into which it would be tempted to fall, it might lead to Socialism, not because of its affinities, since it is the very opposite of Socialism, but by way of repulsion; it might lead to excessive government regulation, or to the superseding of the syndicates by government management in the interest of the public.

But before considering the circumstances which might lead to such State Socialism, it is necessary to clear away a mistake as to the concentration of capital, to point out a mistaken tendency, which, if it really did exist, would probably lead to Socialism by a far shorter road: the mistake that the increasing concentration of capital, which is an undoubted fact, is an increasing concentration or accumulation in ever fewer individual hands; a mistake made conspicuously by Karl Marx, which was endorsed by Cairnes and Fawcett, and which lies at the bottom of all their desires to change the present industrial organization by substituting for it universal Collectivism, as Marx would wish, or co-operative production, as the other two prefer.

According to Karl Marx, Socialism will come when the process of evolution has resulted in a few colossal capitalists face to face with millions of exploited and expropriated proletarians, including many smaller capitalists who have been undersold and driven into the ranks of the proletariate. "When the constantly diminishing number of the magnates of capital has resulted in a few gigantic ones with a growing mass of misery, oppression, slavery, degradation, and exploitation ;" and when, in addition, "the working class, increased in numbers, organized, disciplined,

and united by the very mechanism of the process of capitalist production itself, is animated with a spirit of revolt," then, he declares, "the knell of capitalist property will sound, the expropriators will be expropriated." But we can now see that Marx mistook the course of the industrial evolution, and that he prophesied without due allowance for other facts and forces that might check, or cross, or turn the tendency he thought he had divined.

According to Cairnes also, as we have seen, the tendency is to "an increased inequality in distribution. The rich will grow richer, the poor, at least relatively, poorer." And he recommends to the latter cooperative production as their sole hope. Now Cairnes' mistake was the less excusable, as he wrote at a time (1874) when the tendency to great individual accumulation had received a check, and there were statistics available that might have tested his deduction. And in fact all that his argument really proves is that the class receiving interest (and occasionally wages of management, in addition to interest) tends to get a larger part of the produce than the class that lives by hired wages, or, as he puts it, that the wages fund tends to lag behind the other parts into which capital is divided. This last, if true, would still be a sufficiently serious thing, though Mr. Giffen, the eminent statistician, denies its truth; but true or not, it is a quite different thing from the increasing concentration of wealth in individual hands, which Cairnes appears, in the above quotations, to think implied in it: that one class, and a large class, tends to get a somewhat larger share than another, and a much larger

class, would not be a desirable thing if it could be prevented: it would scarcely be an argument for a total change in our industrial system, as desired by Cairnes, still less for the further social and political changes desired by advanced Socialists.

According to Comte also (writing in 1850) the tendency was to the greater concentration of capital in the hands of individual capitalists; he thought the tendency a good one; far from desiring to thwart it by human volitions, he affirmed that the tendency would necessarily and beneficially lead to a more pronounced Capitalism instead of to Socialism, and with the capitalists ruling in the political as well as the industrial sphere ;-so differently did the philosophers forecast the future from the same assumed tendency.

Now if the tendency were really to the concentration of capital in ever fewer hands, with a mighty mass of ill-paid and discontented workers, and with no great middle class lying between, then indeed the transition to Socialism more or less complete would be much easier to accomplish, and in some shape it would probably come; at least it would be easier to expropriate a comparative few; it would be almost impossible to prevent it, the forces of might and justice added to envy being adverse, and with no mediating middle class. Both might and morality would be on the side of the labouring class, and the fall of such a plutocracy might be safely prophesied. But Marx happily was mistaken as to the tendency. The tendency is not to the greater and greater fortunes of individual capitalists. That tendency did however, exist during and for a certain time after the industrial

revolution, especially in England so long as she had a comparative monopoly of the continental as well as other foreign markets. And the tendency was so marked, it lasted so long, and some men became so rich, that Marx may be excused for generalizing too hastily from it, as undoubtedly he did. That tendency has now almost ceased in England, from increased competition, from the want of the old opportunities, from increased wages, from the spread of companies, and other causes; and though it did exist at the time Comte wrote, according to M. Leroy-Beaulieu it has ceased in France, the law moreover having there considerably assisted to check it by the equal partition of inheritances amongst the children.

The real tendency at present is to the greater massing together of separate portions of capital owned by many capitalists, small, great, and of moderate dimensions; to the concentration of capital certainly, but not to its concentration in single hands; to the union of capitals for a common purpose, while still separately owned. The tendency is to the creation of companies and unions of companies; to the transformation of the larger businesses into companies with larger capital, the original owner retaining a large portion of the shares, and possibly a large influence in the management, if the business is in a sound condition. The tendency is also to give business ability without capital chances of becoming rich through the management of such large concerns, and greatly to increase the number of directors of industry who, without being large capitalists, may in time become considerable capitalists.

stances.

II.

THE tendency to the concentration of capital, then, does exist as a fact, and Socialism might conceivably come as the end of the tendency; only it will not come as the result of its concentration in the hands of a few mammoth millionaires, for the tendency is not towards such in any country save the United States, and even there the tendency is not marked, or it only shows itself in comparatively few inIt might conceivably come as the result of a universal syndicate and monopolistic régime, which, if the monopolists greatly abused their position, might necessitate the State either to regulate stringently or itself to occupy and undertake those industries whose abuses proved incorrigible. But if a partial Socialism came in this way, it would give the present system a much longer lease of life, both because the process of monopolistic occupation will probably be slow, and because the capitalists of a given country will not be, as Marx prognosticated, a small number, but hundreds of thousands, probably millions, who would oppose a very powerful resistance to State occupation of a given industry, unless where such occupation was manifestly beneficial for the great majority.

The great multitude interested, the great number of owners of capital, whether in large or small portions, including the more intelligent artisans, would certainly make it difficult or impossible to expropriate them, would indefinitely delay the process, and only those industries could be taken over by the State the