Nowhere has this radical change taken place without a labor party. The laboring man forced the issue. He bent kings and cabinets and parliaments to his demands. The time was ripe, society had reached that stage of its development when it was ready to take up these questions. But it did not do so of its own free will. When labor parties sprang like magic into puissance, a decade ago, the social conscience was ready to hear their plea. Bismarck foresaw their demands. But he was too obsessed of feudalism to realize their motives. Therefore his state socialism failed to silence the Socialists. The workman had his heart in the cause, not merely his tongue.
And the third great achievement is the natural result of the other two. When democracy is potent enough to force its demands on parliament, then the power of the state is ready to fulfil its demands. So we find in every country where Social Democracy has gained a foothold a constant increase of the functions of the state. What shall the state do? That is now the great question. One hundred years ago it was, What sort of a state shall we have? That is answered: a democratic state; at least, a state democratic in spirit. The state is no longer merely judge, soldier, lawmaker, and governor. It is physician, forester, bookkeeper, schoolmaster, undertaker, and a thousand other things. Society has grown complex, and the state, which is only another name for society, has developed a surprising precocity.
We have seen that in England especially the trend of legislation is to deprive the individual, one by one, of those prerogatives which gave him dominion over property. A man owning land in the city of London, for instance, has not the liberty to build as he likes or what he likes. He must build as the state permits him, and the exactions are manifold. He can be compelled to build a certain distance from the street,--that is, the city demands a strip of his land for common use. He can build only a certain height,--the community wants the sunlight. If his older buildings are dilapidated, the city tears them down. If the streets through his allotment are too narrow, the city widens them. In short, he may have title in fee simple, but the community has a title superior. Even his income from this parcel of land is not all his own. The state now takes a goodly slice in taxes. If he is inclined to resent this, and does not improve his property, the state taxes him on the unearned increment, and if he refuses to submit to this "socialism," the constable seizes the whole parcel, and he can have what is left after the community has satisfied its demands.