minimum legal wage should be enacted; and this also would be illusive if it were not supplemented by the enactment of a legal maximum for all the necessaries of life; since, otherwise, prices would rise in some sort of proportion to the higher wages enforced by the new legislation. But it must not be supposed that any such measures would be of permanent 280 value except as preludes to the assumption by the community of all the means of production and exchange, to wit, the land, the mines, the railways, the factories, etc., and the credit establishments of the country. It is a matter of course that we do not expect to see this done by catastrophe,—that some Monday morning the sun will rise on a communised state which was capitalistic on Saturday night.201
Various schemes for accomplishing this transfer gradually have been suggested. These must be tested by experience; suffice it here to say that the pith of them is to work by municipalities and trade organisations for the decentralisation of administration, and the acquirement of control over the industries of the country. It is an encouraging sign of the times that even now, both