es, even
irrespectively of the present national frontiers (like the Cinque Ports,
or the Hansa). At the same time large labour associations would come
into existence for the inter-communal service of the railways, the
docks, and so on.

Such were the ideas which began vaguely to circulate after 1871 amongst
the thinking working-men, especially in the Latin countries. In some
such organization, the details of which life itself would settle, the
labour circles saw the medium through which Socialist forms of life
could find a much easier realization than through the seizure of all
industrial property by the State, and the State organization of
agriculture and industry.

These are the ideas to which I have endeavoured to give a more or less
definite expression in this book.

Looking back now at the years that have passed since this book was
written, I can say in full conscience that its leading ideas must have
been correct. State Socialism has certainly made considerable progress.
State railways, State banking, and State trade in spirits have been
introduced here and there. But every step made in this direction, even
though it resulted in the cheapening of a given commodity, was found to
be a new obstacle in the struggle of the working-men for their
emancipation. So that we find growing amongst the working-men,
especially in Western Europe, the idea that even the working of such a
vast national property as a railway-net could be much better handled by
a Federated Union of railway employes, than by a State organization.

On the other side, we see that countless attempts have been made all
over Europe and America, the leading idea of which is, on the one side,
to get into the hands of the working-men themselves wide branches of
production, and, on the other side, to always widen in the cities the
circles of the functions which the city performs in the interest of its
inhabitants. Trade-unionism, with a growing tendency towards organizing
the different trades internationally, and of being not only an
instrument for the improvement of the conditions of labour, but also of
becoming an organization which might, at a given moment, take into its
hands the management of production; Co-operation, both for production
and for distribution, both in industry and agriculture, and attempts at
combining both sorts of co-operation in experimental colonies; and
finally, the immensely varied field of the so-called Municipal
Socialism--the