excuses of education or hygiene. Already in some factories girls are
obliged to swim whether they like it or not, or do gymnastics whether they
like it or not. By a simple extension of hours or complication of
exercises a pair of Swedish clubs could easily be so used as to leave
their victim as exhausted as one who had come off the rack. I think it
extremely likely that they will be.


IX. THE MASK OF SOCIALISM

The chief aim of all honest Socialists just now is to prevent the coming
of Socialism. I do not say it as a sneer, but, on the contrary, as a
compliment; a compliment to their political instinct and public spirit. I
admit it may be called an exaggeration; but there really is a sort of sham
Socialism that the modern politicians may quite possibly agree to set up;
if they do succeed in setting it up, the battle for the poor is lost.

We must note, first of all, a general truth about the curious time we live
in. It will not be so difficult as some people may suppose to make the
Servile State look rather like Socialism, especially to the more pedantic
kind of Socialist. The reason is this. The old lucid and trenchant
expounder of Socialism, such as Blatchford or Fred Henderson, always
describes the economic power of the plutocrats as consisting in private
property. Of course, in a sense, this is quite true; though they too
often miss the point that private property, as such, is not the same as
property confined to the few. But the truth is that the situation has
grown much more subtle; perhaps too subtle, not to say too insane, for
straight-thinking theorists like Blatchford. The rich man to-day does not
only rule by using private property; he also rules by treating public
property as if it were private property. A man like Lord Murray pulled