s, ploughs.
All these things, under present conditions, the peasant is forced to do
without, not because he does not feel the need of them, but because, in
his life of struggle and privation, a thousand useful things are beyond
his reach; because he has not money to buy them.

Let the town apply itself, without loss of time, to manufacturing all
that the peasant needs, instead of fashioning geegaws for the wives of
rich citizens. Let the sewing machines of Paris be set to work on
clothes for the country folk workaday clothes and clothes for Sunday
too, instead of costly evening dresses for the English and Russian
landlords and the African gold-magnates' wives. Let the factories and
foundries turn out agricultural implements, spades, rakes, and
such-like, instead of waiting till the English send them to France, in
exchange for French wines!

Let the towns send no more inspectors to the villages, wearing red,
blue, or rainbow-coloured scarves, to convey to the peasant orders to
take his produce to this place or that, but let them send friendly
embassies to the countryfolk and bid them in brotherly fashion: "Bring
us your produce, and take from our stores and shops all the manufactured
articles you please."--Then provisions would pour in on every side. The
peasant would only withhold what he needed for his own use, and would
send the rest into the cities, feeling _for the first time in the course
of history_ that these toiling townsfolk were his comrades--his
brethren, and not his exploiters.

We shall be told, perhaps, that this would necessitate a complete
transformation of industry. Well, yes, that is true of certain
departments; but there are other branches which could be rapidly
modified in such a way as to furnish the peasant with clothes, watches,
furniture, and the simple implements for which the towns make him pay
such exorbitant prices at the present time. Weavers, tailors,
shoemakers, tinsmiths, cabinet-makers, and many other trades and crafts
could easily direct their energies to the manufacture of useful and
necessary articles, and abstain from producing mere luxuries. All that
is needed is that the public mind should be thoroughly convinced of the
necessity of this transformation, and should come to look upon it as an
act of justice and of progress, and that it should no longer allow
itself to be cheated by that dream, so dear to the theorists--the dream
of a revolution which confines itself to taking poss