A great struggle is going on, and there can be no doubt that it will go on. How is it to be fought out? This is the supreme question which the twentieth century must try to solve. It is of unspeakable importance that it should take a wise and peaceful course. In all countries which have a genuine system of universal suffrage fairly carried out, a peaceful solution is practicable. But for such a peaceful solution it will be necessary that all autocratic and bureaucratic government should cease, and that an executive, not only formally responsible to the people but really responsive to their wishes, and in close touch with them, should be established. Such a government could accomplish a beneficent social and economic transformation without violence, without spoliation or confiscation, without even giving an undue shock to the reasonable claims and habits of any section of the people. This might be effected by a truly democratic government, or by the steady pressure of the democracy on the old governments, which would be gradually changed. So much for the peaceful transformation of the State. May we not also expect that socialists will take a more serious and enlightened view of their responsibilities in aspiring to lead organised labour, and may we not in the course of time hope for a modification of their aims and methods? If these were more reasonable, they would obviously be more convincing, and the prospects of a peaceful as well as a successful issue would be vastly increased. At present their demands are often so put in elaborate programmes, in language more or less technical, that they repel the sympathy even of reasonable men. To use a common saying, socialism as frequently presented is such ‘a big order,’ expressed in alien language, that men with the best will in the world cannot give it a hospitable welcome to their minds. In fact, it is not a paradox but the plain truth that socialists are now the greatest obstacle to the progress of their ideal. Nor is this at all strange. The same thing has happened in the development of all great ideals; men are too little for them, and in their love for forms and dogmas forget and even repudiate or suppress the spirit. For the progress of socialism the thing most needful now is to throw off the technical dogmatic and ultra-revolutionary form which it has inherited from the past, and to study the real needs and live issues of the present.