"'And does an honest and capable business man stand to lose or gain by the coming of such a Socialist Government? I submit that, on the whole, he stands to gain. Let me put down the essential points in his outlook as I conceive them.
"'Under a Socialist Government such as is quite possible in England at the present time:--
"'He will be restricted from methods of production and sale that are socially mischievous.
"'He will pay a larger proportion of his rate-rent outgoings to the State and Municipality, and less to the landlord. Ultimately he will pay it all to the State or Municipality, and as a voter help to determine how it shall be spent, and the landlord will become a Government stock-holder. Practically he will get his rent returned to him in public services.
"'He will speedily begin to get better-educated, better-fed and better-trained workers, so that he will get money value for the higher wages he pays.
"'He will get a regular, safe, cheap supply of power and material. He will get cheaper and more efficient internal and external transit.
"'He will be under an organized scientific State, which will naturally pursue a vigorous scientific collective policy in support of the national trade.
"'He will be less of an adventurer and more of a citizen....'"
So I wrote to the _Magazine of Commerce_, and that for the energetic man who is conducting a real and socially useful business is the outlook. Socialism is not the coming of chaos and repudiation, it is the coming of order and justice. For confusion and accident and waste, the Socialist seeks to substitute design and collective economy. That too is the individual aim of every good business man who is not a mere advertising cheat or financial adventurer. To the sound-minded, clear-headed man of affairs, Socialism appeals just as it appeals to the scientific man, to the engineer, to the artist, because it is the same reality, the large scale aspect of the same constructive motive, that stirs in himself.
Let me finally quote the chairman of one of the most enterprising and enlightened business organizations of our time to show that in claiming the better type of business man for modern Socialism I am making no vain boast. Sir John Brunner may not call himself a Socialist, but this is very probably due to the fact that he gets his ideas of Socialism from the misquotations of its interested adversaries. This that follows from the _Manchester Guardian_ is pure Socialism.