rds.

"In the heart of battle the Liberals are employing language which
at other times they would have considered twice. Their words will
some day be assuredly turned against them, when more than the mere
Budget or the existence of the Lords is at stake. When the
Liberals, allied with the conservative enemy of to-day, are
fighting the working classes, the Socialists will recall this
language as proof that the Liberals themselves recognize the
injustice of the existing order.

"Mr. Lloyd George made such a speech at Newcastle that the seeds he
is planting may first bring forth Liberal fruit, but there can be
no doubt that Socialism will eventually reap the harvest. His
arguments must arouse the workingmen, and when they have accustomed
themselves to look at things from this standpoint it is certain
that once standing before the safes of the industrial capitalists
they will never close their eyes."

It is perhaps true that the Socialists will at some future day reap the
harvest from Mr. Lloyd George's and Mr. Churchill's campaigns, though a
careful analysis of the expressions of these statesmen will show that
they have said nothing and done nothing in contradiction to their
State-capitalistic or "State Socialist" standpoint.

There is no doubt that the principle of the new taxes and the new
expenditure these statesmen are introducing is radical, and that it
marks a great stride towards a collectivist form of capitalism. Let us
assume that development continues along the lines of their present
policies. In a very few years the increased expenditure on social reform
will be greater than the increased expenditure on army and navy, and the
increase of direct and graduated taxes that fall on the upper classes
will be greater than that of the indirect taxes that fall on the masses.
We will assume even that military expenditure and indirect taxes on
articles the working people consume will begin some day to decrease,
while graduated taxes directed against the very wealthy and social
reform expenditures rise until they quite overshadow them. There is
every reason to believe that the social reformers of the British and
other governments hope for such an outcome and expect it. This would be
in no way inconsistent with their policy of subordinating everything, to
use one of their expressions, to "that trade and commerce which
constitutes the source of o