Of course, if there were any reason to suppose that State Socialism would be the political basis of future institutions, currency of intrinsic value (which practically means, even now, only gold currency) would be easily dispensed with, because almost every transaction would be effected by means of orders on the national treasury, the State owning practically everything. Some visionaries have long included the abolition of money in their schemes for the immediate economic improvement of the race. But the disuse of a currency is not really a means to any end. It is only an effect which may or may not arise out of certain alterations in commercial method. There are signs that the people are already growing tired of the extravagance attached to the system of State, and even of municipal, trading: and this fact makes socialism improbable. Constant complaints are heard about such things as municipal tramways and municipal gasworks, and the proposal to transfer the entire working of telephones to the Government has been fiercely opposed. Where the post-office works telephones side by side with a telephone company, as in London, there is no indication that the public prefers the Government service before the private service; and it is admitted that tramways privately owned work more cheaply and yield better returns on their capital than municipal tramways. Any interference of the State in matters that could practically be left to private enterprise provokes incessant complaint. When continued and developed, however, this interference has a vicious habit of extending itself into fresh fields. Having first undertaken the education of the people the State was not long in carrying that system to its natural limit by relieving parents of school fees. Now, free meals for poor children, or meals sold below cost, are gradually becoming the fashion; what is the use of reading out lessons to children who are too hungry to listen? So the State must feed as well as educate. From this to the free clothing of school children is a very short step. But once the unavoidable sequence of such things is recognised, public opinion begins to revolt, asking where, if we go on at this rate, we are likely to stop, so long as there is any parental duty that the State has omitted to assume. We perceive that, unless the process is arrested, the begetter of children will have no obligations left, and the awful effects of relieving every member of the public of all responsibility being at length recognised, there is sure to be a reaction. It is certainly not beyond the wit of man to contrive that it shall be impossible for parents to leave their children untaught, without Government taking upon itself the function of schoolmaster. A hundred years hence I hope that it will long have been unnecessary to use force at all to compel parents to educate their children: and by that time the folly of our (perhaps temporarily unavoidable)