erately
picks out the least competent workmen and sets them to work on things
that are not wanted, no new wealth is created, and the previous
creation of wealth is diminished, because the taxpayer has been
deprived of the means of employing as many persons as he would have
employed. Artificial jobs may be created for the unemployed, who will
be perfectly conscious that these jobs are artificial, and thus the
independent and self-respecting workman will be arbitrarily deprived
of his job. It cannot be too often repeated that the so-called 'right
to work,' on which Socialists are fond of insisting, means in practice
the right to deprive another man of his job."[385] These arguments are
fallacious. There is work such as the reclamation of the foreshore,
draining of bogs, constructing canals, planting of forests, &c., which
are, as general experience shows, rather the province of the community
than of the private individual. Unemployment may be relieved by the
State and the local authorities if discretion be used. Proposals to
create work of this kind for the genuine unemployed, and to provide
compulsory labour for idlers and loafers, have been advanced by many
Socialists and non-Socialists, and these proposals are worth
considering and adopting.

FOOTNOTES:

[341] Bax, _Religion of Socialism_, p. 94.

[342] Lafargue, _Right to Leisure_, p. 11.

[343] _The Socialist_, October 1907.

[344] Leatham, _The Evolution of the Fourth Estate_, p. 13.

[345] _Fabian Essays in Socialism_, p. 145,

[346] _Are you a Socialist?_ p. 1.

[347] Washington, _A Nation of Slaves_, p. 5.

[348] Gronlund, _Co-operative Commonwealth_, p. 170.

[349] Morris, _A Factory as it Might Be_, p. 10.

[350] Davidson, _The Old Order and the New_, p. 170.

[351] Hyndman, _Socialism and Slavery_, p. 10.

[352] Bax, _Religion of Socialism_, p. 58.

[353] Guyot, _Pretensions of Socialism_, p. 9.

[354] Kropotkin, _Conquete du Pain_, p. 239.

[355] _Socialism Made Plain_, p. 11.

[356] Snowden, _The Individual under Socialism_, p. 10.

[357] _Fabian Essays in Socialism_, p. 159.

[358] Jaures, _Practical Socialism_, p. 6.

[359] _Socialism, For and Against_, p. 11.

[360] Washington, _Milk and Postage Stamps_, p. 5.

[361] _Ibid._ p. 5.

[362] Bax and Quelch, _A New Catechism of Socialism_, p. 17.

[363] A.P. Hazell, _Summary of Marx's "Capital,"_ p. 17.

[364] Kautsky, _The Social Revolution_, p. 18.

[365] See Appendix.

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