The proposed aid to mothers and children is not a feature of the German programme. Nor has it been adopted in Great Britain as yet, but so many innovations have already been introduced that there are good chances that it will be.

But it is the progress of complete operation of certain industries, like railways, that marks the greatest progress toward State Socialism in an individualistic though democratic country like Great Britain.

The New Statesman describes as follows the control of the railways as worked out at the end of 1914:

On the outbreak of war an Order in Council was made under Section 16 of the Regulation of the Forces Act, 1871, declaring that it was expedient that the government should have control of the railroads. This control was to be exercised by a Committee of General Managers, with the President of the Board of Trade as official chairman. The result of this was that the railways were promptly treated as one unit; the fight for traffic-what little fight there was left— ceased. The Railway Clearing House was practically closed, hundreds of the clerks from there being utilized (mainly through the efforts of the officials of the Railways Clerks' Association) in various ways by the various companies. As everyone knows, under the new régime the service was wonderfully efficient. Troops were transported and embarked with marvelous speed, and everything worked as smoothly as possible. This was largely owing to the fact that, unknown to most people, the Committee of Control had been in existence for some considerable time before war was declared with definite and well-thought-out plans. Thus, whilst opponents were declaring the impossibility of nationalization, railway managers were quietly and successfully working out the details of a national system. Now for the terms.

The Regulation of the Forces Act provides that full compensation shall be paid to the owners of the railroads for any loss or injury they may have sustained whilst under government control. "His Majesty's Government have agreed with the railway companies," in this instance, "that, subject to the under-mentioned condition, the compensation to be paid them

shall be the sum by which the aggregate net receipts of the railways for the period during which the government are in possession of them fall short of the aggregate net receipts for the corresponding period for 1913." The "under-menmentioned condition" is that, as trade had declined slightly during the first half of the year, an adjustment was to be made to cover that. Practically this means that the railways are guaranteed dividends on last year's basis or very near last year's basis. Not only that, but they are guaranteed against any "injury" they may sustain. We leave it to those best informed as to what is the practice of the companies to say how this will be interpreted. It is, shall we say, possible that a good deal of latitude will be taken and many repairs put in hand which, in the ordinary course of things, would not be touched.

Up to the time of writing this describes the degree to which nationalization had gone. The New Statesman, organ of England's most scholarly and practical Socialists, does not expect it to go farther, except to satisfy the more moderate demands of railway employees. Nor does it feel confident that even this conservative policy of semi-nationalization will last after the war. It says:

The business of the country had to be carried on, especially the primary business of transporting soldiers and munitions of war, and if the government had not taken control this business would have fallen to the companies in the ordinary course at some recognized rate. It is true that most of them would probably in this case not have made nearly as much out of the state as they will make under the existing arrangements; but while we permit them to hold the position of privilege and influence which they enjoy in government circles to-day we cannot be surprised if they secure good terms for themselves.

How has all this affected the prospects of railway nationalization? In some quarters it seems to be taken for granted that permanent state control must follow as a logical result of the government's recent action. But it is not clear, to say the least, that this is what will happen. Logically, of course, it ought to happen; but then, logically, railway nationalization

ought to have come about years ago. On the whole it would appear that the railway companies are likely to be strengthened rather than weakened by the war. Alone among business enterprises in this country they are guaranteed against loss; and it may be assumed that they will not miss this unique opportunity of permanently reorganizing their services and considerably extending their joint working arrangements, which, whilst removing many public grievances, will effect appreciable economies. Still more important, if the war should last for a considerable time, they will have standardized their dividends at a comfortably high rate; and so increased the price at which the public would have to buy them out. Meanwhile the public debt will have greatly increased and the state of the money market will not be such as to make any Chancellor of the Exchequer very anxious to attempt the flotation of the enormous amount of public stock which railway purchase would require. The fact remains that private ownership will still be as great an anomaly and as much in the way, for example, of any effective land reform after the war as it was before; and its fate, like the fate of a great many other things, will depend upon the general condition of domestic politics and of the public attitude in regard to them.

The New Statesman, however, and the British Socialists generally, are so anxious for railway nationalization that such half-way measures would naturally seem to them like no progress at all. And it may well be that the war will bring about nationalization either at its close or within a few years, not only of railways, but of docks and perhaps even of other branches of production such as coal mines-so fundamentally vital to every industry. The necessity to improve the efficiency of the nation in competition with other nations, and thus to recoup the losses of war, may prove as strong an impelling force as the necessities of the war itself.

But the need to supply the vast armies in the field and the need to feed the people at home are only a part of the forces compelling State Socialist policies. The inter

ruption of foreign trade compels the governments to come to the rescue of threatened industries, as we saw in the case of Germany. Thus aniline dyes, no longer to be secured from Germany, enter into products of British industry valued at $1,000,000,000 annually. The government took up this problem at once. Again the steps taken were petty and slow. The government first proposed a loan to a private dye-manufacturing corporation. It finally decided for technical reasons— to supply certain Swiss establishments with chemicals they lacked and to get the chief supply in this way. It contributed $500,000 for experimentation over a period of ten years, but it was found that one of the large German establishments was expending this much on experiments every year. Nevertheless a beginning has been made and the government will be forced to see the new undertaking to a successful conclusion.

Direct war needs, however, compelled a far more rapid evolution, as witnessed by the law giving the government power to take over any industrial establishment for war purposes. Such establishments will not remain in the government's hands after the war. But many new methods will be introduced, especially in the handling of labor, and a large part of these will doubtless be permanent. Moreover, wherever the government will have proved equally efficient with, or more efficient than, the private owners, an unanswerable argument will have been given for later nationalization or municipalization. As Lloyd George pointed out, the success of this policy will be the strongest possible argument for collectivism," since the British people are essentially a people who act on example and experiment rather than on argument."

And above all, the nation may come to feel that certain other objects-such as an efficient population-are

quite as important as success in war. When it does this the whole machinery will be prepared for the partial or total nationalization (or municipalization) of all the more important branches of manufacture.

But there is another branch of collectivism equally important with governmental operation of industry and governmental organization of labor, the new and radical increases in taxation. These, as I have said, are almost bound to rise still further after the war, when the interest on the huge debts now being contracted will have to be paid. After the war, too, the democratic forces will be freer to act and these taxes will be graduated still more heavily against the wealthy. Since the war the income tax has already been doubled in Great Britain, and one-fourth is now taken from the "unearned" income of the wealthiest group, i.e. from income derived from bonds, dividends, etc. If this process of doubling is extended during the war to other forms of taxation, the inheritance tax will take 30 per cent. of the largest fortunes, and 40 per cent. will be taken from the rise in urban land values.

After the war, when political democracy resumes its advance, its leader, Lloyd George, his prestige enormously increased as the Great War Chancellor, will have two courses before him. The high income and inheritance tax rates now directed against the wealthiest alone may be directed against the merely wealthy also, they being then forced to pay 25 or 30 per cent. Or the wealthiest may have their taxes further increased until, say half their fortunes and incomes are expropriated. Or the two methods may be combined, which is the more likely course. At the same time the tax on the rise in land values could safely be raised to 50 per cent. and extended from the cities to all rural land not in the possession of small holders. If these tax methods are