r of
political power. On the contrary, he predicted in 1906 that it would be
a generation before Labor could even hope to be sufficiently united to
take the first step in Socialism. "Does any one believe," he asked,
"that within a generation, to put it at the very lowest, we are likely
to see in power a party pledged forcibly to nationalize land, railways,
mines, quarries, factories, workshops, warehouses, shops, and all and
every agency for the production and distribution of wealth? I say again,
within a generation? He who entertains such hopes must indeed be a
sanguine and simple-minded Socialist."[45]

Mr. Lloyd George sought the support of Labor then, not because it was
all-powerful, but because, for a generation at least, it seemed doomed
to impotence--except as an aid to the Liberals. The logic of his
position was really not that Labor ought to get a price for its
political support, but that _having no immediate alternative_, being
unable to form a majority either alone or with any other element than
the Liberals, they should accept gladly anything that was offered, for
example, a material reform like his Insurance bill--even though this
measure is at bottom and in the long run purely capitalistic in its
tendency.

And this is practically what Labor in Great Britain has done. It has
supported a government all of whose acts strengthen capitalism in its
new collectivist form, both economically and politically. And even if
some day an isolated measure should be found to prove an exception, it
would still remain true that the present policies _considered as a
whole_ are carrying the country rapidly and uninterruptedly in the
direction of State Capitalism. And this is equally true of every other
country, whether France, Germany, Australia, or the United States, where
the new reform program is being put into execution.

Many "Socialistic" capitalists, however, are looking forward to a time
when through complete political democracy they can secure a permanent
popular majority of small capitalists and other more or less privileged
classes, and so build their new society on a more solid basis. Let us
assume that the railways, mines, and the leading "trusts" are
nationalized, public utilities municipalized, and the national and local
governments busily engaged on canals, roads, forests, deserts, and
swamps. Here are occupations employing, let us say, a fourth or a fifth
of the working population; and solvent landowning f