ontrived households. Her
personality will make the home atmosphere; that is the woman's gift
and privilege, and she will be able to do it with a free hand. I
suppose that for the husband's cost in the household the present
custom of cultivated people of independent means will continue, and he
will pay over to his wife his share of the household expenses....

After the revenue in the domestic budget under Socialism one must
consider the expenditure. I have already given an idea how the rent
and rates, lighting and water are to be dealt with under Socialist
conditions. For the rest, the housewife will be dealing on very
similar lines to those she goes upon at present. She will buy what she
wants and pay cash for it. The milkman will come in the morning and
leave his "book" at the end of the week, but instead of coming from
Mr. Watertap Jones' or the Twenty-per-cent. Dairy Company, he will
come from the Municipal Dairy; he will have no interest in giving
short measure, and all the science in the State will be behind him in
keeping the milk clean and pure. If he is unpunctual or trying in any
way, the lady will complain just as she does now, but to his official
superiors instead of his employer; and if that does not do, she and
her aggrieved neighbours (all voters, you will understand) will put
the thing to their representative in the parish or municipal council.
Then she will buy her meat and grocery and so on, not in one of a
number of inefficient little shops with badly assorted goods under
unknown brands as she does now if she lives in a minor neighbourhood,
but in a branch of a big, well-organized business like Lipton's or
Whiteley's or Harrod's. She may have to go to it on a municipal
electric car, for which she will probably pay a fare just as she does
now, unless, perhaps, her house rent includes a season ticket. The
store will not belong to Mr. Lipton or Mr. Whiteley or Mr. Harrod, but
to the public--that will be the chief difference--and if she does not
like her service she will be able to criticize and remedy it, just as
one can now criticize and remedy any inefficiency in one's local
post-office. If she does not like the brands of goods supplied she
will be able to insist upon others. There will be brands, too,
different from the household names of to-day in the goods she will
buy. The county arms of Devon will be on the butter paper, Hereford
and Kent will guarantee her cider, Hampshire and Wiltshire answer for