s of industrial and social
life, such an entire misunderstanding of the process by which a
democratic society passes from one stage of its development to another,
that I feel warranted in quoting it as an extreme instance of
Utopia-founding."[725]

Whilst the various Socialist schools propound different Utopian
schemes for the resettlement of the land in the future, their
immediate aim is of course not so much to benefit agriculture, as they
profess, but to gain adherents among the rural labourers. With this
object in view they are urged to agitate for, and are promised to be
given by the Socialists, better wages, safe and healthy homes, more
powers for the parish councils, which are to be used for the
restoration of common lands, real free schools and better ones, cheap
and good allotments, pensions for the old people, reform of taxation,
&c. The rural labourers are urged to form trade unions, and they are
told, "All these things you can get for yourself by your trade union
and your vote if you and all the other labourers in the district will
join the union and will agree to vote only for those who will promise
to help to get them for you."[726]

In other pamphlets specially addressed to the rural labourers they are
told how to get allotments, how to force the district councils to
build good cottages for them, &c.[727]

Many Socialists propound the doctrine that the first and the principal
object in re-creating the rural industries must be the bettering of
the wages of rural labourers, and that the State should secure them
better wages by arbitrarily reducing rents. The object, it need hardly
be mentioned, is rather to destroy private capital in accordance with
the Socialists' tenets than to benefit the labourers. The Fabian
Society, for instance, claims, "It is necessary for the State to
interfere, partly to secure the better utilisation of our national
resources, partly to increase our agricultural population. The class
most needing protection, the labourers, must be dealt with first in
order to raise them to a decent level of comfort. A living wage must
be secured to them, and, as a consequence, the farmers' rents must be
fixed at a fair level. An agricultural court must be set up in each
county to regulate wages and fix rents. Continental success in
agriculture depends on co-operation, and that in turn is associated
with the peasant-proprietor system. That system for sundry reasons
cannot be adopted here, but i