Page:Confessions of an Economic Heretic.djvu/58

 members of the society to be endowed; in short, by the greater power of the citizens as a body to make the most and best of themselves.”

But though “the citizens as a body” must utilize the State as their main political instrument for the promotion of this “social good,” the editorial policy of the Review was keenly alive to the dangers of a powerful State, taken as an instrument of absolute control and adducing “Reasons of State” as an overruling principle of policy. One of the last articles in the Review was a strong endorsement of a protest by John Morley against the reincarnation of Machiavellism, especially in Germany. The writer, moreover, points out that Imperialism, as practised on the Congo, in Matabeleland, and elsewhere, works along the same evil assumption that “Human claims, universal morality, mercy, justice, pity, all count for nothing in the minds of those who mainly administer affairs, when weighed in the balance against State interests.”

The growing “Imperialism” and the growing “Socialism” exhibit the same danger of an absolute State control. “In the light of this idea, that the State exists for the individual, not the individual for the State, all existing institutions must be tried, and they will stand or fall according as they can bear the searching test.”

Taken by itself, this statement may seem to resolve all “social good” into the good of the individuals