unelastic rules;--simply the one
thing needful, the refusal of Commercialism.

As before, he scorned the idea that real good could be done by political
agitation. Any government would work, he said, if it were an efficient
government. No government was efficient unless it saw that every one had
the necessaries of life, for body and soul; and that every one earned
them by some work or other. Capital--that is, the means and material of
labour, should therefore be in the hands of the Government, not in the
hands of individuals: this reform would result easily and necessarily
from the forbidding of loans on interest. Personal property would still
be in private hands; but as it could not be invested and turned into
capital, it would necessarily be restricted to its actual use, and great
accumulation would be valueless.

This is, of course, a very sketchy statement of the ground-work of
"Fors," but to most readers nowadays as comprehensible as, at the time
of its publication, it was incomprehensible. For when, long after "Fors"
had been written, Ruskin found other writers advocating the same
principles and calling themselves Socialists, he said that he too was a
Socialist.

But the Socialists of various sects have complicated, and sometimes
confused, their simple fundamental principles with various ways and
means; to which he could not agree. He had his own ways and means. He
had his private ideals of life, which he expounded, along with his main
doctrine. He thought, justifiably, that theory was useless without
practical example; and so he founded St. George's Company (in 1877
called St. George's Guild) as his illustration.

The Guild grew out of his call, in 1871, for adherents: and by 1875
began to take definite form. Its objects were to set the example of a
common capital as opposed to a National debt, and of co-operative labour
as opposed to competitive struggle for life. Each member was required to
do some work for his living--without too strict limits as to the
kind--and to practice certain precepts of religion and morality, broad
enough for general acceptance. He was also required to obey the
authority of the Guild, and to contribute a tithe of his income to a
common fund, for various objects. These objects were--first: to buy land
for the agricultural members to cultivate, paying their rent, not to the
other members, but to the company; not refusing machinery, but
preferring manual labour. Next, to buy mills and