hatred of philosophy. It is not in the English character to be caught by words such as Utilitarianism, Positivism, or Efficiency. A Teutonic affection for such abstractions is contrary to the glorious tradition of opportunism, which is our Athenian inheritance. Of late years we have been obsessed with Prussia. Mr. Lloyd George has stolen from its Teutonic cradle the monstrous abortion of the Insurance Act. Lord Rosebery has been charmed with the subtle poison of efficiency. Lord Haldane, in his book Before the War, cannot restrain his admiration of Germany's ability to organize on the basis of widely diffused exact knowledge." It is quite possible that such dangerous admirations may place a nation that has but narrowly escaped State militarism under the equally disastrous and servile yoke of State Socialism.

CHAPTER VIII

SOCIALISM AND LABOUR

THE fundamental

theories on which

Socialism is built have now been traced and examined. It has been shown how the German philosophers have extracted from the Conservative past the idea of the organized and Static State, how they have given authority to it by the inculcation of the emotion of State idolatry, and how they propose to use the system when constructed for the purposes of control and the gratification of the instinct for power. It need hardly be mentioned that this particular phase of German Kultur was to be inaugurated by war and revolution, since such Conservative ideas spring naturally into the Prussian mind. There has been, however, during the last few years, a considerable slump in what may be called blood-politics. It has been demonstrated that war produces so vast a havoc among economic values that it is as much as mankind can do to survive its operation. Not only is it impossible to make war the foundation of a

new economic era, but it requires the whole consolidated energy of mankind to gather together enough from the wreck to make possible the continuance of mere existence. As for revolution, the experiments of the band of Jews that left Germany to set up Socialism in Russia have hardly popularized the method. A tyranny of intellectual desperadoes murdering the educated in order to preserve a minority in power, and using force to prevent the operation of Democracy, will very quickly destroy the patriotic instinct. All those who can will fly abroad, as they did during the Terror in France. And those who can't will compound a felony and join for ulterior purposes in the game of tyranny.

Peaceful penetration has therefore been substituted among the Western nations for blood-politics as a method of realizing the socialistic State. The use of parliamentary expedients, the capture of the electorate by oratory and propaganda, are to lead forward to the slow socialization of individual industries and the gradual undermining of the Capitalist position. The method of peaceful penetration, however, has several grave disadvantages. Almost any well-developed coal-heaver can engage in blood-politics. But peaceful penetration requires considerable intellectual equipment, more especially since it is directed against

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the most highly educated classes. It also requires, alas, the assistance of money, the creation of party funds and party discipline. Instead of money being seized, it has sadly to be spent. Instead of intellect being murdered, it has to be put in harness and made to pull the coach. Peaceful penetration, therefore, made it necessary to forget about the class-war and to open wide the doors of Socialism to lawyers, men of letters, men of business, muddleheaded peers, and other black-coated gentry who will inevitably form a right" wing to the Socialist movement, soften its original outline, and impede its fundamental purpose. The second disadvantage of peaceful penetration is the slowness with which it moves. In the physical conflict of blood-politics it is the big battalions of Labour that would give it a quick and useless victory. But in the intellectual conflict of peaceful penetration, where people have to be convinced by other arguments than a blow on the head, the Capitalist minority will put up a prolonged and powerful opposition fight. It will take Mr. Smillie four or five years to nationalize the mines against the skilful political antagonism of old parliamentary hands like Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Asquith. But the politicians are only the front-line trench of Capital. What is happening behind the lines during the prolonged trench-battle ?

Capital is getting away the stores, in case it is forced to retreat. The big land-owners are disappearing in England and reappearing in Canada, South Africa, Newfoundland, and the Malay States. It is a curious, but none the less true, fact that there are very few countries left where foreign labour is welcomed, but foreign capital is always received with open arms. Capital, scenting the danger from afar, will use the years of peaceful penetration to spread itself out, dividing itself and hiding itself all over the world. And when the final victory of peaceful penetration is accomplished the accumulated wealth of the country will have gone. No doubt the land, the machinery, the railways, and other immovable stock will remain, from the bedrock of which the Socialist State will have to rebuild the edifice of industry. Everything therefore depends upon whether the Socialist State can command the brains and energy of the community for such a task, or whether the capitalist himself will follow his capital to lands of freedom and pleasure.

Here we reach the third disadvantage of peaceful penetration. The instinct of Lenin in the direction of world-revolution was the correct and logical outcome of blood-politics; he knew that his tyranny would fail if people could escape from it, and that it must be universally applied.