Page:James Ramsay MacDonald - The Socialist Movement.pdf/185

 Rh state. Manuscripts must be read by a state official with, perhaps, less taste than one of our own poets laureate or our censor of plays. Books will not be allowed to bear royalties. This net of posers is thrown over the head of the Socialist with all the dexterity shown by a retiarius in a Roman gladiatorial show. Is the Socialist enmeshed? Let us see.

Some honest work has never been bad for the good poet. Indeed, when our industrial towns were "nests of singing birds," as some of them have been before commercialism transformed craftsmanship into toil, the industrial experience of the poet added strength to the wings of his song. The democratic poets have become mute because the darkness of commercialism has settled on their souls. The work which the poet will have to do under Socialism will be congenial, for it will be provided automatically by the organisation which provides equality of opportunity, and it will therefore not hamper his muse. So Socialism will have its poets.

How will they publish? This is one of the questions which can be satisfactorily answered only by time. That they must publish is quite apparent, and it is simply perversity for any one to argue seriously that such an insignificant problem as that will baffle society. But let me try to construct a little bit of Socialist society by using the past as an