exploit consumers to put profits in the pockets of its shareholders. The Socialist therefore constantly strives to make the state a model employer, to get it to work co-operatively with its employees, and associate the latter with its management; and as a corollary to this he tries to make the state as a customer of the private employer patronise only those firms which, as far as is possible to-day, do their duty fairly by their workpeople. That is why municipally and nationally Socialism has been as closely associated with the demands for the insertion in public contracts of clauses providing for fair wages and conditions of labour as with demands for public ownership. Whoever desires to understand the purport of Socialism must not dissociate these two forms of Socialist activity.
But there is another highway to Socialism along which we are treading. The facilities which the present system of property owning give to certain individuals to exploit the public must be the subject of legislation. The need for an ever-increasing public income makes this a pressing question for all parties, and the Socialist's system of economic justice and efficiency make it a peculiarly important one for him. No section of the Socialist programme will repay careful study so much as that which deals with finance. By opponents it is described as confiscation, by himself it is regarded as the means of stopping confiscation; they regard it as a method of impoverishment, he as a means of enrichment; they think of it as raids upon private property,
