on the path of 'State Socialism'; the most important of which can be
speedily summed up. At the end of the nineteenth century the cry
arose for compelling the masters to employ their men a less number of
hours in the day: this cry gathered volume quickly, and the masters
had to yield to it. But it was, of course, clear that unless this
meant a higher price for work per hour, it would be a mere nullity,
and that the masters, unless forced, would reduce it to that.
Therefore after a long struggle another law was passed fixing a
minimum price for labour in the most important industries; which
again had to be supplemented by a law fixing the maximum price on the
chief wares then considered necessary for a workman's life."

"You were getting perilously near to the late Roman poor-rates," said
I, smiling, "and the doling out of bread to the proletariat."

"So many said at the time," said the old man drily; "and it has long
been a commonplace that that slough awaits State Socialism in the
end, if it gets to the end, which as you know it did not with us.
However it went further than this minimum and maximum business, which
by the by we can now see was necessary. The government now found it
imperative on them to meet the outcry of the master class at the
approaching destruction of Commerce (as desirable, had they known it,
as the extinction of the cholera, which has since happily taken
place). And they were forced to meet it by a measure hostile to the
masters, the establishment of government factories for the production
of necessary wares, and markets for their sale. These measures taken
altogether did do something: they were in fact of the nature of
regulations made by the commander of a beleaguered city. But of
course to the privileged classes it seemed as if the end of the world
were come when such laws were enacted.