Page:The Conquest of Bread (1906).djvu/283

 In the world of production everything holds together nowadays. Cultivation of the soil is no longer possible without machinery, without great irrigation works, without railways, without manure factories. And to adapt this machinery, these railways, these irrigation engines, etc., to local conditions, a certain spirit of invention, a certain amount of technical skill, that lie dormant as long as spades and ploughshares are the only implements of cultivation, must be developed.

If fields are to be properly cultivated, and are to yield the abundant harvests man has the right to expect, it is essential that workshops, foundries, and factories develop within the reach of the fields. A variety of occupations, a variety of skill arising therefrom and working together for a common aim—these are the genuine forces of progress.

And now let us imagine the inhabitants of a city or a territory—whether vast or small—stepping for the first time on to the path of the Social Revolution. We are sometimes told that "nothing will have changed": that the mines, the factories, etc., will be expropriated, and proclaimed national or communal property, that every man will go back to his usual work, and that the Revolution will then be accomplished.

But this is a dream: the Social Revolution cannot take place so simply.

We have already mentioned that should the