— 3 —
define certain political, and, if I may say so, historical positions», and it contained a programme inspired by the soundest and most orthodox policy of economic reconstruction. He demanded that the functions of the State be restricted to the creation of those conditions which are necessary for individual activity in economic life, agriculture, industry and trade and are advantageous to the consumer; they should be similarly restricted in the field of science and art. The State should not confer privileges on one class to the detriment of another; it should not be a manufacturer, a farmer, a trader, a shipowner, a railway company, a banker, a co-operative society, a newspaper proprietor; it should abstain from establishing monopolies and a form of censorship through the post office and the schools; it should not support the idle by means of doles, nor enrich the favoured few and impoverish the rest of the community by means of State contracts granted for reasons of political protection or as gifts disguised under the mantle of co-operativism, which claims to be a productive force, whereas it merely squanders the money of the community through tech-
