It seems a fairly safe risk to say that the movement toward the public ownership of a certain range of utilities will suffer no abatement with the passing of time. That the means of communication should be public property should be as axiomatic as that a man’s nervous system should belong to himself; and no serious question can be raised as to the certainty of ultimate common proprietorship in this region. With respect to the means of production the case is less clear; but it is a fair assumption, that if a reasonable security of the maintenance of life and health is to be achieved, there must be an increasing public ownership of the sources of raw material and of the means of production so far as the essential commodities are concerned. That there is a range of industrial production beyond this limit which is quite legitimate but which is nevertheless not a matter of universal concern is obvious; and it seems very questionable whether it is the business of the state to do more than to secure that the conditions under which these industries are conducted are of a piece with those obtaining in the primary industries. Objects of differential and selective interest do not appear to enter into the province of the state; it has to do only with those for which the demand is universal because they correspond to a general need. It is a question (as has been previously suggested) whether in this region of production it should not be the general rule that every member of the community should share; in which case there would be ample time and occasion for the production of the secondary and more selective goods for life. There is nothing in this argument which should be construed into a suggestion that the things called in this connection secondary are unimportant. On the contrary they are very important; and with the cultural development of society their importance is likely to grow. The production of books and objects of æsthetic interest is likely to be stimulated very materially by any advance in the right sort of education. But (with the exception of a very narrow margin) these are probably things which are not suitably and fruitfully produced except as they are free from central regulation. Within the limits so indicated, therefore, the trend of affairs is rightly in the direction of public ownership—in which case we shall require an organ in which this ownership shall be vested. For this purpose the state is already to hand, and is indeed, already assuming the office. Its first domestic office will consequently be that of a public trustee. But this raises the question whether the trustee is to be manager as well.