No doubt many students of this college wonder just what democratic socialism is. As I am a supporter of the Social Democrat Society, which pursues such policy, I think it would be well for me to attempt to provide a definition. For this purpose I wish to quote the distinguished Catholic writer, Emmanuel Mounier. This is what he has to say:

"It is within the full-grown body of capitalism itself that the embryonic forms of the socialist world first appear, and it is these forms that we have to extend and develop, if by socialism we mean the following: the abolition of the proletarian condition, the supercession of the anarchaic economy of profit by an economy directed to the fulfilment of the totality of personal needs; the socialisation without State monopoly of those sectors of industry which otherwise foster economic chaos; the development of cooperative life: the promotion in rejection of all paternalist compromises; the priority of labour over capital; the abolition of class distinctions founded upon the division of labour or of wealth; the priority of personal responsibility over anonymous organisation.

"Prom the adoption of socialism as the general directive idea for social reorganisation, it docs not follow' that one must approve every measure that may be approved in its name.

"Sometimes socialism goes to sleep, and sometimes it loses its way, or becomes perverted under bureaucratic or police systems. All the greater is the need for re-edition of socialism, rigorous and at the same time democratic."