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THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. 
In a very simple society, depending principally on agri 
culture, 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 interven 
tion of permanent trade corporations or co-operative societies ? 
This is what neither Huet nor Colins enables us to under 
stand. 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.