Now, it
might have been possible, when the expense of these new standards of
public health and comfort began to be incurred, to provide by an heroic
effort of socialism for a perpetuation of the individualistic basis of
social duty. That is to say, if the state had guaranteed to every
individual an income which would enable him to bear his share of this
expense, it might also have imposed upon him the duty of meeting it, of
paying fees for the education of his children, for hospital treatment,
for medical inspection, and so forth. But that effort was not, and
perhaps could not, in the existing condition of public opinion, be
made; and the state has therefore got into the habit of providing and
paying for all these things itself. When the majority of male adults
earn twenty shillings or less a week, and possess a vote, there would
be no raising of standards at all, if they had to pay the cost. Hence
the state has been compelled step by step to meet the expense of
burdens imposed by its conscience. Free education has therefore
followed compulsory education; the demands of sanitary inspectors and
medical officers of health have led to free medical inspection, medical
treatment, the feeding of necessitous school children, and other
piecemeal socialism; and, ignoring the historical causes of this
development, we are embarked on a wordy warfare of socialists and
individualists as to the abstract merits of antagonistic theories.
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