THE REMEDY FOR WANT. 



these facts, and have plainly declared that our social system has 

 broken down. The number of those who see this is increasing- 

 daily; and the public conscience is being aroused by the heart-rend- 

 ing misery and suffering' of millions of those who work, or beg to be 

 allowed to work, in order to produce comforts and luxuries for 

 others while living in poverty, hunger, and dirt themselves. I take 

 it for granted that we shall not much longer permit this social hell 

 to surround us on every side without making some strenuous efforts 

 to abolish it. To do this with the slightest chance of success we 

 must recognize the absolute inefficiency of the old methods of charity 

 and other small ameliorations, except as admittedly temporary 

 measures; and we must devote ourselves to work on new lines, 

 which must be fundamental in their nature and calculated to remove 

 the causes of poverty. 



I have myself indicated those lines in an address to the Land 

 Nationalization Society in 1895, reprinted with alterations and addi- 

 tion in "Forecasts of the Coming Century," of which it forms the 

 first article, under the title " Reoccupation of the Land." The prin- 

 ciple is, briefly, the Organization of Labor, in Production, for the 

 Consumption of the Laborers. Nobody has attempted, seriously, to 

 show why this should not be done. Even if the land and stock nec- 

 essary to start each such co-operative colony were given free, it 

 would be the wisest and most profitable public expenditure ever 

 made, because it is certain to abolish all unmerited poverty, by ab- 

 sorbing all the unemployed. I have shown by sufficient examples 

 the enormous economies of such organization of labor economies so 

 great and acting in so many directions that, they are quite certain to 

 result, not only in a subsistence for the workers, but in an abundance 

 of all the necessaries, comforts, and rational enjoyments of life. 



Just consider for a moment. The workers of the country, very 

 imperfectly organized by the capitalists in their own interests, do 

 actually produce every year all the wealth that is consumed, includ- 

 ing not only necessaries and comforts, but an enormous quantity of 

 luxuries, consumed only by the wealthy. All these workers, when 

 in full work, do earn enough to live on, and many of them to live 

 comfortably, although they are paid less than half, often only a 

 quarter of the value of their work in the finished article. It is only 

 because the value they add to the product is many times more than 

 the wages they receive that there is a surplus sufficient to give a 

 profit to the capitalist-manufacturer and to two or three middlemen, 

 to pay for railway carriage, for travellers, and for advertisements, as 

 well as for loss upon unsalable goods. All these expenses would be 



