re Plutocracy or Socialism, and between these the
middle-class man remains weakly undecided and ineffectual, lending no
weight to and getting small consideration therefore from either side.
He remains so because he has not grasped the real nature of his
problem, because he clings in the face of overwhelming fate to the
belief that in some way the wheels of change may be arrested and his
present method of living preserved.

I think, if he could shake himself free from that impossible
conservatism he would realize that his interests lie with the
interests of the intelligent working-class man--that is to say, in the
direction of Socialism rather than in the direction of capitalistic
competition; that the best use he can make of such educational and
social advantages as still remain for him is to become the willing
leader instead of the panic-fierce antagonist of the Socialist
movement. His place, I hold, is to forward the development of that
State and municipal machinery the Socialist foreshadows, and to secure
for himself and his sons and daughters an adequate position and voice
in the administration. Instead of struggling to diminish that burthen
of public expenditure which educates and houses, conveys and protects
him and his children, he ought rather to increase it joyfully, while
at the same time working manfully to transfer its pressure to the
broad shoulders of those very rich people who have hitherto evaded
their legitimate share of it. The other course is to continue his
present policy of obstinate resistance to the extension of public
property and public services. In which case these things will
necessarily become that basis of monopolistic property on which the
coming plutocracy will establish itself. The middle-class man will be
taxed and competed out of independence just the same, and he will
become a salaried officer just the same, but with a different sort of
master and under different social conditions according as one or other
of these alternatives prevails.

Which is the better master--the democratic State or a "combine" of
millionaires? Which will give the best social atmosphere for one's
children to breathe--a Plutocracy or a Socialism? That is the real
question to which the middle-class man should address himself.

No doubt to many minds a Plutocracy presents many attractions. In the
works of Thomas Love Peacock, and still more clearly in the works of
Mr. W. H. Mallock, you will find an agreeable re