was recommended, therefore, to revise the
Partnership Laws as soon as possible, and for
the present to give facility to working men
for the formation of trade associations, by
exempting such associations from the laws
affecting joint stock companies; those laws
being expensive and utterly unsuited to men
working with a trifling capital. It was proved
also, that in all classes there exists among us
a great desire to own a house or land; that
the complexity of the laws concerning land,
the expenses connected with its transfer, and
such matters, have placed land almost out of
the reach of tradesmen and men following
professions,—still more, therefore, out of the
grasp of a day-labourer. It was recommended
that means should be found for enabling
land to be purchased cheaply and safely,
wholesale or retail, like any other article of
commerce.

To all these suggestions—pure and simple,
as the French say—we append our most
unqualified assent. The Socialist advocates these
justly; but when he tells us for what reason
he advocates them, and what more he wants,
we find ourselves unable to agree with him.
We do not despair of being able to show, even
in a very few words, why he advocates them
as a check to competition. He wants
competition stopped. "It is the wheel," he says,
"which hurries us down hill." Now let us
pause and think.

Is it intended by those who advocate
No-competition, as a principle, to eradicate what
they consider the disease out of society, upon
the plan of homœopathy, that is to say, opposing
like to like? Do they suppose they can
extinguish competition by extending it? The
suggestions to which we have just now assented
are simply suggestions for an increased
competition. The daily labourer says to the
shop-keeper, "You pay me for my services,
and sell what I produce at an increased price
to the consumer. My means are little, and I
can't afford to keep a shop; but, if I and my
fellow-workmen might be suffered to combine
our little savings and to trade together safely,
we would keep a shop, and sell our own work,
taking all the profit to ourselves. We think
you overpaid for being our salesman." Very
good, we say, by way of comment; if you
think you can better yourselves by so doing,
we are most desirous that you should be able
to fulfil your wishes; that is, to compete with
the master tradesmen. We, for our own parts,
thoroughly agree with your desire, not because
we think competition evil, but because we
would have all men suffered to compete. On
this principle, we give support to the
establishment of what are called "co-operative
shops." Do you ask our opinion of their
probable success? We cannot answer that.
Such shops exist here and there, but they are
at present merely pets and patterns. Some
exceedingly defective; but we do not charge
their defects upon the system. When you say
the master tradesman takes too large a profit
for a salesman's wages, you must bear in mind
that he is more than salesman—that he is
risk-bearer as well. Co-operative shops, left to run
fairly alone, will take their chance like other
shops; often succeed, and sometimes fail.
There will be many men who will prefer the
skill which can command wages and an income
free from risk, to the chance of an adventure
on their own account. There will be many
other men, too, who would not be disappointed
if they found an error in their calculation of
the profit to be got from independent action;
and if they earned less than they could earn
as wages, would still much prefer—though
they were poorer for it—to be masters only of
themselves. We cannot venture to foretell
the whole result which would ensue from a
general establishment of shops maintained by
the associated capital of workmen; we believe
it would be good. But, good or bad, the
experiment is fair and honest: therefore, if a
trial of it be desired, it is but fit that all
impediments of law should be removed out of
its way.

Then, in the case of land, you say it is shut
up among great landlords and others;
burdened with entails and fees—anything but
simple,—and surrounded by a set of laws
entirely arbitrary, guided by no simple rule of
right, nor anything else that is simple; not
even a simple rule of wrong. You say, let
those who wish to sell land which is their own
sell it, when they wish, and as they can; let
those who wish to buy it, buy it as they wish,
and can. There is no law against buying a
halfpenny candle; let there be no more
impediment to buying an acre of land. If it
be told you that land in small quantities
would do you more harm than good, you say
—trust us for that—because if it hurts us, we
shan't like it, and we are not more apt than
other folks to buy what we don't like. That
is all sound enough; but wherein lies its soundness?
In its recognition of the principle of
competition. The land is much protected, and
you want free trade in it. Let all men, you
say, compete on equal terms for its possession.
In land, as in other things, it is not
competition; but it is protection which destroys
the proper balance and creates a cause of
grievance in our social system. Whatever
is just, is fit. Whatever just thing a man
wishes to do, no power from without should
hinder him from doing. Law should repress
nothing but wrong: every restriction of an
arbitrary nature, based on theory however
accurate, will be a blunder in our legislation;
and the blunders of this kind in our law books,
made years ago, and based on theories long
numbered with the dead, press sometimes on
one class, sometimes on another. We must
all be free agents, and never feel that the law
has a bit in our mouths, except when we
offend the principle of justice. To require a
forcible check upon competition, is to be
protectionist in the most sweeping sense of
the word, to get the law to drive us not only