inant State Socialism seeks to
lay on the public purse. On the one hand will stand a class whose only
plan for satisfying their wants is the imposition of a new tax, and on
the other a harried remnant of ratepayers, both soon to be overwhelmed
by the near approach of national bankruptcy.

Want is the spring of human effort. Self-discipline, self-control,
self-reliance, are the habits which grow in men who are allowed to act
for themselves. The meddlesome forestalling of individual effort, which
is being carried into mischievous excess, is going far to bind our
poorer classes for another century of dependence.

Let us run, as rapidly as possible, through a few of the pleas set up
by the advocates of this form of municipal socialism. Good books, it is
said, are out of the reach of the working man. Whether this is true as
regards books we shall see, but obviously it would be easy to make out a
much stronger case for many other forms of amusement which are far more
popular with the million than books; yet no one seriously proposes that
the amusements of the poorer classes can _all_ be supported by the
rates. But a glance down the lists of some of our publishers will show
any one that the statement is not true--is the very reverse of truth.
When books like 'Pilgrim's Progress,' 'The Vicar of Wakefield,'
'Rasselas,' 'Paul and Virginia,' Byron's 'Childe Harold,' 'Lady of the
Lake,' 'Marmion,' and others, can be purchased from Messrs. Dicks at
twopence each; when all Scott's novels can be obtained from the same
publishers for threepence per story; when, from the same source, any of
Shakespere's plays can be got for a penny each, it will not do to say
that the best kind of literature is unpurchasable by a class that spends
millions a year on alcohol, as well as thousands on tobacco and other
luxuries. Three or four pence, which even comparatively poor people
think nothing now-a-days of spending on an ounce of tobacco or a pipe,
will buy enough of the best literature to last an ordinary reader at
least a week or a fortnight. And when the book is read, there is the
pleasure to be derived from lending or giving it to a friend, and of
accepting the loan or gift of his in return; a custom that largely
obtains in country districts where no socialistic collection of unjustly
gotten books exists to hinder the development of personal thrift or
poison the springs of spontaneous generosity. Lying on the table where
this is written is a li