SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
327 
revolution, peaceful or bloody, will be effectual. The labourers 
must, by force, if necessary, take possession of the land and 
capital of the country and expropriate without compensation 
the present holders. Production for profit must be abolished, 
competition done away with, and the work of production and 
exchange must be carried on, in some undefined way, by 
“ industrial and agricultural armies ” marshalled by the State. 
Social Reformers, on the other hand, say that a revolution of 
this kind, apart from its gross injustice and accompanying Reign 
cf Terror, if successful at all, would be ineffectual, and could 
only lead to anarchy, reaction, and despotism ; that the real 
revolution, if such it is to be called, must take place in the 
minds and hearts of men ; that this revolution can only be 
brought about gradually, must, in short, be an evolution, and 
in fact, going on at present ; and, finally, that they do not 
consider production for profit necessarily a crime, nor com 
petition necessarily an evil, while they look upon the vast 
extension of State action contemplated by Socialists as giving 
fbe death-blow to progress and substituting comparative slavery 
^cr comparative freedom. 
1 here is no panacea for the maladies which affect society. 
They must be subjected to various influences, moral and intel 
lectual as well as material. But of all the influences likely to 
benefit the social organism on its industrial side, the co-opera 
tive movement is the most promising. It is a purely democratic 
movement which, without revolution and without State-aid, 
bas for its aim to resolve the discords that exist between dis 
tributors and consumers, and between employers and employed, 
^nd also to promote the material, moral, and intellectual 
elevation of the working classes. 
It is worth considering, for a moment, the wonderful strides 
"'hich this movement has made in the forty years which have 
elapsed since the “ Equitable Pioneers ” subscribed their ¡£2^ 
3^nd opened their store on the principle of dividing profits on 
fbe amount of purchases. According to the Registrar’s returns 
Ibr 1882, there were then in the United Kingdom 134b Co 
operative Societies, doing an annual trade of ;¿^2Ó,ói6,ooo, out 
of which they were making a profit of ^2,100,000. Ihese