XXVI REOCCUPATION OF THE LAND 483 



The result is the terrible social quagmire in which we now 

 tind ourselves. But it is certain that organisation in the 

 interest of the producers, who constitute the bulk of the 

 community, is possible ; and as, under existing conditions, 

 the millions who are wholly destitute of land or capital 

 cannot organise themselves, it becomes the duty of the 

 State, by means of the local authorities, to undertake this 

 organisation ; and if it is undertaken on the principle 

 that all production is to be, in the first place, for con- 

 sumption by the producers themselves, and only when the 

 necessary wants of all are satisfied, for exchange in order 

 to procure luxuries, such organisation cannot fail to be a 

 success. 



Why Organised Industry must be a Suceess. 



My confidence in its success is founded on three con- 

 siderations, which I Avill briefly enumerate. The first is, 

 the enormous productive power of labour when aided by 

 modern labour-saving machinery. ]\Ir. Edward Atkinson, 

 admitted to be the greatest American authority on the 

 statistics of production and commerce, has calculated that 

 two men's labour for a year in the wheat-growing States 

 of America will produce, ready for consumption, 1,000 

 barrels of Hour, barrels included ; and this quantity will 

 produce bread for 1 ,000 persons for a year. Now as we 

 can grow more bushels of wheat an acre than are grown 

 in America, we could also produce the bread for 1,000 

 persons by the labour of say four or five men including the 

 baking. Again, he tells us that, with the best machinery, 

 one workman can produce cotton cloth for 250 people, 

 woollen goods for 300, or boots and shoes for 1,000. And 

 as other necessaries will require an equally moderate 

 amount of labour, we see how easily a community of 

 workers could produce, at all events all the necessaries of 

 life, by the expenditure of but a small portion of their 

 total labour-power. 



The next consideration is, that in the Labour Colonies 

 of Holland, the unemployed are so organised as to produce 

 all that they consume, or its value, luithcmt the use of any 

 labour-saving machinery. The reason they have none, as 



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