que being and a gregarious animal. For
some purposes he must be collectivist, for others he is, and he will
for all time remain, an individualist. Collectively we have an Army
and a Navy and a Civil Service; collectively we have a Post Office,
and a police, and a Government; collectively we light our streets and
supply ourselves with water; collectively we indulge increasingly in
all the necessities of communication. But we do not make love
collectively, and the ladies do not marry us collectively, and we do
not eat collectively, and we do not die collectively, and it is not
collectively that we face the sorrows and the hopes, the winnings and
the losings of this world of accident and storm.

No view of society can possibly be complete which does not comprise
within its scope both collective organisation and individual
incentive. The whole tendency of civilisation is, however, towards the
multiplication of the collective functions of society. The
ever-growing complications of civilisation create for us new services
which have to be undertaken by the State, and create for us an
expansion of the existing services. There is a growing feeling, which
I entirely share, against allowing those services which are in the
nature of monopolies to pass into private hands. There is a pretty
steady determination, which I am convinced will become effective in
the present Parliament, to intercept all future unearned increment
which may arise from the increase in the speculative value of the
land. There will be an ever-widening area of municipal enterprise. I
go farther; I should like to see the State embark on various novel
and adventurous experiments, I am delighted to see that Mr. Burns is
now interesting himself in afforestation. I am of opinion that the
State should increasingly assume the position of the reserve employer
of labour. I am very sorry we have not got the railways of this
country in our hands. We may do something better with the canals, and
we are all agreed, every one in this hall who belongs to the
Progressive Party, that the State must increasingly and earnestly
concern itself with the care of the sick and the aged, and, above all,
of the children.

I look forward to the universal establishment of minimum standards of
life and labour, and their progressive elevation as the increasing
energies of production may permit. I do not think that Liberalism in
any circumstances can cut itself off from this fertile field of