Europe, as I write in the early days of 1916, is in the melting-pot, and it would be foolish to prophesy either the fate of the nations now at war or, in particular, the future of political parties in Great Britain, and especially of the Labour Party. But so far as concerns the Fabian Society and the two other Socialist Societies, this much may be said: three factors in the past have kept them apart: differences of temperament; differences of policy; differences of leadership. In fact perhaps the last was the strongest. I do not mean that the founders of the three societies entertained mutual antipathies or personal jealousies to the detriment of the movement. I do mean that each group preferred to go its own way, and saw no sufficient advantage in a common path to compensate for the difficulties of selecting it. In a former chapter I have explained how a movement for a form of Socialist Unity had at last almost achieved success, when a new factor, the European War, interposed. After the war these negotiations will doubtless be resumed, and the three Socialist Societies will find themselves more closely allied than ever before. The differences of policy which have divided them will then be a matter of past history. The differences of temperament matter less and less as the general policy becomes fixed, and in a few years the old leaders from whose disputes the general policy emerged must all have left the stage. The younger men inherit an established platform and know nothing of the old-time quarrels and distrusts. They will come together more easily. If the organised propaganda of Socialism continues--and that perhaps is not a matter of certainty--it seems to me improbable that it will be carried on for long by three separate societies. In some way or other, in England as in so many other countries, a United Socialist organisation will be constituted. * * * * * But what of the future of Fabian ideas? In a passage already quoted Mr. Barker indicates that the dominance of "Collectivism of the Fabian order" ceased three or four years ago, and he goes on to indicate that it has been replaced by an anti-state propaganda, taking various forms, Syndicalism, Guild Socialism, and the Distributivism of Mr. Belloc. It is true that Fabianism of the old type is not the last event in the history of political thought, but it is still, I venture to think, the dominant principle in political progress. Guild Socialism, whatever its worth, is a later stage. If our railways are to be managed by the Railwaymen's Union, they must first be acquired for the community by Collectivism.