restrictions of the
suffrage, the unequal election districts and other shortcomings of
political democracy in Great Britain, and to insist that the government
is already democratic, is surely, as Mr. Hobson says, "the subtlest
defense of privilege."

Mr. MacDonald comes out flatly with the statement that under what he
calls the democratic parliamentary government of Great Britain it is
practically impossible to maintain a pure and simple Socialist Party. He
says proudly that "nothing which the Labour Parties of Australia or
Great Britain have ever done or tried to do under their constitutions
departs in a hair's breadth from things which the Liberal and the Tory
Parties in these countries do every day."[124] "Indeed, paradoxical
though it may appear," he adds, "Socialism will be retarded by a
Socialist Party which thinks it can do better than a Socialistic
Party."[125]

The Independent Labour Party, indeed, has had a program of reform that
is remarkably similar to that of Ministers Churchill and Lloyd George,
and is indorsed in large part by capitalists--as for example, by Andrew
Carnegie. The first measure of this program provided for a general
eight-hour day. Mr. Carnegie protests that to put the Socialist label on
this is as "frank burglary as was ever committed," and the trade union
movement in general would agree with him.[126]

The second demand was for a "workable unemployment act." The Labour
Party had previously introduced a more radical measure which very nearly
received the support of a majority of Parliament. The third measure
called for old-age pensions. Mr. Carnegie remarked of this with perfect
justice: "Mr. MacDonald is here a day behind the fair. These have been
established in Britain before this [Mr. Carnegie's "Problems of To-day"]
appears in print, both political parties being favorable." It is true
that the Labour party demands a somewhat more advanced measure than that
to which Mr. Carnegie alludes, but there is no radical difference in
principle, and the Labour Party accepted the present law as being a
considerable installment of what they want.

Of the fourth point the "abolition of indirect taxation (and the gradual
transference of all public burdens to unearned incomes)," Mr. Carnegie
remarks that "we must read the bracketed works in the light of Mr.
MacDonald's philosophy," and "that this is a consummation which cannot
be reached (in Mr. MacDonald's words) 'until the organic structure of