SOCIALIST STIMULUS [TO the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—Although it is impossible not to agree in general with the facts and policy of the article " Socialism or Efficiency " (a sinister heading in itself) in your issue of December 14th, it is simple to lay a finger on one or two statements which seem to indicate a too complacently capitalist bias.
Firstly, it is not so much that the capitalist system is incapable of providing satisfactory conditions of life for the people, but that left to itself it has never felt the necessity, and probably never will, unless a determined -minority of Socialists in the House of Commons and in local councils continually threaten to displace the capitalist parties. It was not said without perception that the best government that this country could have would be Conservative well leavened with Socialists. No reforms, however urgent ethically and humanely, entailing the slightest drawing upon capitalist resources, have been achieved without the prodding of the public and private conscience, and this prodding has never been effective without someone having made a colossal and unseemly fuss. The Socialists are making the requisite fuss now.
It is true, as your article says, that during the recent period of economic stress, expenditure on the social services has been greatly increased, but it is difficult to believe that this is due to purely spontaneous capitalist policy. The change of heart is too sudden to avoid arousing suspicion that capitalists now realize that Socialists backed by a less easily gulled population have become a force to be reckoned with and even feared, and that the reaction has been, to use your article's excellent parallel, to throw more sops to Cerberus.
If these assumptions are mistakenly based on pernickety prejudice, then England will be safe in the capitalist's now sympathetic hands ; while if they are true, the enforced sops to Cerberus will continue to be exacted regularly until Socialism has been perfected as a practical policy and its leaders experienced enough to govern the country. In either case, England's future as a country seems to be
ultimately safeguarded.—Yours, &c., - J. D. OST. 46 Bloom Street, Manchester, 1.
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