Once the principle is admitted that profits from such trading shall go in relief of taxation, the service will, and must, be worked more or less with the primary object of making as much profit as possible, with the inevitable result that the service in question will be starved for the sake of the profits. This has actually happened in the case of the Prussian State Railways, the one State Railway which has so far made the greatest net profit. In addition to this difficulty there are others inherent in State or Municipal trading, if the principle of making profits be admitted, and if profits are actually made. In such a case the Chancellor of the Exchequer will be expected to budget for further profits, the general public will expect improvements in the service, traders will expect that the charges to them should be reduced, and the workers will expect that their wages should be increased. This view is not a new one. It has been advocated in respect of the Post Office for many years by such well-known postal reformers as Lord Eversley (formerly Mr. Shaw Lefevre), and Sir Henniker Heaton, Bart. The latter, I believe, has several times moved resolutions in the House of Commons for the express purpose of having the postal profit applied to the use of the Post Office itself, instead of to general revenue. It is well known that “=strikes=” are more likely to arise in a period of trade prosperity. It is the natural result of the workers seeing large profits made out of their industry, if they should have no benefit, by increase of wages, by sharing in such profits or otherwise. It makes but little difference to the workers that those profits go to ratepayers, instead of to shareholders, more especially as they usually inhabit houses let on weekly inclusive rentals, and are exempt from income-tax, so that they do not directly pay either rates or taxes. If, on the other hand, the profits are devoted to improving the efficiency of the service or cheapening the charges, then, not only are there no profits to excite the cupidity of various sections of the community, but the workers do, in fact, benefit by themselves and their families, as well as the whole of the public for whom the services are worked. No strike is ever successful which does not gain general public support, and even under existing conditions there is much less likelihood of strikes in the case of Civil Servants or postal or municipal employees, partly on account of the better wages paid, the certainty of continuing in employment except for misconduct, and the prospects of a pension, but still more on account of the practical certainty that public support would not be given to a strike which interferes with one of the most important of the public services.[9]