gramme, till at length they would so gain in strength that their enemies would be forced to come to terms with a party that held a permanent majority in the Commons.

But it was also thought that the success of this policy demanded that as many people as possible should be drawn to Labour by the attractiveness of its programme, and as few as possible repelled. But it would greatly endanger its success for it to show too rugged a favour. In consequence it continuously aimed at the repression of all agitation which might make it seem too revolutionary or disturbing, and so frighten off possible adherents who had an affection for peaceful methods.

The result, therefore, was and is that as political activity advanced in favour economic agitation fell into disfavour, while the success that attended the peace displays of those who had already risen to some political eminence was a duly impressive lesson to those who hoped to follow in their footsteps.

But the real situation, and the measures necessary to cope with it, were so feebly grasped by these political advocates that the real result was far different from what was hoped. For this 'unique' programme of the Labourites turned out to be no monopoly of their party; but measure for measure, advocacy for advocacy, they found themselves outwitted and outbid by the very forces they were supposed to be attacking, and especially by the Liberal section of them. The measures which they proposed as bound to exterminate the capitalist were put forward in a more 'advanced' form by the much more wide-awake advocates of the capitalist classes. These foresaw the real effect of such measures; the Labour politicians-who

had extracted them from liberal and progressive textbooks-did not.

Thus it fell out that as against the position of the capitalist the political advocates of Labour resolved to bring not only a force that was primarily political, but also a force that was primarily pacific. For it was dissociated from every form of economic agitation. Now even supposing that this division of forces was not a weakening of their position, it is plain that by using political activity alone they had little chance of making any breach in the defences of their opponents, which consisted of the full (1) economic, and (2) political power at their masters' disposal. But, as it was, this division of forces and repression of economic agitation and pressure did not result in the loss only of such power as the economic agitation possessed directly, but in the loss also of such power as it possessed indirectly. Its repression actually weakened the political arm and reduced it to almost complete powerlessness. For bitten with the mania of Collectivism the leaders did not see that there was no conceivable method of shaking off the economic tyranny of the masters which did not have as its first aim the strengthening of the economic resource of the Unions by adding to the property both of the workers as individuals and of their corporations. For property was the bugbear of these leaders except when it came as the emolument of success in politics. The consequence was that not only did they throw over the power which rested upon the economic reserve of the Unions, but they also embarked upon a policy which so far from achieving the strengthening of the resources of Labour had quite a

different goal, and aimed at strengthening and enlarging the powers of the State and its satellite bodies.

It could hardly be expected even by one who had not the evidence of its actual results before his eyes, that a policy which was founded upon the repression of economic agitation could achieve very much in the way of economic emancipation, since it began by undervaluing the very element which it was called in to strengthen. And this blindness was evil in two ways, for not only did it darken the minds of the leaders by obscuring from them the true aim of their efforts, but it also brought confusion upon their constituents, by scattering their attention just when it should have been concentrated on a supreme issue, and so striking at every motive for cohesion and common action. And this in its turn led to a double weakness, for not only was each man's vote at the mercy of any one of the innumerable purely political expedients which were dangled before him, but it was also divorced from any co-operation with his economic demands, and so isolated.

In the highly abnormal conditions of modern industrialism, the power to vote, divorced from all the intimate and strengthening surroundings of voluntary association or of corporate activity, means nothing whatever unless there be a power behind the vote. Modern capitalism, now it has succeeded in breaking down all the natural defences against tyranny, can safely confer on its victims twenty votes apiece without endangering its real security. The conditions of proletariate industry are so feverish, grinding, and exacting that they reduce men to living pulp desirous only of rest and ease. To men so

conditioned there is no difficulty which is not a doubt, no sound which is not a deafening, no voice that is not a Babel, no sight which is not blurred. For them one thing only bulks definite and solid—the struggle for bare life. It was therefore a moral certainty that to replace a plain immediate economic aim by a distant, confused, and thoroughly uncertain political aim was to abandon both the only objective they could normally understand and also the only aim that could help them. Take away that objective and men so conditioned will vote for or against any high-sounding polysyllabic proposal with equal hopes— understanding nothing of its real import, but trusting fully to those who can soothe their ears with empty words.

Nor could those men fare any better who were responsible for this condition of their constituents. Is it not plain that they are without plan or principle, with no notions save those cast off as antiquated and handed down to them by their more astute Liberal colleagues, a prey to every device or parliamentary trick or even to the mere conjuring of words? And what spectacle more ludicrous or to their real opponents more entertaining than to see the political leaders of Labour running counter to every economic movement of the workers, and so repressing the very forces that could make their votes a reality and a power?

Nor even did they learn by experience that the driving force of any political party is not to be determined by the number of its heads but by that of the forces behind them in the country. In the history of the Irish Party there was the strongest precedent of all. For Parnell the first counsel, second counsel, and third counsel was

Agitate," "Agitate," "Agitate". It was not that the land agitation increased his following in the Commons or that its cessation would lessen it; but he knew well that to stamp out the land agitation in Ireland would be immediately to lessen his power in the Commons though his voting strength remained the same. He could drive measures through Parliament because he could make things uncomfortable without Parliament. The rents would not be paid.

It was bad enough that this policy of the Labourites should court disaster by spurning the sources of its strength; it was made still worse by the short-sighted and highly pedantic positive policy it adopted—its crackbrained pursuit of Collectivism.

For Collectivism involves at every stage of its advance the repudiation of direct control for mediate control, of property for the vote.

There is no conceivable method by which a man can freely and effectively react upon and alter his environment unless he possess some irreducible right either over his surroundings or else over some other materials which he can exchange for such surroundings. Now such a right is the right of property; for this is what is meant by property. Consequently, a right of property is the most direct, continuous, and effective means by which a man can control both his own life and the circumstances that condition and determine it.

The right to vote on the contrary gives its holder no enforcible title to any specific action whatever, for he cannot make its non-effectiveness the basis of any legal claim. The most it can do is to entitle him to elect