Page:James Ramsay MacDonald - The Socialist Movement.pdf/187

 Rh The Socialist state, however, is only an instrument of public opinion, and I have a firm conviction that the divine poet, or any other kind of poet, would have no more difficulty with a literary faculty of the Socialist state than with the reader of a London publisher. Still, I shall not leave it at that, because I desire to show in a greater fulness the elasticity of the Socialist state. I return to the literary coterie which first encouraged and applauded the genius.

Where men have leisure, culture and means, the literary output is great, and the most natural thing in the world for those coteries to do would be to publish. They would take the place of the ancient patron; they will do the publishing—just as the Royal Society to-day publishes monographs, or the Early English Text Society or the New Spalding Club issues historical records. Not only that, for I can easily imagine that these societies will have control of presses. I do not say that will be so, but I do say that if it were so the poet would have a much better chance of publication than he has now, and also that such a thing would not be inconsistent with Socialist theory and requirements.

Then the market! If a better distribution of wealth would turn the imperfectly clad millions of backs into a field for the employment of British labour as the prairie-land of Canada is made a field for British capital, what a fruitful soil for British art would be the British home. To-day the patronage of art belongs to a small class; under Socialism