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the part of the most able in society, who would be tempted to reduce their production to the meager output of the least valuable workers. (7) As personal property would still exist and rights would be established in connection with rentals, there would still be large room for invasion of rights and consequent litigation, especially if the right of gift and of inheritance were maintained. Industrial differences would require judicial adjustment in more instances than under the present system in which there is so much of negotiation between the interested persons. (8) Socialism does not remove the cause or the occasion of strikes, it merely shifts the basis; the contention, instead of being between private or corporate employer and employed, will be between the government and the employed. Complaints that some workers receive an undue proportion of the wealth produced, will doubtless be submitted to arbitration; but strikes would follow that arbitration as frequently as now. It is only on the Marxian basis of time payment regardless of quantity and quality of output that strikes would disappear; and, if that system were established, there soon would be a revolt of the more efficient workers.

I%. Criticism: In addition to these categorical strictures other objections of greater force may be presented: (1) Socialism would largely terminate individual opportunity. The individual would no longer be free to choose that work for which he is best fitted. All would be required to accept what the government indicated. What is unfortunately true of some to-day, would become the rule for all. (2) The demand for the nationalization of the soil may have some ground of reason in Europe where the toiler is excluded from the land held by great estates. It is foundationless in this country where it is difficult to obtain a sufficient number of persons to till the soil. (3) The doctrine of the increasing misery of the wage-earners, prominent in the Manifesto of 1848, is still held by some socialists, though abandoned by the more intelligent, who substitute the claim that the difference in the economic comfort of rich and poor is increasing. The latter claim is unsubstantiated, the former demonstrably false. (4) The tyranny of socialism would necessarily result in arrest of the general progress. The advance of civilization has come of individual initiative; socialism removes opportunity by suppressing individual production. Some socialists claim that the industrial phase of government would be conducted by the same men who are now industrial leaders. They fail to show how the most able are to be discovered and advanced to leadership. Under the competitive system the man who has the best machine or method of management passes the less progressive. Under socialism the men who are in control will not look with favor on the inventive person whose success would involve their retirement. Society will thus be robbed of the elements of progress which competition supplies. (5) The claim that the ablest will be the leaders is, however, without foundation. The highest talent can not be enlisted by a system which robs it of its adequate rewards; and, if coerced by stern necessity, will not have the spirit to give its

best work. Furthermore, the structure of the industrial system will be political, not economic. The men in office will be the plausible and the talkative, not the thinkers and organizers. Such men will rigorously exclude from office the men who might achieve for society. (6) This absorption of all power by the political demagogue would be impregnably fortified by the absolute control and censorship of the press by the government which would suppress all external publication. As the government could not publish everything offered, it would be necessary, to have a body to determine what books and what newspaper or magazine articles should be published. All articles and books seeking to expose government corruption would be sternly suppressed, and the one md6od of informing the public would thus be closed to all reformers. Under these conditions the arrest of general progress would be complete. (7) Although the more intelligent socialists, recognizing the share in production of inventive and organizing genius, the grades of skill, the participation of insurance, interest, and provision for replacement, have abandoned the Marxian doctrine of equal payment for all workers, manual and mental, according to the number of work-hours; nevertheless, the mass of socialists cling to the doctrine and proclaim it as their aim. This would be the robbery of the skilled in favor of the unskilled, robbery of the head-worker to enrich the hand-worker, an exploitation as unjust as any wrong of which socialists complain in the present system. (8) Socialists perceive that the institution of the family within the socialistic system threatens the prosperity and permanence of the system, as it constitutes an interest more engrossing than the body politic. This has been the defect in those experiments which have perished. Attack is, therefore, made upon the family by suggesting the separate support of the mother while she cares for her children, the public rearing and care of children, and even free and terminable marriages. Another attack on the family appears in the desire to abolish inheritance, first openly stated in the manifesto of 1848. This strikes at the right and duty of the father to support his children, fully recognized in both Jewish and Christian ethics. In application it would be undisguised legal robbery. (9) The confiscation of land and the factors of production without compensation to the owners, as advocated by the Fabian Society and others, would be robbery by legislation, as would also the repudiation of the national debt demanded by the English Social Democrats. It becomes evident from what precedes that, instead of developing a high brotherly regard for others, socialism exalts greed and indolence and the disposition to profit by the exploitation of others. In a word, socialism claims a right to do that which it condemns in the competitive system.

%. Improvements Needed: It may justly be admitted that improvements are needed and possible in the competitive system. For American industrial society the chief improvements needed may be grouped under three topics: (1) The relation be. tween employer and employed. (2) The condition of the unskilled. (3) The equalization of produe-