from the time of Robert Owen onwards, but they have without exception failed. The property instinct is too deeply seated in human nature to tolerate such conditions. Neither would any Englishman endure for a day such a State regulation of his private life as must follow. Apart from that, our experience of the management of business affairs by public bodies, which are constantly changing in opinion and constitution, is not such as to warrant us in looking forward with complacency to the management of our industrial affairs by the State.
I do not know whether any one here has seen a little book by the late Dr Richter, who was leader of the German Liberal Party, entitled "Pictures of the Socialistic Future." It is a fanciful story of a German workman and his family who have been ardent supporters of the social revolution, and opens at the time when that revolution is supposed to have been accomplished amidst great popular rejoicings. At first everything is couleur de rose, and our friend the workman cannot congratulate himself sufficiently. But before long difficulties begin to arise; his children bring in the news that the savings banks are closed and guarded by soldiers. Property is abolished and community of goods established, so that private citizens have no further need for savings, and the savings of his life-time are appropriated by the State. Next, the organisation of industry by the State necessitates the separation of the family. His daughter's betrothed is sent away from Berlin to a distant German town because there are too many of his trade in Berlin. The youngest child has to be sent to the State institution for children, and the mother is only allowed to visit her at fixed times and under strict regulations; she is not even allowed to take her a toy, or a packet of sweets, "for fear of
