SOCIALISM AND THE FARMING INTEREST 



too, down to details, is to be a government 

 affair, so that no private person or body of 

 them shall have anything to sell ; no markets 

 will exist, only government dispensing 

 places; selling and buying there will be 

 none, and, of course, no produce gambling. 



This proposal, to have the public power 

 control details of distribution as well as own 

 all the agencies of production, is farther 

 than popular socialism has got; but it may, 

 and probably will, arrive there. Let us, 

 therefore, sound this new sheet of water, 

 seeing whether a ship of state could sail in 

 it and not run aground. 



You cannot wholly prevent private pur- 

 chase and sale. Even by making it a crime 

 you cannot. People will create or bring 

 from abroad things their neighbors want, 

 and sell them. More than this. Make for- 

 eign like domestic commerce a govern- 

 ment affair, if you please. At some point 

 in the distributing process, more in the gross 

 or more in. the detail, consumables food, 

 clothes, utensils, all things intended for 

 men's use will become individuals' prop- 



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