32 THE MURDER OF AGRICULTURE 



enterprise; it is a favourite war cry of all the people's 

 champions, and we are so accustomed to its presence 

 among us that we have come to regard it as an integral 

 part of the social fabric, a necessary result of human life. 

 A Heritage We beheve it to be a " heritage of the ages," that it 



of the Ages ^ ^ 



always has been and always must be, and that there is 

 no use in trying to get away from the fact. Poverty we 

 say is just one of the effects of human existence, as 

 wealth is another ; it always has existed and always will 

 exist, and there is really no use talking about it. 



No use talking about it! Is there not? Nevertheless, 

 let us talk about it in order to see if what we say in this 

 respect is not one of those human fallacies which are as 

 plentiful as blackberries in autumn, and only require a 

 little pricking to prove what airy bubbles they are in 

 reality. We think there is no use talking about the 

 question of poverty, because it is a common belief that 

 it catmot be done away with ; we think like this, in other 

 words, " because everybody thinks so." 



For thousands of years everybody believed that the 

 earth was the centre of the universe, and that the sun 

 revolved round this planet until Copernicus and Galileo 

 proved to us that the very opposite was the case. 



Who believes to-day in this fallacy? 



