256

THE  SOCIALISM  OF  TO-DAY.

In  a  very  simple  society,  depending  principally  on  agriculture, ­
  it  would  not  be  impossible  to  put  in  practice  “  the
right  to  patrimony,”  In  my  book  La  Propriété  et  ses  formes
primitives*  I  have  shown  how  this  actually  takes  place  in
the  Russian  mir,  in  the  dessa  of  Java,  in  the  Swiss  allmend,
and  in  the  periodic  partition  of  Communal  lands  which  existed
everywhere  in  the  infancy  of  agriculture  ;  but  how  is  this  system
to  be  applied  to  our  present  social  state,  without  the  intervention ­
  of  permanent  trade  corporations  or  co-operative  societies  ?
This  is  what  neither  Huet  nor  Colins  enables  us  to  understand. ­
  The  merit  of  his  book.  Le  Régne  Social  du  Christianisme,
consists,  not  in  this  summary  scheme  of  social  reorganization,
which  I  have  often  discussed  with  him  without  his  ever  being
able  to  formulate  it  clearly,  but  in  the  principles  of  justice,
which  he  explains  in  a  luminous  way,  while  connecting  them
closely  with  the  traditions  of  the  Old  Testament  and  the
Gospel.
The  system  of  “Land  Nationalization,”according  to  which
the  collective  principle  is  applied  only  to  land,  has  found  a
certain  number  of  adherents  in  England,  even  among  very
distinguished  minds,  as,  for  example,  the  eminent  naturalist,
Mr.  A.  R.  Wallace.f  It  has  never  been  explained  in  a  more
brilliant  style  than  in  the  book  of  an  American  writer,  Mr.  Henry
George,  called  “  Progress  and  Poverty.”  Numerous  editions
of  this  work  have  been  sold  both  in  the  United  States  and  in
England,  It  has  been  translated  into  several  languages  and
discussed  in  almost  all  the  English  and  American  reviews  and
newspapers.  It  produced  so  great  an  impression  that  the
author  has  been  asked  to  explain  his  theories  before  an
assembly  of  some  of  the  clergy  of  the  Established  Church,  and
dissenting  ministers  and  university  professors  have  presided  at
conferences  and  organized  meetings  to  spread  his  ideas.  In
this  book,  animated  with  the  spirit  of  levelling  Christianity  and
written  with  great  talent,  Mr.  George  proposes  “  to  seek  the  law
which  associates  poverty  with  progress,  and  increases  wane
*  This  book  has  been  translated  into  English.  London,  Macmillan,  1878.
t  See  his  “Land  Nationalization:  its  Necessity  and  its  Aims,”  London,
1882.