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Lecture one, in short, can seriously question that, for good or bad, the existence of municipal trading is one of the salient facts of the day, and that it has since the middle of the nineteenth century acquired a new character. The trades, if so they are to be called, which were first undertaken by local authorities were closely connected with the functions of municipal government. At the present day municipal trading is becoming an active competition for business between municipalities supported by the rates, and private traders who can rely only on their own resources. The aim, moreover, of municipal trading is, on the face of it, to use the wealth of the ratepayers in a way which may give to all the inhabitants of a particular locality benefits, e.g. in the way of cheap locomotion, which they could not obtain for themselves. Here we have, in fact, in the most distinct form the effort to equalise advantages. The present state of things, indeed, can in no way be more vividly described than by using the words of an author, who is certainly no opponent of socialism, and who, if he expresses himself with satirical exaggeration, means honestly to depict matters passing before our eyes:

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"The practical man, oblivious or contemptuous of any theory of the social organism or general principles "of social organisation, has been forced, by the neces"sities of the time, into an ever-deepening collectivist "channel. Socialism, of course, he still rejects and

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despises. The individualist town councillor will "walk along the municipal pavement, lit by municipal "gas, and cleansed by municipal brooms with muni"cipal water, and seeing, by the municipal clock in "the municipal market, that he is too early to meet

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"his children coming from the municipal school, Lecture "hard by the county lunatic asylum and municipal

hospital, will use the national telegraph system to "tell them not to walk through the municipal park, "but to come by the municipal tramway, to meet him "in the municipal reading-room, by the municipal art gallery, museum, and library, where he intends to "consult some of the national publications in order "to prepare his next speech in the municipal town "hall, in favour of the nationalisation of canals and "the increase of Government control over the railway 'system. 'Socialism,' Sir, he will say, 'don't waste the time of a practical man by your fantastic "absurdities. Self-help, Sir, individual self-help, "that's what's made our city what it is.' But here we pass to the second subject of this lecture.

(B) Trend of Collectivist Legislation

"It cannot be seriously denied," wrote Mr. Morley in 1881, "that Cobden was fully justified in describ"ing the tendencies of this legislation [i.e. the factory laws] as socialistic. It was an exertion

of the power of the State, in its strongest form, definitely limiting in the interest of the labourer "the administration of capital. The Act of 1844 "was only a rudimentary step in this direction. In 1847 the Ten Hours Bill became law. Cobden was

"abroad at the time, and took no part in its final

stages. In the thirty years that followed, the

1 Cited as language of Sidney Webb, by George Eastgate, Times, Saturday, August 23, 1902, p. 6.

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Lecture principle has been extended with astonishing perse66 verance. We have to-day a complete, minute, and "voluminous code for the protection of labour; "buildings must be kept pure of effluvia; dangerous machinery must be fenced; children and young persons must not clean it while in motion; their "hours are not only limited, but fixed; continuous employment must not exceed a given number of hours, varying with the trade, but prescribed by "the law in given cases; a statutable number of holidays is imposed; the children must go to school, " and the employer must every week have a certificate "to that effect; if an accident happens notice must

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be sent to the proper authorities; special provisions "are made for bakehouses, for lace-making, for "collieries, and for a whole schedule of other special callings; for the due enforcement and vigilant supervision of this immense host of minute prescrip"tions there is an immense host of inspectors, certifying surgeons, and other authorities, whose business it is to speed and post o'er land and ocean' in restless guardianship of every kind of labour, from that of "the woman who plaits straw at her cottage door, to the miner who descends into the bowels of the "earth, and the seaman who conveys the fruits and materials of universal industry to and fro between "the remotest parts of the globe. But all this is one of the largest branches of what the most importunate "socialists have been accustomed to demand; and if "we add to this vast fabric of labour legislation our system of Poor Law, we find the rather amazing result that in the country where socialism has been less talked about than any other country in

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Europe, its principles have been most extensively Lecture 'applied."

Thus wrote Mr. Morley in 1881 in a passage from his Life of Cobden which has become classical; his words directly refer only to the factory laws, but they admit of a far wider application. Every year which has passed since their publication has confirmed their truth.

The labour law of 1878 (41 & 42 Vict. c. 16) has been superseded and widely extended by the code whereof the details are to be found in the Factory and Workshop Act, 1901, 1 Edw. VII. c. 22. Not only factories and workshops, in the ordinary sense of those terms, but also any place such as a hotel, which is the scene of public labour, and even places of domestic employment which may fairly be called homes, have been brought within the sphere of the labour code. The time is rapidly approaching when the State will, as regards the regulation of labour, aim at as much omnipotence and omniscience as is obtainable by any institution created by human beings. Wherever any man, woman, or child renders services for payment, there in the track of the worker will appear the inspector. State control, invoked originally to arrest the ill-usage of children in large factories, has begun to take in hand the proper management of shops. A shop-girl has already acquired a legal right to a seat. The hours of shop closing may now in most cases be fixed by a local authority-that is, be regulated, not by the

1 Morley, Life of Cobden, i. pp. 302, 303.

2 Seats for Shop Assistants Act, 1899 (62 & 63 Vict. c. 21), and compare the Shop Hours Acts, 1892-1895, and the Employment of Children Act, 1903 (3 Edw. VII. c. 45).

3 See the Shop Hours Act, 1904 (4 Edw. VII. c. 31).

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Lecture wishes of the shopkeeper, of his customers, or of the shopmen, but by rules imposed under the authority of the State. The Public Health Acts, starting in 1848 from the modest attempt to get rid of palpable nuisances calculated to generate disease, have expanded into the sanitary code of 1875,' which, with its complex provisions, constitutes a whole body of law for the preservation of the public health. The Housing of the Working Classes Acts, which in effect began with the Labouring Classes Lodging House Act, 1851, and attempted little more than to make possible and encourage the establishment by boroughs, and certain other places, of lodging-houses for the labouring classes, have developed into the Housing of the Working Classes Acts, 1890-1900. These enactments enjoin local authorities to clear unhealthy areas, and to close unhealthy dwelling-houses, or demolish them if unfit for human habitation, and empower local authorities to provide lodging-houses for the working-classes, and with a view to making such provision, to acquire land where necessary under the system of compulsory purchase. The State, therefore, has indirectly gone a good way towards the provision of dwelling-houses for workmen; the housing of artisans has become

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1 The Public Health Act, 1875 (38 & 39 Vict. c. 55). See for a list of a large number of separate Acts more or less referring to public health, Steph., Comm. iii. (14th ed.) p. 77, and note that the Acts there referred to, which extend from the Knackers Acts, 1786 and 1844 (26 Geo. III. c. 71; 7 & 8 Vict. c. 87), to the Factory and Workshop Act, 1901, are all administered by District Councils. It should never be forgotten that powers given to local authorities are, no less than powers possessed by the central government, in reality powers exercised by the State.

2 14 & 15 Vict. c. 34.

3 53 & 54 Vict. c. 70.

4 63 & 64 Vict. c. 59.

5 See Housing of Working Classes Act, 1890, especially & 57.