many in a forbidding guise, a reading of that first Fabian Essay in which Mr. Shaw argues so adroitly from Ricardian theory persuades them very often that exact justice necessarily implies the validity of that further inference which Fabians see fit to make. They then proceed to persuade themselves that the obvious dangers of the Fabian proposal may be neutralised by the grace of God or the omnipotence of Democracy.

Mr. Shaw says in that Essay:

So long as the fertility of land varies from acre to acre, and the number of persons passing by a shop window per hour varies from street to street, with the result that two farmers or shopkeepers of exactly equal intelligence and industry will reap unequal returns from their year's work, so long will it be equitable to take from the richer farmer or shopkeeper the excess over his fellow's gain which he owes to the bounty of Nature or to the advantage of situation, and divide that excess of rent equally between the two.

And later in the same Essay:

The economic object of Socialism is not, of course, to equalise farmers and shopkeepers in couples, but to carry out the principle over the whole community by collecting all rents and throwing them into the national treasury... the socialisation of rent would mean the socialisation of the sources of production by the expropriation of the present private proprietors, and the transference of their property to the entire nation.

Thus does Collectivism seem, at first sight, to rest firm on the impregnable rocks of abstract justice and economic necessity. And since even Fabians would assume it thus to stand or fall in the last resort, let us try, with one or two of the simpler tests, the fabric of these twin bases of their faith.

Whatever justice may involve, the common sense of men does not demand, in the distribution of external goods, a mathematically equal division. Many would

contend further that such a division cannot be just, so long as needs or tastes differ; but even if they did not differ common sense would refuse to believe that efforts to attain it must, beyond a certain point, be necessary or even sane. But even if Mr. Shaw were right in assuming such an exact division to be the proper aim of sane citizens, even so he tacitly omits several vitally important steps in the process of his argument from Ricardian theory.

For instance, he does not explain why his argument should apply to "external" goods only. He assumes it only necessary to say that "it will be equitable to take from the richer farmer or shopkeeper that excess over his fellow's gain" which he owes not to his own intelligence and industry.

When the Anti-Socialist Union pleads that some ground-landlords work, the Fabian replies easily that independently of that work they are bound to enjoy, as ground-landlords, an advantage due merely to a difference in soils or sites. His insistence on this shows that what he has in mind is "economic rent," as distinct from "rent" in the ordinary sense of the whole sum periodically paid for the soil or site rented. This merely "differential" advantage he wishes to redistribute in such a way that all citizens will be left exactly equal exactly so far as the advantage in externals of one over another would be, without such redistribution, merely "differential ". But what of goods "non-external"? Why should not the argument apply equally to those? Mr. Shaw postulates "two farmers or shopkeepers of exactly equal intelligence and industry". But why, on Mr. Shaw's own ground, should that sort of equality be just?

Indeed, there used to be talk, both in Fabian circles and elsewhere, of such things as the "Rent of Ability". Fabians used to say that the power in exchange of each man's ability was not all due to his own use of his original opportunities, but partly to the mere original superiority of those opportunities over those of the exchanger of the ability least powerful in exchange who would just rather exchange it in that market than not. Therefore," they concluded, "logic and justice demand that this merely differential advantage shall be redistributed, and its enjoyers so far equalised."

"How?" it might have been asked.

"By their being made salaried State-employees."

"But that would not so redistribute it unless salaries were fixed by law on a scale determined by an exactly accurate subtraction of this merely differential advantage in opportunities. How could that be done?"

"By a consideration of the public good."

"That is to say, you would cease to ask whether any individual was getting more than he ostensibly deserved, and you would ask instead what the public need ostensibly required. But do you believe that even on that new ground any committee of experts could determine exactly how supply and demand stood at any particular moment in every particular sort and grade of ability, and then go on to infer from that what exact remuneration of each particular employee the public need at that moment required?"

"We do not feel sure, but can we not exactly equalise opportunity through free education for all?"

"Improbably; but even if you could so equalise op

portunity itself what about the gift of seizing it? Your argument from economic rent still applies."

"That may sound logical, but it is certainly pedantic." "Agreed, and that is equally true of your own application of Ricardian theory to externals."

"But if we cannot achieve mathematical equality, surely we ought to get as near to it as possible."

"At any cost? Suppose the share of each man in externals were as nearly equal as 4 is to 5; suppose that by enormous common effort it were possible to make the proportion as near as 4 to 5. Would that effort be worth while, especially if it wasted time and energy which might have been increasing greatly the store of external goods to be distributed?"

"No, it would not: then let the division approach reasonably near to equality."

"Agreed again; but by this last admission of yours you have yourself splintered those twin rocks of your faith. Nothing is left you now but to enter the same boat with those who desire such a reasonable approximation to equality in externals as common sense demands."

But Mr. Shaw omits several other important steps from his argument. Even if this Ricardian theory could be applied only to externals, his conclusion does not follow. Having implied a distinction between "economic" rent and rent in the more popular sense he seems to ignore it in proposing that all rents should be thrown into the national treasury. He has been contending that it is equitable to equalise men in externals exactly so far as the economic value of the property of each involves an

advantage merely differential. But he commits a simple non-sequitur if he offers as the next logical step the contention that therefore no man ought to own property in the means of production. Several steps in the reasoning must have been omitted, and it is upon the validity of just these steps that the logical necessity of Collectivism rests.

We have seen that the reasonable end at which Collectivists may aim is not a mathematical equality, but as reasonable an approximation as common sense would demand when not bewitched by false analogies from mathematics. One of the missing steps in Mr. Shaw's argument must be that in no other way than the vesting in the State of all the means of production can mathematical equality be attained. But can it be attained even so? Fabians have to prove first that the Statewhich consists of imperfect and fallible persons-will redistribute this differential advantage in the justest possible way. If they contend that this will be guaranteed by the inevitable triumph of political democracy, they have first to prove that political power can be, in England today, real without economic resource.

Mr. Shaw ought also to have shown why a reasonable approach to equality in externals need be unattainable otherwise. It is probable that he felt himself absolved from this duty by the fact that his equality must be not reasonable but mathematical. Those who would prefer theirs to be reasonable cannot absolve this argument (which omits such a proof) from assuming what most needed demonstration. It is Mr, Shaw's rôle to conjure