Working-class organisation has never been so prominent
in London as in the industrial counties, and the captious comments on
the great Co-operative movement show that the authors of the Essays
were still youthful, and in some matters ignorant.[25]
Sydney Olivier's "Moral Basis" is, in parts, as obscure now as it was at
first, and there are pages which can have conveyed but little to most of
its innumerable readers. Graham Wallas treated of "Property" with
moderation rather than knowledge. Time has dealt hardly with Mrs.
Besant's contribution. She anticipated, as the other Essayists did, that
unemployment caused by labour-saving machinery would constantly
increase; and that State organisation of industries for the unemployed
would gradually supersede private enterprise. She apparently supposed
that the county councils all over England, then newly created, were
similar in character to the London County Council, which had already
inaugurated the Progressive policy destined in the next few years to do
much for the advancement of practical socialism. The final paper on "The
Outlook," by Hubert Bland, is necessarily of the nature of prophecy, and
in view of the difficulty of this art his attempt is perhaps less
unsuccessful than might have been expected. He could foresee the advent
neither of the Labour Party, mainly formed of Trade Unionists, nor of
Mr.
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