own hands. In return for such privileges, we must secure by enactment that the Union shall be under an enforceable obligation not to abuse its trust, and, in order to create common interests among the members of the Union in the government of such an industry, make it a condition of such recognition that a large portion of the shares shall not be allotted to individual members, but shall be set apart as belonging to the corporation itself as its economic basis, this portion of the shares to be incapable of alienation by or to anyone. Such, in outline, are some of the means by which a beginning might be made towards establishing a real democracy. But only a beginning. One warning in conclusion. The most elaborate of schemes, the most far-reaching legislation, the most revolutionary of constitutions, may be necessary and good, but when these are divorced from the people and are alien to their understanding or desire they are but mere husks and will effect nothing. No legislation or governing benevolence or administrative foresight will save a people that has no longing for it. And it is precisely there that the difficulty of those who would restore property to a people is greatest. For property is primarily a spiritual auxiliary, and when its function is not understood it comes to be a mere tyranny. Therefore you cannot restore the institution of property in its full health, as you can nationalise industries, merely by signing a paper at Whitehall; for it is a problem not of mere organisation, but one which touches in its essence the character and temper of the people, and the institutions which express them. It is because we believe that the real England is hidden away, that the real genius of the people is unheard or inarticulate in the roar of modern industrialism; it is because we believe that the soul of the nation is still alive and ready to burst forth from the dishonoured obscurity and gloom into which it has been thrust; it is because we believe these things that we are confident that measures of reform consonant with our nature, and embodying institutions and ideals which once flourished on this soil, will set free again that national activity, and will give scope for the exercise of those virtues which alone can save us from the peril of spiritual destruction. J. E. F. M. APPENDIX A (to Chapter III). A NOTE ON MINDING ONE'S OWN BUSINESS. Mr. Shaw, who was received with cheers, said that . . . the finest 'hing that could be said of anyone at the end of his career was, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant". They were all born to service, and any man who shrank from his share of that service was a thief or a beggar." Morning Post" report of Mr. Shaw's speech at Queen's Hall, 28 Jan., 1913. PRESENT for any normal citizen are these two perils: the "successful career" and "scientific philanthropy ". The popular antithesis between the individual and the community is implied in current political controversy, and is likely to emerge in personal practice as a difficulty in reconciling the duty of promoting the public good with that of minding one's own business. It might, of course, be denied that this antithesis is real, but such a denial is so difficult to vindicate in practice that those whose acts imply it are apt either to pursue their own individual good on the assumption that this good will necessarily involve that of the whole community, or else to become so wholeheartedly their brothers' keepers as to live laborious days in harrying the poor. Between Scylla and Charybdis the normal citizen shall not walk unharmed except by taking plain thought; and it would not be right, therefore, that a consideration of current theory should fail to face this apparent antithesis between the individual and the community. And there is need that it be faced for this further reason. Idealists whose creed is not ours are often enabled to claim a |