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THE  SOCIALISM  OF  TO-DAY.

evolution”  in  the  midst  of  free  Communes  and  autonomous
be  done  is  “to  fire  the  towns,"  so  as  to  .Ilumínate  the
''"'it  was  the  Congress  of  Brussels  that  explained  with  the
greatest  detail  the  economic  programme  of  the  Interna  lonal.
What  does  this  word  include  ?  Inasmuch  as  the  division  into
separate  States  is  to  disappear,  it  probably  means  t  e
human  collectivity,”  the  whole  of  humanity.  I  shall  then
be  co-proprietor  of  the  land  of  the  Zulus  and  of  the  Esquimaux,
as  they  will  be  of  the  field  I  cultivate.  Will  this  dominium  of
humaaiity  be  inerely  nominal,  like  that  which  the  snvere^^i
stm  possesses  in  Einglarid  overall  the  sod  of  the  British  .fies?
If  this  be  so,  matters  would  be  left  as  they  are,  with  one  fiction
added  Will  it,  on  the  contrary,  be  an  effective  dominium  with
receipt  of  revenue  and  selection  of  occupants  ?  We  are,  then,
brought  to  a  conception  hardly  intelligible  and  absolutely
unworkable.  When  we  read  their  statements  of  reasons,  we
so;  but  then,  what  inequality  between  those  who,  wth  equal
labour,  obtain  from  fertile  land  eighty  bushels  of  «^eid,  and
those  who  extract  from  refractory  soil  only  forty  bushels
rye?  In  short,  assign  the  property  in  land  to  the  collectm  y,
whatever  it  may  be,  and  you  will  thus  have  secured  neither
justice,  nor  equality,  nor  happiness  for  all.  .
^  The  Economist  cannot,  like  the  Physicist,  check  the  truth
of  his  conceptions  by  experiments  in  a  laboratory,  ut  e  ca
judge  of  the  effect  of  certain  institutions  by  the  study  of  com-Lltive
  legislation.  There  are  countries  where  the  system
belongs  to  the  State,  for  it  draws  nearly  the  whole  net  produc  .