d, whilst the
factories are left untouched; or that, in a certain city, house property
is taken over by the Commune, but everything else is left to private
ownership; or that, in some manufacturing centre, the factories are
communalized, but the land is not interfered with.

The same result would follow in each case--a terrible shattering of the
industrial system, without the means of reorganizing it on new lines.
Industry and finance would be at a deadlock, yet a return to the first
principles of justice would not have been achieved, and society would
find itself powerless to construct a harmonious whole.

If agriculture were freed from great landowners, while industry still
remained the bond-slave of the capitalist, the merchant, and the banker,
nothing would be accomplished. The peasant suffers to-day not only in
having to pay rent to the landlord; he is oppressed on all hands by
existing conditions. He is exploited by the tradesman, who makes him
pay half a crown for a spade which, measured by the labour spent on it,
is not worth more than sixpence. He is taxed by the State, which cannot
do without its formidable hierarchy of officials, and finds it necessary
to maintain an expensive army, because the traders of all nations are
perpetually fighting for the markets, and any day a little quarrel
arising from the exploitation of some part of Asia or Africa may result
in war.

Then again the peasant suffers from the depopulation of country places:
the young people are attracted to the large manufacturing towns by the
bait of high wages paid temporarily by the producers of articles of
luxury, or by the attractions of a more stirring life. The artificial
protection of industry, the industrial exploitation of foreign
countries, the prevalence of stock-jobbing, the difficulty of improving
the soil and the machinery of production--all these agencies combine
nowadays to work against agriculture, which is burdened not only by
rent, but by the whole complex of conditions in a society based on
exploitation. Thus, even if the expropriation of land were accomplished,
and every one were free to till the soil and cultivate it to the best
advantage, without paying rent, agriculture, even though it should
enjoy--which can by no means be taken for granted--a momentary
prosperity, would soon fall back into the slough in which it finds
itself to-day. The whole thing would have to be begun over again, with
increased difficulties.

Th