As we have seen, John, the principle of confiscation, once we have accepted the proposition that private property is theft, is perfectly logical and even the methods of compensation proposed by Socialists are nothing more or less than confiscation in disguise. Cecil Chesterton states this fact very clearly in _The Church Socialist Quarterly_ (January, 1911), where he says: “Socialism means confiscation. Let no Socialist deceive himself about that. However ‘evolutionary’ (whatever that may mean) the process may be, whatever solatium to the present property-owners humanity and a sense of justice may dictate, Socialism means confiscation. The issue may be stated very concisely. However gradual the process of transferring wealth from the rich class to the community, will the rich at the end of that process be as wealthy as before, or won’t they? If they will, then the end of Socialism has not been achieved. If they won’t, then, under whatever form, their property has been confiscated.” Quite in keeping with this presentation of the case is the resolution passed by the Socialist Federation of Australasia, held in Melbourne, in June, 1912. It read: “The Federation vehemently protests against the working class being misled by the Labor or other parties into the belief that it is possible to socialize the instruments of production by a gigantic scheme of ‘buying out,’ or compensation to the possessing class, and warns the workers against endorsing such a Utopian, immoral and impracticable scheme.” This, says The Socialist (March, 1911), the organ of _the Socialist_ Labor party of England, “is a condensed statement of the position laid down in our manifesto of 1908.” Even Morris Hillquit, a conservative American Socialist, is compelled to admit that confiscation is likely to become the order of the day once Socialists are in power. “It is not unlikely that in countries in which the social transformation will be accomplished peacefully, the State will compensate the expropriated proprietors, while every violent revolution will be followed by confiscation. The Socialists have not much concern about this issue” (“Socialism in Theory and Practice,” p. 140). It may be true, as Hillquit says, that Socialists “are not much concerned” with the charge that they are planning to set up a State in which the Divine law, “Thou shalt not steal,” is to be set at naught--a State that will take from the successful and the thrifty the possessions they have accumulated--a State against the actions of which there can be no redress. But what have you to say as a decent law-abiding citizen, John? What?