and parties, and no further extracts need be
given in order to prove the unanimity of the Socialists on this point.

The question now arises: How is this transference of all private
property to the State to be effected? Will the present holders of
property be fully compensated, partly compensated, or not compensated
at all? Do the Socialists aim at purchase or at confiscation of
existing private property. Will they respect existing rights, or are
they bent upon open or more or less disguised spoliation?

It is, unfortunately, very difficult to obtain a plain and
straightforward answer upon this important point. Instead of giving
this answer, British Socialists loudly protest that it is not their
aim to destroy or abolish property. As nobody has suspected the
Socialists to be foolish enough to abolish or destroy property--which
means the instruments of production, such as factories, machines,
railways, &c., by the use of which the people live, and thus bring
starvation upon themselves--their eagerness to explain that they do
not intend to abolish or destroy property can only be explained by the
surmise that they hope shallow simpletons will say, "The Socialists
have no intention to take our capital away from us by force and
without compensation, for they have declared that they do not intend
to abolish property." A few of these declarations should here be
given: "So far from abolishing property, Socialism desires to
establish it upon the only basis which makes property secure--that of
service, of creative service."[292] "Socialism does not propose to
abolish land or capital. Only a genius could have thought of this as
an objection to Socialism."[293] "Socialism is far from aiming at the
destruction of private property. Its object is to increase private
property amongst those whose property is so limited that they have a
difficulty in keeping themselves alive."[294] Another Socialist makes
the very irrelevant and unnecessary observation: "It is a firm
principle of Socialism never to interfere with personal property in
order to investigate its origin or to arrange it in a different way.
Never and nowhere! And whoever asserts to the contrary either does not
know the principles of Socialism or willingly and knowingly asserts an
untruth. The Socialists deem an investigation into the origin of an
acknowledged personal property an unnecessary trouble. They consider
the personal property an accomplished fact and respect it: so