Page:The White Stone.djvu/203

Rh is "intense," as they say, since chemists are themselves agriculturists. One has tried one's best, and one has worked hard for the past three hundred years. The fact is that to make collectivism a reality it has been necessary to compel the soil to return four or five times more than it returned in the days of capitalistic anarchy. You, who have lived among the Zulus and Basutos, are aware that the necessaries of life are so scarce with them that were they to be divided among all it would amount to sharing poverty and not wealth. The superabundant production which we have attained to is more especially due to the progress made by science. The almost total suppression of the urban classes has also been of great advantage to agriculture. The shopkeepers and the clerks have gone, some to the factory, others to the field.'

"'What!' I exclaimed. 'You have suppressed the cities! What has become of Paris?'

"'Hardly any one lives there now,' replied Michel. 'The greater part of those hideous and insanitary five-storied houses, wherein dwelt the citizens of the closed era, have fallen in ruins, and have been suffered to remain in that condition. House-building was very poor in the twentieth century of that unhappy era. We have preserved some of the older and better constructed buildings and converted them into museums. We possess a