Page:Studies in socialism 1906.djvu/239

Rh has been increased in this way, it will react of its own accord on the social régime by an irresistible action from within outward. For instance, if all the children of the lower classes acquire the taste and the need for reading, if their education has been vital and effective enough to bring about this result, it is impossible that this universal need will not in the end insure to the workers some hours of leisure for the pleasures of the mind, by a more economical regulation of the work. Moreover, when they understand the mechanism of production and exchange better, when they know exactly what conditions obtain in manufacture generally and in their industry in particular, what its markets are, what capital is invested in it and how much more capital could be profitably employed in its development, then these men, free, organised, and well educated as they will be, will by the very nature of things begin to be admitted as members of the boards of directors of the great corporations, and afterwards, little by little, to the management of ordinary business concerns. The next step will be profit-sharing, and a share of authority and of economic power.

"But I repeat, all this will be accomplished without the aid of any high-sounding formulas, and we shall find that we have arrived at the end of Socialism without ever having come across Socialism on the way. Old sailors make the new hands believe that when they go from one pole to