Page:Alexander Jonas - Reporter and Socialist (1885).djvu/45

 supported. But this system could only be applied if the soil belonged, not to a few private individuals, but to the entire people. Only imagine if all the agricultural soil of the United States would be tilled and worked according to an uniform, scientifically prepared plan? There would be no wasting, as it prevails to-day; the soil would not be "robbed" irrationally of its propagating powers as it is done to-day by people who do not care whether or not the generations to come will find good, fertile soil, or a barren desert from which everything valuable has been extracted by the irrational, reckless system called Raubwirthschaft by German economists, or the system of cultivating by robbing the soil of its fertility. A uniform, rational system applied to agriculture in the United States would prevent that immense quantities of grain and other products would go to waste and destruction, while of other products not enough has been raised for the demand of the market. And, if the same system were to be applied to our forests and timber lands which to-day are recklessly destroyed, we would not be in danger to see our rivers dry up and to have our grain-growing lands become sandy deserts. The application of such a system to our land and our forests would yield from three to four times the present quantities of grain, wood, and all other necessaries of life with the same amount of labor performed at the present day, and you ought to know that the success of the agricultural labors of every nation in the world is the basis for its wealth and economic welfare.

There are some objections I would like to make, but I shall wait until you will have detailed to me the effect of your system upon the commerce of a large country like ours.

Commerce, as it is organized to-day, is equal to fraud and swindling to a large extent. And this for two reasons: First, it consists to a great deal in speculating, or betting, without any actual exchange of merchandize, and second, it throws immense quantities of adulterated goods and victuals upon the market. These evils would disappear immediately under a socialistic system of commerce, and with its disappearance a large number of people now engaged in swindling and obstructing the well-being of mankind would become available