In particular, the Liberal distrusts the bureaucratic system of management which Socialism involves. The London School of Economics seems to him a very good servant. He has no doubt that it would be a bad master. Even with its disadvantages, the system which makes private gain at once the {335} incentive to efficiency and its only possible test may be much superior to that which leaves the determination of industrial policy to a sort of lay hierarchy. An active and persecuting aristocracy will at least keep its subjects alive. The dull and unimaginative methods of bureaucracy stifle even when they are inspired by benevolence. Officialism is generally fatal to new ideas, and apart from the reduction of wealth which would probably follow the abolition of private profit, the officialization of mind which would be diffused throughout society is a sufficiently deadly argument against Socialism. It might even destroy individual life as completely as did some of the religions of the East. This argument against Socialism is to some extent an argument against Social Reform. Social Reform requires the appointment of many officials. But the functions of such as have already been appointed are confined to inspection, to advice, and to the collection of money or information. We have had no experience of officials engaged in the manufacture of goods for export, or in the conduct of the shipping trade. Such experience as we have had of municipal enterprise has only satisfied us of the capacity of officials who are controlled and criticized by unofficial ratepayers, who have a personal and pecuniary interest in the efficiency of the official. No Liberal Government has yet proposed to extend official management to those many fields where success depends upon the judicious calculation of risks. Until that proposal is made there will always be a gulf between Liberals and Socialists, and a distinction between the policy which limits the destructiveness of competition for private gain and that which abolishes such competition altogether.