4i8 LAND REFORM 



arose out of the destruction oi small owners," etc. They 

 further assure them that the evils now endured can be 

 cured only by the abolition of the present competitive 

 system ; by the common possession of land and all 

 other means of production, and by (in this manner) 

 securing the distribution among all of the common 

 produce of all. A party with a definite programme of 

 this kind must ultimately gather into its ranks the 

 bulk of trade-unionists and of the members of other 

 working-class combinations. 



As to the practicability of their scheme, the Social- 

 ists declare that that has been proved by the advances 

 already made in the socialistic path. They point out 

 that the State is now by far the largest employer of 

 labour in the kingdom. They refer to the under- 

 takings successfully carried on by municipalities — gas, 

 water, tramways, manufactures, public parks, baths, 

 libraries, etc. They point further to the vast under- 

 takings carried on by the State, such as the post and 

 telegraph office, army, navy, shipbuilding, factories of 

 different kinds, education, etc. The Socialists claim, 

 as a proof of the soundness of their policy, the ever- 

 increasing extent to which small businesses are 

 absorbed into large ones, and large trades joined 

 together and converted into huge trusts. They assert 

 that " the destruction of the small industries has broken 

 down most of the gradations which used to exist 

 between the large employer and the hired labourer, and 

 has left in their place a gulf across which a few 

 capitalists and a huge and hungry proletariat face each 

 other." " Everything," they say, " which has been 

 organized into a trust, and has been worked for a time 

 in trust fashion, is ripe for appropriation by the com- 

 munity. , . . The trusts have taught us how to drive 



