is really its present tendency. Meanwhile, neither Mr Balfour nor any of those who speak about social reform have clearly defined what they mean by "social reform." It is possible that they have not exactly thought it out in all its bearings themselves. We have, therefore, to judge from the measures that have been actually put forward under that name as to its true significance and tendency, and it is plain that they have, without exception, been initiated and inspired by the Socialist organisations. It is of Socialist measures put forward in the name of "social reform" by those who repudiate the name of Socialism that I desire to speak as "the new Socialism."
First and most important of these, because it affects the whole population of working age, is the recognition of the "right to work," which is implied by the "Unemployed Workmen Act." It was, of course, denied by its authors that the Act contained any such implication, and Mr Gerald Balfour, in proposing it, urged that it was so safeguarded by all sorts of restrictions and limitations that no such danger was to be apprehended. Public money was not to be used except for machinery, and even for that it was limited to a penny rate. Poor Law relief was to disqualify, and the benefit of the Act was to be confined by investigation to a strictly limited section of the higher class of workmen "exceptionally out of work." The opponents of the Act pointed out that if once the principle of State-provided work were recognised the safeguards would be bound to go; that all experience had proved that it was ruinous for the State to attempt to provide work outside of that demanded by the economic needs of the community; that when the State stepped in voluntary subscriptions would disappear, and that real and effective discrimination by public bodies was an impossibility. However,
