CHAPTER XXVI. 



REOCCUPATION OF THE LAND : THE ONLY IMMEDIATE 

 SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM OF THE UNEMPLOYED. 



We have now just completed a century which has far 

 surpassed all preceding centuries in the increase of man's 

 power over natural forces, and consequent enormous 

 increase in the production of wealth. The amount of this 

 increase may be judged from the fact, that fifteen years ago 

 the steam-power in Great Britain was about ten times the 

 labour power of the whole population. It is now certainly 

 much greater, and by the use of enormously improved 

 labour-saving machinery, this steam-power is again 

 increased at least tenfold in efficiency — often very much 

 more ; so that our people now perform at least a hundred 

 times as much productive work as during the preceding 

 centuries, when steam-power and labour-saving machines 

 were little used or almost unknown. 



Yet with this hundred-fold capacity for producing the 

 food, clothing and other commodities needed for the satis- 

 faction of all the wants of human nature, and for obtaining 

 all the comforts and enjoyments of life, what do we find ? 

 Huge masses of people suffering untold want, misery, and 

 degradation in all our great cities, while in the country 

 villages they are often surrounded by game preserves and 

 untilled fields ; an ever-increasing number dying of actual 

 starvation, cold, or want ; insanity and suicide increasing 

 more rapidly than the population ; and according to a very 

 competent authority — a prison chaplain, who has studied 



