IV

POLITICS

335

historic Liberalism. It is not surprising or dis-creditable that the veterans of the party castbackward glances on that easier age.

But we are now entering on a third era, whichProfessor Commons calls the period of Stabil-isation, and truly characterises as “the actualalternative to Marx ’s communism.” In thisperiod, he says, “there is a diminution of in-dividual liberty, enforced in part by govern-mental sanctions, but mainly by economic sanc-tions through concerted action, whether secret,semi-open, open, or arbitrational, of associations,corporations, unions, and other collective move-ments of manufacturers, merchants, labourers,farmers, and bankers.”

The abuses of this epoch in the realms ofGovernment are Fascism on the one side andBolshevism on the other. Socialism offers nomiddle course, because it also is sprung fromthe presuppositions of the Era of Abundance,just as much as laissez-faire individualism andthe free play of economic forces, before whichlatter, almost alone amongst men, the CityEditors, all bloody and blindfolded, still pite-ously bow down.

The transition from economic anarchy to aregime which deliberately aims at controllingand directing economic forces in the interestsof social justice and social stability, will pre-sent enormous difficulties both technical andpolitical. I suggest, nevertheless, that the truedestiny of New Liberalism is to seek theirsolution.