world will never be so blissful a place that the need of charity will end. But the democratic state will not leave welfare work to the impulses of charity, nor permit it as an act of condescension; it must be the serious and intelligent business of the entire community. "The forward-looking few in England have with them a dumb majority who can see well enough that the age of privileged leisure must give place to the age of equal labor for the common. good. There is still too much to be opposed in the conventions of society, the nepotism and favoritism of the ruling classes and the general waste of intelligence, for the ideal aimed at to be the center of common interest, and therefore that ideal is not clearly conceived. But it is easy to obtain a response from any group of those who aim at democracy if the Utopias are described in which what are now the privileges of leisure,-music, painting, and the rest, are imagined to belong by right to those who work."

In the second place, Mr. Burns affirms that democracy in England involves a sense of the equal value of work well done. He has some difficulty in extricating his thesis from the socialistic trend towards the discouragement of ability and the establishment of universal mediocrity. But he But he is clear that "in its best meaning, the democratic feeling of the equal value of all good work does not imply the denial of a superior value to intelligence. The point is that so long as the work is honest and necessary it is equal with all other such work in being socially good, and that alone is the ground for the workman's confidence in him

self." He also finds a modifying influence upon the ideals of democracy to flow from the inveterate English love of "sport." The democrats of France and other countries are disposed to regard the English democrat as lacking in earnestness or as being reckless. But real strength comes to the English from the possibility of selfcriticism which is implied in turning solemnities to laughter, and relieving labor with sport.

On the political side, the ideals of democracy in England involve principally a modification of the present system of representation and freer access to the land and the means of production. The government of England

be

must cease to be a matter for the occupation of a single class, the rich. The business of becoming and being a member of Parliament must no longer be so costly that the poor man cannot aspire to it. "The ideal of political democracy must clearly involve some reform by which political ability may given its due place without the assistance either of private wealth or party funds." As to the other matter, "a few months before the war, the democratic movement in England was concentrating attention upon the land problem, and after the war the problem will be with us again. The political ideal at work is not the mere substitution of small owners for large owners, but the recognition by the state that land should not be a form of private property, any more than are water or air." As to the improvement of industrial and social conditions, Rousseau's theory of the office of the state in correcting natural inequalities in health, strength, parent

age, or external circumstances, in order that the more important and valuable differences in character and intelligence may have free play, "lives on as a vaguely conceived ideal in the English efforts at industrial legislation, and we are clearly aiming at the democratic end of securing for every man and woman as much human life as is possible without subverting the whole of our inherited methods of government." As to the position of the trade unions, the author has this to say: "English trade unionism as a political force has all the strength of self-confidence. Its members are not inclined any longer to be afraid of their own power, and although the majority may be uncertain in what direction that power should be used, the attitude of trade unionism is no longer apologetic or timorous That shows the better side of the English aspirations towards democracy. But trade unionism, like English democracy in general, is deficient first in its incurable separatism, and secondly in its lack of appreciation for intelligence and intellectual qualities. The unions are not really at one in any great principle of social policy, and in their struggle with capital they do not often join hands. On the other hand, the unions have not adopted any policy nor even shown any interest in the larger issues of education. Their members generally are suspicious of any outstanding ability, and they have not yet learned to value the intelligence, which they might use, of those who do not work with their hands." For finally For finally this distrust or hostility towards intelligence remains, as Mr. Burns says, as

the one corroding deficiency in every form of the English democratic ideal.

"The Menace of Maxi

malism."

"It is one of the contradictions of the situation (so writes Mr. Norman Angell under this title in The New Republic for October 27, 1917) that this war, towards which the extremer social reformers and socialists as a body are so cold, has accomplished over-night, as it were, a development of socialism which mere agitation would not have accomplished in half a century; and, a further contradiction, towards that development neither capitalism nor imperialism has shown itself particularly hostile. Yet the revolutionary movemet among socialists is growing apace." The press of Great Britain has begun to regard this phenomenon with grave concern. It is pronounced a national danger. Policies of severe repression are advocated. In this country also, a serious appreciation of the situation, if not positive alarm, is becoming manifest, in view, for example, of the astonishing increase in the socialist vote polled in the municipal election in New York in November; and the demand gains strength that successfully restraining measures shall be put into effect against the radical agitators of all kinds. France and Italy have gone through similar experiences, says Mr. Angell, and evidently the problem involved is common to the western democracies. The root of the matter probably lies, he thinks, in the results to the working classes of the govern

ment's close supervision (if not actual physical control) of the industries necessary to the prosecution of war, in England and some other European countries. Was not just such control the hope and dream of the socialists? Precisely, and their own philosophers were not weary of telling them that under such a system the workers would be turned into masters and come into their own. But hundreds of thousands are disillusioned. There has grown up "resentment against the bureaucratic state which has replaced the individual employer, or rather, in many cases, made a government official out of him and given him greater powers than ever. The worker still finds himself a 'wage slave.' But whereas before he had at least some choice of employers, some freedom of movement, could leave one job and go to another, could resent the tyranny of a foreman by downing tools, he finds, or has often found, that under the state he cannot leave, that this is an employer who can punish insubordination with death, by sending or returning a man to the army, and is one against whom it is treason. to strike. And the 'state,' he finds, is really a new name for the old employer. The self-same 'master' for whom he worked originally has now become a government official, backed with all the forces of the government." So now the demand of the new socialism is not for state management of the industries, but for ownership by the state and management by the workers. For instance, the English socialists now demand the confiscation of the railroads by the state (without compensation) and that they

shall then be leased to the unions, who shall operate them.

Three facts or influences, according to Mr. Angell, have aroused the radicals to this new consciousness. First, they have seen the working of economic miracles. "With something like half the workers, and that half the best, drawn from production, the remainder can not only maintain the life of the country at a standard which is materially better on the whole than that which obtained before the war, but they can supply the vast quantity of material needed for the war itself. An obvious conclusion is that if the present workers, instead of being engaged upon the production of mountains of shells and war material, to be immediately destroyed, were engaged upon the production of things which made for the common welfare, and if to that source of increase were added the labor of those now under arms, the amount of wealth available for distribution, if properly distributed, would create a standard of living in the country so different in degree from the old as to be different in kind."

The connection between compulsory military service and the institution of private property is not so obvious. But Mr. Angell finds that the existence of the former has profoundly influenced the minds of the radicals in their attitude towards the latter. Conscription, coming suddenly in England and doing violence to the whole traditions of the English people, was a vivid and startling fact. Its lesson was that every able-bodied man Owes a particular kind of service to the state, willy nilly,

and must, at the state's demand, be prepared to surrender even his ultimate possession, his life. Then, first, if he owes his life to the state, what does the state owe him in return? And second, if his tenure even of life itself is precarious as against the need of the state, has he a stronger title to his material possessions? Of course the British workingman's application of these questions was made only to his inveterate enemy, capitalism. But in that light the answer seemed to him clear. "For great masses of the British working classes conscription has solved the ethical problem involved in the confiscation of capital. The eighth commandment no longer stands in the way, as it stood so long in the case of a people still religiously minded and still feeling the weight of Puritan tradition. We have already had the demand from very powerful labor leaders for the confiscation outright, without compensation ('save for a generous provision against individual hardship') of railroads, mines, shipping, and public utilities generally."

A third influence playing upon the new consciousness of the radical leaders is their conviction that they will be justified in going to any lengths in the way of adventure and experiment. Has not the war witnessed many a military experiment, foredoomed to failure, or failing at the last in spite of heroic effort? And have not these experiments cost uncounted treasure, uncalculated suffering, and tens of thousands of lives? Then why be timid in the adventurous prosecution of plans for the revolutionizing of industry? Tell the advocate of the new doctrines that his

plans cannot succeed, that the work of the world cannot be so carried on, that credit will be upset, trade disturbed, and the whole house of his dreams come crashing to the ground, and he will simply answer: "What of it? What if the experiment does fail and we have to try something else? At any rate, it will not have cost ten million lives, like the war." We may be sure, says Mr. Angell, that the English maximalist is not to be impressed by such arguments; he is abundantly ready to take whatever risks may be involved, and "he will introduce a little of the strendousness and adventure of war into the life of peace."

But the question is asked why the advanced democrats, the radicals and socialists, should be, in the mass, so lukewarm or even hostile to the great enterprise of the war. "Why should these of all people be less alive than others to the danger of world domination by a power which is the most antipopular, anti-radical, and autocratic in the world, and the triumph of which would render the success of the radical millennium impossible? On the face of it, it would seem that it is precisely the revolutionary socialist who should be most concerned in the destruction of the most anti-revolutionary force of Christendom." Perhaps he is so concerned. But what comes nearer to his concern is his fear that the triumph of the allies in the war will not further his own private cause at all, but will result either in the establishment of a bureaucratic despotism in industry or in the domination of those "conservative" or "reactionary" elements of the people, whom he so ardently hates, and

who, so far as his vision goes, are precisely the most enthusiastic and determined partisans of the pro-war policy. "The radical not unnaturally asks what sort of peace is likely to result if that influence increases. And if he admits a risk to the democracy of the world in a too early cessation of the war, so also he sees a risk in its prolongation." Hence, finally, maximalists and other socialists formulate their demands and explain their attitude by saying that what they want is not a relaxing of the efforts to win the war, but an increase of the efforts to insure its "democratic"

outcome.

on the other hand, the writer registers his belief that "it is not likely that any society at any time will suffer from a plethora of heretical opinions. Least of all is this likely in a modern civilized society, where the conditions of life are in constant rapid change, and demand, for successful adaptation, an equally rapid change in intellectual outlook. There should therefore be an attempt to encourage rather than discourage the expression of new beliefs and the dissemination of knowledge tending to support them." He continues: "The greater part of human impulses may be divided into two classes, those which are possessive and those which are con

Control."

An able and convincing plea for individual freedom and the unhampered development of initiative in those things that pertain to the spirit, while admitting the need for an even increasing control by the state over those activities which find their outlet in material competition and in the gratification of acquisitive faculties, is presented under this title in The Atlantic Monthly for July, 1917, by the publicist Bertrand Russell, whose determined advocacy of fair play and fair trial for the "conscientious objectors" in England evoked wide comment, not all of it friendly or even temperate. After a discussion of the immemorial struggle of tribal and communal conservatism, backed by the immense force of tradition, on the one hand, and the sprouting impulses of the separate human being towards the challenging of accepted faiths and habits and to freedom of self-expression,

tions are the garments or embodiments of impulses, and may be classified roughly according to the impulses which they embody. Property is the direct expression of possessiveness; science and art are among the most direct expressions of creativeness. Possessiveness is either defensive or aggressive; it seeks either to retain something against a robber or to acquire something from a present holder. In either case, an attitude of hostility to others is of its essence." Defensive possessiveness, no less than that of the acquisitive sort, must be supported by force. But unrestrained liberty in the employment of force would invariably lead to injustice and would inaugurate anarchy. Hence freedom in this respect cannot continue in the individual. His primitive and unsocial liberty to kill, rob, and defraud has been curbed by law. It ought to be so, but it is not so, in the case of nations also. Under the name of "sovereignty" and the pre