which would abolish the
barbarism that prevails in industry. Does anyone seriously believe that
the business leaders, the makers of opinion and the politicians will, on
their own initiative, bring social questions to a solution? If they do it
will be for the first time in history. The trivial plans they are
introducing to-day--profit-sharing and welfare work--are on their own
admission an attempt to quiet the unrest and ward off the menace of
socialism.

No, paternalism is not dependable, granting that it is desirable. It will
do very little more than it feels compelled to do. Those who to-day bear
the brunt of our evils dare not throw themselves upon the mercy of their
masters, not though there are bread and circuses as a reward. From the
groups upon whom the pressure is most direct must come the power to deal
with it. We are not all immediately interested in all problems: our
attention wanders unless the people who are interested compel us to
listen.

Social movements are at once the symptoms and the instruments of
progress. Ignore them and statesmanship is irrelevant; fail to use them
and it is weak. Often in the course of these essays I have quoted from H.
G. Wells. I must do so again: "Every party stands essentially for the
interests and mental usages of some definite class or group of classes in
the exciting community, and every party has its scientific minded and
constructive leading section, with well defined hinterlands formulating
its social functions in a public spirited form, and its
superficial-minded following confessing its meannesses and vanities and
prejudices. No class will abolish itself, materially alter its way of
living, or drastically reconstruct itself, albeit no class is indisposed
to co-operate in the unlimited socialization of any other class. In that
capacity for aggression upon other classes lies the essential driving
force of modern affairs."

The truth of this can be tested in the socialist movement. There is a
section among the socialists which regards the class movement of labor as
a driving force in the socialization of industry. This group sees clearly
that without the threat of aggression no settlement of the issues is
possible. Ordinarily such socialists say that the class struggle is a
movement which will end classes. They mean that the self-interest of
labor is identical with the interests of a community--that it is a kind
of social selfishness. But there are other socialists w