THE END OF LAISSEZ-FAIRE

less when he decides on his policy than of hisshareholders. Their rights, in excess of theirconventional dividend, have already sunk tothe neighbourhood of zero. But the samething is partly true of many other big institu-tions. They are, as time goes on, socialisingthemselves.

Not that this is unmixed gain. The samecauses promote conservatism and a waning ofenterprise. In fact, we already have in thesecases many of the faults as well as the ad-vantages of State Socialism. Nevertheless wesee here, I think, a natural line of evolution.The battle of Socialism against unlimitedprivate profit is being won in detail hour byhour. In these particular fields—it remainsacute elsewhere—this is no longer the pressingproblem. There is, for instance, no so-calledimportant political question so really un-important, so irrelevant to the re-organisationof the economic life of Great Britain , as theNationalisation of the Railways.

It is true that many big undertakings,particularly Public Utility enterprises and

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