It may be well here to speak more at length regarding the functions of the State under a rational socialism. Of all the absurdities entertained about socialism by its critics, and apparently also by some of its adherents, the most grotesque is the idea that everything will be done by the direct action of the State. It will rather be the aim of a reasonable socialism to diminish and lighten the pressure of the State as an engine of compulsion and coercion, and to offer suitable scope for the free action of the individual and the family, for free association and voluntary agreement. For this reason one of the most urgent needs of such a socialism will be to promote local autonomy, and also to foster what we may call the autonomy of the individual and the family, but in a living organic relation to the whole community. We must therefore regard social action as proceeding not only from above downwards, but also from below upwards, and indeed mutually and reciprocally through all the members and departments of society, from the centre to the extremities and from the extremities to the centre. But even this is only a very imperfect explanation of an organic process which expresses itself in a consensus of life and action. The federal idea also very imperfectly expresses the relation that the parts may bear to each other and to the whole in a great society, but it helps us to understand. This federal conception may have a great future, in Austria-Hungary, in Russia, and in the Balkan Peninsula, for the solution of political difficulties. The British Empire is being transformed into a free association of free States. And we may add that the highest directing agency in the Empire, the British Cabinet, is a combination of the leading men of the strongest party for the time being, who in the main hold the same political views, and who are united, not according to a statute or a written constitution, or any kind of formal contract, but by what for want of a better name we may call a gentlemen’s agreement. The British Cabinet may be regarded as a free association of gentlemen, the Premier presiding _primus inter pares_.