SOCIALISM  IN  ENGLAND.

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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  competition ­
  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  intellectual ­
  as  well  as  material.  But  of  all  the  influences  likely  to
benefit  the  social  organism  on  its  industrial  side,  the  co-operative ­
  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  distributors ­
  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  Cooperative ­
  Societies,  doing  an  annual  trade  of  ;¿^2Ó,ói6,ooo,  out
of  which  they  were  making  a  profit  of  ^2,100,000.  Ihese