4i6 LAND REFORM 



the costermonger to the biggest mill-owner, is now 

 the rule. State inspection of some kind escorts 

 almost every one from cradle to grave. The working 

 classes have become more and more org-anized, and 

 are in fact becoming the governing power. 



We have a proletariat such as does not exist in any- 

 other country in Europe. In a confidential document 

 issued some years ago by a leader of the " Inter- 

 national Society " it was urged that the head-quarters 

 of the Society should be removed to London because 

 " England is the only country in which a real socialist 

 revolution can be made." England, the writer states, 

 is the one country in which the landed property has 

 fallen into the fewest hands. "It is the one country 

 in which a vast majority consists of people paid by 

 wages. It is the one country where the war of classes 

 and the organization of trades-unions have acquired 

 a certain degree of maturity."^ 



But it is not from trade unions that any social 

 danger is to be feared. These organizations are 

 formed for certain definite, legitimate objects, such 

 as common protection against the power of capital, 

 common help, when needed, among their members, 

 the promotion of all measures for the improvement 

 of the conditions of labour, etc. Though represent- 

 ing probably less than a tenth of the total number of 

 workers in the country, they have become powerful 

 by combination. It is not their business to look 

 after the great mass of unorganized workers further 

 than to induce them to join the unions. While the 

 policy of trade unions is to resist the encroachments 

 of capital, it in no way interferes with the principle 



^ "Secret Hisloiy of the International." Onslow Yorke. 



