British Socialism Part 30

[674] Suthers, _Mind your own Business_, pp. 93, 94.

[675] Suthers, _Mind your own Business_, pp. 87, 88.

[676] Suthers, _Mind your own Business_, p. 88.

[677] Bax and Quelch, _A New Catechism of Socialism_, p. 42.

[678] _The Times, Munic.i.p.al Socialism_, p. 43.

[679] _Ibid._

[680] Suthers, _Killed by High Rates_, p. 12.

[681] _Ibid._ p. 11.

[682] Ellis Barker, _Modern Germany_, p. 552.

[683] Suthers, _Killed by High Rates_, p. 9.

[684] Suthers, _Munic.i.p.al Debt_, p. 4.

[685] _Daily Mail_, November 26, 1907.

[686] See _A Munic.i.p.al Bread Supply_; _Munic.i.p.al Bakeries_; _Munic.i.p.al Drink Traffic_; _Munic.i.p.al Fire Insurance_; Washington, _Milk and Postage Stamps, &c._

[687] _Munic.i.p.alisation by Provinces._

[688] Sidney Webb, _The London Programme_, 1892, pp. 208-213.

[689] Jowett, _Socialism and the City_, p. 17.

[690] _Forward_, October 12, 1907.

[691] See Chapter IV.

[692] Suthers, _Mind your own Business_, p. 14.

[693] Jowett, _The Socialist and the City_, p. 40.

[694] Irving, _The Munic.i.p.ality_, p. 6.

[695] Bax and Quelch, _A New Catechism of Socialism_, p. 42.

[696] Suthers, _Mind your own Business_, p. 9.

[697] _Ibid._ p. 8.

[698] Snowden, _The Socialist's Budget_, pp. 3, 4, 6.

[699] Jowett, _The Socialist and the City_, p. 38; Snowden, _The Socialist's Budget_, p. 83.

[700] Suthers, _Mind your own Business_, p. 119.

[701] _Ibid._ p. 122.

[702] _A Labour Policy for Public Authorities_, p. 19.

[703] Suthers, _Mind your own Business_, p. 103.

[704] Snowden, _A Straight Talk to Ratepayers_, p. 8.

[705] McLachlan, _The Tyranny of Usury_, p. 15.

[706] Jowett, _The Socialist and the City_, p. 42.

[707] McLachlan, _The Tyranny of Usury_, p. 11.

[708] McLachlan, _The Tyranny of Usury_, p. 13.

[709] _Ibid._ pp. 13, 14.

[710] Jowett, _The Socialist and the City_, pp. 45, 46.

[711] See p. 281 ff.

[712] _Independent Labour Party Report, Annual Conference_, 1907, p.

50.

CHAPTER XVIII

SOCIALISM AND AGRICULTURE

In one of his books Mr. Blatchford gives prominence to the following statement contained in Prince Kropotkin's book, "Fields, Factories, and Workshops": "If the soil of the United Kingdom were cultivated only as it was thirty-five years ago, 24,000,000 people could live on home-grown food. If the cultivable soil of the United Kingdom were cultivated as the soil is cultivated on the average in Belgium, the United Kingdom would have food for at least 37,000,000 inhabitants. If the population of this country came to be doubled, all that would be required for producing food for 80,000,000 inhabitants would be to cultivate the soil as it is now cultivated in the best farms of this country, in Lombardy, and in Flanders."

Commenting on this statement Mr. Blatchford says: "Why, indeed, should we not be able to raise 29,000,000 quarters of wheat? We have plenty of land. Other European countries can produce, and do produce, their own food. Take the example of Belgium. In Belgium the people produce their own food. Yet their soil is no better than ours, and their country is more densely populated, the figures being: Great Britain per square mile, 378 persons; Belgium per square mile, 544 persons.

Suppose wheat will cost us _2s._ a quarter more to grow it than to buy it. On the 23,000,000 quarters we now import we should be saving _2,000,000l._ a year. Is that a very high price to pay for security against defeat by starvation in time of war?"[713]

Many Socialists very wisely demand that everything possible should be done to bring about a revival of our agriculture. They point to the agricultural prosperity of Belgium, France, and Germany, and they would be quite ready to sanction the re-introduction of Protection, as will be seen in Chapter XXI. Nevertheless they absolutely and unconditionally oppose the creation of a cla.s.s of peasant proprietors, although the intensive agriculture of France, Belgium, and Germany is founded upon the system of peasant proprietorship, and although general experience, both in Europe and on other continents, has proved the great superiority of peasant proprietors over large farmers in intensive culture. "No Socialist desires to see the land of the country divided among small peasant freeholders, though this is still the ideal professed by many statesmen of 'advanced' views."[714]

"Socialism is hostile to small properties."[715]

Socialists pretend to be opposed to the creation of peasant proprietors either on scientific grounds or for ethical reasons. "As a matter of economic evolution, small properties will have to go. But viewed from an ethical standpoint, surely nothing has been more conducive to the development of the worst side of human nature--of 'hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness' than the system of small properties."[716] "If England were cut up into small allotments, the general state would be harder and leaner than before."[717] "Would Socialists take away the land from the landlords and let it out in little plots? No. Because that would make a lot of little proprietors as selfish as the landlords."[718] "Divide the land into small allotments and very soon the cunning and rapacious would 'acquire' the estates of other men, and so we should come back to the present state of chaos. In fact, the parcelling out of the land means putting back the clock of civilisation about one thousand years."[719]

The real reason which prompts Socialists to oppose by all means the creation of peasant proprietors is to be found neither in the realm of political economy nor in that of abstract ethics, but in that of party politics. The peasant proprietor, like every sensible owner of property, is hostile to Socialism. "The peasant has nothing else in the world but his farm, and that is one of the reasons why it is so very difficult to win him over to our cause. He is, indeed, one of the last bulwarks of private property."[720] The philosopher of British Socialism frankly confesses: "On the Continent the peasant proprietor, who may now be reckoned as part of the _pet.i.te bourgeoisie_, just as the large landlord with us may be reckoned as part of the big capitalist cla.s.s, is a potent factor in r.e.t.a.r.ding the process of Socialisation."[721]

The experience of Socialists in Germany, Austria-Hungary, France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, and Switzerland shows that Socialism finds practically no adherents among the land-owning peasants. At the German Reichstag elections of 1903, for instance, the Social-Democrats received almost 60 per cent. of the votes in the large towns as compared with less than 20 per cent. of the votes in the country. Of the latter, the vast majority was given by artisans and landless rural labourers. The peasant, like every property-owner, is an enemy of fantastic schemes of confiscation and of general plunder lavishly embellished with promises of Utopia. Therefore Social-Democrats will rather see the countryside of Great Britain turned into a wilderness than see it peopled by peasants.