It is quite certain that the social programme of our party will become a great fact long before all the purely political proposals of the Liberals have received the Royal assent; and the game of the politician will be to hinder the adoption of the former by noisily hustling forward the latter. Unfortunately for us it will be an easy enough game to play. The scent of the non-Socialist politician for political red herrings is keen, and his appetite for political Dead Sea fruit prodigious. The number of “blessed words,” the mere sound of which carries content to his soul, would fill a whole page. In an age of self-seeking his pathetic self-abnegation would be refreshing were it not so desperately silly. The young artizan on five-and-twenty shillings a week, who with his wife and children occupies two rooms in “a model,” and who is about as likely to become a Lama as a leaseholder, will shout himself hoarse over Leaseholds’ Enfranchisement, and sweat great drops of indignation at the plunder of rich West End tradesmen by rich West End landlords. The “out of work,” whose last shirt is in pawn, will risk his skull’s integrity in Trafalgar Square in defence of Mr. O’Brien’s claim to dress in gaol like a gentleman. Of course all this is very touching: indeed, to be quite serious, it indicates a nobility of character and breadth of human sympathy in which lies our hope of social salvation. But its infinite potentiality must not blind us to the fact that in its actuality the dodgy Liberal will see his chance of the indefinite postponement of the socialising of politics. Manhood suffrage, female suffrage, the woes of deceased wives’ sisters, the social ambition of dissenting ministers, the legal obstacles to the “free” acquirement of landed property, home rule for “dear old Scotland” and “neglected little Wales,” extraordinary tithes, reform of the House of Lords: all these and any number of other obstacles may be successfully thrown in the way of the forward march of the Socialist army. And the worst of it all is that in a great part of his obstructive tactics the Liberal will have us on the hip; for to out-and-out democratisation we are fully pledged, and must needs back up any attack on hereditary or class privilege, come it from what quarter it may. But, to get back to our metaphor of the card table (a metaphor much more applicable to the games of political men), the political suit does not exhaust the Liberal hand. There still remains a card to play--a veritable trump. Sham Socialism is the name of it, and Mr. John Morley the man to plank it down.