Page:James Ramsay MacDonald - The Socialist Movement.pdf/192

meals that will lie on its tables. The free man with leisure will show his social nature not only by living in crowds, but by forming for his own delight groups of men like-minded to himself. One of these voluntary organizations will undoubtedly be a political party, for I cannot conceive of a time when different practical proposals in statecraft will not exist or not be transformed into great rival policies and principles of government. The state will have to give these parties free and fair play, because the state will be democratically governed. Each party will have to look after its own interest, and it will, therefore, be essential that each party has its own organs. To-day, in the Palace of Westminster, the various parties have their own rooms; they are recognised by the Speaker and the other officers of the House of Commons; Hansard reports all speeches impartially. Under Socialism I can, therefore, easily imagine that the party newspapers would be under party control, parties and groups having certain rights of publication, just as a member of the American House of Representatives has the right to hand in the manuscript of a speech and get it printed as though he had delivered it. The presses might be under party management with safeguards, or party rights might consist in a power to claim the use of presses. The point is trivial, and if critics busy themselves devising all kinds of possible anomalies and difficulties, all I can say is that if even to-day the country decided to nationalise its printing-presses and to make parties