Another apprehension has arisen in the minds of those who view with critical vigilance the present tendencies of business and the present development of economic opinion among a great section of the community.  If, it is urged, the banks continue to swallow one another up by the process of amalgamation, how will this tendency end except in the creation of one huge bank working a gigantic money monopoly which the Socialistic tendencies of the present day will, with some reason, insist ought to be taken over by the State for the profit of the taxpayer?  This view is frankly put forward by those advocates of a Socialistic organisation of society, who say that the modern tendency of industry towards combinations, rings and trusts is rapidly bringing the Socialistic millennium within their reach without any effort on the part of Socialistic preachers.  They consider that the trust movement is doing the work of Socialism, much faster than Socialism could do it for itself; that, in short, as has been argued above in regard to banking, the tendency towards centralisation and the elimination of competition can only end in the assumption by the State of the functions of industry and finance.  If this should be so, the future is dark for those of us who believe that individual effort is the soul of industrial and financial progress, and that industry carried on by Government Departments, however efficient and economical it might be, would be such a deadly dull and unenterprising business that all the adaptability and tendency to variation in accordance with the needs of the moment, which are so strongly shown by individual enterprise, would be lost, to the great detriment of the material progress of mankind.

As things are at present, there is little need to fear that Socialistic organisation of industry could stand up against competent individual effort.  Anybody who has ever had any business dealings with a Government Department will inevitably shudder when he tries to imagine how many forms would have to be filled up, how many divisions of the Department the inevitable mass of papers would have to go through, and how much delay and tedium would be involved before the simplest business proposition could be carried out.  But, of course, it is argued by Socialists that Government Departments are only slow and tied up with red tape because they have so long been encouraged to do as little as possible, and that as soon as they are really urged to do things instead of pursuing a policy of masterly inactivity, there is no reason why they should not develop a promptitude and elasticity quite as great as that hitherto shown by the business community.  That such a development as this might take place in the course of generations nobody can deny; at present it must be admitted that with the great majority of men the money-making incentive is required to get the best out of them.  If the process of education produces so great a change in the human spirit that men will work as well for the