THE  SOCIALISM  OF  TO-DAY.

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Utilize  it  ;  and  secondly,  that  the  rent,  paid  by  the  tenants
to  the  community,  should  be  expended  for  the  common  benefit
of  all.  According  to  the  Belgian  Socialist,  there  are  only  two
entirely  distinct  methods  of  holding  land  :  first,  that  adopted  at
the  present  day,  in  which  the  soil  is  given  up  to  individuals,  or
to  certain  classes  of  individuals,  and  labour  is  enslaved  ;
secondly,  the  system  of  the  future,  under  which  the  soil  will  be
collective  property,  and  labour  will  be  free.
The  above  relates  to  the  production  of  wealth.  Let  us  now
consider  the  way  in  which  Rational  Socialism  regulates  its
distribution.
When  labour  is  free—as  is  necessarily  the  case  when  the
land  is  accessible  to  all—every  one  can  live  without  being
obliged  to  accept  wages  from  anybody.  In  that  case,  a  man
would  work  for  others  only  if  they  offered  him,  as  wages,  more
than  he  could  gain  by  working  for  himself.  This  situation  is
expressed  in  economic  terms  by  saying  that  then  wages  would
tend  to  a  maximum,  and  when  it  exists,  the  distribution  of
wealth  is  so  affected  that  the  larger  share  of  the  product  goes
to  labour  and  the  smaller  to  capital.  But  when  labour  is
enslaved,  the  labourers  are  forced,  under  pain  of  starvation,  to
compete  with  one  another  in  offering  their  labour  to  those  who
possess  land  and  capital  ;  and  then  their  wages  fall  to  what  is
strictly  necessary  for  existence  and  reproduction  ;  while  if  the
holders  of  wealth  do  not  need  labour,  the  unemployed  labourers
must  disappear.  Wages,  then,  tend  to  a  minimum,  and  the  distribution ­
  of  wealth  takes  place  in  such  a  way  that  the  greater
part  goes  to  the  landowners  and  capitalists,  and  the  smaller
to  the  labourers.  When  labour  is  free,  every  man’s  wealth
increases  in  proportion  to  the  toil  he  has  expended  ;  but  when
labour  is  enslaved,  his  wealth  grows  in  proportion  to  the  capital
he  has  accumulated.
From  these  two  opposite  modes  of  distribution  flow,  according ­
  to  Colins,  the  two  following  consequences,  each  of  which
has  reference  to  one  or  other  of  the  two  systems  of  holding
land  above  described.  When  land  is  owned  by  individuals,
the  wealth  of  one  class  of  the  community  and  the  poverty  ot
the  other  increase  in  parallel  lines,  and  in  proportion  to  the