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rents,  as  there  could  not  be  an  unlimited  supply  of  houses  in
the  most  desirable  situations,  but  probably  Professor  Symes
means  that  the  improved  houses  should  be  built  in  as  suitable
positions  as  may  be  in  numbers  proportional  to  the  poor  in
each  district  The  competition  rents  would  no  doubt  be
lowered  as  the  supply  of  houses  increased,  but  it  is  certain  that
the  transaction  would  result  in  a  huge  pecuniary  loss  to  the
State.  Perhaps  this  is  not  a  fatal  objection  in  Professor  Symes’
eyes,  for  he  further  believes  that  “  it  would  be  desirable  to  incur
some  pecuniary  loss  in  establishing  government  workshops
which  should  partly  mitigate  the  uncertainties  of  modern
industrialism.”  How  State  workshops  would  have  this  result
is  not  made  clear.  Of  course,  if  the  State  undertook  to  provide
work  for  those  out  of  employment,  much  of  the  uncertainty  of
finding  employment  would,  for  a  time  at  least,  disappear.  But
at  what  cost  and  with  what  ulterior  consequences?  At  the
immediate  cost  of  the  tax-payers,  and  ultimately  at  that  of  the
nation  as  well,  for,  as  Professor  Symes  admits,  “  the  expense
would,  on  the  average,  be  greater  than  the  waste  involved  in
the  existing  industrialism.”  But  this  is  not  all  or  nearly  all.
Just  at  the  moment  when,  owing  to  a  glut  in  the  market,  manufacturers ­
  would  be  lessening  their  production,  labourers,  thrown
out  of  employment,  would  be  demanding  work  at  the  hands  of
the  State  in  increasing  numbers.  The  State  would  be  obliged
to  extend  its  operations  to  meet,  not  a  demand  for  commodities,
but  the  excessive  supply  of  labour  ;  and  the  period  of  equilibrium ­
  would  be  indefinitely  postponed.  Indeed,  to  remedy  the
confusion  worse  confounded,  the  cry  of  the  Collectivists,  that
the  State  should  take  into  its  possession  and  management  all
the  land,  capital,  machinery,  and  credit  of  the  country,  would
become  irresistible.
It  is  impossible  to  estimate  with  any  approach  to  accuracy
the  influence  of  this  movement  among  the  clergy  of  the  Church
of  England.  Mr.  Headlam  tells  me  that  it  is  certainly  spreading
among  them,  though  he  admits  that  he  could  not  name  fifty
who  would  call  themselves  “Christian  Socialists.”  The  roll  of
the  Guild  of  St  Matthew  now  contains  119  names,  of  which
forty-five  are  those  of  clerical  members.  The  increasing  atten-