tion of
compensation need not greatly worry us. Socialists hold that
plutocrats owe all their wealth to society; and therefore that society
has the right at any moment to take it back."[302] The more cautious
and moderate French and German Socialists are apt to promise
compensation in terms such as the following: "We declare expressly
that it is the duty of the State to give to those whose interests will
be damaged by the necessary abolition of laws which are detrimental to
the common interest compensation as far as it is possible and
consistent with the interests of all."[303]

It will be observed that the plain word compensation is circumscribed
by the phrase, "compensation as far as it is possible and consistent
with the interests of all." In other and plainer words, compensation
is to be arbitrarily given, and its proportion to the property
acquired is apparently to be determined not by its value or by
fairness and equity, but by the will of those who may be in power.

English Socialists, on the other hand, are apt to recommend a far more
drastic treatment of property-owners. "We claim that land in country
and land in towns, mines, parks, mountains, moors, should be owned by
the people for the people, to be held, used, built over, and
cultivated upon such terms as the people themselves see fit to ordain.
The handful of marauders who now hold possession have, and can have,
no right save brute force against the tens of millions whom they
wrong."[304] The most moderate school of British Socialism, the Fabian
Society, favours in its statement of policy given under the heading
"Basis of the Fabian Society" the expropriation of all private
capital "without compensation, though not without such relief to
expropriated individuals as may seem fit to the community." In other
words, expropriated property-owners may, or may not, be given
something to protect them from starvation, not as a matter of right,
but of charity.

Most Socialists who favour compensation recommend that it should be
given only in the form of consumable articles such as food, clothes,
&c., or in bonds which are changeable only into consumable articles.
"Rothschild will be paid in bread and meat and luxury and wine and
theatre tickets."[305] "When capitalistic property shall have been
socialised, the holders of compensation deeds will not be able to
purchase either fresh means of production or producers; they will only
be able to buy products."[306]