whichi is existing, and thus rest on the very ■^—'
foundation which professed Socialists would so-caiied
destroy.^ They merely represent so many legidation
ways — ^wise or unwise — of distributing a public iountey

rests on
the very
1 This is true even of productive or distributive industries system of

carried out by the State. The real Socialistic principle of ^^^J^*^°°
production has never been applied by the State, or by any professed
municipal authority ; nor has any practical party so much Socialists
as suggested that it should be. The manager of a State destroying
factory has just the same motive to save that an ordinary
employer has : he can invest his money, and get interest on
it. A State or a municipal business differs only from a
private Capitalist's business either in making no profits, as
is the case in the building of ships of war ; or of securing the
services of Ability at a somewhat cheaper rate, and, in con-
sequence, generally diminishing its efficacy. Of State business
carried on at a profit, the Post Office offers the best example ;
and it is the example universally fixed on by contemporary
English Socialists. It is an example, however, which dis-
proves everything that they think it proves ; and shows the
necessary limitations of the principle involved, instead of the
possibility of its extension. For, in the first place, the
object aimed at — i.e, the delivery of letters — is one of excep-
tional simplicity. In the second place, all practical men
agree that, could the postal service be carried out by private
and competing firms, it would (at all events in towns) be
carried out much better ; only the advantages gained in this
special and exceptional case from the entire service being
under a single management, outweigh the disadvantages.
