company-chairman with nominal duties, though his salary be but
_400l._, is a criminal. Everyone who lends his neighbour _5l._ and
exacts _5l. 5s. 0d._ in return, is a criminal."[245] "When Proudhon
advanced the somewhat startling proposition, 'Property is theft,' he
merely stated positively what good, orthodox Adam Smith, in his
'Wealth of Nations' set forth more urbanely when he wrote, 'The
produce of labour (it is clear from the context that he meant the
whole produce), is the natural recompense or wages of labour.'"[246]
"'Property' is theft, said Proudhon, and surely private property in
the means of production is not only theft, but the means of more
theft."[247]

Starting from the premiss that profit is immoral, the philosopher of
British Socialism logically concludes: "The cheapest way of obtaining
goods is not to pay for them, and if a buyer can avoid payment for the
goods he obtains, he has quite as much right to do so as the seller
has to receive for them double or treble their cost price and call it
profit."[248]

Private property being, according to the Socialist doctrines, immoral
and criminal, it follows that

"PRIVATE PROPERTY OUGHT TO BE ABOLISHED"

Let us take note of an utterance in support of that doctrine: "If the
life of men and women were a thing apart from that of their
neighbours, there would be no need for a Socialist party nor any call
for social reform. But man is not an entity; he is only part of a
mighty social organism. Every act of his has a bearing upon the like
of his fellow. It is difficult, if not impossible, to determine the
moral title to private property in anything. Private property exists
entirely on sufferance. Private property therefore cannot be justly
allowed when it interferes with the law of our social life or
intercepts the progress of social development."[249]

Let us now consider the doctrine

"COMPETITION SHOULD BE REPLACED BY CO-OPERATION"

Socialists teach: "Under Socialism you would have all the people
working together for the good of all. Under non-Socialism you have all
the persons working separately (and mostly against each other), each
for the good of himself. So we find Socialism means co-operation and
non-Socialism means competition."[250] "Socialism is constructive as
well as revolutionary, and Socialists propose to replace competition
by co-operation."[251]

The question now arises: "On what ground do capitalists defend the
principle of competit