_Thirdly_, Socialism has brought the cause of the poor most powerfully before the civilised world. It is one of the enduring results of socialistic agitation and discussion that the interests of the suffering members of the human race, so long ignored and so fearfully neglected, have become a question of the first magnitude, the foremost question in all progressive countries. It is this question which gives a substantial basis and a real meaning to the great democratic movement, which it would be the gravest of all errors to regard as a merely political struggle. The cause of the poor is likely to be the burning question for generations, lending to political questions their interest, seriousness, and unspeakable importance. _Fourthly_, Socialism has given us a searching criticism of the existing social-economic system. It may be said to have laid its diagnosing finger on all the sores of society. The only objection that can be rationally taken is that the diagnosis has been an exaggerated one. All fair-minded judges will, however, admit that the socialistic criticism of the existing competitive system is largely, if not substantially, justified on the following points:— 1. The position of the working people, who are the overwhelming majority in every society, is not in harmony with ethical ideas. It has often and largely been a position of degradation, demoralisation, and misery. Normally, it is not consistent with what must be striven after as a desirable condition for the mass of humanity, for it is insecure, dependent and to a large degree servile. The workmen have no reasonable control of their dearest interests; have no guarantee of a settled home, of daily bread, and of provision for old age. It is a delusive freedom that has no solid economic basis. 2. The prevailing competitive system is to a large degree anarchy, and this is not an accident, but a necessity of its nature. This anarchy has two great and baneful modes of expression: strikes, which are a form of industrial war, carrying misery and insecurity over large sections of population, and sometimes menacing the industrial and social life of a whole nation; and the great crises, which at times have even a more disastrous influence, spreading like a storm over the entire civilised world, overthrowing honourable houses of business, and exposing to hopeless ruin and starvation millions of honest people who are in no wise responsible for their fate. And the times of crash are succeeded by protracted periods of stagnation, which for all concerned are scarcely better than the crises which caused it.