production generally., he 
does so in the belief that everything will be conducted 
by the State officials for the sole benefit of the nation 
— including himself. To individualists, the State re- 
presents merely a gang of office holders — often a corrupt 
and ignorant gang. The strength of individualism 
has been derived from history and experience. In all 
ages the State; w hether autocratic, aristocratic, oligarchic 
or democratic in form, has been more or less 
oppressive, wasteful and corrupt, and the greatest human 
struggles in the past have been those in which tlie 
people have attempted to escape from or overthrow the 
tyranny of the State. 
With the recent extension of the representative 
system, the public have ceased to connect tyranny with 
Government — except in countries where the autocratic 
system still prevails. Fifty or more years ago the fear 
of State oppression in England was still acute, and the 
average citizen was more concerned about preserving 
his personal liberty and freedom than developing the 
trade of the Empire, or securing the country against 
invasion. The improvement in the education and status 
of the labouring classes has altered the political con- 
ditions of all industrial countries very materially. The 
working classes regard the State more as their friend 
and saviour than as a tyrant. F'or it is to legislation 
they owe most of the advantages denied to their fore- 
fathers. They point to the numerous Factory Acts, 
Employers Liability Act, Education, Trades Union and 
Pension Statutes as resjionsible for their improved con- 
dition. And not unnaturally they contend that by ex- 
tending the powers and scope of the State, all their 
disabilities can be removed and the age-long struggle 
between Labour and Capital can be finally and peace- 
fully settled. 
Many modern writers point to the fact that both from 
the moral and economic standpoints the economic 
policy of laisscz-jairc has been a dismal failure, that it 
tended to divide society, and keep it divided — into two 
classes — the very poor and the very rich ! The wisdom 
or folly of the " let-alone " policy depends entirely upon 
the particular stage when and where the policy begins. 
Supposing for example, a surgeon attempted to cure a 
disease by the use of the knife which might readily be 
cured bv some more natural remedy. Before the operation 
