So far and so fast are we moving. So necessary is it ...

So far and so fast are we moving. So necessary is it for us to recall from time to time that we are in an age of transition : to remember, for example, that a boy who had heard Arnold say that railways had given the death blow to feudalism, might have lived to hear Bernard Shaw say that dynamite had given the death blow to capitalism, or

Bramwell at the British Association in

1881 prophesy that within the lifetime of his audience steam would have made way for internal combustion.

In that audience, doubtless, there were gentlemen whose lands were still ploughed with oxen.

But along with this dipping of the balance from country to town, we can discern another process at work, which, if the word had not been taken for other purposes, might most compactly have been described as the socialization

of wealth.

Economists may talk of the manufacturer or the labourer.

But on a closer view, one is rather the symbol of a ramifying organization, the ownership of which rests in innumerable shareholding hands;' the other, a unit in a disciplined force, which, if it supports him / her when he cannot work, may compel him / her to remain idle when he could.

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