Labour, of course, will say that these small experiments have no bearing on the question of the nationalization and control of great industries. To some extent they are right. There are, however, certain definite limits to successful nationalization. An industry which is confined to rendering services is a totally different thing to an industry whose business it is to produce commodities. There is nothing like the same severe restrictions on efficiency in the former case as in the latter. The services may indeed be of such a character that they can only be efficiently carried out under the State or under a municipality If the service is one the successful provision of which depends upon a monopoly being preserved, there may be a case for nationalization; as illustrative of this, one may take the case of the Post Office. Again, a comprehensive service may be necessary, in parts of the country where it has to be provided at a loss, in other parts where it can be provided at a profit-the loss in the former case being made good out of the profit in the latter. Under such conditions nationalization may be the only possible procedure. Sometimes continental analogies for nationalization are adduced, but the continental temperament and tradition have been entirely different from those prevailing in this country. There was never in Latin countries the same spirit of private enterprise as with us; in the former, public opinion relied on the State to provide all services in the nature of public utilities. Where there has been an opportunity of comparing the efficiency of services provided by the State with those provided by private enterprise, the comparison is always against the State. One has only to read _German v. British Railways_, by Edwin A. Pratt (P. S. King & Son, 1907), _Historical Sketch of State Railway Ownership_, by Sir William Acworth, K.C.I.E. (John Murray, 1920), to realize some of the drawbacks of nationalization. The Socialist in this country invariably falls back upon the Post Office as a convincing case of the success of State management, but the business community will hardly be prepared to accept the Post Office as a conclusive argument of the efficiency of nationalization. The Different Schemes of Land Nationalization What the Labour Party means by “public ownership” of land is not clear. The term “nationalization” is equally vague. In reference to land, it is commonly used to mean some form of “communization,” that is to say, acquisition and ownership either by the whole community or a section of the community. The former is true nationalization, i.e. ownership by the nation; the latter is “municipalization,” i.e. ownership by a local authority. Municipalization of land has, however, rather disappeared as a proposition.