where the grip of commercialism has been least deadening, because it has been modified by other national impulses, and where the activities of the state have been greatest, that this development of scientific investigation is most marked and has yielded the best results.
I can imagine that under Socialism every centre of higher and scientific education will have its applied departments and laboratories, every industry and group of industries will have their staff of scientific and technical experts, whilst the skill of the workmen in every factory and workshop, and their mental keenness will have been brought to a pitch of excellence which is hardly reached by our most expert workmen to-day.
This is the foundation, this is the atmosphere, of all improvements in industrial processes.
But the critic again appears with an objection. The Socialist cannot find managers of ability. Mr. Mallock writes a great deal about this, and though he does his best, by neglecting to represent Socialist methods with accuracy, to reason out his conclusion, he really fails, and in the end he simply jumps to it.[1] I propose to discuss it, however.
Whatever may be our conclusions regarding the reward which we are to give to ability, the Socialist system of education, the Socialist
- ↑ A Critical Examination of Socialism, chap. vii. Especially the shipyard illustration, p. 77, where imaginary difficulties are gratuitously assumed and the most incompetent actions on the part of the authorities coolly taken for granted.
