social
effort, and I would recommend you not to be scared in discussing any
of these proposals, just because some old woman comes along and tells
you they are Socialistic. If you take my advice, you will judge each
case on its merits. Where you find that State enterprise is likely to
be ineffective, then utilise private enterprises, and do not grudge
them their profits.

The existing organisation of society is driven by one
mainspring--competitive selection. It may be a very imperfect
organisation of society, but it is all we have got between us and
barbarism. It is all we have been able to create through unnumbered
centuries of effort and sacrifice. It is the whole treasure which past
generations have been able to secure, and which they have been able to
bequeath; and great and numerous as are the evils of the existing
condition of society in this country, the advantages and achievements
of the social system are greater still. Moreover, that system is one
which offers an almost indefinite capacity for improvement. We may
progressively eliminate the evils; we may progressively augment the
goods which it contains. I do not want to see impaired the vigour of
competition, but we can do much to mitigate the consequences of
failure. We want to draw a line below which we will not allow persons
to live and labour, yet above which they may compete with all the
strength of their manhood. We want to have free competition upwards;
we decline to allow free competition to run downwards. We do not want
to pull down the structures of science and civilisation: but to
spread a net over the abyss; and I am sure that if the vision of a
fair Utopia which cheers the hearts and lights the imagination of the
toiling multitudes, should ever break into reality, it will be by
developments through, and modifications in, and by improvements out
of, the existing competitive organisation of society; and I believe
that Liberalism mobilised, and active as it is to-day, will be a
principal and indispensable factor in that noble evolution.

I have been for nearly six years, in rather a short life, trained as a
soldier, and I will use a military metaphor. There is no operation in
war more dangerous or more important than the conduct of a rear-guard
action and the extrication of a rear-guard from difficult and broken
ground. In the long war which humanity wages with the elements of
nature the main body of the army has won its victory. It has moved out