predicted by Karl Marx as the appointed means of dissolving the competitive system, have been kept at bay in this country by Free Trade. Under Protection they constitute the most urgent problem of the day. Even here the railways, to take one example, are rapidly moving to a system of combination, the economies of which are obvious, while its immediate result is monopoly, and its assured end is nationalization.
Thus individualism, when it grapples with the facts, is driven no small distance along Socialist lines. Once again we have found that to maintain individual freedom and equality we have to extend the sphere of social control. But to carry through the real principles of Liberalism, to achieve social liberty and living equality of rights, we shall have to probe still deeper. We must not assume any of the rights of property as axiomatic. We must look at their actual working and consider how they affect the life of society. We shall have to ask whether, if we could abolish all monopoly on articles of limited supply, we should yet have dealt with all the causes that contribute to social injustice and industrial disorder, whether we should
