carry us very far by itself towards the perfect industrial commonwealth. Take a second example of the wide gulf that still subsists between men's ideas of politics and men's ideas of industry. It is quite common, even in these latter days, and among those who have freely sacrificed their nearest and dearest to the claims of the State, to hear manufacturers and merchants say that they have a 'right to a good profit'. The President of the Board of Trade remarked openly in the House of Commons after many months of war that it was more than one could expect of human nature for coal-owners not to get the highest price they could. Such a standpoint is not merely indecent: it is hopelessly out-of-date. Looked at from the political point of view it is a pure anachronism. There used to be times when men made large fortunes out of the service of government, as men still make them out of the service of the community in trade and industry to-day. In the days of St. Matthew, when tax-gathering was let out by contract, the apostle's partners would probably have declared, as Mr. Runciman does to-day, that it was more than one could expect of human nature that a publican who had a government contract for the collection of the taxes should not get all he could out of the tax-payer. It is, indeed, little more than a century ago since it was a matter of course in this country to look upon oversea colonies merely as plantations--that is, as business investments rather than as communities of human beings. The existence of Chartered Company government marks a survival of this habit of mind. The old colonial system, which embodied this point of view, proved demoralizing not only to the home government but to the colonists, as a similar view is to the working class, and it led to the loss of the American colonies as surely as a similar attitude on the part of employers leads to unrest and rebellion among workpeople to-day.