SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
331 
well that it should be so, for “wherever competition is not, 
monopoly is ; ” but if the present organization of the Co-opera 
tive Societies be continued, with such modifications as changing 
conditions may suggest, there is good reason to expect that it 
will supply such a regulative principle as will prevent, or at 
least largely mitigate, the evils which spring from the present 
economic anarchy : such as the general instability of individual 
traders, and the recurrent crises resulting from relative over 
production. The Central Committee might, for instance, give 
accurate statistics as to the amount of produce, and forecast 
approximately the demand, in the various departments of con 
sumption. If it be said that this is Socialism, be it so ; but it 
is a Socialism which will have grown up spontaneously from 
within, in a form suited to its environment, not one suddenly 
imposed from without on unprepared soil ; it will retain, while 
it will control, “ the motive power which has hitherto worked 
the social machinery ; ” it will be dependent upon Self-help 
not State-help ; and it will, as the Bishop of Durham puts it, 
make “ self-reliant men,” not “ spoon-fed children.” It is an 
advantage of Co-operation, not a drawback, that “ it cannot 
advance further than the minds and morals of the people 
engaged in it, nor faster than honest and competent men and 
women can be found to manage its concerns.” For this very 
reason, every advance will be sure, will pave the way for 
further advance, and need fear no retrogression. Whereas, 
were the most ideally perfect socialistic State even such as 
“ the idle singer of an empty day” might dream of--put into 
operation to-morrow, it would inevitably collapse and lead to 
anarchy and despotism, because “the minds and morals of the 
people ” would not have been prepared for it. 
THE END.